Sir Richard Francis Burton

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) was an English explorer, soldier, Orientalist and translator who was said to speak more than twenty-five languages. Expelled from Oxford, he joined the East India Company's army, entered Mecca disguised as a pilgrim in 1853, explored Somaliland and, with John Hanning Speke, sought the sources of the Nile and reached Lake Tanganyika in 1858. He later served as consul in Brazil, Damascus and Trieste. He translated the Arabian Nights unexpurgated, the Kama Sutra and Camões, and wrote The Book of the Sword. His widow Isabel burned his papers and buried him in a tomb shaped like a Bedouin tent at Mortlake.