Sexplorer - Richard Francis Burton 1886

Victorian Superman
He translated the karma sutra and The Arabian Nights, sneaked into one of the holiest places on earth, was the first European to see Lake Tanganyika – by accident -  and possessed an extremely impressive moustache.
His name was Richard Francis Burton and there was very little he couldn’t do.
It’s a tale of pathological boredom, heroic drinking, sexual exploration and malaria.

• Why did Burton live with a family of monkeys?
• What did he use to hit one of his teachers over the head?
• Where did someone stick a spear in his body that made life difficult?
• What was the Cannibal Club?

The answers to all these questions and more can be found in episode 28 of Rogue’s Gallery Uncovered – the podcast of bad behaviour in period costume.

 The 19th century explorer, orientalist, literary giant, spy? and global traveller who crisscrossed Africa, India, and the Middle East in search of adventure and erotic knowledge. The queen may not have approved, but he was one of the Victorian era's most famous men and remains a controversial figure in colonial history and the story of the British Empire. Book passage on a steamship and enjoy this episode.

Thanks for listening. Stay Roguish!
Email: simon@roguesgalleryonline.com
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Transcript

Rogues Gallery Uncovered

Bad behaviour in period costume 

A non-judgmental exploration into the scandalous lives of history’s greatest libertines’ lotharios and complete bastards  

This podcast contains adult themes and a touch of colourful language - of course it bloody does!  

Victorian Superman 

You name it…he’s done it..and then written a  book about it….then done it again

With Sir Richard Francis Burton

It’s been a longer gap than usual between pods, a situation that has arisen, 

A.   because I’m particularly busy with my day job

and 

B.    Because rather than spend all day every day tied to a microphone and a computer, I have accepted every social invitation that’s come my way over the last few weeks and had a thoroughly good time as a result.

Writing about fascinating characters and telling their stories is great fun but occasionally I do need to remind myself that life is for living and you should jump in whenever you get the chance.

A bit like this episode’s subject although id be hard pressed to cram all of his adventures and achievements into two lifetimes let alone one.

Before we start though, you may remember at the end of the last episode I introduced you to three entertainingly psychotic pirates and asked which one you would most like me to feature next time I did a pirate themed episode.

The choices were 

Charles Gibbs

Said to have killed over 400 people – and cut one poor chaps’ limbs off while he was still alive  

Ned Lowe 

Who tied a captured cook to a ships mast and then set him on fire because he looked greasy.

And 

Daniel Montbars

Who would disembowel prisoners, nail them to a tree and then beat them to death with a burning log 

Three “Proper Charmers” as my old form teacher would have said 

Thanks to those rogues who emailed me at simon@roguesgalleryonline.com with their preferences

Particularly 

 Martyn Smith

Paul Thompson

and

Paul Herman

Cheers guysThe winner is The log thrashing , Spaniard hating Frenchman, Daniel Montbars.

He’ll be getting flaming wood in an upcoming episode.

 Also, thanks to Tyler who contacted me through the website roguesgalleryuncovered.com and suggested that I look into John Addington Symonds, a gay 18th century venetian rogues.

Ill do just that Tyler, thanks 

If you feel like getting in touch you will always find my email address in the show notes.

It feels like ages since I’ve said this bit 

The following tale is written in the present tense of the period in which its set…. and as such, may contain attitudes and opinions of the protagonists and their times which would today be considered unacceptable. 

As I’m not a nineteenth century colonial polymath with a huge sense of superiority and an even bigger moustache.

Those attitudes and opinions are OBVIOUSLY not mine.

I wonder if I could carry off the tache though …. 

TRIESTE - ITALY 1886

Sir Richard Francis Burton – explorer, soldier, author, translator, spy, linguist, swordsman, orientalist, map maker, diplomat and poet – is furious.

The reviews are in for his latest work – a translation of the 15th-century Arabic sex manual The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight. The press are being far from kind.

The Pall Mall Gazette called it, a “revolting obscenity”, another newspaper said it was “morally filthy.” 

