Burckhardt, JOHN LEWIS

Burckhardt, JOHN LEWIS, traveller, born at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1784, was educated at Neuchâtel, Leipzig, and Göttingen. In 1806 he came to London with an introduction from Blumenbach to Sir Joseph Banks, the leading spirit of the African Association, who accepted his services to explore the interior of Africa; and in 1809 he embarked for Malta, having previously qualified himself for the undertaking by a study of Arabic, and also by inuring himself to hunger, thirst, and exposure. From Malta he proceeded, under the disguise of an oriental dress and name, to Aleppo, where he studied more than two years, at the end of which time he had become so proficient in the vulgar Arabic, that he could safely travel in the disguise of an oriental merchant. He visited Palmyra, Damascus, Lebanon, and other remarkable places, and in 1812 went to Cairo, his object being to proceed from thence to Fezzan, and so to the source of the Niger. No opportunity offering itself at the time for that journey, he went into Nubia, and thence in 1814 proceeded to Mecca, one of the very first Christians to perform the pilgrimage. So completely had he acquired the language and ideas of his fellow-pilgrims, that, when some question arose respecting his orthodoxy, he was thoroughly examined in the Koran, and was not only accepted as a true believer, but was highly commended as a great Moslem scholar. In 1815 he returned to Cairo, and in the following year ascended Mount Sinai. The Fezzan caravan, for which he had waited so long, was at last about to depart, and Burckhardt had made all his preparations for accompanying it, when he was carried off by dysentery at Cairo, October 15, 1817. He was buried, as a holy pilgrim, in the Moslem cemetery. His collection of oriental MSS., in 350 volumes, was left to the university of Cambridge. His journals of travel, remarkable alike for their interest and evident truthfulness, were published in 1819-30 by the African Association. They form five works—Travels in Nubia, in Syria, and in Arabia, Notes on the Bedouins, and Arabic Proverbs.