view of purchasing stores and provisions for a second and a longer journey.[1] 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 during 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,[2] 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
- ↑ The writer has not unfrequently been blamed by the critics of Indian papers, for venturing into such dangerous lands with an outfit nearly 1500l. in value. In the Somali, as in other countries of Eastern Africa, travellers must carry not only the means of purchasing passage, but also the very necessaries of life. Money being unknown, such bulky articles as cotton-cloth, tobacco, and beads are necessary to provide meat and milk, and he who would eat bread must load his camels with grain. The Somal of course exaggerate the cost of travelling; every chief, however, may demand a small present, and every pauper, as will be seen in the following pages, expects to be fed.
- ↑ It is described at length in Chap. III.
