by Tim Jeal
Knowing just how competitive Livingstone was, Sir Roderick clambered to his feet the moment Burton had finished speaking, and declared that his one desire was that the paper they had all just heard would lead to some ‘actual exploration’, rather than to yet more theorising. ‘I only hope that Dr Kirk, or some person like him, may be induced to clear up the doubts that still hang over the question of the sources of the Nile.’3 Dr Kirk, who at thirty-two was twenty years Livingstone’s junior, had been the medical officer and botanist on his Zambezi Expedition and had helped Livingstone to explore Lake Nyasa. Although he was often spoken of as ‘the companion of Livingstone’, in private Kirk admitted that on the Zambezi he had at times doubted his leader’s sanity. Murchison hoped that his elephantine hint about sending out the younger man to disentangle the Nile watershed, would finally force the touchy and competitive veteran off the fence. It did not, and six weeks later Sir Roderick wrote pushing him even harder: ‘As to your future, I am anxious to know what your own wish is as respects a renewal of African exploration.’ Murchison’s hope, he explained, was that Livingstone would take a portable boat to the south end of Lake Tanganyika, and then sail to the northern tip of the lake, where he would be able to see with his own eyes in which direction the Rusizi flowed. If it was out, Murchison told Livingstone he ‘ought to be able to reach the White Nile [!] [and would therefore] bring back an unrivalled reputation, and would have settled all the great disputes now pending’. But if Livingstone would not make up his mind, then Dr Kirk would be approached at once. Having made his threat, Murchison ended wryly: ‘I cannot believe that you now think of anchoring on the mud and sand banks of England.’4
His letter hit the spot. Two days later, Livingstone replied: ‘I should like the exploration you propose very much … As soon as my book [about the Zambezi Expedition] is out, I shall start.’ He intended, he explained, to enter Africa on the Indian Ocean coast via the Rovuma river but had no intention of going straight to the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. As he put it to Sir Roderick, even if – as they both supposed – the Rusizi flowed out to the north, ‘the source would have to be sought for still, and I would be obliged to come away back to it’.5 Disapproval of Burton was an additional reason for Livingstone’s determination to find the source before doing anything else. If he were simply to establish a link between Lake Tanganyika and Baker’s lake, it would make it seem that Burton’s Tanganyika was the true source of the Nile. But because Livingstone loathed Burton, he was never going to let his labours reward him in this way. ‘He [Burton] seems to be a moral idiot,’ he told a missionary friend. ‘His conduct in Africa was so bad that it cannot be spoken of without disgust – systematically wicked, impure and untruthful.’6
Livingstone had heard rumours that Burton had contracted syphilis in Somaliland, and had travelled with his own personal harem en route to Lake Tanganyika. The prospect of meeting Africans, who had been ‘witnesses of his bestial immorality’, appalled the godly doctor.7 He also knew from Burton’s writings that he considered Africans ‘unprogressive and unfit for change’, and worse still that he believed that the ‘higher or lower state of a race’ pre-determined their religion. If right, this would make all missionary work in Africa pointless. Since Livingstone saw no difference between the races, he detested Burton’s racist condescension.8
But while Livingstone’s eagerness to defeat Burton on the ground (and for that matter Speke and Baker too) was central to his motivation, he also believed he had to persuade the world that he was returning to Africa with missionary aims and not merely as an explorer. A purely geographical task would mean moving swiftly across country with no time even to appear to be planting the Gospel in people’s minds. But providentially there was something else he could do – and indeed longed to.
If he started his search for the source just south of Lake Nyasa, he would be in an area of intense Arab slave-trading activity. So by reporting back on this cruel trade to the British government, he would be doing much more than simply exploring. This then was the justification he felt he needed.
The Nile sources [he told a friend] are valuable only as a means of enabling me to open my mouth with power among men. It is this power which I hope to apply to remedy an enormous evil. Men may think I covet fame, but I make it a rule not to read aught written in my praise.9
Though this was humbug, since Livingstone was obsessed with what was written about him, his hatred of the Arab-Swahili slave trade was genuine and passionate.
