The White Nile

by Alan Moorehead

Relive all the thrills and adventure of Alan Moorehead's classic bestseller The White Nile -- the daring exploration of the Nile River in the second half of the nineteenth century, which was at that time the most mysterious and impenetrable region on earth. Capturing in breathtaking prose the larger-than-life personalities of such notable figures as Stanley, Livingstone, Burton and many others, The White Nile remains a seminal work in tales of discovery and escapade, filled with incredible historical detail and compelling stories of heroism and drama.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction, Travel, Adventure, Egypt, Biography

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Alan Moorehead was lionised as the literary man of action: the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II; author of award winning books; star travel writer of The New Yorker; pioneer publicist of wildlife conservation. At the height of his success, his writing suddenly stopped and when, 17 years later, his death was announced, he seemed a heroic figure from the past. His fame as a writer gave him the friendship of Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw and Field Marshall Montgomery and the courtship and marriage of his beautiful wife Lucy Milner.

After 1945, he turned to writing books, including Eclipse, Gallipoli (for which he won the Duff Cooper Prize), The White Nile, The Blue Nile, and finally, A Late Education. He was awarded an OBE in 1946, and died in 1983.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really slow read for me. Not so much for the content, although that was incredibly dense, but because my paperback edition had incredibly small print and was very tightly line-spaced as to make it really hard to read. In fact, I read a book between each section of the book to rest my eyes! Perhaps I should have given up and bought a more suitable edition in normal sized font!

Anyways, this book is all things White Nile and more - expanding itself in a history all of the countries the White Nile passes through. It is very thorough - almost too thorough for a light history reader like me - I had expected it to pick up on each of the expeditions, each of the phases of control of Egypt and Sudan, but I had also thought it would act as a teaser for more specific books, when in fact for me it outlined in as much detail as I probably need, all these events.

Part 1 - The Exploration
This section covers discoveries of the source of the Nile - chapters provided for each of Burton & Speke; Speke and Grant; Baker; Livingstone; and Stanley. It covers the period of exploration from 1856 to 1877.

Part 2 - The Exploitation
The three chapters in this section cover Baker and Gordon in Sudan, their battle against the slave trade and the completion of the Suez Canal, and concludes just as British occupation of Egypt in 1882.

Part 3 - The Moslem Revolt
Britain operate Egypt as a protectorate, the Madhi (Muhammad Ahmad Ibn el-Sayyid Abdullah) a Nubian Sufi religious leader who unifies the factions in Sudan takes control of most of Sudan, then threatens to take control of Khartoum. Gordon is recalled to Sudan, established in Khartoum and is subject to a siege while waiting for military support, which of course arrives far too late.
The British attempt to extricate themselves from Sudan, and then a look back into (Buganda) Uganda, where it was all going wrong with the whites there too. Stanley makes another foray into East Africa, and the British withdrawal is complete.

Part 4 - The Christian Victory
Around 1885 German presses for involvement, and the British concede some of the land they have held (albeit poorly) in conjunction with Zanzibar. The British took control of Kenya, and later Uganda, the Germans Tanganyika, leaving just Zanzibar, two small islands and a strip of coastline for the Sultan of Zanzibar. In Britain there was more agitation for revenge in Sudan, and soon Kitchener was sent back ( he was part of the successful supporting of Gordon), via Egypt to retake Khartoum and press on upstream to displace the French who had established a small base on the White Nile. Politics in Britain dealt with the issue rather than on the ground, and the French withdrew, leaving the White Nile for its length in British control.

Epilogue
The epilogue provides a very brief contemporary look at the places which feature in the book just before 1960, when the book was published and it draws a few comparisons between the main players in the book.

This book is recognised as the go to for all things White Nile. Published in the 1960s it lacks some sophistication around racial sensitivity, but it can be overlooked for its wide view of events. I only wish I had bought an edition with larger font. Rare for me to take almost two months to deal with a book!

4 stars.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I am here, like iron.." --Major-General Charles "Chinese" Gordon

Just outstanding, though I think the "White Nile" part of the story fades quickly after the first 75 pages or so. After that, the figure of General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, and the siege of Khartoum dominates the book. And that's rather amazing when you consider Moorhead's book is crammed with a real League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and at least one remarkable woman: Lady Florence Baker). What a crew! Richard Burton, who comes across as highly competitive, and a bit sinister; John Speke, who would find the source of the Nile, but who would also die tragically (arguably, a suicide) on the eve of a debate with his foe, Burton; the saintly Livingstone; the soldier journalist (and rescuer), Stanley; the determined and charismatic Mahdi, and, of course, Gordon, a Christian mystic, a soldier, a hero, and, to some, a madman. Moorehead wraps all of this in some wonderfully descriptive prose that sounds, at times, like scenes from a Tarzan movie. Pygmies, cannibals, poison darts, jungle battles, quicksand, malaria, a murderous native chief who walks on his toes so he can imitate a lion, and slaves. Lots of slaves, which is really what this book is about. The slave trade was quite healthy in central Africa, and was wrapped up in the lifestyle of the Moslem populace. Breaking the practice of slavery involved a complex mix of Christian missionaries, war, famine, and the deliberate actions of a number of the explorers listed above. Their success was spotty, but still significant given how entrenched the practice was.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Moorehead's The White Nile is a lively, entertaining, occasionally dated narrative of the European exploration of Central Africa in the late 19th Century. Moorehead's book provides colorful portraits of the era's outsize explorers and soldiers, mostly British, many eccentric and all recklessly brave, obtaining the kind of celebrity later generations accorded rock stars and astronauts. There's Richard Burton, the vulgar, larger-than-life sensualist who gained fame as much for his translations of erotica as his death-defying adventures in Africa and Arabia; John Hanning Speke, his humorless partner-turned-rival in searching for the Nile's source; Sir Samuel Baker, who traversed modern Uganda with his wife Florence, whom he rescued from a Turkish slave market; the famous Dr. Livingstone and his rescuer Henry Morton Stanley; the eccentric governor Emin Pasha, a German convert to Islam who found himself subjected to a costly rescue mission he neither wanted nor needed. Nearly a third of the book's devoted to Urabi Pasha's nationalist rising in Egypt and the Mahdist Wars of the 1880s, where a fanatical Muslim sect conquered the Sudan and threatened British interests in North Africa. Naturally, the messianic, perennially fascinating soldier-explorer Charles Gordon takes center stage as he leads a doomed effort to save Khartoum from annihilation. Moorehead's book is undoubtedly a ripping good yarn; with his skill for colorful characterization, vivid travel writing and well-dramatized battle scenes he provides a true-life adventure tale as engaging as any novel. Unfortunately, modern readers will probably find Moorehead's (being kind) racially insensitive attitudes hard to take; he's happy to rely on explorers' own writings and thus his characterization of the African peoples encountered by Burton, Speake, Gordon, etc. proves little more enlightened than those of his subjects. Still, those with a taste for this sort of narrative history (warts and all) will find revisiting The White Nile a treat.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread.

