Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (Volume 1)

I confess: Richard F Burton is one of my heroes. In part, it's because much of my life has been spent in his traces, from India, through the Middle East, to Baltimore and the Great Plains.

He's simply a fabulous story-teller. Whether he's commenting on the sexual proclivities of the people of a region, their food, clothing, culture or religious practices, he's just fascinating.

This book really should not be sold separately from the second volume; they go together. That said, this is an excellent introduction to 19th C. Arabia. It's an Arabia that exists only in the minds of traditionalists--foreign or Arab--but it informs so much of how the Arabs see themselves that it's "must reading."

Burton was in his prime when he wrote this, before his misadventures in searching for the source of the Nile. His observations are acute; his writing clear. Make no mistake, Burton was a member of Victorian English society, even if he could laugh at the barriers of class when out of the country. His insights into Arabia, though, cast a very clear reflection of his upbringing, as well as the new sense of anthropological research he adds to the process.

Excellent writing about an arduous journey to meccah. While not the first European to enter the holy city, he was the first to pace off dimensions and publish an extensive survey of the area, the city and the muslims' sacred meterorite. Very interesting subject material particularly in the 21st century.

India:
Goa, and the Blue Mountains, 1851
Scinde,or, The Unhappy Valley, 1851
Sindh, and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the Indus, 1852
Falconry in the Valley of the Indus, 1852
A Complete System of bayonet Exercise, 1853
Africa:
Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca, 1855
First Footsteps in Africa: or an exploration of Harar, 1856
The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration, 1860
The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa with Notices of the Lunar Mountains and the sources of the White Nile...1860
America:
The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains, 1861
The Prairie traveler, 1863
Misc.:
Abeokuta and the Cameroon mountians, 1863
Wanderings in West Africa, 1863
A Mission to Gelele, King of the Dahomes,... , 1864
The Nile Basin, 1864
Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, 1865
The Guide Book: A Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, 1865
The Highlands of Brazil, 1869
Vikram and the Vampires, or Tales of Hindu Devilry, 1870
Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay, 1870
Unexplored Syria, 1872
Zanzibar, 1872
The Lands of Canzembe, Lacerds's Journey to Cazembe in 1798, 1873
The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse, 1874
Ultima Thule; or, A Summer in Iceland, 1875
Etruscan Bologna, 1876
A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry, 1876
Two Trips to Gorilla Land, Congo, 1876
Scind Revisited: With Notices of the Anglo-Indian Army; Railroads; Past, Present, and Future, 1877
The Gold Mines of Midian, 1878
The Land of Midian, 1879
The Kasidah, 1880
Os, Lusiads, 1880
Camoens:His Life and His Lusiads, 1881
A Glance at the "Passion Play", 1881
To the Gold Coast for Gold, 1883
Kama Sutra, 1883
The Book of the Sword, 1884
Perfumed Garden, 1886
1001 Nights, 1886-1888
Iracema, 1886
Priapea, 1890
Marocco and the Moors, 1891
Il Pentamerone, 1893
The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catallus, 1894
The Jew and the Gypsy, 1898
Wanderings in Three Continents, 1901

Its my opinion that though he wrote an amazing number of books none of them are really 5 star classics though there are some flawed masterpieces in there. He just wrote too fast to care about polishing his works.
As for racism, a charge that could be brought up against all Imperial Englishman, he is no doubt as guilty as his fellows. Not to excuse him for it but though writing within an anglo tradition and to a strictly anglo public he perhaps overstates his own anglo bias just to assure his readers he has not gone native, a charge which would be ruinous to any career, military or literary. I won't try to convince you one way or the other but any man who learns another mans language and his religion and his literature and pays so much mind to him that he can even drink a glass of water using his exact manner is paying that man and his culture some kind of compliment. I won't pretend to understand what exactly Burtons motives were from one moment to the next and one adventure to the next but his relation to all these cultures certainly cannot be reduced to a one word description. Burton is a man of immense learning , his enthusiasms are infectious and his appetites as well as his humor are outrageous. With Burton you always get more than you bargained for, you get the country he is in and all manner of localised detail but also you get Burton, his way of writing, his manners, and his customs.

It's hard to take Richard Burton seriously nowadays. His sardonic humor and his hilarious deadpan observations about Middle Eastern life sound more like a satire on Victorian attitudes than an actual travel story. And yet, underneath the veneer one sometimes catches a glimpse of sympathy and actual respect for the people he writes about.

Under the veneer, too, there is a hard core layer of reality, and a surprising number of his observations are true even today. The thing that gets me is that he was able to pull off the pilgrimage at all! As a sometime traveler and student of languages, I have been in situations where I have tried to pass for a native, and regardless of where you go it is a difficult act to pull off for more than five minutes. How Burton got all the way to Mecca without being stoned to death is beyond me.

Which makes it a good adventure story as well as good travel literature. One of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. I recommend it highly.

Here Burton finds Mecca and the long-sought Ka'abah. Along with descriptions of the Badawin of "Al-Hijaz," the "Bedouins" to us who "haunt" the normal caravan routes, Burton describes the people of Mecca and the religious observances and practices of the "Haji's" first appearance (and subsequent appearances) at the Bayt Ullah, the House of God.

While Burton keeps his condescension and moral superiority (if not sublimity) in check, he will occasionally weary the reader and try their patience with such observations as "the pigeons of Mecca resemble those of Venice" -- and who is to say that differences exist in those that seasonally appear in downtown Cleveland?

Altogether, along with the first volume, an enjoyable read and an intriguing catalog of relevant observations, historical detail, biblical anecdotes and legends, and at the end of the volume, excerpts from earlier European "Hajis" (a "Gentleman of Rome" in 1503 and a semi-educated English youngster in 1680).

A first-rate travelogue, peppered at times with overbearing detail.