_I.--Explorations of the Nile Source_
Sir Samuel White Baker was born in London, on June 8,
1821. From early manhood he devoted himself to a life of
adventure. After a year in Mauritius he founded a colony
in the mountains of Ceylon at Newera Eliya, and later
constructed the railway across the Dobrudsha. His
discovery of the Albert N'yanza completed the labours of
Speke and Grant, and solved the mystery of the Nile.
Baker's administration of the Soudan was the first great
effort to arrest the slave trade in the Nile Basin, and
also the first step towards the establishment of the
British Protectorate of Uganda and Somaliland. Baker died
on December 30, 1893. He was a voluminous writer, and his
books had immense popularity. "The Albert N'yanza" may be
regarded as the most important of his works of travel by
reason of the exploration which it records rather than on
account of any exceptional literary merit. Here his story
is one of such thrilling interest that even a dull writer
could scarce have failed to hold the attention of any
reader by its straightforward narration.
In March, 1861, I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the
Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African Expedition of Captains
Speke and Grant that had been sent by the English Government from the
south, via Zanzibar, for that object. From my youth I had been inured to
hardships and endurance in wild sports in tropical climates; and when I
gazed upon the map of Africa I had the hope that I might, by
perseverance, reach the heart of Africa. Had I been alone it would have
been no hard lot to die upon the untrodden path before me; but my wife
resolved, with woman's constancy, to leave the luxuries of home and
share all danger, and to follow me through each rough step in the wild
life in which I was about to engage. Thus accompanied, on April 15,
1861, I sailed up the Nile from Cairo to Korosko; and thence, by a
forced camel march across the Nubian desert, we reached the river of
Abou Hamed, and, still on camels, though within view of the palm-trees
that bordered the Nile, we came to Berber. I spent a year in learning
Arabic, and while doing so explored the Atbara, which joins the Nile
twenty miles south of Berber, and the Blue Nile, which joins the main
stream at Khartoum, with all their affluents from the mountains of
Abyssinia. The general result of these explorations was that I found
that the waters of the Atbara when in flood are dense with soil washed
from the fertile lands scoured by its tributaries after the melting of
the snows and the rainy season; and these, joining with the Blue Nile in
full flood, also charged with a red earthy matter, cause the annual
inundation in Lower Egypt, the sediment from which gives to that country
its remarkable fertility.
I reached Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan, on June 11, 1862. Moosa
Pasha was at that time governor-general. He was a rather exaggerated
specimen of Turkish authority, combining the worst of oriental failings
with the brutality of the wild animal. At that time the Soudan was of
little commercial importance to Egypt. What prompted the occupation of
the country by the Egyptians was that the Soudan supplied slaves not
only for Egypt, but for Arabia and Persia.
In the face of determined opposition of Moosa Pasha and the Nile
traders, who were persuaded that my object in penetrating into unknown
Central Africa was to put a stop to the nefarious slave traffic, I
organised my expedition. It consisted of three vessels--a good decked
diahbiah (for my wife, and myself and our personal attendants), and two
noggurs, or sailing-barges--the latter to take stores, twenty-one
donkeys, four camels and four horses. Forty-five armed men as escort,
and forty sailors, all in brown uniform, with servants--ninety-six men
in all--constituted my personnel.
On February 2, 1863, we reached Gondokoro, where I landed my animals and
stores. It is a curious circumstance that, although many Europeans had
been as far south as Gondokoro, I was the first Englishman who had ever
reached it. Gondokoro I found a perfect hell. There were about 600
slave-hunters and ivory-traders and their people, who passed the whole
of their time in drinking, quarrelling and ill-treating the slaves, of
which the camps were full; and the natives assured me that there were
large depots of slaves in the interior who would be marched to Gondokoro
for shipment to the Soudan a few hours after my departure.
