Beke, Charles Tilstone

▪ British explorer and biblical scholar

born Oct. 10, 1800, Stepney [now in Greater London]

died July 31, 1874, Bromley, Kent [now in Greater London]

      English biblical scholar, geographer, and businessman who played an important role in the final phase of the discovery of the sources of the Nile River.

      After beginning a business career (1820), Beke turned to the study of law. His interest in ancient and biblical history led him to publish Origines Biblicae, or Researches in Primeval History (1834), which examined history in the light of geological principles. In 1840 Beke went to Ethiopia to explore the area, establish commercial relations with the inhabitants, and help abolish the slave trade. His commercial venture was unsuccessful, but he ascertained the approximate course of the Blue Nile, mapped about 70,000 square miles (180,000 square km) of the country, and also compiled vocabularies of 14 Ethiopian dialects. In 1845 he sponsored an expedition that tried to explore the sources of the White Nile from the East African coast. This venture, though uncompleted, may have inspired the Nile explorations of John Hanning Speke of England in the 1850s.

      Beke traveled through Syria, Palestine, and Egypt (1861–62) and returned to Ethiopia in 1865, where his knowledge of the interior proved valuable to the British mission of 1868, which had been sent to secure release of the imprisoned consul and other British subjects. In 1873 he went in search of the true Mount Sinai, which he thought to be at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Among his writings were An Essay on the Nile and Its Tributaries (1847) and The Sources of the Nile (1860).

* * *