Burton's best-known achievements include travelling alone and in disguise to Mecca, translating The Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra and journeying with John Hanning Speke to discover the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. He was a prolific author writing numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including travel, fencing and ethnography.

He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, the Crimea). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa. In later life he served as British consulate general in Fernando Po, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded the KCMG in 1886.

Chronology
1821 Born in Torquay, Devon, United Kingdom.
1826 – 1839 Burton family travelled through Europe, spending time in France and Italy.
1840 Enrolled in Trinity College, Oxford.
1842 Expelled from Oxford and joined the army.
1842 – 1849 Serves in the army in India.
1851 Met Isabel Burton (then Isabel Arundel), his future wife. Published first book.
1853 Travelled to Mecca and Medina disguised as a pilgrim.
1854 Met John Hanning Speke.
1855 Burton and Speke attacked and wounded while exploring Berbera.
1856 Burton served in the army at Crimea and becomes engaged to Isabel Arundel.
1858 Burton and Speke explored the Central African lakes and located Lake Tanganyika (a side expedition by Speke located Lake Victoria).
1861 Married Isabel Burton and became consul to Fernando Po.
1869 Appointed consul to Damascus.
1873 Appointed consul to Trieste.
1883 Translated the Kama Sutra with Frederick Foster Arbuthnot.
1884 Translated The Arabian Nights.
1886 Awarded KCMG (Knight Commander of St Michael and St George).
1890 Died of a heart attack in Trieste on October 19th.

Early life and education (1821 – 1841)
Burton was born in Torquay, Devon at 9:30pm on March 19th 1821 (though he claimed in his autobiography to have been born in the family home at Barham House in Hertfordshire, this is an error). His father was Captain Joey Burton, a half-Irish officer in the British army and his mother was Martha Baker an heiress of a wealthy Hertfordshire squire. He had two siblings, Maria Katherine Elizabeth Burton and Edward Joseph Burton.

When Burton was young the family moved a lot, travelling to Tours, France in 1825 and moving around England, France and Italy for the next few years. Burton was educated by various tutors employed by the family. He showed an early gift for languages and quickly learned French, Italian and Latin. It may have been this early travelling which made Burton consider himself an outsider for much of his life.

He entered Trinity College, Oxford in autumn 1840, but despite his intelligence and ability he did not fit in well there. In his first term he is said to have challenged another student to a duel when the student mocked Burton's moustache. Burton studied languages including Arabic and in addition spent his time learning falconry and fencing. In 1842 he attended a steeplechase (a deliberate violation of the college rules). Then, to cause further provocation, he argued with the college authorities that students should be allowed to attend such events. He hoped to be merely "rusticated", that is, suspended with the possibility of reinstatement; instead he was "sent down", or permanently expelled (other students who had attended the steeplechase escaped with the milder punishment, having not argued).

Army career (1842 – 1853)
In his own words "fit for nothing but to be shot at for six pence a day" (see [1] page 93), Burton enlisted in the army of the East India Company. He hoped to fight in the first Afghan war but the conflict was over before he arrived in India. He was posted to the 18th Bombay Native Infantry based in Gujarat and under the command of General Sir Charles James Napier. While in India he gained astonishingly rapid proficiency in Hindustani, Gujarati and Marathi as well as Persian and Arabic. At this point, his studies of Hindu culture had progressed to such an extent that "my Hindu teacher officially allowed me to wear the Janeu (Brahmanical Thread)" ([2], vol 1, page 123) although it has been questioned if this was really true since this would usually have required long study, fasting and a partial shaving of the head. Burton's interest (and active participation) in the cultures and religions of India was considered peculiar by some of his fellow soldiers who accused him of "going native" and called him "the White Nigger".

He was appointed to the Sindh survey, where he learned to use the measuring equipment which would later be useful in his career as an explorer. At this time he began to travel in disguise. He adopted the alias of Mirza Abdullah and often fooled natives and fellow officers into failing to recognise him. It was at this point that he began to work as an agent for Napier and, although details of exactly what this work entailed are not known, it is known that he participated in an undercover investigation of a brothel said to be frequented by English soliders where the prostitutes were young boys. His life-long interest in sexual practices led him to produce a detailed report which was later to cause trouble for Burton when subsequent readers of the report (which Burton had been assured would be kept secret) came to believe that Burton had, himself, participated in some of the practices described in the report.

In March 1849 he returned to Europe on sick leave. In 1850 he wrote his first book Goa and the Blue Mountains a guide to the Goa region. He travelled to Boulogne to visit the fencing school there and it was there where he first encoutered his future wife Isabel Arundel, a young Catholic woman from a good family.

