Hillary recorded the moment in his journal: “Yet I knew I would fly under it. I had to for my own satisfaction, just as many years before I had to stand on a twenty-five-foot board above a swimming pool until I had dived off.”
Hillary made it—barely. He was later shot down and killed in World War II. We only know of the achievement through the posthumous publication of his journals.
Or take the case of aviation pioneer Amy Johnson. In the 1920s, when flying was the domain of men, Johnson ignored naysayers and doubters to break into the boys’ club. The daughter of a fish merchant from northern England, she was enchanted by the barnstorming pilots who passed through their small village. In 1928, at age twenty-five, she quit her job as a typist and enrolled at a small flight school, performing secretarial work in exchange for tuition.
Johnson was by no means a natural pilot. Her instructors told her she had no aptitude for flying. She got hopelessly lost on her first solo flight. But Johnson ignored them, instead focusing on learning aircraft maintenance in addition to earning her wings. By December 1929 she had become the first female aircraft mechanic in England.
This might have been enough for someone less headstrong, but Johnson had a passion for flight. In May 1930, she bought a secondhand Gipsy Moth biplane, painted it green, gave it the moniker Jason, and then abruptly took off from Croydon Airfield. She had accumulated only seventy-five hours of flight time, her longest flight to date was just 147 miles long, and she knew little about navigation, and yet Johnson’s ambitious goal was nothing less than to fly from London, England, to Sydney, Australia. “The prospect did not frighten me, because I was so appallingly ignorant that I never realized in the least what I had taken on,” she later wrote.
It took Johnson two days to reach Istanbul. From there she set off alone over the deserts of Iraq and Iran, where she landed in a sandstorm. After using her suitcase as a wheel chock, she covered the entire aircraft in canvas and waited out the storm with a revolver in one hand, just in case of attack. The next day she reached Baghdad. The day after that, Oman.
Johnson landed in Karachi, Pakistan, the next day. All told, she had been traveling for just less than a week. It dawned on her that she might actually break the London-to-Sydney speed record of fifteen days, set just two years earlier. At the pace she was flying, Johnson estimated she would break that mark by almost three days.
Setting out from Karachi, Johnson ran out of fuel over the town of Jhansi. She glided to a landing on the parade ground of a British military post, scattering the marching soldiers. From there it was on to Calcutta and Rangoon, where she flew into the teeth of a monsoon and nearly crashed. Flying between Bangkok and Singapore, she got hopelessly lost and fell behind the record pace. However, news of her journey was following Johnson. As she banked to land in Singapore, she was astounded to see thousands of the colony’s residents awaiting her arrival.
Two days later, Johnson landed Jason in Sydney. Telegrams from the king and queen of England, Charles Lindbergh, and other dignitaries soon arrived. By the time she sailed home to England, Johnson was known far and wide as the “Aeroplane Girl.”
Amy Johnson went on to break numerous distance records. Amelia Earhart became a close friend, and Johnson was devastated when her American counterpart disappeared. When World War II broke out, Johnson’s application to join the Royal Air Force was rejected. Instead, she was put to work ferrying new aircraft from their factories to various squadrons. She died on January 5, 1941, flying the mail, when her plane crashed into the Thames. Her body was never retrieved.
6
Even though Johnson and Hillary both died while flying, and their actual “discoveries” appear minimal on the surface, their experiences contributed to the continuum of acquired aviation knowledge that eventually landed men on the moon—and got them home againVIII—thus concluding a broader arc of venturing out into the unknown that began with Brendan.
But if aviation often symbolizes the spirit of independence, it’s worth noting that one epoch of exploration history twines the independence of the explorers with the character of the budding nation itself. In fact, it can be argued that there would be no United States of America without a citizenry begun by exploration, expanded by exploration, and almost completely defined by an independent spirit that demanded exploration.
There has never been another nation in history that literally encouraged its people to gather their belongings, leave their homes and families, and then tramp thousands of miles across a hostile and rugged wilderness to find a better life. What happened in America between 1804 (the journey of Lewis and Clark that opened the American frontier) and 1893 (when it was formally decreed that the frontier was closed) is unparalleled. It would be as if a large percentage of Great Britain’s population up and walked to Russia, there to take over the country, build a new life, and never return home.IX
The exploration of North America began in earnest with Columbus’s discovery of the New World in 1492, and continued until that declaration that the frontier was closed more than four hundred years later. This is one of the most well-known but misunderstood periods in the history of exploration. It is frequently viewed in nationalist terms (the exploration of the US, say, as opposed to the entire continent. Charting Canada was no less arduous nor epic), but it’s important to note that the works of dozens of explorers complemented one another, leading to a thorough understanding of North America—Boone, Crockett, Lewis and Clark, Frémont, and many more. Even Teddy Roosevelt, whose “man in the arena” speech opens this chapter as a verbal embodiment of independence, makes an appearance—albeit in South America. The former president and rookie explorer’s dreadful 1913–14 journey down Brazil’s Rio da Duvida—River of Doubt—traced the path of the last great uncharted river in the Americas. Roosevelt’s account of the journey was so farfetched that he was forced to publicly defend his findings, which he did successfully.
