Uafour river, which ran through the centre of a marsh, and, although
deep, was so thickly covered with matted and tangled water grass and
other aquatic plants, that a natural floating bridge, some two feet in
thickness, was available for crossing. The men passed it quickly,
sinking merely to the ankles, though beneath the tough vegetation was
deep water. It was equally impossible to ride or be carried over this
fickle surface; Sir Samuel therefore led the way, and begged his wife to
follow on foot as quickly as possible, keeping exactly in his track. The
river was about eighty yards wide, and Sir Samuel had scarcely
accomplished a fourth of the distance, when, looking back, he was
horrified to see her standing in one spot, and sinking gradually through
the weeds, while her face was distorted and perfectly purple. She fell,
as if stricken dead. Her husband was immediately by her side, and, with
the help of some of his men, dragged her through the yielding vegetation,
across to the other side. There she was tenderly laid beneath a tree,
and her husband bathed her head and face with water, thinking she had
fainted. But he soon perceived that she was suffering from a sunstroke;
and, removing her to a miserable hut close at hand, he watched anxiously
for some sign of returning consciousness. We shall quote his own words
in all their pathetic simplicity:
“There was nothing to eat in this spot. My wife had never stirred since
she fell by the _coup de soleil_, and merely respired about five times a
minute. It was impossible to remain; the people would have starved. She
was laid gently upon her litter, and we started forward on our funeral
course. I was ill and broken-hearted, and I followed by her side through
the long day’s march over wild park lands and streams, with thick forest
and deep marshy bottoms; over undulating hills, and through valleys of
tall papyrus rushes, which, as we brushed through them on our melancholy
way, waved over the litter like the black plumes of a hearse. We halted
at a village, and again the night was passed in watching. I was wet, and
coated with mud from the swampy marsh, and shivered with ague; but the
cold within was greater than all. No change had taken place; she had
never moved. I had plenty of fat, and I made four balls of about half a
pound, each of which would burn for three hours. A piece of a broken
water-jar formed a lamp, several pieces of rag serving for wicks. So in
solitude the still calm night passed away as I sat by her side and
watched. In the drawn and distorted features that lay before me I could
hardly trace the same form that for years had been my comfort through all
the difficulties and dangers of my path. Was she to die? Was so
terrible a sacrifice to be the result of my selfish exile?
“Again the night passed away. Once more the march. Though weak and ill,
and for two nights without a moment’s sleep, I felt no fatigue, but
mechanically followed by the side of the litter as though in a dream.
The same wild country diversified with marsh and forest. Again we
halted. The night came, and I sat by her side in a miserable hut, with
the feeble lamp flickering while she lay, as in death. She had never
moved a muscle since she fell. My people slept. I was alone, and no
sound broke the stillness of the night. The ears ached at the utter
silence, till the sudden wild cry of a hyæna made me shudder as the
horrible thought rushed through my brain, that, should she be buried in
this lonely spot, the hyæna would . . . disturb her rest.
“The morning was not far distant; it was past four o’clock. I had passed
the night in replacing wet cloths upon her head, and moistening her lips,
as she lay apparently lifeless on her litter. I could do nothing more;
in solitude and abject misery in that dark hour, in a country of savage
heathens, thousands of miles away from a Christian land, I beseeched an
aid above all human, trusting alone to Him.
“The morning broke; my lamp had just burnt out, and, cramped with the
night’s watching, I rose from my seat, and seeing that she lay in the
same unaltered state, I went to the door of the hut to breathe one gasp
of the fresh morning air. I was watching the first red streak that
heralded the rising sun, when I was startled by the words, ‘Thank God,’
faintly uttered behind me. Suddenly she had awoke from her torpor, and
with a heart overflowing I went to her bedside. Her eyes were full of
madness! She spoke, but the brain was gone!”
II.
Happily, after suffering for some days from brain fever, Lady Baker
recovered consciousness, and thenceforward her progress, though slow, was
sure. After a brief rest, the march to the lake was resumed by the
undaunted travellers; for the devoted wife would not allow any
consideration of her comfort or safety to come between her husband and
the accomplishment of the work he had undertaken. At a village called
Parkani, the guides informed them that they were only a day’s journey
from the lake. In the west rose a lofty range of mountains, and Sir
Samuel Baker had conjectured that the N’zige lay on the other side of it,
but he was told that it actually formed its western or further boundary.