First explorations and journey to Mecca (1851 – 1853)
Burton in Arabic dressHis wanderings in Sind were the apprenticeship for his Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca and, in this case, Medina), and his seven years in India laid the foundations of his unparalleled familiarity with Eastern life and customs, especially among the lower classes. He gained permission from the Board of Directors of the East India Company to explore Arabia. It was this journey, undertaken in 1853 which first made Burton famous. He had planned it whilst travelling disguised among the Muslims of Sind, and had laboriously prepared for the ordeal by study and practice (including being circumcised so as to further lower the risk of being discovered). No doubt the primary motive was the love of adventure, which was his strongest passion, but it was an explorer's passion, and Burton's journey was approved by the Royal Geographical Society. Although he intended to travel further, the area was at war, and his journey went no further than Medina and Mecca.

Although Burton was not the first non-Muslim European to make the Hajj (that honor belonging to Ludovico di Barthema in 1503), his pilgrimage is the most famous and the best documented. He adopted various disguises including that of a Pathan (modern Pashtun) to account for any oddities in speech, but he still had to demonstrate an understanding of intricate Islamic ritual, and a familiarity with the minutiae of Eastern manners and etiquette. Burton's trek to Mecca was quite dangerous and his caravan was attacked by bandits (a common experience at the time). As he put it, although "...neither Koran or Sultan enjoin the death of Jew or Christian intruding within the columns that note the sanctuary limits, nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared himself an unbeliever." ([4] p. 30) He was the first Englishman to take the trip which entitled him to the title of Hajji and to wear a green turban. The journey is recounted in Burton's narrative The Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah (1855).

As the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica put it, "Its vivid descriptions, pungent style, and intensely personal 'note' distinguish it from books of its class; its insight into Semitic modes of thought and its picture of Arab manners give it the value of an historical document; its grim humour, keen observation and reckless insobriety of opinion; expressed in a peculiar, uncouth but vigorous language make it a curiosity of literature."

Early explorations (1854 – 1855)
In March 1854 he was transferred to the political department of the East India Company and it was in September of this year that he first met Captain (then Lieutenant) John Hanning Speke who would accompany him on his most famous exploration. His next journey was to explore the interior of the Somali Country (modern Somalia), as British authorities wanted to protect the Red Sea trade. Burton undertook the first part of the trip alone, a journey to Harar, the Somali capital, which no European had entered (indeed there was a prophecy that the city would decline if a Christian was admitted inside). The expedition lasted four months. Burton not only travelled to Harar but was introduced to the Emir and stayed in the city for ten days. The journey back was plagued by lack of supplies and Burton wrote that he would have died of thirst had he not seen desert birds and realised they would be near water.

Following this adventure he set out again accompanied by Lieutenant Speke, Lieutenant G. E. Herne and Lieutenant William Stroyan as well as a number of Africans employed as bearers. However, early on in the expedition, his party was attacked by a group of Somali tribesmen (the officers estimated the number of attackers as two hundred). In the ensuing fight, Stroyan was killed and Speke was captured and wounded in eleven places before he managed to escape. Burton had a javelin thrust through his jaws, with the point entering one cheek and exiting the other. He was forced to make his escape with the weapon still transfixing his head. His book First Footsteps in East Africa (1856), describing these adventures, is considered one of his most exciting and most characteristic books, full of learning, observation and humour. However, the failure of this expedition was viewed harshly by the authorities and a two year investigation was set up to determine to what extent Burton was culpable for this disaster. While he was largely cleared of any blame, needless to say, this did not help his career.

In 1855 Burton rejoined the army but, despite his hopes, did not see active service in the Crimean War. He served on the staff of Beatson's Horse a corps of Bashi-bazouks, local fighters under the command of General Beatson, in the Dardanelles. The corps was disbanded following a "mutiny" after they refused to obey orders and Burton's name was mentioned (to his detriment) in the subsequent inquiry.

Exploring the lakes of central Africa (1856 – 1860)
In 1856 Burton proposed another expedition which was funded by the Royal Geographical Society. In this case he was to set off from Zanzibar and explore an "inland sea" which was known to exist. His mission was to study local tribes and to find out what exports might be possible from the region. It was also considered that the expedition might lead to the discovery of the source of the River Nile though this was not an explicit aim of the expedition (Burton had been told that only a fool would say that his expedition aimed to find the source of the Nile because then anything short would be regarded as a failure).

Before leaving for Africa, Burton proposed to Isabel Arundel and they became engaged in secret since her family would never accept the marriage since Burton was not a Catholic and was not wealthy.

He was again accompanied by Speke and together they set out from the east coast of Africa, heading west in search of the lake or lakes. They were helped greatly by their experienced local guide Sidi Mubarak (also known as "Bombay") who was familiar with some of the customs and languages of the region. The outward journey was beset with problems from the start with problems recruiting reliable bearers and with equipment and supplies being stolen by deserting members of the expedition. Both men were beset by a variety of tropical diseases on the journey. Speke was rendered blind for some of the journey and deaf in one ear (due to an infection caused by attempts to remove a beetle).