In early July 1865, when Livingstone was preparing to leave England, The Times published a letter from Samuel Baker to Robert Colquhoun, the Consul-General in Alexandria, stating that he had reached the Luta N’zige in March the previous year. Disappointingly, from Livingstone’s point of view, this letter contained no information at all about whether the new lake was fed from Lake Tanganyika, or whether Baker had proved that the river entering the eastern side of the Luta N’zige had originated in the Victoria Nyanza, as Speke had believed.
In September 1865, on his way to Africa via India, Livingstone chanced to pass through Suez a week before a triumphant Baker and his young mistress swept through from the opposite direction. So Livingstone’s inquiries about them inevitably yielded nothing.10 Thus he began his journey knowing no more than the simple fact that Baker had reached the Luta N’zige. Nor in Bombay could he discover anything further about the lake’s geography, although there was plenty of gossip about Baker’s private life doing the rounds. ‘Baker married his mistress at Cairo,’ Livingstone misinformed a friend, ‘and from all accounts she deserved it after going through all she did for him. I heard about his woman, but it was not made public, and if she turns out well, better it never should.’11 If Livingstone had known how cynical Baker was about the abilities and intelligence of Africans, he would have considered this a far greater fault than his fornications with his young mistress. ‘As to Christianity!’ wrote Baker in a passage that would have enraged Livingstone had he seen it, ‘the name is profaned by coupling it with the Negro.’12 But though ignorant of such opinions, Livingstone believed he knew enough about Baker to think him selfish and unprincipled. The doctor told his daughter Agnes that: ‘the great aim of Baker’s journey – there can be little doubt – [was] to cut Speke and Grant out, and get to the sources first, but he cleverly turned it round to going with the intention of helping them.’13
The two explorers, Livingstone and Baker, who had just missed one another at Cairo, were on their way to experience very different destinies: Samuel Baker to receive a nation’s acclaim and a knighthood, David Livingstone to endure great suffering and a tragic fate – although he expected great glory. Though Livingstone was probably right about Baker’s motives and his cleverness in using Speke and Grant for his own ends, the triumph he shared with Florence deserved more than the grudging attention which Livingstone eventually gave it.
SIXTEEN
The Glory of Our Prize
In March 1863, eighteen months before John Speke’s tragic death in an English stubble field, the ambitious Samuel Baker had watched his two benefactors glide away downstream towards Egypt, homeward bound towards their short-lived heroes’ welcome. Baker’s urgent desire was to leave for the lake at once, if possible without John and Katherine Petherick, who hated him for persuading Speke to refuse their goods in favour of his own. But to Baker’s surprise, after a few days the Pethericks suggested that they all travel together to the lake. Of course Baker was suspicious of this olive branch. He knew that Petherick’s only hope of recovering from Speke’s public criticism would be to ‘discover’ the Luta N’zige, and he suspected that the Welshman would fail on his own because the slave traders whom he had offended would try to sabotage his expedition. But because Baker was having trouble with his own porters, he still thought it could make sense to pool resources – at any rate during the early stages of their journey.1
On 15 March, while still at Gondokoro, Baker and Florence were warned by Saat – a remarkable twelve-yea
r-old orphan boy whom Florence had saved from starvation – that their men were all about to mutiny and intended, if opposed, to shoot their employer dead. Baker’s immediate response was to place a travelling bedstead outside his tent, and lay upon it five double-barrelled guns, a revolver and a razor-sharp sabre. Saat and Richarn, another mission-educated boy whom Baker trusted, were provided with loaded guns to hand to him the moment he had fired both barrels of the weapon he was currently using. As Baker shouted to the mutineers to lay down their arms, Florence stood ready to point out any men attempting to strip off the protective waterproof covers from the locks of their guns. Taken aback by Baker’s chutzpah, the mutineers wavered and then capitulated.2 Samuel Baker’s diary and his book The Albert N’yanza are the only sources for his and Florence’s journey, but although this gave the explorer carte blanche to represent himself in an heroic light, more often than not the incidental detail and sheer vitality of the telling compel belief. Often he acknowledged his powerlessness.
