The New Student's Reference Work/Baker, Sir Samuel White

Baker, Sir Samuel White, an African traveler, was born in London in 1821, and educated there and in Germany. He superintended the building of the railroad which connects the Danube with the Black Sea. In 1860, with his wife, a Hungarian lady of great talent, he entered upon an exploring journey to discover the sources of the Nile. Starting from Khartum, with an escort of 90 men, 29 camels, horses and asses and three large boats, he ascended the White Nile. He met the explorers Speke and Grant, who reported their own discovery of the Lake Victoria, and told him of another large lake called by the natives Luta Nzige. He resolved to reach this lake, and after many adventures, on March 4, 1864, from the top of lofty cliffs, he saw the vast inland sea, to which he gave the name of Albert Nyanza. During 1869–73 he commanded an expedition organized by the khedive of Egypt to suppress slavery and to annex the equatorial regions of the Nile Basin. He published The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon, The Albert Nyanza as I Saw It, Ismaila and Cast up by the Sea. He died at Newton Abbott England, December 30, 1893.