Speke Map

REMINISCING DISCOVERY NILE & CONGO

Stanley Map

To Orwell Today,

Hello Jackie,

I am from Uganda but a Rwandan by origin.

Fred Gisa Rwigyema is my hero. May his soul rest in eternal peace.

Good work!

God bless you,
Steve Mugyire

Greetings Steve,

I guess you must have read my article KAGAME HERO FRED RWIGEMA

I wonder what he would think about what's happening now in Rwanda and Congo and Uganda and Kenya and Tanzania....

When I was in Rwanda last time, we drove by the cemetary in Kigali where Fred Rwigema is buried - near the Amahoro Stadium. I wish our driver had stopped so I could have gotten out and walked over to the grave. But it seemed we were always in a hurry and always rushing somewhere else... so much to see and so little time.

I would have also loved very much to have travelled to Uganda - and to Kampala where King Mtesa had his empire and his palace.

Mtesa Palace

I've read so much about that area in my readings about the search for the discovery of the source of the Nile - Lake Victoria - by John Speke in 1862 and then its circumnavigation by Morton Stanley in 1875 (four years after he'd found Livingstone at Lake Tanganyika in 1871 and a year before he began his journey down the Congo from its source to its mouth - the first person to have ever done so). See STANLEY FINDS LIVINGSTONE, 1871 ("Doctor Livingstone, I presume?")

Livings Stanley

I know it's not politically correct in Africa or elsewhere (or as Orwell would say "ungoodthinkful") to praise Speke and Stanley, but I do admire them immensely. Their books about their travels in Africa are fascinating reading - and provide vivid history of that entire Great Lakes area. When I read them I am flashed back in time - to where there were no phones, no television, no radio.... (and where reading and writing were the pastimes, their books being international bestsellers when they got home).

Speke Cover Speke Pages

Stanley Bk 1 Stanley Bk 2

It never ceases to amaze me that these great explorers (because without a doubt that's what they were) not only trekked all day through previously untravelled trails, but then at the end of the day had the stamina to sit down and write in their journals - with diagrams and anecdotes recording what they'd seen and learned along the way.

It's a thrill of my lifetime to have flown over Lake Victoria - the Source of the Nile - not far from our approach to Rwanda (which when combined with Burundi is about the same size and shape as Victoria Nyanza). See ARRIVING IN RWANDA

Lake Victoria

And it's another great thrill to have been to the place where the furthest tributaries to the Nile and Congo rivers originate, and I took a photo of my son standing there. It's in Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda. See NYUNGWE NILE MISSED MONKEYS

Nile Congo

I notice - in the second book above of Stanley's - that the scene on its cover is very similar to a painting I have from Rwanda done on a type of guitar - which is of fishermen on Lake Kivu. See KIBUYE KIVU VIEW MOTEL

Kivu Guitar

Amahoro,
Jackie Jura

PS - The 2 maps at the top of the page are Speke's journeys, and Stanley's journeys including down Congo river. The colour-coded map in the middle of the page is yellow for Livingstone 1866-73 (last journey); red for Stanley 1870-72 (looking for Livingstone); green for Stanley 1874-77 (to and fro Lake Victoria, then down to Lake Tanganyika, source of main tributary to Congo river...)

THE KINGS OF RWANDA, H.M. Kigeli V, Monarchical Tradition (...Such was the nature and organization of the independent kingdom that first greeted the eyes of European explorers of the mid-19th century when they ventured into the region of Lake Victoria on their quest to discover the source of the Nile River. John Hanning Speke was the first of the British explorers to mention the Kingdom of Rwanda in his writings, and it was during the time of the great Mwami Kigeli IV Rwabugiri (r. 1853-1895) that the nation knew its last days of total independence. Under his reign, Rwanda had successfully resisted the incursions of the Arab slave traders who had attempted to penetrate the interior in search of human grist for their satanic mills, and Kigeli IV was himself the first mwami to ever set eyes upon a European within the confines of his formerly secluded kingdom....)

RWANDA KING NOT AT HOME

What happend to Rwanda's King?. Ugandans At Heart, Jan 23, 2009 (Rwanda had a revolution led by George Kaibanda, with the help of the French and Catholic Church that deposed King Kigyeri to Uganda and Muteesa gave him land in Mawogola where he settled and his people. During UPC/KY alliance, Obote hired Kigyeri and some of his people to work in General Service Unit. They continued even in State Research Bureau under Amin. However a section led by Fred Rwigyema were in FRONASA with Museveni. While many led by Ndugute were in Uganda Army. Since independence in 1962, Rwanda is a republic not a monarchy. Last year Kagame told Kigyeri to go back to Rwanda as a private citizen. Kigyeri refused and said that he wanted to go back as a king. He lives in New York.

BBC IN PICTURES: CONGO CIVILIANS EASY PREY (...The UN says 800,000 people have been displaced since January 2009 [after Rwanda arrested Tutsi CNDP-leader General Nkunda] when the 5-week attack was launched by Congolese & Rwandan troops against Hutu FDLR [Rwandan genocidaires] who are accused over the 1994 genocide...) See KAGAME HELPING NKUNDA NOT & NKUNDA CONGO'S ONLY PROTECTER

Rwanda is the source of the Nile ("This is the most incredible country of all. We'll help put Rwanda on the map.") & Team reaches Nile's true source (many rivers feed Lake Victoria). Telegraph/BBC, Apr 1, 2006

Rwanda Land of Thousand Hills. Footprint Adventures (...Rwanda was long time regarded as a mysterious kingdom with a legendary military force which was carefully bypassed by the Arab traders and the great Nile Explorers. John Hanning Speke was already welcomed to the court of Kabaka (King) Mutesa I of Buganda in 1862 while the first European visited Rwanda only 30 years later. It was in 1892 that the Austrian explorer Dr. Oscar Baumann came to Rwanda for a few days in search of the Nile....)

6.Super-State Disputed Territories (...Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies. The inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status of slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory... to control more labour power... to turn out more armaments... to capture more territory... and so on indefinitely....)

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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