It was thought that bayonet exercise would make the men unsteady in the ranks. The importance of bayonet exercise was recognized everywhere except in England. Richard detected our weak point in military system, and he knew that it would be the British soldier's forte when properly used. Richard was not "in the ring," but when that was proved, his pamphlet was taken down from the dusty pigeon-hole, and a few modifications—not improvements—were added, so as to enable a just and enlightened War Office, not to send him a word of thanks, a compliment, an expression of official recognition, which was all his soul craved for, but a huge letter from the Treasury, with a seal the size of a baby's fist, with a gracious permission to draw upon the Treasury for the sum of one shilling.
Richard always appreciated humour. He went to the War Office at once, was sent to half a dozen different rooms, and, to the intense astonishment of all the clerks, after three-quarters of an hour's very hard work he drew his shilling, and instead of framing it, he gave it to the first hungry beggar that he saw as soon as he came out of the War Office.
"Lord love yer, sir," said the beggar.
"No, my man, I don't exactly expect Him to do that. But I dare say you want a drink?"
He did not lead the life that was led by the general colony at Boulogne. He had a little set of men friends, knew some of the French, had a great many flirtations, one very serious one. He passed his days in literature and fencing: at home he was most domestic; his devotion to his parents, especially to his sick mother, was beautiful.
My sisters and I were kept at French all day, music and other studies, but were frequently turned into the Ramparts, which would give one a mile's walk around, to do our reading; then we had a turn down the Grande Rue, the Rue de l'Écu, the Quai, and the Pier at the fashionable hour, for a treat, or else we were taken a long country walk, or a long row up the river Liane in the summer time, where we occasionally saw a Guingette; but we were religiously marched home at half-past eight to supper and bed, unless one of the créme gave a dull tea-party.
One day, when we were on the Ramparts, the vision of my awakening brain came towards us. He was five feet eleven inches in height, very broad, thin, and muscular;[1] he had very dark hair, black, clearly defined, sagacious eyebrows, a brown weather-beaten complexion, straight Arab features, a determined-looking mouth and chin, nearly covered by an enormous black moustache. I have since heard a clever friend say "that he had the brow of a God, the jaw of a Devil." But the most remarkable part of his appearance was, two large black flashing eyes with long lashes, that pierced you through and through. He had a fierce, proud, melancholy expression, and when he smiled, he smiled as though it hurt him, and looked with impatient contempt at things generally. He was dressed in a black, short, shaggy coat, and shouldered a short thick stick as if he was on guard.
He looked at me as though he read me through and through in a moment, and started a little. I was completely magnetized, and when we had got a little distance away I turned to my sister, and whispered to her, "That man will marry me." The next day he was there again, and he followed us, and chalked up, "May I speak to you?" leaving the chalk on the wall, so I took up the chalk and wrote back, "No, mother will be angry;" and mother found it,—and was angry; and after that we were stricter prisoners than ever. However, "destiny is stronger than custom." A mother and a pretty daughter came to Boulogne, who happened to be a cousin of my father's; they joined the majority in the Society sense, and one day we were allowed to walk on the Ramparts with them. There I met Richard, who—agony!—was flirting with the daughter; we were formally introduced, and the name made me start. I will say why later.
I did not try to attract his attention; but whenever he came to the usual promenade I would invent any excuse that came, to take another turn to watch him, if he was not looking. If I could catch the sound of his deep voice, it seemed to me so soft and sweet, that I remained spell-bound, as when I hear gypsy-music. I never lost an opportunity of seeing him, when I could not be seen, and as I used to turn red and pale, hot and cold, dizzy and faint, sick and trembling, and my knees used to nearly give way under me, my mother sent for the doctor, to complain that my digestion was out of order, and that I got migraines in the street, and he prescribed me a pill which I put in the fire. All girls will sympathize with me. I was struck with the shaft of Destiny, but I had no hopes (being nothing but an ugly schoolgirl) of taking the wind out of the sails of the dashing creature, with whom he was carrying on a very serious flirtation.
In early days Richard had got into a rather strong flirtation with a very handsome and very fast girl, who had a vulgar, middle-class sort of mother. One day he was rather alarmed at getting a polite but somewhat imperious note from the mother, asking him to call upon her. He obeyed, but he took with him his friend Dr. Steinhaüser, a charming man, who looked as if his face was carved out of wood. After the preliminaries of a rather formal reception, in a very prim-looking drawing-room, the lady began, looking severely at him, "I sent for you, Captain Burton, because I think it my dooty to ask what your intentions are, with regard to my daughter?" Richard put on his most infantile face of perplexity as he said, "Your dooty, madam—" and, then, as if he was trying to recall things, and after a while suddenly seizing the facts of the case, he got up and said, "Alas! madam, strictly dishonourable," and shaking his head as if he was going to burst into tears at his own iniquities, "I regret to say, strictly dishonourable;" and bowed himself out with Dr. Steinhaüser, who never moved a muscle of his face. Richard had never done the young lady a scrap of harm, beyond talking to her a little more than the others, because she was so "awfully jolly," but the next time he met her he said, "Look here, young woman, if I talk to you, you must arrange that I do not have 'mamma's dooty' flung at my head any more." "The old fool!" said the girl, "how like her!"
