Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/70

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ENTERPRISE AND ADVENTURE.

expenses of his journey. "This," he says, "I mention as apart of my plan of travelling, and by way of advice to all travellers who visit unknown and dangerous countries in the East." While at Esne, on another occasion, waiting for a caravan, and not wishing to be known, he kept as little company as possible, dressed himself in the poorest dress of an inhabitant of Egypt, his daily expenses for himself, servant, dromedary, and ass, amounting to only one shilling and sixpence. Yet, with all this, he could not help incurring the dangerous suspicion of being a rich man, or having had the good luck to find a treasure, a common notion among Orientals. He was fearful of engaging in any traffic, because his person would then have become generally known. But in those countries everybody is either a cultivator or a merchant, and to be able to live without begging and without work appeared strange, and exposed him to the suspicion of having chests full of dollars.

In many parts travelling would have been absolutely impracticable without assuming this Oriental character. At Shendz, he found it necessary to affect the greatest sanctity of manners, imitating, as far as possible, the Mohammedan Fakirs, whose character is the more respected in those countries from their enjoying the reputation of great learning, and of exemplary private conduct. "In those countries," says Burckhardt, "the traveller must consider himself as surrounded by some of the most worthless of the human race: amongst whom he must think himself fortunate if he can discover any less depraved than the rest whom he can place some degree of confidence in." Above all, he dared not be seen making notes. He knew that if he