Part 8

Nearly a year elapsed before the Association received any further advices from their traveller, his next letter being dated from Cairo, upon his arrival in Egypt from Arabia. As the unfortunate state of his health prevented him, upon this occasion, from entering into any particulars of his Arabian journey, it is right to inform the reader, that in the following year he transmitted to the Association the most accurate and complete account of the Hedjaz, including the cities of Mekka, and Medina, which has ever been received in Europe. His knowledge of the Arabic language and of Mohammedan manners had now enabled him to assume the Mussulman character with such success, that he resided at Mekka, during the whole time of the pilgrimage, and passed through the various ceremonies of the occasion, without the smallest suspicion having arisen as to his real character. Upon one occasion, when the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Aly, then holding his head quarters at Tayf, to the eastward of Mekka, and who was not altogether ignorant of Burckhardt’s connexion with England, thought proper to put his qualifications as a Mussulman to the test, by directing the two most learned professors of the law, then in Arabia, to examine him upon his knowledge of the Koran, and of the practical as well as doctrinal precepts of their faith, the result was a complete conviction upon the minds of his hearers, or at least of his two examiners, of his being not only a true but a very learned Mussulman. It was his firm conviction, that the title of Hadji, which his pilgrimage gave him the right to assume, would be of the greatest use to him in his future travels in the interior of Africa. Important however as were the experience and information acquired by his journey in Arabia they were too dearly purchased; for there can be little doubt, that his constitution never recovered from the effects of that fatal climate, which has always proved pernicious to Europeans.[9] The severe attacks of fever and dysentery, which he suffered in Arabia, appear to have been the ultimate cause of the fatal termination of the disorder which, two years afterwards, in closing at once his labours and his existence, destroyed the best founded hopes of success, in exploring the unknown regions of Africa, which the Association had ever formed.

The following is an extract of the letter from Cairo, already alluded to. It was dated the 25th June, 1815, and addressed to Sir Joseph Banks.

A long interval has elapsed since I gave you in my letter of August 1814, the news of my happy arrival at Djidda from my Nubian journey. The difficulty of correspondence between the Hedjaz and Egypt, arising from the jealous policy of the newly established Turkish government, is one of the reasons which have prevented me from sending you any account of the journey, which I have just accomplished. Another is, I am sorry to say, repeated and long continued attacks of illness. It is now eight days since I am returned to this city, in a weak state of health, still suffering from the effects of a fever which detained me three months at Medina, and had nearly put a stop to all further travels. The receipt of your obliging favour of the 10th September, 1814, and of a letter from Mr. Hamilton, of the 4th June, of the same year, have contributed more than medicines can do to revive my strength, and to exhilarate my spirits. Indeed the assurance which these letters contain, of my former labours having met with the approbation of my employers, has been to me the source of most heartfelt joy, and the encouragement which I have derived from it, has entirely banished from my mind that despondency, which my bodily sufferings had caused.

