Sir Richard Burton--master explorer, linguist, and scholar. He is known as the man who brought the Arabian Nights to the English speaking world, and is credited with being partially responsible for the discovery of the source of the Nile. He infiltrated the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca, disguised as an Arab.
So what prompted him to go to Salt Lake City? Burton was at a very difficult stage of his life, and needed a sort of vacation. Plus, according to him, he wanted to "see the Mormons." Some say he was interested in seeing their system of polygamy firsthand, some that he loved to visit sacred cities (having been to Mecca, Medina, Harar, and Damascus). Whatever the reason, he fortunately documented his trip, and we are left with this wonderful look, from an outsider, at "The City of the Saints."
One of the things that makes Burton so great is his absolute objectivity. His account of his visit among the Mormons is no exception. He went, he saw the facts, and he formed his opinions, just as everyone else. What set him apart, though, was that he managed to recount his adventure without the taint of his own bias.
Another great quality of Burton's was his incomparable eye for detail. He noticed everything, and took great pains to discover the history of everything he encountered. The result is a wonderfully rich account full of history and culture that Burton gives us as no other man could.
This is considered to be one of Burton's best books, though it is little known. It is by far the best non-Mormon account of early Salt Lake City that I've ever encountered. Its only flaw is that it is a little drawn out in places, but for the most part, this is a wonderfully detailed account and well worth the read.

What could be better than Victorian travel literature by Richard F. Burton. Not much. Burton is no slouch when it comes to travel, he takes the hard routes across his continents not the comfy ones that his fellows take and so he sees more and is better able to put the "normal" English experience of India into a wider context. Burton is never given the tasks or assignments he had hoped to get so he sets himself the task, out of mere boredom perhaps, of categorically describing India, its geography, ethnography, religions. He describes India in all manner of ways of describing a place including history of its cities and Goa's history is quite ripe with meaning for Burton as it tells the story of why the Portugese empire fell..., a tale which Burton feels has a lesson for the English. That he was an expert linguist helps and that he had an appetite, insatiable apparently, for all kinds of experience makes his book a kind of interdisciplinary collection of datas, some more significant than others but the effect is that he experienced a place in every way imaginable. He was romantic in that he was not suited to live within anyones boundaries but his own(he was expelled from Oxford), and scholarly, but his was a kind of scholarship that tested existing knowledge of India in the field. Perhaps a growing disillusion with England & what it really was to be English made him particularly susceptible to other knowledges and ways of being. He learned an immense amount about the lives of various natives by blending in and acting as one of them but he did this much as a spy does this, as a means of gaining information, not as an end in itself. He was perfectly suited to be a spy. Properly used someone like Burton would have been an invaluable source of information as to what actual Indians thought. If there were more like him the empire would have better understood the country it was ruling over and so more effectively ruled it, however, most Englishman felt it best to erect and enforce an invisible boundary between himself and the cultures of India. And Burton, who often dressed according to local custom even in his English quarters, was not popular among his peers nor was his information ever taken very seriously. His commanding officers simply were unable to see the value in his ability to play so many roles and so were unable to give him a role worthy of him to play. Among his narrow minded fellow officers he became his own man, a self-styled cultural anthropologist with a minor disciplinary interest in ethnographic mimicry who filled volumes with his very rare and particular talents for cross-cultural interaction and observation.
Like many travel narratives the highlights are in the little details(uncomfortable transports, unfriendly hosts) and side stories. No detail is ever lost on Burton and in matters of stories what counts most is the personality of their teller. There is none better than Burton.

Note: I am resubmitting this review so it will not be anonymous...

One must come to Burton's "Wanderings in West Africa" with the understanding that there are not a lot of primary (first-hand) sources of information about Atlantic coast Africa in the 19th century. Furthermore, the majority of books about Africa of this era (mostly by explorers and missionaries; few or none by Africans) are long out of print and can only be accessed in mjor libraries. Given that, Burton's work is a valuable and readable account of a voyage along Africa's West Coast, as far south as Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea). (We should be thankful for the publisher.) His text is direct and readable. The account is chronological, port by port. Burton describes the the places and people and whatever catches his interest. His opinion is always present. Burton goes into many details--trade, early colonial administration, rulers, languages, etc.--and it is unlikely that any one reader would be interested in all of it, but most students of African history are likely to find something of interest. There is no index. It should be noted that Burton has plenty of scorn and disdain for many of the Africans he encounters (as well as for many Europeans); this is typical for Burton, but may upset a reader who is new to this writer.

Many of the names (of places, tribes, etc.) are antiquated so a good reference book is a help.

Overall this is not Burton's best book, but it does have a place along with his other books on Africa ("First Footsteps in East Africa", "The Lake Regions of Central Africa") and it adds something of value to the reputation of the great writer, explorer, traveler, and translator who produced "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Mecca" and "The Arabian Nights".

