The White Nile (Alan Moorehead, 1983)

(307 pages)

The author makes all this come to life - I enjoyed this every bit as much as my initial read about 20 years ago. 

The book focuses on events along the upper Nile in the mid-19th century.  Many famous names are involved here, starting with Burton and Speke.  Later comes David Livingstone (biography here), Henry Morton Stanley (biography here), Samuel and Elizabeth Baker (story here), Charles Gordon (and the fall of Khartoum to the Mahdi); even Herbert Kitchener and Winston Churchill show up toward the end of the story (Omdurman, etc.)

Amazing that the interior of Africa remain largely unmapped well into the 19th century.  The search for the source of the Nile dated back to Herodotus and beyond.  These Victorian explorers finally solved the puzzle.

East-central Africa grievously affected by Arab slave traders in these days; at this time slavery was being outlawed in Britain and, eventually, the US; but the slave trade had a big impact upon the explorers. Sad stories of the Zanzibar slave markets.

Some effort to convert the natives to Christianity, but the main players seem much more driven by the urge to explore.

An interesting angle:  indirectly this is a story about Britain in the middle of the 19th century - at the peak of its powers - as in India (per discussions here) and elsewhere, not necessarily strategic or even intentional in where it ended up - but high-impact wherever it went in those days.  Many who spent years in foreign outposts ended up unable to stay away.

Britain's influence, or interference, of course not necessarily benign for the natives.

I really like this book, and stories about this topic in general.