The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_e4a4e124-4694-5154-8527-ba6fb4737f5a">12. Arafât, near Mecca.
13. Hâfiz of Shirâz.
14. Omar-i-Khayyâm, the tent-maker poet of Persia.
15. A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy.
16. The "Philister" of "respectable" belief.
17. Moses in the Korán.
18. The Abana, River of Damascus.
19. Death in Arabia rides a Camel, not a pale horse.
20. Buddha.
21. Confucius.
22. The Soofi or Gnostic opposed to the Zâhid.
23. Jehovah.
24. Kayâni—of the race of Cyrus; old Guebre heroes.
25. Supposed to be the Prophet Elijah.
26. The Elephant.
27. Mushtari: the Planet Jupiter.
28. Plato and Aristotle.
29. I think he is alluding, though he has not expressed it, to the Marcionites' heresy of baptizing for the dead. The Marcionites were heretics who lived at Sinope, A.D. 150. Marcian came to Rome and believed in principles similar to the Manichæans. When a man died, one of the Marcionites sat on his coffin, and another asked him if he were willing to be baptised, and he answered, "Yes," upon which he was baptised. These heretics quoted Paul (1 Cor. xv. 29): "Else what shall they do which are baptised for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? why are they then baptised for the dead?"—Isabel Burton.
30. Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic Khemi.
31. Jehannum, Gehenna, Hell.
32. Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny.
33. Illusion.
34. That all the senses, even the ear may enjoy.
35. The Angel of Death.
36. The "Great Man" of the Enochites and the Mormons.
37. Comparative annihilation.
38. "Homo sapiens."
CHAPTER IX.
HARAR—THE MOSLEM ABYSSINIA—THE TIMBUCTOO OF EAST AFRICA, THE EXPLORATION OF WHICH HAD BEEN ATTEMPTED IN VAIN BY SOME THIRTY TRAVELLLERS.
Richard returned up the Red Sea to Egypt, and much enjoyed the rest and safety for a short time, and then returned to Bombay, his leave being up; but the wandering fever was still upon him, and as the most difficult place for a white man to enter was Harar, in Somali-land, Abyssinia, he determined that that should be his object. It is inhabited by a very dangerous race to deal with, and no white man had ever penetrated to Harar. The first white man who went to Abyssinia was kept prisoner till he died. The East India Company had long wished to explore it, because Berberah, the chief port of Somali-land, is the safest and best harbour on the western side of the Indian Ocean—far better than Aden. They went to work with that strange mixture of caution and generosity with which they treated those of their servants who stepped out of what Richard calls their "quarter-deck" routine, that is, to let him go as a private traveller, and the Government to give him no protection, but would allow him to retain the same pay that he would enjoy whilst on leave. Dr. Carter and others refused to do more than to coast along in a cruiser.
Richard applied for Lieutenant Herne, of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers, Lieutenant Stroyan, Indian Navy, and Lieutenant Speke, 46th Bengal Native Infantry. Herne was distinguished by his surveys, photography, and mechanics on the west coast of India, in Scinde, and on the Punjaub rivers; Stroyan as amateur surveyor; and Speke, collector of the Fauna of Tibet and the Himalayas and sportsman. Assistant-Surgeon Ellerton Stocks, botanist, traveller, and a first-rate man in all ways, died before the expedition started.
Jealousy, as usual, immediately rose up in opposition. First, Sir James Outram, Political Resident at Aden, called it a tempting of Providence, and Dr. Buist, the editor of the Bombay Times, was told to run down the Somali Expedition, in which task he was assisted by the unpopular chaplain. This was not very gratifying to four high-spirited men; so, instead of using Berberah as a base of operations, then westward to Harar, and then south-east to Zanzibar, the Resident changed the whole scheme and made it fail. Herne was to go to Berberah, where he was joined later by Stroyan. Speke was to land in a small harbour called Bunder Guray, and to trace the watershed of the Wady Nogal, to buy horses and camels, and collect red earth with gold in it; but his little expedition failed through his guide's treachery. Herne and Stroyan succeeded. Richard reserved for himself the post of danger. Harar was as difficult to enter as Mecca. It is the southernmost masonry-built settlement in North Equatorial Africa. He would go as an Arab merchant. Harar had never been visited, has its own language, its own unique history and traditions. The language was unwritten, but he wrote a grammar, and a vocabulary in which the etymology is given, and there he had enough savage anthropology to interest him. He writes—
"In the first place, Berberah is the true key of the Red Sea, the centre of East African traffic, and the only safe place for shipping upon the Western Erythræan shore, from Suez to Guardafui, backed by lands capable of cultivation, and by hills covered with pine and other valuable trees, enjoying a comparatively temperate climate, with a regular, though thin monsoon. This harbour has been coveted by many a foreign conqueror. Circumstances have thrown it into our arms, and if we refuse a chance, another and a rival nation will not be so blind. [We have since given it away, and kept the far inferior Aden.] We are bound to protect the lives of subjects on this coast. In 1825 the crew of the Mary Ann brig was treacherously