30 Journal of Mr. Burckhardt's 



at Malta, and it was during his short stay here, while the island 

 was under the government of Sir Alexander Ball, that he first 

 adopted the Mohammedan costume, and suffered his beard to 

 grow ; while, in the barbarous dialect of the Maltese, he made 

 his first steps towards the acquisition of the Arabic language. 



From hence he sailed to Cyprus and Laodicea, and went by 

 Antioch and the Orontes to Aleppo. He resided here in his 

 own lodgings in a Mohammedan part of the town, but made 

 little scruple of mixing with the Europeans, though he never 

 omitted the ^duties of the Mohammedan religion, and always re- 

 tained the Mohammedan costume. 



During a stay of two or three years here, he applied himself 

 with great assiduity to the study of the Arabic language, in 

 which he made a proficiency that surprised all who witnessed it. 

 He made from hence also occasional excursions among the Arabs 

 of the Desert, visited Palmyra, and most of the principal ruins 

 of antiquity in Syria, and after passing through the Hauran, and 

 the countries east of the Jordan, and the borders of the Dead 

 Sea, he came from thence to Cairo by the Desert of Suez. 



In Egypt, as in Syria, he was visited both by Turks and 

 Christians ; and while he mixed freely with both, without seem- 

 ing to study the concealment of any thing from either, his talents 

 and his virtues were such as to command universal respect and 

 esteem. 



From Cairo he proceeded into Upper Egypt and Nubia, and 

 was met there by Mr. Legh, who has written a Journal of his 

 Voyage above the Cataracts, and who makes mention of him 

 therein. This was in the spring of 1813 ; and in the autumn of 

 the same year, Mr. Burckhardt was still in Upper Egypt, waiting 

 at the town of Esneh on the Nile, for an opportunity to penetrate 

 by land into the higher parts of Nubia, towards Abyssinia and 

 the shores of the Red Sea. 



The notices that we possess of the subsequent movements of 

 this distinguished traveller are contained in a Journal kept on 

 the Nile, and afterwards on the Red Sea, in both of which places 

 he was met by the writer of it ; and though the form and style of 

 ajournal, written while all the impressions it records are yet 



