[79]

In September Burton visited Calicut--the city above all others
associated with Camoens, and here he had the pleasure of studying on
the spot the scenes connected with the momentous landing of Da Gama
as described in the seventh and most famous book of the Lusiads. In
imagination, like Da Gama and his brave "Portingalls," he greeted the
Moor Monzaida, interviewed the Zamorim, and circumvented the sinister
designs of the sordid Catual; while his followers trafficked for strange
webs and odoriferous gums. On his return to Bombay, reached on October
15th, Burton offered himself for examination in Persian, and gaining
the first place, was presented by the Court of Directors with a thousand
rupees. In the meantime his brother Edward, now more Greek-looking than
ever, had risen to be Surgeon-Major, and had proceeded to Ceylon, where
he was quartered with his regiment, the 37th.

16. "Would you a Sufi be?"

Upon his return to Sind, Burton at first applied himself sedulously to
Sindi, and then, having conceived the idea of visiting Mecca, studied
Moslem divinity, learnt much of the Koran by heart and made himself
a "proficient at prayer." It would be unjust to regard this as mere
acting. Truth to say, he was gradually becoming disillusioned. He was
finding out in youth, or rather in early manhood, what it took Koheleth
a lifetime to discover, namely, that "all is vanity." This being the
state of his mind it is not surprising that he drifted into Sufism.
He fasted, complied with the rules and performed all the exercises
conscientiously. The idea of the height which he strove to attain, and
the steps by which he mounted towards it, may be fathered from the Sufic
poet Jami. Health, says Jami, is the best relish. A worshipper will
never realise the pure love of the Lord unless he despises the whole
world. Dalliance with women is a kind of mental derangement. Days are
like pages in the book of life. You must record upon them only the best
acts and memories.

"Would you a Sufi be, you must
Subdue your passions; banish lust
And anger; be of none afraid,
A hundred wounds take undismayed." [80]

In time, by dint of plain living, high thinking, and stifling generally
the impulses of his nature, Burton became a Master Sufi, and all his
life he sympathised with, and to some extent practised Sufism. Being
prevented by the weakness of his eyes from continuing his survey
work, he made a number of reports of