The Explorers: A Story of Fearless Outcasts, Blundering Geniuses, and Impossible Success
Martin Dugard
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 1451677588
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Learn to unlock your inner explorer in this riveting account of a great, forbidding adventure and “a fascinating examination of the seven key traits of history’s most famous explorers…[with] infusions of insight and enthusiasm” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
In 1856, two intrepid adventurers, Richard Frances Burton and John Hanning Speke, set off to unravel a geographical unknown: the location of the Nile River’s source. They traveled deep into an uncharted African wilderness together, arrived at two different solutions to the mystery, and parted ways as sworn enemies. The feud became an international sensation on their return to England, and a public debate was scheduled to decide whose theory was correct. What followed was a massive spectacle with an outcome no one could have foreseen.
In The Explorers, New York Times bestselling author Martin Dugard shares the rich saga of the Burton and Speke expedition and guides readers through the seven traits that history’s most legendary explorers called on to survive their impossible journeys. In doing so, Dugard demonstrates that these traits have a most practical application in everyday life. We see St. Brendan the Navigator, driven by hope, sail into the unknown, and the curiosity that inspired John Ledyard to attempt to walk around the globe, and the perseverance Howard Carter needed to discover Tutankhamen’s tomb. From these and other examples, Dugard extracts lessons for unlocking the explorer in us all.
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June 1788. On this night, Banks’s preoccupation with knowledge won out. Wine was served, then a hot meal. Once the dinner plates had been removed, Banks hoisted his wineglass and proposed a toast to, of all places, Africa. 6 Specifically, Banks wanted to know more about it. The shape of the continent was that of an eastward-facing skull, as had been known by mapmakers for centuries. In fact, the entire coastline had been charted, and the southern tip had even become a trade enclave known as.
His discoveries of such oddities as icebergs, walrus, Eskimos, and even the fiery volcanoes of what we now call Iceland. He island-hopped across the Atlantic on a circuitous path that also took him to North America, and then back home via the Azores. It is said that in his younger days as an up-and-coming sailor, Christopher Columbus passed through western Ireland and visited the Dingle Peninsula in search of information about Brendan’s voyage. Whether this is true is unclear. What is for sure,.
The fiercely independent Burton was terrified of making the journey alone. “It would scarcely be wise to stake success upon a single life,” Burton explained to the RGS, explaining his need for a fellow explorer, “I should therefore propose as my companion, Captain Speke.” Burton’s plan worked. In April 1856, he was granted the funding and permissions to explore the lakes region of central Africa. There was just one other thing: he had yet to ask Speke. Burton wasn’t concerned in the.
Rape, kill, and carry out military or paramilitary operations in which civilians are indiscriminately targeted.” In other words, not a very nice place. The Congo is on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika. Tanzania is on the eastern. Ujiji is no longer the main hub on that part of the lake, which means that ferry travel across to the Congo begins in nearby Kigoma. Technology in the form of Internet cafés and television have trickled into the heart of Africa, but even simple acts of commerce.
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.