The Explorers Page 16

  soil.III

  That said, Columbus was the first European to build an enduring colony in the New World. We don’t celebrate Columbus because he discovered the New World, but because he stayed.

  This is no small feat. In fact, it changed the course of history. So rather than discredit Columbus entirely, as some would have it, better to give him the asterisk.

  The same is true of Cook discovering Australia (Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon beat him by almost two centuries, but Cook still gets most of the credit); Robert Peary being first to reach the North Pole (every evidence points to him being off by as few as 5 miles or as many as dozens—and yes, he still gets the credit); and, as we are about to discover, Jack Speke and the source of the Nile.

  John Hanning Speke’s new body of water wasn’t the ultimate source of the Nile. But it is the main outflow from its jungle beginning because a great and amazing waterfall floods out of its northern end. This mighty flow becomes something known as the White Nile, then merges with a second and completely different river known as the Blue NileIV near Khartoum, in what is now Sudan. At that point it is merely the Nile, which it remains until it rushes into the Mediterranean Sea, discharging 300 million cubic meters of water per day. So Speke did not actually discover the one true source, but the vast body of water through which the Nile flows during a very early portion of its 4,000-mile serpentine journey.

  Thus, Speke’s asterisk.

  And it was that asterisk which led to the Nile duel.

  2

  Let’s step back for a minute and imagine what must have been going through Speke’s mind on that day. He is thirty-one years old. He has enjoyed a great deal of adventure in his life, but he hasn’t achieved or discovered anything of note. He joined the army young, developed a reputation as a loner with a talent for hunting, enjoyed a weird sort of notoriety for surviving a battle with Somalia’s penis-cutting people, and has spent the last year enduring the antics of a man prone to acts of infamy. His father is devoted to his heir and oldest son, his mother is so domineering that any man who can escape her craziness must do exactly that to avoid emasculation, he is widely considered to be illiterate, and British society thinks him a coward, thanks to Dick Burton’s most recent book.

  Speke has spent the day marching purposefully across yet another rolling African plain. Palm trees are everywhere. He is wearing those surreal stained glass eyeshades. He still has bits and pieces of beetle in his deaf ear. The air is humid and the sun bright. He has sweated through his clothes, which haven’t been washed in weeks, so he doesn’t smell fragrant in the best sense of the word.

  Then something glimmers in the far distance.

  For three long days he walks closer and closer to that body of water, until he finally stands on its shores. The surface is pale blue. He hears the quiet lap of the small waves and the cry of wheeling shore birds. A breeze caresses his face, carrying with it the enchanting smells of this previously uncharted inland sea.

  Jack Speke is convinced of two things in an instant: (1) this is the source of the Nile. “I no longer had any doubt that the lake at my feet gave birth to that interesting river, the source of which has been the subject of so much speculation, and the object of so many explorers,” he will later write. And: (2) he knows that his life is changed forever. Speke has just joined a select company of explorers who have found something once considered unattainable. Others lucky enough to experience such a moment of superlative discovery describe it with an almost sexual euphoria. “To solve a problem which has long resisted the skill and persistence of others is an irresistible magnet in every sphere of human activity” is how Sir John Hunt, leader of the successful 1953 Everest expedition, breathlessly described that achievement. “There is no height, no depth, that the spirit of man cannot attain.”

  Speke chose to name this grand body of water Victoria, an over-the-top gesture in honor of Britain’s queen. One does not name puddles in the jungle after monarchs. One names lakes wider than the English Channel after a royal with twenty years on the throne—and forty-three years to go. It helps that the well-heeled Speke most likely remembered that the anniversary of Victoria’s coronation was just a month away.

  The grandiosity continued. Just in case anyone might forget that Speke’s discovery was the biggest lake he had ever seen,V he added the redundancy of the word Nyanza. This was a Bantu word meaning a large body of water, or sea. Hence, Victoria Nyanza. Never mind that the Arabs and the indigenous tribes of central Africa had already given it several names, among them Ukewere, Sango, Lolwe, and Nalubaale. From this day forward, the lake would bear the name given it by Speke—as it still does today, despite ongoing efforts to change it.

  Victoria Nyanza’s enormity was an answered prayer. No minor body of water could possibly give birth to the Nile. Once he had firmly established this in his head, Speke immediately began discrediting Burton’s theories. The animosity between the two men had been building for a year. Now, as it came to a head, Speke confidently began expressing his own opinions: “This is a far more extensive lake than Tanganyika, so broad that you could not see across it, and so long that no one knew its length.”

  The discovery of what would come to be known as Lake Victoria marked the moment when the Burton and Speke relationship began the adversarial path that it would follow for the next six years. And while Speke was quite sure that Lake Victoria was the outflow of the Nile, Burton still had a very legitimate reason for arguing in favor of Tanganyika.

  The streams flowing into Victoria from the southwest (whether the mountains of modern Burundi or those of Rwanda) are roughly halfway between Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. Since almost nothing was known about that area, and because Burton and Speke hadn’t bothered looking at the Rusizi with their own eyes to discover whether it flowed out of Tanganyika, there was a very real possibility that an undiscovered river connected them all. This, of course, would mean that Burton was correct. He would later argue that Speke might have found a source, but not the source.

