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 he found hard and time consuming as he was not naturally a gifted writer. He failed to give a good and full report to the RGS for many months and thus in effect was not defending his positions of discovery. In addition Speke had a public dispute with the Pethericks who had by and large acted according to their RGS instructions but Speke had felt they had not. All this led Roderick Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society, to start disliking Speke and a third expedition, led by Speke, was becoming less likely as it would have to be