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The Lake Regions of Central Africa #1-2
The Source of the Nile
Burton’s account of exploring central Africa in search of the Source of the Nile. He was accompanied by John Hanning Speke, and the two had a difficlt relationship which remained unresolved on Speke’s death in a shooting accident. Burton describes the geography and the people they encountered.
604 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1860
4 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Richard Francis Burton
1,580 books245 followersCaptain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.
Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights (also commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after Andrew Lang's adaptation), bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel, falconry, fencing, sexual practices, and ethnography. A unique feature of his books is the copious footnotes and appendices containing remarkable observations and unexpurgated information.
He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition guided by the locals and was the first European to see Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Santos, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886.
Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights (also commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after Andrew Lang's adaptation), bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel, falconry, fencing, sexual practices, and ethnography. A unique feature of his books is the copious footnotes and appendices containing remarkable observations and unexpurgated information.
He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition guided by the locals and was the first European to see Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Santos, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 4, 2025
This is an account of the 1857-9 expedition to the great lakes in central Africa. The account is written by Richard Burton and he was accompanied by John Hanning Speke. The two famously fell out and in Burton’s account he refuses to use Speke’s name and refers to him as “my companion”
Burton was an interesting character. He was multi-lingual and translated The Perfumed and the Kama Sutra, He was also (allegedly) the first European to travel (in disguise) to Mecca. He had an army career in India and pretty much became an explorer and was very widely travelled. In later life he joined the diplomatic service.
To be honest this is a pretty tedious read with lots of description and detail that might be considered superfluous. Burton also spends a good deal of time complaining about the various servants, hired helps and porters that went along. Some of them were slaves. The route the party took was along the main trading route used by Arab caravans and slave traders from the central regions to the coast at Zanzibar. Burton and Speke may have felt they were intrepid explorers but it was a route traders had been using for centuries.
I don’t want to spend too much time on this. It is detailed and boring, but also the attitudes are as bad as you might imagine:
“Like the generality of barbarous races, The East African are wilful, headstrong, and undisciplinable: in point of stubbornness and restiveness they resemble the lower animals”
There is plenty more like this. After a while it becomes clear from Burton’s descriptions that the lighter the skin, the more civilised Burton finds them.
Don’t waste your time on this.
Burton was an interesting character. He was multi-lingual and translated The Perfumed and the Kama Sutra, He was also (allegedly) the first European to travel (in disguise) to Mecca. He had an army career in India and pretty much became an explorer and was very widely travelled. In later life he joined the diplomatic service.
To be honest this is a pretty tedious read with lots of description and detail that might be considered superfluous. Burton also spends a good deal of time complaining about the various servants, hired helps and porters that went along. Some of them were slaves. The route the party took was along the main trading route used by Arab caravans and slave traders from the central regions to the coast at Zanzibar. Burton and Speke may have felt they were intrepid explorers but it was a route traders had been using for centuries.
I don’t want to spend too much time on this. It is detailed and boring, but also the attitudes are as bad as you might imagine:
“Like the generality of barbarous races, The East African are wilful, headstrong, and undisciplinable: in point of stubbornness and restiveness they resemble the lower animals”
There is plenty more like this. After a while it becomes clear from Burton’s descriptions that the lighter the skin, the more civilised Burton finds them.
Don’t waste your time on this.
December 23, 2016
whew... what an amazing book - by R Burton about his experiences up the Nile around 1850's. All 604 pages exuded information even though some of it was a bit tedious I still would rate this book highly and a must to read if you are interested in this type of read!
Now onto a lighter read I think,
regards
Ruth Anne Caukwell
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Now onto a lighter read I think,
regards
Ruth Anne Caukwell
My first inspirational book - 'Musings of a Blogger - Inspirational Thoughts for Your Life's Journey', (Published in 2016) is available through Balboa Press:-
http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Prod...
and Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Anne-Cauk...
I also write an inspirational blog – RuAnCa http://ruanca.blogspot.co.nz
Member of the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA): http://authors.org.nz/
and have the following:-
My webpage – http://ruanca.caukwell.com/
My twitter - https://twitter.com/ruancaRuth
My You Tube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPw_...
My Tumblr page - http://ruanca.tumblr.com/
My inspirational facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/ruthannecauk...
My Gmail - https://plus.google.com/+RuthCaukwell...
My LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-cauk...
My Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ruancaruth/
World Wide Branding – VIP member - http://www.worldwidebranding.com/Ruth...
Top Female Executives, Professionals & Entrepreneurs
http://topfemaleexecutives.com/2016/0...
