376 
SIR SAMUEL BAKER AND THE SLAVE TRADE 
visited upon this country of slavery and abomination, spread like a 
fire throughout the town, and consumed the regiments that had re¬ 
ceived this horrible legacy from the dying cargo of slaves.” 
Such a horrible state of affairs could not be permitted to con¬ 
tinue, and in 1869 the Egyptian government engaged the famous trav¬ 
eler Sir Samuel White Baker, who had discovered the Albert Nyanza 
five years before, to head an expedition for its suppression. Mr. Baker 
was placed at the head of one thousand four hundred infantry, two 
hundred cavalry, and two batteries of artillery, with orders to pro¬ 
ceed at once into the district of Gondokoro, which lay one thousand 
four hundred and fifty miles distant. On this perilous journey he was 
accompanied by his wife. He writes: “Had I been alone it would 
have been no hard lot to die upon the path before me, but there was 
one who, although my greatest comfort, was also my greatest care. 
I shuddered at the prospect for her, should she be left alone in savage 
lands at my death; and gladly would I have left her in the luxuries 
of home instead of exposing her to the miseries of Africa. It was in 
vain that I implored her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties 
and perils still blacker than I supposed they really would be: she was 
resolved, with woman’s constancy and devotion, to share all dangers 
and to follow me through each rough footstep of the wild life before 
me. And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from 
following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou 
lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God: where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord 
do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me/ ” 
Mr. Baker selected his bodyguard from two regiments accom¬ 
panying the expedition, and part of them were black and part white. 
These he armed with Snider rifles and jocosely named “the forty 
thieves.” Passing Khartoum and proceeding to the point where the 
“Blue Nile” unites with the “White Nile,” they advanced rapidly up 
the latter, under a fresh breeze which blew from the north. Continu¬ 
ing up the stream until he reached a point where it is joined by the 
Sobat, he entered the Bahr Giraffe, the main river being impassable 
on account of the masses of vegetation which float upon its surface, 
and the large number of floating islands which it contains. This 
