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As a general rule Somali women prefer flirtations with strangers, following the well-known Arabian proverb, 'The new comer filleth the eye." Burton was thoroughly at home in Zeila "with the melodious chant of the muezzin" and the loudly intoned "Amin" and "Allaho Akbar" daily ringing in his ear.
The same fleet, as we were informed, after the King of Mombaza was reduced, was to burn and ruin Zeila, in revenge of the death of two Portuguese Jesuits who were killed by the King in the year 1604. As Zeila was not far from the frontiers of Abyssinia, they imagined that they already saw the Portuguese invading their country.
During the government of Lord Rosebery that influence had been distinctly exercised in favor of Italy, in opposition to that of France, and, when Crispi asked for the privilege of landing troops at Zeila, the English port for Abyssinia, in case of war, it had been accorded, giving Italy the advantage of a menace on the rear of all the positions of Menelek, which had in the early stages of the trouble been efficient.
From India he returned to the east coast of Africa, down which he went as low as Sofala, "the last residence of the Arabs, and the limit of their knowledge in that age, as it had been in the age of the Periplus." At Sofala also Covilham gained some information respecting the island of the Moon, or Madagascar. He returned to Cairo, by Zeila, Aden, and Tor.
Her little black eyes never met Burton's, and frequently with affected confusion she turned her sable cheek the clean contrary way. Attendant on the women was a Zeila lad, who, being one-eyed, was pitilessly called "The Kalandar." At their first halting place, Burton astonished the natives by shooting a vulture on the wing. "Lo!" cried the women, "he bringeth down the birds from heaven."
From Zeila to Harar, 27th November 1854 to 2nd January 1855. Burton now found that, as regards the projected expedition, his plans would have to be modified, and he finally decided to confine his explorations to "the great parched horn" of Somaliland.
As for us, who were to go by Zeila, we had still greater difficulties to struggle with: we were entirely strangers to the ways we were to take, to the manners, and even to the names of the nations through which we were to pass. Our chief desire was to discover some new road by which we might avoid having anything to do with the Turks.
Burton left Aden for Zeila on October 29th, taking with him a managing man called "The Hammal," a long, lean Aden policeman, nicknamed "Long Gulad" and a suave but rascally Moslem priest dubbed "The End of Time." They landed on October 31st, and found Zeila a town of white-washed houses and minaretted mosques, surrounded by a low brown wall with round towers.
It was while staying at Bombay as Mr. Lumsden's guest that Burton, already cloyed with civilization, conceived the idea of journeying, via Zeila in Somaliland, to the forbidden and therefore almost unknown city of Harar, and thence to Zanzibar.
The author arrives after some difficulties at Goa. Is chosen for the Mission of AEthiopia. The fate of those Jesuits who went by Zeila. The author arrives at the coast of Melinda.
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