Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on today's show. I'm going to read from a book titled The Life of Captain Richard F. Burton by his wife, Isabel Burton. It was put together in two volumes. And Isabel Burton was the wife of Richard Burton, who died in 1890. He's born in 1821, and just somebody who come to my attention.

One of the things Alastair Cruelly did is dedicate his autobiography, in part to Richard Francis Burton,

who he called the perfect pioneer of spiritual and physical adventure.

Richard Burton, really for the 19th century, was an incredible polymath and somebody who spoke

many languages.

I think he spoke 40 different languages.

He was educated at Oxford before he got kicked out and traveled all over. He's really

an ethnographer and travel logist and study student of human behavior. Later on in his life, he

worked as British Consul in Brazil, Damascus, Italy, Equatorial Guinea.

So he was well-traveled, and he had had this trip.

I mean, he wrote really a book that made him mostly famous was a book he wrote about his

pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in disguise.

The title of that book is a personal narrative of a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in disguise. The title of that book is a personal narrative of a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina by Richard F. Burton.

It's published in 1874 in three volumes.

It's very detailed and very lengthy.

So one of the reasons why I'm reading this book about from Isabella's, his time there is a smaller it's a smaller amount but it's

also excerpted in her book so you'll read through some of the passages that he had he went in

much greater detail in his book and maybe i'll read from that at a later date but it's very thorough

and it would take a long time to read through that.

But Isabel was his wife. He died in 1890 in Trieste, and she had all of his papers.

So she talked about his life in this biography.

And so I will read from chapter, it will be volume one, chapter eight and nine,

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