Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

IBEAST AFRICA 1856-57 After the exploration of Harar which had ended in disaster at Berbera in April 1855, Burton limping to the shore with a Somal javelin through his cheeks (his fellow officer Stroyan killed and Speke badly wounded), he returned to East Africa at the end of 1856, after a brief spell in the Crimea, to head an expedition to the Lake Regions of Central Africa: 'Reported home [from Crimea] as a 'brouillon' and turbulent, I again turned lovingly towards Africa - Central and Intertropical - and on April 19, 1856, I resolved to renew my original design of reaching the unknown regions, and of striking the Nile-sources viâ the Eastern Coast. For long ages, I knew, explorers had been working, literally, as well as figuratively, against the Stream; and as the ancients had succeeded by a flank march, so the same might be done by us moderns.' (R.F. Burton, Zanzibar, City, Island, and Coast, London, 1872, I, p. 5). Granted funds by the Foreign Office, approval by the Royal Geographical Society and with two years' leave with fully pay from the East India Company, Burton arrived at Zanzibar on the sloop-of-war Elphinstone with his young companion, Lieut. John Hanning Speke, on December 19, 1856. Before embarking on the expedition proper inland, they took a coasting voyage north from January 5 to March 6, 1857 with forays inland to season themselves for the journey ahead. The following nine lots illustrate this 'preliminary canter' up to Mombasa and to the hills of Usumbara and the Pangany river. The trip ended with the party laid low back at Zanzibar with fever, delaying their start inland for three more months. Burton's manuscript for Zanzibar, City, Island, and Coast, two volumes on the subject of Zanzibar and the coasting voyage, was sent to the Royal Geographical Society in 1857 but went missing and was only returned to him in 1871, thus delaying its publication until 1872. Eight of the following drawings were engraved in this publication which James Casada rates 'among the most important of his African-related studies' (J.A. Casada, Sir Richard F. Burton, A Biobibliographical Study, London, 1990, p. 54). Further accounts by Burton of Zanzibar and the coasting voyage were published in 1858 in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (XXVIII) and in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (LXXXIII). Burton's account of the momentous expedition inland which followed, including the discoveries of Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria and culminating in the fatal Burton-Speke controversy, was published in 1860 (The Lake Regions of Central Africa, A Picture of Exploration)

Details

Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

Fort of Shakshak in Pemba Island

signed with monogram 'RFB' and inscribed as title, pen and ink
6 1/16 x 5in. (15.5 x 12.7cm.)

Engraved

R.F. Burton, Zanzibar, II, opposite p. 16

Lot Essay

'About 9 A.M. (January 10) we sighted for the first time Pemba, the Emerald Isle of these Eastern Seas...In A.D. 1698 the bold buccaneer Captain Kidd here buried his blood-stained hoards of gold and jewels, the plunder of India and of the further Orient...The complicated entrance to Chak-Chak, or Shak-Shak as the Arabs call it, the chief port, fort and town, has that silent, monotonous, melancholy beauty, the loveliness of death, which belongs to the creeks and rivers of those regions...on a wooded eminence rose the white walls and the tall tower of Fort Chak-Chak standing boldly out from its dark green background' (Zanzibar, II, pp. 6-8)

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