PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 521 
discovered not.from the north, but from the south, when Captain Speke, who, in 
company with Captain Burton, was exploring Central Africa from the east coast, 
heard of a great lake lying to the north, and succeeded in reaching the south end 
of the Victoria Nyanza in 1858. Convinced that he had found the long-desired 
source of the Nile, he started on another expedition, accompanied by Captain 
Grant, in 1860, and, after marching round the Victoria Lake, reached Gondokoro 
in 1863. Here he met Sir Samuel Baker, who had started from Khartum in 
1862, in the hope of discovering the Nile sources. The information given by 
Speke and Grant showed that they had forestalled him; but he continued his 
journey, and in 1864 succeeded in reaching the Albert Nyanza, the second great 
lake, from which the White Nile derives its water. 
Thus, at length, after a lapse of many centuries, the truth of the statements 
made by Ptolemy and other ancient geographers was justified, and the lakes 
shown by them were restored to the map of Africa, while the White Nile was 
proved to be the real Nile, and the Blue Nile was relegated to the position of 
being the most important tributary. 
During the period of the travels of Speke and Baker the slave trade had been 
rapidly increasing, and the traders had practically taken possession of the 
country, and made themselves independent of the Egyptian authorities in 
Khartum. These slave-traders cared nothing for geography, and had matters 
remained as they were at that time, it is probable that a State hostile to 
Europeans would have been established, and all chance of further exploration 
would have been lost. 
But in 1869 the Khedive Ismail, who had succeeded as ruler of Egypt in 1863, 
and had obtained largely increased powers from the Sultan, decided to restore 
his authority on the White Nile, and appointed Sir Samuel Baker as Governor 
of the country south of Gondokoro, with instructions to establish Egyptian rule 
as far as he could to the south of that point. But nature fought against Baker, 
and the difficulty of sailing up the White Nile had been enormously increased 
by the formation of the sudd, that strange vegetable barrier which at times 
completely closes the river channel, and he did not reach Gondokoro until two 
years had elapsed from the time of his departure from Khartum. There he 
hoisted the Egyptian flag, and then proceeded to occupy the country to the 
south. But he was not successful, as the force at his disposal was quite in- 
sufficient, and, though he established a few stations on the road from Gondokoro 
to Foweira, on the Upper Nile, little effective had been done when he re- 
turned to Gondokoro in April 1873. Neither was he able to do much in the way 
of geographical research, and, greatly to his regret, was unable to revisit the lake 
which he had discovered on his first journey. 
In 1874 Colonel Gordon was appointed to succeed Baker, and, leaving Khar- 
tum in March, reached Gondokoro in twenty-four days, the sudd, fortunately 
for him, having been cut through by the Egyptian officials only a month before 
his arrival in the Sudan. Gordon ruled the equatorial provinces until 
October 1876, and during that time did much to tranquillise the country, as he 
had a remarkable influence over the natives. He moved the headquarters of the 
government from Gondokoro to Lado, and established a chain of posts along the 
Nile to Duflé, and thence to Nyamyongo, in Uganda, about eighty miles below 
the Ripon Falls. He also placed two steamers and two sailing-boats on the 
Albert Lake to facilitate communication. Gordon devoted much attention to the 
geography of the district, and prepared a map of the White Nile from Khartum 
to Urondogani, superior to any that had preceded it. This map included a plan 
of the Albert Nyanza, based on surveys made by Gessi and Mason, both of whom 
circumnavigated the lake. Mason reported the existence of the river, now 
called the Semliki, entering the lake from the south, but was unable to enter it, 
as the water was too shallow for his vessel. ‘i 3 
Soon, after his arrival at Gondokoro Gordon fully realised the difficulty of 
keeping up communication with Egypt by the Nile, and requested the Khedive 
to send an expedition to Formosa Bay, about a hundred miles north of Mombasa, 
on the east coast of Africa, with the view of opening up a road towards the Nile. 
The route he thought of was a little north of that now followed by the Uganda 
railway ; but at the time he made the proposal the country was entirely unknown, . 
and the difficulties would have been much greater than he anticipated. The 
idea, however, came to nothing, first, because the expedition was sent to the 