Only a day’s journey! That night Sir Samuel could hardly sleep; his
brain was fired with the thought that he was within so short a distance
of the Source of the Nile—that in a few hours he might drink of the
waters of its mysterious fountain. He was up before sunrise on the 14th
of March, and crossing a deep cool valley between the hills, ascended the
slope, gained the summit, and there, before him, flashing in the light of
morning like a sea of quick-silver or a huge mirror of polished steel,
lay the long-sought lake! The height on which he stood was about fifteen
hundred feet above its level, so that he could survey the entire expanse
of those welcome waters which had created fertility in the heart of the
desert, and made the fame and wealth and glory of Egypt. He resolved
that thenceforth they should bear a great name, and as the eastern
reservoir of the Nile had been named after the Queen of England, he
determined that the western should commemorate her lost and lamented
consort, Prince Albert. It is therefore now known as the Albert Lake.
With some difficulty, but with a grateful heart, he and his wife
descended the steep to the shore of the silent, shining lake, and took up
their quarters in a fishing village called Vacovia. It was a wretched
place, and the soil was strongly impregnated with salt; but discomforts
were forgotten in the joy of a great discovery. Sir Samuel proceeded to
collect all the information he could relative to its position. The chief
of the village told him that its breadth was immense, but that large
canoes had been known to cross from the other side after four days and
nights of hard rowing. That other side, the west, was included in the
great kingdom of Malegga, governed by King Kajoro, who traded with
Kamrasi from a point opposite to Magango, where the lake contracted to
the width of one day’s voyage. South of Malegga was a country named
Tori, and the lake extended into the kingdom of Karagwé, with whose
sovereign, Rumanika, Speke and Grant had maintained a friendly
intercourse. Karagwé partly bounded the lake on the eastern side, and
next to it, towards the north, came Utumbi; then, in succession, came
Uganda, Unyoro, Chopé.
The Albert Nyanza formed a vast basin of water, lying far below the
general level of the country, and receiving all its drainage. It was
surrounded by precipitous cliffs, which left but a narrow strip of sand
between them and the swelling waves, and bounded on the west and
south-west by huge mountain-ranges, from five to seven thousand feet in
altitude. Sir Samuel Baker, after a careful survey, concluded that it
was the one great reservoir which received everything, from the passing
shower to the roaring mountain torrent that drained from Central Africa
towards the north. Speke’s Victoria Nyanza was a reservoir situated at a
considerable elevation, receiving the waters from the west of the
Kitangulé river, its principal feeder; but as the Albert Lake extended
much farther north than the Victoria, it took up the river from the
latter, and monopolized the entire head-waters of the Nile. In Sir
Samuel’s opinion the Albert was the great reservoir, while the Nile was
the eastern source; the parent streams that created these lakes were from
the same origin, and the Kitangulé poured its waters into the Victoria,
to be eventually received by the Albert. The discoveries of Mr. Stanley,
however, impose on geographers the necessity of considerably modifying
Sir Samuel Baker’s hypothesis, without detracting from the importance of
his discovery. The Albert Lake really holds an inferior position to the
Victoria, which unquestionably receives the parent waters of the Nile;
but it is not the less one of its great reservoirs.
Having obtained a canoe at Vacovia, Sir Samuel explored the north-eastern
coast of the Albert, and after a voyage of thirteen days arrived at
Magango, where the Nile, or Somerset river, after a winding course from
the Victoria Nyanza, flows calmly into its basin, to quit it again a few
miles further north, and make its way towards Egypt and the
Mediterranean. At Magango the lake is about seventeen miles wide, but to
the north it ends in a long strip or neck which a growth of tall green
rushes almost conceals. After leaving the lake, the Nile smoothly
descends its green valley, and is navigable for boats until it reaches
Agunddo, where it dashes headlong over a precipice of thirty or forty
feet.
