Presently our fire being exhausted, and the enemy pressing on with spear and javelin, the position became untenable; the tent was nearly battered down by clubs, and had we been entangled in its folds, we should have been killed without the power of resistance.

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Source, in full

A brief account of the attack that left him scarred from a spearhead that entered one side of his face and exited the other, in "Narrative of a Trip to Harar" (11 June 1855); published in The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (June 1855)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Francis Burton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.