Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784 - 1817) was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1806 he first travelled with an African Association expedition to explore the interior of Africa. Three years later he was in North Africa, where disguised as an Arab, he travelled widely, becoming so fluent in Arabic dialects and customs that he passed as an Arab merchant, travelling in 1814 to Mecca, a city forbidden to non-Muslims. Arabic Provers, first published in 1830, is a collection of proverbial sayings, originally compiled by Sheref Addin Ibn Asad, in Cairo, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Burckhardt translated and annotated these sayings in the hope that they might "interest and gratify the Orientalist". The work provides an intriguing insight into the manners of customs of Egyptians two-hundred years ago.