Having completed his survey of the Albert, as far as his means admitted,
Sir Samuel determined, instead of retracing his steps to Kamrasi’s
residence at ’Mroolli, to trace the course of the Somerset or Nile river
up to Karuma Falls, to which point Speke and Grant had followed it
downwards. The canoes having been got ready, Baker and his wife began
their river voyage. About two miles from Magango the width contracted
from 500 to 250 yards. As they proceeded, the river gradually narrowed
to about 180 yards, and when the men ceased paddling, they could
distinctly hear the roar of water. Arriving at a point where the river
made a slight turn, they saw the sandbanks covered with crocodiles; like
logs of timber, they lay together. The cliffs on either side were steep
and rugged, and the whole picture was rich in various colouring. Foliage
of the intensest green clothed each rocky projection, and through a
narrow cleft or gap in the precipices the river plunged down before them
in one vast leap of about 120 feet. The fall of waters was white as
snow, and contrasted magnificently with the dark walls that held it in,
while the graceful palms of the tropics and wild plantains increased the
beauty of the view. This noble cataract, the grandest on the Nile, Sir
Samuel named the Murchison Falls, in honour of the famous geologist and
geographer.
It was impossible, of course, to pass the cataract, and the voyagers made
haste to land and collect their oxen and attendants in order to resume
their journey. The route they took was parallel to the river, which
continued to flow in a deep and picturesque ravine. From an island
called Palooan, a succession of islets broke its course until near the
Karuma Falls. These islets belonged to two chiefs, Rionza and Fowooka,
who were bitter enemies of the King of Unyoro, Kamrasi. On arriving at
this point, Sir Samuel found that they were at that very time engaged in
hostilities, and that it would be impossible for him to continue along
the bank of the river. Obstacles of every kind were thrown by the
natives in the onward path of the travellers, but in spite of ill health,
weakness, and weariness, they slowly pushed forward. Not the least of
their troubles was the scarcity of suitable provisions, and they grew so
feeble that at last even their brave hearts gave way, and they began to
despair of reaching Gondokoro—to resign themselves to the thought of
being buried in that inhospitable land. “I wrote instructions in my
journal,” says Sir Samuel, “in case of death, and told my headman to be
sure to deliver my maps, observations, and papers to the English consul
at Khartûm; this was my only care, as I feared that all my labour might
be lost should I die. I had no fear for my wife, as she was quite as bad
as I, and if one should die, the other would certainly follow;—in fact,
this had been agreed upon lest she should fall into the hands of Kamrasi
at my death. We had struggled to win, and I thanked God that we had won;
if death were to be the price, at all events we were at the goal, and we
both looked upon death rather as a pleasure, as affording rest; there
would be no more suffering; no fever, no long journey before us, that in
our weak state was an infliction; the only wish was to lay down the
burthen.”
From this wretched position Sir Samuel delivered himself, by undertaking
to assist Kamrasi in his war against Fowooka. Whether this was a
legitimate proceeding on the part of a scientific explorer, who had no
interest in the quarrel of either party, may well be doubted, but the
alliance led to his obtaining an immediate supply of provisions. Natives
were sent to assist him and his wife in their journey to Kamrasi’s camp
at Kisoona. But what was their surprise to find that the Kamrasi whom
they had interviewed at ’Mrooli was not, after all, the real Kamrasi, the
King of Unyoro, but his brother, M’Gami, whom Kamrasi had ordered to
personate him, in an access of alarm as to the traveller’s possible
designs. Sir Samuel was indignant at the deception, and it was with some
difficulty that M’Gami could prevail upon him to forgive it. At last he
consented to visit the king, and something like an amicable understanding
was established between them. He was well supplied with provisions of
all kinds, and both his wife and himself slowly recovered their health
and spirits. By a dexterous use of the British flag he repelled an
attempted invasion of Fowooka’s warriors; and he rendered various
services to Kamrasi, which met, we need hardly say, with no adequate
reward. It was the middle of November before, in company with a caravan
of ivory-traders under his old friend Ibrahim, Sir Samuel was able to
resume his return journey to Gondokoro. The caravan consisted of about
seven hundred porters and eighty armed men, with women and children; in
all, about one thousand people. To provision such a body was necessarily
difficult, and there was no meat, although flour was abundant. Sir
Samuel’s skill as a hunter was put into requisition to supply a little
variety to the bill of fare; and his bringing down a fine hartebeest was
an event which gave very general satisfaction.
