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Fresh Air

Searching For The Source Of The Nile

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.434.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Writer Candice Millard chronicles the arduous journey of two 19th century explorers through East Africa, where they battled heat, insects, and diseases that at times rendered one or the other deaf, blind or paralyzed. After discovering the sprawling lake that feeds the world's longest river, the two fell into a bitter public dispute over their discoveries. Too little credit went to the formerly-enslaved African who guided them and other explorers of the age. Millard's new book is River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile.

David Bianculli reviews The Old Man, a new FX series starring Jeff Bridges.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:18.0

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0:23.1

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies in For Terry Gross. Our guest writer Candice Milard

0:28.7

has a knack for burrowing into a little explored corner of history and spinning out a page-turning

0:34.5

yarn that illuminates a part of our past. Her latest book details the efforts of mid-19th century

0:40.4

British explorers to find the source of the Nile River. One was a brilliant linguist writer and

0:46.6

explorer with endless self-confidence and a lifelong interest in pornography. The other an aristocratic

0:52.7

soldier and surveyor devoted to hunting big game. They would share arduous journeys into East Africa

0:59.5

in the process getting serious injuries and suffering from fevers and afflictions that at times

1:04.6

rendered one or another of them deaf, blind or paralyzed. Their expeditions would, indeed,

1:10.0

reveal the source of the world's longest river, but when they returned to London, the two men

1:14.4

engaged in a bitter public quarrel over their discoveries, leading to moments of high drama.

1:19.9

A third figure in the story is a resourceful, formerly enslaved African who guided the

1:24.9

explorers through hundreds of miles of inhospitable terrain, helping negotiate physical obstacles and

1:30.8

the demands of tribal leaders. Candice Milard is a former editor at National Geographic who's written

1:36.9

three previous books. Her latest is River of the Gods, Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the

1:43.2

search for the source of the Nile. Well, Candice Milard, welcome back to Fresh Air.

1:47.2

Thank you so much for having me. You know, I think of the age of exploration as the time of

1:52.4

Vasco de Gama and the Spanish conquistadors. This story is in the middle of the 19th century. Back

1:59.2

at a time when a lot of the African continent was unknown to Europeans, there would be maps with

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