Published in 1960, this is still the most comprehensive, thoroughly researched, elegantly written study of the search for the great river's origins and the struggles and conflicts between nations and native peoples to control it and its hinterland.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover blurb from The Baltimore Sun calls The White Nile "a truly great work - massive, monumental...a wonderful story of heroism, a superb feat of research...the best book of it's kind," and they are right on all counts.

This is the best kind of history, fleshing out what we thought we already knew and introducing new stories so wonderful and important we can't understand how we'd never heard them before. Beginning with the first major exploration in 1856 and running through the end of the century, it includes all the great pairings of Africa - Burton and Speke, Stanley and Livingstone, Gordon and the Mahdi - and ties them into a surprisingly cohesive whole. Along the way, it also brings in such other relevant events and characters as the Suez Canal, the American Civil War, the "White Rajah of Sarawak," the Dreyfus Affair, Major (later General then Lord) Kitchener and a very young Churchill; and introduces a full cast of important and colorful players I'd never heard of before, but will never now forget - the Europeans Emin, Slatin, Baring, Gessi and Baker; the Arabs Zobeir, Tippu Tib, the Khalifa Abdullah, Sultan Barghash and Khedive Ismaili; the Africans Mutesa, Mwanga, Kabarega and Rumanika...

And of course, there's the endless geography lesson - the Mountains of the Moon; the explorations and ultimate understanding of Lakes Victoria, Edward and Tanganyika; the history and importance of Zanzibar; the slow transition from Equitoria and the always-warring kingdoms of Bunyoro, Karagwe and Buganda into today's Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; the deadly desolation of the endless Sudd; and so much more.

This is a long, dense book - "massive and monumental" indeed - best taken in small chunks. And while the writing is excellent throughout, I found the second half less interesting simply because it was largely a repeat of the Gordon/Mahdi struggle that was covered in more depth in The First Jihad, which I read a few months ago - although this is obviously not the author's fault.

The book was written in 1960, and so Moorehead's epilogue is interesting for his surprisingly relevant and timely comments and predictions on the confrontation between Arabs/Europeans and Islam/Christianity in general. He notes that at the beginning of the period, the Western explorers and African Arabs got along quite well, and highlights how expeditions like Speke's and Livingstone's in fact would never have succeeded without the generous support and hospitality of the region's Arabs (mostly slavers). However, this deteriorated over time, culminating in the seige of Khartoum and battles of Omdurman and Um Diwaykarat; and with no irony, the author concludes that "no prudent man, however, would venture to say that this is the final end of the matter."

I will definitely take a breather now and enjoy some lighter fare before tackling Moorehead's sequel, The Blue Nile; but I look forward to it at some point as this was just an excellent, educational and thoroughly enjoyable experience.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally absorbing work on the exploration of central Africa & the source of the Nile in the last half of the 19thC. Stanley, Livingston, Speke, Burton, Gessi,Baker, Gordon, Emin and a cast of others who go to Africa for a variety of reasons such as trade, scientific study, evangelization, politics. "A common hunger for adventure certainly bound them all to Africa". Although it took me quite a while to finish this, it certainly wasn't because I wasn't caught up in the telling; more likely because I knew so little about this topic. I am planning to read Moorehead's next book- The Blue Nile.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australian journalist Alan Morehead wrote this classic on the search for the source of the Nile and the explorations that traced its course to the Mediterranean in 1960 and as a comprehensive and densely detailed story it has yet to be surpassed. Africa has changed but this history, the good, the bad, and the sometimes very ugly, shows the foundation of Arab and European power on the continent.

The Arabs ran a massive and horrifying slave trade through Zanzibar and, for a while, so did the Europeans, supplying slaves to the Caribbean and the American South, as well as European countries. Then the anti-slavery movement took hold and there began a struggle between Christians, Muslims, and African chieftains regarding the very lucrative traffic in human beings. This is a backdrop for much of the exploring and fighting that goes on.

