DEATH OF CAPTAIN SPEKE.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 75, 21 November 1864, Page 3

DEATH OF CAPTAIN SPEKE.

A deep gloom was cast over the meeting of the British Association at Bath by the annoucement that Capt. Speke had accidently shot himself. .It need not be said that this melancholy end of the enterprising traveller will be regretted not only in scientific circles, but among all Englishmen who sympathise with the daring spirit of j adventure which is characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race. John Hanning Speke, the second son of : Mr. William Speke, of Jordans, in Somersetshire, was born in 1827, ' and was educated in one of the. country grammar schools. His adventures as a mighty hunter, and a scientific explorer in Somali land and other parts of Africa (1854-5,) in company with Captain Burton, are. probably familiar to our readers. From Africa he went to the Crimea as a voluuteer in the Turkish contingent. He had a desire to explore the fauna of the Caucasus, but abandoned the idea on receiving an invitation to. .rejoin Captain Burton in another African expedition. . When Captain Burton presented himself to receive the gold medal of the Royal; Geographical Society from the hands of the president, Sir-R. Murchison, he said, " You have, alluded, sir, to the success of the last expedition. Justice compels me to state the circumstances under .which it attained that success. To Captain Speke are due those geographical results which you have alluded to in such flattering terms. While I undertook the history and ethnography, the languages and the peculiarities of the people, to Captain Spoke fell the arduous task of delineating an exact topography, and of laying down our positions by astronomical observations— a labor to which at times even the undaunted Livingstone found himself unequal." Captain Speke returned with Captain Q-rant last year from Africa. They had solved a problem which had puzzled the wisest men for 3000 years — rrlience did the Nile take its source ? where were. " divitis ostia Nili ? " Homer spoke of the Nile whose sources were unknown ; Herodotus confessed himself unable to solve the mystery; Alexander the Great, and Nero the notorious, both were baffled in the search. The younger son of a Somersetshire squire traced the Nile to the Victoria N,yanza lake. He had been there in the summer of 1858, and went out again in the spring of 1859 to make assurance doubly sure. It is hardly necessary -to : mention the enthusiastic reception given to Captain Speke on his return to this country. He was the lion of the season. He was received by the Royal Geograpical Society at one ' of the most crowded meetings (out of their regular session) of that learned body with the heartiest welcome. The remains of Captain Speke have been removed to the family mansion, near Taunton. A cast has been now taken of his face, " so that, " -trrites Mr. KxDglake, " a faithful likeness may now be formed and preserved in imperishable marble of the lamented hero of the Nile, and serve to adorn the sculpture gallery of Somersetshire worthies, where memorials of the great and and good men of the land — Blake and Locke^ — are visible in the Shire-hall." — Home NewsSep. 26. ,■ i : <o>