The only luxury I indulged in was a short but heartfelt prayer for him every morning. I read all his books, and was seriously struck as before by the name when I came to the Játs in Scinde—but this I will explain later on. My cousin asked him to write something for me, which I used to wear next to my heart. One night an exception was made to our dull rule of life. My cousins gave a tea-party and dance, and "the great majority" flocked in, and there was Richard like a star amongst rushlights. That was a Night of nights; he waltzed with me once, and spoke to me several times, and I kept my sash where he put his arm round my waist to waltz, and my gloves. I never wore them again. I did not know it then, but the "little cherub who sits up aloft" is not only occupied in taking care of poor Jack, for I came in also for a share of it.
Mecca.
Whilst leading this sort of life, on a long furlough, Richard determined to carry out a project he had long had in his head, to study thoroughly the "inner life of the Moslem." He had long felt within himself the qualifications, both mental and physical, which are needed for the exploration of dangerous regions, impossible of access, and of disguises difficult to sustain. His career as a dervish in Scinde greatly helped him. His mind was both practical and imaginative; he set himself to imagine and note down every contingency that might arise, and one by one he studied each separate thing until he was master of it. As a small sample he apprenticed himself to a blacksmith; he learned to make horseshoes and shoe his horse.
To accomplish a journey to Mecca and Medinah quite safely in those days (1853) was almost an impossibility, for the discovery that he was not a Mussulman would have been avenged by a hundred Khanjars. It meant living with his life in his hand, and amongst the strangest and wildest companions, adopting their unfamiliar manners, and living for perhaps nine months in the hottest and most unhealthy climate, upon repulsive food, complete and absolute isolation from all that makes life tolerable, from all civilization, from all his natural habits—the brain at high tension, never to depart from the rôle he had adopted.
He obtained a year's leave on purpose, and left London as a Persian, for, during the time, he had to assume and sustain several Oriental characters. Captain Grindlay, who was in the secret, travelled to Southampton and Alexandria as his English interpreter. John Thurburn, who, curiously to say, was also the host of Burckhardt till he died, and was buried in Cairo, received Richard at Alexandria. He and his son-in-law, John Larking, of the Firs, Lee, Kent, were the only persons throughout the perilous expedition who knew of his secret. He went to Cairo as a dervish, and he lived there as a native, till (as he told me) he actually believed himself to be what he represented himself to be, and then he felt he was safe, and he practised on his own country-people the finding out that he was unrecognizable. He had wished to cross the whole length of Arabia, but the Russian War had caused disturbances, which might have delayed him over his year's leave.
In those days it was almost impossible to visit the Holy City as one of the Faithful. First, there was the pilgrim-ship to embark on; then there were long desert caravan marches, with their privations and their dangers; then there was the holy shrine, the Ka'abah, to be visited, and all the ceremonies to be gone through, like a Roman Catholic Holy Week at Rome. Burckhardt, the Swiss traveller, did get in, but he never could see the Ka'abah, and he confessed afterwards that he was so nervous that he was unable to take notes, and unable to write or sketch for fear of being detected, whereas Richard was sketching and writing in his white burnous the whole time he was prostrating and kissing the holy Stone. He did not go in mockery, but reverentially. He had brought his brain to believe himself one of them. Europeans, converted Moslems, have of late gone there, but they have been received with the utmost civility, consistent with coldness, have been admitted to outward friendship, but have been carefully kept out of what they most wished to know and see, so that Richard was thus the only European who had beheld the inner and religious life of the Moslems as one of themselves.
Amongst the various Oriental characters that Richard assumed, the one that suited best was half-Arab, half-Iranian, such as throng the northern shores of the Persian Gulf. With long hair falling on his shoulders, long beard, face and hands, arms and legs browned and stained with a thin coat of henna, Oriental dress, spear in hand, and pistols in belt, Richard became Mirza Abdullah, el Bushiri. Here he commenced his most adventurous and romantic life, explored from North to South, from East to West, mixed with all sorts of people and tribes without betraying himself in manners, customs, or speech, when death must often have ensued, had he created either dislike or suspicion.
I here give a slight sketch from his private notes, and for fuller details refer the reader to his "Pilgrimage to Mecca and El Medinah," 3 vols., with coloured illustrations, published in 1855, and which made a great sensation. Although he has been the author of some eighty books and pamphlets, I think that this original edition of three volumes is the one that his name should live by, and it will be the first of the Uniform Library with the Meccan Press. The Uniform Library means a reproduction of all his hitherto published works, and eventually his unpublished ones, so that the world may lose nothing of what he has ever written.
As I have said, on the night of the 3rd of April, 1853, a Persian Mirza, accompanied by an English interpreter, Captain Henry Grindlay, of the Bengal Cavalry, left London for Southampton, and embarked on the P. and O. steamer Bengal. The voyage was profitable but tedious; Richard passed it in resuming his Oriental character, with such success, that when he landed at Alexandria, he was recognized and blessed as a true Moslem by the native population.
RICHARD BURTON AS HAJI ABDULLAH, EN ROUTE TO MECCA.
