Bibliography: 13. Pilgrimage to Al-Madimah and Meccah. 3 vols.
1855-1856.
29. At Aden. The Arabian Nights. Oct. 1854.
It was while staying at Bombay as Mr. Lumsden's guest that Burton,
already cloyed with civilization, conceived the idea of journeying, via
Zeila in Somaliland, to the forbidden and therefore almost unknown
city of Harar, and thence to Zanzibar. His application to the
Bombay Government for permission and assistance having been received
favourably, he at once set out for Aden, where he stayed with his "old
and dear friend," Dr. John Steinhauser, who had been appointed civil
surgeon there. Steinhauser, a stolid man, whose face might have been
carved out of wood, was, like Burton, an enthusiastic student of The
Arabian Nights, and their conversation naturally drifted into this
subject. Both came to the conclusion that while the name of this
wondrous repertory of Moslem folk-lore was familiar to almost every
English child, no general reader could form any idea of its treasures.
Moreover, that the door would not open to any but Arabists. But even at
the present day, and notwithstanding the editions of Payne and Burton,
there are still persons who imagine that The Arabian Nights is simply a
book for the nursery. Familiar only with some inferior rendering, they
are absolutely ignorant of the wealth of wisdom, humour, pathos and
poetry to be found in its pages. [141] Writing in 1856, Burton says:
"The most familiar book in England, next to the Bible, it is one of the
least known, the reason being that about one-fifth is utterly unfit for
translation, and the most sanguine Orientalist would not dare to render
more than three-quarters of the remainder, [142] consequently the reader
loses the contrast--the very essence of the book--between its brilliancy
and dulness, its moral putrefaction and such pearls as:
'Cast the seed of good works on the least fit soil;
Good is never wasted, however it may be laid out.'
And in a page or two after such divine sentiment, the ladies of Baghdad
sit in the porter's lay, and indulge in a facetiousness which would have
killed Pietro Aretino before his time." [143] When the work entitled
A Thousand Nights and a Night was commenced, no man knows. There were
Eastern collections with that title four centuries ago, laboured by the
bronzed fingers of Arab scribes; but the framework and some of the tales
must have existed prior even to the Moslem conquest. It has been noticed
that there are resemblances between the story of Shahryar and that of
Ahasuerus as recorded in Esther. In both narratives the King is offended
with his Queen and chooses a new wife daily. Shahryar has recourse to
the scimitar, Ahasuerus consigns wife after wife to the seclusion of his
harem. Shahryar finds a model consort in Shahrazad, Ahasuerus in Esther.
Each queen saves a multitude from death, each king lies awake half
the night listening to stories. [144] While many of the stories in
The Arabian Nights are ancient, some, as internal evidence proves, are
comparatively recent. Thus those of Kamar-al-Zaman II. and Ma'aruf the
Cobbler belong to the 16th century; and no manuscript appears to be
older than 1548. The most important editions are the Calcutta, the
Boulac [145] and the Breslau, all of which differ both in text and the
order of the stories. The Nights were first introduced into Europe by
Antoine Galland, whose French translation appeared between 1704 and
1717. Of the Nights proper, Galland presented the public with about a
quarter, and he added ten tales [146] from other Eastern manuscripts.
An anonymous English edition appeared within a few years. The edition
published in 1811 by Jonathan Scott is Galland with omissions and
additions, the new tales being from the Wortley Montague MS. now in the
Bodleian. In 1838, Henry Torrens began a translation direct from the
Arabic, of which, however, he completed only one volume, and in 1838-40
appeared the translation direct from the Arabic, of which, however, he
completed only one volume, and in 1838-40 appeared the translation of
Edward William Lane, [147] made direct from the Boulac edition. This
work, which contains about one third of the entire Arabian Nights, was
a great step forward, but unfortunately, Lane, who afterwards became an
excellent Arabic scholar, was but a poor writer, and having no gift
of verse, he rendered the poetical portions, that is to say, some ten
thousand lines "in the baldest and most prosaic of English." [148]
So Burton and Steinhauser said to themselves, As the public have
never had more than one-third of the Nights, and that translated
indifferently, we will see what we can do. "We agreed," says Burton, "to
collaborate and produce a full, complete, unvarnished, uncastrated, copy
of the great original, my friend taking the prose and I the metrical
part; and we corresponded upon the subject for years." [149] They told
each other that, having completed their task, they would look out for a
retreat as a preparation for senility, some country cottage, perhaps,
in the South of France, where, remote from books, papers, pens, ink
and telegrams, they could spend their nights in bed and their days in
hammocks. Beyond planning the translation, however, nothing was done.
