Review - "River of Doubt," Candice Millard

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

River of the Gods, Candice Millard

August 7, 2022

 

“Animal attack was always possible during an expedition, but far

more deadly were the multitude of diseases that lurked in their water,

their food, and the insects that swarmed in the air around them.”

                                                                                                                                River of Gods, 2022

                                                                                                                                Candice Millard

 

Upon Richard Burton’s return to England, after an almost two-year, two-thousand-mile expedition to Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyanza, his fiancée, Isabel Arundell, described him: “He had had twenty-one attacks of fever – had been partially paralyzed and partially blind. He was a mere skeleton, with brown-yellow skin hanging in bags…”

 

Since Biblical times the source of the Nile had beckoned and challenged man. By the middle of the 19^th Century the interior of Africa had still not been mapped, so there was no knowing whether the Nile’s source was to be found in mountains or an interior lake. An 1856 expedition funded by the Royal Geographic Society, with Richard Burton in command, was sent to discover the Nile’s source. Burton, then in his-mid thirties, was an explorer and linguist who could speak over thirty languages. His second in command, John (Jack) Hanning Speke, was ten years younger and an expert hunter. Their mission: claim the prize of discovery for England.

 

Ms. Millard’s subtitle is Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Nile. ‘Genius’ and ‘courage’ we can assume; it is ‘betrayal’ that adds drama to the story. Back from Africa, Speke returned to England first, leaving the ailing Burton to recover in Zanzibar. He wrongly discredited Burton, and “…wasted no time in laying claim to the discovery of the source of the White Nile.”  Nevertheless, there was an element of truth in his words. Because of illness, it was only Speke and Sidi Mubarak Bombay who made a one-month side trip to Lake Nyanza (Later Lake Victoria) on their return from Tanganyika. A few years later, in a separate expedition led by Speke, he and Bombay proved Lake Nyanza to be the true source of the Nile. Ms. Millard writes of that trip: “As they watched, Africa’s largest lake gave birth to the world’s longest river[1], lifeblood to millions of people over thousands of miles.”

 

As readers, we learn in vivid detail the trials, especially diseases, 19^th Century African explorers experienced. As well, Ms. Millard provides an endearing portrait of Bombay, a man deserving of his own biography. Born of the Bantu tribe on the border of what are now Tanzania and Mozambique, he was taken as a child by Arab slave traders, sold into slavery in India where he remained for over twenty years. Finally, he escaped and made his way back to his home village where he became an explorer and guide.

 

While Ms. Millard’s portrait of Burton is of a difficult, though charismatic, man, Speke comes across as jealous and insecure. Burton had his faults, as Isabel’s family were aware, but he was popular and an “electrifying speaker.” Ms. Millard quotes Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, on Burton: “As he talked, fancy seemed to run riot in its alluring power; and the whole world of thought seemed to flame with gorgeous colour.”

 

This is a well written, informative read, which convinced me that accompanying Ms. Millard in the 21st Century is preferable to traveling with Burton and Speke in the 19^th.