Five days after leaving the Victoria Nile, the caravan arrived at Shooa,
where Sir Samuel and his wife received a hearty welcome. Some months
were spent in this pleasant locality, the Turks profiting by the
opportunity to make razzias upon the neighbouring tribes, so that, for
many miles around, the blackened ruins of villages and the desolated
fields bore witness to their reckless cruelty; cattle were carried off in
thousands, and a fair and fertile region was converted into a dreary
wilderness. The captives made were detained to be sold as slaves. On
one occasion, among the victims brought in to the Turkish camp was a
pretty young girl of about fifteen. She had been sold by auction, as
usual, the day after the return from the razzia, and had fallen to the
lot of one of the men. A few days later, there appeared in the camp a
native from the plundered village, intent upon ransoming the girl with a
quantity of ivory. He had scarcely entered the gateway, when the girl,
who was sitting at the door of her owner’s hut, descried him, and
springing to her feet, ran with all the speed her chained ankles
permitted, and flung herself into his arms, with the cry of “My father!”
Yes; it was her father who, to rescue his child from degradation, had
nobly risked his life in his brutal enemy’s camp.
The Turks who witnessed this particular incident, far from being touched
by any emotion of pity, rushed on to the unfortunate native, tore him
from his daughter, and bound him tightly with cords. At this time Sir
Samuel was in his tent, assisting some of his men to clean his rifles.
Suddenly, at a distance of less than a hundred paces, he heard three
shots fired. The men exclaimed, “They have shot the abid (native)!”
“What native?” inquired Sir Samuel; and his men replied by narrating the
story we have just recorded. Sir Samuel at first refused to believe it,
but it proved to be true in every detail, even in the last; for, bound to
a tree, lay the wretched father, shot dead with three balls.
In the month of February the caravan started for Gondokoro. The route
lay at first through a fertile and pleasant country, crossing twice the
Un-y-Ami river, and touching at its point of junction with the Nile, in
lat. 3° 32′ N. On the north bank of the Un-y-Ami, about three miles from
its mouth, Sir Samuel saw the tamarind tree—the “Shadder-el-Sowar” (or
“Traveller’s Tree”), as the trading parties called it—which indicated the
limit of Signor Miani’s explorations from Gondokoro, and the furthest
point reached by any traveller from the north prior to Sir Samuel Baker’s
enterprise. The journey was continued through a fine park-like extent of
verdant grass, covered with stately tamarind trees, which sheltered among
their branches great numbers of the brilliant yellow-breasted pigeon.
Ascending a rocky eminence by a laborious pass, Sir Samuel, from the
summit, which was eight hundred feet high, saw before him the old
historic river. “Hurrah for the old Nile!” he said, and contemplated
with eager gaze the noble scene before him. Flowing from the westward,
with many a curve and bend, was the broad sheet of unbroken water, four
hundred yards wide, exclusive of the thick belt of reeds on either
margin. Its source could be clearly traced for some scores of miles, and
the range of mountains on the west bank was distantly visible that the
travellers had previously sighted, when on the route from Karuma to
Shooa, at a distance of sixty miles. This chain begins at Magango, and
forms the Koshi frontier of the Nile. The country opposite to Sir
Samuel’s position was Koshi, which extends along the _west_ bank of the
river to the Albert Lake. The country which he was traversing extends,
under the name of Madi, along the _east_ bank to the confluence of the
Somerset Nile, opposite Magango.
The Nile here enters a rocky valley between Gebel Kookoo and the western
mountains, and foams and frets around and against rock and island, until,
suddenly contracting, it breaks into a roaring torrent, and dashes
furiously onward in the shadow of perpendicular cliffs. Waterfall
succeeds to waterfall, and it is difficult to identify the swollen,
thunderous, angry river with the calm clear stream that brightens the
fertile pastures of Shooa. In this part of its course it receives the
Asua. Through dense thickets of bamboos, and deep ravines which, in the
season of rains, pour their turbid tribute into the great river, the
caravan made its way; but in passing through a gorge between two rocky
hills it was attacked by a body of the Bari natives, who were lying in
ambush. Their bows and arrows, however, proved ineffectual against the
musketry of the Turks, and they retired discomfited. This was the last
important incident of the journey to Gondokoro, where, after an absence
of upwards of two years, Sir Samuel and Lady Baker arrived in safety.
