Sir Richard Francis Burton

First footsteps in East Africa Sir Richard Francis Burton

Book Excerpt: ...46th Regiment Bengal N. I., who had spent many years collecting the Fauna of 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 repr...