Burton was unable to walk for some of the journey and had to be carried by the bearers. The expedition arrived at Lake Tanganyika in February 1858 although by this point much of their measuring equipment was lost, ruined or stolen and they were unable to complete surveys of the area as well as they would like. Burton was ill and Speke continued exploring and eventually found the great Lake Victoria, or Victoria Nyanza. Lacking supplies and proper instruments (many of which had been lost or damaged on the journey) Speke was unable to survey the area properly.

The expedition was Burton's last great expedition but further expeditions into the region were made by Speke and James Augustus Grant, Sir Samuel Baker, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Both Burton and Speke were in extremely poor health after the journey and returned home separately. As usual Burton kept very detailed notes, not just on the geography but also on the languages, customs and even sexual habits of the people he encountered. His geographical and cultural notes were to prove invaluable for subsequent explorations.

Burton and Speke
Burton and Speke's exploration to Tamganyika and Victoria was, arguably, his most celebrated journey but what followed was a bitter and prolonged public quarrel between the two men which certainly damaged Burton's reputation severely. From surviving letters it seems that Speke already distrusted and disliked Burton before the start of their second expedition. There are several reasons why they fell out. It seems obvious that the two men were very different in character with Speke being more in tune with the prevailing morality of Victorian England. There was obviously a great element of professional rivalry. Some biographers have suggested that friends of Speke (particularly Laurence Oliphant) stirred up trouble betweeen the two. It also seems that Speke resented Burton's position as expedition leader and claimed that this leadership was nominal only and that Burton was an invalid for most of the second expedition.

There was also an issue with debts run up by the expedition which were left unpaid when they left Africa with Speke claiming Burton had sole responsibility for these debts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there was the issue of the source of the Nile, perhaps the greatest prize of its day to explorers. Speke undertook the expedition to Lake Victoria without Burton (who was incapacitated by several illnesses at the time) and we now know that the lake is the source of the Nile so long sought by explorers. However, at the time this was in extreme doubt and the fact that Speke's survey of the area was, by necessity, rudimentary did little to settle the issue. Burton (and indeed many eminent explorers such as Livingstone) were very skeptical that the lake was genuinely the source and said so.

After the expedition, the two men travelled home to England separately with Speke arriving in London first. Despite an agreement between them not to do so before they could both appear together, Speke gave a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in which he made the claim that his discovery, Lake Victoria, was the source of the Nile. When Burton arrived in London he found Speke being lionised as a hero and felt his own role had been reduced to that of sickly companion. Furthermore, Speke was organising other expeditions to the region and clearly had no plans to include Burton.

In the subsequent months, Speke did much to attempt to harm Burton's reputation even going so far as to claim that Burton had tried to poison him during the expedition. Meanwhile Burton spoke out agains Speke's claim to have discovered the source of the Nile, saying that the evidence was inconclusive and the measurements made by Speke were inaccurate. It is notable that in Speke's expedition with Grant he made Grant sign a statement saying, amongst other things, "I renounce all my rights to publishing... my own account [of the expedition] until approved of by Captain Speke or the R. G. S. (Royal Geographical Society)".

Speke and Grant undertook a second expedition to prove that Victoria was the true source of the Nile but again problems left the issues with surveying and measurement still unresolved to everyone's satisfaction. On the 16th September 1864 Burton and Speke were due to debate the issue of the source of the Nile in front of the Royal Geographical Society. By most accounts, Burton was the better public speaker and scholar and was likely to get the better of such a debate. However, that day, Speke died by of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Whether it was deliberate or a tragic accident remains unsettled.

Diplomatic service and scholarship (1861 – 1890)
In 1861 he formally entered the foreign service as consul at Fernando Po, the modern island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea, and later served in Santos, Damascus, and Trieste. He wrote books on all these locations. His sojourn in Santos led to a book on Brazilian highlanders, whereas his service in Damascus resulted in Unexplored Syria (1872). Consulate at Damascus would have seemed an ideal post, except that his quarrelsome nature led to a transfer to Trieste. At first bitterly disappointed with this appointment to the sedate Austrian territory, Burton came to enjoy the city and spent there the last 18 years of his life.

His numerous books of this period are filled with facts and sardonic asides aimed at his enemies, but had little popular success. As the Britannica put it, "Burton had not the charm of style or imagination which gives immortality to a book of travel."

In 1863 Burton co-founded the Anthropological Society of London with Dr. James Hunt. In Burton's own words, the main aim of the society (through the publication of the periodical Anthropologia) was "to supply travellers with an organ that would rescue their observations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print their curious information on social and sexual matters". On February 5, 1886 he was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) by Queen Victoria.

