The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-27 00:00:00

Royal Institution.

There was a very crowded audience at the weekly
meeting of the members of the Royal Institution
yesterday evening, to hear Mr. Baker give an ac-
count of his exploration of the sources of the Nile.
His narrative was for the most part a repetition of
the paper recently read by him at the Geographical
Society, but it entered more fully into some per-
sonal details. After some introductory remarks on
the importance of the Nile to Egypt, and on the
unsuccessful efforts that have been made at various
periods to trace it to its source, he stated that one of
the objects he had in view was to give assistance to
Capts. Spoke and Grant, who had undertaken to
trace the Nile to its sourceby proceeding from Zan-
zibar, on the eastern coast of Africa. He gave a de-
scription of the character of the population of Kar-
toun, who, he said, are the most infamous wretches
on the face of the earth—plunder, murder, and slave-
catching being the business of their lives. He was
accompanied on his expedition by Mrs. Baker,
'and he took with him an equal number of horses,
camels, and asses to try their relative powers of en-
durance, but they all died nearly at the same time,
soon after his departure from Gondokoro, having
been attacked by the fly. At Gondokoro he was re-
joiced by the arrival of Spoke and Grant, though
somewhat disappointed at the same time at their
having, as he supposed, accomplished the object
which it was his ambition to be the first to achieve.
His hopes, however, revived on hearing from those
travellers that they had not been able to trace the
river from its outlet from the lake Victoria Nyanza
all along its course to Gondokoro, having been com-
pelled to leave the stream at Karuma Falls, where
it took a course directly westward. From Captain
Spoke, however, he heard that the natives had in-
formed him the river proceeded westward until it
emptied into a lake larger than the VictoriaNyanza,
and that it issued again at a short distance north-
wards and continued its course to Gondokoro. Mr.
Baker determined to continue his exploration and
to pursue the route indicated byCaptains Speke and
Grant. Soon after he had beenleft by those travel-
lers difficulties arose enough to dishearten any man.
All his men mutinied and threatened to shoot him,
and positively refused to go any further south. He
was obliged to humour them, and, accompanied by
a party of traders, he proceeded eastward for a dis-
tance of 100 miles. During this journey he en-
countered many dangers, and was continually appre-
hensive that his mutinous attendants and the traders
would conspire together to murder him. A fortu-
nate event for him, however, occurred at Latuka,
where the traders, joined by many of his men, at-
tacked a warlike tribe, who inhabited the mountains,
for the purpose of capturing slaves and carrying off
their cattle. The natives, however, made a vigorous
defence, and pursued their assailants to the edge of
a precipice, over which they were burled and killed.
After this adventure the men who remained with
him became more subservient, for they attributed
the destruction of their comrades and the traders to
the evil eye they imagined Mr. Baker possessed.
The Latukans proved very friendly, and provided
for the wants of the travellers, and with their assis-
tance they arrived without much further difficulty
at Karuma Falls, having taken a south-westerly
direction. From Latuka to the falls, the country,
though within two degrees of the equator, is finely

