BOOKS.

BURTON'S PILGRIMAGE TO EL MEDINAIL* Liztrrzniair Burrow is well known for several publications on the East, which exhibited a smart liveliness of style, occasionally overdone, and very considerable acquaintance with the manners, opinions, and languages of the Orientals. Of these books the best was Seinde, or the Unhappy Valley.f They all appear to have been written during the author's furlough in England, and to have led to an arrangement with the Geographical Society that he should attempt to penetrate to Mecca and Medina in the guise of a Mahometan pilgrim. A deputation of the Society waited on the Chairman of the East India Company to solicit his coun- tenance. Sir James Hogg, however, declined the request, on account of the danger to Lieutenant Burton; most probably to avoid, in case of accident, the kind of trouble which arose from the murder of poor Conolly, Sir James, however, facilitated the object by extending the Lieutenant's leave of absence ' • and the tra- veller, beginning as he intended to go on, started for Southampton in the costume of an Oriental, and in April 18.53 a "Persian Prince" embarked for Alexandria on board the Bengal.

Arrived at Egypt, Lieutenant Burton avoided all communica- tion with Europeans. His secular vocation was that of a phy- sician ; he assumed in addition the religious character of a Der- vish. After some consideration and the advice of one of the many native friends he picked up he eschewed the Persian character, for the Persians are looked upon as heretics in Arabia ; and finally became a Patan,—that is, an Affghan by blood, born in India. The steam trip from Alexandria to Cairo, a residence at the latter city in a caravanserai—the Eastern hotel, and practice as a physician, not only taught him to "smoke the pipe pf patience" and to accustom himself to new modes of Oriental life, but, what was of more consequence, enabled him to test the impenetrability of his disguise. In due time he started for ,.Suez, his departure being hastened by having taken part in a Bac- - ohanalian bout with a captain of Albanian irregulars, which rather - lowered his repute as a "serious" person. From Suez he voyaged to Yambu on the Red Sea in a native vessel; which was over- Crowded with pilgrims, cast anchor every night, and made little progress by day. The distance between Yambu and Medina is only 130 miles—a two-days journey on a fast dromedary, four days with camels. Our pilgrim was eight days on the road; for the country was in confusion—an Arab tribe was "out," as they said. in Scotland; and the caravan was delayed by fear and the necessity of an escort. At the Prophet's burial-place, Lieutenant Burton remained long enough to visit the sacred places in the town and neighbourhood, and to go through all the prescribed Ma- hometan ceremonies. He then departed for Mecca, the account of which will appear hereafter. The two volumes now published only contain his residence in Egypt, the voyage to. Yambu, his journey. to Medina, and his sojourn in that city. The matter is of three kinds. The first consists of geographical description of the landing-places, anchorages, and other features of the Red Sea, as well as of the country between Yambu and Me- dina. The second subject is Medina and its Holy Places, with an account of the religious ceremonies and formulas of the pil- grims, mingled with some historical matter. The third part is the author's personal adventures, sketches of the many persons he came in contact with, and the picture these things present of Oriental life and character. The second subject is the most curious, and, so far as absolute facts are concerned, the most informing. I'laere has been no account of the Prophet's burial-place since Burek- hardt visited the city, and since then changes have taken place. .The most amusing part of the volumes is that which relates the traveller's own adventures, and depicts the, to Europeans, strange "opinions and manners of Eastern life. From his first appearance on the deck of the asthmatic steamer that carried him from Alexandria to Cairo vie, the canal and the Nile, until the close of his sojourn at Medina, all is fresh, lively, and with much of, the -interest of a novel of adventure. Something of the disposition to :over-detail, and to produce effect by designed smartness, which ,characterized the antlor's first work, Goa and the Blue Mountains, may be found occasionally. The matter and spirit of the whole is ;so new and entertaining that this defect may readily be overlooked, if it is a defect under the circumstances. It is needless to speak of the courage, presence of mind, Eastern experience, and varied ac- aluirements, which alone enabled Lieutenant Burton to go through his undertaking successfully. They seem in fact so natural to him that it is only now and then that the reader's attention is call- ed to them. The same experience that enabled the pilgrim to sus- tain a role of great difficulty, has imparted some laxity to portions of the book.

