The first Europeans to travel through the interlacustrine region of East Africa, between Lake Victoria in the east and Lakes Albert, Edward, and Tanganyika in the west, were John Hanning Speke (1827–64) and James Augustus Grant (1827–92), who were searching for the source of the White Nile between 1860 and 1863. Sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society of London and supported by their guide and translator known as Sidi Mubarak (called ‘Bombay’ by Speke),1 they travelled on foot from Zanzibar, through the Arab trading town of Tabora (then called Kazé), before turning north and wandering through the kingdoms of Karagwe, Buganda, and Bunyoro to the settlement of Gondokoro. Their roughly three-year journey was documented by Speke and Grant alike in extensive bound volumes.
Continue reading ‘History of the Wahûma’? Publishing Practices and Colonial Knowledge Production- Richard Burton recorded his name as ‘Seedy Mubarak Mombai (Bombay)’. Richard Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa: A Picture of Exploration (London, 1860), 3. [↩]
