diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index c9aae6429..17ba64713 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -10,6 +10,14 @@ before_install:
  - sudo apt-get update
  - sudo apt-get install gcc-4.7 g++-4.7 make libboost-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-python-dev libboost-regex-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev python-nose libicu-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libtiff-dev libwebp-dev libz-dev libfreetype6-dev libxml2-dev libproj-dev libcairo-dev python-cairo-dev libsqlite3-dev postgresql-server-dev*
 
+before_script:
+ - wget http://mapnik.s3.amazonaws.com/deps/harfbuzz-0.9.24.tar.bz2
+ - tar xf harfbuzz-0.9.24.tar.bz2
+ - cd harfbuzz-0.9.24
+ - ./configure && make && sudo make install
+ - sudo ldconfig
+ - cd ../
+
 script:
  - if [ "${CXX}" = 'g++' ]; then export CXX="g++-4.7" && export CC="gcc-4.7"; fi; ./configure CXX=${CXX} CC=${CC} DEMO=False BINDINGS=python BENCHMARK=True CPP_TESTS=True CAIRO=True FAST=True || cat config.log
  - JOBS=1 make