Strange, and in striking contrast to our manners, as appear the manners of the East, they really differ in modes rather than in essentials, unless we make this century the standard for all time. Lieutenant Barton stepped into the Cairo steamer with- out one single acquaintance to assist him in any trouble, or to forward his objects; yet he daily made acquaintances who were quite as willing to help him, especially with advice, as so-called intimates in Europe. He seems to have made friends on the road who really were of great use to him. In England a stranger cannot make his way without good recommendations; but this

*Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca. By Richard F. Burton, Lieutenant Bombay Army. In three volumes. Volume I. El Misr. Vo- lume II. El hiedivah. Published by Longman and Co. + Spectator 1851, page 1000. is merely the result of a dense population in a state of high civili- zation. It was not so during the middle ages, or even to a much later period. The difficulties of locomotion, the scantiness of po- pulation, less exclusiveness of feeling, and the necessity for help which every one felt might become his own ease in a strange place, prompted greater familiarity and friendliness towards stran- gers and sojourners,ust as hospitality is practised in little-fre- quented countries. Identity of faith was also a bond, and in R' omish countries the habit of pilgrimages, as is now the case in the East. Perhaps we still have something of this where stran- gers meet with a common object,—as in a colonization party ; though we being less unsophisticated than the Orientals, it may be requisite on such occasions to regard the words of warning which that highly-civilized people the Chinese paint in their pas- sage-boats—" Take care of your purses."

Some approach to the more obvious practices of modern civiliza- tion has been made in Egypt. The passport system is one of these improvements; and furnished our author at the outset with a means of seeing something of Oriental life in the character of a native. "Administrative reform" would seem to be wanted at Alexandria.

"I bad neglected to provide myself with a passport in England, and it was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from the Consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me to be an Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor, aged thirty, and not distinguished--at least so the fre- quent blanks seemed to denote—by any remarkable conformation of eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. • • * *

" My new passport would not carry me withouttbe Zabit or Police Magis- trate's counter-signature, said the Consul. Next day I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor) of Alexandria ; at whose gate I had the honour of squatting at least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the information that the proper place to apply to was the Di- van Kharijiyeh (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly lost. On the morning of the third I started, as directed, for the palace which crowns the Headland of Figs. It is a huge and couthless shell of building in paral- lelogrammic form, containing all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their glaring whitewashed faces upon a central court, where a few leafless wind-wrung trees seem struggling for the breath of life in an eternal atmosphere of clay, dust, and sun-blaze. "The first person I addressed was a Kawwaa or police-officer ; who, coiled comfortably up in a bit of shade fitting his person like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic 'KW.' Having presented the consular certificate, and briefly stated the nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right course to pursue for a visa.

"They have little respect for Dervishes, it appears, at Alexandria! " ' M'adri '—' Don't know,' growled the man of authority, without moving anything but the quantity of tongue necessary for articulation.

"Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,—by bribe, by bul- lying, or by bothering theta with a Begged .perseverance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is the peculiar province of the poor ; moreover this time I resolved, for other reasons, to be patient. I repeated my question in almost the same words. Ruh ! " Be off,' was what I obtained for all reply. But this time the in went so far as to open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper 111 my hands, and looking very bumble and very perse- vering, till a loud 'Ruh ya Kalb !" Go, 0 dog !' converted into a responsive curse the little speech I was preparing about the brotherhood of El Islam and the mutual duties obligatory on true believers. I then turned away slowly and fiercely, for the next thing might have been a cut with the kur- baj, and, by the hammer of Thor ! British flesh and blood could never have stood that. • "After which satisfactory scene—for satisfactory it was in one sense, proving the complete fitness of the Dervish's dress—I tried a dozen other promiscuous sources of information,—policemen, grooms, scribes, donkey- boys, and idlers in general. At length, wearied of patience, I offered a sol- dier some pinches of tobacco, and promised him an Oriental sixpence if-he would manage the business for me. • The man was interested by the tobacco and the pence; he took my band, and, inquiring the while he went along, led me from latte to place, till, mounting a grand staircase, I stood in the presence of Abbas Effendi, the Governor's Naib or deputy. " It was a little, whey-faced, black-bearded Turk, coiled up in the usual• --conglomerate posture upon a calico-covered divan, at the end of a long, bare, large-windowed room. Without deigning even to nod the head, which hung over his shoulder with transcendent listlessness and affectation of pride, in answer to may salams and benedictions, he eyed me with wicked eyes, and faintly ejaculated ' Min ant ?' Then hearing that I was a Dervish and doctor —he must be an Osmanli Voltairean, that little Turk—the official snorted a contemptuous snort! He condescendingly added, however, that the proper source to seek was Taht ' ; which meaning simply below,' conveyed rather ' imperfect information in a topographical point of view to a stranger. ' At length, however, my soldier guide found out that a room in the cus- tomhouse bore the honourable appellation of 'Foreign Office.' Accordingly I went there, and; after sitting at least a couple of hours at the bolted door in the noon-day, sun, was told, with a fury which made me think I had sinned, that the officer in whose charge the department was had been pre- sented with an olive branch in the morning, and consequently that business