I had heard rumours of Speke and Grant, and determined to wait for a
time before proceeding forward. Before very long there was a mutiny
among my men, who wanted to make a "razzia" upon the cattle of the
natives, which, of course, I prohibited. It had been instigated by the
traders, who were determined, if possible, to stop my advance. With the
heroic assistance of my wife, I quelled the revolt. On February 15, on
the rattle of musketry at a great distance, my men rushed madly to my
boat with the report that two white men, who had come from the sea, had
arrived. Could they be Speke and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in
reality; and, with a heart beating with joy, I took off my cap and gave
a welcome hurrah! We were shortly seated on the deck of my diahbiah
under the awning; and such rough fare as could be hastily prepared was
set before these two ragged, careworn specimens of African travel. At
the first blush of meeting them I considered my expedition as
terminated, since they had discovered the Nile source; but upon my
congratulating them with all my heart upon the honours they had so nobly
earned, Speke and Grant, with characteristic generosity, gave me a map
of their route, showing that they had been unable to complete the actual
exploration of the Nile, and that the most important portion still
remained to be determined. It appeared that in N. lat. 2° 17' they had
crossed the Nile, which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but the
river, which from its exit from that lake had a northern course, turned
suddenly to the west from Karuma Falls (the point at which they crossed
it at lat. 2° 17'). They did not see the Nile again until they arrived
in N. lat. 3° 32', which was then flowing from the W.S.W. The natives
and the King of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had assured them that the Nile from the
Victoria N'yanza, which they had crossed at Karuma, flowed westward for
several days' journey, and at length fell into a large lake called the
Luta N'zige; that this lake came from the south, and that the Nile, on
entering the northern extremity, almost immediately made its exit, and,
as a navigable river, continued its course to the north, through the
Koshi and Madi countries. Both Speke and Grant attached great importance
to this lake Luta N'zige; and the former was much annoyed that it had
been impossible for them to carry out the exploration.
I now heard that the field was not only open, but that an additional
interest was given to the exploration by the proof that the Nile flowed
out of one great lake, the Victoria, but that it evidently must derive
an additional supply from an unknown lake as it entered it at the
northern extremity, while the body of the lake came from the south. The
fact of a great body of water, such as the Luta N'zige, extending in a
direct line from south to north, while the general system of drainage of
the Nile was from the same direction, showed most conclusively that the
Luta N'zige, if it existed in the form assumed, must have an important
position in the basin of the Nile. I determined, therefore, to go on.
Speke and Grant, who were naturally anxious to reach England as soon as
possible, sailed in my boat, on February 26, from Gondokoro for
Khartoum. Our hearts were much too full to say more than a short "God
bless you!" They had won their victory; my work lay all before me.
_II.--Perils of Darkest Africa_
My plan was to follow a party of traders known by the name of "Turks,"
and led by an Arab named Ibrahim, which was going to the Latooka country
to trade for ivory and slaves, trusting to Providence, good fortune, and
the virtue of presents. That party set out early in the afternoon of
March 26, 1863. I had secured some rather unwilling men as drivers and
porters, and was accompanied by two trusty followers, Richarn and a boy
Saat, both of whom had been brought up in the Austrian mission in
Khartoum. We had neither guide nor interpreter; but when the moon rose,
knowing that the route lay on the east side of the mountain of Belignan,
I led the way on my horse Filfil, Mrs. Baker riding by my side on my old
Abyssinian hunter, Tétel, and the British flag following behind us as a
guide for the caravan of heavily laden camels and donkeys. We pushed on
over rough country intersected by ravines till we came to the valley of
Tollogo, bounded with perpendicular walls of grey granite, one thousand
feet in height, the natives of which were much excited at the sight of
the horses and the camels, which were to them unknown animals. After
passing through this defile, Ibrahim and his "Turks," whom we had passed
during the previous night, overtook us. These slave-hunters and
ivory-traders threatened effectually to spoil our enterprise, if not to
secure the murder of Mrs. Baker, myself and my entire party, by raising
the suspicion and enmity of the native tribes. We afterwards found that
there had been a conspiracy to do this. We thought it best, therefore,
to parley with Ibrahim, and came to terms with him by means of bribes of
a double-barrelled gun and some gold.
Under his auspices our joint caravan cleared the palisaded villages of
Ellyria, after paying blackmail to the chief, Leggé, whose villainous
countenance was stamped with ferocity, avarice and sensuality. Glad to
escape from this country, we crossed the Kan[=i][=e]ti river, a
tributary of the Sobat, itself a tributary of the White Nile, and
entered the country of Latooka, which is bounded by the Lafeet chain of
mountains. In the forests and on the plain were countless elephants,
giraffes, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, and varieties of large antelopes,
together with winged game. The natives are the finest savages I have
ever seen, their average height being five feet eleven and a half
inches, and their facial features remarkably pleasing. We stayed on many
weeks at Tarrangollé, the capital, which is completely surrounded by
palisaded walls, within which are over three thousand houses, each a
little fort in itself, and kraals for twelve thousand head of cattle. In
the neighbourhood I had some splendid big-game shooting; but we had
difficulties with repeated mutinies of our men.
Early in May we left Latooka, and crossed a high mountain chain by a
pass 2,500 feet in height into the beautiful country of Obbo. This is a
fertile plateau, 3,674 feet above sea-level, with abundance of wild
grapes and other fruits, yams, nuts, flax, tobacco, etc.; but the
travelling was difficult owing to the high grass. The people are
pleasant-featured and good-natured, and the chief, Katchiba, maintains
his authority by a species of hocus-pocus, or sorcery. He is a merry
soul, has a multiplicity of wives--a bevy in each village--so that when
he travels through his kingdom he is always at home. His children number
116, and the government is quite a family affair, for he has one of his
sons as chief in every village. A native of Obbo showed me some
cowrie-shells which he said came from a country called Magungo,
situated on a lake so large that no one knew its limits. This lake, said
I, can be no other than Luta N'zige which Speke had heard of, and I
shall take the first opportunity to push for Magungo.
