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RICHARD BURTON IN HIS TENT IN AFRICA. 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR RICHARD F. BURTON, 
 
 K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S. 
 
 / 
 

 All Rights Reserved 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 CAPTAIN 
 
 (y 3-4 -i£> 
 
 & t 
 
 Sir RICHARD F. BURTON 
 
 K.CM.G. f F.R.G.S. 
 
 X.D 
 
 BY HIS WE 
 
 ISABEL BURTON 
 
 EDITED, WITH A PREFACE, BY 
 
 W. H. WILKINS 
 
 M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR! OF “THE ROMANCE OF ISABEL, LADY BURTON” 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DUCKWORTH & CO. 
 
 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1898 
 
ii Pi'eface to the New Edition. 
 
 it—for it is obvious that such a book could only be pub¬ 
 lished after the writer’s death, when he had passed beyond 
 the reach of earthly praise or blame. 
 
 “ No man can write a man down except himself.” Burton 
 recognised this truth. And with a view to writing his own 
 life some day, he carefully kept almost every letter he 
 received, a copy of every important letter he ever wrote, 
 and all the papers and documents bearing directly or in¬ 
 directly upon his career. He kept too his diaries and 
 journals, not as many keep them, with all the ugly things 
 left out, but faithfully and fully. We have the record of 
 his early years from his own pen, and this, though it does 
 not go far, at least does not err on the side of incomplete¬ 
 ness. Once or twice he essayed to begin his own biography 
 —some fragments will be found in this volume—but pres¬ 
 sure of literary and official work and other considerations 
 determined him to defer writing it until he had retired from 
 the Consular Service. Six months before the date of his 
 retirement he died, and so the book was never written. 
 Burton’s memory may have been the gainer (I do not think 
 so), but the world was undoubtedly the loser of a great 
 book, for he had told more than one of his intimate friends 
 that if ever he wrote the story of his life it would be the 
 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And he 
 was a man of his word. He thought with St Jerome, “ If 
 an offence come out of the truth, better it is that the offence 
 come than that the truth be concealed.” 
 
 After his death the whole of his books, papers and docu¬ 
 ments, together with his diaries and private journals, passed 
 into Lady Burton’s possession. He appointed her his sole 
 literary executor, and endowed her with complete discretion 
 as to the disposal of his papers. Lady Burton divided the 
 whole of these into two classes : first, his unpublished MSS. ; 
 and, secondly, the materials connected with his biography. Of 
 the first class it is not necessary to treat now ; she published 
 some during her lifetime, the remainder her sister has entrusted 
 to me to edit and prepare for publication.'* Of the second 
 she selected from his private papers and diaries such material 
 
 * One, “ The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam,” was published May 1898. 
 
Preface to the New Edition. iii 
 
 as she deemed right and advisable to be given to the world; 
 all the rest she burned, so that no human eye but her own 
 might look upon them, and when she had completed the 
 book before us she further destroyed all papers and docu¬ 
 ments connected with the making of it. Thus it comes 
 about that this biography is the only authoritative biography 
 of Sir Richard Burton, and it is the only possible biography 
 which can make any pretence to completeness. As such it 
 must stand for all time. Other lives may be written of 
 him, but this book must remain as the only biography 
 based upon authentic documents prepared to some extent 
 by himself, and written from authoritative sources of infor¬ 
 mation. What is not here is not in existence; for the 
 private journals and diaries which were full of the secret 
 thoughts and apologia of this rare genius have been com¬ 
 mitted to the flames, and both he who wrote, and she who 
 alone read them, have passed into the Great Silence. 
 
 I have said that the only person who could have written 
 Burton’s life was Burton himself; but failing him there was 
 no one so worthy to undertake the task as his devoted wife, 
 whose love had encompassed him night and day for thirty 
 years, and who, after his death, guarded his good memory 
 and fair name against all the world. If Lady Burton 
 lacked some of the qualities of an ideal biographer, she 
 compensated for the want by the zeal and devotion which 
 inspired her in her task. She has given to the world 
 a human document indeed, a vivid word-portrait of the man 
 as she knew him , and none knew him in the latter part of 
 his life better than she, and none had acquired greater 
 opportunities for knowing all there was to be known about 
 him in the days before he had crossed her path. 
 
