Gondokoro (formerly Ismailïa) island is located in

Central Equatoria Central Equatoria is a states of South Sudan, state in South Sudan. With an area of , it is the smallest of the original South Sudanese states. Its previous name was Bahr al-Jabal (also Bahr-el-Jebel), named after a tributary of the White Nile t ...

. The island was a trading-station on the east bank of the

White Nile The White Nile ( ') is a river in Africa, the minor of the two main tributaries of the Nile, the larger being the Blue Nile. The name "White" comes from the clay sediment carried in the water that changes the water to a pale color. In the stri ...

in Southern Sudan, south of

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...

. Its importance lay in the fact that it was within a few kilometres of the limit of navigability of the Nile from Khartoum upstream. From this point the journey south to

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

was continued overland. Gondokoro2

The Austrian Catholic missionary Ignatius Knoblecher set up a mission there in 1852. It was abandoned in 1859. In 1862, the explorer Alexine Tinne became the first person to photograph the town.read online
/ref> Gondokoro was the scene for the arrival of

John Hanning Speke Captain John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and army officer who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first Eu ...

and James Augustus Grant after their two years and five months long journey through Central Africa from Zanzibar. They arrived exhausted on February 13, 1863, and expected to be met by the British consul John Petherick and his rescue party. As Petherick was away hunting in the countryside, the two explorers instead were welcomed by

Samuel Baker Sir Samuel White Baker (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt ...

and his wife Florence Baker, who greeted them with a cup of tea.To The Heart Of The Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa, by Pat Shipman In 1874

Charles George Gordon Major-general (United Kingdom), Major-General Charles George Gordon Companion of the Order of the Bath, CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, Gordon of Khartoum and General Gordon , was a British ...

seized the town in favor of the

khedive Khedive ( ; ; ) was an honorific title of Classical Persian origin used for the sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire, but most famously for the Khedive of Egypt, viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914.Adam Mestyan"Khedive" ''Encyclopaedi ...

from the

Khedivate of Egypt The Khedivate of Egypt ( or , ; ') was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, established and ruled by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty following the defeat and expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte's forces which brought an end to the short- ...

, thus ensuring Egypt's rule over all of southern Sudan (then the province of

Equatoria Equatoria is the southernmost region of South Sudan, along the upper reaches of the White Nile and the border between South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Juba, the national capital is the largest city in South S ...

). A passage from

Alan Moorehead Alan McCrae Moorehead, (22 July 1910 – 29 September 1983) was a war correspondent and author of popular histories, most notably two books on the nineteenth-century exploration of the Nile, ''The White Nile'' (1960) and ''The Blue Nile'' (1962 ...

´s ''The White Nile'' (p. 61) describes it thus: "The sportsman Samuel Baker and his wife had come up the Nile to look for them, and there had been others as well who had arrived at Gondokoro on the same mission, three Dutch ladies, the Baroness van Capellan and Mrs and Miss Tinne, but they had been forced to return to Khartoum through sickness. ... 'Speke', Baker says, 'appeared the more worn of the two: he was excessively lean, but in reality he was in good tough condition; he had walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that wearying march. Grant was in honourable rags; his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trousers that were an exhibition of rough industry tailor's work.'"

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

passed through Gondokoro on the Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition with his son,

Kermit Roosevelt Kermit Roosevelt Sr. Military Cross, MC (October 10, 1889 – June 4, 1943) was an American businessman, soldier, explorer, and writer. A son of Theodore Roosevelt, the List of Presidents of the United States, 26th President of the United State ...

Edgar Alexander Mearns Edgar Alexander Mearns (September 11, 1856 – November 1, 1916) was an American surgeon, ornithologist and field naturalist. He was a founder of the American Ornithologists' Union. Life Mearns was born in Highland Falls, New York, to Alexa ...

Edmund Heller Edmund Heller (May 21, 1875 – July 18, 1939) was an American zoologist. He was President of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums for two terms, 1935–1936 and 1937–1938. Early life While at Stanford University, he collected specimens in the ...

, and

John Alden Loring John Alden Loring (March 31, 1871 – May 8, 1947) was a mammalogist and field naturalist who served with the Bureau of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture, the Bronx Zoological Park, the Smithsonian Institution and numerous ...

. The site of Gondokoro is near to the modern-day city of

Juba Juba is the capital and largest city of South Sudan. The city is situated on the White Nile and also serves as the capital of the Central Equatoria, Central Equatoria State. It is the most recently declared national capital and had a populatio ...

. Other notable nearby settlements include Lado and Rejaf (Rageef). Other explorers died there, such as Wilhelm von Harnier, Alphonse de Malzac, Alfred Peney and Alexandre Vaudey.

References

* {{Central Equatoria Populated places in Central Equatoria Juba County