By far the most celebrated of all his books is his translation of the Arabian Nights, published under his title of The Thousand Nights and a Night in 16 volumes, (1885-1888). As a monument to his Arabic learning and his encyclopaedic knowledge of Eastern life this translation was his greatest achievement. His scholarship and translation have been criticized, but the work reveals a profound acquaintance with the vocabulary and customs of the Muslims, not only the classical idiom but the vulgar slang, not only their philosophy but their secret sexual lives as well. Burton's "anthropological notes", both earlier in India and in the Arabian Nights, were considered pornography at the time they were published. In particular, the Terminal Essay of the Nights was one of the first English language texts to dare address the practice of pederasty which he postulated was prevalent in an area of the southern latitudes named by him the "Sotadic zone." Rumors about his own sexuality were rife, and further incited by this work. One of the first actions taken by his wife upon his death was to destroy the completed manuscript of his autobiography.

His English translation from a French edition of the Arabic erotic guide The Perfumed Garden was published as The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology (London, 1886). But his manuscript of The Scented Garden a new version from Arabic, was burnt by his widow, Lady Isabel Burton née Arundel, because she believed it would be harmful to his reputation.

Other works of note included a collection of Hindu tales, Vikram and the Vampire (1870); and his uncompleted history of swordsmanship, The Book of the Sword (1884). He also translated The Lusiads, the Portuguese national epic by Luis de Camoens, in 1880 and wrote a sympathetic biography of the poet and adventurer the next year. The book The Jew, the Gipsy and el Islam was published posthumously in 1898 and was contraversial since it contained an essay about Jewish human sacrifices (Burton's investigations into this had provoked hostility from the Jewish population in Damascus).

Burton died early on the morning of the 20th October 1890 of a heart attack. His wife Isabel convinced a priest to perform the last rites although Burton was not a Catholic and this action caused a rift between Isabel and some of Burton's friends. It has been suggested that the death occurred very late on the 19th October and Burton was already dead by the time the last rites were administered.

His widow wrote a biography of her husband which is the record of a lifetime of devotion. Another monument is the grandiose Arab tent of stone and marble which she built for his tomb at Mortlake in southwest London. On the other hand, she burnt his 40-year collection of diaries and journals, fearful that public revelation of Burton's lifelong interest in bizarre sexual practices would lead to vicious rumours about his personal inclinations. In the words of the 1997 Britannca, "the loss to history and anthropology was monumental; the loss to Burton's biographers, irreparable".

Quotations
"He was, as has been well said, an Elizabethan born out of time; in the days of Drake his very faults might have counted to his credit." Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition.

"The man rivetted my attention. He was dark and forceful, and masterful, and ruthless. I have never seen so iron a countenance." Bram Stoker describing meeting Burton in 1879.

Writings of Richard Francis Burton
Burton was a prodigious writer. A partial list of his book publications follows.

Scinde or the Unhappy Valley (1851)
Sindh and the Races That Inhabit the Valley of the Indux (1851)
Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851)
Al-Medina and Meccah (1855)
First Footsteps in East Africa (1856)
Falconry in the Valley of the Indus (1857)
Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa (1860)
The City of the Saints (1861)
Wanderings in West Africa (1863)
Abeokuta and the Cameroons (1863)
A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomé (1864)
Wit and Wisdom From West Africa (1865)
The Highlands of Brazil (1869)
Letters From the Battlefields of Paraguay (1870)
Unexplored Syria (1872)
Zanzibar (1872)
Ultima Thule (1872)
Etruscan Bologna (1876)
Sindbar (1877)
The Land of Midian (1879)
The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi (1880)
To the Gold Coast for Gold (1883)
The Thousand Nights and a Night (1885-1888)
The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi (1886)
The Sentiment of the Sword: A Country-House Dialogue (Date ?)

As a fictional character

Fiction

Philip José Farmer, a science fiction author, featured Burton as one of several protagonists in his Riverworld Saga.
George MacDonald Fraser also featured Burton in his Flashman series of historical novels (usually referred to as "that rogue Burton".
John Dunning includes Burton in his detective fiction The Bookman's Promise (Scribner, 2004).
Ilija Trojanow, Der Weltensammler, a German-written novel from 2006, features Richard Burton.
Robert Doherty's Area 51 novels feature Burton as the discoverer of a secret alien race. The books include sections from Burton's writings.
Wilkie Collins's detective novel The Moonstone (1859) features a character, Mr. Murthwaite, apparently based on Burton. He is "the celebrated Indian traveller, Mr. Murthwaite, who, at risk of his life, had penetrated in disguise where no European had ever set foot before" (chapter X).

Film

Mountains of the Moon (1990) (starring Irish actor Patrick Bergin as Burton) related the story of the Burton-Speke exploration and the subsequent controversy over the source of the Nile.
Zero Patience (1993) reimagines Burton in a contemporary setting as a closeted gay man obsessed with researching the Patient Zero hypothesis of AIDS transmission.