• diversified with mountains, valleys, and streams,
the country presenting throughout teautiful land-
L scapes, and the mountains reaching an elevation
of 5,000 feet. On crossing the river at Karuma
Falls all kinds of obstructions were placed in Mr.
l3ker's further progress by the King Kamuta, who
watched the movements of the party with the
utmost suspicion. They were forced to make a
, 10 days' journey to his capital to obtain an inter-
view, and then a sympathetic system of plundering
commenced which threatened to deprive Mr. Baker
of everything he possessed. The King gave false
accounts of the distance from the lake, which he
represented to be three months' journey to the
west ; but more correct information was obtained
from some traders in salt who had come from the
lake, and said it was distant only 10 days' journey.
Mr. Baker determined to make a last effort to obtain
the King's permission to depart, and offered him his
sword, which the King had often anxiously wanted
to get. This offer won the King's heart, and he
became suddenly as friendly as he had before been
hostile, but he said, as a token of mutual friendship,
they must drink each other's blood. It was in vain
that Mr. Baker remonstrated, but the matter was
compromised by having the ceremony performed by
deputy ; Mr. Baker's head man and the principal
chief acting on behalf of the two principals. The
arms of those men were bared, a lancet was applied,
and they licked each other's blood. The King then
appointed a number of men to escort the party to
the lake ; but before Mr. Baker's departure he made
the parting request that he would give him his wife.
Mr. Baker felt so indignant that he drew a pistol
and threatened to shoot the King if he dared repeat
the request ; but his Majesty treated the matter
very coolly. He said it was the custom of his coun-
try to ask a friend at parting to leave him his wife,
and he offered to give Mr. Baker another wife in
exchange. They parted friends, and Mr. and Mrs.
Baker pursued their course westward. They were,
however, so oppressed with fatigue and the heat that
it was with the utmost difficulty they could continue
their journey. • Mr. Baker suffered from a coup de
soleil, which rendered her senseless, and she was car-
ried on a litter in that state for some days. At
length, on the 14th March, their guide told them
that on the following day they would see the lake.
Mr. Baker was so much excited at the prospect of
realising his ardent hope that he could not rest. He
said he had often dreamed that he was searching for
the sources of the Nile, but that he had always
failed, and he could scarcely conceive that he was
then within a few hours of actually accomplishing it.
On the next day's journey a lofty hill was before
I them, and he hastened on to the summit, from which
he was delighted to behold the long-expected lake.
Distant mountains could be just seen across the
large expanse of water from a height of 1,500 feet,
and to the south no land was visible. Mr. Baker
hastened down the mountain, and, rushing into the
lake, he drank from the source of the Nile. The
lake extends from 2 deg. north latitude to 2 deg.
south latitude, or about 200 miles, and at the
southern extremity it bends towards the west, but
how far it reaches in that direction is unknown. It
is a much larger lake than Victoria Nyanza, and
from its comparatively low pDsition it collects the
water from an immense tract of mountainous coun-
try. Mr. Baker called it appropriately Albert
Nyanza. He procured a boat and coasted along the
eastern shore until he came to Magunda, where the
river from the Victoria Nyanza falls into the lake,
as Captain Speke had anticipated, from the in-
formation he received from the natives. Mr. Baker
and his party ascended that river in their boat un-
til they came to a magnificent waterfall which
barred their further progress by water. This is the
only waterfall in the whole course of the Nile, and
he called it the Murchison Falls, in honour of the
the president of the Geographical Society. From the
high land in the neighbourhood of Magunda, the
outlet of another river, a little further north, was
perceived, and that, there could be no doubt, was
the White Nile. Mr. Baker observed that it is im-
possible to say which is the source of a river that
has so many large affluents as the Nile, but there
could be no question that the Albert Nyanza is one
of the principal sources, and that it is owing to the
immense body of water it contains that the river is
not dried up either by absorption in passing through
the Nubian desert, or by the evaporation of an
equatorial sun. Mr. Baker went along the banks of
the river to Karuina Falls, and thence to Gondoroko,
homewards. The narrative of his perilous adven-
tures and of his final success was received by the
audience with frequent npp!ause, and not the least
weariness was expressed, though the lecture ex-
tended far beyond the usual time.

The liouseless Poor in Stepney.

