The commonly held view of Lake Victoria as the source of the world’s longest river isn’t as clear cut as many would believe. Renowned explorer, author and philanthropist, Sir Christopher Ondaatje, sets out a case for looking further afield Among the world’s great rivers, the Nile undoubtedly occupies a unique position in every culture. For a start, it is the world’s longest river at more than 4,100 miles (slightly longer than the Amazon). It was also the birthplace of Egyptian civilisation: ‘the gift of the Nile’, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, because of the river’s annual flood that fertilised its valley and the surrounding desert. Moreover, long before the rule of the pharaohs, in prehistory, the Nile valley was the route by which our earliest ancestors migrated from their origins in east Africa and populated the rest of the globe. Last but not least, there was the source … Continue reading The unsettling sources of the Nile