Baker, SIR SAMUEL WHITE

Baker, SIR SAMUEL WHITE, an African traveller, born in London, June 8, 1821, was educated at a private school and in Germany, and at an early age went to Ceylon. There, along with his brother, he established in 1847 an agricultural settlement and sanatorium at Newera Ellia, 6200 feet above sea-level. He afterwards superintended the construction of the railway which connects the Danube across the Dobrudja with the Black Sea. In 1860 he married a young Hungarian lady of great talent and enterprise, and in company with her he undertook a journey of exploration at his own cost for the discovery of the Nile sources. They set out from Cairo in April 1861, reaching Khartoum in June 1862. When Baker quitted Khartoum to ascend the White Nile, he had an escort of 90 persons, 29 camels, horses, and asses, and three large boats. They had only been at Gondokoro a fortnight, when they were joined by Speke and Grant coming from the south, who told Baker of the Victoria Nyanza, which they had discovered; they also mentioned that the natives had described to them another great lake, named Luta Nzige. Baker resolved to reach this lake; and after many adventures, they arrived, on 14th March 1864, on the top of lofty cliffs, from which they beheld the vast inland sea to which Baker gave the name of the Albert Nyanza. He reached Gondokoro on March 23, 1865. In 1869-73 he commanded an expedition, organised by the pasha of Egypt, for the suppression of slavery and the annexation of the equatorial regions of the Nile Basin. After the British occupation of Cyprus in 1879, he made a thorough exploration of the island, and afterwards journeyed through Syria, India, Japan, and America. Baker was knighted in 1866; on his return from the Nile, he received medals from the Royal Geographical Society, and the French Geographical Society. He was F.R.S., and a fellow of other learned societies; and had numerous foreign distinctions. He died at his home near Newton-Abbot, 30th December 1893. He published The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon (1854); Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon (1855); The Albert Nyanza (1866); The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia (1867); Ismailia (1874); Cyprus (1879); and Wild Beasts and their Ways (1890). See his Life by Murray and Silva White (1895).