John Thurburn and his son-in-law, John Larking, received him at their villa on the Mahmudíyah Canal, but he was lodged in an outhouse, the better to deceive the servants. Here he practised the Korán and prayer, and all the ceremonies of the Faith, with a neighbouring Shaykh. He also became a hakím, or doctor, and called himself Shaykh Abdullah, preparing to be a dervish. The dervish is a chartered vagabond; nobody asks why he comes, where he goes; he may go on foot, or on horseback, or alone, or with a large retinue, and he is as much respected without arms, as though he were armed to the teeth. "I only wanted," he said, "a little knowledge of medicine, which I had, moderate skill in magic, a studious reputation, and enough to keep me from starving." He provided himself with a few necessaries for the journey.
When he had to leave Alexandria he wrote—
"Not without a feeling of regret, I left my little room among the white myrtle blossoms and the rosy oleander flowers with the almond scent. I kissed with humble ostentation my good host's hand, in the presence of his servants. I bade adieu to my patients, who now amounted to about fifty, shaking hands with all meekly, and with religious equality of attention; and mounted in a 'trap' which looked like a cross between a wheelbarrow and a dog-cart, drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and biting mule, I set out for the steamer, the Little Asthmatic.
"The journey from Alexandria to Cairo lasted three days and nights. We saw nothing but muddy water, dusty banks, sand, mist, milky sky, glaring sun, breezes like the blasts of a furnace, and the only variation was that the steamer grounded four or five times a day, and I passed my time telling my beads with a huge rosary. I was a deck passenger. The sun burnt us all day, and the night dews were raw and thick. Our diet was bread and garlic, moistened with muddy water from the canal. At Cairo I went to a caravanserai. Here I became a Pathán. I was born in India of Afghan parents, who had settled there, and I was educated at Rangoon, and sent out, as is often the custom, to wander. I knew all the languages that I required to pass me, Persian, Hindostani, and Arabic. It is customary at the shop, on the camel, in the Mosque, to ask, 'What is thy name? Whence comest thou?' and you must be prepared. I had to do the fast of the Ramazan, which is far stricter than the Catholics' Lent, and in Cairo I studied the Moslem faith in every detail. I had great difficulty in getting a passport without betraying myself, but the chief of the Afghan college at the Azhar Mosque contrived it for me. I hired a couple of camels, and put my Meccan boy and baggage on one, and I took the other. I had an eighty-four mile ride in midsummer, on a bad wooden saddle, on a bad dromedary, across the Suez Desert.
"Above, through a sky terrible in its stainless beauty, and the splendours of a pitiless blinding glare, the simoom caresses you like a lion with flaming breath. Around lie drifted sand-heaps, upon which each puff of wind leaves its trace in solid waves, frayed rocks, the very skeletons of mountains, and hard unbroken plains, over which he who rides is spurred by the idea that the bursting of a waterskin, or the pricking of a camel's hoof, would be a certain death of torture; a haggard land infested with wild beasts and wilder men; a region whose very fountains murmur the warning words, 'Drink and away!'
"In the desert, even more than upon the ocean, there is present Death, and this sense of danger, never absent, invests the scene of travel with a peculiar interest.
"Let the traveller who suspects exaggeration leave the Suez road, and gallop northwards over the sands for an hour or two; in the drear silence, the solitude, and the fantastic desolation of the place, he will feel what the desert may be. And then the oases, and little lines of fertility—how soft and how beautiful!—even though the Wady-el-Ward ('the Vale of Flowers') be the name of some stern flat in which a handful of wild shrubs blossom, while struggling through a cold season's ephemeral existence.
"In such circumstances the mind is influenced through the body. Though your mouth glows, and your skin is parched, yet you feel no languor,—the effect of humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone, and your spirits become exuberant. Your fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused, and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around you, stir up all the energies of your soul, whether for exertion, danger, or strife. Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded; the hypocritical politeness and the slavery of Civilization are left behind you in the City. Your senses are quickened; they require no stimulants but air and exercise; in the desert spirituous liquors excite only disgust.
"There is a keen enjoyment in mere animal existence. The sharp appetite disposes of the most indigestible food; the sand is softer than a bed of down, and the purity of the air suddenly puts to flight a dire cohort of diseases.
"Here Nature returns to Man, however unworthily he has treated her, and, believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate the bustle and the confusion of artificial life, its luxuries and its false pleasures, with repugnance. Depressed in spirits, you will for a time after your return feel incapable of mental or bodily exertion. The air of Cities will suffocate you, and the careworn and cadaverous countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment.
"I was nearly undone by Mohammed, my Meccan boy, finding my sextant amongst my clothes, and it was only by Umar Effendi having read a letter of mine to Haji Wali that very morning on Theology, that he was able to certify that I was thoroughly orthodox.
"When I started my intention had been to cross the all but unknown Arabian Peninsula, and to map it out, either from El Medinah to Maskat, or from Mecca to Makallah on the Indian Ocean. I wanted to open a market for horses between Arabia and Central India, to go through the Rubá-el-Khali ('the Empty Abode'), the great wilderness on our maps, to learn the hydrography of the Hejaz, and the ethnographical details of this race of Arabs. I should have been very much at sea without my sextant. I managed to secrete a pocket compass.