February 6, 2022
To say this was a slog of a read is an understatement. Burton's overly florid prose and grotesquely long run-on sentences made for mind-numbing reading at times. I would recommend to any reader that he/she instead pursue a biography of Burton, who certainly lived one of the most fascinating lives of anyone to walk the earth. His own writing, however, I can not recommend. This is his travelogue from the isle of Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika in central Africa. His bitter dispute with his travel companion, John Speke (who would return to Africa to pursue the discovery of the source of the Nile River and write his own book), is reflected in the fact that Burton seldom mentions Speke by name throughout the book or has anything good to say about him. The majority of the book consists of stories of desertion and revolt of his porters and the extortion of goods he must endure at each native village along his path. Burton's disdain for the African natives is palpable on each page of the text, so those who are easily offended by such racism (which was typical for the time period) should further avoid reading his book. Even the map included with the book was extremely difficult to read.
November 17, 2015
Tediously dull. OK a significant historical epic but too much detail and told in a boring way.
May 28, 2018
Some thoughts on The Lake Regions of Central Africa: https://behindthehedge.wordpress.com/...
February 19, 2024
Burton was undoubtedly a great man but he is not at his best here. This was his last major expedition and he obviously didn’t enjoy it. He did not succeed in his major geographical objectives, he got on badly with his fellow explorer John Speke, his health broke down under the severe conditions, and he experienced almost constant horror and betrayal on every hand.
Sometimes he can be funny – but of course, given the circumstances, it is often a dark humour. Speke, asking the natives about the extent of the as yet undiscovered (by Europeans) body of water later known as Lake Victoria, is told “nobody knows how big it is, but it probably extends to the end of the world.” Burton comments (we can hear his sarcasm):“Speke was strongly impressed by this valuable statistical information.” There is a lot of this kind of thing – it is sometimes amusing, but can also be cruel and unfair.
A lot of this is description of the immensely frustrating and constant robberies, betrayals and desertions by Burton’s porters. After a while this becomes almost as tedious to read about as it must have been to endure. The description of the different peoples encountered along the way sometimes caused my interest to flag a little too. Burton apologises: “The prolixity of these wearisome details..are necessary parts of a picture of manners and customs in Central Africa.”
Burton isn’t rude about everyone he meets – he likes the Omani Arabs, and writes approvingly of “the open handed hospitality and hearty good will of this truly noble race.” And yet – these people were effectively colonial exploiters from the Arabian peninsula, whose espousal of the slave trade caused untold human misery. The constancy of slavery – which Islamic Arabs pursued with vigour in Africa for a thousand years – incurs Burton’s disgust. One of the most appalling incidents is when a guide has to leave behind a recently purchased African slave girl because the journey has lamed her. To make sure no one else gets her, he cuts off her head. Burton’s helplessness and horror in the face of this kind of thing is clear.
Burton was a campaigner against slavery and is in no doubt that it was the cause of the moral degradation of everyone who is involved in it – traders as well as slaves. This is important to note because it shows that Burton is not racist in the sense that he thinks moral degradation is a consequence of inherent racial characterstics. Where there is no slavery, there is no degradation – as in South Africa, which Muslim slave traders didn’t corrupt.
I read the appendices and was disappointed by how boring they were. I looked in vain for juicy details of sexual customs (Burton complained that his publishers wouldn’t let him describe them, even if he wrote about them in Latin, as he had done in previous works). Appendix I is a very dry account of commerce, weights and measures etc – although it does have an intriguingly early and pre-Marxist use of the term “capitalism”. Appendix II preserves the incredibly rude and short sighted official response to Burton’s careful work. The stupidity of British officialdom was as bad then as it is now. How on earth did we ever have such an Empire? I was reminded of a highly talented young army officer I once knew, fresh out of Oxford, a brilliant Arabic scholar and an expert on the languages, history and culture of the whole of the Middle East (as well as being convivial company and well born). At that time – the 1990’s – we were desperately short of such people. The Ministry of Defence posted him to Germany where he had intelligence duties focussed on Eastern Europe – where he had no interest and little knowledge. Plus ça change…
Sometimes he can be funny – but of course, given the circumstances, it is often a dark humour. Speke, asking the natives about the extent of the as yet undiscovered (by Europeans) body of water later known as Lake Victoria, is told “nobody knows how big it is, but it probably extends to the end of the world.” Burton comments (we can hear his sarcasm):“Speke was strongly impressed by this valuable statistical information.” There is a lot of this kind of thing – it is sometimes amusing, but can also be cruel and unfair.
A lot of this is description of the immensely frustrating and constant robberies, betrayals and desertions by Burton’s porters. After a while this becomes almost as tedious to read about as it must have been to endure. The description of the different peoples encountered along the way sometimes caused my interest to flag a little too. Burton apologises: “The prolixity of these wearisome details..are necessary parts of a picture of manners and customs in Central Africa.”
