Samuel Baker

Sir Samuel White Baker, KCB ( born June 8, 1821 in London, † December 30, 1893 on his estate Sandford Orleigh at Newton Abbot in Devon ) was a British explorer.

Life

Baker's father had come as a merchant in a senior position with the British East India Company to considerable prosperity and wished that his eldest son should succeed him. After training in England and Germany, however, Baker resigned from from the company because he saw them as a merchant no future for themselves. On August 3, 1843, he married Henrietta Biddulph Martin and was in the same year to Mauritius. From there he traveled to Ceylon in 1846, where he established a large farm in Nuwara Eliya and together with his brother Valentine ( later known as " Baker Pasha " ) managed. After the death of Henrietta 1855 he went to Scotland for a short time, after which he traveled in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. In 1856 he directed the construction of a rail link in Dobrogea. Then he took more trips, in 1859 led him to Vidin, where he took part in an auction of European slaves. He ransomed the eighteen- year-old Barbara Szász that initially his companion, then his partner and 1865 under the name Florence Baker, his wife was then.

In 1861 he began his travels in Africa ( S.U. ). For his services he was beaten in 1866 by Queen Victoria knighted. Due to the ( dubious in their eyes ) origin of his Mrs. Baker was not recognized socially by the Queen, and thus also of the ruling circles of Britain. In the same year he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Geographical Society of Paris. In the spring of 1869 he accompanied the Crown Prince ( later King Edward VII ) on a trip to Egypt. 1874 Baker acquired the estate Sandford Orleigh in south Devon. In the following years he took more trips through to Cyprus, India, Japan and the United States. Several times he traveled to Egypt for the winter. In 1893 he died at Sandford Orleigh.

Travel and discovery

First trip to Africa

Originally intended Baker 1861 an extended hunting trip to Egypt and the Sudan. He was wealthy and an avid big game hunter. It was his first expedition to Central Africa. This has been done - as he writes - "to discover the sources of the Nile, in the hope of a meeting with the East African expedition under Captains Speke and Grant somewhere the Lake Victoria ". Baker spent a year at the Sudanese- Abyssinian border, where he learned Arabic and the Atbara and the other tributaries of the Nile explored. He found that the Nile sediment came from Abyssinia. After this stay, he traveled to Khartoum to track the course of the White Nile.

Accompanied by Florence he went out in December 1862 by Khartoum with its own caravan up the Nile. His destination was the source of the White Nile. In Gondokoro he met on February 15 at John Speke and James Grant, who had advanced from Zanzibar to Victoria and now down the Nile were on the way home. Baker found the two pretty exhausted and torn. He provided them with new clothes and turned back south. In his quest Baker discovered in March 1864 Albert and the Murchison Falls, one of the greatest sights of Africa. In May 1865 he was back in Khartoum. In October he returned with his wife, whom he had married in the meantime, back to England.

The couple must have made a strange impression on the locals when they moved in the middle of the wilderness, and he in a suit and she dressed in a long dress, by Victorian fashion, both enjoyed wearing a hat, sitting at a table in the evening.

Second trip to Africa

In 1869 he received from the Khedive Ismail commissioned to conquer the top of a 1,700 -strong military expedition, the countries on the White Nile and its sources, and to open the trade. For this he was promoted to Major General Pasha and the Ottoman army. He drove in February 1870 the White Nile up, spent the rainy season with 1,100 men at the mouth of the Bahr el- Seraf and came through it with 59 ships on 15 April 1871 Gondokoro, which he named in honor of the Khedive, Ismailia. Then he penetrated under Fightin Unjoro. In August, he returned to Egypt and was appointed for five years as governor of Equatoria. He was succeeded by Charles George Gordon in 1874.

Works

  • The rifle and the hound in Ceylon. - London: John Murray, 1853 - online
  • Eight years' wanderings in Ceylon. - London: Longman, 1855 - E- Text
  • The Albert Nyanza, great basin of the Nile, and explorations of the Nile sources. 2 vols (London 1866), e- text
  • The Nile tributaries of Abyssinia. (London 1867)
  • Cast up by the Sea. Macmillan & Co., London 1868.
  • Ismailia. 2 vols (London 1874)
  • Cyprus as I saw it in in 1879. (London 1879)
  • Wild Beasts and Their Ways.
  • True tales for my Grandsons.

German translations:

  • The Albert N'yanza, the Great Basin of the Nile and exploring the sources of the Nile; Martin, John E. A. [ translator's ] 1868
  • Cyprus in 1879; Oberlander, Richard [ translator's ], 1880
  • The Nilzuflüsse in Abyssinia; Steger, Friedrich [Übers ]
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