  This would form the basic premise of the Nile duel.

  If only Burton and Speke had followed their RGS orders and explored the lands between Tanganyika and Victoria, they would have discovered an enormous watershed in the mountainous jungles. This would have shown them conclusively that something now known as the “Albertine Rift” connects a different chain of lakesVI and has no connection to the Nile, which is fed from a separate watershed.

  None of the rancor or bile between the two explorers that would soon consume Victorian London would have existed—if only they had been more thorough in completing their assignment.

  Just as Burton became the first European to set eyes on Tanganyika, so Speke now had Victoria. When it was time to turn around and return to Kazeh, Speke professed to being so in love with his splendid discovery that he felt “as much grieved as any mother would be at losing her firstborn, and planned to do everything in my power to visit the lake again.”

  3

  Use of the possessive pronoun was clearly a marker of Speke’s growing independence, the fifth trait of the explorers. Some explorers preferred solitude on their journeys, and others companionship. No matter what their preference, a deep desire for taking charge of destiny attended their approach to life. Their thoughts and words demonstrated a deep desire to chart their own course, even—perhaps especially—when others thought them foolish. Their personal satisfaction could only be attained by pressing onward toward a goal, never doubting in their ability to achieve it.

  The term “independence” is an oxymoron of sorts, with some aspects of society viewing such behavior as rebellion and others as a virtue. Independence is neither. It is simply the ability to make decisions for oneself, take responsibility for the consequences, and ensure that these decisions are socially and morally appropriate—all the while pushing oneself to manifest their highest potential.

  The key word in each of those three cri
teria is “decisions.” A person cannot be independent if they are not decisive.

  But this is just the starting point. Cognitive psychologist Herman Witkin found that people who lack independence also tend to lack self-direction, are happiest when taking orders from others, tend to be deeply fearful of disapproval, conform compulsively, and largely spend their entire lives as what can only politely be described as spectators.

  Independent individuals, on the other hand, constantly pursue their highest potential. They are inner-directed, following their hearts and goals, not defining themselves by others to be happy. Their self-worth does not come through society’s expectations, but through following their inner quests to their ultimate conclusion. The need for approval that presents itself in the nonindependent (“I must be liked by you to be happy”) is either minimal or nonexistent. The truly independent have an ability to create structure in the middle of chaos, have the sorts of hyperfocused memory that allows them to categorize and recall data, and are almost devoid of envy (“I must be like you to be happy”) because it is the antithesis of what it means to think and feel for oneself.

  They are also, to a large extent, introverts. Researchers still struggle to define the difference between an introvert and an extrovert, but the normal litmus test is one simple question: how do you recharge your emotional batteries? Extroverts are energized by being around people—through discussion, engagement, and connection. Introverts, on the other hand, top off their emotional fuel tanks by being alone. They find time spent with other people to be draining. It is for this reason that introverts don’t do well in group brainstorming sessions, corporate meetings, and team-oriented activities.

  However, they are often the creators and thinkers of the world—imagine Picasso, Da Vinci, and pretty much every writer who has ever lived. This is because they thrive on spending hours alone, getting lost in their work, and not requiring other human interaction to complete their task.

  Shackleton, Columbus, Cook, Stanley, Livingstone, Speke, and even the gregarious Burton were introverts. Introversion was as synonymous with exploration as risk. Explorers were capable of spending—quite happily, I might add—years away from traditional society. When Apollo 11 traveled to the moon in 1969, the outbound journey lasted just three days, three hours, and forty-nine minutes. When an Air France Concorde set the around-the-world speed record in 1996, it took just thirty-one hours and twenty-eight minutes to travel from New York to New York at twice the speed of sound.VII Even now, traveling from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma aboard the plodding and dilapidated Tanzanian National Railway takes just twenty-four hours. And it’s not even worth mentioning that the invention of the satellite phone made it possible to communicate with anyone, anywhere, instantly.

  Compare all that with explorers, who left friends, wives, children, and essentially their entire lives for years at a time. There was little communication with the outside world. Those letters from home that somehow found them in the middle of nowhere were typically written a year or more earlier. Travel mostly took place on foot. A good day was considered to be anything more than 15 miles. There were endless periods of utter boredom—without books, music, television, iPads, iPods, video games, or a laptop to serve as distractions. And yet this bent toward introversion made it all possible, because many explorers lived most happily inside their heads. Many, in fact, were social clods, ill at ease in high society, and freakishly out of step with the normal world. But put them in a foreign land, make them walk through a burning desert, or let them grasp the wheel of a ship battling 100-foot seas, and these people thrived.

  There’s one other aspect of introversion that is very germane to the story of Burton and Speke. As social scientist Susan Cain has written, introverts tend to be very thin-skinned. They feel things more deeply and passionately than extroverts. They hold on tightly to these emotions, nursing grudges and plotting revenge as they live through higher highs and lower lows. The Nile duel may have had its roots in Africa, but its abiding jealousy, rage, and entitlement were nurtured by the introversion of Burton and Speke.

