The Tao of Travel

IN HIS Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (1853), Sir Richard Burton claimed he was "the only living European who has found his way to the Head Quarters of the Moslem Faith."

He did it for a reason common to travelers setting off: he was, among other things, "thoroughly tired of 'progress' and of 'civilization'; curious to see with my eyes what others are content to 'hear with ears,' namely Moslem inner life in a really Mohammedan country; and longing, if truth be told, to set foot on that mysterious spot which no vacation tourist has yet described, measured, sketched and photographed."

As with his long trips through Africa and the American West, Burton was happiest when he was in a remote place. "Believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the tranquility of [desert] travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. The air of the cities will suffocate you, and the care-worn and cadaverous countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment."

The trip, Burton says, took nine months, but in reality it took much longer, because he needed to be fluent in Arabic, knowledgeable in all aspects of Islam, and well versed in the Koran. This had taken years, while he had been a soldier in India from 1842 to 1849. He also needed to be circumcised. This he accomplished, probably in India, before the trip, when he was about thirty. He said that "external" physical evidence that he was a Muslim was essential.

One of the pleasures of the book is that Burton delights in his disguise, as the Afghan dervish Mirza Abdullah. "Little did he suspect who his interrogator was," he remarks of a slave dealer. And he flirts with a pretty slave girl, telling her how beautiful she is. ("They were average specimens of the steatopygous Abyssinian breed, broad-shouldered, thin-flanked, fine-limbed, and with haunches of prodigious size.")

She says, "Then why don't you buy me?"

So as to make himself seem a humble haji (pilgrim), Burton travels in the lowest class on the ship, quietly mocking his fellow passengers. Though he speaks of the rigors of the trip, the discomforts and the heat, he seldom complains. He is on a mission. Three months after he sets out, in the month of July ("sickening heat"), he arrives in Medina and visits the Prophet's tomb.

He moves on to Mecca with the other pilgrims, and achieves the objective of the trip, pretending to pray while examining the enormous stone known as the Kaaba, the heart and soul of Islam, forbidden to the unbeliever.

I may truly say that, of all the worshippers who clung weeping to the curtain, or who pressed their beating hearts to the stone, none felt for the moment a deeper emotion than did the Haji from the far-north. It was as if the poetical legends of the Arab spoke truth, and that the waving wings of angels, not the sweet breeze of morning, were agitating and swelling the black covering of the shrine. But, to confess humbling truth, theirs was the high feeling of religious enthusiasm, mine was the ecstasy of gratified pride.

Being Burton, though, another ecstatic experience is his glimpse of a flirtatious pilgrim, a girl he calls Flirtilla.

Close to us sat a party of fair Meccans, apparently belonging to the higher classes, and one of these I had already several times remarked. She was a tall girl, about eighteen years old, with regular features, a skin somewhat citrine-coloured, but soft and clear, symmetrical eyebrows, the most beautiful eyes, and a figure all grace. There was no head thrown back, no straightened neck, no flat shoulders, nor toes turned out—in fact, no "elegant" barbarisms: the shape was what the Arabs love, soft, bending, and relaxed, as a woman's figure ought to be. Unhappily she wore, instead of the usual veil, a "Yashmak" of transparent muslin, bound round the face; and the chaperone, mother, or duenna, by whose side she stood, was apparently a very unsuspicious or complaisant old person. Flirtilla fixed a glance of admiration upon my cashmere. I directed a reply with interest at her eyes. She then by the usual coquettish gesture, threw back an inch or two of head-veil, disclosing broad bands of jetty hair, crowning a lovely oval. My palpable admiration of the new charm was rewarded by a partial removal of the Yashmak, when a dimpled mouth and a rounded chin stood out from the envious muslin. Seeing that my companions were safely employed, I entered upon the dangerous ground of raising hand to forehead. She smiled almost imperceptibly, and turned away. The pilgrim was in ecstasy.

No non-Muslim since Burton has made the pilgrimage to Mecca and lived to tell the tale.

Sailing Alone Around the World