First Footsteps in East Africa. Sir Richard Francis Burton
Thibet and the Himalayan mountains, volunteered to share the hardships of African exploration.
In October 1854, the writer and his companions received at Aden in Arabia the sanction of the Court of Directors. It was his intention to march in a body, using Berberah as a base of operations, westwards to Harar, and thence in a south-easterly direction towards Zanzibar.
But the voice of society at Aden was loud against the expedition. The rough manners, the fierce looks, and the insolent threats of the Somal—the effects of our too peaceful rule—had pre-possessed the timid colony at the "Eye of Yemen" with an idea of extreme danger. The Anglo-Saxon spirit suffers, it has been observed, from confinement within any but wooden walls, and the European degenerates rapidly, as do his bull-dogs, his game-cocks, and other pugnacious animals, in the hot, enervating, and unhealthy climates of the East. The writer and his comrades were represented to be men deliberately going to their death, and the Somal at Aden were not slow in imitating the example of their rulers. The savages had heard of the costly Shoa Mission, its 300 camels and 50 mules, and they longed for another rehearsal of the drama: according to them a vast outlay was absolutely necessary, every village must be feasted, every chief propitiated with magnificent presents, and dollars must be dealt out by handfuls. The Political Resident refused to countenance the scheme proposed, and his objection necessitated a further change of plans.
Accordingly, Lieut. Herne was directed to proceed, after the opening of the annual fair-season, to Berberah, where no danger was apprehended. It was judged that the residence of this officer upon the coast would produce a friendly feeling on the part of the Somal, and, as indeed afterwards proved to be the case, would facilitate the writer's egress from Harar, by terrifying the ruler for the fate of his caravans. [6] Lieut. Herne, who on the 1st of January 1855, was joined by Lieut. Stroyan, resided on the African coast from November to April; he inquired into the commerce, the caravan lines, and the state of the slave trade, visited the maritime mountains, sketched all the places of interest, and made a variety of meteorological and other observations as a prelude to extensive research.
Lieut. Speke was directed to land at Bunder Guray, a small harbour in the "Arz el Aman," or "Land of Safety," as the windward Somal style their country. His aim was to trace the celebrated Wady Nogal, noting its watershed and other peculiarities, to purchase horses and camels for the future use of the Expedition, and to collect specimens of the reddish earth which, according to the older African travellers, denotes the presence of gold dust. [7] Lieut. Speke started on the 23rd October 1854, and returned, after about three months, to Aden. He had failed, through the rapacity and treachery of his guide, to reach the Wady Nogal. But he had penetrated beyond the maritime chain of hills, and his journal (condensed in the Appendix) proves that he had collected some novel and important information.
Meanwhile the author, assuming the disguise of an Arab merchant, prepared to visit the forbidden city of Harar. He left Aden on the 29th of October 1854, arrived at the capital of the ancient Hadiyah Empire on the 3rd January 1855, and on the 9th of the ensuing February returned in safety to Arabia, with the view of purchasing stores and provisions for a second and a longer journey. [8] What unforeseen circumstance cut short the career of the proposed Expedition, the Postscript of the present volume will show.
The following pages contain the writer's diary, kept daring his march to and from Harar. It must be borne in mind that the region traversed on this occasion was previously known only by the vague reports of native travellers. All the Abyssinian discoverers had traversed the Dankali and other northern tribes: the land of the Somal was still a terra incognita. Harar, moreover, had never been visited, and few are the cities of the world which in the present age, when men hurry about the earth, have not opened their gates to European adventure. The ancient metropolis of a once mighty race, the only permanent settlement in Eastern Africa, the reported seat of Moslem learning, a walled city of stone houses, possessing its independent chief, its peculiar population, its unknown language, and its own coinage, the emporium of the coffee trade, the head-quarters of slavery, the birth-place of the Kat plant, [9] and the great manufactory of cotton-cloths, amply, it appeared, deserved the trouble of exploration. That the writer was successful in his attempt, the following pages will prove. Unfortunately it was found impossible to use any instruments except a pocket compass, a watch, and a portable thermometer more remarkable for convenience than correctness. But the way was thus paved for scientific observation: shortly after the author's departure from Harar, the Amir or chief wrote to the Acting Political Resident at Aden, earnestly begging to be supplied with a "Frank physician," and offering protection to any European who might be persuaded to visit his dominions.
