The Press.
London, England, 1855-07-14 00:00:00

1 JULY 14, 1855.

reaching the sacred cities of the Prophet are
not generally known. For the last 350 years
only four travellers succeeded in their object,
and out of these (in 1503) one, Lodovico
Bartema, simulated madness, an expedient
which allowed him free ingress to the Ma-
hommedan holy places, for in the East a mad-
man is considered harmless ; and the second,
Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, in 1678, professed
Mahommedanism. Of the two modern travel-
lers who reached Meceah and Medinah, the
first, Burckardt, was utterly prostrated by sick-
ness during his stay in the Northern Hejaz;
and the second, Final, was a renegade
who devoted his time more to making love to
his master's wives than preparing by observa-
tion and notes any record which we could
depend upon. The several accounts which
these travellers have left, though written
probably from memory, yet substantially
agree ; but Lieutenant Burton's personal
narrative, compiled by himself from his own
notes taken upon the spot, and cleverly se-
creted, during a tour of some months through
the country, and enjoying every advantage of
intercourse with the natives which the rights of
hospitality to a True Believer enjoin in the
East, far surpass any of the accounts yet
handed down to us in minute detail and
valuable information.

The motive of his undertaking so dangerous
a journey is soon stated. He wished to cross
the hitherto unexplored Arabian peninsula
directly from Medinah to Muscat, or diagonally
from Meccah to Makullah on the Indian
Ocean. Among the secondary objects of his
Journey were, the intention to obtain every
information about the bydrography of the
country; the physiological differences of race
among the inhabitants ; and, lastly, to open a
market for horses between central Arabia and
India. These intentions were unhappily frus-
trated from various causes ; but still in his
journey to Medinah and Meccuh Mr. Burton
has more than ample reason to congratulate
himself upon his success. Supplied with
funds by the Royal Geographical Society, he
embarked, in July, 1853, on board the Eastern
steamer, disguised as a " Persian Prince," and
amusingly alludes to his first fortnight being
profitably spent in working up his Oriental
manners, which, to judge from the prelimi-
naries necessary to drink a glass of water, are
trying enough :--
With ns (remarks Mr. Barton) the operation is simple,
enough, but his ( the Oriental's) performance includes no less
than five novelties. In the first place he clutches his tumbler
as though it. were the throat of a foe ; secondly, he ejaculates,
" In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful!"
before wetting hie lips ; thirdly, he imbibes the contents,
swallowing them, not drinking, and ending with a satisfied
grunt ; fourthly, before setting down the cup, he sighs
forth, " Praise be to Allah !"—of which you will understand
the full meaning in the desert; and fifthly, he replies,
" May Allah make it pleasant to thee!" in answer to his
friend's polite " Pleasurably and health !" Also he is care-
ful to avoid the irreligious action of drinking the pure
element in a standing position, mindful, however, of the
three recognised exceptions, the fluid of the Holy Well
Zem-zem, water distributed in charity, and that which re
mains after Wuzu, the lesser ablution.

Never once detected in his disguise on board
the steamer, he landed at Alexandria, and suc-
cessfully passed through the preliminary scru-
tiny of the donkey boys ; he reached a friend's
residence in safety, and, lodging only in the
outhouse, he engaged the services of an elder
of Islam, and plunged at once into all the in-
tricacies of the faith, ablutions, prostrations,
and deep study of the Kcran and its precepts.
After a month's hard work, he prepared to
start on his journey as a "wandering Dervish,"
for he begun to tire of a civilised life in a
town :

The thorough-bred wanderer's idiosyncrasy I presume to
be a composition of what phrenologists call " inhabitive-
ness" and " locality " equally and largely developed.
After a long and toilsome march, weary of the way, he
drops into the nearest place of rest, to become the most
domestic of men. For a while he smokes the " pipe of
permanence " with an infinite zest; he delights in various
siestas duting the day, relishing withal a long sleep at
night ; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner-hour, and wonders
at the demoralisation of the mind which cannot find means
of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a
newspaper. But soon the passive fit has passed away ;
again a paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees,
Viator loses appetite, he walks about his room all night,
he yawns at conversations, and a book acts upon him as a
narcotic. The man wants to wander, and he must do so
or he shall die.

After many petty annoyances about pass-
porta—for the pollee of rapt is as prying &It'd