Steinhauser died fourteen years later (1866), and whatever notes he made
were dispersed, while Burton, even as late as 1883, had done nothing
beyond making a syllabus of the Boulac edition. [150] Still, the
scheme was never for very long absent from his thoughts, and during his
wanderings in Somaliland, the Tanganyika country and elsewhere, he often
delighted the natives by reciting or reading some of the tales. The
history of Burton's translation of The Arabian Nights is, as we shall
subsequently show, curiously analogous to that of The Kasidah.
30. From Zeila to Harar, 27th November 1854 to 2nd January 1855.
Burton now found that, as regards the projected expedition, his plans
would have to be modified, and he finally decided to confine his
explorations to "the great parched horn" of Somaliland. His plan was now
to visit Harar via Zeila, and then make for Berbera, in order to join
Lieutenant Speke, Herne and Stroyan, who had been authorised to assist
him and had arranged to await him there. The presence at Berbera of
Speke and his companions, would, it was supposed, "produce a friendly
feeling on the part of Somali," and facilitate Burton's egress from
Harar, should he ever, as was by no means certain, enter alive that
dangerous and avoided city. Sir James Outram, then Political Resident at
Aden, called the expedition a tempting of Providence, and tried hard to
stop it, but in vain. Burton left Aden for Zeila on October 29th,
taking with him a managing man called "The Hammal," a long, lean Aden
policeman, nicknamed "Long Gulad" and a suave but rascally Moslem priest
dubbed "The End of Time." [151] They landed on October 31st, and found
Zeila a town of white-washed houses and minaretted mosques, surrounded
by a low brown wall with round towers. Burton, who called himself
a Moslem merchant, spent three weeks buying camels and mules and
interviewing guides, while he kept up his reputation for piety with the
customary devotions. According to his wont, he carefully studied the
customs of the people. "One of the peculiar charms," he says, of the
Somali girls, is "a soft, low and plaintive voice," and he notices
that "in muscular strength and endurance the women of the Somal are far
superior to their lords." The country teems with poets, who praise the
persons of the belles very much in the style of Canticles, declaring
prettily, for example, that their legs are as straight as the "Libi
Tree," and that their hips swell out "like boiled rice." The marriage
ceremonies, he tells us, are conducted with feasting, music and
flogging. On first entering the nuptial hut the bridegroom draws forth
his horsewhip and inflicts chastisement upon his bride, with the view
of taming any lurking propensity to shrewishness. As it is no uncommon
event to take four wives at once, this horsewhipping is naturally
rather exhausting for the husband. Burton considered polygamy to be
indispensable in countries like Somaliland, "where children are the
principal wealth;" but he saw less necessity for it "among highly
civilised races where the sexes are nearly equal, and where reproduction
becomes a minor duty." However, he would have been glad to see polygamy
allowed even in England, "if only to get rid of all the old maids,"
a class that he regarded with unbounded pity. He longed "to see these
poor, cankered, angular ladies transformed into cheerful, amiable wives
with something really to live for." "Man," it was a favourite saying
with him, "is by nature polygamic, whereas woman, as a rule, is
monogamic, and polyandrous only when tired of her lover. The man loves
the woman, but the love of the woman is for the love of the man."
He also agreed with the 18th century Rev. Martin Madan, author of
Thelyphthora, a treatise on female ruin, who insisted that polygamy
would go far to remove one of the great reproaches of the streets
of London and other large cities. "Except in books," says Burton,
"seduction in Mohammedan countries is almost unknown, adultery
difficult." That polygamy, however, is no panacea, the following remarks
will show. "Both sexes," he says, speaking of the Somali, "are temperate
from necessity." Drunkenness is unknown. Still, the place is not Arcady.
"After much wandering," he continues, "we are almost tempted to believe
that morality is a matter of geography; [152] that nations and races
have, like individuals, a pet vice; and that by restraining one,
you only exasperate another. As a general rule Somali women prefer
flirtations with strangers, following the well-known Arabian proverb,
'The new comer filleth the eye.'" Burton was thoroughly at home in Zeila
"with the melodious chant of the muezzin" and the loudly intoned "Amin"
and "Allaho Akbar" daily ringing in his ear. He often went into the
Mosque, and with a sword and a rosary before him, read the "cow chapter"
[153] in a loud twanging voice. Indeed, he had played the role of devout
Mohammedan so long, that he had almost become one. The people of Zeila
tried to persuade him to abandon his project. "If," said they, "you
escape the desert hordes it will only be to fall by the hands of
the truculent Amir of Harar." Nothing, however, could dash Burton's
confidence in his star, and like Dante, he applied to Fear no epithets
but "vile" and "base."