"The journey would have been of fifteen or sixteen hundred miles, and have occupied at least ten months longer than my leave. The quarrelling of the tribes prevented my carrying it out. I had arranged with the Beni Harb, the Bedawin tribe, to join them after the Pilgrimage like a true Bedawin, but it meant all this above-mentioned work; I found it useless to be killed in a petty tribe-quarrel, perhaps, about a mare, and once I joined them it would have been a point of honour to aid in all their quarrels and raids.
"At Suez we embarked on a Sambúk, an open boat of about fifty tons. She had no means of reefing, no compass, no log, no sounding-line, no chart. Ninety-seven pilgrims (fifteen women and children) came on deck. They were all barefoot, bare-headed, dirty, ferocious, and armed. The distance was doubled by detours; it would have been six hundred miles in a straight line. Even the hardened Arabs and Africans suffered most severely. After twelve days of purgatory, I sprang ashore at Yambú; and travelling a fortnight in this pilgrim-boat gave me the fullest possible knowledge of the inner life of El Islam. However, the heat of the sun, the heavy night dews, and the constant washing of the waves over me, had so affected one of my feet that I could hardly put it to the ground.
"Yambú is the port of El Medinah, as Jeddah is that of Mecca. The people are a good type, healthy, proud, and manly, and they have considerable trade. Here I arranged for camels, and our Caravan hired an escort of irregular cavalry—very necessary, for, as the tribes were out, we had to fight every day. They did not want to start till the tribes had finished fighting; but I was resolved, and we went. Here I brought a shugduf, or litter, and seven days' provisions for the journey, and here also I became an Arab, to avoid paying the capitation tax, the Jizyát.
"We eventually arrived at El Hamra, the 'Red Village,' but in a short while the Caravan arrived from Mecca, and in about four hours we joined it and went on our way. That evening we were attacked by Bedawi, and we had fighting pretty nearly the whole way. We lost twelve men, camels, and other beasts of burden; the Bedawi looted the baggage and ate the camels.
"One morning El Medinah was in sight. We were jaded and hungry; and we gloried in the gardens and orchards about the town. I was met at El Medinah by Shaykh Hamid, who received me into his family as one of the faithful, and where I led a quiet, peaceful, and pleasant life, during leisure hours; but of course, the pilgrimage being my object, I had a host of shrines to visit, ceremonies to perform, and prayers to recite, besides the usual prayers five times a day; for it must be remembered that El Medinah contains the tomb of Mahommad." (For description see Burton's 'Mecca and El Medinah,' 3 vols.)
"The Damascus Caravan was to start on the 27th Zu'l Ka'adah (1st September). I had intended to stay at El Medinah till the last moment, and to accompany the Kafilat el Tayyárah, or the 'Flying Caravan,' which usually leaves on the 2nd Zu'l Hijjah, two days after that of Damascus.
"Suddenly arose the rumour that there would be no Tayyárah,[2] and that all pilgrims must proceed with the Damascus Caravan or await the Rakb.[3] The Sheríf Zayd, Sa'ad, the robbers' only friend, paid Sa'ad an unsuccessful visit. Sa'ad demanded back his shaykhship, in return for a safe conduct through his country; 'otherwise,' said he, 'I will cut the throat of every hen that ventures into the passes.'
"The Sheríf Zayd returned to El Medinah on the 25th Zu'l Ka'adah. (30th August). Early on the morning of the next day, Shaykh Hamid returned hurriedly from the bazar, exclaiming, 'You must make ready at once, Effendi! There will be no Tayyárah. All Hajis start to-morrow. Allah will make it easy to you! Have you your water-skins in order? You are to travel down the Darb el Sharki, where you will not see water for three days!'
"Poor Hamid looked horror-struck as he concluded this fearful announcement, which filled me with joy. Burckhardt had visited and described the Darb el Sultani, the 'High' or 'Royal Road' along the coast; but no European had as yet travelled down by Harún el Rashíd's and the Lady Zubaydah's celebrated route through the Nejd Desert. And here was my chance!
"Whenever he was ineffably disgusted, I consoled him with singing the celebrated song of Maysúnah, the beautiful Bedawin wife of the Caliph Muawíyah." (Richard was immensely fond of this little song, and the Bedawin screams with joy when he hears it.)
"'Oh, take these purple robes away,
Give back my cloak of camel's hair,
And bear me from this tow'ring pile
To where the black tents flap i' the air.
The camel's colt with falt'ring tread,
The dog that bays at all but me,
Delight me more than ambling mules,
Than every art of minstrelsy;
And any cousin, poor but free,
Might take me, fatted ass, from thee.'[4]
"The old man was delighted, clapped my shoulder, and exclaimed, 'Verily, O Father of Moustachios, I will show thee the black Tents of my Tribe this year.'
"So, after staying at Medinah about six weeks, I set out with the Damascus Caravan down the Darb el Sharki, under the care of a very venerable Bedawin, who nicknamed me 'Abú Shuwárib,' meaning, 'Father of Moustachios,' mine being very large. I found myself standing opposite the Egyptian gate of El Medinah, surrounded by my friends—those friends of a day, who cross the phantasmagoria of one's life. There were affectionate embraces and parting mementoes. The camels were mounted; I and the boy Mohammed in the litter or shugduf, and Shaykh Nur in his cot. The train of camels with the Caravan wended its way slowly in a direction from north to north-east, gradually changing to eastward. After an hour's travel, the Caravan halted to turn and take farewell of the Holy City.