 Burton was forty years of age when he made his romantic 
 marriage with Isabel Arundell. His hot youth was over ; 
 the days of his most daring adventures and hair-breadth 
 escapes were gone as a tale that is told ; more than half his 
 life had passed, and that the wildest and most eventful. 
 After his marriage he settled down as well as he could into 
 official harness, not very quietly at the best of times, but 
 tame indeed compared with the Burton of Scinde, of Mecca, 
 of Harar, of Central Africa and Salt Lake City. It is not 
 
IV 
 
 Preface to the New Editio7t. 
 
 merely in the outward circumstances of his life that one may 
 trace the change in the man ; his wife’s great love influenced 
 him, elevated him, ennobled him; henceforth he did not live 
 only for himself. We can trace this subtle change in the 
 book before us ; it is not expressed, but we can read between 
 the lines. It may be that the side of his character he showed 
 to his wife, and on which she most loved to dwell, was not 
 the side the world knew best. It may even be that in 
 writing this book she so threw her soul into the work that 
 her own vivid and remarkable personality is engraved upon 
 it like a palimpsest, and her very self-abnegation produced 
 this unconscious result. I doubt if anv woman could do 
 justice to all aspects of Burton's character, for the psycho¬ 
 logical difference between man and woman is as essential 
 as the physical; a woman's way of looking at things can 
 never be quite the same as a man’s, and Burton was of all 
 men intensely virile. But, even so, this book remains the 
 last crowning work of a devoted woman’s life, who loved her 
 husband with a love passing the love of woman. 
 
 Lady Burton wrote the whole of this compendious work 
 in eight months, three of which were spent in sorting the 
 material, and five in the actual writing. It was finished at 
 the end of March 1893, and the first edition was published 
 in the following May. These months, as indeed all of Lady 
 Burton’s life in England after her husband’s death, were 
 spent in arduous and unceasing work, which begun at 10.30 
 in the morning and lasted until 6.30 in the evening. Many 
 days she would work much later, far on into the night. 
 Generally in the morning she would do a certain amount of 
 work before breakfast, for the old habit of early rising clung 
 to her, and until her death she never broke herself off 
 the custom of waking at 5 o’clock in the morning. Thus 
 she was able to write this book in so short a time, 
 and when it is remembered that all the time she was 
 suffering acutely from a dire disease, which later proved 
 fatal, we can realize something of the magnitude of the 
 task. Lady Burton always said that she could never have 
 accomplished the work had it not been for other and higher 
 aid. She was an intensely religious woman, with a deep 
 sense of the spiritual nature of things ; every action of her 
 
Preface to the New Edition . v 
 
 life was consecrated by prayer, and during the last years of 
 her life in England she seemed to live in communion with 
 the invisible. I once expressed to her my wonder that she 
 could have written the book in so short a time. She said, 
 with all the earnestness of conviction, that she could never 
 have done so alone ; often when in doubt as to how to 
 proceed she would seek help in prayer, and the help came ; 
 frequently when she wanted to look for a passage in one of 
 her husband’s books, or hunt up a reference, to find a missing 
 letter or paper, she sought guidance in the same way, and 
 the guidance came. No one could have convinced her that 
 she wrote the book alone. Be that as it may, she wrote un¬ 
 doubtedly from the loftiest motives, and under the inspira¬ 
 tion of a great and self-sacrificing love. It was her alabaster 
 box of spikenard, very precious, and when she had made 
 this last supreme offering to her husband’s memory she felt 
 that her life-work was done. 
 
 After the book was published Lady Burton’s health 
 gradually failed, and she died on the 25th of March 1896, 
 and was buried in the Arab tent at Mortlake, by the side of 
 him whom she loved so well. The story of her life I have 
 told elsewhere. I only allude to it here because it was so 
 fused with that of her husband one cannot mention one 
 without the other. 
 
