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Noise and dancing seemed their principal delight, and they indulged in it, blowing horns and firing muskets with a boisterous glee, which showed the strangest contrast to the tame Hindus and other merchant residents of the place. Captain Burton now decided on quitting Mombas; and on the 24th January, after embarking in our little beden, we set sail southwards.
Now, as the Royal Geographical Society had desired us to place ourselves in communication with Mr Rebmann, who was then at his mission-station, Kisuludini, at Rabbai, on a high hill at the back of Mombas, and to try and solicit him to go with us into the interior, where it was thought his experience in the native languages would be useful to the expedition, my companion hired a small beden, or half-decked Arab vessel, by the month, to take us about wherever we pleased; and on the 5th January 1857, having engaged a respectable half-caste Arab Sheikh, named Said, to be our guide and interpreter, we took leave of our host, set sail, and steered northwards, coasting along the shores of this beautiful clove island, until we left it, and shortly afterwards sighted the still more lovely island of Pemba, or "The Emerald Isle" of the Arabs named, doubtless, from the surprising verdure of its trees and plants.
The Medinans in their dress resemble more the Turkish than their southern neighbours: very few of them wear the beden, or the national Arab cloak without sleeves; but even the poorer people dress in long gowns, with a cloth djobbe, or upper cloak, or, instead of it, an abba, of the same brown and white stripe as is common in Syria and all over the Desert. Red Tunis bonnets and Turkish shoes are
So he and Speke set out on a cruise northward in a crazy old Arab "beden" with ragged sails and worm-eaten timbers. They carried with them, however, a galvanised iron life-boat, "The Louisa," named after Burton's old love, and so felt no fear. They passed the Island of Pemba, and on the 22nd reached Mombasa, which Burton was glad to visit on account of its associations with Camoens, who wrote
The gowns of well-dressed people of the middle class are generally of white India muslin, without any lining; they are called beden, and differ from the common Levantine antery, in being very short, and without sleeves, and in being of course much cooler: over the beden a djubbe of light cloth, or Indian silk stuff, is worn, which, in time of great heat, a man throws over his shoulders; the gown and under-shirt are then his only covering.
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