s Burton, "but payer d'audace, [156] and,
throwing all forethought to the dogs, to rely upon what has made many
a small man great, the good star. I addressed my companions in a set
speech, advising a mount without delay." [157] The End of Time, having
shown the white feather, was left behind, but the rest courageously
consented to accompany their leader. "At 10 a.m. on the 2nd January,"
says Burton, "all the villagers assembled, and recited the Fatihah,
consoling us with the information that we were dead men." The little
company, carrying their lives in their hands, then set forward, and
presently came in sight of Harar, "a dark speck upon a tawny sheet of
stubble." Arrived at the gate of the town, they accosted the warder,
sent their salaams to the Amir, and requested the honour of audience.

31. At Harar.

They were conducted to the palace, a long, single-storied, windowless
barn of rough stone and reddish clay. Says Burton: "I walked into a vast
hall between two long rows of Galla spearmen, between whose lines I had
to pass. They were large, half-naked savages, standing like statues with
fierce, movable eyes, each one holding, with its butt end on the ground,
a huge spear, with a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered
down them coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their
dangerous-looking faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt,
and determined, at the first show of excitement, to run up to the Amir,
and put it to his head, if it were necessary, to save my own life." The
Amir was an etiolated young man of twenty-four or twenty-five, plain and
thin-bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows and protruding
eyes. He wore a flowing robe of crimson cloth, edged with snowy fur, and
a narrow white turban tightly twisted round a tall, conical cap of red
velvet. On being asked his errand, Burton replied politely in Arabic
that he had come from Aden in order to bear the compliments of the
governor, and to see the light of his highness's countenance. On the
whole, the Amir was gracious, but for some days Burton and his party
were in jeopardy, and when he reflected that he was under the roof of a
bigoted and sanguinary prince, whose filthy dungeons resounded with
the moans of heavily ironed, half-starved prisoners; among a people
who detested foreigners; he, the only European who had ever passed over
their inhospitable threshold, naturally felt uncomfortable. The Amir,
it seems, ha