Page 29 - Oct-Dec 2024 Edition

| TRAVEL FEATURE

By Tim Farrar - Current Commodore of Entebbe Sailing Club (timfarar@me.com)
Photographs courtesy of Frédéric Lepron (leprontoursandtravel@gmail.com)

AFRICAN QUEEN
Former Hollywood Star who’s still

Queen of the Nile at 100

ike many ageing Hollywood film stars, she’s (the Congo River Boat) is now located in Key
Lhad a facelift. The star in question is the Largo, Florida and in 1992 was added to the
‘grand old lady’ of the waters, who found fame U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The
in the 1951 film the African Queen starring other remained in Uganda and still remains the
Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. true Queen of the Nile.
In John Huston’s First World War adventure This Queen’s story can be traced back over
film, Bogart’s rugged Canadian boat captain a hundred years, from her origins being built in
Charlie Allnut finds himself piloting the steam a small shipyard in the North West of England
boat in German East Africa in the company as a steam launch. She was owned by the
of staid British missionary Rose Sayer (Katherine British East Africa Railway Company in Uganda
Hepburn). In the original novel by C.S. Forester, and she, in partnership with a larger vessel, the
the river involved is the Ulanga, not the Nile. The SAMUEL BAKER, a side paddle steamer built in
pair negotiate crocodiles, rapids and German 1909 for the Crown Agents for the Colonies,
soldiers as they head for an unnamed lake Uganda opened up a service on Lake Albert,
where they mount an ambitious plan to sink which at that time formed the the international
a German gun boat. The film won Bogart the frontier between Uganda and the Congo.
Oscar for best actor and was nominated for a Records show that she was still working in 1928,
further three prizes in 1952. at the time to occasionally carry tourists and
hunting parties. She remained in the service of
The African Queen was one of two boats used the British East Africa Company until she was
in the movie of the same name. It was filmed discovered in 1951 by John Hoesill (art director
in the Belgian Congo on a tributary of the of the African Queen) on the shores of Lake
Congo River, and on the Nile in the Murchison Albert, whilst he was looking for a boat for the
Falls National Park in Uganda. Two boats were movie, he gave her a makeover for her big
utilised, one in each location. One of the boats screen debut.

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