Summary of Martin Dugard's Into Africa

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The debate between Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke was over who had discovered the Source of the Nile River. Burton claimed it was Lake Victoria, while Speke claimed it was Lake Tanganyika.

#2 The public was excited to see Burton and Speke, as their encounters with Livingstone had been a balm for the wounds of the Crimean War, the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, and the bloody slaughter of British women and children during the Indian Mutiny.

#3 The British public knew nothing of Livingstone’s personal travails. They saw him as a legend in decline, not a luminary whose lined, tanned face they longed to see. As 11 o’clock came and went, however, Livingstone was nowhere to be seen.

#4 The Nile was the longest river in the world, and it was discovered by the Greeks Herodotus and Ptolemy in 460 BC. The source of the Nile was still unknown when Admiral Lord Nelson destroyed Napoleon’s navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822519121

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Insights on Martin Dugard's Into Africa

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The debate between Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke was over who had discovered the Source of the Nile River. Burton claimed it was Lake Victoria, while Speke claimed it was Lake Tanganyika.

#2

The public was excited to see Burton and Speke, as their encounters with Livingstone had been a balm for the wounds of the Crimean War, the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, and the bloody slaughter of British women and children during the Indian Mutiny.

#3

The British public knew nothing of Livingstone’s personal travails. They saw him as a legend in decline, not a luminary whose lined, tanned face they longed to see. As 11 o’clock came and went, however, Livingstone was nowhere to be seen.

#4

The Nile was the longest river in the world, and it was discovered by the Greeks Herodotus and Ptolemy in 460 BC. The source of the Nile was still unknown when Admiral Lord Nelson destroyed Napoleon’s navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798.

#5

The British Empire was growing, and the Nile was a connection to that past. Finding the Source would heighten that connection. Burton and Speke proposed to penetrate Africa from the east, beginning in Somalia then cutting the tangent from the Indian Ocean along the equator to the Mountains of the Moon.

#6

The first expedition to find the source of the Nile River was led by Burton and Speke in 1855. They were camped along the Somali coast waiting for the monsoon season to pass so they could move inland. When the attack came, however, the expedition was unprepared.

#7

The life of an explorer was almost a mandate for both Burton and Speke. Explorers are those who cry out. They were searchers for game instead of geographical features, and they walked far ahead of hunting parties, shouting out the locations of animals they discovered.

#8

In early June, the monsoon season ended. Burton and Speke bored inland leading a column of thirty-six porters and thirty pack animals. They were an odd-looking pair — Burton wearing Arab robes and Speke wearing English hunting flannel under a broad-brimmed felt hat.

#9

The journey to Lake Tanganyika was a difficult one. The porters deserted in groups, taking valuable supplies with them. Burton and Speke were often sick, but they pushed on. By February 1858, with their eyesight restored, they had reached the lake.

#10