Speke

speek, John Hanning (1827-1864), an African explorer. He was a native of Somersetshire, England. In 1844 he obtained a commission in the British army in India. He acquired a reputation not only as an officer, but as a huntsman and naturalist. As often as he could obtain a furlough, he spent it in making expeditions into the Himalayas and across the frontier into Egypt. In 1854 he was a member of an exploring expedition in Somaliland, south of Abyssinia. Three years later he undertook a second exploration in the course of which he discovered Lake Victoria Nyanza. In 1863 he revisited this lake and, starting from its outlet, traced the Nile northward. Captain Speke is known among geographers as having first given to the world a trustworthy knowledge of the sources of the Nile. After enduring no end of hardship in Africa and encountering danger in every form from natives and wild animals, he was killed at home in England by the accidental discharge of a fowlingpiece while crossing a fence. His principal book is a Journal of the Discovery of the Nile, published in 1863 in two volumes. See Nyanza; Nile