Madi people sources of the river Nile". He also hoped to meet the East African expedition led by John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant, somewhere about the Victoria Lake. Baker spent a year on the Sudan-Abyssinian border, during which time he learned Arabic, explored the Atbara river and other Nile tributaries. In early 1862 he arrived at Khartoum, and in December the same year, he left the city to follow the course of the White Nile. Months later in arrived in Gondokoro. In 1862, Speke and Grants who Mr. Baker planned to meet Mr Baker in Gondokoro, arrived in the Madi
John Hanning Speke tried to remove it with a knife. Unable to rent the larger vessel from the Arab, Speke returned. The pair were unable to explore Lake Tanganyika properly and they initially misunderstood that a river flowed out of it from the north side. A few weeks later Sidi Mubarak Bombay confirmed via locals that the river flowed into the lake; however, since neither man actually saw this river, this remained a source of speculation. They had also heard of a second lake to the north-east, and in May 1858, they decided to explore it on the way back to the coast.