My physicians will not permit me to write much, I can therefore give you but a short sketch of my travels in the Hedjaz. On my arrival at Djidda in August 1814, I remained there about a month, principally employed in endeavouring to procure a supply of money, a bill I had taken with me from Cairo, upon a person residing there, not having been honoured. Having at last succeeded in obtaining a temporary supply, sufficient until I should receive answers from Egypt, I went to Tayf, five days journeys east of Djidda, where I spent the Ramadhan and met the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Aly, who gave me the most polite reception, having already seen me at Cairo. It had been my wish to push on farther into the mountains of the Hedjaz, but the whole country was over-run by parties of hostile Wahabi, and the road itself from Tayf to Kolatsh, eight hours distant, where the Turkish head quarters were, was continually infested by them. I returned therefore from Tayf to Mekka, where I past the months of September, October, and November, and after recovering from a violent attack of dysentery, I performed on the 25th of November, in the company of more than eighty thousand pilgrims, the Hadj to Mount Arafat. In the beginning of January, I set out from Mekka to Medina, a journey of ten or eleven days, mostly through deserts. My project was to remain about three weeks at Medina, and to return from thence over land to Egypt, in the hopes of being able to visit on my road, some ruins at a place called Hedjer, six days north of Medina, where I expected to meet with some specimens of the most ancient Arabian monuments. Six days after my arrival at Medina, I was attacked by a fever which kept me chained to my carpet until April. The state of weakness to which I was then reduced obliged me to give up all attempts to travel by land; fatigue would have brought on a relapse, and I should have perished in some Bedouin hut on the road. As soon as I could support the motion of a camel, I left Medina and descended to the sea coast at Yembo. The plague, an evil hitherto unknown to Arabia, had lately made its appearance here as well as at Djidda, and its ravages soon became so great that all the inhabitants left these towns, and I found Yembo almost deserted; after a stay of fifteen days I embarked on board a country ship, landed at the promontory of Ras Mohammed in the peninsula of Mount Sinai, from whence I reached Tor, where I had a relapse of my fever, which obliged me to remain there near a fortnight. I then took the road of Suez, and arrived at Cairo on the nineteenth of June, after an absence of nearly two years and a half.

I ascribe my bad health in the Hedjaz to the climate and water; the latter, which in these countries is so important an article of diet, is every where brackish and of bad taste, much endangering the health of all strangers.

In a letter to the Secretary of the Association he adds,

Of the prosecution of my travels into the interior of Africa through the Lybian deserts, I shall say nothing at present. Some time will be required to recover my strength and to complete my journals; when these are accomplished there will, I hope, be nothing to prevent me from speedily commencing my final journey, for which I trust that I am now qualified in such a manner as to authorise my entertaining some hopes of success.

It is impossible for me to express the satisfaction I felt at being apprized by you, that my labours had hitherto met with the approbation of the African Association. I hope my employers will not be disappointed in the favourable hopes they have conceived of my future proceedings, and that the sense of gratitude which I entertain for their having so liberally left to my entire disposal a school time of upwards of six years, will be a pledge that I shall use my utmost exertions in the final execution of those projects for which I have been so long preparing myself.

My convalescence goes on slowly; the great heat of the present season does not permit a rapid return of strength, and I can for the same reason work only a few hours during the day.

The following is extracted from a private letter, written about the same time, and obligingly communicated to the Association.

_Cairo, 20th July,_ 1815.

I returned to Egypt last month, in very bad health, for the Arabian climate is of the worst kind, and has proved much more dangerous to Mohammed Aly’s army than all the forces of the Wahabi. Mohammed Aly himself, who had been in the Hedjaz for twenty months, returned at the same time to his capital, after having completely defeated and destroyed the power of his enemy from Medina southward as far as Arabia Felix. Tousoun Pasha remains in the neighbourhood of Medina to finish the war by taking Derayeh, the Wahabi capital; he has with him about twenty-five hundred or three thousand Turks, and eight or ten thousand Arabs. The hasty return of the Pasha to his capital was probably owing in some measure to the great fears lately prevailing at Cairo and Alexandria, of an expedition of the Sultan against Egypt. The Kapoudan Pasha was equipping his fleet, had taken on board a numerous corps of soldiers, and issued from the Dardanelles without any body knowing the destination of his expedition. Mohammed Aly continues to improve the state of Egypt, and that of his finances. He has begun to exercise his troops in the European manner, has established a large fabric of muskets at Cairo, and possesses also two thousand muskets bought in London. An Italian has set up a gunpowder manufactory where he has constantly two hundred men at work: an Englishman is beginning to establish a distillery of rum at the Pasha’s expense upon a very large scale. About twenty ships belonging to the Pasha are trading to Italy and Spain: six ships in the Red Sea trade to Yemen, and it is in view to establish a direct commerce with the East Indies. Immense sums have been spent during the last two years in fortifying Alexandria and the Castle of Cairo, together with the mountain behind it. But what secures to the Pasha the possession of Egypt more than any thing else, is the death of three or four thousand soldiers, the most rebellious and fiercest of his troops, whom he constantly placed as vanguards against the Wahabi, and of whom very few returned to Cairo.

