River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile

By Candice Millard

Categories: History

Candice Millard follows Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke, two British explorers whose partnership became a bitter rivalry, through an aborted 1854 expedition in Somaliland, where an attack near Berbera left Speke stabbed and Burton speared through the jaw, and a second journey that reached Lake Tanganyika in 1858. When illness halted Burton, Speke pressed on to the lake he named Victoria and claimed as the Nile's source. Millard also restores Sidi Mubarak Bombay, the East African guide who kept both expeditions alive.

Recommended by 1 person

• Ryan Holiday: “Some of my favorite books about shipwrecks.”