 Five years have passed since the first publication of this 
 book, and already its object has been, to a great extent, 
 accomplished. Burton is more famous in death than in life. 
 It is generally recognised to-day that he was unfairly treated 
 by successive Governments, and often misunderstood by 
 the general public. Like another strange genius, Lord 
 Beaconsfield, the best years of his life were passed fighting 
 for recognition, and when recognition came it came too late. 
 Yet in Burton’s case this may not have been altogether the 
 fault of those in authority. Some men are born out of due 
 time: some are born too early, and some too late. Burton 
 was born too late. He belonged to the age of Drake, 
 Frobisher, and Raleigh. In the spacious days of Elizabeth 
 he would have found a field wide enough for his energies. 
 For the circumstances of his life, and the conventions of his 
 age, he was altogether too big a man. He chafed and 
 
 b 
 
VI 
 
 Preface to the New Edition, 
 
 fretted against them, and the very faults which hindered his 
 advancement would have counted to his credit three cen¬ 
 turies before. Historians tell us that to appraise a man 
 correctly we must judge him by the standards of his time. 
 If that be so, then Burton’s case was one of the exceptions 
 which prove the rule, for, to judge him fairly, one must judge 
 him not by the standards of the nineteenth century, but by 
 those of the sixteenth. 
 
 It was in the hope that this book would tell the world 
 how great a man it had lost in him, and how much he had 
 been misunderstood and misjudged during his life, that 
 it was written. In the same hope this new edition is 
 brought forth. Would that it had been possible to publish 
 it intact. But it was found that the two bulky volumes 
 which formed the first edition could not possibly be com¬ 
 pressed into one volume at a more popular price, and it was 
 Lady Burton’s wish that the book should be as widely known 
 as possible. Upon me, therefore, the task of revision has 
 devolved. I have endeavoured to carry it out by interfering 
 as little as possible with the original text. I have been 
 compelled to leave out the appendices, and two or three 
 chapters and portions of chapters on obsolete controversies 
 and subjects foreign to the narrative, essays in point of fact 
 on sundry questions, which would have been better included 
 in a separate volume. I have also deleted some press cut¬ 
 tings and unimportant details not germane to the subject, 
 but that is all. The book remains to all practical purposes 
 as Lady Burton wrote it, a notable memorial to one of the 
 most picturesque and remarkable personalities of our era. 
 
 W. H. Wilkins. 
 
 November 1898. 
 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 In speaking of my husband, I shall not call him “Sir 
 Richard,” or “ Burton,” as many wives would; nor yet by the 
 pet name I used for him at home, which for some reason 
 which I cannot explain was “Jemmy nor yet what he was 
 generally called at home, and what his friends called him, 
 “ Dick ; ” but I will call him Richard in speaking of him, and 
 “ I ” where he speaks on his own account, as he does in his 
 private journals. I always thought and told him that he 
 destroyed much of the interest of his works by hardly ever 
 alluding to himself, and now that I mention it, people may 
 remark it, that in writing he seldom uses the pronoun /. I 
 have therefore drawn, not from his books, but from his private 
 journals. It was one of his asceticisms, an act of humility, 
 which the world passed by, and probably only thought one 
 of his eccentricities. In his works he would generally speak 
 of himself as the Ensign, the Traveller, the Explorer, the 
 Consul, and so on, so that I often think that people who 
 are not earnest readers never understood zvho it was that did 
 this, thought that, or saw the other. If I make him speak 
 plainly for himself, as he does in his private journals, but 
 never to the public, it will give twenty times the interest in 
 relating events; so I shall throughout let him speak for 
 himself where I can. 
 
 In early January, 1876, Richard and I were on our way 
 to India for a six months’ trip to visit the old haunts. We 
 
Foreword. 
 
 • • • 
 
 Vlll 
 
 divided our intended journey into two lots. We cut India 
 down the middle, the long way on the map, from north to 
 south, and took the western side, leaving the eastern side for 
 a trip which was deferred, alas! for our old age and retire¬ 
 ment. We utilized the voyage out (which occupied thirty- 
 three days in an Austrian Lloyd, used as a Haj, or pilgrim- 
 ship), and also the voyage back, in the part of the following 
 pages which refers to his early life, he dictating and I writing. 
 
