Enterprise and Adventure/Burckhardt's Death
BURCKHARDT'S DEATH.
The noble and disinterested character of this remarkable man was nowhere more conspicuous than in his last hours, for the narrative of which we are indebted to a letter of Mr. Salt, the British Consul- General at Cairo. Prematurely exhausted by exposure and privation, in unhealthy climates, his strength gave way, and an attack of dysentery, in 1817, reduced him so low, that his death was evidently approaching. In this condition, being perfectly sensible that he had but few hours to live, he sent for Mr. Salt, and, though his countenance was of a ghastly hue, and he had great difficulty in articulating, he begged his visitor to take pen and paper, and proceeded to dictate calmly his last wishes. He directed him, as soon after his death as possible, to obtain a sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, due to him from the African Association, and add it to a sum of two thousand piastres, in the hands of a friend in Cairo. With this he desired him to pay a sum towards the recovery of the head of Memnon—a work then progressing in Egypt. Four hundred piastres he desired to be given to Saharti, his faithful servant. One thousand piastres he gave to the poor of Zurich. His library, with the manuscripts in the hands of Sir Joseph Banks, he gave to the University of Cambridge.
After naming some other bequests, he said, mournfully, "I was starting, in two months' time, with the caravan returning from Mecca, and going to Fezzan, thence to Timbuctoo, but it is otherwise disposed." He then requested Mr. Salt to give his love to friends whom he enumerated, and with many of whom he was living on terms of intimacy in Cairo. He next, after a pause and an evident struggle, begged him to let Mr. Hamilton acquaint his mother with his death, and say that his last thoughts had been with her. He then said, "The Turks will take my body; I know it. Perhaps you had better let them."
After this he appeared perfectly calm. Dr. Richardson, and Osman, a faithful attendant, whom he had procured to be released from slavery, sat beside him as he shook hands with Mr. Salt, taking a final leave. Within six hours afterwards he calmly breathed his last.