Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1

Volume I.

Dark and the Desert and Destriers me ken, And the Glaive and the Joust, and Paper and Pen.

Al-Mutanabbi

PREFACE TO THE MEMORIAL EDITION.

AFTER my beloved husband had passed away from amongst us, after the funeral had taken place, and I had settled in England, I began to think in what way I could render him the most honour. A material Monument to his memory has already been erected by his countrymen in the shape of a handsome contribution to the beautiful Mausoleum-tent in stone and marble to contain his remains; but I also hoped to erect a less material, but more imperishable, Monument to his name, by making this unique hero better known to his countrymen by his Works, which have hitherto not been sufficiently known, not extensively enough published, and issued perhaps at a prohibitive price. Viewing the long list of Works written by him between 1842 and 1890, many of which are still unpublished, I was almost disheartened by the magnitude of the work, until the Publishers, Messrs. Tylston and Edwards, fully appreciating the interest with which the British Public had followed my husband's adventurous career and fearless enterprise, arranged to produce this uniform Memorial Edition at their own expense.

My part is to give up all my copyrights, and to search out such papers, annotations, and latest notes and corrections, as will form the most complete work; also to write all the Prefaces, and to give every assistance in my power as Editress.

The Memorial Edition commences with the present "Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah," which will be followed at intervals by others of my husband's works. Since this "Memorial Edition" was arranged, and the Prospectus issued, I have parted with the Copyright of my husband's famous translation of the "Arabian Nights" to the Publishers, and they are arranging to bring out that work at an early date, and as nearly as possible uniform in appearance with the Memorial Edition.

The ornamentations on the binding are, a figure of my husband in his Arab costume, his monogram in Arabic, and, on the back of the book, the tent which is his tomb.

Both the publishers and myself have to thank Mr. Smithers for the infinite trouble he has taken in collating the first, second, third and fourth editions of the ‘Pilgrimage' with Sir Richard's own original annotated copies. All the lengthy notes and appendices of the first edition have been retained, and these are supplemented by the notes and appendices in the later editions, as well as by the author's MS. notes. He has adopted Sir Richard's latest and

For those who may not know the import of "A Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah," in 1853, they will not take it amiss when I say that there are Holy Shrines of the Moslem world in the far-away Desert, where no white man, European, or Christian, could enter (save as a Moslem), or even approach, without certain death. They are more jealously guarded than the "Holy Grail," and this Work narrates how this Pilgrimage was accomplished. My husband had lived as a Dervish in Sind, which greatly helped him; and he studied every separate thing until he was master of it, even apprenticing himself to a blacksmith to learn how to make horse-shoes and to shoe his own horses. It meant living with his life in his hand, amongst the strangest and wildest companions, adopting their unfamiliar manners, living for nine months in the hottest and most unhealthy climate, upon

Sir Richard Burton died at the age of 70, on the 20th October, 1890. During the last 48 years of his life, he lived only for the benefit and for the welfare of England and of his countrymen, and of the Human Race at large. Let us reverently raise up this "Monument," aere perennius, to his everlasting memory.

ISABEL BURTON. May 24, 1893.

AFTER a lapse of twenty-five years, a third edition of my Pilgrimage has been called for by the public, to whom I take this opportunity of returning thanks. Messrs. Mullan have chosen the very best opportunity. My two publications concerning the Khedival Expeditions to Midian ("The Gold Mines of Midian," and "The Land of Midian Revisited"), are, as I have stated in the Preface, sequels and continuations of this Pilgrimage from which the adventures forming their subject may be said to date.

The text has been carefully revised, and the "baggage of notes" has been materially lightened.[FN#1] From the Appendix I have removed matter which, though useful to the student, is of scant general interest. The quaint and interesting "Narrative and Voyages of Ludovicus Vertomannus, Gentleman of Rome," need no longer be read in extracts, when the whole has been printed by the Hakluyt Society. (The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508. Translated from the original Italian edition of 1510, with a Preface by John Winter Jones, Esq., F.S.A., and edited,

The truculent attacks made upon pilgrims and Darwayshes call for a few words of notice. Even that learned and amiable philanthropist, the late Dr. John Wilson of Bombay ("Lands of the Bible," vol. ii., p. 302) alludes, in the case of the Spaniard Badia, alias Ali Bey al-Abbasi, to the "unjustifiable fanciful disguise of a Mohammedan Pilgrim." The author of the Ruddy Goose Theory ("Voice of Israel from Mount Sinai") and compiler of the "Historical Geography of Arabia" has dealt a foul blow to the memory of Burckhardt, the energetic and inoffensive Swiss traveller, whose name has ever been held in the highest repute. And now the "Government Chaplain" indites (Introduction, p. xxvii.) the following invidious remarks touching the travels of Ludovico di Varthema-the vir Deo carus, be it remarked, of the learned and laical Julius Caesar Scaliger:

"This is not the place to discuss the morality of an act involving the deliberate and voluntary denial of what a man holds to be truth in a matter so sacred as that of Religion. Such a violation of conscience is not justifiable by the end which the renegade (!) may have in view, however abstractedly praiseworthy it may be; and even granting that his demerit should be gauged by the amount of knowledge which he possesses of what is true and what false, the conclusion is inevitable, that nothing short of utter ignorance of the precepts of his faith, or a

The reply to this tirade is simply, "Judge not; especially when you are ignorant of the case which you are judging." Perhaps also the writer may ask himself, Is it right for those to cast stones who dwell in a tenement not devoid of fragility? The second attack proceeds from a place whence no man would reasonably have expected it. The author of the "Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia" (vol. i., pp. 258-59) thus expresses his opinions:-

"Passing oneself off for a wandering Darweesh, as some European explorers have attempted to do in the East, is for more reasons than one a very bad plan. It is unnecessary to dilate on that moral aspect of the proceeding which will always first strike unsophisticated minds. To feign a religion which the adventurer himself does not believe, to perform with scrupulous exactitude, as of the highest and holiest import, practices which he inwardly ridicules, and which he intends on his return to hold up to the ridicule of others, to turn for weeks and months together the most sacred and awful bearings of man towards his Creator into a deliberate and truthless mummery, not to mention other and yet darker touches,-all this seems hardly compatible with the character of a European gentleman, let alone that of a Christian."

This comes admirably a propos from a traveller who, born a Protestant, of Jewish descent, placed himself "in connection with," in plain words took the vows of, "the order of the Jesuits," an order "well-known in the annals of philanthropic daring"; a popular preacher who declaimed openly at Bayrut and elsewhere against his own nation, till the proceedings of a certain Father Michael

In noticing these extracts my object is not to defend myself: I recognize no man's right to interfere between a human being and his conscience. But what is there, I would ask, in the Moslem Pilgrimage so offensive to Christians-what makes it a subject of "inward ridicule"? Do they not also venerate Abraham, the Father of the Faithful? Did not Locke, and even greater names, hold Mohammedans to be heterodox Christians, in fact Arians who, till the end of the fourth century, represented the mass of North-European Christianity? Did Mr. Lane neverconform by praying at a Mosque in Cairo? did he ever fear to confess it? has he been called an apostate for so doing? Did not Father Michael Cohen prove himself an excellent Moslem at Wahhabi-land?

The fact is, there are honest men who hold that Al-Islam,

And why rage so furiously against the "disguise of a wandering Darwaysh?" In what point is the Darwaysh more a mummer or in what does he show more of betise than the quack? Is the Darwaysh anything but an Oriental Freemason, and are Freemasons less Christians because they pray with Moslems and profess their belief in simple unitarianism?

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