The search for the source of the Nile was a futile exercise for a couple of centuries. Every time an explorer discovered one, another explorer a decade later or so would discover yet another source and claim it to be the real and authentic source. But logic dictates that the Nile has hundreds if not thousand of sources. So the search was really always for the most distant source from the Mediterranean. The idea that Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile was proclaimed by the British explorer John Hanning Speke in 1858 in the campaign led by Sir Richard Burton, as if Lake Tana which provides much of its water was insignificant. However, maps produced by the Ptolemic dynasty of Ancient Egypt and by several Medieval Arab geographers and travelers clearly indicate knowledge of several lakes up the Nile, including a large one, which they considered as or near the Nile’s origin.