-

An official inspection made by 11. 11. Farnall,
C. 8., the Poor-law Board Commissioner on Thurs-
day, of the casual wards of the Stepney Union dis-
closed a most debasing and inhuman treatment of
the houseless. It will be remembered that the
" Amateur Casual," in his concluding letter gave
Mr. Farnall a hint that, in the opinion of the work-
house frequenters, the Poplar and Tottenham
casual wards were the worst in London ; but there
are no Tottenham wards, and the Poplar wards, as
was proved by the report in the papers of the visit of
1 Sir George Grey, Sir Richard Mayne, and other
gentlemen, were good and sufficient, while in other
wards, not mentioned, the people were found hud-
dled together in the most disgraceful manner.
These " other" wards, and, doubtless the wards
meant by the homeless critics in Lambeth, may be
supposed to be identical with those of the Stepney
Union. These are the old Ratcliffe Workhouse, and
form the wards from the parishes of Stepney, Shad-
I well, Limehouse, and Ratcliffe. An inquiry of the
officials proved that they were visited about a fort-
night since by Sir George Grey and his party on the
"Midnight Ministerial Inspection." A description
of these wards from personal inspection and an ac-
count
of the mode in which the poor are treated
will give the public another insight into the
manner in which the Poor-law is administered by
the so-called " Guardians of the poor."
In the yard of the old workhouse is a row of
worksheds with a loft overhead, and this loft, which
has a sloping roof, is about nine or ten feet high in
the best part, and is reached by a ladder. All round
the floor, on the floor, as closely packed as possible,
and without any division whatever, are the beds of
the men, made of mere hay-bags and stuffed with a
handful of hay or straw—just enough, in fact, to
keep the sleeper off the ground. Incredible and in-
human, debasing and demoralising as it may ap-
pear, it is a fact that the men have to lie upon these
hay-bags stark naked, for all their clothes are taken
away, and no shirts are supplied to the men or night
gowns of any sort to the women, and all the cover-
ing the wretches have is a rug and a worn out
blanket, and this in a place not built for human
habitation, and unlighted and unwarmed. The
women's " beds" are not made up so close together
as the men's, but each is doubled, and misfortune I
thus makes the unpitied, houseless women—most
of whom, it was stated by the official, were of a
somewhat decent class—acquainted with strange
bedfellows, the old being thus " pigged" with the
young, the fever-smitten London tramp with the
healthy girl from the country, and the clean way-
farer with the parasite-covered denizen of the street.
This is no overdrawn picture. The ordeal which
the recipients of relief have to undergo is as revolt-
ing as the sleeping arrangements. The casual is
admitted at the gate by a porter, a pauper, and in-
troduced to the paid official, who fills the office of
clerk as well as superintendent, and whose wife
looks to the female casuals. The casual is searched,
and then handed over to a pauper, who has charge
of the lower shed, where he is kept until it is his
turn to be bathed. If he is the first in order, he goes
into an apartment the floor of which is paved, and
which is in charge of a pauper, only one degree re-
moved from being an imbecile. In this apartment
is a large copper, and a bath, the latter fitted with
taps for hot and cold water. The casual having
stripped and bathed, passes into another apartment,
where he leaves his clothes and receives a blanket,
wrapped in which he goes into the shed where the
other waiting casuals are, and having mounted
the ladder leading to the loft he drops the
blanket to the next candidate for a bath, and
skips off to bed coverless. The old man in

charge of the bath-room was asked how many
people he bathed in the same water. He looked
vacantly into the face of his interrogator, and,
after touching his forehead with his forefinger for a
few moments, as though he felt the thinking appa-
ratus to be out of order, replied, " Oh, six on 'em."
He was asked if he did not mean " ten on 'em," and
after shaking himself hopelessly, he announced that
he thought the number was six. It must be under-
stood that in this loft, so overcrowded with beds,
there is no supervision during the night, and the
quiet and helpless, theyoung and the old, are left to
the mercy of the ruffians who, thrust from the neigh.
bouring wards of Poplar by the supervision of the
police there, crowd to Ratcliffe, where, if they have
had beds and a place to sleep in which when full
must be pestilential, they have what all the ruffian
class highly appreciate—the liberty to indulge un-
checked in whatever brutal and vicious sports they
think proper.

