Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah (Volume 2)

by Richard Burton

Release Date: 01 June, 1964

Edition: Paperback

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Sir Richard Burton - a man not of his time

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.

bibliography & note

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.