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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1895. 



SIR SAMUEL BAKER AND NORTHERN 

 AFRICA. 

 Sir Samuel Raker: a Memoir. By T. Douglas Murray 

 and A. Silva White. 8vo. Pp. xii. 447, with six 

 illustrations and nine maps. (London: Macmillan and 

 Co., 1895.) 

 North Africa. Stanford's Compendium of Geography 

 and Travel. (New series). Africa. Vol. i. By A. H. 

 Keane. 8vo. Pp. xvi. 639, with seventy-seven illus- 

 trations and nine maps. (London: E. Stanford, 1895.) 

 ASU.MM.\RY of our present knowledge of Northern 

 .Africa, and a memoir of the late Sir Samuel Baker, 

 may be appropriately considered together, for Baker's 

 main title to fame rests on the work he did in that 

 region ; and had his experience been properly utilised, 

 the most interesting part of it might not have been lost 

 to civilisation and closed to scientific inquiry. 



Samuel White Baker came of an old Devonshire 

 family, members of which have done good work for their 

 country- since the time when Sir John Baker served 

 Henry X'lIL as Attorney-General, Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer, and Speaker of the House of Commons. 

 Baker was born in London on June 8, 1821, and spent 

 most of his early life at Enfield. He was destined for 

 a commercial career, and in 1842 placed in his father's 

 office in Fenchurch Street. But the work was utterly 

 uncongenial to him. His marriage kept him quiet 

 for a time, but not for long ; for next year he gave 

 up business and went to Mauritius, where the family had 

 estates. In 1846 he went for a shooting expedition to 

 Ceylon, and was so impressed by the possibilities of the 

 island, which then had a very bad reputation, that he 

 resolved to found a colony in it. In 1848 he led a party 

 of settlers to Newera Eliya, where 1000 acres of land had i 

 been bought from the Government. This was cleared, 

 and a settlement made. Baker remained there till 1855, 

 and during his stay did a good deal of big-game shooting. 

 In 1856 his wife died, and as he had previously lost three 

 of his children, he became very depressed, and actually 

 resolved to enter the Church. This scheme came to 

 nothing, and Baker accepted instead the post of manager 

 of the Dobruscha Railway, the construction of which had 

 been just begun. This kept him busy in 1859 and i860, 

 and raised in him the keen interest he afterwards felt in 

 the Eastern question. It was in the next year, when 

 Baker was forty years of age, that he resolved on an 

 expedition into .Africa to try to meet Speke (whose sister 

 had married Baker's father) and Grant, and carry out 

 some explorations to supplement theirs. In order to gain 

 experience of the people and to learn the languages 

 required, he made a preliminary excursion up the Atbara 

 to some of the Abyssinian sources of the Nile. He left 

 Khartum on his main expedition on December 18, 1862, 

 reaching Gondokoro in the following February. Here 

 he met Speke and Grant, who returned northward in 

 Baker's boats, while he and his heroic wife continued 

 their journey southward along the Nile valley, and 

 through Unyoro till they reached the .Albert Nyanza at 

 Bako\ia. The discovery of this lake was the greatest 

 NO. 1348, VOL. 52] 



achievement of the expedition ; but it was only the 

 accident of the condition of the weather, that robbed 

 them of the discovery of the snow-clad peaks of Ruwen- 

 zori. They had reached a point whence, in clear weather, 

 the mountain ought to have been as visible "as St. 

 Paul's dome from Westminster Bridge," as Stanley said. 

 They returned to Europe in 1865, and in 1869 went back 

 to the Soudan on an expedition to suppress the slave 

 trade. Baker had all a Devonshire Quaker's horror of 

 this trade. The view that slavery' was akindof secondarj' 

 larval structure, necessary in a certain stage of national 

 progress, and later on to be absorbed or thrown off, was 

 not then recognised. Baker simply regarded it as an 

 unholy thing, which was to be crushed by any means 

 or at any cost. He accordingly went for it with the 

 pluck of a bull-dog, and just about as much judgment. 

 He was given a commission to go to the Soudan to break 

 up the gangs of slave raiders. He had an independent 

 command, but could do little of permanent value with- 

 out the assistance of his colleague, the Governor of 

 Khartum ; but this worthy official, as well as Baker's 

 native assistants and the supreme authorities in Cairo, 

 all believed in the slave trade in theory, and carried it 

 out in practice. Ismail Pasha alone seems to have been 

 sincere, and not to have endeavoured to thwart the efforts 

 he was ostensibly supporting. Thanks, however, to 

 Baker's indomitable pluck and energ)', and his tact with 

 the men, this Quixotic expedition was carried through 

 with a certain measure of success. Its commander alone 

 benefited much by it, for he secured a great reputation 

 as a leader of men, and learnt better to understand both 

 the Soudan and the slave trade. He returned to Europe 

 i'n 1873, recognising the futility of trying to effect a social 

 revolution over several millions of square miles by shoot- 

 ing a few score of the agents in a trade, of which the 

 principals lived unpunished in Cairo and Khartum. He 

 realised that the only useful course was to improve the 

 industrial conditions, so as to render slavery' unnecessary. 

 Had Baker been sent back to the Soudan, and allowed 

 to work on these lines, the subsequent revolt might have 

 been avoided. But the task was entrusted to other 

 hands, and unfortunately Gordon's peculiar genius was 

 less successful with Mohammedan fanatics than it had 

 been with the stolid Chinese. 



.After Baker's return he settled at Sandford Orleigh in 

 Devonshire, where he lived till his death, except that 

 every winter he made expeditions to some wanner clime. 

 He was always ready, like a knight-errant of old, to rush 

 forth to relieve the inhabitants of some \ illage on the 

 Brahmapootra from the tigers that preyed upon them. 

 He was fond of sport to the last ; even after he had be- 

 come too unsteady to be a match for anything worse than 

 the worn-out old tigers who have had to turn " man- 

 eaters." 



The story of Baker's life is pleasantly told, and even 

 in less competent hands could not have failed to be inter- 

 esting. The editors have wisely left Baker to relate most 

 of it by quoting copious extracts from his letters. 

 Ivxplanatory chapters help the reader to understand the 

 condition of .African geography at the time of his journeys, 

 and to appreciate the relative importance of his work. 

 These chapters seem to be judicious and well infgrmed. 

 Our main regret is that we do not hear enough of Baker as 