The Appendix contains the following papers connected with the movements of the expedition in the winter of 1854.
1. The diary and observations made by Lieut. Speke, when attempting to reach the Wady Nogal.
2. A sketch of the grammar, and a vocabulary of the Harari tongue. This dialect is little known to European linguists: the only notices of it hitherto published are in Salt's Abyssinia, Appendix I. p. 6–10.; by Balbi Atlas Ethnogr. Tab. xxxix. No. 297.; Kielmaier, Ausland, 1840, No. 76.; and Dr. Beke (Philological Journal, April 25. 1845.)
3. Meteorological observations in the cold season of 1854–55 by Lieuts. Herne, Stroyan, and the Author.
4. A brief description of certain peculiar customs, noticed in Nubia, by Brown and Werne under the name of fibulation.
5. The conclusion is a condensed account of an attempt to reach Harar from Ankobar. [10] On the 14th October 1841, Major Sir William Cornwallis Harris (then Captain in the Bombay Engineers), Chief of the Mission sent from India to the King of Shoa, advised Lieut. W. Barker, I. N., whose services were imperatively required by Sir Robert Oliver, to return from Abyssinia via Harar, "over a road hitherto untrodden by Europeans." As His Majesty Sahalah Selassie had offered friendly letters to the Moslem Amir, Capt. Harris had "no doubt of the success of the enterprise." Although the adventurous explorer was prevented by the idle fears of the Bedouin Somal and the rapacity of his guides from visiting the city, his pages, as a narrative of travel, will amply reward perusal. They have been introduced into this volume mainly with the view of putting the reader in possession of all that has hitherto been written and not published, upon the subject of Harar. [11] For the same reason the author has not hesitated to enrich his pages with observations drawn from Lieutenants Cruttenden and Rigby. The former printed in the Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society two excellent papers: one headed a "Report on the Mijjertheyn Tribe of Somallies inhabiting the district forming the North East Point of Africa;" secondly, a "Memoir on the Western or Edoor Tribes, inhabiting the Somali coast of North East Africa; with the Southern Branches of the family of Darood, resident on the banks of the Webbe Shebayli, commonly called the River Webbe." Lieut. C. P. Rigby, 16th Regiment Bombay N. I., published, also in the Transactions of the Geographical Society of Bombay, an "Outline of the Somali Language, with Vocabulary," which supplied a great lacuna in the dialects of Eastern Africa.
A perusal of the following pages will convince the reader that the extensive country of the Somal is by no means destitute of capabilities. Though partially desert, and thinly populated, it possesses valuable articles of traffic, and its harbours export the produce of the Gurague, Abyssinian, Galla, and other inland races. The natives of the country are essentially commercial: they have lapsed into barbarism by reason of their political condition—the rude equality of the Hottentots—but they appear to contain material for a moral regeneration. As subjects they offer a favourable contrast to their kindred, the Arabs of El Yemen, a race untameable as the wolf, and which, subjugated in turn by Abyssinian, Persian, Egyptian, and Turk, has ever preserved an indomitable spirit of freedom, and eventually succeeded in skaking off the yoke of foreign dominion. For half a generation we have been masters of Aden, filling Southern Arabia with our calicos and rupees—what is the present state of affairs there? We are dared by the Bedouins to come forth from behind our stone walls and fight like men in the plain—British proteges are slaughtered within the range of our guns—our allies' villages have been burned in sight of Aden—our deserters are welcomed and our fugitive felons protected—our supplies are cut off, and the garrison is reduced to extreme distress, at the word of a half-naked bandit—the miscreant Bhagi who murdered Capt. Mylne in cold blood still roams the hills unpunished—gross insults are