Little is known of Lucy Hutchinson after her husband's death, beyond that she soon sold Owthorpe, and that some years later she referred to herself as being in adversity. By adversity she probably referred to her widowed state, for it is very unlikely that with many rich relatives a woman of simple tastes would be in want of money. But of this we may be sure: that, whether old age found her rich or poor, it found her a noble-minded, Christian Englishwoman.
LADY BAKER, AN EXPLORER'S COMPANION
When Samuel White Baker decided to make an attempt to discover the sources of the Nile, his young wife determined to accompany him and share his dangers and hardships. On April 15, 1861, they started from Cairo, and after a twenty-six days' journey by boat they disembarked at Korosko, and plunged into the dreary desert. Their camels travelled at a rapid pace, but the heat was terrible, and Mrs. Baker was taken seriously ill before arriving at Berber. She was, however, sufficiently recovered to accompany her husband when he started off along the dry bed of the Atbara, and soon had a novel experience, which Baker in The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, describes as follows:—
'At half-past eight I was lying half asleep upon my bed by the margin of the river, when I fancied that I heard a rumbling like distant thunder. Hardly had I raised my head to listen more attentively, when a confusion of voices arose from the Arabs' camp, with the sound of many feet; and in a few minutes they rushed into my camp, shouting to my men in the darkness, "El Bahr! El Bahr!"'[[1]] The rolling flood was sweeping down the dry bed of the river. 'We were up in an instant. Many of the people were asleep on the clean sand in the river's bed; these were quickly awakened by the Arabs.... Hardly had they (the Arabs) descended, when the sound of the river in the darkness beneath told us that the water had arrived; and the men, dripping with wet, had just sufficient time to drag their heavy burdens up the bank. All was darkness and confusion. The river had arrived like "a thief in the night."'
When daylight came a mighty river was flowing where yesterday there was only dry land.
Proceeding to Kassala, Baker engaged additional camels and attendants, and then crossing the Atbara at Korasi proceeded to Sofi, where he decided to halt for five months. Big game abounded, and Baker enjoyed excellent sport. Shooting and studying Arabic occupied nearly all his attention, until Mrs. Baker was taken ill with gastric fever. For a time it was not expected that she would recover; but, fortunately, she was spared to assist her husband in the arduous labours which followed.
Mr. and Mrs. Baker arrived at Khartoum on June 11, 1862, and remained there for six months, waiting for the rains to cease, and for the northerly winds to set in. Quitting Khartoum on December 18, 1862, they arrived at Gondokoro on February 2, 1863. Baker was the first Englishman to visit the place, and the reception which the slave-traders accorded him was far from cordial. Believing him to be a spy of the British Government, they concealed their slaves, and waited anxiously for him to depart. In the meanwhile they made friends with his men, sowed discontent amongst them, and succeeded in inciting them to make a raid for food on the natives in the next village.
Baker, hearing of the proposed raid, promptly forbade it, whereupon his men mutinied. Seizing the ringleader, Baker proceeded to give him a sound thrashing, but was at once attacked by the rest of the men, and would certainly have been killed had not Mrs. Baker rushed to the rescue. Her sudden appearance on the scene—for it was known she was ill with fever—and her appeals to some of the men to help her save her husband caused the mutineers to hesitate. Instantly Baker saw his opportunity. 'Fall in!' he commanded, and so accustomed were the men to obeying his orders that the majority fell in instantly. The ringleader and a few others refused to obey, and Baker was about to administer another thrashing to the former when his wife besought him not to do so. He acted on her advice, and promised to overlook the mutineers' conduct if they apologised, which they promptly and profusely did.
The slave-traders now declared that they would not permit the Bakers to penetrate into the interior, but, ignoring the threats, husband and wife resumed their journey. Soon they came into contact with a well-armed party of these traders, and a fight would have resulted had not Mrs. Baker suggested that they should make friends with the leader. 'Had I been alone,' Baker writes, 'I should have been too proud to have sought the friendship of the sullen trader; and the moment on which success depended would have been lost.... The fate of the expedition was retrieved by Mrs. Baker.'