BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS [JOHANN LUDWIG] (1784-1817)

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 809 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS [JOHANN LUDWIG] (1784-1817) , Swiss traveller and orientalist, was born at Lausanne on the 24th of November 1784. After studying at

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

and Gottingen he visited England in the summer of 18o6, carrying a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

of introduction from the naturalist Blumenbach to Sir Joseph Banks, who, with the other members of the African Association, accepted his offer to explore the interior of Africa. After studying in London and

Cambridge

, and inuring himself to all kinds of hardships and privations, Burckhardt left England in March 1809 for Malta, whence he proceeded, in the following autumn, to Aleppo. In order to obtain a better knowledge of oriental life he disguised himself as a Mussulman, and took the name of Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah. After two years passed in the Levant he had thoroughly mastered Arabic, and had acquired such accurate knowledge of the Koran, and of the commentaries upon its religion and laws, that after a

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

examination the most learned Mussulmans entertained no doubt of his being really what he professed to be, a learned doctorof their law. During his residence in Syria he visited Palmyra, Damascus, Lebanon and thence journeyed via

Petra

PETRA (r)

to Cairo with the intention of joining a caravan to Fezzan, and of exploring from there the sources of the Niger. In 1812, whilst waiting for the departure of the caravan, he travelled up the Nile as far as Dar Mahass; and then, finding it impossible to penetrate westward, he made a journey through the Nubian desert in the character of a poor Syrian merchant, passing by Berber and Shendi to Suakin, on the Red Sea, whence he performed the

pilgrimage

PILGRIMAGE (Fr. pelerinage, Lat. peregrinatio)

to Mecca by way of Jidda. At Mecca he stayed three months and afterwards visited Medina. After enduring privations and sufferings of the severest kind, he returned to Cairo in June 1815 in a state of great exhaustion; but in the

spring

SPRING (from " to spring," " to leap or jump up," " burst out," O. Eng., springau, a common Teut. word, cf. Ger. springer, possibly allied to Gr. QnrFpxecOac, to move rapidly)

of 1816 he travelled to

Mount

MOUNT, WILLIAM SIDNEY (1807-1868)

Sinai, whence he returned to Cairo in June, and there again made preparations for his intended journey to Fezzan. Several hindrances prevented his prosecuting this intention, and finally, in April 1817, when the long-expected caravan prepared to depart, he was seized with illness and died on the 15th of October. He had from time to time carefully transmitted to England his journals and notes, and a very copious

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of letters, so that nothing which appeared to him to be interesting in the various journeys he made has been lost. He bequeathed his collection of Boo vols. of oriental MSS. to the library of

Cambridge

University.
His works were published by the African Association in the following order:Travels in

Nubia

NUBIA

(to which is prefixed a biographical memoir) (1819) ; Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (1822) ; Travels in Arabia (1829) ; Arabic Proverbs, or the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1830) ; Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys (1831).

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