The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia

by Samuel White Baker

Samuel Baker (1821 - 1893) was born in England. After the death of his wife he traveled to Ceylon in 1846. Baker established an agriculture settlement in Nuwara Eliva. He helped bring cattle and emigrants from England and made a success of the settlement. During his stay in Ceylon he spent a great deal of time hunting with his hounds, which became the genesis of this novel and a later work. Baker spent 12 months exploring the Nile and the area surrounding it. His explorations included the Atbara, Settite, Royan, Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and the Blue Nile. Baker states that "The interest attached to these portions of Africa differs entirely from that of the White Nile regions, as the whole of Upper Egypt and Abyssinia is capable of development, and is inhabited by races either Mohammedan or Christian; while Central Africa is peopled by a hopeless race of savages, for whom there is no prospect of civilization."

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Sir Samuel White Baker of Britain founded a settlement at Ceylon in 1848, explored the region of the Blue Nile from 1861 to 1862, and as the first such European, reached Albert in 1864.

Baker served as an English officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer, and abolitionist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_...

Reviews

[Monty Milne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of this was fascinating and enjoyable. As a travel narrative it is very vivid and engrossing. Sometimes it is very funny – such as the episode when he tries to hire a woman to help with the laundry but ends up having to purchase her as a slave who thinks she is to become his wife, which causes much mirth to his real wife, who accompanies the author on all his travels. (It is a pity he doesn’t tell us more about her – she was purchased as a slave herself, in an Ottoman slave market, and became Lady Baker in circumstances of the utmost romance; she led a very remarkable life and was clearly a most extraordinary woman).

The narrative abounds in curious vignettes, such as his observation that the men who lived along the Atbara bathed naked in full view of the women “just as we do at Brighton and other English bathing towns.” This is doubly curious, not least because the naked bathers in the Atbara were Muslim, but also because this was still an era where naked sea bathing along English shores was the norm – only the ladies wore bathing costumes.

There is, however, one disturbing factor about this otherwise fascinating travelogue which caused me increasing disquiet and revulsion: the author’s enthusiasm for killing animals. True, he almost always ensures that what he kills ends up being eaten, but the verve with which he deals out death and suffering is pathological, and his detailed descriptions of bullets shattering spines or lodging in lungs is repetitious and unpleasant. I ended up rather disliking him – in spite of his wit, his remarkable self composure in trying circumstances, his brilliant resourcefulness, and his wonderful wife.