 In America, The Boston Daily Advertiser described it as “offensive and not only offensive but grossly and needlessly offensive”.

Since he was a young man, one of Burtons many, many fascinations has been the subject of sex and sensuality. He passionately wants to educate his repressed and guilt consumed Victorian contemporaries about the benefits, of a healthy and enjoyable sex life.

Burton considers the Perfumed Garden – like the Karma Sutra and One Thousand and One Nights, to be “Marvellous repositories of Eastern wisdom.” Society, it seems believes otherwise and considers him little better than a pornographer. 

For Burton, this is just one more new challenge to overcome. 

Even at the age of 65 his remarkable mind just can’t slow down - his office has eleven desks, each one devoted to a separate project.

As he rants about sex to his adoring wife Isobel – a pious yet supportive Catholic woman – Burton reflects that it was easier to sneak into one of the most closely guarded places on earth than to convince the Great British Public that a good fuck would do them the world of good.

At 15 Burton was already a wild and restless child. He had grown up travelling around Italy and France discovering a gift for learning languages and developing an appetite for life that was unquenchable.

At school, he had been disciplined for writing passionate love letters to local prostitutes, accidentally stabbing his brother through the face during a fencing match and smashing his music teacher over the head with a violin case. 

By the time, he entered Oxford University in 1840 he was already experimenting with opium. If that was in order to calm it down, it was spectacularly unsuccessful.

Within an hour of arriving at Trinity college one of his fellow students unwisely mocked him for sporting a vast “Horseshoe” moustache. Burton immediately challenged him to a duel. 

Such was his air of constant ferocity and immediate willingness to take umbrage, Burton was awarded the sobriquet “Ruffian Dick.”  

Clearly not suited to a life of gentle academia He only lasted five terms before being expelled for attending a Steeplechase without permission.

Unleashed upon the world, Burton asked his father to pay for a commission into the British army – a request his father accepted on the sole condition that Burton “Went to any lengths to see combat.”

Arriving in Bombay, his dreams of blood and thunder were somewhat dashed when he spent his first few weeks laid up in a bungalow suffering from explosive diarrhoea. 

The fact that he was sharing his lodgings with huge rats and a bunch of loud and permanently pissed fellow officers only made things worse.  

With a bottle of port his only companion, Burton waited until his guts had calmed down, then took himself north, learning as many Indian dialects as he could along the way.

Staining one's face with walnut oil and talking to the natives in fluent Hindustani were not common activities for most Englishmen in India - after all, “What’s wrong with talking like her majesty?” 

Burton, however, was different. 

One evening when he bade an Afghan acquaintance good night in faultless English, the fellow – who was convinced he’d been talking to a Gujarati merchant – nearly had a heart attack.

 Burton's linguistic gifts led to him becoming a spy, travelling through the inhospitable hill country reporting on the activities of various local tribes.

It was a dangerous “living on a knife edge job” that he absolutely adored.

When he wasn’t wrestling, horse riding or engaging in swordplay with regimental sepoys, Burton relaxed by setting up home with a menagerie of forty pet monkeys. 

He said It was an attempt to study their behaviour and possibly learn their language. 

To further his research, he dressed his favourite monkey in pearls and invited it to sit at the dinner table, the better to instigate conversation

Simian linguistics, however, proved unfulfilling, so Burton dived into the much more enticing world of Indian sensuality. 

The open and joyous sexuality of the Indian women he slept with were a revelation for Burton – who considered European women flat and passionless by comparison.

He was amazed that Indian women enjoyed sex so much they did whatever they could to actually make it last longer. 

He wrote of one mistress ‘She cannot be satisfied with anything less than twenty minutes”.

He also observed that Indian men were so conscious of the need to satisfy their partner as well as themselves that they drank sherbet, chewed betel nuts and even smoked a pipe during sex. 

The reason for this ungentlemanly behaviour being to take their minds off having an orgasm too soon.

 In Karachi, Burton fell in love with a beautiful Persian girl who had, he said “Cheeks like sweet Basil” and took to sipping bhang – a popular local drink laced with cannabis. 

