In matters of administration things were even worse. Musa Pasha, by his deplorable misgovernment, was ruining the country. From the highest to the lowest of his officials, dishonesty and fraud were the common characteristics; every one cheated according to his rank. Slave traffic, with all its abominations, was the leading business of the place, a fact which has been demonstrated alike by Baker and Schweinfurth, who, at separate times, had ample opportunity of studying the matter upon the very scene of the misdoings. It was the laudable ambition to ascertain the true sources of the Nile that took Baker into regions south of Khartoum that had previously been unexplored. Accompanied by his courageous wife, on February 2, 1863, he reached Gondokoro, then a miserable group of turf-cabins occupied only for two months in the year by the Khartoum traders whose “_dahabiehs_” could go no farther. He landed there to meet Speke and Grant, who, weary, ragged, and destitute, were on their way back from the interior along the Nile, of which they had just discovered the real springs. The meeting was a memorable epoch in the history of the Soudan; it marked a new stage in the progress of the opening up of Equatorial Africa, betokening at the same time a fresh extension of Egyptian rule towards the south. In his own lively manner Baker gives a description of the incident:--“Shots in the distance. The ivory-bearers that I have been expecting have arrived. My people are running frantically towards my boat and shouting that two white men from the sea are with them. Is it possible that they can be Speke and Grant? Away I start. True enough, there they are! Hurrah for old England! Returned they have from the Victoria Nyanza; thence it is that the Nile flows forth; ... the mystery of the ages is solved. “At the same time, with all the excitement of joy there is mingled a sense of disappointment. It would have pleased me better to meet them farther on. However, it was satisfactory to know that I had made such arrangements as would have ensured my meeting them in case they were in any difficulty, as I ascertained that they had returned by the very route which I had proposed to follow. “My people are mad with delight: in firing a salute they have managed to kill one of my donkeys, a melancholy sacrifice in celebration of the accomplishment of the great geographical discovery!