First Footsteps in East AfricaBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
First Footsteps in East Africa
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Harar -- Description and travel; Harari language; Horn of Africa -- Description and travel
On the 28th October, 1854, Lieutenant Speke arrived at Kurayat, a small
village near Las Kuray (Goree Bunder), in the country called by the Somal
"Makhar," or the eastern maritime region. During the period of three
months and a half he was enabled to make a short excursion above the
coast-mountains, visiting the Warsingali, the Dulbahanta, and the Habr
Gerhajis tribes, and penetrating into a region unknown to Europeans. The
bad conduct of his Abban, and the warlike state of the country, prevented
his reaching the "Wady Nogal," which, under more favourable circumstances
and with more ample leisure than our plans allowed him, he conceives to be
a work of little difficulty and no danger. He has brought back with him
ample notices of the region visited, and has been enabled to make a
valuable collection of the Fauna, which have been forwarded to the Curator
of the Royal As. Society's Museum, Calcutta. On the 15th February, 1855,
Lieutenant Speke revisited Kurayat, and there embarked for Aden.
Before proceeding to Lieutenant Speke's Journal, it may be useful to give
a brief and general account of the region explored.
The portion of the Somali country visited by Lieutenant Speke may be
divided into a Maritime Plain, a Range of Mountains, and an elevated
Plateau.
The Maritime Plain, at the points visited by Lieutenant Speke, is a sandy
tract overlying limestone, level to the foot of the hills, and varying
from half a mile to two miles in breadth. Water is not everywhere
procurable. At the village of Las Kuray, there is an old and well built
well, about twelve feet deep, producing an abundant and excellent supply.
It appears that the people have no implements, and are too barbarous to be
capable of so simple an engineering operation as digging. The vegetation
presents the usual appearance of salsolaceous plants thinly scattered over
the surface, with here and there a stunted growth of Arman or Acacia. The
watershed is of course from south to north, and the rain from the hills is
carried off by a number of Fiumaras or freshets, with broad shallow beds,
denoting that much of the monsoon rain falling in the mountains is there
absorbed, and that little finds its way to the sea. At this season (the
dry weather) the plain is thinly inhabited; there are no villages except
on the sea-shore, and even these were found by the traveller almost
entirely deserted, mostly women occupying the houses, whilst the men were
absent, trading and tending cattle in the hills. The harbours are,
generally speaking, open and shallow road-steads, where ships find no
protection; there is, however, one place (Las Galwayta), where, it is
said, deep water extends to the shore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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