The book begins with Richard Burton and John Speke, the two great British rivals who disagreed about the source of the Nile. It covers Dr. David Livingstone, the missionary explorer, and Henry Morton Stanley, the newspaperman and publicity hound who went in search of him (and later other explorers). Sir Samuel Baker and his wife Lady Baker (just as intrepid as her husband), General Charles "Chinese" Gordon who fell at Khartoum, Emin (original name Eduard Schnitzer , a German-speaking scholar), the Mahdi (Muslim warrior and spiritual leader), Evelyn Baring, Herbert Kitchener, the great African chief Mutesa, and a host of other famous and infamous figures put in an appearance. Some came for the thrill of exploration, some came for fame and the money they could make writing books, some came as missionaries or to stop the slave trade, some were curious about Africa itself, some were sent by their governments, or any combination of the above. All suffered unbelievable hardships, physical and mental, yet none gave up. Their persistence and their writing--letters, journals, books--provide what we know about this era of African conquest and exploitation. It's not pretty, but it is fascinating.

Morehead has another book, The Blue Nile, which complements The White Nile. The two parts of the river, which are actually different colors, converge at Khartoum and flow north to Egypt. I think after a breather I may read the Blue Nile. Morehouse is an engaging writer and I enjoy his material.

[Bettie · Rating 5 out of 5]

To Freya Stark


Opening: The Zanzibar that Burton and Speke first saw at the end of 1856 was a much more important place than it is today; indeed, it was almost the only centre of overseas commerce worth the name along the whole East Africa seaboard.

Mutesa of Buganda

Ripon Falls

Murchison falls



Lady Baker

The Sudd



Summer 2013 Egyptian Encounters:

Cleopatra (1963)
3* The Mummy Curse
2* Alexandria: The Last Nights of Cleopatra
4* The Complete Valley of the Kings
1* Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson
4* Tutankhamen: Life and death of a Pharoah
2* The Luxor Museum
3* Tutankhamen's Treasure
3* The Black Pharaoh\
3* Nubian Twilight.../ complimentary reading!
4* River God
4* House of Eternity
The Egyptian (1954)
Agora (2009)
CR Justine
Death on the Nile (1978)
2* Nefer the Silent
5* The Seventh Scroll
5* The White Nile
CR An Evil Spirit out of the West
Nefertiti Resurrected
CR Warlock
Queen Pharaoh - Hatshepsut
TR: The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile and Explorations of the Nile Sources

03-07-2013: Egyptian army suspends constitution and removes President Morsi.

Additional reading that flows from the above, much like a great river:

TR Through the Dark Continent

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly done.

My favorite kind of history — that which I knew nothing of before.

5 stars.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The White Nile was the first of my reads for a history book based on Africa. I began reading it out of my interest in its exploration in the 19th century. And found a lot of information regarding it, and even more. This was an extremely well-written book, seemed totally unbiased, nice details, smooth language. So well-written that it has provoked a very strong feeling within me to visit the described locations in the book. I think this book is amazing to an initiate of the topic. It deals with the history of and about the exploration and exploitation of the river Nile, and how it changed the history surrounding it in Sudan and Uganda, during the period 1856 to 1900. One of the best history books I have come across in terms of an author's writing style making the content more interesting.
Very much recommended!

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating, adventurous, gripping narrative and so very racist! Moorhead penned this over 50 years ago, and it shows! It's hard to read some passages. For example:

"Normally in central Africa it was the fate of such people to remain in a state of arrested development. In a mysterious way the light of human ambition was extinguished, the villas stayed chained to the Stone Age, and from century to century life revolved in an endless ant-like cycle of crude customs and traditions. There was no curiosity to explore, no desire for change or improvement. Every new generation have way to the same passive fatalistic acceptance of things as they were, and reason was suffocated by habit and superstition."

It jumped around between explorers a fair amount, such that I'm now jumbling up the details. But it was good writing, and a page turner. The blatant racism is a bit jarring though. Also the first half, "the exploration" is far stronger and more interesting than the second part' "the exploitation" which really gets into the colonialization process. Overall, I liked it, but have found other books on Victorian era exploration to be more consistent.

[Nemo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The White Nile,Alan Moorehead’s vivid storytelling transports the reader to a bygone era of colonial expansionism, where the thirst for knowledge and power drove men to undertake journeys into the unknown.Moorehead begins his tale by tracing the historical quest for the source of the Nile, from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the intrepid explorers of the 19th century. He highlights the contributions of Richard Burton, the renowned linguist and adventurer who made a significant contribution to the discovery of the source of the Nile. Burton's translation of The Thousand and One Nights also earned him lasting fame.Moorehead's narrative then takes us to the expeditions of Henry Morton Stanley and Dr. David Livingstone, whose adventures in Africa captured the imagination of the world and inspired generations of explorers. The book also delves into the political context of the time, including the British Empire's involvement in Egypt and the tragic fate of General Charles Gordon in Sudan. Moorehead explores how these events paved the way for European colonialism in Africa and the establishment of oppressive regimes such as King Leopold II's Congo Free State.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have an interest in the River Nile and the history of Egypt, the Sudan and East Africa, this terrific book provides an eminently readable and enjoyable way to learn about it. Only 307 pages long, it covers all the major events, from explorers to government interference and ultimate conquest, as well as covering several of the African tribal leaders. The book is lavishly illustrated with line drawings and period photos, and Moorehead's writing style is down to earth and easy to read. It was first published in 1960.