We returned to Latooka to pick up our stores and rejoin Ibrahim, but
were detained by the illness of Mrs. Baker and myself and the loss of
some of my transport animals. The joint caravan left Latooka on June 23
for Unyoro, Mrs. Baker in an improvised palanquin. The weather was
wretched. Constant rains made progress slow; and the natives of the
districts through which we passed were dying like flies from smallpox.
When we at last reached Obbo we could proceed no further.
My wife and I were so ill with bilious fever that we could not assist
each other; my horses, camels and donkeys all died. Flies by day, rats
and innumerable bugs by night in the miserable hut where we were
located, lions roaring through the dark, never-ending rains, made for
many weary months of Obbo a prison about as disagreeable as could be
imagined. Having purchased some oxen in lieu of horses and baggage
animals, we at length were able to leave Obbo on January 5, 1864,
passing through Far[=a]joke, crossing the river Asua at an altitude of
2,875 feet above sea-level, and then on to Fatiko, the capital of the
Shooa country, at an altitude of 3,877 feet.
_III.--Discovery of the Nile's Sources_
Shooa proved a land flowing with milk and honey. Provisions of every
kind were abundant and cheap. The pure air invigorated Mrs. Baker and
myself; and on January 18 we left Shooa for Unyoro, Kamrasi's country.
On the 22nd we struck the Somerset River, or the Victoria White Nile,
and crossed it at the Karuma Falls, marching thence to M'rooli,
Kamrasi's capital, at the junction of the Kafoor River with the
Somerset, which was reached on February 10. Here we were detained till
February 21, with exasperating excuses for preventing us going further,
and audacious demands from Kamrasi for everything that I had, including
my last watch and my wife! We were surrounded by a great number of
natives, and, as my suspicions of treachery appeared confirmed, I drew
my revolver, resolved that if this was to be the end of the expedition
it should also be the end of Kamrasi. I held the revolver within two
feet of his chest, looked at him with undisguised contempt, and told him
that if he dared to repeat the insult I would shoot him on the spot. My
wife also made him a speech in Arabic (not a word of which he
understood), with a countenance as amiable as the head of a Medusa.
Altogether, the _mise en scène_ utterly astonished him, and he let us
go, furnishing us with a guide named Rabongo to take us to M'wootan
N'zige, not Luta N'zige, as Speke had erroneously suggested. In crossing
the Kafoor River on a bridge of floating weeds, Mrs. Baker had a
sunstroke, fell through the weeds into deep water, and was rescued with
great difficulty. For many days she remained in a deep torpor, and was
carried on a litter while we marched through an awful broken country.
The torpor was followed by brain fever, with its attendant horrors. The
rain poured in torrents; and day after day we were forced to travel for
want of provisions, as in the deserted villages there were no supplies.
Sometimes in the forest we procured wild honey, and rarely I was able to
shoot a few guinea-fowl. We reached a village one night following a day
on which my wife had had violent convulsions. I laid her down on a
litter within a hut, covered her with a Scotch plaid, and I fell upon my
mat insensible, worn out with sorrow and fatigue. When I woke the next
morning I found my wife breathing gently, the fever gone, the eyes calm.
She was saved! The gratitude of that moment I will not attempt to
describe.
On March 14 the day broke beautifully clear; and, having crossed a deep
valley between the hills, we toiled op the opposite slope. I hurried to
the summit. The glory of our prize burst suddenly upon me! There, like a
sea of quicksilver, lay, far beneath, the grand expanse of water, a
boundless sea horizon on the south and south-west, glittering in the
noon-day sun; and on the west, fifty or sixty miles distant, blue
mountains rose from the bosom of the lake to a height of 7,000 feet
above its level. It is impossible to describe the triumph of that
moment. Here was the reward for all our labour--for the years of
tenacity with which we had toiled through Africa. England had won the
sources of the Nile!
I was about 1,500 feet above the lake; and I looked down from the steep
granite cliff upon those welcome waters, upon that vast reservoir which
nourished Egypt, and brought fertility where all was wilderness, upon
that great source so long hidden from mankind; that source of bounty and
of blessing to millions of human beings; and, as one of the greatest
objects in Nature, I determined to honour it with a great name. As an
imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious queen,
and deplored by every Englishman, I called this great lake "The Albert
N'yanza." The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the two sources of the
Nile.
