Year: 1873

Sir Samuel Bakers Expsdition.


At last we have an authentic and impartial
account of the results of the great expedition
OF Sir Samuel Baker to the equatorial regions
OF Central Africa. The HERALD CORE
spondent writing from the capital Of
the Soudan, supplies q full account
OF the operations of the indomitable
British traveller and the Egyptian troops
under his command. Although the main
points have already reached us there
is much in the letter to increase our
admiration OF the leader of the expedition,
even If we cannot perceive any great geo.
graphical triumphs which he has accom-
plished. A few badly informed writer's and
silly critics have undertaken to belttle the
labors Of Baker Pacha, yet it is needless to
say they have made no impression on people
of sense or reading The expedition of Sir
Samuel Baker is not difficult enter
prise to understand. He was COM
missioned by the viceroy of Egypt to go up
the Nile, cross the Nubian Desert and, together
with command of two thousand men, proceed
to the great basin of the Nile and annex the
fertile regions about the Equator. This work
Baker Pacha has done, and he has accom-
plished it in the face of the most extraordi-
nary obstacles. The lot of the explorer is
never an easy one in any land but it is in
Mahometan Africa particularly perplexing.
Among the black men white man is devil !;
among the Moslems he is fouler than vermin.
Laziness, treachery and brutality are the
characteristics Of your sworn subordinates,
while on open enemy's mildest weapon is
poisoned arrow. Sir Samuel Baker had
learned these facts when he mingled with the
Abyssinia, and later, when he passed through
the Kingdom of Kamrasi to taste the sweet
waters of the Albert Nyanza. Therefore,
when he accepted the command of the expe-
dition, which has cost Egypt over five million
dollars, he was acquainted with the people
with whom he had to deal, and it remains to
his credit that he has measured out leaden
severity whenever the occasion required it's
exercise.


As we believed from the first, there is no
evidence, beyond the mere gossip of the unre-
liable natives, that the Tanganyika is con-
nected with the Albert Nyanza If the
explorers tests are worth anything, it is physi-
cal impossibiIty that these two sheets of water
should be SO connected, because it has long
been accepted that the Tanganyika is more
than thousand feet below the lakes of Spoke
and Baker. Even if this barometrical proof
were not convincing, the visit Of Stanley
and Livingstone to the head of the
Rusizi River sets the question at rest
forever There is no geographer or scien-
tific authority who ever dreamed that the two
lakes were connected. and we affirm again
that it is just as sensible to say
that Lake Ontario and Lake Quinsigamond
are one and the same sheet Of water. While
we regret that Baker Pacha was not enabled
to launch his steamers on the lake of his own
value Of his exploration. He has led the
largest expedition Of the character known to
modem times; he has broken the back bone
of the slave trade; he has put the wild natives
of Central Africa under Anglo-Saxon disci-
pline; he has replaced corruption and cruelty
by honest government and justice toward the
negroes, and above all he has demonstrated
the feasibility reducing barbarous sections
of the earth to complete subjection to
ON organized government. In fne we
believe that the India of Africa has begun
its progressive march, and that Sir
Samuel Baker should be honored as the pio-
neer Of its development.