Nearly a year elapsed before the Association received any further advices from their traveller, his next letter being dated from Cairo, upon his arrival in Egypt from Arabia. As the unfortunate state of his health prevented him, upon this occasion, from entering into any particulars of his Arabian journey, it is right to inform the reader, that in the following year he transmitted to the Association the most accurate and complete account of the Hedjaz, including the cities of Mekka, and Medina, which has ever been received in Europe. His knowledge of the Arabic language and of Mohammedan manners had now enabled him to assume the Mussulman character with such success, that he resided at Mekka, during the whole time of the pilgrimage, and passed through the various ceremonies of the occasion, without the smallest suspicion having arisen as to his real character. Upon one occasion, when the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Aly, then holding his head quarters at Tayf, to the eastward of Mekka, and who was not altogether ignorant of Burckhardt’s connexion with England, thought proper to put his qualifications as a Mussulman to the test, by directing the two most learned professors of the law, then in Arabia, to examine him upon his knowledge of the Koran, and of the practical as well as doctrinal precepts of their faith, the result was a complete conviction upon the minds of his hearers, or at least of his two examiners, of his being not only a true but a very learned Mussulman. It was his firm conviction, that the title of Hadji, which his pilgrimage gave him the right to assume, would be of the greatest use to him in his future travels in the interior of Africa. Important however as were the experience and information acquired by his journey in Arabia they were too dearly purchased; for there can be little doubt, that his constitution never recovered from the effects of that fatal climate, which has always proved pernicious to Europeans.i[9] The severe attacks of fever and dysentery, which he suffered in Arabia, appear to have been the ultimate cause of the fatal termination of the disorder which, two years afterwards, in closing at once his labours and his existence, destroyed the best founded hopes of success, in exploring the unknown regions of Africa, which the Association had ever formed.
The following is an extract of the letter from Cairo, already alluded to. It was dated the 25th June, 1815, and addressed to Sir Joseph Banks.
A long interval has elapsed since I gave you in my letter of August 1814, the news of my happy arrival at Djidda from my Nubian journey. The difficulty of correspondence between the Hedjaz and Egypt, arising from the jealous policy of the newly established Turkish government, is one of the reasons which have prevented me from sending you any account of the journey, which I have just accomplished. Another is, I am sorry to say, repeated and long continued attacks of illness. It is now eight days since I am returned to this city, in a weak state of health, still suffering from the effects of a fever which detained me three months at Medina, and had nearly put a stop to all further travels. The receipt of your obliging favour of the 10th September, 1814, and of a letter from Mr. Hamilton, of the 4th June, of the same year, have contributed more than medicines can do to revive my strength, and to exhilarate my spirits. Indeed the assurance which these letters contain, of my former labours having met with the approbation of my employers, has been to me the source of most heartfelt joy, and the encouragement which I have derived from it, has entirely banished from my mind that despondency, which my bodily sufferings had caused.
My physicians will not permit me to write much, I can therefore give you but a short sketch of my travels in the Hedjaz. On my arrival at Djidda in August 1814, I remained there about a month, principally employed in endeavouring to procure a supply of money, a bill I had taken with me from Cairo, upon a person residing there, not having been honoured. Having at last succeeded in obtaining a temporary supply, sufficient until I should receive answers from Egypt, I went to Tayf, five days journeys east of Djidda, where I spent the Ramadhan and met the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Aly, who gave me the most polite reception, having already seen me at Cairo. It had been my wish to push on farther into the mountains of the Hedjaz, but the whole country was over-run by parties of hostile Wahabi, and the road itself from Tayf to Kolatsh, eight hours distant, where the Turkish head quarters were, was continually infested by them. I returned therefore from Tayf to Mekka, where I past the months of September, October, and November, and after recovering from a violent attack of dysentery, I performed on the 25th of November, in the company of more than eighty thousand pilgrims, the Hadj to Mount Arafat. In the beginning of January, I set out from Mekka to Medina, a journey of ten or eleven days, mostly through deserts. My project was to remain about three weeks at Medina, and to return from thence over land to Egypt, in the hopes of being able to visit on my road, some ruins at a place called Hedjer, six days north of Medina, where I expected to meet with some specimens of the most ancient Arabian monuments. Six days after my arrival at Medina, I was attacked by a fever which kept me chained to my carpet until April. The state of weakness to which I was then reduced obliged me to give up all attempts to travel by land; fatigue would have brought on a relapse, and I should have perished in some Bedouin hut on the road. As soon as I could support the motion of a camel, I left Medina and descended to the sea coast at Yembo. The plague, an evil hitherto unknown to Arabia, had lately made its appearance here as well as at Djidda, and its ravages soon became so great that all the inhabitants left these towns, and I found Yembo almost deserted; after a stay of fifteen days I embarked on board a country ship, landed at the promontory of Ras Mohammed in the peninsula of Mount Sinai, from whence I reached Tor, where I had a relapse of my fever, which obliged me to remain there near a fortnight. I then took the road of Suez, and arrived at Cairo on the nineteenth of June, after an absence of nearly two years and a half.
I ascribe my bad health in the Hedjaz to the climate and water; the latter, which in these countries is so important an article of diet, is every where brackish and of bad taste, much endangering the health of all strangers.
In a letter to the Secretary of the Association he adds,
Of the prosecution of my travels into the interior of Africa through the Lybian deserts, I shall say nothing at present. Some time will be required to recover my strength and to complete my journals; when these are accomplished there will, I hope, be nothing to prevent me from speedily commencing my final journey, for which I trust that I am now qualified in such a manner as to authorise my entertaining some hopes of success.
It is impossible for me to express the satisfaction I felt at being apprized by you, that my labours had hitherto met with the approbation of the African Association. I hope my employers will not be disappointed in the favourable hopes they have conceived of my future proceedings, and that the sense of gratitude which I entertain for their having so liberally left to my entire disposal a school time of upwards of six years, will be a pledge that I shall use my utmost exertions in the final execution of those projects for which I have been so long preparing myself.
My convalescence goes on slowly; the great heat of the present season does not permit a rapid return of strength, and I can for the same reason work only a few hours during the day.
The following is extracted from a private letter, written about the same time, and obligingly communicated to the Association.