JOURNAL OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE NILE

First Edition: 658 pages, frontispiece of Speke, 25 engraved plates, 2 coloured maps – 1 folding in pocket at the back of the book, numerous black and white illustrations, original brown pictorial cloth with gilt vignette on upper cover, titled gilt on the spine, recased with new end papers, booksellers ticket on the front paste down end paper and binders ticket – Edmonds and Remnants on the back paste down end paper, uncut edges, a very good copy.

Maitland (Alexander) Speke and the Discovery of the Nile, page 189: 'The Journal appeared before the public on 16th December 1863. The title, considered in certain quarters as presumptuous, was, at best, an improvement on the unwieldy, if more comprehensive, original, Speke's Discovery of the Source of the Nile and Life in Africa with Captain Grant. To cater for the Christmas market, the first impression of 4000 copies was increased to 7500.' This book continued to fuel the dispute between Speke and Burton which was to have culminated in the debate which was arranged to take place between the two men on 16th September 1864 but which never took place owing to Speke's accidental death the day before.

John Hanning Speke, 1827-1864. He accompanied Richard Francis Burton on his 1854-5 Somali Expedition, then again on the 1857-9 East Africa expedition, which aimed to find the sources of the Nile. The expedition discovered Lake Tanganyika in 1858, and explored part of its extent. Speke supposed that Lake Victoria, which he discovered and named, while off on a foray of his own to the North of the chief route of the expedition, was the source of the Nile.

Speke later returned to lead his own expedition, 1860-3, accompanied by James Augustus Grant. They confirmed that Lake Victoria is the chief reservoir of the Nile, though controversy over the question was kept alive for another decade, largely because of Burton's vigorous opposition. Burton supposed the Tanganyika was the Nile reservoir, and that Victoria was a seasonal collection of lakes or lagoons with no outlet. Speke died in a hunting accident in 1864. http://www.burtoniana.org/speke/