I doubt not that your Syrian correspondent has informed you of the changes which have taken place in that country. Ibn Djassau Oglu has been raised to the Pashalik of Aleppo; he approached that town with a large army, and promised safe conduct to all the Janissaries, on condition, that they should give him up Ibrahim Aga Herbily. The latter in vain offered to his comrades to defray all the expenses of the war; they themselves laid hold of him and delivered him to the Pasha, who soon afterwards found means to entice also the other chiefs to his palace, where he had them all massacred. In the possession of Ibrahim Herbily, who was cruelly tortured before his death, forty thousand purses were found, the greater part of which were hidden in the house of Raphael P———. Five hundred Janissaries were killed. Mamuel, one of Mr. Barker’s, shared the same fate. The Pasha has been quarrelling with all the Consuls and has behaved extremely ill to the Franks. Soleyman Pasha still keeps Acre, and has now the whole sea coast up to Latikia under his orders. Soleyman Pasha of Damascus has already twice conducted the Syrian war to Mekka, and remains in his government.

I hope that you have found Sir Joseph Banks in good health. That venerable and noble minded patron of science has written me a letter containing expressions which I could expect only from a parent. As such I really revere him, and my gratitude towards him would alone be sufficient to induce me to pursue my task, even if so many other considerations of honour and duty did not concur in demanding from me every exertion of my faculties towards this object.

During the succeeding nine months, the attention of Mr. Burckhardt was almost entirely devoted to the regaining of his impaired strength, and to the preparation of his Nubian and Arabian journals for the Association. The following are extracts from three letters addressed by him to the Secretary of the Association during this period.

_Alexandria, 2d September,_ 1815.

I am sorry to say that the cure of my long protracted illness was not so expeditious as the assurances of my physicians at Cairo led me to expect. I had several relapses of my fever; the intense heat contributed to weaken my system still more, nor was my remaining strength supported by any confidence in the medical skill of the persons who attended me: I determined therefore to go to Alexandria, fully persuaded that the sea-breeze, and the society of Col. Missett would powerfully co-operate to the re-establishment of my health. I have now been here for the last sixteen days. Col. Missett’s kind and generous hospitality is too well known to all Eastern travellers, to stand in need of my commendations; the deplorable state of his own health did not prevent him from watching with the liveliest interest over the recovery of mine, and it is to his attentions and the friendly assistance of Dr. Meryon, physician of Lady H. Stanhope, whom her Ladyship had sent here to attend the Colonel, that I attribute my present convalescence. Lady Hester has been occupied travelling over Syria for the last three years, and has established herself at Mar Elias, a convent above Seyda.

I shall leave Alexandria next week and return by way of Damietta to Cairo, where I hope to finish my journals. The worst effects of my fever were shewn in a depression and listlessness which seldom permitted me to take up the pen. I hope however soon to make amends, and to be able to put a speedy term to my stay in Egypt. Convinced as I still am, that the Fezzan route presents fewer difficulties for penetrating into Africa from the East, than any other, my departure from Cairo must depend upon the arrival and redeparture of a Fezzan caravan. I trust that I shall have a less severe trial of patience than that which made me lose nearly a twelve month in Upper Egypt, before I could find an eligible conveyance into Nubia; yet it was to that patience that I owed the success of my journey, and I have laid it down as an invariable rule never to sacrifice security to time, however reluctantly I may submit to the privation of almost every means of instruction, and to the total want of rational society. The latter, which is but feebly felt in travelling, engrosses all one’s leisure thoughts during the tediousness of a long protracted fixed residence in any part of these uncivilised countries.

