I had intended proceeding to Mokha by ship and then on to Sana, the capital of the Yemen, from which place to make the pilgrimage to Mekka. However, having heard of the war in the Hedjaz in Arabia, I abandoned my project, and sailed from Souakin, on July 6, for Djidda, where I arrived on July 16, and afterwards joined Mohammed Aly.
SIR RICHARD BURTON
Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah
I.—The Pilgrim Ship
Sir Richard F. Burton, K.C.M.G., was born at Barham House, Hertfordshire, England, March 19, 1821. He was intended for the Church, and spent a year at Oxford; but showed no clerical leanings, and found a more congenial profession when he obtained a cadetship in the Indian Army in 1842. During the next few years he acquired an extraordinary knowledge of Mohammedan usages and languages that was afterwards to serve him in good stead. In 1849 he returned to England; in 1851 published three books on Indian subjects, and in April, 1853, set forth on his cherished and daring project of visiting in disguise the sacred cities of Islam. The voyage was a particularly dangerous one, Burton frequently having to defend his life, though in so doing he never took another life during the whole of the journey. The account of his "Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah" was published in 1855. Afterwards he travelled in Somaliland, Central Africa, North and South America, and elsewhere, and unfailingly published books on his journeys. He died at Trieste on October 20, 1890.
Early in the morning of April 4, 1853, a "Persian prince" embarked at Southampton for Alexandria. The "prince" was myself, about to undertake a journey for the purpose of removing that opprobrium to modern adventure, the huge white blot which on our maps still notes the eastern regions of Arabia. I had hoped to make a more extended tour, but the East India Company had only granted me a year's furlough, refusing the three years that I had asked on the ground that my project was too dangerous. The attempt was one that could not be made save in Mohammedan disguise, and in order to conceal my identity effectively, I had thought it prudent to assume this disguise ere leaving England. I as amply supplied with funds by the Royal Geographical Society.
Several months were spent by me at Alexandria and Cairo in thoroughly familiarising myself once again with Moslem tongues and usages, partly forgotten during a four years' stay in the West. I diligently studied the Koran, and became an adept at Mohammedan religious practices; and my knowledge of medicine, by enabling me to set up as a doctor, brought me into the close contact with all classes of Moslems that I required for my purpose. I soon dropped the character of a Persian for that of a wandering dervish; but afterwards a still more convenient disguise occurred to me, and I visited El Medinah and Meccah as an Afghan Pathan who had been educated at Rangoon.
Pilgrims to the holy shrines arriving at Alexandria are divided into bodies, and distributed to the three great roads, namely, Suez, Cosseir, and the Haj route by land round the Gulf of Akabah. My route was by Suez, and at Suez I and my fellow-pilgrims had a long wait for a vessel to convey us to Yambu, the port of disembarkation for El Medinah. During this wait I had vexatious difficulties over my passport, which were only solved by an appeal to the British consul.