Burton's army career, however, came to an ignoble end when he was asked to investigate rumours of homosexual brothels that reports indicated were being regularly attended by British troops - including officers! 

His detailed investigations revealed three such establishments operating in Karachi. 

His report, however, was so graphic and matter of fact about the “sinful sex and flagellation” that occurred there, many suspected he had done more than just observe. 

Driven from the army by rumour and innuendo Burton decided that the only logical thing to do would be to travel to Arabia and sneak into Mecca while wearing a disguise – a feat that would mean certain death if discovered. 

In 1852, with funding secured, he set off for one of the holiest places on earth posing as an Afghan pilgrim. 

To make his presence even more convincing, Burton had himself circumcised before he left.

Knowing that months of hardship and danger awaited him, he spent a few weeks of preparation in Alexandria. 

Fine tuning his plans, he set aside plenty of time aside to relax with local prostitutes who would always begin a tryst by performing the traditional dance known as Al-nahl, or the Bee-dance. 

Burton found these women “Dangerously seductive” but they put him in fine fettle for the journey ahead.

 With nothing more than a small tent, a bag of water, an umbrella, a pistol, a knife and a rosary - that he said at a pinch “could be used as a weapon of offence” - Burton set off into the blazing desert. The weapons were a good idea because shortly after the expedition left Alexandria, they were attacked by Bedouin raiders and 12 of their number were killed.

Continuing their journey, they watched as a roadside argument between pilgrims led to one of them being stabbed into the stomach and left to die - it was not like travelling in England.

Despite the danger, Burton was having the time of his life, “Your morale improves” he wrote, “the hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilisation are left behind you in the city.”

When he finally arrived at Mecca, Burton's confidence, fluency and complete immersion in the character he was portraying meant he was accepted without question as a pilgrim from Afghanistan.

Mingling with thousands of fellow pilgrims he enthusiastically took part in their rituals and made surreptitious sketches of what he saw.

Knowing full well that if discovered he could be impaled or crucified, Burton - determined to see inside the Holy Shrine - allowed himself to be lifted up by the guards so he could climb through the entrance situated seven feet off the ground. 

Having seen what less than a handful of western travellers had ever witnessed and with his curiosity satisfied, Burton returned home. 

Shaking the sand from his boots he immediately wrote a bestselling book about his experiences.

By the following year, he was bored. 

He announced that he wanted to become the first European to visit the forbidden Ethiopian city of Harar. 

 A few months later he was in West Africa.

Making his way across the continent in the guise of an Arab named Haji Mirza Abdullah, Burton became dangerously Ill as he got closer to his destination.

Slumped beneath a tree, close to death he cut such a wretched figure that even the locals burst into tears when they saw him. 

Death, however, was for lesser men and Burton gave himself a severe talking too, picked himself up and finally arrived at Harar– knowing once again that if discovered he would be executed. 

Exploring the city, he decided that even his formidable disguise skills couldn’t fool everyone so he took himself to the palace and bravely revealed himself to the emir. 

The emir – fortunately for Burton, a capricious man - chose not to execute him on the spot. Instead, he kept him as a guest for ten days. 

A virtual prisoner under constant threat of execution Burton passed the time by sleeping with the Galla slave girls who - he was amazed to discover - could bring a man to orgasm simply by sitting astride him and contracting their vaginal muscles.

 “Stars are tattooed upon the bosom,” he wrote, “The eyebrows are lengthened with dyes, the eyes fringed with Kohl, and the hands and feet stained with henna.”

With his curiosity totally satisfied for the moment, Burton then wisely took his leave of Harar before the emir's welcome evaporated.

Although invigorated by his escape Burtons return to civilization was not without its upsets and he nearly died of thirst as he made his way to the coast. 

 A chance meeting with some fellow British explorers saved his life. After regaining his strength and, of course, thanking them effusively, Burton decided not to go home after all but instead return to the interior with his new-found friends.

Unfortunately, before the expedition had even left their beachfront camp they were attacked by a party of Somali warriors.

