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Explorers & Discovery
Voyages & First Ascents
The expeditions that redrew the map, credited accurately.
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Which expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe?
Rivers, Deserts and First Crossings
Ten inland journeys, described as accurately as the record allows — including who was living there first.
About this topic
Overland and river journeys were harder to publicise than sea voyages and are less often remembered, though they were usually more dangerous. They also depended more visibly on local knowledge. Almost every celebrated inland expedition travelled on routes already in use, with guides, porters and boatmen who knew the country, and arrived at places with names that were already several centuries old. This quiz follows ten of those journeys across South America, Africa, the Pacific and Arabia. Where a European party was the first of its own kind to record a place, the questions say so in those words. Where a landscape was named twice, the older name appears alongside the imported one.
Questions & answers
Rivers, Deserts and First Crossings: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1The first descent of the Amazon by a European party, in 1541 and 1542, was led by whom?
- A Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
- B Francisco de Orellana Correct
- C Hernan Cortes
- D Pedro Alvares Cabral
Answer: B. Francisco de Orellana
Why: He set out from the Andes searching for cinnamon and was carried downriver with no means of returning upstream. His chronicler described large riverside settlements, an account long dismissed and now partly supported by archaeology.
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2David Livingstone applied the name Victoria Falls to a waterfall already known locally as what?
- A Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders" Correct
- B Kariba, "the trap"
- C Zambezi Kubwa, "the great river"
- D Nyaminyami, "the river spirit"
Answer: A. Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders"
Why: Mosi-oa-Tunya is in official use again on the Zambian side and names the national park around the falls. Livingstone reached them in 1855, guided the entire way by local rivermen.
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3John Hanning Speke argued in 1858 that the Nile's principal source was which lake?
- A Lake Tanganyika
- B Lake Albert
- C Lake Turkana
- D Lake Victoria Correct
Answer: D. Lake Victoria
Why: His companion Richard Burton disputed it bitterly and the quarrel outlasted both men. The lake had been known to the people living around it for as long as anyone had lived there; what Speke supplied was a European name.
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4Alexander von Humboldt's five-year journey through the Americas is remembered chiefly for what?
- A Finding an overland route to the Pacific
- B Surveying the isthmus of Panama for a canal
- C Connecting climate, altitude and plant life into a single picture Correct
- D Claiming new territory for Prussia
Answer: C. Connecting climate, altitude and plant life into a single picture
Why: His cross-sections of vegetation zones up a mountainside shaped how geography was taught for a century. More natural features are named after him than after almost any other individual.
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5Abel Tasman's 1642 voyage produced the first European charting of which island?
- A Sri Lanka
- B Tasmania Correct
- C Java
- D Madagascar
Answer: B. Tasmania
Why: He recorded part of the New Zealand coast on the same voyage without landing. Both places already had long-established populations, and his contact with Maori at Golden Bay ended in violence.
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6Vitus Bering, sailing in Russian service, established what?
- A That Asia and North America are separated by water Correct
- B The northern limit of Pacific sea ice
- C An overland post route across Siberia
- D The position of the magnetic north pole
Answer: A. That Asia and North America are separated by water
Why: The strait between the two continents carries his name. He died of illness on the return voyage, on an island now named after him as well.
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7The Polynesian settlement of the Pacific was achieved using what?
- A Ships obtained from European traders
- B Rafts carried entirely by ocean currents
- C Coastal hops that never lost sight of land
- D Double-hulled canoes navigated by stars, swell and birds Correct
Answer: D. Double-hulled canoes navigated by stars, swell and birds
Why: Voyages of thousands of kilometres reached Hawaii, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa centuries before European ships appeared. The techniques were revived in the 1970s when the canoe Hokulea sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti without instruments.
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8Mary Kingsley, travelling in West Africa in the 1890s, is noted for what?
- A Charting the Congo delta for the Admiralty
- B Founding a mission station at Zanzibar
- C Collecting fish and insects then unknown to European science Correct
- D Leading the first crossing of the Sahara
Answer: C. Collecting fish and insects then unknown to European science
Why: Three species of fish she collected were named after her. She travelled by canoe and on foot with African traders and guides, and wrote sharply about colonial officials.
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9Gertrude Bell's travels and surveys in the early twentieth century concerned which region?
- A Tibet and the eastern Himalaya
- B The deserts of Arabia and Mesopotamia Correct
- C The Australian interior
- D The Kalahari
Answer: B. The deserts of Arabia and Mesopotamia
Why: Her mapping and her contacts later made her central to the drawing of Iraq's borders. She also founded the national museum in Baghdad.
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10The bathyscaphe Trieste reached the deepest point of the ocean in 1960 carrying how many people?
- A Two Correct
- B One
- C Five
- D None, it was operated remotely
Answer: A. Two
Why: Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descended almost eleven kilometres into the Mariana Trench. Nobody returned to that depth for more than fifty years afterwards.
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