BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig.

Travels in Nubia; by the late John Lewis Burckhardt. Published by the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa.

London, John Murray, 1819. Large 4to, pp. [vi], xcii, 543, with a portrait-frontispiece and three maps (two folding); light dampstain in corner of first few leaves, frontispiece and maps slightly spotted; contemporary calf; slightly rubbed, rebacked to style; from the library of the naval officer and politician George Keith Elphinstone, Viscount Keith (see Oxford DNB), with his armorial bookplate. First edition, published posthumously. Having made his way to Cairo from Aleppo in 1812, ‘Burckhardt’s main object was to join a caravan to Fezzan, whence he intended to explore the sources of the Niger. He changed his disguise to that of a Syrian and, on occasion, that of a Turk looking for a missing relative. While waiting for a caravan he made an expedition up the Nile to see the monuments of ancient Egypt, which were then for the first time being revealed to Europeans. He started in January 1813, and before he returned to Aswan at the end of March he had explored the Nile valley as far as Mahas on the northern frontier of the province of Dongola. Being still delayed in his project of discovering the Niger sources by the unrest in the deserts, he made a lengthy stay at Esna, and then, in March 1814, succeeded in making his way through the desert by Berber and Shendi into Abyssinia, coming out at Suakin on 20 July. Thence he crossed over to Jiddah . . . . Burckhardt possessed the best qualifications for a traveller. He prepared meticulously for his voyages, obeying his maxim “Eile mit Weile” (“more haste less speed”), even when this made it seem to contemporaries that he was slow and hesitant. Daring and yet prudent, a close and accurate observer with an intimate knowledge of the manners and language of the people among whom he travelled, he was able to accomplish feats of exploration which to others would have been impossible. He was zealous in his work, disinterested, generous and open-handed, an affectionate son and brother, and a staunch friend . . . . His journals, which were written with remarkable spirit in spite of the fact that he began to learn English only at the age of twenty-five, and that he had to jot down his observations secretly under his cloak or behind a camel for fear of exciting suspicion among his Arab guides and companions, were published after his death by the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa’ (Oxford DNB). The appendices include an itinerary and vocabularies of the Borgo and Bornou languages.Ibrahim-Hilmy I p. 105.

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