326 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



most interesting letter from him, which will be read at the pres- 

 ent meeting, and which graphically details the difficulties over 

 which he has triumphed to the present time. 



" We learn from this letter that Baker, starting from his station 

 on the White Nile, in lat. 9 2G', next November, can only reach 

 Gondokora much later than he anticipated ; we have further to 

 reflect upon the fact that, after arriving at that place, his great 

 difficulties would commence ; for, in the Bari country, peopled by 

 negroes who have been rendered furious and wretched by cruel 

 slave-dealers of various nations, he would also have to transport 

 all his vessels and materials along the right bank of the Nile, 

 where the great stream flows over granitic rapids. He has also 

 to carry all his goods over the Assua River, a great tributary of 

 the Nile, by a wire or chain bridge, which he had to construct. 

 Having vanquished these obstacles, and having reached that por- 

 tion of the Nile in which his vessels could be launched, he would 

 then sail up the stream until he reached his own great lake, the 

 Albert Nyanza. This accomplished, and cheered by his charming 

 and devoted wife, he would be thoroughly master of a position 

 wholly unprecedented in the history of African discovery. 



** As I have already alluded to a very barbarous tract through 

 which he would have to pass, and which was formerly traversed 

 by Speke and Grant, I would observe that it is specially to such 

 tracts that Baker holds instructions from the Khedive to extirpate 

 the cruel slave-dealers who have brought about these horrors by 

 the robbery of their ivory from the natives, and the capture of 

 women and children. I specially make this allusion, because a 

 mistaken notion had arisen in Egypt that Sir Samuel proceeded 

 on a mission to abolish slavery altogether. Now, as every Egyp- 

 tian household contains slaves as their only domestic servants, we 

 learned from our associate, Lord Houghton, when he visited the 

 Suez Canal, that the Egyptians were ninch prejudiced against Sir 

 Samuel. But no such Quixotic, and I might say impossible task 

 has been assigned to Baker, for domestic slavery is ingrained 

 in all parts of Africa as a regular institution of the land. Atro- 

 cious and cruel slave-dealing and robbery may, however, be 

 thoroughly put an end to ; and this my friend has already con> 

 menced, through the agency of Egyptian soldiers. Of his energy 

 in these philanthropic measures you will have a pregnant proof in 

 the letter which will be read to you. In this way the poor African 

 serf may be assured that when he sows his grain he will reap a. 

 crop at a future day. 



" I can well imagine the delight with which Baker will define 

 with his flotilla the western boundary of his great lake, and de- 

 lineate the course of those lofty mountains on its western shore 

 which he had only seen at a great distance in his former journey. 

 We may also picture to ourselves how he would rejoice in explor- 

 ing wide tracts of that vast unknown interior in which large bodies 

 of water lie, which are supposed to feed the Congo. The point 

 of the compass, however, which will be first sought by the intrepid 

 voyager will, I doubt not, be the southernmost end of the Albert 

 Nyanza, because it is there that he hopes for the happiness of 