The tribal kings are portrayed mostly as cruel despots by the men he interacted with at the time. Kabarega, however, is given a more even handed appraisal by Moorehead in the last chapter. It is a long quote but worth it:

In looking back over the forty-odd years that had elapsed since Speke and Grant had first breached the defences of these primitive kingdoms, one is struck by the personality of Kabarega. If he has been neglected in these pages it is because the explorers' records of him – almost the only records available – are sparse and almost invariably hostile. Yet Kabarega rises above all others in Uganda as a guerilla fighter, and as a brave and determined defender of African independence. He is the one man who continues on the scene from first to last: as a young warrior he saw Speke and Grant march into his father's capital near Masindi; he fought Baker, Gordon, Stanley and Lugard as well as Mutesa (another local king). He was nearly always defeated and yet he never gave up so long as there was the ghost of a chance of rousing his men to resistance. It was a hopeless struggle, of course, but he did not think it so. And thus it is a little sad that one Sunday in April 1899 the British should have tracked him down in his last stronghold in a swamp north of Lake Kyoga, and that both he and Mwanga, who had joined him in adversity, should have been captured and deported to the Seychelles ... Mwanga died there in 1903 but Kabarega still lived on, and there is a photograph taken of him (the photo is in the book) in his old age that shows him standing with a walking stick and wearing a frock-coat with a stiff white collar and a handkerchief tucked neatly into his pocket – a caged lion. Yet still the gaze of the eyes is direct and fearless, and it is a fine and indomitable head such as one might expect to see cast in heavy bronze.
When Kabarega reached the age of 80, and it was judged that he could make no more disturbances for the white men in Africa, he was allowed to come home ... However, he succeeded only in reaching the source of the Nile at Jinja and there he died. The body was carried up to Bunyoro and entombed close to the battlefield where he fought Baker in 1872. The modern traveller passing by on the main road will discover it very easily; a grass and reed hut surrounded by trees and a hedge. It is somewhat dark inside, but one can descry upon the grave a dusty covering made of the traditional bark-cloth and the skins of leopards – the fierce and untameable animals which are the symbols of the royal kings of Uganda. I find this a moving tribute.

The book covers the period 1856 to 1900, from when 'Darkest Africa' was inaccessible to Europeans and was brutal, with endemic slavery, despotic rule and uninhibited elephant slaughter for ivory, to the end of the century when Britain, Germany, France (mainly in the Congo) and Egypt (the latter pretty much controlled by Britain) had carved it up and brought 'civilisation'. Civilisation brought its own problems, which we still feel today, and was by no means an unbridled success, but at least it brought some semblance of stability and the rule of law, so in that sense it probably saved as many lives as it took.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and recommend it. My version is from The Folio Society, and is bound in moiré silk.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moorehead is a fine storyteller, whose writing sweeps the reader along. There is pageantry and colorful detail, the characters are vivid and three dimensional, and there is plenty of drama to keep the reader engaged. And what a story he has to tell! It starts with the first serious attempts to penetrate Africa to find the source of the Nile: Burton and Speke coming from Zanzibar and finding the great rift valley lakes. After them come a host of amazing men (and some women) who put up with hardships and sickness almost beyond belief. This was not the time or place for ordinary men: you had to be driven, and each of these had the single minded focus of madmen, which some of them might have been. Some were there for the fame and fortune they would gather from writing about their exploits; some, like Livingstone, were inspired by religious zeal; and others just seemed to spend their entire lives searching for whatever lay beyond the next horizon.

They had complicated relationships with those they encountered. The Arab traders showed them great kindness, providing supplies and nursing them through bouts of malaria. What the traders traded, however, were slaves, which the Europeans had to come to terms with. The explorers also depended on the good will of the tribal chieftains whose lands they passed through. Many of these were shockingly brutal, and some of them, without question, were stark raving mad. Perhaps it was the hardships, or the sickness, or the endlessness of the quests, but the Europeans were also constantly squabbling among themselves.

Since most people know little about African history, the only scene in the book that they would have a passing familiarity with is Stanley’s famous line, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” on meeting him near Lake Tanganyika. Not that Livingstone thought he was lost, he had just been out of contact for so long a search for him had been started.

The tales of adventure, and misadventure, of courage and cowardice in the search for the headwaters of the Nile give way in the second part of the book to the famous story of Gordon at Khartoum. Once again the reader is given outsized characters and memorable events. The story of the Mahdi’s rise from nothing to head a seemingly unstoppable army seems to eerily foreshadow recent murderous events in the Middle East. Gordon was brave but not very bright, and missed opportunities that would have reduced the bloodshed of the siege. The relief force was slow getting started and bogged down trying to reach him. He could have escaped, but partly from a sense of loyalty to his troops, and perhaps partly due to an apparent wish for martyrdom, he stayed to the bitter end and died at his post, pistols in hand, defying the attackers.

This book is full of great stories. It is history writ large. Even though it came out in 1960, and there are more modern accounts using up to date scholarship, it is a great place to start for anyone with an interest in Africa during the turbulent 1800s.

