Explorer, Translator, Soldier, Hypnotist

If it were possible to go back in time and meet the people of the past, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton would be on my list of people to meet:

[Burton] was an English explorer, trans­lator, writer, soldier, ori­ent­alist, eth­no­lo­gist, linguist, poet, hyp­notist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explor­a­tions within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary know­ledge of lan­guages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.

That inform­a­tion forms the first para­graph of the Wiki­pedia article about Burton. The first sentence of the second para­graph is equally thrilling:

Burton’s best-​known achieve­ments include trav­eling in disguise to Mecca, making an unex­pur­gated trans­la­tion of The Book of One Thousand Nights and A Night (the col­lec­tion is more commonly called The Arabian Nights in English because of Andrew Lang’s abridge­ment) and the Kama Sutra and jour­neying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans led by the 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.

Things were dif­ferent back then.