The city of Cairo has been lately exposed to serious disturbances. The Pasha, after his return from Arabia, attempted to introduce the Nizam Djedid, and began to drill both his infantry and cavalry according to European tactics. The discontent of the troops soon broke out into open rebellion, and Mohammed Aly, who had carried his victorious arms to the remotest parts of the Turkish empire, had the mortification to see his capital exposed to the fury and avidity of his own soldiers, who stripped the greater part of the shops, and sacked all the principal Bazars of the town, after which they retreated quietly to their quarters, having in vain endeavoured to break open the gate of the Frank street. The Nizam Djedid has now been given up, and the Pasha, conscious of the strength of the rebels, has not deemed it advisable to adopt any strong measures of punishment; but in order to conciliate the good will, and in case of need the assistance, of the town’s people, he has reimbursed to them, out of his own pocket, the whole amount of their loss, which has been calculated at four millions of piastres. The rebellion happened during the first days of last month. Many Franks have left Cairo. Several of them have been much ill treated, and shot at by the soldiers, even after the two days of plunder. It was the vulgar belief that the Franks had persuaded the Pasha to the adoption of European tactics.

The Wahabi war draws to a conclusion. The Pasha on quitting Arabia let his son Tousoun Pasha, at the head of his small army, in the northern parts of the country. In April last, during the time of my residence at Medina, Tousoun took possession of the province of Kasyne, a fertile district between Medina and Derayeh, the chief seat of the Wahabi; he fought there several battles with the Wahabi, in one of which Ibrahim Aga, his treasurer, the first officer of his court, was killed after a desperate resistance. This man, who was Governor of Medina during the latter part of my stay there, was a Scotchman, who had been taken at the battle of Rosetta, and who had turned Turk and was become the favourite of Tousoun Pasha, whose life he had once saved in an engagement with the Bedouins. His determined bravery, and faithful attachment to the cause of the Pasha would probably have procured him the rank of a Pasha of two tails, if he had had the good fortune to return to Egypt. Before he fell under the lances of the Wahabi he killed five of them with his own hand. The Chief of the Wahabi, Abdallah Ibn Saoud, was apprehensive that the repeated advantages gained by Tousoun Pasha might cause the principal of his adherents to join his enemy; he therefore commenced negotiations. In the month of June he paid a visit to Tousoun Pasha, and although the articles of peace were not ultimately settled during their conferences, yet little doubt was entertained when the last dispatches were sent off from Arabia that they would soon be concluded. Abdallah Ibn Saoud, in returning to Derayeh, left his own child, two of his brothers, and upwards of thirty of the principal Shikhs of Derayeh in the hands of Tousoun Pasha, as hostages for his good behaviour. Mohammed Aly demands from the Wahabi Chief an enormous sum in retribution of his pillaging the temple of the Prophet at Medina; he endeavours to prevail upon him to do hommage to the grand Signior for the possessions of the Wahabi in Arabia, but leaves him in the exercise of his new religion, provided he takes no further steps for propagating it.

_Cairo, 8th February,_ 1816.

I have the honour of enclosing herewith the journal of my tour through Nubia, from Upper Egypt to Souakin and Djidda. It has been ready for some time, but the hope of the arrival of a slave caravan which is daily expected, had made me delay its dispatch, in order to be able to clear up some doubts from the testimony of these traders, whom I might have examined here with much more leisure and safety than I could do in their own country. The caravan however is not yet arrived, and as I wish this to reach you before the yearly meeting of the African Association, I send it off at present, reserving the additional remarks and notes for a future period. I am busy now in arranging my Arabian journals, which are more voluminous than the enclosed, because I found myself more at liberty, and much less observed at Mekka and Medina than I was in Soudan.