[Eliszard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulously well-written history of the explorations to find the source of the White Nile in the second half of the 20th century. Burton and Speke and their quarrel on whether or not Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile. The humanitarian Livingstone and the cynical and opportunistic Stanley. Baker and his young Hungarian wife Florence Ninian von Sass, who traveled in Victorian skirts in areas that killed rugged explorers ("She was not a screamer" her husband pointed out). "Chinese" Gordon, who had made a name for himself in China in defeating the Taiping Rebellion, and who was on his way to become known as Gordon of Khartoum. A handful of missionaries, usually more busy quarreling among themselves rather than converting people. Local kings and rulers like Mutesa, Rumanika, Kabarega and Barghash of Zanzibar and their fights against the early European expansionism. And my favorite characters, all the Italian explorers whose names I remember from street signs in Italy, but whose stories I had never known: Giovanni Miani, Gaetano Casati and Romolo Gessi (brilliant tactician in guerrilla warfare against Arab slavers in the Sudan, had a stormy relationship with Gordon: "Matters came to a head when Gessi returned from his circumnavigation of Lake Albert and Gordon, delighted with his achievement, was incautious enough to remark, 'What a pity that you are not an Englishman.'). And everybody exchanging letters (including Gordon under siege in Khartoum with Slatin who was a prisoner of the Mahdi) and making (and keeping) appointments in the middle of uncharted territory.

Some of the writing is dated and reads rather, shall we say, politically incorrect today; but it is a truly engaging story, and a useful background to understand something about what is happening in Sudan today. Recommended reading for George Clooney...

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Moorehead was a renowned Australian journalist who began his career reporting on the Spanish Civil War and the North African campaign during the Second World War. After the war, he turned to narrative history and published one of his most highly acclaimed books, "The White Nile," in 1960.

"The White Nile" follows that great river’s course through the last half of the 19th Century, beginning with Richard Burton and John Speke’s 1856 expedition to find its source and ending with Britain’s suppression of the Mahdist Revolt in the 1890s.

Tracing the source of the Nile to Lake Victoria is a story of heroic feats of endurance and hardship. In addition to Burton and Speke, it includes two names familiar to every child: the missionary Dr. Livingstone and the journalist Henry Morton Stanley. These men were soon followed by Samuel Baker, who sought to tame the river for steamboats, and General Gordon, who sought to introduce the (British) rule of law to the Sudan. Barely a decade later, the Mahdi’s siege of Khartoum and Britain’s efforts to rescue General Gordon and then at Omdurman to avenge him involve two other famous Brits: a young Herbert Kitchener and an even younger Winston Churchill.

Moorehead is a gifted writer who presents a riveting, novel-like narrative replete with well-researched details about these colorful figures. His own travels up the Nile during the war and while researching the book provided a first-hand experience that shows in his fine descriptions of the land and his appreciation of the early adventurers’ accomplishments.

Moorehead wrote "The White Nile" as independence finally came to the protectorates Britain established in Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia. He isn’t an apologist for empire, but he still believes in the positive elements Britain brought with its governance. He describes the flourishing slave trade that Burton and Speke encountered (Arab traders had plundered East Africa for ivory and slaves for centuries, much as European traders did from West Africa). And he rightly asserts that Britain’s influence through its missionaries and civil administrators helped put an end to that trade.

His book, however, remains largely one-sided. He acknowledges, for example, that Stanley used repeating rifles to massacre Bumbire warriors armed only with spears on the shore of Lake Victoria, yet he admires Stanley’s ingenuity to transport (on porters’ backs) a steel boat in sections to the lake. He makes plain that Stanley was not a humanitarian even by Victorian standards, yet he lauds his drive and efficiency.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the first third of this book - I picked it up looking for the grand adventure stories of an age of exploration, and that's what the first third gave me. The rest was a more mundane history, lots of information about geopolitics and military campaigns and clashes of culture and personality.

Mostly, it's a catalogue of crimes against humanity. Moorehead's biases are in clear evidence (or perhaps they're simply the biases he anticipated in his audience). He's far more concerned with the activities of British explorers and leaders than with anyone else's, to an extent not entirely justified by the central role of the British in the story. He also assumes a greater degree of familiarity with the primary actors than anyone not educated in British history could be expected to have, and he's probably a bit too charitable in analyzing many of the motives and personalities involved. Still, he does a good enough job sketching out the basics that it's a readable history even to someone totally unfamiliar with the subject, and if it's not quite up to a scholarly standard, it's still engaging and incredibly well-researched. I learned a lot, and I'll seek out more of Moorehead's work in the future.

[Patti Irion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed with information regarding the various expeditions to find the source of the Nile, this book introduced me to a world I knew virtually nothing about. From the importance of Zanzibar to the slave trade in the mid 1800s, to the methods used by slave traders in the interior to capture Africans and drive them to the sea, leaving a trail of dead and dying in its wake, to the brutal leadership of the three kingdoms surrounding the Nile’s source. And that is just the first part of the book! This book was written in the 1960s so some of the information about the current state of the area now is dated. My hope is that I can remember at least part of what I learned about this history of East Central Africa.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the books on writing I read cited this book as the greatest travelogue ever written; I'm disinclined to argue with the assessment. Moorehead doesn't just give the history of the Nile's exploration, he crafts a story out of it, with protagonists and character arcs and conflict and tragedy. He writes with lyricism and deep empathy. He virtually transforms the story of the Nile into an epic poem. Here's a prime example:

There is a fated quality about the events of the next six months, an air of pure and certain tragedy that lifts the story out of time and space so that it becomes part of a permanent tradition of human courage and human helplessness. It can be repeated just as a Shakespearean tragedy can be repeated, and it never alters. The values remain the same in every age, and the principal characters are instantly recognizable; we would no more think of their playing different roles from the ones they actually played than we would dream of withholding death from King Lear or of rescuing Hamlet from his hesitations. Each of the three main protagonists -- Wolseley coming up the Nile with his soldiers, Gordon waiting and watching on the Palace roof in Khartoum and the Mahdi with his warriors encamped in the desert outside the town -- behaves precisely as he is destined to do, and it is wonderfully dramatic that these three men, who were so perfectly incapable of understanding one another, should have been thrust together in such desperate circumstances and in such an outlandish corner of the world. Each man is the victim of forces which are stronger than himself. The Mahdi, having raised a holy war, is bound to assault Khartoum. Gordon, having committed his word to the people in the town, is bound to remain there to the end. And Wolseley, the soldier, having received his orders, is bound to try and rescue him. None of these three really controls events, none of them can predict what will happen. From time to time they feel hope or despair, confidence or uncertainty, but in the main they simply hold on to their predestined courses and they are like the pilots of three ships in a fog that are headed for an inevitable collision. 261-2

