I have just finished reading Pat Shipman's remarkable biography of Lady Florence Baker: To the Heart of the Nile. This is one of those books about intrepid 18th and 19th century female explorer/adventurers that traveled to the ends of the earth in defiance of all social rules and constraints. Florence is even more amazing as she started out life in Transylvania, (born 1845), lost her family in the wars there as Hungary and Transylvania fought Austria for freedom, ended up as a member of harem in the Ottoman Empire and was sold as a teenage slave - although she was immediately rescued from that fate by Samuel Baker, who became one of the greatest British explorers of all time.

Are you still with me?

Along with Sam, who she married and loved all of her life, Florence set out to find the head of the Nile (they were beaten in that although they did name Lake Albert and trace the White Nile) and was involved in a long protracted effort by the British government to eradicate slavery in the Sudan and Egypt. What's really interesting about all of that is if you follow the tragedy of Darfur and the Sudan today then you will be riveted by what the Bakers attempted to accomplish in the region in the mid 1870s. At more than one point they realize that although slavery is morally wrong, it is also what the economy of so much of Central Africa was based on - people preferred slaves in barter to nearly anything else as slaves retained value. They also learned that governments can say all they want but unless they are in for the long haul - and back up the words with hard core effort - then nothing will ever change. (I'm sure there are a lot of people who used to live in New Orleans who would agree.)

Shortly after the Bakers left Africa for the last time a religious leader came to power in the Sudan; a man who was overlooked and ignored for a long time by the British government as it seemed absurd to them that a man could raise up a successful army of followers merely through religious passion. (Shocking, right?) A good friend of Sam Baker's, Charles Gordon, was eventually sent to Khartoum to get the country back in hand but he was given no real military support by the British government, who was trying to deal with this colonial mess as cheaply as possible, and after discovering that yes - the enemy was a serious opponent, he was given no regular organized army with which to fight him. Gordon and his men were massacred at Khartoum in January 1885 - he was shot, speared, stabbed, beheaded and his head was placed on pike. Upon learning of his death Sam wrote:

"I shall never publish another remark concerning Egypt. Now that poor Gordon is sacrificed, I unstring my bow; and remain a passive spectator of the misery and shame that have been the result of British interference."

Amazing how words from more than 120 years ago can have such relevance today, isn't it?

(Oh - and your movie trivia for the day: The Four Feathers, the Heath Ledger/Kate Hudson movie from a few years ago was about the Gordon relief expedition, which arrived just in time to see Gordon's head and not much else.]

This is one of those books that gives off the illusion of being stuffy or dated. What could the life and thoughts of a woman who traveled in Central Africa have in common with the world today? As it turns out, a lot of what Florence Baker and her husband witnessed is still part of how we live in the 21st century. Just further evidence that learning history is the only way to understand the present or predict the future; further proof of how very much history matters. (And it doesn't hurt that Shipman is an outstanding author.)

[Post pic of Lady Florence Baker from the National Portrait Gallery.]