Explorer, speaker of 29 languages, master of disguise, expert on the Arab world, author, translator of erotica, rogue, spy, Sufi mystic, and one of the greatest swordfighters of the nineteenth century. They don’t make them like this anymore.
Firstly, don’t get this Richard Burton confused with the 20th Century actor Richard Burton who married Elizabeth Taylor (twice) and starred in films like Cleopatra and The Longest Day.
Sir Richard Burton would be mighty pissed off for a start and would have you outside for a duel in a second. At school in England in the 1830s he was notorious for challenging classmates to duels – that’s when he wasn’t ditching class to hang out with gypsies and prostitutes.
No, Sir Richard is far mightier than a mere Hollywood star. In fact, one of his triumphs could be classified as one of the greatest feats of acting in history. It’s certainly one of the great stories of travel.
In 1853, he disguised himself as an Afghani physician and journeyed into the holy Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. A feat that was substantially trickier than booking a TripADeal tour package to China. For a start, discovery of an infidel Westerner in these holy areas would have meant instant death at the hands of an angry mob. “Nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared himself an unbeliever,” he wrote latter.
Burton had nerves of steel and was so well prepared he’d even been circumcised to complete his disguise
But Burton had nerves of steel and was so well prepared he’d even been circumcised to complete his disguise! His mastery of every subtle point of Arabian language and culture meant he survived undetected.
It was one of the most remarkable feats in the history of travel, making him a star back in England. His book Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca showed such extraordinary understanding and sympathy for the cultures he was reporting on even the Arabs forgave his sins and declared he really was one of them.
If this was all Sir Richard had done he’d still be worthy of a mention on a 21st Century travel blog, but blokes like him don’t sit still for long. Among other legendary deeds, he survived visiting Somalia and the city of Harar (the first Westerner to do so), he translated The Karma Sutra (shocking Victorian England), and he also wrote and translated another 40 books.
That’s Sir Richard Burton. A man of colossal intelligence and guts. A master traveller. Anyone who says otherwise will be asked to step outside for a duel.