"We dismounted to gaze at the venerable minarets and the green dome which covers the tomb of the Prophet. The heat was dreadful, the climate dangerous, and the beasts died in numbers. Fresh carcases strewed our way, and were covered with foul vultures. The Caravan was most picturesque. We travelled principally at night, but the camels had to perform the work of goats, and step from block to block of basalt like mountaineers, which being unnatural to them, they kept up a continual piteous moan. The simoom and pillars of sand continually threw them over.
"Water is the great trouble of a Caravan journey, and the only remedy is to be patient and not to talk. The first two hours gives you the mastery, but if you drink you cannot stop. Forty-seven miles before we reached Mecca, at El Zaríbah, we had to perform the ceremony of El Ihram, meaning 'to assume the pilgrim garb.' A barber shaved us, trimmed our moustachios; we bathed and perfumed, and then we put on two new cotton cloths, each six feet long by three and a half broad. It is white, with narrow red stripes and fringe, and worn something as you wear it in the baths. Our heads and feet, right shoulder and arm, are exposed.
"We had another fight before we got to Mecca, and a splendid camel in front of me was shot through the heart. Our Sheríf Zayd was an Arab Chieftain of the purest blood, and very brave. He took two or three hundred men, and charged them. However, they shot many of our dromedaries, and camels, and boxes and baggage strewed the place; and when we were gone the Bedawi would come back, loot the baggage, and eat the camels. On Saturday, the 10th of September, at one in the morning, there was great excitement in the Caravan, and loud cries of 'Mecca! Mecca! Oh, the Sanctuary, the Sanctuary!' All burst into loud praises, and many wept. We reached it next morning, after ten days and nights from El Medinah. I became the guest of the boy Mohammed, in the house of his mother.
"First I did the circumambulation at the Haram. Early next morning I was admitted to the house of our Lord; and we went to the holy well Zemzem, the holy water of Mecca,[5] and then the Ka'abah, in which is inserted the famous black stone, where they say a prayer for the Unity of Allah. Then I performed the seven circuits round the Ka'abah, called the Tawaf. I then managed to have a way pushed for me through the immense crowd to kiss it. While kissing it, and rubbing hands and forehead upon it, I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is an aerolite. It is curious that almost all agree upon one point, namely, that the stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it mineralogically a 'block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of tile-red felspath upon a dark ground like velvet or charcoal, except one of its protuberances, which is reddish.' It is also described as 'a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance.'
"All this time the pilgrims had scorched feet and burning heads, as they were always uncovered. I was much impressed with the strength and steadfastness of the Mohammedan religion. It was so touching to see them; one of them was clinging to the curtain, and sobbing as though his heart would break.[6] At night I and Shaykh Nur and the boy Mohammed issued forth with the lantern and praying-carpet.
"The moon, now approaching the full, tipped the brow of Abú Kubáya, and lit up the spectacle with a more solemn light. In the midst stood the huge bier-like erection—
'Black as the wings
Which some spirit of ill o'er a sepulchre flings!'
except where the moonbeams streaked it like jets of silver falling upon the darkest marble. It formed the point of rest for the eye; the little pagoda-like buildings and domes around it, with all their gilding and framework, faded to the sight. One object, unique in appearance, stood in view—the temple of the one Allah, the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, and of their posterity. Sublime it was, and expressing by all the eloquence of fancy the grandeur of the one idea which vitalized El Islam, and the strength and steadfastness of its votaries.
"One thing I remarked, and think worthy of notice, is that ever since Noah's dove, every religion seems to consider the pigeon a sacred bird; for example, every Mosque swarms with pigeons; St. Mark's, at Venice, and the same exists in most Italian market-places; the Hindoo pandits and the old Assyrian Empire also have them; whilst Catholics make it the emblem of the Holy Ghost.
"The day before I went to Arafat, I spent the night in the Mosque, where I saw many strange sights. One was a negro possessed by the devil. There, too, he prayed by the grave of Ishmael. After this we set out for Arafat, where is the tomb of Adam. (I have seen two since—one at Jerusalem, and one in the mountains behind Damascus.)
"It was a very weary journey, and, with the sun raining fire on our heads and feet, we suffered tortures. The camels threw themselves on the ground, and I myself saw five men fall out and die. On the Mount there were numerous consecrated shrines to see, and we had to listen to an immensely long sermon. On the great festival day we stoned the Devil, each man with seven stones washed in seven waters, and we said, while throwing each stone, 'In the name of Allah—and Allah is Almighty—I do this in hatred of the Devil, and to his shame.' There is then an immense slaughter of victims (five or six thousand), which slaughter, with the intense heat, swarms of flies, and the whole space reeking with blood, produces the most noisome vapours, and probably is the birthplace of that cholera and small-pox which generally devastate the World after the Haj. Now we were allowed to doff the pilgrim's garb.
