ay of
exploration, so for a whole year he stayed in northern Abyssinia, the
country explored by Bruce nearly ninety years before.

[Illustration: BAKER AND HIS WIFE CROSSING THE NUBIAN DESERT. From
Baker's _Travels_.]

It was therefore 18th December 1862 before he and Mrs. Baker left
Khartum for their journey up the Nile through the slave-driven Sudan.
It was a fifty days' voyage to Gondokoro. In the hope of finding Speke
and Grant, he took an extra load of corn as well as twenty-two donkeys,
four camels, and four horses. Gondokoro was reached just a fortnight
before the two explorers returned from the south.

Baker's account of the historical meeting between the white men in
the heart of Africa is very interesting: "Heard guns firing in the
distance--report that two white men had come from the sea. Could they
be Speke and Grant? Off I ran and soon met them; hurrah for Old England.
They had come from the Victoria Nyanza from which the Nile springs.
The mystery of ages solved! With a heart beating with joy I took off
my cap and gave a welcome hurrah as I ran towards them! For the moment
they did not recognise me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache
had worked a change, and my sudden appearance in the centre of Africa
appeared to them incredible. As a good ship arrives in harbour battered
and torn by a long and stormy voyage, so both these gallant travellers
arrived in Gondokoro. Speke appeared to me the more worn of the two.
He was excessively lean; he had walked the whole way from Zanzibar,
never having ridden once during that wearying march. Grant was in rags,
his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trousers."

Baker was now inclined to think that his work was done, the source
of the Nile discovered, but after looking at the map of their route,
he saw that an important part of the Nile still remained undiscovered,
and though there were dangers ahead he determined to go on his way
into central Africa.

"We took neither guide nor interpreter," he continues. "We commenced
our desperate journey in darkness about an hour after sunset. I led
the way, Mrs. Baker riding by my side and the British flag following
close behind us as a guide for the caravan of heavily laden camels
and donkeys. And thus we started on our march in central Africa on
the 26th of March 1863."

It would take too long to tell of their manifold misfortunes and
difficulties before they reached the lake they were in search of on
16th