All language subtitles for Nile BBC 3of3

From the heart of Africa
to the Mediterranean Sea,

runs the world's longest river.

Since the Egyptians first settled along

its banks men have dreamt of discovering
the place where the Nile is born.

But for centuries
the river kept its secrets close.

The obsession grew

and by the mid 19th century
some were prepared

to risk their lives to be the first
to discover the source of the Nile.

Over a period of 30 years
the Nile finally yielded.

It demanded a terrible price.

Many died or suffered horribly.

One man had the resolve to finally piece

together the puzzle of the Nile.

He was Henry Morton Stanley.

Doctor Livingstone sync
Yes.

Meeting Livingstone changed my life.

He was a remarkable man -

he inspired in me the determination
to finish the work that he had begun.

From as long ago as 5000 BC,

when the first nomads settled
along the banks of the Nile,

people realised that
it was an extraordinary river.

Not only did it offer a constant flow
of water in the middle of the Sahara

but it also provided an annual flood,

which brought with it millions
of tonnes of rich black soil.

Year after year,
the fields lining the banks of the river

Nile were replenished
with water and nutrients.

It's now known that
this sediment-laden water

came from the Ethiopian mountains down

a huge tributary called the Blue Nile.

This water,
with its heavy load of volcanic soil,

thundered down
the Blue Nile gorge into Sudan

and then on through the desert to Egypt.

This miraculous flood of water

and silt was the powerhouse
of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

But there is an even greater miracle.

Because here is a vast river

that flows through 1500 miles of
scorching desert yet never runs dry.

What could be capable of
generating this much water?

When at last the source of the Nile
was found it provided the answer

but one that no one could have foreseen.

Now, I'm an old man,
surrounded by the comforts of home.

They've even made me
a knight of the realm.

But do people understand,
I wonder, the price we all paid,

those of us
who were drawn into this quest.

I was sixteen years old in 1857,

and at last free of that
terrible workhouse.

That same year Burton and Speke
were setting out for Africa.

This is Central Africa,
gentlemen,

as we know it now,

and as you can see
the most interesting feature is this lake

- uniamesi - sometimes called Tanganyika.

800 miles long and 300 wide.

Estimated distance
from the coast 900 miles.

And that,
gentlemen is about all we do know.

I fear we're no wiser
than the Ancient Egyptians.

We think, we think that this lake has
sufficient altitude to be the source.

So there it is.

The Nile is somewhere
within this area of 500 miles.

And so it began.

The Royal Geographical Society
was determined

that an Englishman would be
the first to find the source.

They enlisted the most intrepid explorer
of the day,

Captain Richard Burton.

He chose as his companion,
Captain John Speke.

The jungle seems infinite.

The atmosphere has corroded
everything and food is at a minimum.

Every morning dawns upon me with
a fresh load of cares and troubles

and every evening reminds me
as it closes in that another

and a miserable morrow is to follow.

Their route took them first
through thick jungle,

then into the dry heat
of the open savannah.

Rather than follow the Nile upstream,

which was reported to be impossible,

Burton took the most direct route and
struck inland from the East African Coast.

Burton was the leader of the expedition,

Speke found it hard
to take a subordinate role.

Their relationship became
increasingly strained

and by the end
they were barely on speaking terms.

It didn't help that the journey proved
more arduous than they had expected,

and both men were continually
plagued by disease.

If one of us is lost the other

might survive to carry home
the results of the exploration.

I have undertaken the journey
with the resolve to do or die.

Burton fell prey to malaria,

and Speke was almost
blind with trachoma.

But after eight terrible months
they reached their goal,

the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

Arab slave traders told them of a river
that flowed north from the lake

and they went in search of it.

If this river proved to be the Nile,

the prize was theirs.

But their provisions ran low
and the porters mutinied -

they were forced to give up.

The Nile continued to keep its secrets.

Although they had found Lake Tanganyika

they had not been able to prove
that it was the source of the Nile.

While they rested in
the small town of Tabora,

some Arab traders told Speke
about another great lake,

an even bigger one to the north,

and only 2 weeks march away.

Burton felt that finding this new lake
was outside the scope of his orders

and showed no interest in it.

But Speke saw a chance for himself.

Despite Burton's lack of enthusiasm

he set off to the north
with a handful of porters.

He was about to make the discovery
that would guarantee his place in history.

