The Albert NYanza, Great Basin of the Nile | Page 4

of the
Nile Sources.
by Sir Samuel W. Baker, M.A., F.R.G.S.
Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society.

To Her Most Gracious Majesty THE QUEEN I dedicate, with Her
permission, THIS BOOK, Containing the Story of the Discovery of the

Great Lake From which the NILE ultimately flows, And which, As
connected so intimately, As a NILE SOURCE, with the VICTORIA
LAKE, I have ventured to name "THE ALBERT N'YANZA," In
Memory of the Late Illustrious and Lamented PRINCE CONSORT.

PREFACE.
In the history of the Nile there was a void: its Sources were a mystery.
The Ancients devoted much attention to this problem; but in vain. The
Emperor Nero sent an expedition under the command of two centurions,
as described by Seneca. Even Roman energy failed to break the spell
that guarded these secret fountains. The expedition sent by Mehemet
Ali Pasha, the celebrated Viceroy of Egypt, closed a long term of
unsuccessful search.
The work has now been accomplished. Three English parties, and only
three, have at various periods started upon this obscure mission: each
has gained its end.
Bruce won the source of the Blue Nile; Speke and Grant won the
Victoria source of the great White Nile; and I have been permitted to
succeed in completing the Nile Sources by the discovery of the great
reservoir of the equatorial waters, the ALBERT N'YANZA, from
which the river issues as the entire White Nile.
Having thus completed the work after nearly five years passed in Africa,
there still remains a task before me. I must take the reader of this
volume by the hand, and lead him step by step along my rough path
from the beginning to the end; through scorching deserts and thirsty
sands; through swamp, and jungle, and interminable morass; through
difficulties, fatigues, and sickness, until I bring him, faint with the
wearying journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall burst
upon his view--from which he shall look down upon the vast ALBERT
LAKE, and drink with me from the Sources of the Nile!
I have written "HE!" How can I lead the more tender sex through
dangers and fatigues, and passages of savage life? A veil shall be
thrown over many scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but
which I will not force upon the reader; neither will I intrude anything
that is not actually necessary in the description of scenes that
unfortunately must be passed through in the journey now before us.
Should anything offend the sensitive mind, and suggest the unfitness of

the situation for a woman's presence, I must beseech my fair readers to
reflect, that the pilgrim's wife followed him, weary and footsore,
through all his difficulties, led, not by choice, but by devotion; and that
in times of misery and sickness her tender care saved his life and
prospered the expedition.
"O woman, in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When
pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!"
In the journey now before us I must request some exercise of patience
during geographical details that may be wearisome; at all events, I will
adhere to facts, and avoid theory as much as possible.
The Botanist will have ample opportunities of straying from our path to
examine plants with which I confess a limited acquaintance. The
Ethnologist shall have precisely the same experience that I enjoyed, and
he may either be enlightened or confounded. The Geologist will find
himself throughout the journey in Central Africa among primitive rocks.
The Naturalist will travel through a grass jungle that conceals much
that is difficult to obtain: both he and the Sportsman will, I trust,
accompany me on a future occasion through the "Nile tributaries from
Abyssinia," which country is prolific in all that is interesting. The
Philanthropist,--what shall I promise to induce him to accompany me? I
will exhibit a picture of savage man precisely as he is; as I saw him;
and as I judged him, free from prejudice: painting also, in true colours,
a picture of the abomination that has been the curse of the African race,
the SLAVE TRADE; trusting that not only the philanthropist, but every
civilized being, will join in the endeavour to erase that stain from
disfigured human nature, and thus open the path now closed to
civilization and missionary enterprise. To the Missionary,--that noble,
self-exiled labourer toiling too often in a barren field,--I must add the
word of caution, "Wait"! There can be no hope of success until the
slave trade shall have ceased to exist.
The journey is long, the countries savage; there are no ancient histories
to charm the present with memories of the past; all is wild