Exploring the Nile

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33128, 19 January 1973, Page 4

Exploring the Nile

It is called the “Everest of Rivers.” It is the Nile, rising in the mountainous heart of Ethiopia and running 500 miles towards the Sudanese border.

And like Everest, it was one of the last great challenges to exploration until an armada of boats and 70 men took it on and beat it. But not without loss, for one team member was drowned and some of the crew were so badly beaten up by the river that they had to be evacuated and replaced. Twice, too, bandits attacked, and on another occasion tribesman mistook them for tax collectors and also attacked.

The purpose of the expedition was to explore the region and to probe its secrets, so zoologists, geologists and map-makers all made the journey, accompanied by army and navy team members in a complete military-style operation. Apart from the dangers of the rapids, against which the 40-horsepower engines of the boats could only just make headway, there were the dangers of the six-to-eight feet waves in the Black Gorge. All kinds of creatures went into the zoologists’ nets, including a long-snouted electric fish that gave a 350volt shock, a prehistoriclooking monitor lizard, and an orange leaf-nosed bat. The story of the expedition is told in “The Last Great First,” an episode of the “Survival” series, and it can be seen from the N.Z.B.C. network next Thursday.