was not to be done that day. * " Thus was another day truly Orientally lost. On the morrow, however, I obtained permission, in the character of Dr. Abdullah, to visit any part of Egypt I pleased, and to retain possession of my dagger and pistols.'

Many more such pictures will be found in the book. The de- sert journey to Suez, and the voyage on the Bed Sea, though not diversified by many incidents, have character ; the pilgrimage to Medina gives a good idea of caravan life and the hardships, chiefly from heat, of desert travelling. Of the Prophet's burial- place the accounts are very full in all points, descriptive, cere- monial, historical, and religious ; but they require space for a complete development. We take a few extracts of a miscellaneous kind. The pilgrim lodged in the house of a caravan companion to whom he had lent money, and when the first congratulation of Medina friends was over the subject of conversation among the callers was the same as it might have been at home, though treated from a different point of view.

"The Holy war, as usual, was the grand topic of conversation. The Sul- tan had ordered the Czar to becomes Moslem. The Czar had sued for peace, and offered tribute and fealty. But the Sultan had exclaimed, 'No, by. Al- lab ! El Islam ! ' The Czar could not be expected to take such a step with- out a little hesitation, but Allah smites the faces of the Infidels! Abdel Mejid would dispose of the 'Moskow' in a short time; after which be would turn his victorious army against all the idolaters of Feriogistan, beginning with the English, the French, and the Aroam or Greeks. Amongst much of this nonsense,—when applied to for my opinion, I was careful to make it popular,—I heard news foreboding no good to my journey" owards Muscat. The Bedouins had decided that there was to be an Arab contingent, and had been looking forward to the spoils of Europe : this had caused quarrels, as all the men wanted to go, and not a ten-year-old would be left behind. The consequence was, that this amiable people was fighting in all directions. At least so said the visitors, and I afterwards found out that they were not far wrong."

Beyond the repute of the city and the difficulty and risk of get- ting there, Medina does not seem worth visiting. The vicinity, from a mixture of clay in the soil and a sufficiency of-water, is de- scribed as beautiful from its-fresh green, but the effect is probably

Owing to the contrast of the desert. The mosque is poor and mean • where the remains of Mehemet are said to rest, for Lieutenant Burton thinks his burial-place is doubtful. •

"A visit to the Masjid El Nabitwi, and the holy spots within it, is techni- cally called ,ZiS atilt ' or Visitation. An essential difference is made between this rite and Hajj pilgrimage. The latter is obligatory by Koranic order upon every Moslem once in his life : the former is only a meritorious action. iTawaf,' or cireumambulation of the House of Allah at Meccah, must never be performed at the Prophet's tomb. This should not be visited in the it rani or pilgrim dress; men should not kiss it, touch it with the band, or press the bosom against it, as at the Kaabah; or rub the face with dust collected near the sepulchre ; and those who prostrate themselves before it, like cer-

tain ignorant Indians, are held to be guilty of deadly-sin: • * ' *

"Passing through muddy streets,—they had been freshly watered before evening time,—I ,came suddenly upon the mosque. Like that at Meecah, the approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some actually touch- ing the holy 'enceinte, others separated by a lane, compared with which the road round St. Paul's is a Vatican square. There is no outer front, no general aspect of the Prophet's mosque ; consequently, as a build- ing, it has neither beauty nor dignity.- And entering the Bab el Rahmah- the Gate of Pity—by a diminutive flight of steps, I was astonished at the Mean and tawdry appearance of -a place so universally venerated in the Mos- lem world. It is not, like the Meccah mosque, grand and simple—the ex- pression of a single sublime idea: the longer I looked at it, the more it sug- gested the resemblance of a museum of second-rate art, a curiosity-shop, full of ornaments that are not accessories, and decorated with pauper splendour."

