PREVIOUS GREAT CONTROVERSIES 289 



Burton came back to England on May 22, two weeks later than Speke. He 

 found the "ground cut from under his feet," says his biographer. Already 

 Speke was lecturing "vaingloriously" at Burlington House and writing articles 

 for Blackwood's Magazine. Burton lost no time in getting into the fight. He 

 vigorously championed his view that Tanganyika was the true Nile source. 

 The controversy was fairly under way. 



In i860 Speke set forth anew from England to prove the worth of his 

 contentions. W'ith him this time went Capt. James Augustus Grant, "a man 

 after Speke's own heart," described by another explorer, who knew him well, 

 as "one of the most loyal and charming creatures in the world." 



The two reached Lake Victoria Nyanza and made careful explorations of its 

 shores. In the course of these Grant broke down. Speke was compelled to 

 continue his investigations alone. On July 17, 1862, having followed the Nile 

 northward from Victoria Nyanza, he arrived at the first great cataract from 

 its source, which he called the Ripon Falls, after Lord de Grey and Ripon. 

 His theory was now practically proved to be correct. 



Picking up Grant again, Speke descended the Nile, but crossed it at Karuma 

 Falls to avoid the territory of Kamurasi, a local King, who had shown signs of 

 hostility. Though they did not know it, the two explorers were only fifty 

 miles from the junction of the Victoria Nyanza with the undiscovered Lake 

 Albert. If they had but kept to the river for only a few marches more they 

 would have found the latter lake, the second great source of the Nile. 



As it was, they arrived, on Feb. 15, 1863, at Gondokoro, the highest point 

 on the Nile to which explorers had arrived before them, and there found 

 Samuel Baker. Speke handed over to the latter all the notes that he had taken, 

 and by their aid Baker soon after discovered Lake Albert Nyanza. 



On his return from this momentous expedition the only reward received by 

 Speke from the British government was the permission to add to the sup- 

 porters of his coat-of-arms a hippopotamus and a crocodile. 



On his return to England Speke at once set about showing that he had 

 definitely settled the great question regarding the headwaters of the Nile. 

 Even those who admire him admit that his attitude toward Burton, though 

 never unfair, was hard and pitiless. On the Somaliland and Tanganyika expe- 

 ditions, he seems to have acquired a dislike for his famous companion from 

 which he never freed himself. Fresh attacks by Burton on Speke began to 

 thicken about four years after Speke'S return from his second expedition. Thejr 

 were heated enough, but lacked the younger officer's incisiveness. 



