About the author:
\nCandice Millard \;is the author of the \;New York Ti mes \;bestsellers \;The River of Doubt \;and&nbs p\;Destiny of the Republic. Her book \;Hero of the Empire \;was named Amazon&rsquo\;s number one history book of 2016. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children. \; \;< /p>\n
In \;River of the Gods \;Candice
Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure\, set
against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers
. For millennia the location of the Nile River&rsquo\;s headwaters was shr
ouded in mystery. In the 19th century\, there was \;a frenzy of inter
est in ancient Egypt. At the same time\, European powers sent off waves of
explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe &ndash\; an
d extend their colonial empires.
\;
Richard Burton and John
Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the pr
ize for England. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages\, and was a decorated
soldier. He was also mercurial\, subtle\, and an iconoclastic atheist. Spe
ke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark\, p
assionate about hunting\, Burton&rsquo\;s opposite in temperament and beli
efs.
\;
From the start the two men clashed. They would endu
re tremendous hardships\, illness\, and constant setbacks. Two years in\,
deep in the African interior\, Burton became too sick to press on\, but Sp
eke did\, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christen
ed Lake Victoria. When they returned to England\, Speke rushed to take cre
dit\, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim\, and Speke launched a
nother expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies\,
with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton\, to Speke&rsquo\
;s great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate\, Speke shot hi
mself.
\;
Yet there was a third man on both expeditions\, h
is name obscured by imperial annals\, whose exploits were even more extrao
rdinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay\, who was enslaved and shipped from
his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him d
ied\, he made his way into the local Sultan&rsquo\;s army\, and eventually
traveled back to Africa\, where he used his resourcefulness\, linguistic
prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. \;Without Bombay
and men like him\, who led\, carried\, and protected the expedition\, nei
ther Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile\, or p
erhaps even survived.
Books will be available for purc
hase courtesy of Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry.
\;
\;
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