The vast expanse of the pale-blue
waters burst suddenly upon my gaze...

I no longer felt any doubt that the lake

at my feet gave birth to that river,

the source of which has been
the subject of so much speculation,

and the object of so many explorers.

Speke was convinced that here was
the headwater that fed the Nile.

This lake's worthy of the Nile.

On my enquiring about the lake's length,

the man faced to the north,
and began nodding his head to it;

at the same time
he kept throwing forward his hand,

to indicate something immeasurable;
and added, that nobody knew,

but he thought it probably
extended to the end of the world.

Speke could see this new lake was large

but he had no idea that it covered
an area of 26,500 square miles.

More like an inland sea,

this is the largest lake in Africa.

Water evaporates from the surface,

falls on the surrounding mountains,
and then drains back into the lake.

This continual circulation of water

means little is lost
to the equatorial sun -

the lake holds water
like a vast reservoir.

I claim this lake for
England and the crown,

and I name her Victoria

after our gracious sovereign.

Speke returned to England
ahead of the invalided Burton.

Though he had promised to wait,

he revealed his great discovery
to the world

and claimed the glory for himself.

Now, if anyone would like
to answer any questions.

Sir

Though his news
was greeted with excitement,

his lack of detailed information
generated some doubts

at the Royal Geographical Society.

...regarding the lake you named Victoria.

You have not claimed to
actually have seen the Nile.

Of course, those who explore the world

from their comfortable armchairs
are always the first to carp.

I'm very happy to announce

that the Council
have asked Captain Speke

to return within the year to
Central Africa

in command of a new expedition,

whose object is to inspect the actual
exit of the Nile from Lake Victoria.

The focus now switched from
Lake Tanganyika to Lake Victoria.

Speke was joined by
ayoung army captain,

James Grant.

Grant idolised Speke,

and was prepared
to follow him to the ends of the earth.

They navigated from
the south of Lake Victoria

around the western side
in search of an outlet.

The quantity of mosquitoes on the borders
of the lake is perfectly marvellous;

the bushes, and everything growing there,

are literally covered with them.

As I walked along it's shores,
disturbing the vegetation,

they rose in clouds,

and kept tapping,
in dozens at a time,

against my hands and face,
in the most disagreeable manner.

The lake has an insect population

unrivalled anywhere on Earth.

An extraordinary event is triggered
during the rains by the new moon.

Insect larvae ascend from the lake bottom
to the surface to emerge as flies.

On their way up they have to run
the gauntlet of shoals of greedy fish.

Those that make it past
the fish emerge at the surface,

struggle free of their larval shells
and rise up into the air.

There they join others
to form vast breeding swarms.

In turn, the swarms merge to form immense
clouds comprising billions of flies.

Drawn by the flies, terns migrate here
from Europe and gather in their thousands.

Unpredictable winds
often blow the flies ashore.

Although Speke and his party
found the flies irritating,

they don't bite -
they only emerge to mate.

The party approached
the northern end of Lake Victoria

where Speke expected to find the outflow
from the lake

the beginning of the Nile.

By this time Grant was limping badly from
an ulcerated leg,

but Speke wouldn't wait.

He pressed on leaving Grant,

bitterly disappointed that he had
been abandoned so near their goal.

On 28th July 1862,

Speke reached the point where water flowed
out of Lake Victoria

as a boiling rapid.

The expedition had now
performed its functions...

and as I had foretold,

the lake is the great source
of the holy river...

As far as Speke was concerned,

this was the birthplace of the Nile.

And he named it Ripon Falls.

But in his haste to get
there he had made a mistake -

by leaving Grant behind,

he had no witness with him

who could silence any critics back home.

Speke rejoined Grant

and they set off downstream,

planning to follow his river to Egypt,

and prove conclusively
that it was the Nile.

But tribal wars blocked their route

and so they were forced
to leave the river

and travel overland
to the town of Gondokoro.

This diversion was critical

because it meant that
Speke could still not prove

that the river flowing out of
Lake Victoria was the river Nile.

By an extraordinary co-incidence

they met with another pair
of explorers in Gondokoro -

a most unlikely couple to chance
on in the heart of Africa.

Samuel Baker had rescued
Florence Von Saas

from white slave traders
and had made her his wife.

They too were in search of
the source of the Nile,

but they were doing it
the traditional way

by doggedly travelling upstream.