"We all went to barbers' booths, where we were shaved, had our beards trimmed and our nails cut, saying prayers the while; and, though we had no clothes, we might put our clothes over our heads, and wear our slippers, which were a little protection from the heat. We might then twirl our moustachios, stroke our beards, and return to Mecca. At the last moment I was sent for. I thought, 'Now something is going to happen to me; now I am suspected.'
"A crowd had gathered round the Ka'abah, and I had no wish to stand bare-headed and bare-footed in the midday September sun. At the cry of 'Open a path for the Haji who would enter the House!' the gazers made way. Two stout Meccans, who stood below the door, raised me in their arms, whilst a third drew me from above into the building. At the entrance I was accosted by several officials, dark-looking Meccans, of whom the blackest and plainest was a youth of the Benu Shaybah family, the true blood of the El Hejaz. He held in his hand the huge silver-gilt padlock of the Ka'abah, and presently, taking his seat upon a kind of wooden press in the left corner of the hall, he officially inquired my name, nation, and other particulars. The replies were satisfactory, and the boy Mohammed was authoritatively ordered to conduct me round the building, and to recite the prayers. I will not deny that, looking at the windowless walls, the officials at the door, and a crowd of excited fanatics below—
'And the place death, considering who I was,'
my feelings were of the trapped-rat description, acknowledged by the immortal nephew of his uncle Perez. A blunder, a hasty action, a misjudged word, a prayer or bow, not strictly the right shibboleth, and my bones would have whitened the desert sand. This did not, however, prevent my carefully observing the scene during our long prayer, and making a rough plan with a pencil upon my white ihram.
MECCA AND THE KA'ABAH, OR THE HOLY GRAIL OF THE MOSLEMS.
"I returned home after this quite exhausted, performed an elaborate toilet, washing with henna and warm water, to mitigate the pain the sun had caused on my arms, shoulders, and breast, head and feet, and put on my gayest clothes in honour of the festival. When the moon rose, there was a second stoning, or lapidation, to be performed, and then we strolled round the coffee-houses. There was also a little pilgrimage to undertake, which is in honour of Hagar seeking water for her son Ishmael.
"I now began to long to leave Mecca; I had done everything, seen everything; the heat was simply unendurable, and the little room where I could enjoy privacy for about six hours a day, and jot my notes down, was a perfect little oven.[7]
"I slowly wended my way with a Caravan to Jeddah, with donkeys and Mohammed; I must say that the sight of the sea and the British flag was a pleasant tonic. I went to the British Consulate, but the Dragomans were not very civil to the unfortunate Afghan.
"So I was left kicking my heels at the Great Man's Gate for a long time, and heard somebody say, 'Let the dirty nigger wait.' Long inured to patience, however, I did wait, and when the Consul consented to see me, I presented him with a bit of paper, as if it were a money order. On it was written, 'Don't recognize me; I am Dick Burton, but I am not safe yet. Give me some money' (naming the sum), 'which will be returned from London, and don't take any notice of me.' He, however, frequently afterwards, when it was dark, sent for me, and, once safe in his private rooms, showed me abundance of hospitality. Necessity compelled me living with Shayk Nur in a room (to myself), swept, sprinkled with water, and spread with mats.
"When I went out in gay attire, I was generally mistaken for the Pasha of El Medinah. After about ten days' suspense, an English ship was sent by the Bombay Steam Navigation Company to convey pilgrims from El Hejaz to India, so one day the Afghan disappeared—was supposed to have departed with other dirty pilgrims, but in reality, had got on board the Dwárká,[8] an English ship, with a first-class passage; he had emerged from his cabin, after washing all his colouring off, in the garb of an English gentleman; experienced the greatest kindness from the Commander and Officers, which he much needed, being worn out with fatigue and the fatal fiery heat, and felt the great relief to his mind and body from being able to take his first complete rest in safety on board an English ship; but was so changed that the Turkish pilgrims, who crowded the deck, never recognized their late companion pilgrim."
He ends his personal narrative of his sojourn in El Hejaz thus:—
"I have been exposed to perils, and I have escaped from them; I have traversed the sea, and have not succumbed under the severest fatigues; but they with fatal fiery heat have worn me out, and my heart is moved with emotions of gratitude that I have been permitted to effect the objects I had in view."
An Irish missionary wrote of my husband after he was dead:—
"At Damascus Burton began a new chapter, but he was not permitted to start with a clean page. Two incidents in his previous record foreshadowed him, and hampered him in his efforts to make the best of his new Consulate. He had offended the religious susceptibilities of both Mohammedans and Christians, and he found himself confronted with bitter, unreasoning prejudice.
"It is a question of how far Burton's Oriental disguise concealed the Englishman in his pilgrimage to Mecca. I never conversed with a Mohammedan who had accompanied Burton on that journey, but I have seen Arabs who saw Palgrave on his way to Nejd, and his attempts to pose as a native were a constant source of amusement to all with whom he came in contact. Burton's Oriental cast of face helped him when putting on the outward appearance of a Bedawin, but at no period of his life could he have passed for an Arab one second after he began to speak.[9] On the pilgrimage to Mecca, Burton would be known as a devout British Mohammedan, just as easily as we recognize an Arab convert on a missionary platform, notwithstanding the efforts of the schoolmaster and the tailor to transform him into an Englishman. And as a perverted Englishman, Burton would be as welcome in the Hajj as a converted Arab would be in Exeter Hall."
