Prior to the journey of Speke and Grant down the Nile, that river had been already made known up to the vicinity of the great lakes by explorers following in the footsteps of the military expeditions sent by Muhammad Ali to conquer the Sudan[178]. A Catholic mission had established itself on the Upper Nile in 1848, mainly supported by the Austrian Government. Amongst the missionaries was Dr Ignatius Knoblecher, who in 1849 explored the White Nile beyond Gondokoro to Mount Logwek. Other explorations were carried out by Giovanni Beltrame, another missionary. A Maltese ivory merchant named Andrea Debono and a Venetian named Giovanni Miani had also explored the White Nile; and the latter was the first European to visit the Nyam-nyam country. An English (or, rather, Welsh) ivory trader named John Petherick had started from Khartum in November 1853, and had ascended the Bahr-al-Ghazal River for some distance. He made other journeys into the unknown, more or less in the region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Nyam-nyam country. Petherick, who became British consul at Khartum, was entrusted with the mission of meeting and relieving Speke and Grant, but by some accident failed to do so. On one of his later journeys he was accompanied by Dr Murie, a naturalist, as far as Gondokoro. Theodor von Heuglin, Kiezelbach, Munzinger, and Dr Steudner were among the methodical German explorers who travelled in the Egyptian Sudan and in Abyssinia in 1861 and 1862. The greatest explorer of these regions, however, next to Speke and Grant, was Mr, afterwards Sir Samuel, Baker, who with his wife conducted an exploration of the Upper Nile on his own account with the intention of meeting and if possible succouring Speke and Grant. Baker had previously explored the Abyssinian tributaries of the Nile. After leaving Speke and Grant to continue their homeward journey, he started off for the south to fill up the blanks in their discoveries. The Nile was reached in the Bunyoro country; and after a long detention at the court of the scoundrelly Nyoro king, and enduring incredible sufferings, Baker and his wife discovered the Albert Nyanza, which from various causes he took to be much larger than it really is. The entrance and the exit of the Nile into and out from the Albert Nyanza were visited. The Bakers reached Gondokoro, and then returned homewards in March 1865. Their journey down the White Nile was blocked by the obstruction of a vegetable growth (the _sudd_). At last this was cut through, and Egypt was eventually reached. When Baker returned to London he was knighted for the discoveries he had made. The Albert Nyanza was afterwards circumnavigated by Gessi Pasha, a Levantine Italian in the service of the Egyptian Government, and by Colonel Mason Bey,