If you like that quote you'll like the book. By the end I found myself actually a little disappointed that the region was "discovered" so quickly -- just a few decades passed before the age of explorers was supplanted completely by the modern era. I wanted the history to last longer because it was so enthralling.

The one knock you might make on this book is that despite Moorehead's comparative empathy toward native Africans and even the Arabs, the book is heavily eurocentric, with period-condoned racism at several points. The racism is unfortunate but one could argue that the eurocentrism is necessary just because it is a history and thus based solely on available historical documents (written exclusively by white folks).

But still, it's good to keep reminding yourself while you read that the story of light people discovering lands inhabited by dark people is maybe not the most relevant perspective to take. For this reason it's so tantalizing when Moorehead spends longer passages on African kings like Mutesa and Kalarega -- I wish they had been given a bigger part of the story though I'm not sure if it was possible given Moorehead's constraints. Overall I would recommend this to most people.


Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a big fan of travel writing and have devoured every single book written by Sir Richard Burton as well as many other Victorian era explorers. Moorehead's book, published in 1960, is considered a classic. In it, he covers over fifty years of history in east Africa, tracing the footsteps of European and American adventurers searching for the source of the Nile as they stumble across unknown lakes and mountains, encounter native tribes, and fight against Arab slave traders. It is just the type of subject matter I typically enjoy. Unfortunately, Moorehead manages to make even the section on Burton and Speke feel dreary and uninteresting. His writing is extremely dry. All the facts are there (and often a great deal more than needed), but little of the flavor, excitement, and heat. It feels a bit like reading a deposition in places. I would put this down to the style of such writing at the time, but I know that one can read the even older firsthand accounts of these explorers and that they are anything but dry. For me, it feels as if Moorehead sacrifices narrative and immediacy for fastidious factual and historical accuracy. If you're doing research into this specific subject, then this book is an excellent resource. If you're looking for a story of adventure, exploration, politics, and personalities, you can still find it here, but you'll have to wade through a great deal to get to it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this while I was in Tanzania and it provided great background of the history of colonial "discovery" and development of the region. Moorehead did a great job of bringing the story to life and making the history feel like it was personal. He weaves the explorers journals into the text so that they are often telling their own story. He has a great sense of who his characters are and is really perceptive about their motivations.

The book was written in 1960 and there are parts that are dated and Moorehead is at his worse when he is passing judgement on the societies that the explorers discover. I want to dismiss his remarks as being a product of the time, but I don't know if I can. The best I can do is ignore them.

Those parts aside, the book was delightful. Exactly what history should be. Personal. Engaging. Exciting. I learned a ton.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

The description is accurate. I picked this book up off of a friend's bookshelf and was captivated. The world described is so foreign to our own that it is often difficult to comprehend. Not only is the physical environment alluring, but the cultures encountered by these adventurers are often wild beyond expectation. What is expecially striking though is the determination and will exhibited by these explorers to complete their chosen mission at whatever the costs. One of the most interesting non-fiction books I have ever read.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, the conflicted feelings I have about this book. This is an interesting look at chapter of history that has captured imaginations for over a century now. While I found the book informative, the first half was definitely a stronger read than the first. The second half I found to be...over-crowded. I think the author would have been better served by choosing a tighter focus, because the latter half of the book in particular is all over the place (literally) and packed with both major and minor "characters" that ultimately cloud the overall picture.

[JW · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and engaging history of our longest river. Not so much the river (as in biology, hydrology etc.) but of the early explorations, wars, politics, and colonizing of Sudan and Central Africa. Moorehead is an excellent reporter/writer who keeps us informed without overwhelming with minutiae. This is an old book (1960 I believe) and there may be more up-to-date or accurate histories of the area but I can't believe any would be written in a more compelling manner.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really two books; the story of the exploration of the White Nile (the lower section with its waterfalls and rapids) by men such as Stanley, Burton, and Livingstone. The second is about the various wars and local battles took place trying to control the area and ostensibly to suppress the vast and awful slave trade in the region primarily done by Muslims.

Moorehead is remarkably objective, without promoting one side or another, simply laying out the facts and information regarding evens and people at the time period (basically the last half of the 19th century). Many people are detailed here, with warts and all, but without an attempt to "deconstruct" anyone or emphasize their behavior. Cultural and historical context is well-considered, and an amazing set of stories in history emerge.

[Declan Carmody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read by a Melb guy about the colonial history of the White Nile, just before the division of Africa by the European powers. Some incredibly fascinating stories about the first westerners seeing the interior of Central Africa, Zanzibar, conflicts in the Sudan and Eygpt.
Didnt expect to be so enthralled by this.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the companion to Moorehead’s “The Blue Nile”, and it is another very well written book. Moorehead concentrates on the search for the source of the White Nile in Central Africa, and concentrates on the 19th century explorers who endured significant hardships to accomplish this feat. This was an incredibly interesting and exciting read; Moorehead gives notes on each chapter that include a bibliography centered on the topic of the chapter.