The same would ultimately be true of Burton and Speke.
On August 25, less than three weeks after beginning his return journey, Speke arrived at Burton’s temporary residence in Kazeh “in a state of high spirits and gratification.” It was morning. Burton was about to eat breakfast. Speke described the enormity of Victoria Nyanza, but for the majority of the meal danced around the subject of it being The Source. However, at the end of breakfast Speke put forth his theory. He also proposed that they march back to the lake and sail from one side to the other to find the Nile’s headwaters. “We had scarcely breakfasted,” Burton wrote, “before he announced to me the startling fact that he had discovered the sources of the Nile. The fortunate discoverer’s conviction was strong, but his reasoning was weak.”
To say that Speke’s announcement did not go over well is a gross understatement. Burton “expressed regret that he did not accompany me,” Speke later wrote. “I felt certain in my mind I had discovered the source of the Nile. This he naturally objected to, even after hearing all my reasons for saying so.”
Even as Burton struggled to reconcile whether Speke might be right, he was also coming to the realization that he would be upstaged if this was the case. The entire journey would be viewed through the prism of Speke’s heroic solo journey to Victoria Nyanza. Never before had Burton been seen as anything less than the daring sparkplug of adventure. He had fully expected to receive the same sort of welcome upon arriving in London with news about Lake Tanganyika. Now that was not to be. Burton began looking for ways to discredit his subordinate. “Although I had pursued my journey under great provocations from time to time, I never realized what an injury I had done the expedition publicly, as well as myself, by not traveling alone, or with Arab companions, or at least with a less crooked-minded, cantankerous English,” Burton later wrote.
By the time they began their journey back to Zanzibar one month later, Burton and Speke were barely talking to one another. And when they did, the topic of the two lakes and the Nile River was not discusse
d.
The trek seemed interminable. Speke made the divide worse when he contracted an unspecified nerve disease that caused burning sensations in his torso, vicious nightmares, muscle spasms, and rage-filled delirium. In one of these half-crazed moments, Speke railed about the many ways that Burton had publicly defamed his character. Burton perceived this as an attempt by Speke to take over as expedition leader, rather than accepting that his companion was half out of his mind.
On March 4, 1859, five long months after leaving Kazeh, Burton and Speke reached Zanzibar. From there they caught a clipper ship named Dragon of Salem for Aden. On April 19, the HMS Furious arrived in port to refill her coal supplies. From there, she would travel up the Red Sea to the Suez.X Speke accepted an offer to continue his journey home aboard Furious. Burton did not, explaining that he was in no hurry to return.
It was a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life.
7
So it was that Jack Speke reached London and the Royal Geographical Society on May 8. Dick Burton arrived on May 21, to what could only have been a most horrific homecoming. Within a day of his return, Speke had been invited to the monthly meeting of the RGS. At the time, their headquarters were at Whitehall Place, mere blocks from Speke’s hotel in Piccadilly. Thanks to the occasional letter from Africa, the RGS was well aware that Speke had been responsible for the expedition’s cartography, owing to his ingenious use of lunar sighting to establish longitude.
On May 9, Speke met privately with Sir Roderick Murchison and showed his map of Victoria Nyanza. Not only did Murchison eagerly endorse Speke’s view that this was the source, he immediately demanded that Speke return to Africa and lead another expedition to the lake—this time with Speke himself in command. Speke’s enthusiastic acceptance, despite the fact that he had just returned from three years of living hell, immediately rekindled the curiosity that began the exploration cycle all over again.
By the time Burton’s ship was docking at Southampton, his exploration career had already been eclipsed. “I reached London on May 21st,” he lamented, “and found that everything had been done for, or rather against, me.”
There was no more glory to be had, for that was all being lavished upon Speke. The man six years Burton’s junior was not only the toast of the exploration world, but all of London as well.
Burton’s physical appearance didn’t help matters a bit. He was, in the words of his beloved Isabel, “a mere skeleton, with brown yellow skin hanging in bags, his eyes protruding, and his lips drawn away from his teeth.”
Small wonder that the RGS gave scant consideration to a proposal by Burton that he lead this second expedition into Africa.
Over the next year, the divide between Burton and Speke grew until there was no hope for reconciliation. Petty squabbles about the publication of Speke’s journals and the settling of the expedition’s finances entered into the equation. By April 1860 it was clear that the two men would never again be on speaking terms. This didn’t stop Speke from making one last effort to bridge the divide. “My dear Burton,” he wrote in a letter on the eve of his return to Africa, “I cannot leave England addressing you so coldly as you have hitherto been responding.”
Burton scribbled this reply in pencil on the letter’s margins: “Any other tone would be distasteful to me.”
On April 27, 1860, Jack Speke boarded the British warship HMS Forte in Southampton, bound for Zanzibar. His troubles with Burton were set aside, at least for the next few years, replaced by the enormity of what he was about to attempt. The plan was for Speke and his new traveling companion James Grant to literally follow the Nile from source to sea; from Victoria Nyanza to the Mediterranean. It would be the longest and most ambitious expedition in the history of African exploration.