This is a ridiculous paragraph, and spoils an otherwise splendid article. The writer speaks fairly good Syrian Christian Arabic with an Irish accent, but he is not conversant with the Arabic of scholars and high-class Mohammedans, and he does not know a word of Persian, Hindostani, Afghani, Turkish, or any of the other ten Oriental languages, in which my husband passed his pilgrimages. I think native testimony is best. I can remember, at a reception at Lady Salisbury's, the Persian Ambassador and his suite following Richard about the whole evening, and when I joked them about it, they said, "It is such an extraordinary thing to us, to see any foreigner, especially an Englishman, speaking our language like ourselves. He might have never been out of Teheran; he even knows all the slang of the market-place as well as we do." When he arrived in Damascus, his record was perfectly clean with the Mohammedans, and the only bitter, unreasoning prejudice was in the breast of Christian missionaries, and Christian Foreign Office employés, whose friends wanted the post. Burton and Palgrave were quite two different men, as silver and nickel. I know exactly the sort of Arabic Palgrave spoke.
In the days that Richard went to Mecca, no converted Englishman would have been received as now. As to his Arabic, Abd el Kadir told me—and, mind, he was the highest cultivated and the most religious Moslem in Damascus; the only Sufi, I believe—that there were only two men in Damascus whose Arabic was worth listening to; one was my husband, and the other was Shaykh Mijwal El Mezrab, Lady Ellenborough's Bedawin husband. We may remember that at Jeddah his life was saved by being mistaken for the Pasha of El Medinah, and when he went to the departure of the Haj at Damascus, as he rode down the lines in frock-coat and fez, he was accosted by more than one as the Pasha of the Haj; and when the mistake was explained, and he told them who he was, they only laughed and said, "Why don't you come along with us again to Mecca, as you did before?" He was looked upon by all as a friend to the Moslem. He never profaned the sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina, and so far from being unpopular with the Moslems, he received almost yearly an invitation to go back with the Haj, and no opposition would have been made to him had he made another pilgrimage to the jealously guarded Haramayn or the holy Cities of the Moslems. Even I am always admitted to the Mosques with the women for his sake.
There was no tinsel and gingerbread about anything Richard did; it was always true and real.
In further support of the above I quote two letters, one from Sporting Truth.
"I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with the late Sir Richard Burton, familiarly known among his friends as 'Ruffian Dick.' Not that there was anything offensive meant by that epithet. Indeed, in his case, it had a playfully complimentary significance. There were, in the old days, as many readers of Sporting Truth will recollect, two familiar pugilists who went by the nicknames respectively of the 'Old' and 'Young Ruffian.' The term referred purely to their style of fighting, and was not intended to convey the idea that they were any less decent or civilized members of society than their neighbours. For much the same reason was Sir Richard Burton dubbed 'Ruffian Dick' by his pals. He was, without doubt, a terrible fighter, and fought in single combat more enemies than perhaps any man of his time. A man of peculiar temper, too, and strong individuality, with a wholesome contempt for Mrs. Grundy and all her ways. But his great distinguishing feature was his courage. No braver man than 'Ruffian Dick' ever lived. His daring was of that romantic order which revels in danger for danger's sake. No crisis, however appalling, could shake his splendid nerve. He was as cool when his life hung on a hair's breadth, as when he sat smoking in his own snuggery.
"I know of nothing in the annals of adventure to surpass his memorable journey to Mecca with the Mohammedan pilgrims. None but a follower of the true Prophet had ever penetrated the shrine where the coffin of Mohammed swings between earth and heaven. No eyes but those of the faithful were permitted to gaze upon that holy of holies. Certain and speedy death awaited any infidel who should profane with his footsteps those sacred precincts, or seek to pry into those hidden mysteries. There were secret passwords among the pilgrims, by which they could detect at once any one who was not of the true faith; and detection meant instant death at the hands of the enraged fanatics. Yet all these difficulties and dangers—apparently insurmountable—did not deter Ruffian Dick from undertaking the perilous enterprise. He went through a long course of preparation, studied all the minute ways of the Arabs—he already spoke their language like a native—professed the Mohammedan religion, acquired the secret passwords, and then boldly joined the great annual procession of pilgrims to the shrine of the Prophet.
"How perfect his disguise was, the following anecdote will show. On his return from the pilgrimage to Mecca, his leave had expired, and he had to return to India at once without time to rig himself out with a fresh outfit. One evening a party of officers were lounging outside Shepherd's Hotel, at Cairo. As they sat talking and smoking, there passed repeatedly in front of them an Arab in his loose flowing robes, with head proudly erect, and the peculiar swinging stride of those sons of the desert. As he strode backwards and forwards he drew nearer and nearer to the little knot of officers, till at last, as he swept by, the flying folds of his burnous brushed against one of the officers. 'Damn that nigger's impudence!' said the officer; 'if he does that again I'll kick him.' To his surprise the dignified Arab suddenly halted, wheeled round, and exclaimed, 'Well, damn it, Hawkins, that's a nice way to welcome a fellow after two years' absence.' 'By G—d, it's Ruffian Dick,' cried Hawkins. And Ruffian Dick it was, but utterly transformed out of all resemblance to a European. His complexion was burned by the sun to a deep umber tint, and his cast of features was more Oriental than English, so that in the robes of an Arab he might well pass for one of that nomad race."
