Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Baker, Samuel White
BAKER, Sir Samuel White, F.R.S., M.A., eldest son of the late Samuel Baker, Esq., of Lypiatt Park, Gloucestershire, was born in London, June 8, 1821, and was educated at a private school and in Germany. He married, in 1843, Henrietta, daughter of the Rev. Charles Martin. In 1847 he established an agricultural settlement and sanatorium at Newera Ellia, in the mountains of Ceylon, at an altitude of 6200 feet above the sea level. At great personal cost he, together with his brother, conveyed emigrants from England, and the best breeds of cattle and sheep, to found the mountain colony. The impulse given by this adventure secured the assistance of the Colonial Office, and with the increasing prosperity of Ceylon, Newera Ellia has become a resort of considerable importance, the most recent development being the cultivation of the valuable Cinchona plant. In 1854 Baker retired from Ceylon after eight years' residence, and at the death of his wife in 1855 he proceeded to the Crimea, and he was subsequently engaged in Turkey in the organization of the first railway. In 1861 he commenced an enterprise entirely at his own cost for the discovery of the Nile sources in the hope of meeting the Government expedition under the command of Captain Speke, who had started from Zanzibar for the same object. Having married, in 1860, Florence, daughter of M. Finnian von Sass, he was accompanied throughout this arduous journey by his wife. Leaving Cairo April 15, 1861, he reached, on June 13, the junction of the Atbara with the Nile. For nearly a year he explored the regions of Abyssinia from whence comes the Blue Nile, and in June, 1862, descended to Khartoum, at the junction of the Blue and the White Nile. Here he organised a party of ninety-six persons to explore the course of the latter river. They set out in Dec. 1862, and reached Gondokoro in Feb. 1863. Here Baker had the good fortune to meet Captains Speke and Grant, who had succeeded in reaching the Lake Victoria N'yanza, which they believed to be the ultimate source of the Nile. Baker, having resolved to supplement their explorations, supplied them with the necessary vessels for the voyage to Khartoum, and started from Gondokoro by land, March 26, 1863, without either interpreter or guide, in defiance of the opposition of the slave-hunters who attempted to bar his progress. The route was first eastward, then nearly south, and afterwards turned towards the east. On March 14, 1864, he came in sight of a great fresh-water lake, the "Mwootan N'zige," until then unknown, which he named the Albert N'yanza. After navigating the lake from N. lat. 1° 14′ to the exit of the Nile at 2° 15′, he set out on his homeward journey early in April, 1864, but owing to illness and the disturbed condition of the country he did not reach Gondokoro until March 23, 1865. On June 21 he wrote home from Khartoum:—"There is no longer any mystery connected with the Nile, nor any necessity for expeditions on that head, unless it be desired to explore the great lake I have discovered—the Albert N'yanza. This can only be done by building a vessel for the purpose on the lake. I shall never undertake another expedition in Africa. For the last three years I have not had one day of enjoyment; nothing but anxieties, difficulties, fatigue, and fever...... I should not have been contented to see a foreigner share the honour of discovering the Nile sources with Speke and Grant: it happily belongs to England." The Royal Geographical Society now awarded to him its Victoria Gold Medal, and on his return to England in 1866 he was created M.A. of the University of Cambridge and received the honour of knighthood. In Sept. 1869, he undertook the command of an expedition to Central Africa under the auspices of the Khedive, who placed at his disposal a force of 1500 picked Egyptian troops, and intrusted him for four years with absolute and uncontrolled power of life and death. He undertook to subdue the African wilderness, and to annex it to the civilized world; to destroy the slave trade, and to establish regular commerce in its place; to open up to civilization those vast African lakes which are the equatorial reservoirs of the Nile; and to add the whole of the countries which border on that river to the kingdom of the Pharaohs. Sir Samuel, having first received from the Sultan the Order of the Medjidie and the rank of Pasha and Major-general, left Cairo with his party on Dec. 2, 1869, Lady Baker, as in former journeys, accompanying him. He returned in 1873 and reported the complete success of the expedition. Sir Samuel is the author of "The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon," 1854, new edit. 1874; "Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon," 1855, new edit. 1874; "The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Explorations of the Nile Sources," 2 vols. 1866, translated into French and German; "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia and the Sword Hunters of the Hamram Arabs," 1867, 4th edit. 1871; "Cast up by the Sea," a Story, 1869, translated into French by Madame P. Fernand under the title of "L'Enfant du Naufrage"; "Ismaïlia: a Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for the Suppression of the Slave Trade; arranged by Ismail, Khedive of Egypt," 2 vols. 1874. In 1879, shortly after the British occupation of Cyprus, he visited every portion of the island to thoroughly investigate its resources, the results of which journey he published in a volume entitled "Cyprus as I saw it in 1879." From thence he proceeded upon various researches through Syria, India, Japan, and America. Sir Samuel is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and an honorary member of the Geographical Societies of Paris, Berlin, Italy, and America. He has received the Grande Médaille d'Or of the Société de Géographie de Paris. He is a Deputy-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire and J.P. of Devon; he has the Orders of the Osmanïe of the second class and the Medjidie of the second and third classes.