The Search for the NileEpisodes Guide

In the middle of the last century, at the height of Britain's imperial power, an unsolved mystery lay in the very heart of Africa, the mystery of the source of the Nile. It was a challenge that attracted a handful of extraordinary men; a challenge strong enough to reveal the best, and the worst, in all of them. Before long it was to become an obsession.

In 1856 Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke " arrived at the island of Zanzibar, the starting point of the first great journey into the heart of Africa.

To Burton 's fury, it was Speke who in 1859 set out once more for the interior of Africa with a new companion, Captain James Grant.

There is a time to leave the Dark Continent, and that is when it becomes an obsession. Madness comes from Africa.While Samuel Baker and his young wife Florence pressed on up the Nile itself, events in London began to move towards a great and terrible climax. Burton and Speke had not spoken a word to each other for six years. Now, they were both invited to Bath for a public confrontation.

It was not long before the Africans had their own name for Henry Stanley - Bula Matari - the breaker of rocks. A new force had arrived in Africa.Exactly 100 years ago the most famous meeting in the history of African exploration took place on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It proved to be a turning-point in the story of the Nile.

His expeditions were like a red-hot poker drawn across a blanket. With a dedicated ruthlessness, Henry Stanley set out to solve the problems surrounding the source of the Nile that had obsessed Victorian England for so long. Meanwhile Richard Burton 's wife Isabel prepared herself to commit one of the great literary crimes of the 19th century.