After renewing his promise to take the consul and his wife, and their pathetic following of five loyal men, up the Nile with him, he had to backtrack: ‘My men mutinously declared that if Petherick and I joined forces they would not budge, as all the people hated him.’ His followers were armed and had been paid in advance, so Baker knew they could desert him at any time. ‘I called my men together,’ he wrote, ‘and told them I would not go on with them unless they obeyed implicitly; this they promised to do, but they declared that I alone was their master and that Petherick should not join the party.’ Though describing this as ‘a specimen of their outrageous independence’, Baker had to accept that he would never be able to leave Gondokoro for the lake if he forced the issue over Petherick. The consul understood his predicament, and reluctantly decided to return to Khartoum.3 But before he did, Dr Murie, who was still travelling with Petherick, horrified Baker with another tale of the consul’s misdeeds. After the cattle razzia that had resulted in the shooting dead of nine Dinka, Baker was told that: ‘The heads of three of these poor devils were cut off … and boiled; and the skulls are to be sent home to the College of Surgeons by Mr Petherick for sale!!!’4
After thwarting his would-be-mutineers, Baker left Gondokoro on 26 March with seventeen porters – a wholly inadequate number. To compensate he took twenty-four donkeys, as well as several camels and horses. He had hoped that Khursid Agha, the slave and ivory trader, would furnish him with a further ten carriers, but the men Khursid had selected refused to serve Baker on the grounds that he was a spy and a madman, who would lead them all to their deaths. At this point, Khursid’s mixed party of Turks, Egyptians and Sudanese Arabs, along with their African slaves and concubines, left for the south.5 Very fortunately for Baker and Florence, they and their small following managed to overtake the slaving party three days later, and – urged to do so by Florence – Baker persuaded Khursid’s Syrian wakil, Ibrahim (leading the caravan in the absence of Khursid himself), to let them come along too. First, the explorer had to promise not to interfere with Ibrahim’s slave raids. He swore that all he wanted to do was to reach the Luta N’zige, and that he had no interest in spying on Ibrahim’s razzias. However, he warned the slave trader that if he or Florence were harmed, the authorities in Khartoum would hang him as the likeliest suspect. But if Ibrahim helped him, Baker promised to use his influence to obtain for him and his master the opportunity to buy ivory in any country he might ‘discover’. When Ibrahim was wavering, Baker clinched the deal by handing him a double-barrelled gun and a purse of gold coins.6
A series of cataracts made travelling on the Nile impracticable not far south of Gondokoro, but Baker still hoped to stay close to the river. Unfortunately Ibrahim’s trading activities took him away from the Nile, and with murder commonplace in the area there was no possibility that Baker and Florence could travel in safety away from the caravan. Even accompanying Ibrahim’s party, Baker was constantly worried about Florence. ‘I dared not think of her position in the event of my death amongst such savages. These thoughts were shared by her.’7 Even after he had joined the larger column, Baker was warned by Saat that several of his men still wanted to kill him. Small wonder Baker was anxious.
That night I was asleep in my tent, when I was suddenly woken by loud screams, and upon listening attentively I distinctly heard the heavy breathing of something in the tent, and I could distinguish a dark object crouching close to the head of the bed. A slight pull at my sleeve showed me that my wife also noticed the object … [Baker would always pretend that he had married Florence before taking her to Africa.] Mrs Baker was not a screamer, and never even whispered … My hand had quietly drawn the revolver from under my pillow and noiselessly pointed it within two feet of the dark crouching object, before I asked, ‘Who is that?’ … ‘Fadeela.’ Never had I been closer to a fatal shot!