And, much to Dick Burton’s chagrin, it would be a rousing success.
8
It is somewhat mind-boggling to step back and analyze the outrageousness of Speke’s plan. The distance was almost 5,000 miles. He would once again endure the malaria and other diseases that had nearly killed him. Those dangers he had already experienced would be revisited, with a host of new life-threatening encounters sure to join that list as he made his way into the unknown regions of the Nile basin, including having to make his way across the legendary Sudd. The achievement had never been accomplished in the entire history of man, and on the surface was downright impossible.
However, if Speke ever drew up what would today be called a bucket list, walking the length of the Nile River would have been at the very top. Having seen its source, he now needed to revel in the rest of it. His life would not be complete until he did so. Speke’s name was now synonymous with the Nile, and his emotional connection to the river surpassed even that to the Victoria Nyanza.
What is most remarkable is not that Speke undertook that journey, nor that he did so within a year of his horrendous adventure with Burton. What stands out most vividly is that Speke never outwardly expressed a moment of fear. There is nothing in his journals that talks to the darkness or doubt that would course through most men.
But surely it existed, just as it exists in all of us before a great challenge. Perhaps he woke up in the middle of the night, thinking of the tribe that sliced off the genitals and arms of the French lieutenant Maizan while he was still alive. Maybe, standing alone on the deck of Forte as Southampton receded into the distance, he wondered if he would ever again see England. If he thought of death, did Speke wonder if his body might receive a proper burial? Or would it be left to rot on an anonymous African plain, the flesh and muscles ripped from his bones by lions and carrion birds before hyenas finished the job by eating the bones themselves and digesting them in those special stomach acids of theirs, ensuring that there would be nothing left to find of John Hanning Speke should someone ever come looking.
That certainly wasn’t the sort of thing the average Englishman ever had to ponder. So such a thought would be quite rational.
It’s not that Speke didn’t experience fear. He wouldn’t be human if the occasional moment of doubt or terror didn’t flood his brain. It’s just that he was quietly and incredibly self-disciplined about his behavior when such moments arose.
* * *
I. So named because they followed the legendary path of Herodotus, starting at the Mediterranean and becoming the first adventurers to travel backward up the river.
II. A remote and nearly prehistoric mountainous rain forest that is home to 8 types of primate and 280 bird species—including rarities such as the Congo bay owl and African green broadbill, whose lineage dates back to such an early period in natural history that one guidebook refers to them as “living fossils.”
III. Columbus’s explorations were confined to Cuba, the Bahamas, the Central American coast, South America, and the islands of the Caribbean.
IV. Born in the Ethiopian highlands, near Lake Tana, where it is originally known as the Abbai River.
V. And second largest in the world. North America’s Lake Superior is the biggest.
VI. North to south: Albert, Edward, Kivu, Tanganyika, Rukwa, Malawi.
VII. I was lucky enough to be a passenger on that flight. There were refueling stops in Toulouse, Dubai, Bangkok, Guam, Honolulu, and Acapulco. A seven-course meal was served for each leg of the flight, complete with wine pairings. The chant from the other passengers as we finally landed once again in New York was “one more lap.”
VIII. Space, as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk so blithely put it, is the final frontier. Since the dawn of time, man has gazed up at the nighttime sky and dreamed of touching the moon. On July 21, 1969, less than three decades after the first crude rockets were launched against England during the Battle of Britain, man used that same transportation to set foot on the lunar surface. Neil Armstrong called it his “giant leap for mankind,” though he said it somewhat tongue in cheek. Armstrong wa
s afraid the moon’s soil might be thin silt, into which he would sink up to his knees. As he made the leap, he held on to the Apollo spacecraft’s lunar module, just to make sure he didn’t fall over.
Space not only ended the era of exploration, it also ended the public’s fascination with explorers. I have written before that explorers were the rock stars of their eras, individuals so famous they were often mobbed in the streets. As evidenced by the hero worship directed at the original seven Mercury astronauts, not much changed during the buildup to space travel. In terms of exploration, however, they were the last rock stars.
IX. Two thoughts on this: to truly reenact America’s westward expansion using this scenario, these transient Britons would be allowed to settle and build a home at any point along this journey—displacing by force anyone who already lived there. And it can be argued that such a mythical mass migration is taking place in reverse during the early parts of the twenty-first century. Previous residents of the USSR have flooded into London in a way that would have seemed farcical during the Soviet years.
X. At that time, travel through the Suez desert involved a 100-mile overland crossing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Construction of the Suez Canal began on April 25, 1859, which is precisely when Speke passed through the region. It’s worth noting that the British government adamantly opposed this French building project, because it threatened their control of high seas. The Suez Canal opened in 1869, and is notable for not having any locks. The Panama Canal (which was first undertaken in the 1880s by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the same man who built the Suez Canal) has six.
The Explorers Page 17