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[Illustration: HARAR FROM THE COFFE STREAM]
FIRST FOOTSTEPS IN EAST AFRICA; OR, AN EXPLORATION OF HARAR.
BY RICHARD F. BURTON
TO THE HONORABLE JAMES GRANT LUMSDEN, MEMBER OF COUNCIL, ETC. ETC. BOMBAY.
I have ventured, my dear Lumsden, to address you in, and inscribe to you, these pages. Within your hospitable walls my project of African travel was matured, in the fond hope of submitting, on return, to your friendly criticism, the record of adventures in which you took so warm an interest. Dis aliter visum! Still I would prove that my thoughts are with you, and thus request you to accept with your wonted bonhommie this feeble token of a sincere good will.
PREFACE.
Averse to writing, as well as to reading, diffuse Prolegomena, the author finds himself compelled to relate, at some length, the circumstances which led to the subject of these pages.
In May 1849, the late Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, formerly Superintendent of the Indian Navy, in conjunction with Mr. William John Hamilton, then President of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain, solicited the permission of the Court of Directors of the Honorable East India Company to ascertain the productive resources of the unknown Somali Country in East Africa. [1] The answer returned, was to the following effect:—