Fadeela was a female servant who had just sought refuge in Baker’s tent after being flogged with a hippopotamus hide whip until her back had been pouring blood. Her ‘crime’ had been being absent without leave.8
Khursid’s sixty or so African slaves and servants were treated cruelly but the local Latuka and Bari experienced much worse. Though Baker considered Africans to be ‘savages quite on a level with brute nature’, he wrote:
I pity these natives; they are anything but perfect, but they are angels compared with the Khartoumers, and were they kindly treated would generally behave well … Certainly, not as badly as white men under similar circumstances.9
During his journey, Baker would come across a number of independent-minded Africans, who were not overawed by the brutality of men like Khursid. One of these was Commoro, the highly intelligent chief of the Latuka. When Baker assured him that there was life after death, Commoro replied scornfully: ‘When a man dies he is finished and his children take his place.’ Baker argued that man was like a seed that was buried and rotted and yet gave rise to a plant. Commoro waved aside this botched analogy: ‘The original grain does not rise again; it rots like the dead man, and is ended; the fruit produced is not the same grain that we buried.’10 Commoro was incredulous to be told that Baker had come to Africa to look for a nyanza. Speaking to Baker with the help of a Latuka hunchback, who spoke Arabic (as did Baker), he oozed scepticism: ‘Suppose you get to the great lake what will you do with it? What will be the good of it? If you find that the large river does flow from it what then?’ Baker’s reply about the importance of acquiring new scientific information for its own sake, and opening remote parts of the world to ‘legitimate trade’, did not impress the chief. ‘The Turks will never trade fairly,’ he exploded. Due to much suffering at the hands of men like De Bono and Khursid, Chief Commoro had an unsentimental view of human nature. ‘Most people are bad,’ he told Baker, ‘if they are strong they take from the weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad.’11
Journey of Samuel Baker and Florence von Sass.
As an analysis of the brutal life he was observing on the upper Nile, Baker understood such pessimism. But despite the dangers which he and Florence were facing, they were both natural optimists, believing that practical solutions could be found to problems, however intractable.
In Baker’s case his adaptability owed much to an unconventional youth and education. Although his father had been a banker, plantation owner and railway company director, Baker senior had not sent his sons to famous public schools, but had employed private tutors in England and Germany. So, despite his family’s wealth, Sam Baker would always feel an outsider in respectable upper-middle-class society. He had worked in his father’s London office, but only briefly. Finding it dull, he had begged to leave the City to run the family’s sugar estates in Mauritius. Married by the age of twenty-two, he had taken his new bride with him to the island, where she had given birth to, and lost, three children. The Bakers had then established a profitable agricultural settlement in the mountains of Ceylon, but because of ill-health had returned to England in 1855, alo
ng with four young daughters. The death of his wife in the same year had seemed only to increase Baker’s craving for adventure and danger, which his passion for big-game hunting could no longer satisfy. He had shot tigers in India, bears in the Balkans and elephants in Ceylon, and had brought to Africa a massive and ridiculously heavy elephant gun, ‘the baby’, which fired a whopping half-pound shell. Though of average height, Baker was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, and was not knocked over by the recoil of this gun, as most men were, even when propped up by another person.12
Sam Baker described himself as ‘averse to beaten paths … not fitted for those harnessed positions which produce wealth; yet ever happy when unemployed, and too proud to serve’. He was dogmatic and opinionated, and thought very little of Africans in general, but he respected and liked individual black people. He hated the slave trade, taught himself Arabic and spoke it tolerably well, and wrote entertaining books. Despite many bigoted opinions, he had done something which few British gentlemen would ever have contemplated: bought a woman in a slave auction.13 Now, he and this remarkable person, in her loosely cut breeches and knee-length gaiters, were going to attempt a journey – which had defeated Miani, De Bono, and his agent Wad-el-Mek – becoming, if successful, the first Europeans to visit the unknown nyanza. Driven back from a point near the present Ugandan border by repeated attacks of fever, by mutinous porters, by African revenge attacks, and by cataracts, the slave traders’ failure was a warning to Baker and to Florence. Would they be able to rise to such a formidable challenge?
