3-021-243 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. S. W. Baker, the African traveller, 1865. 'The very interesting narrative of his explorations of the upper course of the White Nile River, with the discovery of Lake Albert Nyanza [was] laid before the Royal Geographical Society by Mr. S. W. Baker...worthy to be ranked...as one of the boldest, ablest, and most successful travellers in this region of Central Africa...[He] was told by Captain Speke that he was assured by the natives that a large lake existed to the westward, which he believed would be found to be a second source of the Nile...Accordingly Mr. Baker then undertook to follow up the stream...he went on, with Mrs. Baker (who now accompanied him)...Mr. and Mrs. Baker, with their train of followers, travelling usually on the backs of oxen, made their way to Kamrasi's country...they came in sight of the looked-for lake, a limitless sheet of blue water sunk low in a vast depression...He descended the steep cliffs, 1500 ft. in height, leading Mrs. Baker by the hand, and, reaching the clean sandy beach, drank of the sweet waters...Upon achieving the object of their journeys, Mr. Baker named the lake, subject to her Majesty's permission, Albert Nyanza'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.