With heroic patience they had accomplished on foot their journey of thirteen hundred miles, and shown that the parent stream of the Nile, even in its earliest course a considerable river, was fed by the vast reservoir of the “Victorian Sea.” What remained to be discovered was the feeders of this vast basin, and which among them was indeed the primary source of the Nile. Some fresher light was thrown on the subject by Sir Samuel Baker, {369} who, with his wife, underwent some remarkable experiences in Central Africa, and earned a right to be included among our Heroes of Travel. Let us now follow him “through scorching deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp and jungle and interminable morass; through difficulties, fatigues, and sickness,” until we stand with him on that high cliff where the great prize burst upon his view, and he saw before him one of the chief sources of the Nile in the Luta N’zige, or Albert Lake. * * * * * Accompanied by his courageous and devoted wife, who insisted upon sharing his labours and his perils, he sailed up the Nile from Cairo on the 15th of April, 1861. In twenty-six days they arrived at Kousko, whence they crossed the Nubian desert, so as to cut off the western bend of the river, touching it again at Aboù Hamed. Eight days more and they reached Berber, where they remained until the 11th of June. A year was spent in exploring the Abyssinian frontier and the Abyssinian tributaries of the Nile; and the travellers made their appearance at Khartûm on the 11th of June, 1862. Khartûm is a densely populated, unclean, and pestiferous town, in lat. 15° 29′, at the junction point of the White and Blue Nile; it is the capital of the Soudan, and the seat of a governor-general. Twenty years ago it was also the centre of a cruel and desolating slave-trade, but the exertions of Sir Samuel Baker and Colonel Gordon have done much to lessen its proportions.