Richard Burton. Portrait of the English explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-90). Expelled from Oxford University, England, Burton served in the army in India for seven years from 1842 where he learnt several Eastern languages. In 1853, he was one of the first Europeans to enter Medina and Mecca, Muslim cities in what is now Saudi Arabia. He explored Somaliland in Eastern Africa with John Speke, before fighting in the Crimean War. Burton went back to Africa with Speke in 1856 and they were the first Europeans to see Lake Tanganyika in 1858. He was knighted in 1886. He translated the Arabian Nights (1885-88) and the Kama Sutra.