In the ensuing battle as spears fell among the beleaguered Brits, Burton turned to hack with his sword at what he thought was an attacking warrior only to discover it was actually one of his companions. 

Momentarily distracted, one of the Somalis took the opportunity to shove his spear through Burton's face – piercing both cheeks and knocking out four teeth. Burton left the spear where it was and – looking like a dog retrieving a stick - carried on fighting.  

Finally, with his mouth still pinned shut, he managed to escape to a friendly ship which had dropped anchor just offshore.

Returning home with a scar that was the envy of his friends Burton decided to relax by commanding a troop of irregular Turkish cavalry during the Crimean War. 

When they mutinied, a disappointed Burton went back to England and spontaneously proposed to his long-time sweetheart, Isobel.

The moment she had said “Yes”, he then romantically took himself back to Africa, this time to look for the legendary source of the Nile. 

The source of the Nile was one of the biggest prizes in Victorian exploration and Burton – along with his friend and fellow explorer John Hanning Speke – were determined to find it.

African mosquitos, however, had other ideas. 

 Buton became paralyzed by malaria and had to be carried around on a litter. 

 Speke became incapacitated when a beetle burrowed into his ear and he tried to dig it out with a penknife. 

The resulting infection left him deaf and with a hole in his septum so large that whenever he blew his nose it emitted a loud whistling noise.

Then he went blind.

It was not as if Speke had been an ideal travelling companion to begin with.

He was a typical repressed Victorian who would go into the vapours at the sight of a naked native woman. 

Burton's “Meet new people then fuck em in interesting ways” approach to exploring was already driving him mad.

He was also teetotal so Burton's liberal use of medicinal booze further added to his moral misery.

Raving in delirium the two swollen eyed friends bickered their way through East Africa until they stumbled upon the shores of Lake Tanganyika. 

They had accidentally made a major discovery but it wasn’t the one they were looking for. 

It was most definitely NOT the source of the Nile so after a few months, they turned for home. 

On the way back, Burton continued to fraternise with any woman he met, noting that many were “well disposed towards strangers of fair complexion, apparently with the permission of their husbands”.

 He also spent a lot of time looking at local men’s penis’s – for scientific study!

Burton arrived home a yellow-skinned walking skeleton and immediately got into a huge public argument with Speke about the details of the exhibition.

He also got married to his now longstanding fiancé Isobel, who had been patiently waiting for three years. 

It’s said that he arrived at church in a “rough shooting coat” while vigorously chewing a cigar.

Seven months later the radiant newlywed took a job as a consulate on the West African island of Fernando Po, leaving Isobel behind in London. 

Living with cannibals and hunting gorillas was business as usual for Burton. He made two visits to the feared Dahomey people – famous for their practice of human sacrifice and for their regiment of savage warrior women. “I have been here 3 days and am generally disappointed" Burton mused on his first visit, “Not a man killed or a fellow tortured.” 

On his second trip, however, his hosts put on a bit more of a show and executed 80 prisoners - the king even chopped one of the heads off himself.

There followed additional postings to Brazil and Damascus but Burton was finally running out of steam and began to drink even more heavily than before.

Relocating to Trieste in Italy, the grand adventurer took to wandering around the house in a fez and pointy slippers. 

He became so bored and frustrated that he disturbed a genteel tea party his wife was hosting by storming in and slamming a manuscript entitled The History of Farting down on the table in front of her.

By 1886 his body may be slowing down but Burton's mind is still terrifyingly active. 

For many years he has been sharing his sensual interests with a select group of forward-thinking London intellectuals who call themselves The Cannibal Club.

These include the poets  Richard Monckton Milnes, and Algernon Charles Swinburne

If anyone is qualified to critique his work it is them not some damn scribbler of a journalist, "Needlessly Offensive" indeed. 

In his much-resisted old age, the author of over fifty books is finally beginning to make some serious money.

Burton's translations of Erotic Eastern texts - which he published anonymously at first - are at last finding a wider modern audience, even if the more prudish elements of the press are up in arms.

It may take a while for Victorian society to loosen up, but if anyone can rise to the challenge its Richard Francis Burton.