There was a meeting of the Stepney guardians in
the afternoon, and the Commissioner attended the
meeting, which was held, be it remarked, in a room
luxuriously furnished, and the fittings and ornamen-
tation of which were of the most elaborate charac-
ter, showing that the administrators of the Poor-
law in this part of the town have a proper regard
for their own comfort. On the entry of the Commis-
sioner, one of the guardians jocularly observed to
to him, " You don't like our wards, I hear," or
words to that effect, to which the Commissioner re-
plied," They are shocking, shocking, indeed." The
Commissioner proceeded to read his minute, founded
upon the observation he had made while going over
the wards, and just as this was finished the chair-
man, pointing to the writer, who was seated at the
opposite end of the room, requested to be informed
who that gentleman was. The reply that he
was a reporter, who had attended in the ordinary
course to report the proceedings, had an effect not
easily to be described, and he was at once informed
they had a minute on their books excluding all re-
presentatives of the press from their delibera-
tions, but it was hinted that if he made a written
request to be present this would be taken into
consideration. On leaving the room for this purpose
he was soon informed by the clerk that the applica-
tion would not be acceded to if made, and he was
requested to consider the business he had heard dis-
cussed while his object was unknown---he having
taken it for granted that the " Board," like nearly
all meetings of London guardians, was an open one
—should be considered as private. Under these cir-
cumstances the Commissioner's minute cannot be
made public, but conclusions may be drawn as to
what its contents were when these other facts are
stated. The original wards certified by Mr. Farnall
were in the lower shed, and the beds were then all
separate, men and women having proper sleeping
places. Without consulting the Commissioner, and
without informiag him of what they were doing, the
Guardians pulled down all the sleeping places, thus
inflicting not only a wrong on the poor, but a wrong
on the metropolis generally, for this lodging of the
houseless is paid for out of the general rate, and
when a certificate is once given to a ward no change
whatever should be made in that ward without the
Commissioner's sanction. One thing may be stated,
and that is, that the certificate of the Guardians for
these wards has been withdrawn, and the expense
incurred by the four parishes of the " union" for
housing the poor will not be refunded out of the
general rate, which it would have been had not this
discovery been made by the Commissioner. It may
be added that all the casuals are treated in the man-
ner here described, and that the only effect the visit
of Sir G. Grey had upon the Guardians has been to
make them study what powers they have with re-
spect to keeping out of their doors all who are likely
to " inquire too curiously."

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

COLCHESTER AND STOUR VALLEY.

The report of the directors of this company states
that the balance available for dividend, after pro-
viding for interest on preference shares, salaries,
&c., is £3,977. Out of this sum the directors re-
commend a dividend for the past half-year at the
rate of £3 Bs. per cent. per annum, clear of income-
tax, leaving a balance of £B9 to be carried forward.

i' ATLANTIC AND GREAT WESTERN AND PHILA-
DELPHIA AND READING.
An agreement has been entered into between these
companies for 90 years, dated the 10th inst. for the
I prompt conveyance of goods and passengers over
the respective lines to their destination, and_ also for
facilitating • the interchange of traffic at the
various places without unnecessary delay. The
object is that the several railways belong-
ing to• or leased by those companies should be
so worked and managed as to form one great
through route from the cities of Cleveland, Cincin-
nati, and Dayton, and all other points to or with
which the Atlantic and Great 'Western Railway
Company might have access, to the city of Phila-
delphia, via Catawissa Railroad, and the Philadel-
phia and Reading Railroad and its tributaries and
a line to New York, via the latter railroad, the East
Pennsylvania and the Morris and Essex railroads.
The agreement provides for the joint or separate
construction of junction lines, bridges, and other
works, and the laying down of a uniform gauge on
certain lines, to complete continuous routes over the
two systems ; also for the fixing tolls and charges
for passenger and goods traffic. There is also a
proviso to be carried out as far as practicable for
affording equal facilities for freight and passengers
to and from Philadelphia and New York, east and
west ; and an arrangement between the two com-
panies that whenever the citizens of Philadelphia
and Pennsylvania shall together provide and fur-
nish one-half the money necessary to build and
equip a satisfactory line of steamers to run between
the port of Philadelphia and England, the two com-
panies to the agreement each undertake to furnish
one-half of the remaining sum for that purpose.
The agreement commences from Jan. 1, 1866, and
is to continue for 99 years, and it contains a provi-
sion for arbitration in case of dispute.
It appears that the agreement has caused consi-
rable consternation in America among railroad com-
panies, as being one of the results of the visit of
English capitalists to America, in the autumn of last
year. The system of leasing, working agreements,
and amalgamations carried out on a large scale will
no doubt absorb several American railroads thathave
had a separate existence since their formation.
The Philadelphia and Erie and the Pennsylvania
Railroad Companies have applied to the Supreme
Court for an injunction to restrain the Cate tvissa,
the Western Central, and the Atlantic and Great
Western Railway Companies from carrying out the
joint agreement, and if possible to render it null and
void ; since which the Philadelphia and Reading
and the East Pennsylvania Railway Companies
have intervened, and been made parties to the suit
as defendants.