Excerpt from Illustrated Travels, Vol. 1: A Record of Discovery, Geography and Adventure; With Engravings From Original Drawings The Government of Massawa and the neighbouring main land has been, since the days of Sultan Selim, in the hands of the Turks, with the exception of a few years, dttring which the late Mohammed Ali, of Egypt, ruled over the Pashalic of the Hedjaz, of which Massawa, with, theoretically, all Abyssinia, is a dependency. But their rule was for centuries passive rather than active, and the real power lay in the hands of the N ai'bs of Harkeeko, a family of T igre origin, whose tyrannical exac tions, which used to place such obstacles in the way of travellers to Abyssinia, must be fresh in the memory of every reader of Bruce and Salt. But those days are long since past, and they are now a very harmless and easy-going set of people, whose principal function appears to be the collection of tribute from the surrounding Bedaween. Harkeeko, or Dobouo, as the Abyssinians call it, is a village some few miles towards the southern extremity of the bay, and bears all the appearances of having once seen better days. The Naib's house is the only decent one in the place, and as the landing is so bad that, to avoid getting wet, it is necessary to be carried at least a hundred yards from the boat to the shore, it seems destined to be blotted out altogether from the map in a few years, espe cially as the Egyptians, who have again taken over the govern ment of Massawa, are likely to restrict the powers of the Nai'b more than ever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.