Samuel White Baker - The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, And Explorations of the Nile Sources

In the history of the Nile there was a void: its Sources were a mystery. The Ancients devoted much attention to this problem; but in vain. The Emperor Nero sent an expedition under the command of two centurions, as described by Seneca. Even Roman energy failed to break the spell that guarded these secret fountains. The expedition sent by Mehemet Ali Pasha, the celebrated Viceroy of Egypt, closed a long term of unsuccessful search.

The work has now been accomplished. Three English parties, and only three, have at various periods started upon this obscure mission: each has gained its end.

Bruce won the source of the Blue Nile; Speke and Grant won the Victoria source of the great White Nile; and I have been permitted to succeed in completing the Nile Sources by the discovery of the great reservoir of the equatorial waters, the ALBERT N'YANZA, from which the river issues as the entire White Nile.

Having thus completed the work after nearly five years passed in Africa, there still remains a task before me. I must take the reader of this volume by the hand, and lead him step by step along my rough path from the beginning to the end; through scorching deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp, and jungle, and interminable morass; through difficulties, fatigues, and sickness, until I bring him, faint with the wearying journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall burst upon his view—from which he shall look down upon the vast ALBERT LAKE, and drink with me from the Sources of the Nile!

I have written "HE!" How can I lead the more tender sex through dangers and fatigues, and passages of savage life? A veil shall be thrown over many scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but which I will not force upon the reader; neither will I intrude anything that is not actually necessary in the description of scenes that unfortunately must be passed through in the journey now before us. Should anything offend the sensitive mind, and suggest the unfitness of the situation for a woman's presence, I must beseech my fair readers to reflect, that the pilgrim's wife followed him, weary and footsore, through all his difficulties, led, not by choice, but by devotion; and that in times of misery and sickness her tender care saved his life and prospered the expedition.

In the journey now before us I must request some exercise of patience during geographical details that may be wearisome; at all events, I will adhere to facts, and avoid theory as much as possible.

The Botanist will have ample opportunities of straying from our path to examine plants with which I confess a limited acquaintance. The Ethnologist shall have precisely the same experience that I enjoyed, and he may either be enlightened or confounded. The Geologist will find himself throughout the journey in Central Africa among primitive rocks. The Naturalist will travel through a grass jungle that conceals much that is difficult to obtain: both he and the Sportsman will, I trust, accompany me on a future occasion through the "Nile tributaries from Abyssinia," which country is prolific in all that is interesting. The Philanthropist,—what shall I promise to induce him to accompany me? I will exhibit a picture of savage man precisely as he is; as I saw him; and as I judged him, free from prejudice: painting also, in true colours, a picture of the abomination that has been the curse of the African race, the SLAVE TRADE; trusting that not only the philanthropist, but every civilized being, will join in the endeavour to erase that stain from disfigured human nature, and thus open the path now closed to civilization and missionary enterprise. To the Missionary,—that noble, self-exiled labourer toiling too often in a barren field,—I must add the word of caution, "Wait"! There can be no hope of success until the slave trade shall have ceased to exist.

The journey is long, the countries savage; there are no ancient histories to charm the present with memories of the past; all is wild and brutal, hard and unfeeling, devoid of that holy instinct instilled by nature into the heart of man—the belief in a Supreme Being. In that remote wilderness in Central Equatorial Africa are the Sources of the Nile.

The primary object of geographical exploration is the opening to general intercourse such portions of the earth as may become serviceable to the human race. The explorer is the precursor of the colonist; and the colonist is the human instrument by which the great work must be constructed—that greatest and most difficult of all undertakings—the civilization of the world.

The progress of civilization depends upon geographical position. The surface of the earth presents certain facilities and obstacles to general access; those points that are easily attainable must always enjoy a superior civilization to those that are remote from association with the world.

We may thus assume that the advance of civilization is dependent upon facility of transport. Countries naturally excluded from communication may, through the ingenuity of man, be rendered accessible; the natural productions of those lands may be transported to the seacoast in exchange for foreign commodities; and commerce, thus instituted, becomes the pioneer of civilization.

England, the great chief of the commercial world, possesses a power that enforces a grave responsibility. She has the force to civilize. She is the natural colonizer of the world. In the short space of three centuries, America, sprung from her loins, has become a giant offspring, a new era in the history of the human race, a new birth whose future must be overwhelming. Of later date, and still more rapid in development, Australia rises, a triumphant proof of England's power to rescue wild lands from barrenness; to wrest from utter savagedom those mighty tracts of the earth's surface wasted from the creation of the world,—a darkness to be enlightened by English colonization. Before the advancing steps of civilization the savage inhabitants of dreary wastes retreated: regions hitherto lain hidden, and counting as nothing in the world's great total, have risen to take the lead in the world's great future.

Thus England's seed cast upon the earth's surface germinates upon soils destined to reproduce her race. The energy and industry of the mother country become the natural instincts of her descendants in localities adapted for their development; and wherever Nature has endowed a land with agricultural capabilities, and favourable geographical position, slowly but surely that land will become a centre of civilization.

True Christianity cannot exist apart from civilization; thus, the spread of Christianity must depend upon the extension of civilization; and that extension depends upon commerce.

The philanthropist and the missionary will expend their noble energies in vain in struggling against the obtuseness of savage hordes, until the first steps towards their gradual enlightenment shall have been made by commerce. The savage must learn to WANT; he must learn to be ambitious; and to covet more than the mere animal necessities of food and drink. This can alone be taught by a communication with civilized beings: the sight of men well clothed will induce the naked savage to covet clothing, and will create a WANT; the supply of this demand will be the first step towards commerce. To obtain the supply, the savage must produce some article in return as a medium of barter, some natural production of his country adapted to the trader's wants. His wants will increase as his ideas expand by communication with Europeans: thus, his productions must increase in due proportion, and he must become industrious; industry being the first grand stride towards civilization.