Here is the second, from Allen's Indian Mail.
"The Late Sir Richard Burton.
"To the Editor of the Times of India.
"Sir,
"Unlike your correspondent, Mr. Levick (of Suez), questioning Sir Richard's visit to Medinah in 1853, I merely want to say that in Sir Richard the scientific world has lost a bright star. In linguistic attainments there was not his equal in the world. He could not only speak the languages, but act so well that his most intimate friends were often deceived. I was often witness to this feat of his while at Kurrachee in 1847, as I happened to be employed under Dr. Stocks, botanist, in Sind, as his botanical draughtsman. Sir Richard (then a lieutenant) and the doctor occupied the same bungalow. I had necessarily to work in the hall, and consequently had the opportunity of seeing and admiring his ways. He was on special duty, which in his case meant to perfect himself for some political duty, by mastering the languages of the country. When I knew him he was master of half a dozen languages, which he wrote and spoke so fluently that a stranger who did not see him and heard him speaking would fancy he heard a native. His domestic servants were—a Portuguese, with whom he spoke Portuguese and Goanese, an African, a Persian, and a Sindi or Belochee. These spoke their mother tongue to Sir Richard as he was engaged in his studies with moonshees, who relieved each other every two hours, from ten to four daily. The moonshees would read an hour and converse the next, and it was a treat to hear Sir Richard talk; one would scarcely be able to distinguish the Englishman from a Persian, Arabian, or a Scindian.
"His habits at home were perfectly Persian or Arabic. His hair was dressed à la Persian—long and shaved from the forehead to the top of the head; his eyes, by some means or other he employed, resembled Persian or Arabian; he used the Turkish bath and wore a cowl; and when he went out for a ride he used a wig and goggles. His complexion was also thorough Persian, so that Nature evidently intended him for the work he afterwards so successfully performed, namely, visiting the shrine of the Prophet Mohammed—a work very few would have undertaken unless he was a complete master of himself.
"I was a witness to his first essay in disguising himself as a poor Persian, and taking in his friend Moonshee Ali Akbar (the father of Mirza Hossein, solicitor of this City). The moonshee was seated one evening in an open space in front of his bungalow in the town of Kurrachee, with a lot of his friends enjoying the evening breeze, and chatting away as Persians are wont to do. Sir Richard, disguised as a Persian traveller, approached them, and after the usual compliments, inquired for the rest-house, and, as a matter of course, gave a long rigmarole account of his travels and of people the moonshee knew, and thus excited his curiosity and got him into conversation; and when he thought he acted his part to perfection, bid him the time and left him, but did not go far when he called out to the moonshee in English if he did not know him. The moonshee was completely taken aback; he did not know where the voice (his friend Burton's) came from, till he was addressed again, and a recognition took place, to the great astonishment of the moonshee and his friends. Such a jovial companion Sir Richard was, that his bungalow was the resort of the learned men of the place, amongst whom I noticed Major (afterwards General) Walter Scott, Lieutenant (and now General) Alfred De Lisle, Lieutenant Edward Dansey of Mooltan notoriety, Dr. Stocks, and many others, but who, with the exception of General De Lisle, are all gone to their home above, where Sir Richard has now followed. May their souls rest in peace!
"Some time or other Lady Burton may write a memoir of Sir Richard's life, and a slight incident as the one I have related may be of use to her, and if you think as I do, and consider it worth inserting in a corner of your paper, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will do so.
"Yours, etc.,
"Walter Abraham.
"October 31, 1891."
On the return journey from Mecca, when Richard could secure any privacy, he composed the most exquisite gem of Oriental poetry, that I have ever heard or imagined, nor do I believe it has its equal, either from the pen of Hafiz, Saadi, Shakespeare, Milton, Swinburne, or any other. It is quite unique; it is called the Kasîdah, or the "Lay of the Higher Law," by Haji Abdu el-Yezdi. It will ride over the heads of most, it will displease many, but it will appeal to all large hearts and large brains for its depth, height, breadth, for its heart, nobility, its pathos, its melancholy, its despair. It is the very perfection of romance, it seems the cry of a Soul wandering through space, looking for what it does not find. I have read it many times during my married life, and never without bitter tears, and when I read it now, it affects me still more; he used to take it away from me, it impressed me so. I give you the poem here in full.
It reminds me more than any other thing of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyâm, the astronomer-poet of Khorasán, known as the tent-maker, written in the eleventh century, which poem was made known by Mr. Edward Fitzgerald in about 1861, to Richard Burton, to Swinburne, and Dante Rossetti. Richard at once claimed him as a brother Sufi, and said that all his allusions are purely typical, and particularly in the second verse—
II.
"Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
'When all the temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?'"
Yet the "Kasîdah" was written in 1853—the Rubáiyát he did not know till eight years later.