  4

  There’s little they could have done about it. Introversion is an inherited personality trait, hard-wired into our brains at birth. An estimated one half to three fourths of the world’s population lack the introvert’s fondness for hyperfocus and long hours of alone time. Happily, that does not exclude extroverts from developing the independence trait. It starts by being self-directed. This involves setting personal goals, and then looking inward for ways to achieve them. This is the opposite of asking permission, or leaning on mentors or life coaches or any of a number of self-styled gurus to lead the way. This is because true independence is a constant striving to know oneself better, and to constantly reset personal expectations and ambitions in an effort to achieve your highest potential. Manipulation by other individuals detracts from this process.

  This quest for self-knowledge ultimately leads to an examination of character as the motivations about why a goal is all-important make themselves known. So the process of becoming truly independent is also a long-term investment in becoming a better person. Artifice is stripped away, ethics and morals become important, and an inclination toward purity in thought and behavior become one with the courage of deeply held convictions.

  This is partly because that constant examination of character is as much a part of achieving an individual’s highest potential as any outlandish goal one might pursue; it is also partly because those striving for independence soon learn a hard truth: they are being watched.

  Independent persons, by definition, are individuals set apart. They make people uncomfortable. Independent people remind us when we are not pushing our own limits and living our lives to the fullest. The independent person’s path and behavior will constantly be scrutinized, and often mocked, by those who would prefer to go along with the crowd. High moral and ethical character becomes vital armor to silencing these critics; and even those virtuous traits are often mocked by those who don’t strive toward them.

  Success, of course, in all aspects of life, is an even more powerful protection.

  The great irony is that truly independent people don’t care. They are set apart from society, following their own compass, marching to the beat of a drum that only they can hear. Explorers were fond of reminding themselves that their biggest foe wasn’t a hostile landscape or the raging sea, but the six inches between their ears. Forcing themselves to silence self-doubts, no matter how dire the predicament, gave them the strength to carry on. “We should refuse none of the thousand and one joys that the mountain offers us at every turn. We should brush nothing aside, set no restrictions. We should experience hunger and thirst, be able to go fast, but also know how to go slowly and contemplate. Variety is the spice of life,” wrote one French climber.

  Left unsaid is that “variety” means the same as “danger.” How else to explain the ability to enjoy deprivation and suffering while dangling from a thin rope upon a rock face some thousand feet off the ground?

  Small wonder that history’s great explorers are models of independence.

  But again, that trait was not hard-wired into their DNA. It is learned through the process of attempting any great undertaking: curiosity, hope, courage, and passion must all take place before true independence is achieved.

  5

  By the dawn of the twentieth century, worldwide exploration had come to a standstill. The major continents had not only been charted, but were riven with infrastructure. The term “civilized” was used more and more to describe corners of the globe that had once been just blank spots on the map. With nowhere else to go, the path of exploration, for a time, magically turned upward, thanks to the discovery of flight. Since the earliest days of exploration, travelers had either sailed a ship, walked on foot, ridden an animal, or paddled a small boat. Orville and Wilbur Wright’s invention of the airplane offered explorers a whole new means of travel. The discovery of
the skies, with their invisible currents and turbulence and countless methods of thwarting the act of flight, added a completely different dimension to exploration. Each takeoff promised a test of skill, an education, and a journey of discovery.

  Everyone from Roald Amundsen to Winston Churchill soon learned to fly. It became possible to explore the Amazon or Africa or the Rockies from the air, looking down for new perspectives, or landing in some far-off spot, thus saving months and even years of travel time (and the encounters with disease and warfare that ultimately accompanied those journeys).

  But it was the great long-distance journeys that most captured the public’s imagination: Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, Wiley Post flying around the world, Amelia Earhart’s legendary journeys, and ultimately the Apollo lunar missions. These and other flights marked the aviation epoch as an earth-changing age of exploration.

  Aviation became synonymous with independence. From its earliest days, exploration of the air demanded that pilots be self-reliant in ways that most others would deem either irresponsible or downright mad—but that those flying the aircraft realized was all part of surpassing their mental, physical, and emotional limits. Pilots even came up with a term for this behavior: “pushing the edge of the envelope.” In spirit it means the same as the more mundane “thinking outside the box,” but takes on a much more powerful meaning when flaring the afterburner nozzle to launch off a ship’s deck or punch through the sound barrier.

  Very often this mental toughness took on a tone of humility. World War II British fighter pilot Richard Hillary wrote of challenging his resolve and skills by flying his Spitfire under a bridge so low to the water, and so tight between supports that he could only make it with inches to spare—if he made it at all. Hillary mentioned this idea to Peter Pease, a fellow Spitfire pilot. Pease’s thoughtful reply is a classic: “Richard, from now on a lot of people are going to fly under that bridge. From a flying point of view it proves nothing; it’s extremely stupid. From a personal point of view it can only be of value if you don’t tell anybody about it.”