_IV.--Exploring the Great Lake_
The zigzag path of the descent to the lake was so steep and dangerous
that we were forced to leave our oxen with a guide, who was to take them
to Magungo, and wait for our arrival. We commenced the descent of the
steep pass on foot. I led the way, grasping a stout bamboo. My wife, in
extreme weakness, tottered down the pass, supporting herself on my
shoulder, and stopping to rest every twenty paces. After a toilsome
descent of about two hours, weak with years of fever, but for the
moment strengthened by success, we gained the level plain below the
cliff. A walk of about a mile through flat sandy meadows of fine turf,
interspersed with trees and bush, brought us to the water's edge. The
waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach. I rushed into the lake,
and, thirsty with fatigue, with a heart full of gratitude, I drank deep
from the sources of the Nile. Within a quarter of a mile of the lake was
a fishing village named Vacovia, in which we now established ourselves.
At sunrise of the following morning I took the compass to the borders of
the lake to survey the country. It was beautifully clear; and with a
powerful telescope I could distinguish two large waterfalls that cleft
the sides of the mountains like threads of silver. My wife, who had
followed me so devotedly, stood by my side pale and exhausted--a wreck
upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had so long striven to
reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of
a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water. We were the first;
and this was the key to the great secret that even Julius Caesar yearned
to unravel, but in vain!
Having procured two canoes, we started on a voyage of exploration
northward on the lake. Along the east coast, with cliffs 1,500 feet in
height, we discovered a waterfall of 1,000 feet drop, formed by the
Kaiigiri River emptying itself in the lake. On shore there were many
elephants, and in the lake hundreds of hippopotami and crocodiles. We
made narrow escapes of shipwreck on several occasions; and on the
thirteenth day of our voyage the lake contracted to between fifteen and
twenty miles in width, but the canoe came into a perfect wilderness of
aquatic vegetation. On the western shore was the kingdom of Malegga, and
a chain of mountains 4,000 feet high, but decreasing in height towards
the north. We reached the long-sought town of Magungo, and entered a
channel, which we were informed was the embouchure of the Somerset
River, from the Victoria N'yanza, the same river we had crossed at
Karuma. Here we found our guide Rabonga and the riding oxen. The town
and general level of the country was 500 feet above the water. A few
miles to the north was a gap in the Malegga range; due N. E. the country
was a dead flat; and as far as the eye could reach was an extent of
bright green reeds marking the course of the Nile as it made its exit
out of the lake. The natives refused most positively to take me down the
Nile outlet on account of their dread of the Madi people on its banks. I
determined, therefore, to go by canoe up the Somerset River, and finally
to fix the course of that stream as I had promised Speke to do.
_V.--Escape from Savage Enemies_
Both my wife and I were helpless with fever, and when we made our first
halt at a village I had to be carried ashore on a litter, and my wife
was so weak that she had to crawl on foot. At first the river was 500
yards wide, but on the second day it narrowed to 250 yards. As we pulled
up the stream, it narrowed to 180 yards, and, rounding a corner, a
magnificent sight burst suddenly upon us. On each side were beautifully
wooded cliffs rising abruptly to a height of about 300 feet, and rushing
through a gap which cleft the rock exactly before us, the river,
contracted from a grand stream, was pent up in a narrow gorge of
scarcely fifty yards in width. Roaring furiously through the rock-bound
pass, it plunged in one leap of about 120 feet perpendicular into a dark
abyss below. This was the greatest waterfall of the Nile; and in honour
of the distinguished president of the Royal Geographical Society, I
named it the Murchison Falls.
Of course, we could proceed no farther by canoe, and landed at a
deserted village. Our riding oxen had died; and we had to get some
natives as porters. My wife was carried on a litter, and I was scarcely
able to crawl; but after tremendous difficulties and dangers we reached,
following the bank of the Somerset, on April 8, the island of
Patoo[=a]n, within eighteen miles of where we had first struck the river
at Karuma. My exploration was, therefore, complete; but our difficulties
were not at an end. We were detained for two months at Shooa Mor[=u],
practically deserted by everyone except our two personal attendants, and
all but starved.
[The real Kamrasi, for the man Baker and his party had seen on their
outward journey was only his brother M'Gambi, afterwards came on the
scene, took them to Kisoona, and there and at other places detained them
practically prisoners during the long and cruel wars with his rivals,
Fawooka and Rionga and the King of Uganda. On November 17, Baker escaped
with his wife and a small party and marched through the Shooa country
and the country of the Madi to the Asua River, only a quarter of a mile
from its junction with the Nile. Then they crossed the country of the
Bari, and arrived at Gondokoro, whence they sailed down the Nile to
Khartoum, which was reached on May 5, 1865, two years and five months
after their start from that city.]