Old Serpent Nile : A Journey to the Source

by Stanley Stewart

Late one night in Rome, Stanley Stewart found himself by Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, beneath the figure that represents the Nile. Its head was enveloped in a veil – an allusion to the fact that the sources of the Nile were then unknown. Seduced by this image of concealment and expectation, he resolved to travel the length of the Nile from mouth to source, from the moment of promise to the moment of revelation.

His journey, from the Nile Delta to the Mountains of the Moon, was arduous, colourful, funny and horrifying and sometimes wildly dangerous. Whether on a pilgrimage to desert monasteries, aboard a felucca sailing to the splendours of ancient Egypt, crossing the Nubian desert, meeting the victims of famine in Sudan or narrowly escaping the attentions of the Ugandan army, Stewart tells his story with warmth, wit and understanding.

At the heart of this book is the great river itself, constant, incredible, beguiling, the source of life and death to the millions along its banks. Evocative and compelling, Old Serpent Nile is in the finest tradition of travel writing.

Genres: Travel, Africa, Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Stanley Stewart FRSL is a writer. He is the author of three travel books: Old Serpent Nile, Frontiers of Heaven and In the Empire of Genghis Khan about journeys to the source of the Nile, through China to Xinjiang province, and across Mongolia by horse. The last two books both won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, in 1996 and 2001 respectively, making Stewart the only writer, with Jonathan Raban, to have won this prestigious award twice. He is a contributing editor at Conde Nast Traveller UK. His work appears in various periodicals including the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, and National Geographic Traveler, and has been included in numerous anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2008 he was named the Magazine Writer of the year. He was born in Ireland, grew up in Canada, and has spent most of his adult life in the UK.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest, I preferred his other book on China more; Stewart's a good writer, but this one seemed drier.

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and interesting. A good mix of history and travelogue. Short chapters were to the point and made for easy reading.

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short travel diary entries from the end to the source of the Nile. You get snippets of the characters he meets along the way. Not as strong as the longer chapters from his other two books but it’s still a good read, with smidgens of history, travel details and the people and current events during the time.