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Goa, and the Blue Mountains; Or, Six Months of Sick Leave
Published in 1851, this is the first book written by the famed Victorian explorer Richard F. Burton. It is an account of his journey through portions of southwest India while he was on sick leave from the British Indian army. Traveling through Bombay to the Portuguese colony of Goa, he went through Calicut and other cities on the Malabar coast, ending up in the Nilgiri mountains at the hill station of Ootacamund. The observant traveler, not the intrepid adventurer, is the narrator of the account, and its intended audience was the voracious Victorian consumer of travel literature.
Coupled with a critical introduction by Dane Kennedy, this facsimile edition provides a revealing look at the people who inhabited a part of India that was generally off the beaten track in the nineteenth century. The Portuguese and Mestizo inhabitants of Goa, the Todas of Ootacamund, as well as the fellow Britons Burton meets on his journey are all subject to his penetrating scrutiny. Burton's clever, ascerbic, and unorthodox personality together with his irreverence for convention and his bemused disdain for humanity come through clearly in these pages, as does his extraordinary command of the languages and literatures of various peoples.
"What a glad moment it is, to be sure, when the sick and seedy, the tired and testy invalid from pestiferous Scinde or pestilential Guzerat, 'leaves all behind him' and scrambles over the sides of his Pattimar."
"His what?"
"Ah! we forget. The gondola and barque are household words in your English ears, the budgerow is beginning to own an old familiar sound, but you are right―the 'Pattimar' requires a definition."
Coupled with a critical introduction by Dane Kennedy, this facsimile edition provides a revealing look at the people who inhabited a part of India that was generally off the beaten track in the nineteenth century. The Portuguese and Mestizo inhabitants of Goa, the Todas of Ootacamund, as well as the fellow Britons Burton meets on his journey are all subject to his penetrating scrutiny. Burton's clever, ascerbic, and unorthodox personality together with his irreverence for convention and his bemused disdain for humanity come through clearly in these pages, as does his extraordinary command of the languages and literatures of various peoples.
"What a glad moment it is, to be sure, when the sick and seedy, the tired and testy invalid from pestiferous Scinde or pestilential Guzerat, 'leaves all behind him' and scrambles over the sides of his Pattimar."
"His what?"
"Ah! we forget. The gondola and barque are household words in your English ears, the budgerow is beginning to own an old familiar sound, but you are right―the 'Pattimar' requires a definition."
407 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1851
About the author
Richard Francis Burton
1,870 books256 followersCaptain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.
Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights (also commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after Andrew Lang's adaptation), bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel, falconry, fencing, sexual practices, and ethnography. A unique feature of his books is the copious footnotes and appendices containing remarkable observations and unexpurgated information.
He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition guided by the locals and was the first European to see Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Santos, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886.
Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights (also commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after Andrew Lang's adaptation), bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English, and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by Africa's greatest explorer guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, utilizing route information by Indian and Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Burton extensively criticized colonial policies (to the detriment of his career) in his works and letters. He was a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel, falconry, fencing, sexual practices, and ethnography. A unique feature of his books is the copious footnotes and appendices containing remarkable observations and unexpurgated information.
He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition guided by the locals and was the first European to see Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Santos, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 30, 2023
This is the first published book by Richard F.Burton, dating to 1851. Goa, and the Blue Mountains; Or, Six Months of Sick Leave, as the subtitle indicates, tells of a trip the author took from Bombay to Goa to Calicut and finally to Ootacamund in the Blue Mountains of South India. The chapters on Goa and Ootacamund are excellent, but the book becomes dry and pedantic in describing Calicut and Malabar: There is in those chapters a complete absence of the author's personal experiences. It is as if that section was written strictly from library research, perhaps because Burton wasn't feeling well.
