Editing Nile (section)

=== European search for the source ===
[[File:JH Speke.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[John Hanning Speke|John&nbsp;Hanning&nbsp;Speke]]&nbsp;{{circa|lk=no|1863}}. Speke was the [[Victorian Age|Victorian]] explorer who first reached [[Lake Victoria]] in 1858, returning to establish it as the source of the Nile by 1862.{{sfn|Garstin|Cana|1911|p=698}}]]

To the ancient Greeks and Romans, the upper reaches of the White Nile remained largely unknown, as they failed to penetrate the ''[[Sudd]]'' wetlands of South Sudan. [[Vitruvius]] thought that source of the Nile was in Mauritania, on the "other" (south) side of the [[Atlas Mountains]].<ref>Vitruvius, ''de Architectura'', VII.2.7.</ref> Various expeditions failed to determine the river's source. [[Agatharchides]] records that in the time of [[Ptolemy II Philadelphus]], a military expedition had penetrated far enough along the course of the Blue Nile to determine that the summer floods were caused by heavy seasonal rainstorms in the Ethiopian Highlands, but no European of antiquity is known to have reached Lake Tana. The ''[[Tabula Rogeriana]]'' depicted the source as three lakes in 1154.

Europeans began to learn about the origins of the Nile in the 14th century when the Pope sent monks as emissaries to Mongolia who passed India, the Middle East and Africa, and described being told of the source of the Nile in Abyssinia (Ethiopia).<ref name="THE TRAVELS OF JOHN DE MARIGNOLLI">{{Cite book |last=Yule |first=Henry |url=https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/marignolli.html |title=Sir Henry Yule, Cathay and the way thither: being a collection of medieval notices of China Vol. II (1913–16) |publisher=Hakluyt Society |location=London |pages=209–269 |access-date=18 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190122140845/http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/marignolli.html |archive-date=22 January 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Later in the 15th and 16th centuries, travelers to Ethiopia visited Lake Tana and the source of the Blue Nile in the mountains south of the lake. Supposedly, Paolo Trevisani ({{circa|1452}}–1483), a Venetian traveller in Ethiopia, wrote a journal of his travels to the ''origin of the Nile'' that has since been lost.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=hg5BAQAAMAAJ Dizionario biografico universale], Volume 5, by Felice Scifoni, Publisher Davide Passagli, Florence (1849); page 411.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=l3cvAQAAMAAJ Ten Centuries of European Progress] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530130716/https://books.google.com/books?id=l3cvAQAAMAAJ |date=30 May 2023 }} by Lowis D'Aguilar Jalkson (1893) pages 126–127.</ref>
[[James Bruce]] claimed to be the first European to have visited the headwaters.<ref>[[Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile]]</ref>
Modern writers give the credit to the [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] [[Pedro Páez]]. Páez's account of the source of the Nile<ref>''History of Ethiopia'', circa 1622</ref> is a long and vivid account of Ethiopia. It was published in full only in the early 20th century, but was featured in works of Páez's contemporaries, like Baltazar Téllez,<ref>''Historia geral da Ethiopia a Alta'', 1660</ref> [[Athanasius Kircher]]<ref>''Mundus Subterraneus'', 1664</ref> and [[Johann Michael Vansleb]].<ref>''The Present State of Egypt'', 1678.</ref>

Europeans had been resident in Ethiopia since the late 15th century, and one of them may have visited the headwaters even earlier without leaving a written trace. The Portuguese João Bermudes published the first description of the [[Blue Nile Falls|Tis Issat]] Falls in his 1565 memoirs, compared them to the Nile Falls alluded to in [[Cicero]]'s ''De Republica''.<ref>S. Whiteway, editor and translator, ''The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1441–1543'', 1902. (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1967), p. 241. Referring to [[Cicero]], ''De Republica'', [http://www.attalus.org/translate/republic6.html#19 6.19] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602214358/http://attalus.org/translate/republic6.html#19 |date=2 June 2021 }}.</ref> [[Jerónimo Lobo]] describes the source of the Blue Nile, visiting shortly after Pedro Páez. Telles also uses his account.

The White Nile was even less understood. The ancients mistakenly believed that the [[Niger River]] represented the upper reaches of the White Nile. For example, [[Pliny the Elder]] writes that the Nile had its origins "in a mountain of lower [[Mauretania]]", flowed above ground for "many days" distance, then went underground, reappeared as a large lake in the territories of the [[Masaesyli]], then sank again below the desert to flow underground "for a distance of 20 days' journey till it reaches the nearest Ethiopians."<ref>''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'', [http://www.attalus.org/translate/pliny_hn5a.html#51 5.(10).51]</ref>

[[File:EB1911 Nile v2.png|left|thumb|upright|A map of the Nile {{circa|lk=no|1911}}, when its entire primary course ran through British occupations, condominiums, colonies, and protectorates{{sfn|Garstin|Cana|1911|p=693}}]]

Modern exploration of the Nile basin began with the [[Turco-Egyptian conquest of Sudan (1820–1824)|conquest of the northern and central Sudan]] by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] viceroy of Egypt, [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali]], and his sons from 1821 onward. As a result of this, the Blue Nile was known as far as its exit from the Ethiopian foothills and the White Nile as far as the mouth of the Sobat River. Three expeditions under a Turkish officer, Selim Bimbashi, were made between 1839 and 1842, and two got to the point about {{convert|30|km|mi|-1|abbr=off}} beyond the present port of [[Juba]], where the country rises and rapids make navigation very difficult.

Lake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when British explorer [[John Hanning Speke]] reached its southern shore while traveling with [[Richard Francis Burton]] to explore central Africa and locate the great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this "vast expanse of open water" for the first time, Speke named the lake after [[Queen Victoria]]. Burton, recovering from illness and resting further south on the shores of [[Lake Tanganyika]], was outraged that Speke claimed to have proven his discovery to be the true source of the Nile when Burton regarded this as still unsettled. A quarrel ensued which sparked intense debate within the scientific community and interest by other explorers keen to either confirm or refute Speke's discovery. British explorer and missionary [[David Livingstone]] pushed too far west and entered the [[Congo River]] system instead. It was ultimately Welsh-American explorer [[Henry Morton Stanley]] who confirmed Speke's discovery, circumnavigating Lake Victoria and reporting the great outflow at [[Ripon Falls]] on the lake's northern shore.