The book is divided into four sections; the first section, The Exploration, details Richard Burton’s trip into Central Africa in the 1850’s, and the first sight of Lake Victoria. The second and third sections are dominated by Charles Gordon and his efforts to govern the Sudan, and his eventual death in Khartoum. The last section details how the torch was passed from explorers financed by missionary and anti-slavery societies, to governments seeking spheres of influence and profit. Along the way, Moorehead examines the efforts of David Livingstone, Stanley and other explorers who had a role in opening up Central Africa. He also analyzes the impact of the actions of these men on the tribes and the Arab slavers, and the consequences of these actions. The connecting thread throughout the narrative is the devastating scourge of slavery.

Moorehead’s writing makes this book a true joy to read, and very hard to put down. He is very descriptive in writing about the landscape and the environment of the areas in which the explorers travelled. In describing life at one of the Egyptian outposts in the extreme southern Sudan, Moorehead writes that,

“…Central Africa, like any other tropical place, had its own torpid methods of enhancing life. It was always possible that the tribesmen might attack. The brilliant birds and the wild animals were always about them…The soldiers fished for the Nile perch and the tilapa, they brewed their native beer…. It was an intimate, organized, ant-heap sort of life, and at least it provided security where there had been nothing but uncertainty and savagery before.” (p. 195)

Moorehead gives a tight, comprehensive summary of Gordon’s career with the Khedive of Egypt, and his narrative on the siege of Khartoum lifts the event out of the stream of Sudanese history,

“There is a fated quality about the events of the next six months, an air of pure and certain tragedy that lifts the story out of time and space so that it becomes part of a permanent tradition of human courage and human helplessness. It can be repeated just as Shakespearean tragedy can be repeated, and it never alters. The values remain the same in every age, and the principal characters are instantly recognizable… Wolseley coming up the Nile with his soldiers, Gordon waiting and watching on the palace roof in Khartoum and the Mahdi with his warriors encamped in the desert outside the town—[each] behaves precisely as he is destined to do, and it is wonderfully dramatic that these three men, who were perfectly incapable of understanding one another, should have been thrust together in such desperate circumstances and in such an outlandish corner of the world. Each man is the victim of forces which are stronger than himself.” (p.261-262)

Moorehead begins to close the story by detailing the legacy of Livingstone and Gordon, two significant anti-slavery forces in the opening up of the Nile and Central Africa, which threatened to become farce. This legacy is the “rescue” of Emin Pasha, one of Gordon’s governors, by Henry Stanley, the man who “found” Livingstone. It is after this sad episode that the European powers began their scramble for the region, and finally became serious about ending slavery, although it continued in the Sudan on a fairly significant scale until the 1920’s.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 5 out of 5]

To convey the restless compulsions that motivated the British explorers of Africa in the second half of the 19th century is perhaps impossible. The relentless need for glory and adventure, the overweening egoism, the importance given to carving out a place in history, seem to belong to another era. Assessing the motives of David Livingston (1813-1873), Moorehead adds: “Then too, one must remember how complete and steady men's convictions were in Victorian times. The doubts and uncertainties that have overtaken life in the twentieth century through two world wars and a plethora of political and scientific inventions, were unthinkable then.” (p.107-108)

The explicit motive, as irresistible as the voice of a siren, was discovering the source of the White Nile. The question had been broached as long ago as 460 B.C. by Herodotus, and speculations were tinged with romantic and mythic qualities, encouraging these hardened explorers to cast themselves as heroes on a predestined quest. For all of his missionary zeal, Moorehead says of Livingston that he “was fascinated by Herodotus's description of the Nile springing from fountains of bottomless depth at the foot of high mountains somewhere in the centre of Africa. In reality this last journey of Livingston's was a half mystical attempt to rediscover the fountains, to find unity with the past, a divine pattern in the geography of the river.” (p.109) Of Richard Burton (1821-1890) he says: “Above all else he was a romantic and an Arabist; he belongs decidedly to that small perennial group of English men and women who are born with something lacking in their lives: a hunger, a nostalgia, that can be set at rest only in the deserts of the East.” (p.14)

The origin of the Nile is (spoiler alert!!) Lake Victoria. However, in 1856 when Burton and John Speke (1827-1864) set off from Zanzibar, Africa was truly the “Dark Continent.” The source could not be traversed by simply sailing up the Nile. The waterway was blocked by a huge vegetation-clogged marsh called the Sudd, as well as a number of cataracts. The only option was to proceed by land in hopes of connecting with the river and tracings its course north and south. In 1858 Speke, proceeding north from Kazeh (Tabora) while Burton was recovering from yet another bout of debilitating malaria, stumbled onto a vast lake he named Lake Victoria. Awestruck, he intuited that surely this was the source of the Nile.

What Speke lacked was proof, and Burton had his own theory. He believed the source was farther to the west, that the Rusiz River flowed north out of Lake Tanganyika and emptied into the Lŭta Nzigé (Lake Albert). He maintained that a river flowed north from Lake Albert to Gondokoro and that this river was the Nile.

In 1860 Speke mounted a new expedition, this time with James Grant (1827-1892) to prove his theory. They returned in 1863 with detailed journals of their explorations along the northwest bank of Lake Victoria and their observations regarding three tribal chieftainships in the area: the Karagwe, the Buganda, and the Bunyoro, but without the sought-after proof.

