Some of the hardships the Europeans had to endure were extreme heat and disease. The exploration took a few months in total. One of the diseases that struck the workers during the exploration was malaria. The explorers thought they had found the source but it turned out to be just a large lake not the source of the Nile River. That lake was also tainted with malaria. The explorers (Jon Speke and Richard Burton) had to deal with bugs as well. Jon Speke was writing one night in his tent and he fell asleep with the lantern on and he didn't put the mosquito net around him and a bug crawled into his ear and was burrowing into his head. the African people tried to help by pouring hot wax into his ear but that didn't work so Jon proceeded to stab himself in the ear thus killing the bug but also deafening him. It is strange that the source of the Nile River is called Lake Victoria (named after the British Queen, Queen Victoria) because the lake is in Africa and the lake is named after somebody far away and the name is not African. The Europeans had a huge advatage over the Africans because they had guns and the Africans had spears. That also contributed to the Europeans being able to conquer Africa after a few years.