Categories | Africa |
Author | Candice Millard |
Publisher | Random House Large Print; Large type / Large print edition (June 14, 2022) |
Language | English |
Paperback | 560 pages |
Item Weight | 1.19 pounds |
Dimensions |
6.08 x 1 x 9.18 inches |
I. Book introduction
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The harrowing story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time and its complicated legacy—from the New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic
For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe – and extend their colonial empires.
Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs.
From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke’s great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate, Speke shot himself.
Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan’s army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried, and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.
In River of the Gods Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.
Editorial Reviews
“River of the Gods is a lean, fast-paced account of the almost absurdly dangerous quest by [Richard Burton and John Speke] to solve the geographic riddle of their era. . . Candice Millard has earned her legions of admirers. She is a graceful writer and a careful researcher, and she knows how to navigate a tangled tale.”
— The New York Times Book Review“Millard’s research and very readable storytelling are admirable. . . Ultimately, the identity of the person who first discovered the source of the White Nile may be a trivial matter. Ms. Millard conscientiously investigates the issue, of course, but River of the Gods is compelling because she does justice to the psyches and behavior of Burton and Speke—keenly flawed but enthralling, sometimes marvelous people.”
— Wall Street Journal“When it comes to narrative nonfiction, she’s the best… I love her books. She has this way of finding a really fresh way of telling an old story.”
— Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile“Bestseller Millard (Hero of the Empire) recounts one of the greatest 19th-century British colonial explorations in this fascinating history. In 1854, the Royal Geographical Society chose Richard Francis Burton to lead an expedition to locate the source of the White Nile, the longest branch of the Nile River. After one member of his original team died before the journey, Burton hired Lt. John Hanning Speke of the Bengal Native Infantry, an avid hunter and member of the British aristocracy. Tensions between the two strong-willed men quickly surfaced, but Burton was more fortunate in his hiring of Sidi Mubarak Bombay, a formerly enslaved East African, as head gun carrier. While Burton recuperated from an illness, Speke and Bombay reached Lake Nyanza (also known as Lake Victoria), which Speke claimed as the Nile’s source. Burton maintained that Speke had failed to settle the question, but before the two men could publicly debate the issue in 1864, Speke died in a hunting accident. Subsequent explorations, in which Bombay took part, proved Speke’s theory. Millard’s lushly detailed adventure story keeps a steady eye on the racial power dynamics involved in this imperialist endeavor and brilliantly illuminates the characters of Burton, Speke, and Bombay. Readers will be riveted. Illus.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred)“Millard, the former National Geographic journalist who took readers down an uncharted tributary of the Amazon with Teddy Roosevelt in River of Doubt, now turns her attention to the exploration of Africa’s Nile River. Europe became obsessed with ancient Egypt in the 19th century following the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone. Britain’s Royal Geographic Society resolved to locate the headwaters of the Nile, aiming to land an expedition on the east coast of Africa and explore inland, amid rumors of a lake region in the central part of the continent. Enter Captain Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, two men with different temperaments and interests, who had already crossed paths during an ill-fated expedition in Somaliland along with their trusted guide Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was formerly enslaved. Millard sets the stage for their bitter rivalry after they return from their harrowing East African expedition in 1859 and Speke announces he has found the source of the Nile, naming it Lake Victoria.
VERDICT It’s been nearly six years since popular Millard published Hero of the Empire, and eager fans and armchair travelers will gladly sign up for this enthralling and heartbreaking adventure.”
— Library Journal (starred)“The lure of uncharted territory.
The Rosetta Stone—discovered by French soldiers in 1799, seized by a British envoy, and deciphered 23 years later—set off an obsessive interest in Egypt, including by the newly established Royal Geographical Society, to find the headwaters of the Nile. Bestselling author Millard, a former writer and editor for National Geographic, offers a tense, vibrant history of several dramatic expeditions across East Africa that finally resulted in a successful discovery. Drawing on archival sources and her own multiple trips to Africa following the explorers’ paths, Millard creates a palpable sense of the daunting task undertaken by three ambitious men: the magnetic, impulsive, and often combative Richard Burton; John Hanning Speke, an aristocratic infantry lieutenant and passionate hunter whose initial interest in East Africa was largely for the animals he could kill; and their devoted and resourceful native guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay a former enslaved person whose intimate knowledge of tribes and terrain proved to be indispensable. Guides like Bombay, Millard argues persuasively, formed the indisputable backbone of British exploration. After abortive starts, the expedition left Zanzibar on June 27, 1857. The explorers and their team, woefully underfunded, faced innumerable hardships: scorching heat, drenching storms, near starvation, massive desertions, and threats from “large, powerful, and politically complex” East African kingdoms. Illness and injury dogged them, as they suffered from typhoid, smallpox, infected wounds, and bone-shattering fevers. Speke suffered near blindness from ophthalmia, and he became deaf in one ear after a beetle burrowed into his ear canal. For nearly a year, Burton lay paralyzed. Although they became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika, they could not proceed together to Lake Nyanza, which Speke insisted was the Nile’s source. Back in London, Speke cruelly denounced Burton’s leadership, securing funding for his own expedition. Although Burton died poor and angry, his legacy, unlike Speke’s, has endured.
