Excerpt from First Footsteps in East Africa, Vol. 1 of 2: Or an Exploration of Harar After Richard Burton left Meccah, he returned up the Red Sea to Egypt, and after a short rest, to Bombay. The East India Company Service had long wished to explore Somali-land in Abyssinia, because Berberah, its chief port, is far better than Aden. As Harar, its capital, was the most difficult place, and no white man had ever succeeded in entering it, the whole country being then inhabited by a most dangerous race to deal with, he obtained leave to go there as a private traveller, the company agreeing to allow him his pay, but no government protection. He applied for three other Anglo-Indian officers (amongst them Lieutenant Speke), to tell off to different employments on the coast. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.