 In 1887, when my husband was beginning to be a real 
 invalid, he lent some of these notes to Mr. Hitchman (who 
 asked leave to write his biography), Richard promising not 
 to tread upon his heels by his own Autobiography till he 
 should be free from service in 1891. It will not, I think, 
 do any harm to the reading public to reproduce it with 
 more detail, because only seven hundred people got Mr. 
 Hitchman’s, who did not by any means use the whole of 
 the material before he returned it, and what I give is the 
 original just as Richard dictated it, and it is more needful, 
 because it deals with a part of his life that was only known 
 to himself, to me only by dictation ; because everything that 
 he wrote of himself is infinitely precious, and because to leave 
 to the public a sketch of an early Richard Burton is desirable, 
 otherwise readers would be obliged to purchase Mr. Hitch- 
 man’s, as well as this work, in order to make a perfect whole. 
 
 I must take warning, however, that when Mr. Hitchman’s 
 book came out, part of the Press found this account of my 
 husband’s boyhood and youth charming, and another part 
 of the Press said that I was too candid, and did nothing to 
 gloss over the faults and foibles of the youthful Burtons ; 
 they doubted the accuracy of my information—I was in¬ 
 formed that my style was too rough-and-ready, and of many 
 others of my shortcomings. In short, I was considered rather 
 as writing against my own husband, whilst both sides of the 
 Press in their reviews assumed that I wrote it; this charmed 
 Richard, and he would not let me refute. Not one word was 
 mine—it was only dictation, and peremptory dictation when 
 I objected to certain self-accusations. I beg leave to state 
 that I did not write one single word ; I could not, for I did 
 not know it—and all that the family objected to, or con- 
 
Foreword. 
 
 ix 
 
 sidered exaggerated, will not be repeated here. Before enter¬ 
 ing on these pages, I must warn the reader not to expect 
 the goody-goody boy nor yet the precocious vicious youth 
 of 1893. It is the recital of a high-spirited lad of the old 
 school, full of animal spirits and manly notions, a lively sense 
 of fun and humour, reckless of the consequences of playing 
 tricks, but without a vestige of vice in the meaner or lower 
 forms—a lad, in short, who would be a gentleman and a man 
 of the world in his teens, and who, from his foreign travel, 
 had seen more of life than boys do brought up at home. 
 
 I do not begin this work—the last important work of my 
 life—without fear and trembling. If I can perform this sacred 
 duty—this labour of love—well,—I shall be glad indeed, but 
 I begin it with unfeigned humility. I have never needed any 
 one to point out to me that my husband was on a pedestal 
 far above me, or anybody else in the world. I have known 
 it from 1850 to 1893, from a young girl to an old widow, i.e. 
 for forty-three years. I feel that I cannot do justice to his 
 scientific life, that I may miss points in travel that would 
 have been more brilliantly treated by a clever man. My 
 only comfort is, that his travels and services are already 
 more or less known to the public, and that other books will 
 be written about them. But if I am so unfortunate as to 
 disappoint the public in this way, there is one thing that I 
 feel I am fit for, and that is to lift the veil as to the inner 
 man. He was misunderstood and unappreciated by the 
 world at large, during his life. No one ever thought of 
 looking for the real man beneath the cultivated mask that 
 generally hid all feelings and belief—but now the world is 
 beginning to know what it has lost. The old, old, sad story. 
 
 He shall tell his own tale till 1861, the first forty years, 
 annotated by me. Whilst dictating to me I sometimes 
 remarked, “Oh, do you think it would be well to write this?” 
 and the answer always was, “Yes! I do not see the use of 
 writing a biography at all, unless it is the exact truth, a very 
 photograph of the man or woman in question.” On this 
 principle he taught me to write quite openly in the uncon¬ 
 ventional and personal style—being the only way to make 
 a biography interesting, which we now class as the Marie 
 
X 
 
 Foreword ’ 
 
 Bashkirtcheff style. As you will see, he always makes the 
 worst of himself, and offers no excuse. As a lad he does not 
 know what to do to show his manliness, and all that a boy 
 should, ought, and does think brave and honourable, be it wild 
 or not, all that he does. 
 