January 31, 2018
If India were a pizza
Richard Burton, the famous, 19th century British traveller, started his career in India, but is mainly known for his works on Arabia and Africa. One of his earliest works, this book covers a period when he went on sick leave from his post in Sindh (now part of Pakistan) to the Nilgiri Hills in southern India. True to later form, Burton did not travel there by the usual route, but took a small coastal sailing ship down to Goa, stopped there for a look, then continued down to Malabar (part of India's Kerala state today), from where he travelled overland to Ootacamund, a "hill station" in the present state of Tamilnadu. The University of California Press reproduced his book with all its original spellings of Indian words, its early 19th century jokes and puns, and English words long since gone out of fashion. No doubt India fascinated Burton's inquiring mind and he looked into many subjects not ordinarily found in the genre of Indian travel writing produced between 1830 and 1930 by a myriad Englishmen and some English women as well. As someone who knows a bit about India, and particularly Goa, I would say he was not all that accurate. He did notice that Goan Christians remained Indian in most ways and that they were divided by caste like the Hindus, from whom they had been converted. However, his picture of the caste structure in Goa is not accurate, nor were his observations of Goan life anything more than those of a tourist. When Burton arrives in Malabar, he switches tone for some reason and supplies the reader with vast amounts of information culled from various reports or books, leaving almost no personal impressions. He reverts to his own observations as he climbs up towards Ootacamund.
I like travel books very much and long looked forward to reading this one. I was disappointed. It reminded me of a scene I once saw on an Australian TV comedy show. A chef pulls out a perfect pizza from an oven. You can see the cheese, the salami, the mushrooms, the beautiful crust. Mmm. The chef says, "And here's our pizza"--- and suddenly sneezing hugely right into it----"with a special mozzarella sauce !" Burton wrote what could have been a very interesting book, never mind accuracy. But his sneering, racist attitudes of contempt for everyone and everything, his total willingness to enforce his will on Indians with kicks and punches, his constant professions of boredom, and his scorn for each person he meets, even his own countrymen, cover the travel with a disgusting sauce, even though he may have been typical of his times. (and one should not condemn, blah, blah, blah) I must conclude that this book is not for everyone, only for the truly determined or for those who wish to research the author. For that latter purpose, the book is no doubt revealing.
Richard Burton, the famous, 19th century British traveller, started his career in India, but is mainly known for his works on Arabia and Africa. One of his earliest works, this book covers a period when he went on sick leave from his post in Sindh (now part of Pakistan) to the Nilgiri Hills in southern India. True to later form, Burton did not travel there by the usual route, but took a small coastal sailing ship down to Goa, stopped there for a look, then continued down to Malabar (part of India's Kerala state today), from where he travelled overland to Ootacamund, a "hill station" in the present state of Tamilnadu. The University of California Press reproduced his book with all its original spellings of Indian words, its early 19th century jokes and puns, and English words long since gone out of fashion. No doubt India fascinated Burton's inquiring mind and he looked into many subjects not ordinarily found in the genre of Indian travel writing produced between 1830 and 1930 by a myriad Englishmen and some English women as well. As someone who knows a bit about India, and particularly Goa, I would say he was not all that accurate. He did notice that Goan Christians remained Indian in most ways and that they were divided by caste like the Hindus, from whom they had been converted. However, his picture of the caste structure in Goa is not accurate, nor were his observations of Goan life anything more than those of a tourist. When Burton arrives in Malabar, he switches tone for some reason and supplies the reader with vast amounts of information culled from various reports or books, leaving almost no personal impressions. He reverts to his own observations as he climbs up towards Ootacamund.
I like travel books very much and long looked forward to reading this one. I was disappointed. It reminded me of a scene I once saw on an Australian TV comedy show. A chef pulls out a perfect pizza from an oven. You can see the cheese, the salami, the mushrooms, the beautiful crust. Mmm. The chef says, "And here's our pizza"--- and suddenly sneezing hugely right into it----"with a special mozzarella sauce !" Burton wrote what could have been a very interesting book, never mind accuracy. But his sneering, racist attitudes of contempt for everyone and everything, his total willingness to enforce his will on Indians with kicks and punches, his constant professions of boredom, and his scorn for each person he meets, even his own countrymen, cover the travel with a disgusting sauce, even though he may have been typical of his times. (and one should not condemn, blah, blah, blah) I must conclude that this book is not for everyone, only for the truly determined or for those who wish to research the author. For that latter purpose, the book is no doubt revealing.