An engrossing, sharply drawn adventure tale.
— Kirkus Review (starred)
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of May 2022: River of the Gods is thrilling narrative nonfiction full of adventure, ambushes, false starts, and the pursuit of conquest. Richard Burton was a consummate explorer, with a penchant for languages (he spoke more than 25), sex, and glory (one of his greatest expeditions was a trip to discover the head-waters of the Nile in 1857). Candice Millard, the best-selling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic, recounts Burton’s life and epic journey that not only involved harrowing physical feats but stiff competition and epic clashes with his fellow explorer John Hanning Speke, and also with the man who has been left out of the history books, African guide Sidi Mubarak Bombay. Using diary entries and letters, Millard’s story drops you in the middle of the jungle and exposes a world of conquering and colonial exploits. A fascinating portrait of the characters and the era in which they roamed that is an adventure to read. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor –This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About Candice Millard
Candice Millard (Candice Sue Millard born 1967) is an American writer and journalist. She is a former writer and editor for National Geographic.
Millard grew up in Lexington, Ohio. She is a graduate of Baker University and earned a master’s degree in literature from Baylor University.
Millard married Mark Uhlig in May 2001. She has a corner office at his publishing company in Overland Park, Kansas, where she works while their three children are in school.
Candice Millard is the author of three books, all New York Times bestsellers and named one of the best books of the year by publications from the New York Times to the Washington Post. Her first book, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a Book Sense Pick, won the William Rockhill Nelson Award and was a finalist for the Quill Awards. It has been printed in Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, as well as a British edition. Millard’s second book, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine & the Murder of a President, won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award and the Kansas Notable Book Award. Her most recent book, Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill, was an Indie Next pick, a top ten critics pick by the New York Times and named Amazon’s number one history book of 2016. Millard’s work has also appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children.
- You can follow Candice Millard on Twitter at @candice_millard and on Facebook @CandiceMillardauthor.
II. [Reviews] River of the Gods by Candice Millard
Here is a summary of the book Review “River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard“. Helps you have the most overview of the book without searching through time. Please access “BookQuote.Net” regularly or save it to keep track and update the latest information. |
1. BEATA Review River of the Gods
An amazing book about the search for the sources of the Nile undertaken in the mid-19th century. It never ceases to amaze me how brave explorers were in the times when you could rely merely on your own abilities and courage to make journeys into uncharted territories.
“River of the Gods” Fascinating account of how Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, with the blessing of RGS, dared to travel to regions nearly unknown to Europeans. Their personal stories, especially that of Burton’s, are equally incredibly captivating and compelling. Two strong individuals, fit for discovering the source of the Nile, were unfortunately not united in the goal, and I admit my heart was with Burton for the reasons so well-presented in the book. The third man in the party, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, was the man whose life is a ready script for a Hollywood film, and who, most likely, pathed the way for the success.
Another winner by Ms Millard!
OverDrive, thank you!
2. FAITH Review River of the Gods
As she did in “River of Doubt”, in this book the author combines the story of an exceptional man with a dangerous adventure. Sir Richard Francis Burton was an adventurer, author, poet and soldier. He spoke 29 languages, wrote a text book on sword fighting, was one of the first non-Muslims to reach Mecca, translated the Kama Sutra and other erotic texts and led two expeditions to discover the source of the Nile. Unfortunately for Burton, he was accompanied by John Hanning Speke. In Burton’s view, Speke was less experienced, spoke no other languages and was completely uninterested in Africa or it’s people. The only thing that seemed to interest him was hunting. Over the years, Speke amassed numerous grievances against Burton, and he wound up (figuratively) stabbing Burton in the back. There was a long drawn out public feud. To be fair, Speke did actually discover the source of the Nile, and his discovery was confirmed years after his death. The expeditions were long and grueling, punctuated by hunger and various illnesses including blindness, fevers and one really creepy incident with a beetle.
The book “River of the Gods” also describes Burton’s courtship of, and eventual marriage to, Isabel Arundell, a woman who wanted to be an adventurer even more than she wanted to be married to one. Another major participant in the expeditions was the former slave, Sidi Mubarak Bombay. Later, he also accompanied Henry Stanley on his search for David Livingstone.
One of my favorite features of this book were the quotes from Burton’s writing. I tried to transcribe this from the audiobook, so it may not be completely accurate, but this is an example of the way Burton wrote when he was particularly moved by what he saw: “Masses of brown purple clouds cover the quarter of the heavens where the sun was about to rise [he wrote]. Presently the mists, ruffled like ocean billow and luminously fringed with Tyrian purple, were cut by filmy rays. While from behind their caul the internal living fire shot forth its broad beams like the spokes of a huge arial wheel rolling a flood of gold over the light blue waters of the lake.”
