OBITUARY. 



SAMUEL WHITE BAKER. 

 Born June 8, 1821. Died January 20, 1894. 



SAMUEL WHITE BAKER was born in London, and was the 

 eldest son of Samuel Baker of Lypiatt, Gloucestershire. He was 

 educated at a private school, and afterwards went to Germany, where 

 he studied engineering. As early as 1845 Baker went to Ceylon, 

 chiefly for the purpose of elephant hunting. The reader of his books, 

 however, will find that he had already taken an interest in geography, 

 and before he left the island (1854) he had founded an agricultural 

 settlement at Novera Elia, which he had peopled with English 

 emigrants, and stocked with cattle mainly at his own cost. 



From 1855 he superintended the construction of the Danube and 

 Black Sea railways, and in 1861 made his first exploration in Africa, 

 taking with him his second wife, Florence Finnian von Sass, a 

 Hungarian lady, who has since shared all her husband's labours and 

 enterprises. His journey had for object mainly the determination of 

 the sources of the Nile, but partly the relief of Speke and Grant, who 

 had left Zanzibar in i860 with the same intent. Diverting his course 

 in search of sport, he explored the Abyssinian rivers, and learned 

 Arabic. Reaching Khartoum, he proceeded in 1862 southward to 

 Gondokoro, where he met Speke and Grant in February 1863. 

 Fired by their accounts, Baker and his wife determined to push still 

 further, and on March 14, 1864, they reached the east side of the 

 Albert Nyanza, and though unable to prove the exit of the White 

 Nile, he crossed the river on his return journey about sixty miles to 

 the north of the lake. For this adventurous journey, and its brilliant 

 results the Geographical Society awarded Baker a gold medal. He 

 was further created M.A. of Cambridge, and received the honour of 

 knighthood. The story of his wanderings will be found in " The 

 Albert Nyanza," 1866, and " The Nile Tributaries," 1867. 



After a year's rest in England Baker and his wife returned in 

 1867 to Egypt, having in view the extinction of the slave trade. In 

 1868, the Khedive took Baker into his council, and it was decided that 

 he should go, with a strong force, and absolute and supreme authority 

 "to suppress the slave trade, to introduce a system of regular com- 

 merce, to open to navigation the great lakes of the Equator, and to 

 establish a chain of military stations and commercial depots distant 

 at intervals of three days' march throughout Central Africa, accepting 

 Gondokoro as the basis of operations." But nature and the natives 

 were against him, and from June, 1870, to April, 1871, the expedition 