I could and probably will devote at least another episode to the amazing adventures of Richard Francis Burton.

The short ending to this tale however is that after travelling all over Europe searching for a cure to the gout which had plagued him for several years – including drinking medicinal waters in the Tyrolean mountains - Burton retired to his home in Trieste in 1890 and died there a year later at the age of 70.

Worried in case as an atheist his soul might end up somewhere nasty his wife Isobel rushed a catholic priest over to give him the last rites at the last minute and he was buried in a full catholic ceremony.

Their joint mausoleum at Mortlake is worth checking out if you’re ever in London.

Designed by Isobel its in the shape of a huge marble Bedouin tent.

Burton was a adventurer and a renaissance man in the truest sense of the word although his almost compulsive need for new experiences and knowledge combined with his mercurial temperament meant that he didn’t always make the most of his achievements.

An obituary written shortly after his death – obviously – read “he was ill fitted to run in official harness, and he had a Byronic love of shocking people.”

And in my book, you can’t say much fairer than that.

Speaking of books, I found out that Burton had a novel way of getting around the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 when trying to get his more arousing literary works in front of an appreciative audience.

According to the act you could go to jail if you published anything that contained and I quote - “excessive drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewdness, profanation of the Lord's Day, and other dissolute, immoral, or disorderly practices.”

I try and get all of that into every episode of Rogues Gallery Uncovered.

To avoid the heavy puritanical arm of the law Burton founded the Kama Shastra Society and gave copies of his work to all of his subscribers.

It didn’t make him much money – officially- but at least he got his message across.

His 10-volume translation of the Arabian nights however was sellable and netted him around £10,000 – over 1 million in today’s money.

A lot’s been said about his wife Isabel burning loads of his papers once he’d died – she destroyed a treasure trove and has rightly got a lot of flack for it but her intentions were good.

She was determined that nothing would be found to sully her husband’s reputation – you could get cancelled ten minutes after you’d died as easily then as now it seems.

When people took her to task for burning these priceless documents, Isobel was adamant that Burton’s spirit had got in touch from the hereafter and told her to do it – and in very religious Victorian England you couldn’t really argue with that.

There is also an episode to be made about the Cannibal club – the dinning society founded by Burton and an eminent speech therapist called Dr James Hunt. 

The aim of the club one author has written was to “create an atmosphere where subjects deemed deviant by society could receive an open airing"

So, it will certainly feature in a future rogue’s gallery uncovered.

Ill leave the final quote to Burton as he attempted to explain why he simply couldn’t keep his mind or his body in one place for very long 

“Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Hope, one feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood. . . . A journey, in fact, appeals to the Imagination, to Memory, to Hope,— the three sister Graces of our moral being.”

Next time on Rogues Gallery Uncovered.

Hey hey we’re the Mohocks 

Get shit scared and stay indoors as a demonic gang of teenage hooligans terrorize 18th century London.

Or do they?

The busyness of summer seems to be meaning that im producing episodes once every fortnight rather than weekly at the moment, I hope that’s Ok. 

I plan to begin normal weekly service when the rest of my life calms down a touch.

Thanks for sticking with the podcast, I hope you’re still enjoying my roguish tales. Don’t forget to tell your friends.

And if I can take this opportunity for a bit of cheeky salesmanship don’t forget that Rogues Gallery Uncovered has its own stylish range of T shirts and mugs available at roguesgallerty online.com – link to both website and store are in the show notes.

While the sun is out you can look the dapper degenerate by sporting a short-sleeved statement T – featuring a quote from your favourite episode. 

Or quaff a cooling beverage of choice from a flagon sized mug emblazoned with the same.

I was resplendent in an “I’m a lovable rogue” t shirt during the recent heatwave in the Uk and combined with a straw hat and a jaunty air felt quite the beau brummel.

Whether you shop roguishly or not its always great to hear from you at simon@roguesgalleryonline.com . Historical suggestions, tales of period costume naughtiness, thoughts on the podcast, all are welcome.

Until next time, stay roguish, have a great week and ill see you yesterday.