Although I enjoyed this audio book very much, I’m sorry I missed seeing the bibliography (I assume there is one) because I would definitely like to read more about all of this.
3. JILL HUTCHINSON Review River of the Gods
This may be the best book I have read this year and I am finally in the majority of other readers! I had read one other of Millard’s works which I thoroughly enjoyed and when I saw the reviews for this one, I knew that it would be equally interesting and well-written. It certainly was!
This is basically the story of two men, Sir Richard Burton and John Speke as they search for the source of the White Nile River. and the aftermath. In 1856, the British were expanding their Empire and the continent of Africa (with the exception of the coasts) was unknown and unexplored. The Royal Geographic Society was very interested and began funding various individuals to open up the “dark continent” and chose Burton to lead an expedition. Burton was a veteran of exploration, a linguist who spoke 27 languages/dialects, a decorated soldier, and an author. He was also very controversial.
Speke, on the other hand, was from the aristocracy and not particularly noted for anything. He had no experience in exploration and spoke only English, although he was a soldier in India. But he was determined to gain fame and became the second-in-command of the Burton party, an odd choice but one of which Burton approved.
The reader follows the Burton group from Zanzibar(now part of Tanzania) into the African interior and the author spares no detail of the perfect hell they encountered. Maps are included and the author, thankfully uses the African and current names of the countries for clarification.
It didn’t take long for Burton and Speke to have a falling out which colored the expedition and lasted their lifetimes. I will go no further except to say that one of them found the rising of the White Nile while the other was mistaken.
I highly recommend this fine history…….it is an adventure into the world of the past and is truly fascinating.
4. DAX Review River of the Gods
Richard Burton joins the contingent of people from the past with whom I would love to have a conversation over a long dinner. Explorer, poet, linguist and translator; a man who loved to study other cultures and was not content just to hear about others experiences.
Millard’s new book is not so much a book about a single expedition, but rather a study of the state of British exploration in the 1850s and its leading figures (Burton, Speke, Livingston, Murchison, etc.). The Royal Geographical Society was focused on the source of the Nile at that time, and ‘River of the Gods’ covers Burton and Speke’s expeditions in East Africa and the implications of their complicated relationship thereafter. Some readers might complain that Millard doesn’t spend enough time on the expeditions themselves, but I found that to be a strength of the book. The details of their journeys are not the point of the book; Millard wants to focus on the debate on the source of the Nile and the differences between Burton and Speke.
This is the third book by Millard that I have read, and it is by far my favorite. I loved it. Comfortable five stars.
5. BOBBY.D Review River of the Gods
“River of the Gods by Candice Millard” Introducing an exciting adventure story for a new generation
When I was a teenager one of the things that intrigued me was Explorers, especially those who searched for the source of the Nile. As a result, I have read and collected several books on the topic. It was automatic when I saw Candice Millard had written her latest book on this subject that I would pre-order a copy. I have read and liked her three previous books (especially THE RIVER OF DOUBT). I would recommend that if you have never read another book on this subject her new book is a good starting point. You might even want to find a copy of the 1990 movie that tracks this same story, THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON. I thought I would use this review to also mention some of my favorite books on the subject of the search for the Nile.
Millard’s book for the most part only focuses on Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke’s searches (and Speke’s lone discovery of the source). She also elevates the major role played by their African guide Sidi Muarak Bombay, a former slave who co-led other White English Explorers (such as Henry Morton Stanley). Bombay helped Stanley to find Livingston and became the first to cross the entire African continent, sea to sea, from East to West with explorer Cameron. It was not until 2009 that the Royal Geographic Society commissioned a major museum exhibit that recognized native explorers’ contributions.
I still have my first book on the subject of the River Nile. Read some 60 years ago all I can recall is that it was one of those books that amazed its teenage reader. It is Alan Moorehead’s THE WHITE NILE (1960). The book includes the Speke/Burton exploration in addition to Livingston, Samuel Baker with his wife, Stanley and finally covering the Muslim uprising that killed “Chinese” Gordon leading to Kitchener’s British victory. Moorehead wrote a second book, THE BLUE NILE (1962) which includes the history of this major river tributary.
Another book that digs deeper into the amazing person that was Richard Burton (not the actor who borrowed his name). Edward Rice’s CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD BURTON: THE SECRET AGENT WHO MADE THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA, DISCOVERED THE KAMA SUTRA, AND ROUGHT THE ARABIAN NIGHTS TO THE WEST (1990). In addition, led with Speke the expedition into the Mountains of the Moon in search of the source of the Nile. Burton spoke 29 languages and was long before Lawrence of Arabia an Englishman who emerged himself in foreign cultures. Like Lawrence Burton was an obsessive writer of great talent and intellect who immersed himself in Araian Muslim culture (who disguised as a Muslim entered Mecca).
