Black Mirror! The last scene you have
shown me is sufficient to answer the purpose
for which I took yon up. Towards what
point of the compass I may turn after leaving
London is more than I can tell; but this
I know, that my next post-horses shall be the
winds, my next stages coast-towns, my next
road over the open waves. I will be a sea-
traveller once more, and will put off resuming my
land journeyings until the arrival of that most
obliging of all convenient periods of time—a
future opportunity.

THE ORSONS OF EAST AFRICA.

AMONG the nooks of the world that have
not been explored by Europeans there
are some of all sizes in Africa, and until the
English Hajji—who has visited the shrines of
the prophet—Captain R. F. Burton, obtained
leave to visit Harar, and did visit Harar, that
town together with the districts round about
it was among the places known only by
rumour. What Timbuctoo used to be to
Western Africa, Harar has been to Eastern
Africa. What the Geographical Society
recommended, what the East India Company
undertook, why and how Mr. Burton,
disguised as an Arab merchant, went to Harar
and returned alive—not quite two years ago;
how he set out again, what misadventure
happened; and why ships of the East Indian
Navy now overawe Berberah—we must leave
any one, who will, to read in Captain
Burton's very interesting book. We mean
neither to review that book nor to sketch its
contents, but simply by help of it to amuse
ourselves with a few sketches of the way of
life in a remote region, about which none of
our countrymen have heretofore had, from
their own knowledge, anything to tell. Of
course, there is a strong family-likeness
among many African tribes, and, to a great
extent, as are the known, so are the unknown.
Of course, also,—but as to the matters of
course—why need they be mentioned?

Distinctly warned that he was going to his
death, Captain Burton sailed from Aden with
his chosen attendants. The slipper of blessing
was thrown after him, the anchor raised,
and, once at sea, the pilgrim's comrades
removed from their heads the turbans of
civilisation, wore only their black skins and
their loin-cloths, and betook themselves to
their own natural ways. One chewed his
tobacco and ashes, another smoked his
tobacco through the shankbone of a goat,
while others made use of their own shankbones
as napkins, after fearful meals of
holcus-grain and grease. There is courtesy
among these savages, nevertheless. Abdy
Abokr—who, because of his rascality, was
called by his friends, alluding to the corruption
prophesied as coming in the latter days,
the End of Time—Abdy Abokr would not
profane anything so reverend as the hair upon
his master's chin, by naming it in plain
and ugly words. He used similitudes. Did
he observe a grain of rice sticking about his
sacred beard, he would say, " The Gazelle is
in the garden," to which his master, promising
to remove it with his fingers, answered,
"We will hunt her with the five."

Zayla was the pilgrim's landing-place, a
town approached by a creek which coral reefs
make difficult of navigation, and which is
described as a strip of sulphur yellow-sand,
with a deep blue dome above, and foreground
of the darkest indigo. Upon the yellow strip
is the old Arab town seen in the shape of a
long row of white houses and minarets, peering
over a low line of brown wall, flanked by
towers. Having landed in a cock-boat the
travellers put on, while upon the beach,
clean tobes—the tobe is a seamless white
robe, the dress proper to the region—took
shields and lances, and at the seaward-gate
of the town were met by a tall, black spearsman,
with a—" Ho, there! To the governor!"
The native crowd poured out into the dusty
streets to see the strangers pass to the
reception-chamber, where they had an eastern
interview with not a cup of coffee or a pipe
to break its dulness. There is not a coffee-
house in Zayla, and as for the neighbouring
Bedouins, they say, philosophically, "If we
drink coffee once, we shall want it again, and
then where are we to get it? " A little
further on, the Abyssinian Christians
positively make it a point of conscience to object to
coffee and tobacco, while the Gallas tribes
take it when out on forages, not infused,
but powdered and made into a ball with
butter.

Zayla is a town about as large as Suez,
built for three or four thousand inhabitants,
and containing a dozen large whitewashed
stone-houses with some two hundred thatched
huts, each surrounded by a fence of wattle
and matting. Favourite building-materials
are mud and coralline. There is a good deal
of open space within the walls, and the town.
is cooler and healthier than Aden. It exports
slaves, ivory, hides, honey, antelope-horns,
clarified butter, and gums, and its coast
abounds in sponge and coral, and small
pearls.

Provisions are cheap. A family may live
there upon thirty pounds a-year, eating much
meat and no vegetables, except holcus-grain,
rice, and boiled wheat. In case any one
disposed to make the most of a small income
should think of setting out for Zayla, we will
give some further notice of the way to live
I there. Breakfast at six in the morning, upon,
roast mutton and sour grain-cakes, visitors
looking in to help. Then sleep. Then sit up
to receive company that will come and must
not be denied. Native gentlemen will enter
by the dozen, taking off their slippers at the
door, deposit their spears in a corner, shake
hands and sit down for unceremonious talk,
In their talk these people pride themselves
upon a style of conversation not effeminately