BUBCKHARDT. JOHN LEWIS. 



BURDETT, SIR FRANCIS. 



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west of Darfur, which Burckhardt collected in Egypt and Nubia, u 

 well M extract, from MakrUi and Ibn Batuta. 



From Jidda Ilurckl.ardt proceeded to Tayf, five daj' journey inland, 

 where ho found Mehemet Ali, who after having taken possession of 

 Mecca and all the Hrjai, waa preparing an expedition into the Nejd, 

 the country of the Wababees. The pashs, who had known Burckhardt 

 at Cairo, rewired him favoural iy, *nd he waa aUo fortunate iu obtain- 

 ing a lupply of money from the physician of Touaoun Pasha, Mehemet 

 Ali's son. 



Burckhardt next yiaited the city of Mecca, which till then bad been 

 forbidden ground to Europeans, and went through the whole of the 

 ceremonies in the character of a Mussulman pilgrim, without, aa he 

 beliered, having excited any suspicion aa to Us real character. He 

 apent three months at Mecca; and on the 25th of November 1814 

 perforoird the hadji or pilgrimage to Mount Arafat, iu the company of 

 more than 80,000 pilgrims from all part* of Islam. In January 1815 

 he visited Medina, a city of which still leas waa known in Europe 

 than of Mecca. He felt ill at Medina, and after some months, having 

 recovered sufficient strength, he went to Yeuibo, where he embarked 

 for Tor, in the peninsula of Sinai, and thence returned by Suez to 

 Cairo in June, after an absence of nearly two years and a half, of 

 which he had spent nine months in Arabia, 



The particulars of Burckhardt's Arabian journey, though from the 

 state of bis health less full and accurate, than from his ability and 

 well-known fidelity might have been anticipated, furnished the most 

 complete account of the Hejaa and its two holy cities Mecca and 

 Medina, till then transmitted to Europe. There had indeed been pub- 

 lished brief accounts of visits paid to the ' holy cities ' by Lodovico 

 Bartema, or Verteman, who, as a renegade Turkish soldier vi-.it. .! 

 Mecca anil Medina in 1 503, and by Joseph Potts of Exeter who obtained 

 admission into Medina about a century and a half later. Ali- Bey (the 

 Spaniard Badia) had visited Mecca a few yean before Burckhardt, 

 who said that he had no reason to doubt his general veracity, though 

 his description of Mecca was incorrect in some points, and his infor- 

 mation rather superficial Ali-Bey spoke only the Moghrebin or 

 western Arabic. Giovanni Finati who deserted from an Albanian 

 regiment in which he was corporal, entered Mecca as a pilgrim in 

 1806. SeeUen, a Qenzuui traveller, sent by the Duke of Saxe Gotba, 

 and of whom Burckbardt speaks with great respect, travelled in Arabia 

 about the sam- time as Ali-Bey, and died of poison at Mocha in 1811. 

 Since Burckhardt, Mecca and Medina have been visited by several 

 Europeans iu the service of Mehemet Ali (Planat, ' Regeneration de 

 1'Egypte,' with a plan of Mecca) ; but it is only within the last year or 

 two that a really full account, one indeed leaving scarcely anything 

 to be desired, has been published of the holy cities : ' Personal Narra- 

 tive of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, by Richard F. Burton, 

 Lieutenant of the Bombay Army,' 3 vols. 8vo, 1855-56. 



One of Burckhardt's objects in visiting Mecca as a pilgrim was to 

 be enabled to assume the title of Hadji, which he conceived would 

 prove of great advantage to him in his travels in the interior of Africa. 