More biographies and focus have highlighted Burton over Speke. If you do not know the story it is best I not give it away here except to say Speke did not have the charisma or talent to provide for a lasting legacy. Richard Burton married late in life to a very interesting woman, Isabel. Their relationship and Burton’s story is well told in Mary S. Lovell’s biography, A RAGE TO LIVE, RICHARD AND ISABEL BURTON (1998).
A very entertaining book about a fabulously interesting footnote to the people attracted to the challenge of the search for the Nile’s source is Pat Shipman’s TO THE HEART OF THE NILE, LADY FLORENCE BAKER AND THE EXPLORATION OF CENTRAL AFRICA (2004). Florence’s family was killed in the Hungry revolution which lead to her being kidnapped from a refugee camp and sold into slavery. Trained to be in a harem. At age 14 she was to be auctioned but a wealthy Englishman, Samuel Baker facilitated her escape (perhaps being outbid). Eventually, the two married and through a continued journey to keep Florence’s background hidden settled on an arduous attempt to journey upriver to find the source of the Nile. Instead, they found Lake Albert returning to celebrity in England.
Of all these books one stands out as the most entertaining, well-written, and has become one of my all-time favorites. Tim Jeal’s STANLEY, THE IMPOSSIBLE LIFE OF AFRICA’S GREATEST EXPLORER (2007). Know mostly for his finding (with Bombay) Dr. Livingston famously saying, “Dr. Livingston, I presume?”Stanley’s reputation has been tarnished over decades casting him as an anti-African imperialist caught up in the madness of King Leopold of Belgium’s crimes in the Congo. Tim Jeal’s book does much to rehabilitate Stanley still warts apparent. Stanley’s is an amazing life story, serving for a time on both the South and North side in the American Civil War. In addition to searching for the source of the Nile (finally confirming that Speke’s Lake Victoria theory was correct) he also searched for the source of the Congo River. He was knighted in 1897. (Check this extraordinary book out.)
Following STANLEY Tim Jeal wrote, EXPLORERS OF THE NILE, THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF A GREAT VICTORIAN ADVENTURE (2011). Jeal, much like Alan Moorhead in THE WHITE NILE covers almost all of the major Explorers that attempted to find the source of the Nile. So when I saw that Candice Millard had chosen this much-told story I wondered why beyond it is one that never bores in its telling. And Millard does the story justice and I enjoyed revisiting all of these interesting stories and characters. My problem with the book is that I did not find a lot that was fresh or new to the story. But that is more my problem than that of the author, as she has written a great book for a new generation. Those who are captivated by this adventure and the conflict between these two strong-willed men should enjoy Millard’s fine telling.
6. DAVE ANSELL Review River of the Gods
The description of this book given by Amazon should tell people what it is about. It is not meant to be a complete biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton or John Hanning Speke, but some reviewers seem to think this is what they were buying! The book is about the relationship between Burton and Speke resulting from their source for the source of the River Nile.
If you are familiar with this story, then you will find little here which isn’t in other books. There are no new revelations to get excited about. If you are new to this story, then this book is a very good account of it. It is well written and has a lot of detail. It introduces other characters involved and is excellent at putting things in context. Burton could be a difficult person to know – the book clearly illustrates this. Speke was a 19th century cad – the book clearly shows this as well. I feel the judgements made by Candice Millard are fair but the debate as to how bad Speke was is still an issue more than 150 years after the events examined in this book.
Although this is not a biography of Richard Francis Burton, it does give the story of his life, in order to give context. The period after the journey to Lake Tanganyika would suggest that Burton’s life was one of failure and disappointment but this is rather misleading. As Millard says, there is only one biography of Speke and he is somewhat forgotten. There are “more than a dozen” biographies of Burton – in fact, there are over twenty, along with several other works examining different aspects of the man and his life. There are probably more books about Burton than any other African explorer, including the more famous David Livingstone. There are also many works of fiction about him or featuring him.
This book is also about a third person – Sidi Mubarak Bombay. As Millard says, he is “one of the most accomplished guides in the history of African exploration”, and it is to her credit that he finally receives some recognition.
The book has a good choice of illustrations (although one has no caption), and the maps (on the endpapers) are adequate but could be better. Many locations mentioned in the book are not given on the maps and as a former National Geographic journalist, I think we could expect better from Millard.
So as I have said, this is a good introduction to this story of African exploration and controversy, and will suit those unfamiliar with it. Those already in the know, however, may find it not such a good investment even though it is a refreshing re-write. To those who want to know more about the search for the source of the River Nile, I strongly recommend the BBC series The Search For The Nile, available on DVD. Even though it was made in 1971, I feel it is still an excellent production. The film Mountains of the Moon, directed by Bob Rafelson (1989), gives another good account of the story covered in Millard’s book. To know more about Burton, just look at the books on Amazon – this may take you some time – there are 20+ biographies, and he wrote over 40 books!
