DEATH OF SIR S. BAKER

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 16

DEATH OF SIR S. BAKER

(Per Press Association.) London, December 31. Tho death is announced of Sir Samuel Bakor, aged 72. Sir Samuel White Baker, P.R.S., M.A., son of tho lato Sainuol Baker, Lypiatt Park, Gloucestershire, was born in London, in 1821, and was educated at a private school and in Germany. In 1817, at great personal cost, he with his brother established an agricultural colony and sanatorium in tho mountains of Coylon, introducing emigrants and valuable breeds of sheep and cattle. The colony has become a resort of considerable importance. In 1851 Baker retired from Ceylon, and after the death of his wife in 1855 he went to the Crimea, and was engaged in Turkey in the organisation 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. Tinman yon 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 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 af 96 persons to explore the course of the latter river. They set out in December 1862 and reached Gondokoro in Februa-y 1863. Here Baker had the good fortune to meet Captains Speke and Grant, who had succeeded in reaching the Lake "Victoria Nyanza, which they believed to be the ultimate source of the Nile. Baker, having resolved to supplement their explorations, 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. On March 14, 1864. he came in sight of a great freßh- water lake, the Mwootan N'zige," until then unknown, which he named I the Albert Nyanzi. After navigating the lake , from N. lat. 1.14 to tbe exit of the Kile at

a '-i •£.51* , out on his h< >meward journey early in April 1864, but owing to illness and the aiaturbed condition of the countiy he did not reach Gondo-' koro until March 23, 1866. The Royal Geographical Society now awarded to him ita Victoria Gold Medal, and on his return to England in 18fifi he was created M.A. of the Univewit? of CaS bridge and received the honour of -knighthood. In September 1869 he undertook thTcornmandof an expedition to Central Africa iirXr* the auspices of the Khedive, who placed at hia! disposal a force of 1500 picked Egyptian troops 1 and entrusted him for four years with absolute^ and uncontrolled power of life and death. He 4 undertook to subdue the African wilderness, and \ to annex it to the civilised world ; to destroy the % slave trade, and to establish regular Mmmerce ml a* ?*ZVi}° °EEn»? n ». up to civilisation those vast! A /JL ca ww akes w H eh a X the equatorial reservoirs! of the Nile ; and to add the whole of the Tcoun-l &«,r h pft«'S? ero s-* hh S t rive , r t0 the kingdom! of. the Pharaohs. Sir Samuel, having first re- 1 ceived from the Sultan the Order of the Medjidie^ and the rank of Pasha and Major-general, loft i Cairo with his party on December!, 1869, Lady * Baker, as m former journeys, accompany, t ing . r l^- He , in 1873 an(f re- 5 ?°i o4 i be .C 0. C 0. mm P lete success of the expedition. 1 In 1879 he visited every portion of Cyprus. Thence i he proceeded upon various researches through -; Syria, India, Japan, and America. Sir Samuel '' was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society I of London, and an honorary member of the! Geographical^Societies of Paris, Berlin, Italy, and 1 A ?£2 n 9?" . He received the Grande M^daille dOr i of the Spcidte" de Gdographiede Paris, and a num. 4 ber of other orders. He is the author of quite a number of works, most of them describing his v "Tv? e w and adventures.- Abridged from j Men and Women of the Time." :