Burton isn’t rude about everyone he meets – he likes the Omani Arabs, and writes approvingly of “the open handed hospitality and hearty good will of this truly noble race.” And yet – these people were effectively colonial exploiters from the Arabian peninsula, whose espousal of the slave trade caused untold human misery. The constancy of slavery – which Islamic Arabs pursued with vigour in Africa for a thousand years – incurs Burton’s disgust. One of the most appalling incidents is when a guide has to leave behind a recently purchased African slave girl because the journey has lamed her. To make sure no one else gets her, he cuts off her head. Burton’s helplessness and horror in the face of this kind of thing is clear.
Burton was a campaigner against slavery and is in no doubt that it was the cause of the moral degradation of everyone who is involved in it – traders as well as slaves. This is important to note because it shows that Burton is not racist in the sense that he thinks moral degradation is a consequence of inherent racial characterstics. Where there is no slavery, there is no degradation – as in South Africa, which Muslim slave traders didn’t corrupt.
I read the appendices and was disappointed by how boring they were. I looked in vain for juicy details of sexual customs (Burton complained that his publishers wouldn’t let him describe them, even if he wrote about them in Latin, as he had done in previous works). Appendix I is a very dry account of commerce, weights and measures etc – although it does have an intriguingly early and pre-Marxist use of the term “capitalism”. Appendix II preserves the incredibly rude and short sighted official response to Burton’s careful work. The stupidity of British officialdom was as bad then as it is now. How on earth did we ever have such an Empire? I was reminded of a highly talented young army officer I once knew, fresh out of Oxford, a brilliant Arabic scholar and an expert on the languages, history and culture of the whole of the Middle East (as well as being convivial company and well born). At that time – the 1990’s – we were desperately short of such people. The Ministry of Defence posted him to Germany where he had intelligence duties focussed on Eastern Europe – where he had no interest and little knowledge. Plus ça change…
May 4, 2023
This was such a pain to read. This book is more about his frustrations of his deserting porters (and there ALOT) and his disdain for everything African. I accept his racism and feelings of superiority, as it was the norm for his time, but oh my goodness this book has almost nothing to do with his primary goal of finding the source of the Nile and almost everything to do with how uncivilised he describes the natives are. If you’re going to title your book that, then it would’ve been appropriate content! His descriptions of his surroundings was so boring and didn’t do anything for the reader to imagine what he was observing, his feelings and emotions are of a rambling old man whose just feeling inconvenienced by his chosen surroundings. I just felt totally cheated into thinking that this book would be about his journey and discovery of the source of the Nile, or at least, his journey and observations of going thru the African jungle at that time, but all I read was how he was always disappointed by his porters, how he always was paying exorbitant extortions to local natives, and how inconvenient his ‘companion’ was falling sick throughout the book. 0/10 for me.
April 9, 2024
Geography. The armpit of school education. Those two weekly hours universally spent on doing your maths homework. Who knew it could be so interesting?
Burton gives an impressively detailed and fascinating account of his expedition to Africa. He discusses climate, geography, demography, food, local customs, the horrible realities of tribes being enslaved by stronger, more expansive tribes; even technical details of the expedition’s weaponry and equipment.
Along the way, he refers to you as “gentle reader,” uses the term “mammary glands,” lest your delicate sensitivity should be offended by the fact that he’s talking about breasts; in short, he behaves in every conceivable manner as befits a gentleman and a scientist.
I’ll take it. There are few things equally enjoyable in life as listening to a story told by a man of distinction.
Burton gives an impressively detailed and fascinating account of his expedition to Africa. He discusses climate, geography, demography, food, local customs, the horrible realities of tribes being enslaved by stronger, more expansive tribes; even technical details of the expedition’s weaponry and equipment.
Along the way, he refers to you as “gentle reader,” uses the term “mammary glands,” lest your delicate sensitivity should be offended by the fact that he’s talking about breasts; in short, he behaves in every conceivable manner as befits a gentleman and a scientist.
I’ll take it. There are few things equally enjoyable in life as listening to a story told by a man of distinction.
July 5, 2025
Oy, what a painful classic.
Here are my spontaneous adjectives:
astounding hubris
self aggrandizement
narcissism
exhibitionist vocabulary
lack of accountability
shameless boastfulness
solipsism
untrustworthy narrator
It is, in short, intolerable, I lasted to page 205 before ceasing to torture myself.
I can understand that perhaps when it was published in 1821, there was thirst for information.
Now it's just awful cringe.
Here are my spontaneous adjectives:
astounding hubris
self aggrandizement
narcissism
exhibitionist vocabulary
lack of accountability
shameless boastfulness
solipsism
untrustworthy narrator
It is, in short, intolerable, I lasted to page 205 before ceasing to torture myself.
I can understand that perhaps when it was published in 1821, there was thirst for information.
Now it's just awful cringe.
January 27, 2018
It takes a bit of effort to get beyond the author's Victorian ideas about racial superiority. Interesting account of his journey to Lake Tanganyika in late 1850s.
Want to read
November 21, 2010--
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews