拍品專文
The inscription suggests the drawing might date to or soon after Burton's pilgrimage to the forbidden cities of Medina and Mecca in 1853. En route, Burton decided on his final disguise: 'At Cairo I went to a Caravanserei. Here I became a Pathán. I was born in India of Afghan parents, who had settled there, and I was educated at Rangoon, and sent out, as it often the custom, to wander. I knew all the languages that I required to pass me, Persian, Hindostani, and Arabic. It is customary at the shop, on the Camel, in the Mosque, to ask, 'What is thy name? Whence comest thou?' and you must be prepared.' (I. Burton, The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, London, 1893, I, p. 171). The above passage was taken, according to his wife, from his private journals and echoes Burton's published account of the assumption of the rôle of a Pathán in Cairo: 'To support the character requires a knowledge of Persian, Hindustani and Arabic, all of which I knew sufficiently well to pass muster ... this was an important step; the first question at the shop, on the camel, and in the Mosque, is 'What is thy name?'' (R.F. Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, London, 1893 (Memorial Edition), I, p. 45)
He had been granted just one year's leave by the Hon. East India Company in 1853 'to pursue his Arabic studies' and the lack of time forced him to abandon his original plan to cross the unknown Arabian Peninsula, still a 'huge white blob' on maps of the time, and concentrate instead on studying the 'inner life of the Moslem' on the pilgrimage.
'To accomplish a journey to Mecca and Medinah quite safely in those days (1853) was almost an impossibility for the discovery that he was not a Mussulman would have been avenged by a hundred Khanjars. It meant living with his life in his hand, and amongst the strangest and wildest companions, adopting their unfamiliar manners, and living for perhaps nine months in the hottest and most unhealthy climate... the brain at high tension, never to depart from the rôle he had adopted.
He obtained a year's leave on purpose, and left London as a Persian, for, during the time, he had to assume and sustain several Oriental characters'. (I. Burton, op.cit., p. 169).
Leaving London as a Persian Mirza, he changed his identity at Alexandria to a wandering Dervish, becoming 'Shaykh' Abdullah, then, on an Egyptian acquaintance's advice at Cairo, forsook his Persian ancestry for the Pathán, an Indian of Afghan parentage, becoming finally the pilgrim or 'Haji' Abdullah.
Burton had added Persian and Arabic to his formidable store of languages and dialects in India in the 1840's. At this time in India he had first adopted foreign attire, being allowed to wear the Janco (Brahminical Thread) by his teacher in Hinduism and deliberately disguising himself as a half-Arab-half-Iranian when he undertook the Sind survey in 1844. Known in India by his fellow officers as the 'white Nigger', he found the disguise the only means to accomplish the survey, helping him to transcend the usual estrangement he perceived of whites from their subjects in India.
On his pilgrimage, this disguise of old became an absolute necessity and had to extend to a command of the minutiae of Muslim life and habits. Remarkably, his disguise succeeded, in spite of numerous close calls. Sketching and note-taking, both of which would have given him away as an impostor, were continued surreptitiously.
Soon after his return from Arabia to Bombay, Burton won patronage for another 'pilgrimage', this time to Harar, the religious capital of Somlaliland and as inviolate a city to the infidel as Mecca and Medina. He started off again in disguise, this time as a Moslem merchant, but, in fear of being suspected a hated Turk, threw off the disguise before entering the city.
The present drawing, showing Burton in his disguise and sporting his impressive moustache (he was nicknamed 'Abú Shuwárib', meaning 'Father of Moustachios', by a Bedouin on the pilgrimage), has the added conceit of a top hat. Perhaps added by Burton himself or perhaps by Isabel, it points to his hidden identity and so offers a retort to the cryptic inscription.
He had been granted just one year's leave by the Hon. East India Company in 1853 'to pursue his Arabic studies' and the lack of time forced him to abandon his original plan to cross the unknown Arabian Peninsula, still a 'huge white blob' on maps of the time, and concentrate instead on studying the 'inner life of the Moslem' on the pilgrimage.
'To accomplish a journey to Mecca and Medinah quite safely in those days (1853) was almost an impossibility for the discovery that he was not a Mussulman would have been avenged by a hundred Khanjars. It meant living with his life in his hand, and amongst the strangest and wildest companions, adopting their unfamiliar manners, and living for perhaps nine months in the hottest and most unhealthy climate... the brain at high tension, never to depart from the rôle he had adopted.
He obtained a year's leave on purpose, and left London as a Persian, for, during the time, he had to assume and sustain several Oriental characters'. (I. Burton, op.cit., p. 169).
Leaving London as a Persian Mirza, he changed his identity at Alexandria to a wandering Dervish, becoming 'Shaykh' Abdullah, then, on an Egyptian acquaintance's advice at Cairo, forsook his Persian ancestry for the Pathán, an Indian of Afghan parentage, becoming finally the pilgrim or 'Haji' Abdullah.
Burton had added Persian and Arabic to his formidable store of languages and dialects in India in the 1840's. At this time in India he had first adopted foreign attire, being allowed to wear the Janco (Brahminical Thread) by his teacher in Hinduism and deliberately disguising himself as a half-Arab-half-Iranian when he undertook the Sind survey in 1844. Known in India by his fellow officers as the 'white Nigger', he found the disguise the only means to accomplish the survey, helping him to transcend the usual estrangement he perceived of whites from their subjects in India.
On his pilgrimage, this disguise of old became an absolute necessity and had to extend to a command of the minutiae of Muslim life and habits. Remarkably, his disguise succeeded, in spite of numerous close calls. Sketching and note-taking, both of which would have given him away as an impostor, were continued surreptitiously.
Soon after his return from Arabia to Bombay, Burton won patronage for another 'pilgrimage', this time to Harar, the religious capital of Somlaliland and as inviolate a city to the infidel as Mecca and Medina. He started off again in disguise, this time as a Moslem merchant, but, in fear of being suspected a hated Turk, threw off the disguise before entering the city.
The present drawing, showing Burton in his disguise and sporting his impressive moustache (he was nicknamed 'Abú Shuwárib', meaning 'Father of Moustachios', by a Bedouin on the pilgrimage), has the added conceit of a top hat. Perhaps added by Burton himself or perhaps by Isabel, it points to his hidden identity and so offers a retort to the cryptic inscription.