For a year they explored
various tributaries of the Nile

and finally reached the vast
papyrus swamp known as the Sudd.

This had been an effective barrier
to explorers through the ages.

But the Bakers had been lucky,

somehow they had navigated the labyrinth
of marshy channels in only 40 days.

Nevertheless,
in Bakers words, they had braved

'malaria, marshes, mosquitoes
and misery' in these swamps.

In Gondokoro,

Baker learnt that Speke
had apparently discovered

the source of the Nile at Lake Victoria.

Well of course Baker
was bitterly disappointed,

but he was reluctant to give up.

Then he heard about
a third large lake still to be explored.

So off he went.

He hoped that a river as large as
the Nile

could have more than one source

and that there was still a chance
for a share of the glory.

Once forced to travel cross-country,

the Bakers soon found the going hard.

Florence collapsed with fever,

their baggage animals died
and their food supplies failed.

For ten months they suffered terribly.

Then, in March 1864
they finally found it

the new lake.

The glory of our prize burst
suddenly upon me!

There, like a sea of quicksilver,

lay the grand expanse of water

a boundless horizon on the south
and south-west, glittering,

in the sun...

it is impossible to describe
the triumph of that moment...

My wife who had followed me

so devotedly stood
by my side pale and exhausted.

Baker named the lake "Albert"
after Queen Victoria's late consort.

Impressed by it's size,

it took little
to convince him that this lake,

along with Lake Victoria,
was a joint source for the Nile.

Now surely he would share Speke's glory.

Anxious to return to England that season,

they followed the shoreline north

expecting to sail down the river Nile,
back to Gondokoro.

But something was troubling Baker

it was the relationship between
the two lakes, Victoria and Albert.

Which had the higher elevation?

Speke's figures suggested it was Victoria.

So when Baker found a river
flowing into Lake Albert,

although I'm sure he wanted to go home,

he knew he had to follow the river
upstream to find the answer.

Less than twenty miles upstream

from Lake Albert the Bakers
had their answer.

The elevation readings now
made sense

and Baker surmised that
Lake Victoria flowed down this river,

Speke's Nile, into Lake Albert.

Although Baker was mesmerised by the
waterfall, something else caught his eye.

In the river at the bottom of the falls

there was a concentration of
surprisingly large crocodiles.

I never saw such
an extraordinary show of crocodiles.

They lay like logs of timber
close together,

and upon one bank we counted twenty seven.

Every basking place was crowded
in a similar manner.

The Bakers' struggle to explore
the Nile had left them bone weary.

They were out of provisions

and they were
suffering from malaria and other fevers

It's little surprise that they had
no stomach for further exploration.

...if death were to be the price,

at all events we were at the goal

and we both looked upon
death rather as a pleasure,

as affording rest

there would be no more suffering
no fever

no long journey before us,

the only wish
was to lay down the burden.

Far from home, in the grip of fever,

the African night can
play tricks on the mind.

A mournful cry...

...just a bush baby.

These harmless little creatures

are doing no more than
advertising their territories.

In the stillness of the night
they can be heard for over half a mile.

The Bakers pushed on to the place

where Speke had been forced to leave
the river on his way downstream

establishing once and for all that

Lake Victoria and Lake Albert were linked

by the river that Speke
was convinced was the Nile.

Like Speke

the Bakers were held up by
the whims of a local king and tribal wars.

It took them a further six months
to reach the safety of Gondokoro -

their struggle home turning into an epic

on the scale of their outward journey.

The Bakers had confirmed

that a river flowed out of
Lake Victoria to Lake Albert.

And it became generally accepted
that this was the Nile.

But there were others
who thought differently.

Lake Tanganyika
had still not been ruled out

as a possible source
and Dr David Livingstone,

who supported this theory,
was asked to resolve the issue.

I was thirty years old in 1871

when my newspaper sent me to Africa.

I suppose I had something of a reputation

for bringing home stories
that people wanted to read.

And this story was one of the biggest.

Five years earlier, Livingstone
had set off for Lake Tanganyika,

but almost nothing
had been heard of him since.

He was lost somewhere in the dark
heart of that frightening continent

and most people presumed him dead.

But after 236 of the hardest days

1 had ever known I found him.

Dr Livingstone I presume.
Yes

I thank God Doctor that
I have been permitted to see you.

I feel thankful that
I am here to welcome you.