 But bit residence in Arabia undermined his constitution, and he never 

 recovered from the effects of the deleterious climate and unwholesome 

 water of that country. He spent the following nine months after his 

 return from Arabia partly at Cairo and partly at Alexandria, endea- 

 vouring to recruit his health, impaired by repeated attacks of fever, 

 and preparing bis Nubian and Arabian journals to be sent to the 

 Association, in April 1816, the plague having broken out at Cairo, he 

 let off for the desert of Sinai He visited that mountain, as well as 

 the shores of the Klanitic Qulf, and returned to Cairo about the 

 middle of June. Here he proponed to Mr. Salt the project of removing 

 the bead of Memnon from Qourneh, and having it conveyed to England 

 a* a present to the British Museum, for which purpose they engaged, 

 at thrir joint expense, Belzoni, who accomplished its removal to Cairo. 

 [BiLiOM.] Burckhardt remained at Cairo, waiting for the long-ex- 

 pected caravan from Fezzan, with which be intended to proceed on its 

 return to that country. In October 1816 he forwarded to the Asso- 

 ciation nil ' Notes on the Bedowe*ns and the Wahabees,' which were 

 afterward* published in a separate volume, and contain much new 

 information. Burckhardt felt a peculiar interest for the Bedouins 

 of Arabia, whom be considered "as the original stock from which the 

 Arabian population of Syria, Egypt, and Barbary is derived ; and also 

 as the only Mohammedan nation who, in the midst of the utter 

 depravity of mann-ra and morals, and the decline of laws and civil 

 institutions throughout the Mohammedan world, have preserved 

 unchanged their ancient customs and the manners of their fore- 

 fathers, and still continue to be what they wore 1200 yean ago, when 

 their emigrating tribe* conquered part of Asia, Africa, and Europe." 

 (Burckhardfs 'Letter from Cairo, 15th of October 1816, inserted in 

 his 'Life/) 



In the autumn of 1817 it became known at Cairo that among the 

 pilgrim* collected at Meoca that year waa a party of Moghrebina, or 

 Western African*, who were to return home by way of Cairo and 

 Feuan, and it waa believed that the caravan would take its departure 

 from Cairo about December. Burckhardt had now transmitted to 

 F"***"- 1 all bis journals, and wa* contemplating with the greatest 

 stisfsiiUfin the moment when he was at last to set out on the main 

 object of hi* miinion, for which he had so long and to assiduously been 

 preparing himself. But at the beginning of October of that year he 



fell ill at Cairo of the dysentery, and, notwithstanding every medical 

 assistance, he expired in the night of the 15th. He ootumunioated hi* 

 last intentions to Mr. Salt, iu a composed and collected wanner. Hm 

 last word* were about his mother, when he became strongly affected. 

 A* for my body," said he, " I know the Turks will have it (as he had 

 _ eased hi Egypt for a Mussulman); perhaps you had better let them." 

 Accordingly, no wa* buried as the Mohammedan sheik Ibrahim, and 

 hi* funeral was conducted with all proper regard to the respectable 

 rank which be had held in the eyes of the natives. He had won tho 

 universal esteem of both Christians and Mussulmans. His death, at 

 the early age of thirty-three, when he had so well fitted himself for 

 the purposes of African discovery, was greatly deplored in Europe. 

 Burckbardt's personal character stood deservedly high, as any one 

 who peruses the extracts of his correspondence with the Association, 

 and the account of his last interview with Mr. Salt, both inserted in 

 his ' Life,' must feel convinced. (See also Salt's Correspondence in 

 Hall's 'Life of Salt') He left bis collection of oriental manuscript* 

 to the University of Cambridge. His journal* were published after 

 his death by the African Association. They consist of 1, 'Travels in 

 Nubia,' 4to, 1819, with a ' Life of Burckhardt;' 2, 'Tr.n- 

 and the Holy Land,' 4to, 1822 ; 3, ' Travels in Arabia.' 2 vols. 8vo, 

 1829; 4, 'Notes on the Bedoweens and the Wahabees,' collected 

 during his travels in the east, 4to, London, 1830. 