January 17, 2023
I recently purchased Sir Richard Burton’s Collected Works and have decided to work through the ones I haven’t already read in chronological order. I love Burton but, to be honest, if this was the only thing he had ever written it would (perhaps rightly) not have had much interest for posterity.
Burton’s style is relaxed and journalistic and sometimes quite funny, although of course his humour sometimes has a cruel edge which reminds us of the distance between our age and his own. He was the Grandfather of Travel Writers and like all good travel writing we feel we are at times standing right next to him as he describes a variety of fascinating people and places. On the whole, though, I was left a bit disappointed by his dismissive and frankly racist attitudes. Some Indian ethnic groups are described admiringly, but are frequently contrasted with others of whom he writes very disparagingly. And there are occasions when he refers to some inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent as “negroes”, which seems an egregious error for such a famed ethnographer. (I suspect from the context he was using the term as a derogatory one rather than a strictly ethnographic one – which makes it even worse).
Burton’s style is relaxed and journalistic and sometimes quite funny, although of course his humour sometimes has a cruel edge which reminds us of the distance between our age and his own. He was the Grandfather of Travel Writers and like all good travel writing we feel we are at times standing right next to him as he describes a variety of fascinating people and places. On the whole, though, I was left a bit disappointed by his dismissive and frankly racist attitudes. Some Indian ethnic groups are described admiringly, but are frequently contrasted with others of whom he writes very disparagingly. And there are occasions when he refers to some inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent as “negroes”, which seems an egregious error for such a famed ethnographer. (I suspect from the context he was using the term as a derogatory one rather than a strictly ethnographic one – which makes it even worse).
March 7, 2026
Burton is a generally unlikeable man. He was also a most extraordinary person.
In spite of his interest in non-European cultures, he has been described as expressing white supremacist sentiments. Reading this book, I would broaden this claim to general bigotry, as he meted out as much unsympathetic criticism to the Portuguese as he does to the mixed race and black Christians, the Hindus and the Moslems. All women are assessed with an eye to their beauty alone and generally found wanting.
His critical attitude is at first refreshing and funny but it becomes boring after a while. There’s no attempt at depth of understanding of people, merely one superior judgment after another.
Most men Burton comes in contact with are cunning rascals or wretches The women are almost all ugly hags. Everyone and everywhere is filthy
All meet with Burton’s contemptuous eye whether they be Christian, Hindu, or Moslem (though perhaps because of their minority, the last group get off more lightly).
Burton does allow for the ‘dispiriting influence of poverty’ in explaining lack of excellence, but only briefly, before he moves on to detailing the next failing of the various people. Dishonest, greedy, jealous, deceitful, indolent, and so the list of epithets goes on.
Burton is uncharitable but he doesn’t romanticise. In this respect, he makes for a welcome change to guide books of today.
In spite of his interest in non-European cultures, he has been described as expressing white supremacist sentiments. Reading this book, I would broaden this claim to general bigotry, as he meted out as much unsympathetic criticism to the Portuguese as he does to the mixed race and black Christians, the Hindus and the Moslems. All women are assessed with an eye to their beauty alone and generally found wanting.
His critical attitude is at first refreshing and funny but it becomes boring after a while. There’s no attempt at depth of understanding of people, merely one superior judgment after another.
Most men Burton comes in contact with are cunning rascals or wretches The women are almost all ugly hags. Everyone and everywhere is filthy
All meet with Burton’s contemptuous eye whether they be Christian, Hindu, or Moslem (though perhaps because of their minority, the last group get off more lightly).
Burton does allow for the ‘dispiriting influence of poverty’ in explaining lack of excellence, but only briefly, before he moves on to detailing the next failing of the various people. Dishonest, greedy, jealous, deceitful, indolent, and so the list of epithets goes on.
Burton is uncharitable but he doesn’t romanticise. In this respect, he makes for a welcome change to guide books of today.
May 22, 2009
Goa, an imperial backwater of the mid-19th century, is located south of Bombay on the Arabian Sea. Richard F. Burton decided to take six months sick leave from his post in Bombay for sociological exploration. I chose to read this for the fact it is written by Burton who was so truly intrepid and literary.
February 13, 2025
Absolutely gorgeous writing! 🩷
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews