Burton 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, where he led an expedition guided by locals and was the first European known to have seen Lake Tanganyika. In later life, he served as British consul in Fernando Pó (now Bioko, Equatorial Guinea), Santos in Brazil, Damascus, Ottoman Empire (now Syria), and finally in Trieste, Austria-Hungary (now Italy). He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood in 1886.