I am sorry to say that my hopes of departing from Cairo are not likely to be quickly realised. No Moggrebyn caravan has arrived, although the yearly epoch of its arrival in Egypt has long passed by. Almost out of patience myself, I am little able to intreat my employers not to lose theirs; but if my former labours have convinced them that I am averse from trusting my hopes to the chances of rash and ill-prepared measures they will also (I hope) have experienced that I am not likely to give up projects to which I have once pledged myself. My success must be the fruit of patience and caution, and I should be wanting in duty both to my employers and myself, as well as in the gratitude which I owe to providence for having hitherto bestowed success upon my patience, if I were now to lose it. I am far from feeling myself comfortable in Egypt, and every private motive engages me to wish for a speedy departure from this country.

Tousoun Pasha, left by his father Aly as governor of Arabia, concluded, in June, 1815, a treaty of peace with the Wahabi. The possession of the whole desert and the far greater part of the Bedouin tribes were given up to them, while the holy cities with their territories were acknowledged as dependencies of the Sultan. The Wahabi promised to put no obstacles in the way of the great pilgrim caravans. But it is contrary to the politics of Mohammed Aly to quell that war entirely, for he knows that as long as Arabia is in an unsettled state, and Mekka in danger, he becomes necessary to the Mussulman world in his governorship of Egypt, of which he might possibly be soon deprived if the Hedjaz was quiet; he has therefore refused to ratify the treaty, and his younger son, Ibrahim Pasha, is now proceeding to Arabia with a new armament of troops. The expenses of the war are covered by the income of Djidda and the great profits accruing to the Pasha from his monopolies in the trade of the Arabian coast. A lucky chance has put me in possession of very interesting papers concerning this Wahabi war, which together with the information I collected in the Hedjaz, will enable me to throw considerable light upon the whole Wahabi sect and their affairs.

For three successive years the plague has raged at Cairo, and great apprehensions are entertained of its return this spring. If it be so I shall neither imitate my Mussulman neighbours in taking no precaution whatever against its attacks, nor the Greeks and Franks who shut themselves up for three or four months in their houses as close prisoners; but I shall leave the infected borders of the Nile, and seek for refuge among the Bedouins. As I have at present completely recovered my health, which I principally ascribe to an excursion through the Delta, after my visit to Alexandria, I do not despair, provided my health keeps pace with my spirits for the next three or four years, to bring my labours to a successful completion.

I send this with a messenger to Alexandria, from whence it will be forwarded by Col. Missett. It has been my peculiar good fortune to have met in Syria and in Egypt with such men as Mr. Barker and Col. Missett. The latter is now on the point of retiring from office, for his infirmities increase rapidly, and the climate of Egypt is little calculated to remove them. His public and private virtues are such as will ever make him regretted by the Europeans of this country, whose zealous protector he has often been, in most trying circumstances, and to many a kind benefactor. I have known few men who treat and know Turks so well as he does. His rigid integrity, his accuracy in business, and his inflexible firmness, are the only checks which Mohammed Aly has experienced in his relations with European governments, for the other Consuls are under such great obligations to him that they never dare uphold their nation’s interests when they are in opposition to those of the Pasha. Nevertheless, the urbanity and generosity of the Colonel’s character conciliated the friendship of all the Turks who were known to him, and he departs sincerely regretted both by Egyptians and Europeans, but particularly by myself, who have always experienced from him the most friendly solicitude.

_Cairo, 18th April,_ 1816.

I depart the day after to morrow for Mount Sinai. The plague has declared itself in this town, and all the Franks are shut up. I should not like to imitate them, and still less to expose myself to the infection. As the disorder is likely to spread among the villages on the Nile, I have thought that I could not do better than retire while it lasts to the Bedouins, who among their many advantages over the settled Arabs, enjoy a total exemption from the plague. I shall endeavour to push on as far as Akaba, and trace the direction of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, which, as far as I know, has never been seen by European travellers.

In the following letter Mr. Burckhardt furnishes the Association with a short account of the result of his journey in the peninsula of Mount Sinai.

_Cairo, 1st July,_ 1816.