He was the most extraordinary human being

that I ever had the privilege to know

and it's no exaggeration to say
that the man changed my life.

He was still convinced

that Lake Tanganyika would prove
to be the source of the Nile.

If the lake's outflow
headed north into Lake Albert,

his theory might yet prove to be correct.

I put my considerable
resources at his disposal,

and together we explored
the northern end of Lake Tanganyika.

But Livingstone's hopes were dashed

when we discovered that the river

there flowed into not out of the lake.

On that trip we never
did find the lake's outflow.

1 had to return home,
the world was waiting for news.

You must forgive me
if I have not told you before,

you have done what few men could do,

far better than
some great travellers I've known.

I'm very grateful.

If I gave you this,

and I've nothing else
in the world to give,

would you consider it
as a memento of our leave taking?

Bombay - Prepare them...

kwende, kwende...

Stanley never saw him again.

Livingstone died 14 months later.

His loyal African servants
brought his body back to Zanzibar

and the doctor
made his final journey home.

Stanley was not yet an explorer
like Burton, Speke or the Bakers -

he had arrived in Africa

a newspaper man looking for a story.

But there is no doubt that

Livingstone had a huge impact on his life.

He had taught me

that suffering produces
perseverance and perseverance character.

Standing by Livingstone's coffin
I had realised

that it was my duty
to continue the work he had begun.

The extent of Lake Victoria
was still unknown

and Lake Albert,
according to Baker

seemed to be equally vast.

Sound the advance.

Stanley had no choice

but to circumnavigate
and map all three lakes:

Victoria, Albert and Tanganyika.

Only then could he finally settle
which was the main feeder for the Nile.

Stanley bypassed
the scientific institutions

and persuaded his newspapers
to fund this huge enterprise.

He set off once more
from Zanzibar in 1874,

a general at the head
of an army of porters.

People who have no conception

what such an expedition entails

have sometimes called me
ruthless, brutal even.

But to me there's only one judgement

would I accomplish what I set out to do?

He circumnavigated the vast Lake Victoria

and was able to confirm
that Speke's Ripon Falls

was indeed the major outlet.

Speke had now the full glory
of having discovered

the largest inland sea
on the continent of Africa.

With Lake Victoria finally settled,

Stanley set off towards Lake Albert

but his route too was blocked
by warring tribes.

He turned south to Lake Tanganyika

to clear up its role in the Nile's story.

It was good to know that

I was completing Dr Livingstone's work.

After charting Lake Tanganyika,

1 followed its outflow west,

but it proved not to be the Nile.

It was a river that fed the Congo,

and for 999 days I followed that
great river to its mouth in west Africa.

The question of the Nile was
still not yet fully understood.

Ten years later

Stanley found himself
heading back towards the Nile.

Only this time
he approached from the west,

through the dense tropical
forests of Central Africa.

...if the lightning severs
the crown of a proud tree,

and lets in the sunlight,

then the race for air and light causes
a multitude of baby trees to rush upward.

They crush and strangle one another,

until the whole is one impervious bush.

Untracked jungle is pitiless
terrain to move through.

1 began with eight hundred men,

but our casualty rate was high,
and many deserted.

1 think I came as close
as I have ever come

to knowing despair
on that terrible journey.

...not every person has the gift
of finding his way in a forest.

Within 200 yards

any man would be hard pressed
to find his way back

to the place where he started.

Sometimes we would cover
only 400 yards in an hour.

Nevertheless we pressed on.

Now and then troops of monkeys

bounded with prodigious leaps
through the branches,

others swung by long tails

a hundred feet above our heads,
and with marvellous agility

they hurled their tiny bodies

through the air across yawning chasms.

Then they rested for an instant
to take a last look at our line

before burying themselves
out of sight in the leaves.

Then we hit the marshes.

...thick scum-face quagmires green with
duckweed

into which we sank knee-deep,

and the stench from
the fetid slough was sickening.

The forest could never sustain
the needs of so many men

and the people who lived in
its depths were suspicious of us,

and often would not trade,
taking us for Arab slavers.

Most of our food, certainly our staple
of rice,

we had to carry with us.

Meat was in short supply.

Hunting hippo, crocodiles, buffalo
and elephant proved unsuccessful...

Even though an animal may have been only a
few feet off on the other side of a bush,

it was impossible to obtain a view of it
through the impervious mass of vegetation.