7. ANNE MORGAN Review River of the Gods
Candice Millard’s (Hero of the Empire) newest book delves into the search for the source of the White Nile by British explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke and their invaluable, extraordinary guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay. Over multiple trips and many years the men traveled hundred of miles and encountered endless dangers together. With other expedition members, porters, guides, and guards they used (then) Zanzibar as their jumping off point to search for rumored lakes believed to be the source of the Nile River, often nearly starved, died of diseases, insects, and worse. On their second trip, with Burton too ill to continue, Speke and Bombay reached Lake Nyanza (which Speke renamed Lake Victoria), where Speke believed the Nile to originate. Speke didn’t prove this to Burton’s satisfaction and this doubt was one of the many instances that came between the two explorers to create a rivalry that would last the rest of their lives.
River of the Gods shows mid-nineteenth century British exploration in all of its complexities: the positive, the negative, and every political, emotional and ethical shade in between. Millard does a good job of balancing Richard Burton and John Speke in the same way. Neither are complete heroes, neither total villains, in their own minds each are completely right in the actions they take and justify themselves along the way. In hindsight we know that the exploration of Africa by England of other countries isn’t “just” about the need to fill in blanks on a map- it is leading to complete colonization and further exploitation of people and resources across the continent. We see the contrast of places like Zanzibar: a beautiful paradise of white sandy beaches and clear blue waters, while at the same time one of the worst slave auction sites that bothers even many slavers. Burton is generally someone who takes people as they are, interested in their customs, cultures and languages for what he can learn (whether or not he should) while at the same time being European enough to look down on Africans as a lesser race until the end of his life, while Speke looks down on everyone. What I appreciated about Millard here is that she put everyone’s thoughts and actions in the context of their time and not in our modern day sensibilities. We know what we find racist and abhorrent today, so I’d rather know what was the cultural norm at the time and how it changed over the time frame Millard covers, which I thought she did well.
It is toward the end that she reminds us that there was a third main explorer who deserves as many accolades as Burton and Speke: Sidi Mubarak Bombay. Enslaved as a child, he returned to Africa as an adult and was a trustworthy guide, interpreter, and friend to European explorers like Burton and Speke- and later helped the famous journalist Stanley find Dr. Livingston. Bombay helped shine a light on the native guides and interpreters that Europeans needed to succeed in being “the first” to do so many things, from finding the source of the Nile to climbing Mt. Everest, and that today historians must try to discover the little told stories of these men and women and celebrate them just as much as their more famous (or infamous) European counterparts.
Millard’s brilliance for a truly riveting, engaging writing style is evident from page one in River of the Gods, drawing the reader in and refusing to let them go until the final page. Every step in the exploration, every twist in the bitter verbal sparring between former friends, keeps you emotionally engaged and waiting tensely to see what will happen next. It isn’t just the adventures in Africa that read like adventure stories, it is the entire book.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
8. DRTAXSACTO Review River of the Gods
The story of the main two competitors who wanted to find the source of the Nile in the mid-19th Century is a good yarn, but Candace Millard, takes a good story and makes it great. The two contenders were a man who was fluent in more than 60 languages and was one of the first non-muslims to visit Mecca. By all descriptions, Richard Burton, was not a very friendly person. He also had tons of quirks. He translated the Kama Sutra and the Arabian Nights – both proclaimed as obscene in Victorian Times. Amazingly a prominent woman named Isabel Arundel, from a prominent family, was infatuated with him and pursued him for a decade.
Burton’s opponent was John Hanning Speke. Speke did not have the linguistic or writing skills that Burton – but he was a pretty bold explorer. Both men had egos the size of Africa. For several reasons the Royal Geographic Society put them together on their expedition to find the source. The descriptions of the trek are horrifying. The two explorers speculated that two different lakes would be the source. Speke intuitively figured out the correct location, although it took an American looking for Livingston to make the actual discovery.
Both men got back to London and then engaged in a series of petty spats which bring neither credit. Before a second and more conclusive trek could be made, Speke killed himself in a hunting accident.
Millard ties all those themes together in a marvelous way.
9. RMAZIN Review River of the Gods
Brilliance and arrogance with a certain lack of empathy can be a very dangerous combination. Both Richard Burton and John Speke possessed a portion of these characteristics. In the late 1850s, Richard Burton and John Speke set out to “discover” the source of the Nile. This was a goal of Europeans for decades. Although Burton, the leader, had picked Speke to accompany him on this trek, Speke was not his first choice. But Burton thought Speke had qualities that would be valuable.
Their journey was dodged by illnesses, poor weather, difficult terrain, lack of supplies and funding, and assistance from local people, as well as their own government. It was also impeded by two personalities that saw their mission as differently as they viewed the world. Speke reveled in hunting, status and recognition. He viewed exploration as a means to an end. Burton, who was not totally immune to recognition, was more focused on the journey, people and the environment they encountered. He also wished to find the head waters but he wanted it done scientifically with proof and accurate descriptions.