One must come to Burton's "Wanderings in West Africa" with the understanding that there are not a lot of primary (first-hand) sources of information about Atlantic coast Africa in the 19th century. Furthermore, the majority of books about Africa of this era (mostly by explorers and missionaries; few or none by Africans) are long out of print and can only be accessed in mjor libraries. Given that, Burton's work is a valuable and readable account of a voyage along Africa's West Coast, as far south as Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea). (We should be thankful for the publisher.) His text is direct and readable. The account is chronological, port by port. Burton describes the the places and people and whatever catches his interest. His opinion is always present. Burton goes into many details--trade, early colonial administration, rulers, languages, etc.--and it is unlikely that any one reader would be interested in all of it, but most students of African history are likely to find something of interest. There is no index.

It should be noted that Burton has plenty of scorn and disdain for many of the Africans he encounters (as well as for many Europeans); this is typical for Burton, but may upset a reader who is new to this writer.

Many of the names (of places, tribes, etc.) are antiquated so a good reference book is a help.

Overall this is not Burton's best book, but it does have a place along with his other books on Africa ("First Footsteps in East Africa", "The Lake Regions of Central Africa") and it adds something of value to the reputation of the great writer, explorer, traveler, and translator who produced "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Mecca" and "The Arabian Nights".

I disliked this book. The author travels to Sindh and revists the places visited by Sir Richard F. Burton, and then writes about his observations. I have 2 problems with this book..

One is that the authors obsession with prostitution and homosexuality distorts his views of this great land. Secondly, his views are clouded by his sources which are all feudal in nature. One cannot experience Sindh without looking at the lives of the everyday people. I for one wasn't impressed by the fact that the authors hosts in Sindh were the biggest criminals and landlords of the province.

Finally, it is silly for the author to keep pointing out that Burton was well known for his controversial report about homosexuality in Karachii. We got that the first time he mentions it.

While rifling through her stack of borrowed library books, during my brief visit to Sarnia earlier this month, one book stood out and beckoned me to read it. Written by one of our very own (i.e Canadian), Christopher Ondaatje, not to be confused with his brother of "The English Patient" fame, "Sindh Revisited" is what its subtitle speaks of: "A Journey in the Footsteps of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton."

Though Burton, the 19th century adventurer, too, went looking for the source of the Nile, it was Burton's own account of his experiences covering the western seaboard of India, between 1842 - 1849, which became the basis of Ondaatje's quest to mirror a similar trek. Ondaatje is a devout admirer of Burton having read all that has been written about him as well as Burton's own accounts. To capture the true essence of his journey, and grasp the geo-social nuances of India's diversity, Ondaatje persuaded Haroon Siddiqi, editor emeritus of "The Toronto Star", to accompany him on his travels. Siddiqi turns out to be an able guide, interpreter and sometimes an effective interlocutor.

Burton served as a military officer, sometimes surveyor, with the British East India Company (BEIC). He was an accomplished linguist who spoke a number of Indian languages and dialects. rumor had it that he was in reality a spy dispatched to areas still under native control but which were coveted by the BEIC. He openly cohabited with local gals to the great consternation of fellow officers. On many of his trips he easily merged into the local scene, in dress, food, habits, gestures and of course the lingo.

Though the book is titled "Sindh Revisited", a title similar to that of Burton's book, it is in reality a much more extensive a journey which encompasses Mysore, Goa, Bombay, Baroda, Karachi and some other places of great fascination. Ondaatje gives us descriptive glimpses of what life may have been like during Burton's time and as he would have seen and experienced it, comparing it to present day life in each of these places. He captures the life of some of today's Maharajas (e.g Gaekwar of Baroda) and their painful readjustment into civilian life, a far cry from absolute rulership enjoyed by their fathers or grandfathers. There is a riveting account of a 'mujra' evening in a well-known district of Karachi. Burton fell from General Napier's grace with his reports giving lurid written accounts of boy brothels in Karachi.

Christopher Ondaatje was born in Ceylon, recieving his schooling and began his career in England, and emigrated to Canada in 1956. In 1967 he founded Pagurian Press. He was a member of Canada's Olympic bobsled team that brought back Camada's only gold medal from the 1964 Olympics. He is the author of The Prime Ministers of Canada, Olympic Victory, Leopard in the Afternoon and The Man Eater of Punanai.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to one and all.

Bhupinder

Thank goodness this book is out of print. It is at best a biographical novel and at worst a children's book. Hopefully it will remain out of print for many many years. Anyone want to buy my copy?

For the first time in my readership of Burton, the author avoids criticizing, belittling or scorning his travel companions, largely because his travel companions are little to the purpose.

Unfortunately, most of what Burton writes is little to the purpose. Like his other works, I expected this to be a knowledgeable travelogue and journal of discovery, but a discovery of what? Burton spends the first quarter of the book discussing Alexandria and Cairo before he gets underway (this last detail almost lost in the maze of other irrelevant observations). He names every sedimentary formation and every flower on his route, and then disputes or corrects every historical observation on Midian -- Biblical, Greek, Latin and Arab. When someone washes a handful of sand and exposes a tiny nugget of gold (presumably the intended core of this book), the detail itself appears as a small nugget amidst so much worthless sand.

From time to time, a promising anecdote or observation on a Biblical place or event raises clarity above the labyrinth, only to plunge again and at length.

Glutted with learning, too heavy for the non-scholarly reader, thick with observations of questionable relevance, and fraught with meaningless, private anecdotes, the book taxes the reader considerably. Use caution.