To an Oriental the pilgriniage is an expensive affair. Our tra- veller was advised by his Cairene friends to take SOL, and this sum is generally carried by the poorest Persian. There is so much ex- tortion in every way, and so many beggars, to whom it is requisite for " respectable " pilgrims to give, if only to get rid of them, that the Lieutenant's funds ran short at Mecca, and he missed one sight for want of money to pay the fee. The presence of such numbers of persons annually at Medina induces a certain kind of trade, and prices are high '- but there is no propet conimeree. The people, like the inhabitants of Rome and Jerusalem', live upon the pions, and have.a very lofty opinion a themselves.- " The citizens of El .Medinah are a favoured race, although their city is not, like Meccah, the grand mart of the Moslem world or the meeting-place of nations. They pay no taxes, and reject the idea of a • miri ' or land-cess with extreme disdain. 'Are we, the children of the Ptbphet,' they exclaim, 'to support or to be supported?' The Wahhabis, not understanding the argument, taxed, them, as was their wont, in specie and in materials, for which reason the very name of the Puritans is an abomination. As has be- fore been shown, all the numerous attendante at the mosque are paid partly by the Sultan, partly by aukaf, the rents of houses and lands bequeathed to the shrine, and scattered over every part of the. Moslem world. When a Madani is inclined to travel, he applies to the Mudir el Harem, and receives from him a paper which entitles him to the receipt of a considerable sum at Constantinople. The ' Ikram,' (honorarium,) as it is called, varies with the rank of the recipient, the citizens being divided into these four orders-

" 1st and highest, The Wit and Imams, who are entitled to 12 purses, or about 601. Of these there are said to be 300 families.

" 2d, The Ehanandan, who keep open house and receive poor strangers gratis. Their Ikram amounts to S purses, and they number from 100 to 150

families.

" 3d, The Ahali or Madani, properly speaking, who have homes and fa- milies, and were born in El Madinah... They claim 6 purses.

" 4th, The Mujawirin, strangers, as Egyptians or Indians settled at though not born in El Medinah. Their honorarium is 4 purses. " The Madani traveller, on arrival at Constantinople, reports his arrival to his Consul, the Wakil el Ilaramain. This agent of the two Holy Places' applies to the Nazir el Aukaf, or 'Intendant of Bequests' ; the latter, after transmitting the demand to the different, offipers of the treasury, sends the money to the Wald), who delivers it to the applicant. * * *

" Besides the Ikram' most of the Madani, when upon these begging trips, are received as guests by great men at Constantinople. The citizens whose turn it is not to travel await the Aukaf and Sadakat, forwarded every year by the Damascus caravan ; besides which, as has been before explained, the Harem supplies even those not officially employed in it with many perqui- sites.

" Without these advantages, El Medinah would soon be abandoned to cul- tivators and Bedouins. Though commerce is here honourable, as every- where in the East, business is slack,' because the higher classes prefer the idleness of administering their landed estates and being servants to the

ramqua. • •

This proceeds partly from the pride of the people. They are taught from their childhood that the Madani is a favoured being, to be respected however vile or schismatic, and that the vengeance of Allah will fall upon any one who ventures to abuse, much more to strike him. They receive a Mx/ingot at the shop-window with the haughtiness of pashas, and take pains to show him by words as well as by looks that they consider themselves as ' good gentlemen as princes, only not so Added to this pride are indo- lence, and the true Arab prejudice which, even in the present day, prevents a Bedouin from marrying the daughter of an artisan. Like Castilians, they consider labour humiliating to any but a slave." •

Lieutenant Burton inserts in the appendix some curious extracts from elder European travellers who have visited the Holy Cities. The first account is by one Ludovicus Vertomannus, a Roman who made the pilgrimage in 1503, in company with a Mamelnke rene- gade. Ludovio himself was disguised as a Mahometan, but whether he was really initiated does not appear ; he made no scruple to avow that 'he was, when he had a purpose to answer. Nearly two centuries after, in 1680, Joseph Pitta of Exeter, an

Algerine captive who was forcibly, eenverted by his master or " patron," performed the pilgrimage. Some years afterwards, he effected his escape to-England, and published an account; which, strange to sty, escaped the eye of Gibbon,' though the book seems to have been pretty common. They are both quaint and curious narratives, our traveller speaking favourably of each; but we sus- pect the Englishman is more trustworthy than the Italian, espe- cially in all that relates to himself.