One Raghi, a petty Eesa chief, having been procured as protector of the
party, and other arrangements having been made, Burton on November 27th
(1854) set out for his destination by a circuitous route. Raghi rode
in front. Next, leading camels, walked two enormously fat Somali women;
while by the side of the camels rode Burton's three attendants, the
Hammal, Long Gulad, and "The End of Time," "their frizzled wigs radiant
with grease," and their robes splendidly white with borders dazzlingly
red. Burton brought up the rear on a fine white mule with a gold fringed
Arab pad and wrapper-cloth, a double-barrelled gun across his lap, and
in this manner the little caravan pursued its sinuous course over the
desert. At halting places he told his company tales from The Arabian
Nights; they laughed immoderately at the adventures of the little
Hunchback; tears filled their eyes as they listened to the sad fate
of Azizah; [154] and the two fat Somali women were promptly dubbed
Shahrazad and Dunyazad. Dunyazad had been as far as Aden and was
coquettish. Her little black eyes never met Burton's, and frequently
with affected confusion she turned her sable cheek the clean contrary
way. Attendant on the women was a Zeila lad, who, being one-eyed, was
pitilessly called "The Kalandar." At their first halting place, Burton
astonished the natives by shooting a vulture on the wing. "Lo!" cried
the women, "he bringeth down the birds from heaven." On their way
through an ochreish Goban, or maritime plain, they passed huge hills
made by white ants, Gallas graves planted with aloe, [155] and saw
in the distance troops of gazelles. They were now in the Isa country,
"Traitorous as an Isa" being a Zeila proverb. Though the people were
robbers and murderers, Burton, by tact, got on excellently with them,
and they good-naturedly offered him wives. At every settlement the whole
population flocked to see him, the female portion loudly expressing
their admiration for him. "Come girls," they cried one to another, "come
and look at this white stranger." According to Raghi, the fair face of a
French lady who had recently landed at Berbera, "made every man hate his
wife, and every wife hate herself." Once they were attacked by Bedouin,
who, however, on hearing the report of Burton's revolver, declared that
they were only in fun. Others who tried to stop them were shown the star
sapphire, and threatened with "sorcery, death, wild beasts," and other
unpleasantnesses. At a place called Aububah, Raghi relinquished the
charge of the caravan to some men of the Gudabirsi tribe, who led
the way to the village of Wilensi, where they were the guests of the
household of a powerful chief called Jirad Adan. Here Burton left
Shahrazad, Dunyazad and the Kalandar, and proceeded to Sagharrah, where
he met and formed a friendship with Jirad Adan. For several days he was
prostrated by fever, and some Harar men who looked in tried to obtain
him as a prisoner. The Jirad acted honourably, but he declined to escort
Burton to Harar. "No one," he said, "is safe in the Amir's clutches, and
I would as soon walk into a crocodile's mouth as set foot in the city."
"Nothing then remained," says Burton, "but payer d'audace, [156] and,
throwing all forethought to the dogs, to rely upon what has made many
a small man great, the good star. I addressed my companions in a set
speech, advising a mount without delay." [157] The End of Time, having
shown the white feather, was left behind, but the rest courageously
consented to accompany their leader. "At 10 a.m. on the 2nd January,"
says Burton, "all the villagers assembled, and recited the Fatihah,
consoling us with the information that we were dead men." The little
company, carrying their lives in their hands, then set forward, and
presently came in sight of Harar, "a dark speck upon a tawny sheet of
stubble." Arrived at the gate of the town, they accosted the warder,
sent their salaams to the Amir, and requested the honour of audience.
31. At Harar.
They were conducted to the palace, a long, single-storied, windowless
barn of rough stone and reddish clay. Says Burton: "I walked into a vast
hall between two long rows of Galla spearmen, between whose lines I had
to pass. They were large, half-naked savages, standing like statues with
fierce, movable eyes, each one holding, with its butt end on the ground,
a huge spear, with a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered
down them coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their
dangerous-looking faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt,
and determined, at the first show of excitement, to run up to the Amir,
and put it to his head, if it were necessary, to save my own life." The
Amir was an etiolated young man of twenty-four or twenty-five, plain and
thin-bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows and protruding
eyes. He wore a flowing robe of crimson cloth, edged with snowy fur, and
a narrow white turban tightly twisted round a tall, conical cap of red
velvet. On being asked his errand, Burton replied politely in Arabic
that he had come from Aden in order to bear the compliments of the
governor, and to see the light of his highness's countenance. On the
whole, the Amir was gracious, but for some days Burton and his party
were in jeopardy, and when he reflected that he was under the roof of a
bigoted and sanguinary prince, whose filthy dungeons resounded with
the moans of heavily ironed, half-starved prisoners; among a people
who detested foreigners; he, the only European who had ever passed over
their inhospitable threshold, naturally felt uncomfortable. The Amir,
it seems, had four principal wives, and an army of 200 men armed chiefly
with daggers. Burton describes the streets of Harar as dirty narrow
lanes heaped with garbage, and the houses as situated at the bottom of
courtyards, closed by gates of holcus stalks. The town was proud of its
learning and sanctity, and venerated the memory of several very holy and
verminous saints. Neither sex possessed personal attractions, and the
head-dresses of the women seen from behind resembled a pawnbroker's
sign, except that they were blue instead of gilt. The people lived
chiefly on holcus, and a narcotic called "jat," made by pounding the
tender twigs of a tree of the same name. "It produced in them," says
Burton, "a manner of dreamy enjoyment, which exaggerated by time and
distance, may have given rise to that splendid myth the Lotos and the
Lotophagi. [158] Their chief commodity was coffee, their favourite drink
an aphrodisiac made of honey dissolved in hot water, and strained and
fermented with the bark of a tree called kudidah." Although unmolested,
Burton had no wish to remain long at Harar, and when on 13th January
he and his party took their departure it was with a distinct feeling of
relief.
