50 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
of Burkeneji and Samburu. One of the German 
houses of Zanzibar has an agent at Barawa, an evi- 
dence that there is some Httle business doing at that 
place. The whole coast from Barawa to Cape 
Gaurdafui is occupied by the Somali tribes. They 
are ignorant and infatuated Muhammadans ; inhos- 
pitable barbarians ; heartless, cold-blooded, and re- 
morseless ; equal to the perpetration of any deed of 
violence and blood. Several attempts have been made 
to explore their country, but all have disastrously 
failed. Captains Burton and Speke left some of their 
companions dead upon Somali soil, the victims of 
blood-thirstiness and treachery, and they themselves 
escaped only by the skin of their teeth. The Baron 
von der Decken, too, and some of his associates, 
in an attempt to ascend the Jub river, were cruelly 
butchered by the Somah, at Bedera. This was one 
of the most terrible of all the atrocities ever enacted 
even on African soil. Somali-land now seems to be 
looked upon as altogether inacesssible. 
Mombasa, just below the fourth degree of south 
latitude, is one of the most important places upon the 
whole coast. The native name is Mvita. Both Portu- 
guese and Arabs have held it in high estimation, and in 
turn it has been to both one of the strongest and most 
thriving places in East Africa. Unlike Mafiya, Zanzi- 
bar, and Pemba, all of which stand at considerable dis- 
tance from the coast, Mombasa lies within a deep gulf, 
and is embraced, so to speak, in the very arms of the 
mainland, so as to become almost a part and parcel of 
the latter. It is encircled by a broad, deep stream, thus 
really uniting in itself all the advantages of an insular 
and mainland position. Several creeks run up into 