The third, and most experienced member of their team, was the formally enslaved African, Sidi Mubarak Bombay. He had been hired to help “wrangle” and guide the expedition by resourcing porters, cooks, guards, food, and brokering deals with other African groups. Clearly, without his abilities, neither man would have succeeded or survived. But glory and history conspired to uphold the achievements of the Europeans.
Candice Millard has enriched the reader once again with a stellar book about personalities, exploration, and historical detail in a riveting story. She follows the fortunes of Speke, Burton and Bombay throughout their lives, as well as informing the reader about the significance of that exploration through later times. Highly recommended along with my other Millard favorites: River of Doubt, and Hero of the Empire. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this title.
10. MEGAN Review River of the Gods
Candice Millard’s River of the Gods is a riveting read. She delves deep into the fascinating personalities behind the rush to discover the source of the Nile, including the lesser known, but important figures who guided the famous explorers. This was the first book by Millard that I’ve read. I am definitely adding “Hero of the Empire” to my TBR. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC.
III. [Quote] River of the Gods by Candice Millard
The best book quotes from River of the Gods
“The more I study religion,” he wrote, “the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anyone but himself.”
“The world is a great book, of which those who never leave home read but a page.”
“As the British writer Samuel Johnson had written less than a century earlier, after the Arctic expedition of Captain Constantine Phipps, “I do not wish well to discoveries for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.””
“How melancholy a thing is success,” he would later write. “Whilst failure inspires a man, attainment reads the sad prosy lesson that all our glories ‘are shadows, not substantial things.’ ”
“Speke was far from the first to espouse the Hamitic Myth, which had been used for decades to justify slavery. His popularity in Victorian England, however, as well as his fervent belief in the myth and his eagerness to discuss it, led to its increased acceptance. The stunning achievements of the ancient Egyptians, which the British Empire had been so eager to study and appropriate, were explained away by yet another distinction, this time between the sons of Ham. Only the youngest, Canaan, had carried the curse of his father, the argument went, but Mizraim, the ancestor of the Egyptians, did not. By 1994, the Hamitic Myth would not only feed”
“I repeat my motto: poco spero, nulla chiedo.” Little I hope, nothing I ask.”
“..the charm of the scenery was perhaps enhanced by the reflection that my eyes might never look upon it again….Masses of brown-purple clouds covered the quarter of the heavens where the sun was about to rise. Presently the mists, ruffled like ocean billow and luminously fringed with Tyrian purple, were cut by filmy rays, while, from behind their core, the internal living fire shot forth its broad beams, like the spokes of a huge aerial wheel, rolling a flood of gold over the light blue waters of the lake.
[RICHARD BURTON, The Lake Regions of Central Africa]”
Book excerpts: River of the Gods by Candice Millard
Chapter One
A Blaze of Light
Sitting on a thin carpet in his tiny, rented room in Suez, Egypt, in 1854, Richard Francis Burton calmly watched as five men cast critical eyes over his meager belongings. The men, whom he had just met on the Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, “looked at my clothes, overhauled my medicine chest, and criticised my pistols,” Burton wrote. “They sneered at my copper-cased watch.” He knew that if they discovered the truth, that he was not Shaykh Abdullah, an Afghan-born Indian doctor and devout, lifelong Muslim but a thirty-two-year-old lieutenant in the army of the British East India Company, not only would his elaborately planned expedition be in grave danger, but so would his life. Burton, however, was not worried. Even when his new friends found his sextant, the most indispensable, and obviously Western, scientific instrument in his possession, he did not think that he had anything to fear. “This,” he later wrote, “was a mistake.”
Burton’s goal was to do something that no other Englishman had ever done, and that few had either the ability or audacity to do: enter Mecca disguised as a Muslim. It was an undertaking that simultaneously acknowledged what was most sacred to the Muslim faith and dismissed the right to protect it, making it irresistible to Burton, who studied every religion and respected none. The birthplace of the prophet Muhammad, Mecca is the holiest site in Islam and, as such, forbidden to non-Muslims. Burton knew that, “to pass through the Moslem’s Holy Land, you must either be a born believer, or have become one,” but he had never even considered performing the Hajj as a convert. “Men do not willingly give information to a ‘new Moslem,’ especially a Frank [European]: they suspect his conversion to be feigned or forced, look upon him as a spy, and let him see as little of life as possible,” he wrote. “I would have given up the dear project rather than purchase a doubtful and partial success at such a price.” An Oxford dropout, self-taught scholar, compulsive explorer, and extraordinarily skilled polyglot, Burton wanted unfettered access to every holy site he reached, the trust of every man he met, and the answer to every ancient mystery he encountered—nothing less, he wrote, than to see and understand “Moslem inner life.” He also wanted to return to England alive.