Finally, they emerged from
the green Hell of the forest

near the western edge of Lake Albert.

Albert was now known to be
much smaller than the Bakers

had optimistically drawn on their maps.

But Stanley discovered yet another lake,

a little further south,

which he named Edward

after the Prince of Wales.

It was clear to me now

that there was a family
of lakes

and waterways
that must feed the Nile.

There was no single source.

These lakes created one enormous
reservoir system for the Nile.

It's no wonder that
its such a great river.

Of course,
there remained one final mystery.

Where was the water
coming from to fill all these lakes?

I saw a peculiar shaped
cloud of a most beautiful silver colour,

which assumed the proportions
and appearance of a vast mountain

covered with snow...

it dawned on me
that this must be the Ruwenzori...

.-.1 had discovered the long
lost Mountains of the Moon...

The Mountains of the Moon,
so called for thousands of years,

sit between the humid
forests of the Congo basin

and the monsoon lands of East Africa.

Ruwenzori, the local name,

means 'rainmaker

and for much of the year
they're shrouded in dense mist.

No wonder so few white men
had ever seen them.

The altitude of the mountains attracts
clouds from both east and west...

and this steady supply of water,

trickles down on both sides of
the range into

Edward and Albert,

and a third lake - George

feeding the headwaters of the Nile.

But these mountains are more than
just an interceptor of rain.

They contain the final secret of

the Nile's steady flow and strength.

This world of ice, moss, forest and bog,

acts as a reservoir,

slowly releasing the rain.

At the base of the mountains
lie enchanted forests.

Mosses, liverworts, ferns and lichens

carpet the ground
and envelop the trees,

helping to regulate the release of water.

The Ruwenzori's glaciers drip feed
the bogs which,

together with the forests,

feed mountain streams, rivers

and the great African lakes.

Frozen at some 16,500ft above sea level,

it is the Ruwenzori's glaciers that
provide a steady supply for the lakes,

that power the Nile on it's

4000 mile journey to Egypt.

His African days over,

Stanley settled in England.

He was elected a Member of Parliament

and in 1899 was knighted.

We had all sought a definitive answer,

a bubbling spring or a single lake

where we could plant a flag and say
'here is the source of the great Nile!"

But the truth, as it often is,

was more complicated.

I, and all those who'd gone before me,

Burton, Speke, the Bakers, Livingstone,

we had all done as much as
was humanly possible

with the resources available to us.

We would have to look to future
generations for the final answer.

It would take another 100 years of
scientific research and discovery,

boosted by huge technological advances,

before the origins of the Nile
were fully understood.

Between 10 and 15 million
years ago movements

in the Earth's tectonic plates caused
a vast plateau to rise in East Africa.

It stretched some 600 miles across
and to nearly one mile high.

At this stage there were no large,
well-defined lakes in the region

and certainly no great river flowing north.

As the plateau rose,

fractures developed along its flanks -

these fractures in the Earth's surface

form what we now call
the African Rift Valley.

About 12 million years ago,

the Mountains of the Moon began to rise

as a block near the
western arm of the rift

and by eight million years ago

the maturing rift valleys
began to collect water.

The lakes of George, Edward

and Albert developed,

but the water never broke out of these
lakes into a permanent major river.

Then, less than one million years ago

the centre of
the vast plateau sagged a little.

This slight depression began to pond
with water and developed into

what we now call Lake Victoria.

At the end of the last glacial period,

when huge quantities of water
were released from the retreating ice,

a very wet phase in
Earth's climate followed.

Over thousands of years
the lakes filled up,

and then about 12,500 years ago,

an event occurred which was to change
the fate of mankind forever -

the water in Lake Victoria spilled north.

The Nile was born.

This new river found
a route west to Lake Albert.

From there, with a huge boost
from the waters

now pouring out of lakes George,
Edward and Albert,

the young Nile burst north.

This vigorous river
cut a route over hundreds of miles

before entering the flatlands of Sudan.

Here, within this vast marsh,

the spirit of the river
was tamed and steadied.

It emerged into the northern deserts

strong and reliable.

Finally it was joined by its sister,

the sediment-filled Blue Nile.

The two Niles, now one,

brought the gifts of water and
nutrients into the desert of Egypt.

The stage was set for
the birth of a great civilization...

It began just 7000 years later.