The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-01-19
The HernId's Nile Expedition-GOod News
of Sir Samuel Baker-Africa.


Nile we have now the honor to invite our read
ers. A special cable despatch brings us some
very agreeable intelligence in reference to the
HERALD's Nile expedition, organized for the
express purpose of settling all doubts as to
the fate of the great Egyptian annexation ex-
petition of Sir Samuel Baker, from which for
many months no tidings had been received,
except reports of fatal disaster We now
hear that Sir Samuel is well, and that our ex-
plorfng party, on January l6, had reached
Karasko, from six to seven hundred miles
from Cairo, up the river, between the First
and Second Cataract-the cataracts being
counted from below. Between Karasko and
Abu Ahmed Cor Moorabus Hammed, as our
reporter gives it,, the river makes a great
semicircle of several hundred miles and to
shorten the distance and to avoid the rough,
rocky ridges along the river, the usual route
of travel is by the chord between the two
points named, which is a terrible journey
across the burning and waterless desert of
Nubia.
Abu Ahmed is near the Fifth Cataract, which
sufficiently indicates the rugged and impassa-
BILE character of the country between 1t and
the First Cataract by the line Of the river.
The desert journey between the two points
occupies some eight days, and as there is no
water On the roate that which is needed by
caravan must be carried along with it. Hence
our commissioner had provided for his
party on This desert trip four drome-
dsries AMI fifty camels, which, doubtless,
would car y him through. This is the route
pursua7 by Sir Samuel Baker in his famous
Expedition into Abyssna, in which, by actual
observation he solved the problem of the an-
nual inundation of Egypt. He saw that this
| inundaiion, drawn from the Indian Ocean,
comes from Che enormous spring rain fall on
the l,fty tablelands and mountains of Abys-
sinia, poured dc WIN by the Blue Nile and the
Atbara into the main river. For instance, he
and lis party one night had pitched their
tents Oh the dry bed of the Atbara, because it
was INC q solid and comfortable than the hot,
dusty soil on the river banks. But in the
middle Of the night some of his Arabs gave
the alarm, "The river!' 'The river! I" which,
like the cry of 'Fire!" ''Fire!" reused the whole
camp and started them, with their tents and
hammocks, at full speed up the river bank;
and then came rolling down in the river bed
wall Of water like tidal wave-the begin
ming Of the spring food from Abyssinia. Next
morning that which was dry excavation had
become a mighty river, five hundred yards
wide and forty feet deep, and with the rush
ing current of the Missouri with it's spring
freshets from the Rocky Mountains
In his next important Nile expedition, that
up the main river to its great equatorial lakes,
Baker solved the mystery of the exhaustless
volume of the main stream all the year round
for fifteen hundred miles through the name
less and roasting deserts of Nubia and Egypt.
He found that the main rivers inexhaustible
stream comes from the Astounding rains with
which those equatorial lakes are supplied and
thus to Baker belongs the credit of settling
the causes of the never-failing stream of the
Nile and the annual inundation of Egypt.
From those expeditions, moreover, he brought
such reports of the fertility Of the regions
around those great lakes and below them, that
the Khedive of Egypt resolved to annex them
and his glorious river to its sources.
Baker from the Egyptian government. Our
despatch reports him at Khartoum, which lies
in the fork at the junction of the Blue and the
White Nile, or main river, some fifteen hundred
miles or more up the stream from Cairo
Khartoum, therefore, will be the next point
aimed at by the HERALDs Nile expedition
and as it is greatly favored by the generous
assistance of the enlightened and enterprising
Ismail Pacha and his officials, we feel secure
of its success in joining Sir Samuel Baker.
And for this generous assistance and for his
Inequalities to all Americans we hereby ten
der our hearty thanks to the Khedive, and, in
view of his great enterprises and of his wise
and energetic efforts to keep pace with the
progressive spirit of the age, we wish him
many years Of peace, health and prosperity.
The special despatch which we have been
discussing mentions, also, as fact worthy of
notice, that the English railway survey of
Soudan is nearly completed. Soudan is an
immense region of different peoples and tribes
in Central Africa, extending from the Upper
Nile in the East across the Continent to the
Niger and the Senegal, near the Atlantic
coast. We believe this projected railway has
for its object the bringing down to Sierra Leone
the traffic of the fertile valley of the Niger,
including Timbuctoo, and of the Industrious
tribes around Lake Tchad. This interior trade,
from time immemorial, has mainly gone to the
Mediterranean by caravans of camels across
the Great Desert but, with British railway
| opening through the Atlantic coast mountains
and forests, it will find an outlet which will
greatly increase the African equatorial COM
merce Of Great Britain. In conclusion, AZ
RIGA, from these Nile expeditions, and these