By disguising himself as a Muslim, Burton was risking the righteous wrath of those for whom the Hajj was the most sacred of religious rites. Although “neither the Koran nor the Sultan enjoins the killing of Hebrew or Christian intruders,” he knew, “in the event of a pilgrim declaring himself to be an infidel, the authorities would be powerless to protect him.” A single error could cost him his life. “A blunder, a hasty action, a misjudged word, a prayer or bow, not strictly the right shibboleth,” he wrote, “and my bones would have whitened the desert sand.”
Burton’s plan, moreover, required crossing the Rubʿ al-Khali—“Empty Quarter”—the world’s largest continuous desert and, in his words, a “huge white blot” on nineteenth-century maps. So ambitious was the expedition that it had captured the attention of the president of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison. For Murchison, who had helped to found the Society nearly a quarter of a century earlier, this was exactly the kind of exploration that the Society had been created to encourage. He “honored me,” Burton wrote, “by warmly supporting . . . my application for three years’ leave of absence on special duty.” The East India Company, a 250-year-old private corporation with armies of its own, had argued that the journey was too dangerous and that Burton, who had made more enemies than friends during his years in the military, should be given no more than a one-year furlough. The Royal Geographical Society stood by its promise to help finance the expedition. For a challenge of this magnitude, Murchison believed, Burton was “singularly well-qualified.”
Although the members of the Royal Geographical Society were impressed by Burton’s achievements, most had reservations about this unusual young man who seemed to be British in name only. Burton had been born in Devon, on the English Channel, but he had spent far less time in his homeland than he had roaming the rest of the world. It was a pattern that had begun early in life, when his father, Joseph Netterville Burton, a retired lieutenant colonel in the British Army, moved his family to France before Richard’s first birthday. Over the next eighteen years, he moved thirteen more times, briefly settling in towns from Blois to Lyons, Marseilles to Pau, Pisa to Siena, Florence, Rome, and Naples. By the time he was an adult, Burton, along with his younger siblings, Maria and Edward, felt less like a citizen of the world than a man without a country. “In consequence of being brought up abroad, we never thoroughly understood English society,” he wrote, “nor did society understand us.”
Not only did Burton not feel British, he had often been told, and never in an admiring way, that neither did he look particularly British. No one who met him ever forgot his face. Bram Stoker, who would go on to write Dracula, was shaken by his first encounter with Burton. “The man riveted my attention,” Stoker later wrote. “He was dark, and forceful, and masterful, and ruthless. . . . I never saw anyone like him. He is steel! He would go through you like a sword!” Burton’s friend, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, wrote that he had “the jaw of a devil and the brow of a god,” and described his eyes as having “a look of unspeakable horror.” Burton’s black eyes, which he had inherited from his English-Irish father, seemed to mesmerize everyone he met. Friends, enemies, and acquaintances described them variously as magnetic, imperious, aggressive, burning, even terrible, and compared them to every dangerous wild animal they could think of, from a panther to a “stinging serpent.” Equally striking were his thick black hair, his deep, resonant voice, and even his teeth, which may have inspired literature’s most iconic vampire. Stoker would never forget watching, enthralled, as Burton spoke, his upper lip rising menacingly. “His canine tooth showed its full length,” he wrote, “like the gleam of a dagger.”
Burton had grown up fighting, from street brawls to school skirmishes to violent encounters with enraged tutors. Although his father had dragged his children from one European town to another, he wanted for them a British education, which began at a grim boarding school in Richmond. All that Burton remembered learning at the school, which he described as “the ‘Blacking-shop’ of Charles Dickens,” was “a certain facility in using our fists, and a general development of ruffianism. I was in one perpetual scene of fights; at one time I had thirty-two affairs of honor to settle.” When he and Edward were finally sent back to Boulogne, after an attack of measles killed several boys and shut down the school, they scandalized everyone on their ship by joyously celebrating the fact that they were leaving England at last. “We shrieked, we whooped, we danced for joy. We shook our fists at the white cliffs, and loudly hoped we should never see them again,” he wrote. “We hurrah’d for France, and hooted for England; ‘The Land on which the Sun ne’er sets—nor rises.’ ”
Burton’s father taught him chess, but most of what he learned came from a succession of alternately terrifying and terrified tutors. No matter the subject, the tutors were given permission to beat their pupils, until the pupils were old enough to beat them back. In later years, Burton would express his sorrow for the incalculable harm done by “that unwise saying of the wise man, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’ ” As a teenager, he fought back. The poor, nervous musician Burton’s parents hired to teach him violin—“nerves without flesh, hung on wires,” as Burton would later contemptuously describe him, “all hair and no brain”—finally quit after his student broke a violin over his head.
