During an assignment for the Society

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In 1842 he joined an infantry regiment of the East India Company at Baroda a few months after the disaster inflicted upon General Ephinstone during the retreat from Kabul. Disappointed by garrison life, he became fascinated by Oriental culture and languages, which earned him the contempt of his fellow officers, who nicknamed him "the white nigger". Burton even adopted native attire in order to be less conspicuous among the natives and so dressed he carried out a number of reconaissance assignments for the Company.

Before returning to Europe in 1849, Burton carried out a topographical survey of the south of India, as the result of which he achieved a certain amount of fame, notably in the Royal Geographical Society. in 1853 he went to Medina and to Mecca, at that time proscribed cities for non- believers, disguised as a Beduin. He was certainly not the first European to have penetrated the Holy Cities of Islam but he was the first to do so and report on his experiences, with remarkable narrative skill. His Pilgrimage to.

Al Medinah and Mecca is far superior to all other phone number list accounts of travel and exploration of the time. Burton's lively and colourful style of writing was combined with his excellent knowledge of Arab mentality and customs. The fame acheived by this adventure and his account of it was reinforced by an expedition which he led to Harar, a forbidden Mussulman city in Abyssinia. Upon his return from these expeditions Burton did all that he could to cultivate his reputation as a heretic and to scandalise Victorian society, boasting that he had "committed all the sins of the Decalogue", so that the wildest rumours about him were soon circulating.