Meanwhile, in 1862 Samuel Baker (1821-1893) and his wife Florence Baker, née (Szász), on the pretext of finding/rescuing Speke and Grant, organized a new expedition in search of the Nile's source. The Bakers actually encountered Speke and Grant at Gondokoro where Speke generously provided them with his maps. The Baker expedition reached Lake Albert and explored its circumference before returning to Gondokoro in February of 1865, but without the conclusive proof of the Nile's source. Although now less well-known than other explorers of his time, Baker holds a significant place in history, Moorehead asserts. “He had imported something quite new into the Central African scene; he had made it comprehensible. He formed a kind of bridge between the original myths and legends and the reality of what was actually to be found in the country.” (p.103)

Henry Stanley (1841-1904) is most widely known today as the rescuer of Dr. Livingston. Livingston, however, was merely the latest “scoop” for Stanley, who had been given a list of assignments in 1869 by his editor. Two years later he finally met Livingston and became intrigued by the puzzle of the Nile’s source. In 1874 he mounted a new expedition and set out from Zanzibar with three goals: to explore the complete perimeter of Lake Victoria, to test Burton’s theory by doing the same for Lake Tanganyika, and to test Livingston’s ideas by sailing down the Lualaba River. He would find that the river flowed into the Congo River which emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. He returned to Zanzibar in 1877, having provided the conclusive proof that Speke had been right from the start. This marks the conclusion of the first third of Moorhead’s book, a section he has entitled “The Exploration.”

Parts 2, 3 and 4 deal with the political upheavals that rocked Egypt, Zanzibar and the Sudan ending with the partition of Africa among Great Britain, Germany, France and Belgium. It covers a collision of interests and political ambivalence that would chronicle the success of The Mahdi (1843-1885) and the death of Charles Gordon (1833-1885). It is a story of men caught up in volatile and violent forces which had been brewing from the start of the century and ultimately exploded.

Gordon seemed to be speaking with uncanny prescience when he warned in an interview of a kind of Muslim domino theory in the Sudan: “[The danger] arises from the influence which the spectacle of a conquering Mohammedan power, established close to your [Egypt’s] frontier, will exercise upon the population which you govern. In all the cities in Egypt it will be felt that what Mahdi has done they may do….the success of the Mahdi has already excited dangerous fermentation in Arabia and Syria.” (p.238)

At the end of it all, Moorehead reflects on the situation at the turn of the century. There had been huge plagues killing enormous populations and their livestock. “For many hundreds of miles the banks of the White Nile were a desolation. In the light of this one was permitted to wonder whether the price for civilization was not too high. ‘The Nile-land of today…,’ Harry Johnson wrote at the turn of the century, ‘is much of it in sad contrast with the condition during Sir Samuel Baker’s government of the Sudan, and even during the silver age of the Emin …It is sad to think that the people were possibly happier [then].’” (p.384)

Moorehead has written a sprawling book, and no summary can do it justice. He attempts to capture the sights and sounds and smells as Burton or Baker must have experienced them. He has visited many of the locales including Zanzibar where a horrific slave market once stood, now the site of an Anglican cathedral. He attempts to capture the complex mindset of not just the European characters, but of the Arabs and tribal chieftains that influenced the course of history. He immerses us in a zeitgeist completely foreign to modern sensibilities.

I read the Harper & Row paperback edition which was published in 1960. This was a beautiful book with ample margins and which, unlike some recent paperbacks I have read, opened flat (one such book left me with sore arms while trying to hold it open to read). There is an excellent index, and maps showing the routes of the various expeditions. This was not an easy book to read, but the effort was certainly worthwhile.

NOTES:
Two supplementary maps that I found helpful:
https://www.britishempire.co.uk/image...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/M...

[Mark Seemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of the White Nile, from the first European attempts to discover its source, to the battle of Omdurman in 1898.

I received this book as a hand-me-down, and read it on the policy that while I would never have thought to acquire it myself, it might get me out of a reading rut. Africa isn't a topic that particularly interests me, though, but the books is well enough written to make for decent reading.

It's hardly perfect, though. There's an annoying tendency to foreshadow events that then never really materialises in any satisfactory way. As an example, in the first chapter Moorehead writes:

"Burton himself preferred to place his faith in Warburg's Drops, [...] and in this he made an error."

We never hear explicitly about those drops again, so the foreshadowing doesn't work as a literary device, but that Borton got malaria is clear.

There's too many loose ends like that, and too many people who get a cursory introduction early, then don't appear for the next fifty pages, whereafter they reappear as important characters, and you're left wondering who exactly they are.

The book could also have benefitted from up-to-date maps of the regions in question. There are maps, but they show how the contemporary explorers thought the geography was laid out - not like it actually is.

But I admit that somehow, Khartoum rhymes with adventure.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

They say history is written by the victors, but there is a subset of histories that at are written when the winning side is in decline. These still are drenched with the winning side’s point of view and they often show a nostalgia for the past glory days, when hard men faced hard tasks and triumphed over various adversities. But these histories can be clear eyed about the flaws of their heroes, and cognizant of the grifters that come in the wake of explorers and soldiers.

This is a good example of the genre, as it was written in 1960, when Africa was regaining its independence. The book takes as it’s text the discovery of the source of the Nile, and how Great Britain took over the Sudan and Uganda, chased out the slave traders, and beat back insurgent Muslims. If you like books or movies like The Four Feathers or Gunga Din, you will like this history of English colonialism triumphant. If you see England’s colonial history as problematic, this is worthwhile as a well written travelogue and the best possible expression of a now outdated point of view.