Samuel White Baker

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.

It was the middle of November - not the wretched month that chills even the recollection of Old England, but the last of the ten months of rain that causes the wonderful vegetation of the fertile soil in Equatorial Africa. The Turks were ready to return to Shooa, and I longed for the change from this brutal country to the still wilder but less bloody tribe of Madi, to the north.

by Samuel White Baker

Condensed by E.J.W From "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia"
and "The Albert N'yanza Great Basin of the Nile."

by Samuel W. Baker

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WITH SPECIAL PERMISSION, TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS ALBERT EDWARD,
PRINCE OF WALES, AS THE FIRST OF ENGLAND'S ROYAL RACE WHO HAS SAILED UPON THE WATERS OF
THE NILE; THE LAKE SOURCES OF WHICH MIGHTY RIVER ARE HONOURED BY THE NAMES OF
HIS AUGUST PARENTS.

by Samuel White Baker