Lake Victoria

:This page is about the African lake. For the Australian lake, see Lake Victoria.

Exploration history

The first recorded information about Lake Victoria comes from Arab traders plying the inland routes in search of gold, ivory, slaves and other precious commodities. An excellent map known as the Al Adrisi map dated from the 1160s, clearly depicts an accurate representation of Lake Victoria, and attributes it as being the source of the Nile.

Related Topics:
Arab - Gold - Ivory - Slaves - Map

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The lake was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore whilst on his journey with Richard Francis Burton to seek the source of the Nile for strategic reasons of the British Colonial administration. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this vast expanse of open water for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom. Burton, who had been recovering from illness at the time and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was outraged at Speke's audacity to claim this discovery for himself whilst on what was supposed to have been a scouting expedition. A very public quarrel ensued, which not only sparked a great deal of intense debate within the scientific community of the day, but much interest by other explorers keen to either confirm or refute Speke's discovery.

Related Topics:
1858 - British - Explorer - John Hanning Speke - Richard Francis Burton - Queen of the United Kingdom - Lake Tanganyika

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The well known British explorer and missionary David Livingstone failed in his attempt to verify Speke's discovery, instead pushing too far west and entering the Congo River system instead. It was ultimately the American explorer Henry Morton Stanley who confirmed the truth of Speke's discovery, circumnavigating the Lake and reporting the great outflow at Rippon Falls on the Lake's northern shore. It was on this journey that Stanley was said to have greeted the British explorer with the famous words Dr. Livingstone, I presume?, upon discovering the Englishman ill and despondent in his camp on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

Related Topics:
David Livingstone - Congo River - Henry Morton Stanley

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