uwara Eliya, a mountain health-resort. Aided by his brother, he brought
emigrants thither from England, together with choice breeds of cattle, and
before long the new settlement was a success. During his residence in
Ceylon he published, as a result of many adventurous hunting expeditions,
_The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_ (1853), and two years later _Eight
Years' Wanderings in Ceylon_ (1855). After a journey to Constantinople and
the Crimea in 1856, he found an outlet for his restless energy by
undertaking the supervision of the construction of a railway across the
Dobrudja, connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. After its completion he
spent some months in a tour in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. It was
during this time that he met in Hungary the lady who (in 1860) became his
second wife, Florence, daughter of Finnian von Sass, his first wife having
died in 1855. In March 1861 he started upon his first tour of exploration
in central Africa. This, in his own words, was undertaken "to discover the
sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition
under Captains Speke and Grant somewhere about the Victoria Lake." After a
year spent on the Sudan-Abyssinian border, during which time he learnt
Arabic, explored the Atbara and other Nile tributaries, and proved that the
Nile sediment came from Abyssinia, he arrived at Khartum, leaving that city
in December 1862 to follow up the course of the White Nile. Two months
later at Gondokoro he met Speke and Grant, who, after discovering the
source of the Nile, were following the river to Egypt. Their success made
him fear that there was nothing left for his own expedition to accomplish;
but the two explorers generously gave him information which enabled him,
after separating from them, to achieve the discovery of Albert Nyanza, of
whose existence credible assurance had already been given to Speke and
Grant. Baker first sighted the lake on the 14th of March 1864. After some
time spent in the exploration of the neighbourhood, during which Baker
demonstrated that the Nile flowed through the Albert Nyanza--of whose size
he formed an exaggerated idea--he started upon his return journey, and
reached Khartum after many checks in May 1865. In the following October he
returned to England with his wife, who had accompanied him throughout the
whole of the perilous and arduous journey. In recognition of the
achievements by which Baker had indissolubly linked his na