32. From Harar to Berbera. 13th Jan. 1855-5th Feb. 1855.
At Sagharrah they found again the pusillanimous "End of Time," and
at Wilensi they were rejoined by Shahrazad, Dunyazad and the one-eyed
Kalandar. Persons who met Burton and his friends enquired Irish-like
if they were the party who had been put to death by the Amir of Harar.
Everyone, indeed, was amazed to see them not only alive, but uninjured,
and the Frank's temerity became the talk of the desert. Burton now put
the two women, the Kalandar, the camels, and the baggage, under the care
of a guide, and sent them to Zeila, while he himself and the men made
straight for Berbera. The journey, which led them past Moga's tooth
[159] and Gogaysa, was a terrible one, for the party suffered tortures
from thirst, and at one time it seemed as though all must perish. By
good fortune, however, they ultimately came upon some pools. Any fear
that might have haunted them, lest the water should be poisonous, was
soon dispelled, for it contained a vast number of tadpoles and insects,
and was therefore considered quite harmless and suitable for drinking.
For many hours they again plodded on beneath a brazen sky. Again thirst
assailed them; and, like Ishmael in the desert of Zin, they were ready
to cast themselves down and die. This time they were saved by a bird, a
katta or sand grouse, which they saw making for some hills; and having
followed it, they found, as they had anticipated, a spring of water, at
which they frenziedly slaked their thirst. Many other difficulties and
troubles confronted them in their subsequent march, but at last they
heard (delightful sound!) the murmur of the distant sea. Every man was
worn out, with the exception of the Hammal, who, to Burton's delight,
not only talked, but sang and shouted. Finally they reached Berbera,
where they found Speke, Herne and Stroyan, and on 5th February, Burton
in company with the Hammal, Long Gulad, and The End of Time, set sail
for Aden, calling on their way at Siyaro and Anterad, east of Berbera.
The first news Burton had on arriving there was of the death of his
mother, which had occurred 18th December 1854, at the time he lay ill
at Sagharrah. Always immersed in him, she used to say, when he left her,
"It seems as if the sun itself has disappeared." He, on his part,
often bore witness to the unselfishness and blamelessness of her life,
generally adding, "It is very pleasant to be able to feel proud of one's
parents."
33. The Fight at Berbera, 22nd April, 1855.
Unable to let well alone, Burton now wanted to make a new expedition,
this time to the Nile, via Berbera and Harar, and on a larger and more
imposing scale. On 7th April he was back again at Berbera, taking with
him Speke, Stroyan, Herne and 42 assistants, and his first care was to
establish an agency on the coast, so as to have the protection of the
English gunboat, the "Mahi," which had brought them. Unfortunately, the
Government drew off the gunboat, and this had scarcely been done before
Burton and his party were attacked by 300 natives, who swarmed round
them during the night, and tried to entrap and entangle them by throwing
down the tents. A desperate hand-to-hand fight then ensued. Javelins
hissed, war-clubs crashed. The forty-two coloured auxiliaries promptly
took to their heels, leaving the four Englishmen to do as they could.
Stroyan fell early in the fight. Burton, who had nothing but a sabre,
fought like a demon; Speke, on his left near the entrance of the tent,
did deadly execution with a pair of revolvers; Herne on his right
emptied into the enemy a sixshooter, and then hammered it with the butt
end. Burton, while sabreing his way towards the sea, was struck by a
javelin, which pierced both cheeks, and struck out four of his teeth.
Speke received eleven wounds, from which, however, he took no harm--a
touching proof, comments Burton, of how difficult it is to kill a man
in sound health. Eventually the survivors, stained with blood, and
fearfully exhausted, but carrying, nevertheless, the corpse of poor
Stroyan, managed to reach a friendly native craft, which straightway
took them back to Aden. [160]