Unfortunately He Went To Damascus, Where Some
Disturbance Compelled Him To Resume His Nationality.
The only European
I have met with who visited Meccah without apostatising, is M.
Bertolucci, Swedish Consul at Cairo.
This gentleman persuaded the
Badawin camel men who were accompanying him to Taif to introduce him in
disguise: he naïvely owns that his terror of discovery prevented his
making any observations. Dr. George A. Wallin, of Finland, performed
the Hajj in 1845; but his "somewhat perilous position, and the filthy
company of Persians," were effectual obstacles to his taking notes.
[FN#6] No one felt the want of this "silent friend," more than myself;
for though Eastern Arabia would not have been strange to me, the
Western regions were a terra incognita. Through Dr. Norton Shaw,
Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, I addressed a paper full
of questions to Dr. Wallin, professor of Arabic at the University of
Helsingfors. But that adventurous traveller and industrious Orienta1ist
was then, as we afterwards heard with sorrow, no more; so the queries
remained unanswered. In these pages I have been careful to solve all
the little financial and domestic difficulties, so perplexing to the
"freshman," whom circumstances compel to conceal his freshness from the
prying eyes of friends.
[FN#7] "Then came Trafalgar: would that Nelson had known the meaning of
that name! it would have fixed a smile upon his dying lips!" so says
the Rider through the Nubian Desert, giving us in a foot note the
curious information that "Trafalgar" is an Arabic word, which means the
"Cape of Laurels." Trafalgar is nothing but a corruption of Tarf
al-Gharb-the side or skirt of the West; it being the most occidental
point then reached by Arab conquest.
[FN#8] In Arabic "Ras al-Tin," the promontory upon which immortal
Pharos once stood.
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