The only childhood teacher Burton respected was his fencing master, a former soldier who had only one thumb, having lost the other in battle. Richard and his brother threw themselves into fencing with such wild enthusiasm that their studies nearly ended in tragedy. “We soon learned not to neglect the mask,” Richard wrote. “I passed my foil down Edward’s throat, and nearly destroyed his uvula, which caused me a good deal of sorrow.” The lessons, however, not only paid off but eventually produced one of the most skilled swordsmen in Europe. Burton earned the coveted French title Maître d’Armes; perfected two sword strokes, the une-deux and the manchette—an upward slashing movement that disabled an opponent, often sparing his life; and wrote both The Book of the Sword and A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise, which the British Army published the same year he left for Mecca. Fencing, he would later say, “was the great solace of my life.”
As Burton grew into a young man, he also developed another all-consuming, lifelong interest, one that would make him even less welcome in polite society: sex. What began as love affairs with beautiful women from Italy to India quickly transformed into something more enquiring and erotic, and far less acceptable in Victorian England. As a young officer in Sindh, now a province in southeastern Pakistan, he famously investigated the homosexual brothels, writing a report for his commander that he claimed later hindered his career. His ethnological writings, which in the end would range from Asia to Africa to North America, focused not only on the dress, religion, and familial structures of his subjects, but on their sexual practices. His readers would be shocked by open and detailed discussions of polygamy and polyandry, pederasty and prostitution. Burton, however, had little time for British priggishness and no interest in what he referred to as “innocence of the word not of the thought; morality of the tongue and not of the heart.”
Although Burton’s nomadic childhood and scandalous interests left him feeling cut off from his country and distrusted by his countrymen, he did learn one striking thing about himself along the way: He was, in the words of one of his flabbergasted tutors, “a man who could learn a language running.” In the end, he would speak more than twenty-five different languages, along with at least another dozen dialects. To some extent, his gift for languages was a product of natural ability and early training. “I was intended for that wretched being, the infant phenomenon,” he explained, “and so began Latin at three and Greek at four.” It was his fascination with other cultures, however, and his methodical mind that made him one of the world’s most gifted linguists. He had worked out a system early on that allowed him to learn most languages in two months, and he never seemed to understand why others found it so hard. “I never worked more than a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the brain lost its freshness,” he wrote. “After learning some three hundred words, easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy book-work (one of the Gospels is the most come-atable), and underlined every word that I wished to recollect, in order to read over my pencillings at least once a day. . . . The neck of the language was now broken and progress was rapid.”
After engineering his own expulsion from Oxford, where he had been ridiculed, ignored, and bored, Burton had joined the 18th Regiment of Bombay Native Infantry, a regiment within the East India Company. Realizing that one of the fastest ways to rise through the ranks was to become an interpreter, he learned twelve languages in seven years. He had begun studying Hindustani immediately upon arriving in India and six months later easily passed first among the many gifted linguists taking the exam. Over the following years, one after another, he steadily added languages to his long list: Gujarati, Marathi, Armenian, Persian, Sindhi, Punjabi, Pashto, Sanskrit, Arabic, Telugu, and Turkish, rarely placing second to even his most talented rivals.
So caught up did Burton become in his passion for languages, that he often forgot that not everyone shared his outsized enthusiasm. In his book Falconry in the Valley of the Indus—one of five books he wrote between 1851 and 1853—he used so many different Indian dialects that he was openly mocked in a British review. “Were it not that the author is so proud of his knowledge of oriental tongues that he thinks it desirable to display the said knowledge by a constant admixture of Indianee words with his narrative, this would be a most agreeable addition both to the Zoology and Falconry of the East,” the reviewer admonished him. “We find his affectation all but insufferable, and devoutly wish that he were confined to the use of plain English for the remaining term of his natural life.” Burton, however, was not to be shamed or dissuaded from his obsession. “For many years I have been employed in studying the Scindian literature and language,” he wrote in reply. “You will . . . find it is the language of a country as large as England.” He even wrote a letter to The Bombay Times openly criticizing the language examination process within the East India Company and claiming that, for a serious student, it was not particularly challenging. “The task may appear a formidable one: we can assure him that the appearance is much more tremendous than the reality,” he wrote. “Any man of moderate abilities can, with careful, though not hard, study, qualify himself to pass the examination we have described in one year.”
Such shrugging dismissal of the notoriously difficult and competitive exams was maddening for Burton’s fellow officers, who struggled for years to learn the languages. One man in particular bristled at such casual arrogance, and would come to justify Burton’s assertion that “linguists are a dangerous race.” Christopher Palmer Rigby was considered one of the most distinguished linguists in the East India Company. At twenty years of age he had passed the language exams for both Hindustani and Marathi, adding Canarese, Persian, and Arabic before his thirtieth birthday. In 1840, while in Aden, he not only learned Somali but wrote An Outline of the Somali Language and Vocabulary, which Burton admired and used extensively when studying the language himself. When Rigby sat for his examination in Gujarati, he had been widely expected to receive the highest score. To everyone’s shock, however, not least of all Rigby’s, he had lost that honor to Richard Burton.
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