But what was their disappointment to find there neither letters nor
supplies! Their friends and agents had long since given them up as dead;
never believing that travellers could penetrate into that far and savage
south, and return alive. There was no news from home; no money; no
conveyance provided to take them back to Khartûm. With characteristic
energy Sir Samuel confronted his disappointment, and instead of wringing
his hands and waiting for the help that would not come, he set actively
to work, engaged a dahabeeyah for the sum of four thousand piastres
(£40), removed his baggage on board, collected provisions, took friendly
leave of Ibrahim and the traders, and, with the flag of Old England
flying at his masthead, set sail from Gondokoro. There is very little to
be said about the voyage to Khartûm. Sir Samuel shot some antelopes, and
the progress of the dahabeeyah beyond the junction of the Bahr-el-Ghazal
was considerably impeded by that natural dam of floating vegetation,
intermingled with reeds, sunburnt wood, and mud that here forms so signal
an obstruction to the navigation of the Upper Nile. To allow of the
passage of boats a canal has been cut, about ten feet wide, but it
requires constant clearance, and its transit is not accomplished without
considerable difficulty. Two days’ hard work from morning till night
carried the voyagers through it, and with feelings of relief and
exultation they found themselves once more on the open Nile and beyond
the dam. But as they floated past the Sobat junction, the terrible
plague broke out on board their vessel, carrying off two of the crew, and
the boy Saat, who had served them so long and so faithfully. It was a
sad conclusion to an expedition which, though fraught with sufferings,
trials, and dangers, had, on the whole, been crowned with complete
success.
It was the evening of the 5th of May, 1865, when Sir Samuel and Lady
Baker entered Khartûm, to be welcomed by the whole European population as
if they had risen from the dead. On the 1st of July they left it for
Berber. In making the passage of the Cataracts they narrowly escaped
shipwreck; their boat, as it sped along under full sail before a high
gale of wind, struck broadside upon a sandbank. About sixty yards below
rose a ridge of rocks on which it seemed certain that the vessel would be
driven, if it cleared the bank; so that to avoid Scylla was to rush into
Charybdis. Sir Samuel, however, proved equal to the occasion. An anchor
was laid up stream; the crew hauled on the cable, and the great force of
the current pressing against the vessels’ broadside, she wore gradually
round. All hands then laboured to clear away the sand, which, when
loosened by their hands and feet, the swift full current rapidly carried
away. For five hours they remained in this position, with the boat
cracking, and half filled with water; however, a channel was opened at
last, and slipping the cable, Sir Samuel hoisted sail, and with the
velocity of an arrow, the head of the vessel swung round, and away she
went, plunging through the swirling, boiling water, and clearing the
rocks by a few inches.
They arrived at Berber, and procuring camels, started east for Souakim on
the Red Sea, a distance of two hundred and seventy-five miles. There
they obtained passage on board an Egyptian Government steamer, and in
five days landed at Suez. Here ends the record of their heroic
enterprise. {404}
INDEX.
A
A’damáwa, 116; capital of 119
Africa, exploration in, 365, 366
Agadez, 97; customs of inhabitants of, 98
Alatou Mountains, the, 222, 225, 227
Albert Nyanza, the, 391–393
Aliyú, the Emir, 135
Altai, lakes of the, 193
Altin-Kool, Lake, 195
Alty-Kuduk, camp of, 277
American camp at Valverde, 70
American trapper, an, 71
Amu-Daria, the, 278, 350, 351
Ara, river, the, 226
Aral, Lake or Sea of, 343
Arkansas valley, 80
Asben, Mount, 96
Asua, river, 384
Atado, town of, 386
Atkinson, Thomas Witlam, travels in Siberia and Central Asia, 157–228
Australia, sketch of discovery in, 293–295
B
Bacsi, the, enchantments of, 29
Badakshan, the river, 14
Badámuni, 130
Bielouka Mountains, the, 206
Bagara Arabs, the, 382
Bagirmi, 121
Bagma, 116
Baikal Lake, 228
Baker, Sir Samuel and Lady, discover the Albert Nyanza, 238
Baker, Lady, illness of, 390–392
Baker, Sir Samuel, travels in Africa, 365–404
Barnaoul, mines of, 186
Barth, Dr., African travels of, 90–156
Bear, adventure with a, 189
Beaver-trapping, 79
Bénuwé, the river, 118
Berber, 403
Boiling Spring River, legend of, 84
Bokhara, 323
Bornú, 105; capital of, 106
Bronze-wing pigeon, the, 305, 306
Búdduma, or African Lake pirates, 110
Bull-tailing, Mexican sport of, described, 57
Burnaby, Major, travels in Khiva, 325–364
C
Caldwell, Bishop, quoted, 45
Cambaluc, visited by Marco Polo, 32