 What appals me is, that the task is one of such magnitude—- 
 the enormous quantity of his books and writings that I have 
 to look through, and, out of eighty or more publications, to 
 ascertain what has seen the light and what has not, because 
 it is impossible to carry the work of forty-eight years in one’s 
 head ; and, again, the immense quantity of subjects he has 
 studied and written upon, some in only a fragmentary state, 
 is wonderful. My wish would be to produce this life, speaking 
 only of him—and afterwards to reproduce everything he has 
 written that has not been published. I propose putting all 
 the heavier matter, such as pamphlets, essays, letters, corre¬ 
 spondence, and the resume of his works—that is, what portion 
 shows his labours and works for the benefit of the human race — 
 into two after-volumes, to be called “ Labours and Wisdom 
 of Richard Burton.” After his biography I shall renew his 
 ‘‘Arabian Nights” with his Forewords, Terminal Essay, and 
 Biography of the book in such form that it can be copy¬ 
 righted—it is now protected by my copyright. His “ Ca¬ 
 tullus” and “ Pentamerone ” are now more or less in the 
 Press, to be followed by degrees by all his unpublished works. 
 His hitherto published works I shall bring out as a Uniform 
 Library, so that not a word will be lost that he ever wrote 
 for the public. Fortunately, I have kept all his books classified 
 as he kept them himself, with a catalogue, and have separate 
 shelves ticketed and numbered; for example, “ Sword,” 
 “ Gypsy,” “ Pentamerone,” “ Camoens,” and so on. 
 
 If I were sure of life, I should have wished for six months 
 to look through and sort our papers and materials before 
 I began this work, because I have five rooms full. Our 
 books, about eight thousand, only got housed in March, 1892, 
 and they are sorted—but not the papers and correspon¬ 
 dence ; but I fancy that the public would rather have a 
 spontaneous work sooner, than wait longer. If I live I shall 
 always go on with them. I have no leisure to think of style 
 
Foreword. 
 
 xi 
 
 or of polish, or to select the best language, the best English, 
 —no time to shine as an authoress. I must just think aloud, 
 so as not to keep the public waiting. 
 
 From the time of my husband’s becoming a real invalid— 
 February, 1887—whilst my constant thoughts reviewed the 
 dread To Come—the catastrophe of his death—and the 
 subsequent suffering, I have been totally incapable, except 
 writing his letters or attending to his business, of doing any 
 good literary work until July, 1892, a period of five years, 
 which was not improved by four attacks of influenza. 
 
 Richard was such a many-sided man, that he will have 
 appeared different to every set of people who knew him. He 
 was as a diamond with so many facets. The tender, the true, 
 the brilliant, the scientific,—and to those who deserved it, the 
 cynical, the hard, the severe. Loads of books will be written 
 about him, and every one will be different; and though perhaps 
 it is an unseemly boast, I venture to feel sure that mine will 
 be the truest one, for I have no interest to serve, no notoriety 
 to gain, belong to no party, have nothing to sway me. 
 except the desire to let the world understand what it once 
 possessed, what it has lost. With many it will mean 1 . 
 With me it means HIM. 
 
 When this biography is out, the public will, theoretically, 
 but not practically, know him as well as I can make them, 
 and all of his friends will be able after that to put forth 
 a work representing that particular facet of his character 
 which he turned on to them, or which they drew from him. 
 He was so great, so world-wide, he could turn a fresh facet 
 and sympathy on to each world. I always think that a man 
 is one character to his wife at his fireside corner, another man 
 to his own family, another man to her family, a fourth to a 
 mistress or an amourette—if he have one,—a fifth to his men 
 friends, a sixth to his boon companions, and a seventh to his 
 public, and so on ad infinitum ; but I think the wife, if they 
 are happy and love each other, gets the pearl out of the 
 seven oyster-shells. 
 
 I fear that this work will be too long. I cannot help it. 
 When I embarked on it I had no conception of the scope: 
 it was a labour of love. I thought I could fly over it; but 
 
Xll 
 
 Foreword. 
 
