HA'RAR, a city of east Africa, in the country of the Gallas, the ancient metropolis of the Hadyali empire, about 219 m. s.w. of Berbera, which lies opposite to Aden, at the month of the Red sea; lat. 9' 20', long. 42'' 17'. The city, which is about 5,500 ft. above sea-level, lies upon the slope of a hill from w. to e.; in the latter direction are plantations of bananas, citrons, limes, the coffee-tree, the khat—a theine plant well known in Arabia—wars or "bastard saffron " (safflower), and sugar-cane; westward ar gardens and orchards on a terraced slope; northward is a bill covered with tombs; and to the s., the city falls into a valley or ravine. It is about one mile long by half a milt broad. The streets and alleys are like mountain roads. strewed with rubbish and with heaps of rocks; and the abodes, built of sandstone and granite,, eemeated with-a reddish clay, present a dingy appearance. Harm. is surrounded by an irregular•walh pierced with five large gates, and defended by rudely-built oval turrets. The• men• are very unprepossessing in appearance; but the women are much better looking ainhappear to be of a different type. The men are engaged in trade, while the women spin, weave, and cultivate the gardens. Morals are very lax, and the people are much addicted to intoxication with mead and Abyssinian beer. The language of the inhabitants is Arabian, mixed with some apparently indigenous African dialect, and is spoken nowhere else. Harar is celebrated for sanctity, erudition, and fanaticism. none purely religious sciences being studied. The people are extremely bigoted, and hold all foreigners, but particularly Christians, in hatred and contempt. The oity is
by an emir, whose Mil the utmost all under him, but who administers his will with a certain amount of rude but prompt justice. Murderers are given up to the nearest kin, and their throats publicly cut with a butcher's knife. liarar is essentially a commercial town. It is the grand depot for the coffee, the tvarsdye, the cotton, the gums, the tobacco, and the grain of the Galla country, Pile protuce of which is conveyed to Berbera three times a year in immense caravans. There is also an enormous slave-trade carried on, Harar being a rendqvons for slave caravans from all the surrounding countries. The imports are American cottons, shawls, silks, brass, copper, cutlery, dates, rice, sugar, gunpowder, mind paper. Pro visions are exceedingly cheap. 120 fowls, according to Burton, being purchased fur a dollar, and the same sum sufficing to provide a man with bread for a year. The only coin is a bit of brass, coarsely stamped, equal to the 00th part of a dollar; and tin. emir imprisons all subjects who possess any other money.
Ilarar was founded by Arab invaders, who, in the 7th c., conquered and colonized the tract between the Red sea and the Abyssinian mountains. Pop.10,000, inclusive of a considerable number of Gallas and other Bedouins. It was visited in 1855, at a great risk, by the fearless and indefatigable Burton (q.v.). to whose interesting Account we are indebted for most of our information.—See Burton's First Footsteps in Eastern Africa (Longman, 1850).