On the 15th of February, Captains Speke and Grant arrived at Gondokoro, from the Victoria Nyanza, and the meeting between them and Sir Samuel was necessarily very cordial. The information they communicated had a material effect upon his plans. He found that they had been unable to complete the actual exploration of the Nile—that a most important portion remained to be determined. It appears that in lat. 2° 17′ N. they had crossed the Nile, after tracking it from the Victoria Lake; that the river then turned suddenly to the west, and that they did not touch it again until they arrived in lat. 3° 32′ N., when it was then flowing from the west-south-west. The natives, and Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, had assured them that the Nile from the Victoria Nyanza, which they had crossed in lat. 2° 17′ N., flowed westward for several days’ journey, and at length fell into a large lake called the Luta N’zige (“Dead Locust”); that this lake came from the south, and that the Nile, on entering its northern extremity, almost immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river continued its course to the north through the Koshi and Madi countries. Circumstances prevented Speke and Grant from pushing their explorations as far as the Luta N’zige; and the question that remained to be answered was, What was the exact position of this lake in the basin of the Nile? what was its relation to the great river? This question Sir Samuel Baker resolved upon settling. Speke and Grant sailed from Gondokoro, homeward bound, on the 26th, and he immediately began to prepare for his journey to the Luta N’zige. His preparations were delayed, however, by the mutinous conduct of his escort, and the obstacles thrown in his path by the nefarious ivory-traders and slave-hunters; and it was the 26th of March before he was able to effect a start. Then, with his escort reduced in number to fifteen men, with two faithful servants, Richard and the boy Saat, and a heavily loaded caravan of camels and donkeys, with Lady Baker mounted on a good strong Abyssinian hunter, Tétel (“Hartebeest”), and Sir Samuel himself on his horse Filfil (“Pepper”), and the British flag waving proudly above the _cortége_, they left Gondokoro, and began their march into Central Africa.