John Hanning Speke

John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and army officer who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria.

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons

• I profess accurately to describe naked Africa—Africa in those places where it has not received the slightest impulse, whether for good or evil, from European civilisation.
  • Introduction (p. xiii)

• To say a negro is incapable of instruction, is a mere absurdity; for those few boys who have been educated in our schools have proved themselves even quicker than our own at learning; whilst, amongst themselves, the deepness of their cunning and their power of repartee are quite surprising, and are especially shown in their proficiency for telling lies most appropriately in preference to truth, and with an off-handed manner that makes them most amusing.
  • Introduction (p. xiv)

• The prowling, restless elephant, ... though rarely seen, leaves indications of his nocturnal excursions in every wilderness, by wantonly knocking down the forest-trees. The morose rhinoceros, though less numerous, are found in every thick jungle. So is the savage buffalo, especially delighting in dark places, where he can wallow in the mud and slake his thirst without much trouble.
  • Introduction (p. xxiv)

• The gruff hippopotamus is ... found wherever there is water to float him; whilst the shy giraffe and zebra affect all open forests and plains where the grass is not too long; and antelopes, of great variety in species and habits, are found wherever man will let them alone and they can find water. The lion is, however, rarely heard — much more seldom seen. Hyenas are numerous, and thievishly inclined. Leopards, less common, are the terror of the villagers. Foxes are not numerous, but frighten the black traveller by their ill-omened bark.
  • Introduction (p. xxiv)

• [I]f I ever travel again, I shall trust to none but natives, as the climate of Africa is too trying to foreigners.
  • Ch. 1 (p. 11); Aug. 1860

• The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief.
  • Ch. 15 (p. 467); July 1862

• The children play
  At hide and seek
  About the monument
  To Speke.
  And why should the dead
  Explorer mind
  Who has nothing to seek
  And nothing to find?
  • Humbert Wolfe, "Speke". Kensington Gardens (London: Ernest Benn, [1924] 1927) p. 50

• Encyclopedic article on John Hanning Speke on Wikipedia