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In 1864, as they travelled south to find Lake Albert,
Sir Samuel Baker and Florence Baker arrived on the North side
of the great rapids at Karuma. Samuel Baker writes “I climbed
up a high and almost perpendicular rock that formed a natural
pinnacle on the face of the cliff, and, waving my cap to the crowd
on the opposite side, I looked almost as imposing as Nelson in
Trafalgar Square!"
Because of the activities of the slave traders,
the arrival of Samuel Baker’s party was viewed with understandable
mistrust. To assure the people of their peaceful intentions, Sam
begged them to take Mrs. Baker and himself across the waters,
alone. On their arrival on the other side, “the people immediately
struck up a deafening welcome with horns, and marched us up the
steep face of the rocky cliff through a dark grove of bananas
to the heart of the village, and halted in a small courtyard in
front of the headman's residence. We were now surrounded by well-dressed
men, wearing robes of bark cloth, arranged in various fashions,
like the Roman toga.
Several of the headmen now explained to us the atrocious
treachery of Debono's men, who had been welcomed as friends of
Speke and Grant, but who had repaid the hospitality by plundering
and massacring their hosts.” Baker replied "You must
trust me, as I trust entirely in you, and have placed myself in
your hands; but if you have ever had cause to mistrust a white
man, kill me at once!—either kill me, or trust in me; but
let there be no suspicions."
Samuel and Florence were trusted and went on to
meet the King, Kamurasi of the Bunyoro-Kitara peoples. The King
eventually provided them with an escort to take them to their
goal, Lake Albert Nyanza.
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