BURDER, REV. GEORGE, was born in London on tho 2.1th of 

 May, or, according to the New Style shortly afterwards introduced, 

 the 5th of June 1752. As he showed an early taste for drawing, be 

 was placed under the tuition of an artist named Isaac Taylor, but 

 who subsequently became a minister of an Independent congre 

 at Ougar in Essex. About 1773 Mr. Burder became a student iu the 

 Royal Academy ; but shortly afterwards he began to preach, and at 

 length determined to relinquish his profession, and to devote hi 

 wholly to the Christian ministry. In 1773 he became pastor of an 

 Independent church at Lancaster; in 1783 he removed to Coventry, 

 during his residence in which city he took an active part iu tho forma- 

 tion of the London Missionary Society; and in 1803 he accepted a 

 unanimous call to the pastorship of tho Congregation:.! church in 

 Fetter-lane, London bis removal to the metropolis bein^ ' 

 urged by a request to undertake the offices of secretary to the London 

 Missionary Society, and editor of the ' Evangelical Magazine,' then 

 vacant by the death of the Rev. John Eyre. The duties of these 

 offices were performed by Burder with much zeal and talent, until 

 increasing years and infirmities compelled him to resign them ; and, 

 during a period of more than twenty years after his removal to 

 London, he took a prominent part in the various religion* movements 

 of the body with which he was connected, and of which ho was one 

 of the most influential and respected members. Bunler die 1 at the 

 age of eighty, on the 29th of May 1832. His publications, which were 

 numerous, consisted chiefly of religious essays and sermons of a pecu- 

 liarly simple character. Of these, the ' Village Sermons,' of which 

 six volumes appeared at various times between 1799 and 1812, and 

 which have been repeatedly reprinted, and translated into several 

 European languages, are perhaps the best known. Of 1'nrt 

 'Cottage Sermons,' 'Sea Sermons,' and 'Sermons to the Aged,' written 

 for the Religious Tract Society, for gratuitous distribution or sale at a 

 very cheap rate, the aggregate circulation during his life amounted to 

 little short of a million copies. Among his other publications were, 

 'Evangelical Truth Defended,' 8vo, 1788; an abridgement of Dr. 

 Owen's 'Treatise on Justification by Faith,' 8vo, 1797; 'The Welsh 

 Indians, or a Collection of Papers respecting a people whose ancestors 

 emigrated from Wales to America in 1170, with Prince Madoc, and 

 who are said now to inhabit a beautiful country on the west side of 

 the Mississippi,' 8vo, 1797; 'Missionary Anecdotes,' 12mo, 1811; 

 besides preparing new editions of several religious publications, most 

 of which are mentioned in the 'Memoir' published in 1833 by his 

 eldest son, Henry Forster Burder, D.D., which is partly nuto- 

 biognpUaal. 



BURDETT, SIR FRANCIS, BART., one of the most prominent 

 actors in the politics of the metropolis, and on the popular side in 

 the House of Commons, during the first quarter of the ] 

 century, was born on the 25th of January, 1770, and was the third 

 son of Francis Burdett, second son of Sir Robert Burdett, Bart., of 

 Bromcote, Warwickshire, His mother was Eleanor, daughter and 

 co-heiress of William Junes, Esq., of Ramsbury, in Wiltshire. Before 

 the death, in 1797, of his grandfather, Sir Robert, who had also suc- 

 ceeded his grandfather in the title, the subject of the present notice 

 bad lost both his father and his two elder brothers ; and, his father's 

 elder brother having previously died, he became baronet. His father 

 bad died in 1794 ; and Sedley, the last of his two elder brothers, had 

 been drowned, along with Lord Montague, in 1793, in attempting to 

 cross the fulls of the Rhine at Schaffhnunen in a small boat. Sir 

 Francis was educated at Westminster School, and afterwards spent 

 some years on the Continent In 1793 he married Sophia, youngest 

 daughter of the late Thomas Coutts, Esq., banker. In 17'Jti, being 

 still Mr. Burdett, he was, by tho interest of the Duke of Newcastle, 

 returned for Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, hi* colleague being Sir 

 John Scott, afterwards Earl of Eldon and Lord Chancellor. 

 yean subsequent to thin, on succeeding to the estates of 

 family, he assumed, in addition to his paternal name, that of Jones, 



