3-053-446 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lady Baker, 1873. Engraving from a photograph by Maull and Co. 'The safe return to England of [Sir Samuel White Baker,] courageous and skilful pioneer of civilisation in the wilds of Central Africa...has been hailed with general congratulations...In 1860 he married the present Lady Baker, who was an Austrian or Hungarian lady, Florence, daughter of Finnian von Sass. She accompanied him, in March, 1861, when he started for an expedition in Africa...It was at the end of 1862 that Mr. and Mrs. Baker set forth to ascend the course of the White Nile from Khartoum...Baker learnt that, besides the Victoria Nyanza, out of which the Nile flows, there was reason to believe in the existence of another great lake to the westward, from which the river must derive its most important supply of water. He resolved to go in search of this...[and] made his way, only attended by a few native servants and still accompanied by his young wife, through the Latooka and Obbo country to the Asua and Karuma, thence traversing Unyoro, and reaching the eastern shore of the newly-discovered lake on March 14, 1864. This lake he called the Albert Nyanza'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.