This is one of the most exciting accounts of true exploration and adventure ever published.
Baker and his young wife, whom he purportedly stole from a slave auction in the Ottoman Empire when he was not the winning bidder, for an entire year explored the many tributaries of the Nile and learned Arabic in preparation for exploring for the source of the Nile. The Bakers’ subsequent Nile explorations, and meeting John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant on their way back from discovering the source of the Nile, is covered in Baker’s THE ALBERT N’YANZA, which was published in 1866 even though the events occurred after the events of Baker's THE NILE TRIBUTARIES (published a year later in 1867)(see our copy also up for auction today).
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Excerpt from Baker's THE ALBERT N'YANZA:
February 15, 1863:
When I first met [Speke and Grant] they were walking along the bank of the river towards my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I recognised my old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I took off my cap and gave a welcome hurrah! I hardly required an introduction to his companion, as we felt already acquainted.
At the first blush on meeting them I had considered my expedition as terminated by having met them, and by their having accomplished the discovery of the Nile source; but... Speke and Grant with characteristic candour and generosity gave me a map of their route, showing that they had been unable to complete the actual exploration of the Nile, and that a most important portion still remained to be determined... The natives and the King of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had assured them that the Nile from the Victoria N'yanza, which they had crossed at Karuma, flowed westward for several days' journey, and at length fell into a large lake called the Luta N'zige; that this lake came from the south, and that the Nile on entering the northern extremity almost immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river continued its course to the north. Both Speke and Grant attached great importance to this lake Luta N'zige, and the former was much annoyed that it had been impossible for them to carry out the exploration. As it happened, it was impossible for Speke and Grant to follow the Nile from Karuma:—the tribes were fighting with Kamrasi, and no strangers could have got through the country. Accordingly they procured their information most carefully, completed their map, and laid down the reported lake in its supposed position, showing the Nile as both influent and effluent precisely as had been explained by the natives.
Speke expressed his conviction that the Luta N'zige must be a second source of the Nile, and that geographers would be dissatisfied that he had not explored it. To me this was most gratifying. I had been much disheartened at the idea that the great work was accomplished, and that nothing remained for exploration; I even said to Speke, "Does not one leaf of the laurel remain for me?" I now heard that the field was not only open, but that an additional interest was given to the exploration by the proof that the Nile flowed out of one great lake, the Victoria, but that it evidently must derive an additional supply from an unknown lake as it entered it at the NORTHERN extremity, while the body of the lake came from the south.
February 20, 1863:
On the 20th February [the Pethericks] suddenly arrived from the Niambara, with their people and ivory and were surprised at seeing so large a party of English in so desolate a spot.
On the 26th February, Speke and Grant sailed from Gondokoro [to England].
