Sir Richard Francis Burton

Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue Entry

Sitter in 10 portraits
Traveller and linguist. Burton was accompanied by John Hanning Speke on his African expeditions to Somalia (1854-55) and search of the Nile's source (1856-59). He reached Lake Tanganyika in February 1858, but failed to join Speke on his first visit to Lake Victoria. Burton was dismayed on his return to Britain to find that Speke had already promoted his theory that Victoria rather than Tanganyika was the Nile's source. He set forth his position with The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860). Burton became famous for undertaking the holy pilgrimage to Mecca in 1853 which as a non-Muslim European, he did in various disguises. He later published A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah. Burton spent most of the rest of his life in consular posts from which he continued to travel. His many works include a translation of The Arabian Nights.