Forgotten Books: Wanderings in Three Continents from the famous explorer Sir Francis Burton

Sir Richard Burton portrait and signature in the book - Image: Public Domain. 

Wanderings in Three Continents is a fascinating book for those who like travel, exploration, and adventures. 

In this text, Sir Richard Burton recounts his trip to Mecca disguised as a merchant in 1853, the journey through Somalia and Ethiopia in 1854-55, the expedition searching for the source of the Nile to Lake Tanganyika from 1856 to 1859, a trip to Utah in 1860, his adventure in the old kingdom of Dahomey and Congo in 1863, the incursion to the interior of Brazil in 1867, and the archaeological venture to Palmyra, Siria, in 1870.  

The Victorian globetrotter had a life of amazing adventures, being many things at the same time: traveler, erudite, adventurer, writer, translator, geographer, soldier, spy, and also a controversial soul. 

What a résumé! And add that it's said that Sir Richard Burton spoke twenty-nine languages. If true, this alone would be an amazing accomplishment.   

Like the preface of the book rightly says:

BURTON was a many-sided man. 

In the controversial side of his life are Burton's translations of sexually explicit texts like The Kama Sutra and The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - where in the Terminal Essays was included a section on pederasty.  

Also controversial for Victorian England were his defense of Islam, the founding of the Anthropological Society of London around ideas polygenists - they said that different races had different origins in opposition to the idea that all humans share a common ancestor -, and the creation of a men dining association called The Cannibal Club. 

Wanderings in Three Continents was published by Hutchinson & Co of London in 1901, eleven years after his dead. The English writer William Henry Wilkins took care of reviewing the text and also wrote the preface. 

Wilkins had met Sir Richard Burton's wife, Isabel, and after her death wrote The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton. 

In 1898, he edited a shorter and revised version of Life of Sir Richard Burton - written by Isabel Burton -, followed by the unpublished manuscript of Richard Burton The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam. The closing book was the travelogue Wanderings in Three Continents.

Some ideas of Sir Richard Burton resounded well with William Henry Wilkins if we consider this author writings against what he called the "destitute immigration" arriving to the United Kingdom. 

Wanderings in Three Continents begins with the photogravure portrait I used in this post. Photogravure was an old printing process to produce high-quality reproductions of photographs in ink. The book also contains many illustrations from Arthur David McCormick, a man that worked as artist for expeditions to the Himalayas and the Caucasus Mountains. 

This text depicts a time when the world still had unknown and dangerous places to explore - now 90% of the expeditions can be called remote tourism. 

On the side of dangers, Burton describes what he saw as "the most unpleasant part of my first adventure in East Africa", an event that left him with a big scar on his right cheek after being attacked by Somali tribesmen.  

This happened on April 18, 1855, while camped near Berbera. Somali warriors from the Isaaq clan - also spelled Ishaak or Isaac - attacked his party and he ended being impaled by a javelin. 

Later, Burton used to say that Somalis were a "fierce and turbulent race".

(Check this photo of Somali warriors from 1899.)

Here we go with more from Sir Richard Francis Burton, but now in his own words from the book Wanderings in Three Continents.

About the Arabic lands of the mid-19th century:

For the most part it is a haggard land, a country of wild beasts and wilder men,

His portrait of the people of the Horn of Africa:

The fierce faces, the screaming voices, and the frequent faction fights of the savage Somali.

Encounter with a lion:

I looked back and saw, within some twenty yards, the king of beasts creeping up silently as a cat.

The meeting with the famous Western gunslinger Joseph Alfred “Jack” Slade at the Horseshoe Station of the Pony Express Trail by the Platte River in Wyoming:

This pleasant individual 'for an evening party' wore a revolver and bowie-knife here, there, and everywhere.

His views of the bodyguards of a king in Benin:

...his guard of Amazons intolerably fierce. Their sole object in life is blood-spilling and head-snatching. African kingdom in which women took precedence of men.

A night of human sacrifices in Dahomey:

At intervals we heard the boom of the death-drum announcing some horrible slaughter.

His feelings about the lands around Beirut:

Life is easy and death is easier in these sub-tropical regions.

On his "archaeological" adventure in Syria:

The shortness of our visit allowed me only a day and a half to try the fortune of excavation at Palmyra.

Interesting memories from a wild traveler that bring colorful perspectives of the state of the world just two centuries ago.
 

(This book is available in Amazon and many other places - the previous link is affiliate, meaning that we may receive a small commission on your purchases without additional cost to you. Thanks for your support.)