 I have found that the more I worked, the more it grew, and 
 that the end receded from me like the mirage in the desert, 
 I only aim at giving a simple, true recital without comment, 
 and at fairness on all questions of whatever sort. I am very 
 personal, because I believe the public like it. I want to give 
 Richard as I knew him at home. I apologize in advance 
 to my readers if I am sometimes obliged to mention myself 
 oftener than they and I care about; but they will under¬ 
 stand that our lives were so interwoven, so bound together, 
 that I should very often spoil a good story or an anecdote 
 or a dialogue were I to leave myself out. It would be an 
 affectation that would spoil my w 7 ork. 
 
 I am rather disheartened by being told by a literary friend 
 that the present British public likes its reading “ in sips.” 
 How can I give a life of seventy years, every moment of 
 which was employed in a remarkable way, “ in sips ” ? It is 
 impossible. Though I must not detail much from his books, 
 I want to convey to the public, at least, what they were about; 
 striking points of travel, his schemes, wise warnings, advice, 
 and plans for the benefit of England—then what about 
 “ sips ” ? It must not be dry, it must not be heavy, nor 
 tedious, nor voluminous ; so it shall be personal, full of traits 
 of character, sentiments and opinions, brightened with cheer¬ 
 ful anecdotes, and the more serious part shall go into the 
 before-mentioned two volumes, the “ Labours and Wisdom 
 of Richard Burton.” 
 
 I am not putting in many letters, because he generally said 
 such personal things, that few would like them to be shown. 
 His business letters would not interest. To economize time 
 he used to get expressly made for him the smallest possible 
 pieces of paper, into which he used to cram the greatest 
 amount of news—telegram form. He only wrote much in 
 detail, if he had any literary business to transact. 
 
 One of my greatest difficulties, which I scarcely know how 
 to express, is, that which I think the most interesting, and 
 which most of my intimates think well worth exploring; it is 
 that of showing the dual man with, as it were, two natures in 
 one person, diametrically opposed to each other, of which he 
 was himself perfectly conscious. I had a party of literary 
 
Foreword. 
 
 xm 
 
 friends to dinner one night, and I put my manuscript on the 
 table before them after dinner, and I begged them each to take 
 a part and look over it. Feeling as I do that the general 
 public never understood him, and that his mantle after death 
 seemed to descend upon my shoulders, that everything I 
 say seems to be misunderstood, and that, in some few eyes, 
 I can do nothing right, I said at the end of the evening, 
 “ If I endeavour to explain, will it not be throwing pearls to 
 swine ? ” (not that I meant, dear readers, to compare you to 
 swine—it is but an expression of thought well understood). 
 And the answer was, “ Oh, Lady Burton, do give the world 
 the ins and outs of this remarkable and interesting character, 
 and let the swine take care of themselves.” “ If you leave 
 out by order ” (said one) “ religion and politics, the two 
 touchstones of the British public, you leave out the great 
 part of a man.” “ Mind you gloss over nothing to please 
 anybody ” (said a second). I think they are right—one set 
 of people see one side, and another see another side, and 
 neither of the two will comprehend (like St. Thomas) anything 
 that they have not seen and felt; or, to quote one of Richard’s 
 favourite mottoes from St. Augustine, “ Let them laugh at 
 me for speaking of things which they do not understand, and 
 I must pity them, whilst they laugh at me.” So I must 
 remain an unfortunate buffer amidst a cyclone of opinions. 
 I can only avoid controversies and opinions of my ozvn, and 
 quote his and his actions. 
 
 These words are forced from me, because I have received 
 my orders, if not exactly from the public, from a few of 
 the friends who profess to know him best. I am ordered to 
 describe Richard as a sort of Diderot (a disciple of Voltaire’s), 
 who wrote “ that the world would never be quiet till the last 
 king was strangled with the bowels of the last priest,”— 
 whereas there was no one whom Richard delighted more to 
 honour than a worthy King, or an honest straightforward 
 Priest. 
 
 There are people who are ready to stone me, if I will not 
 describe Richard as being absolutely without belief in any thing; 
 yet I really cannot oblige them, without being absolutely 
 untruthful. He was a spade-truth man, and he honestly 
 
XIV 
 
 Foreword. 
 
 used to say that he examined every religion, and picked out 
 its pearl to practise it. He did not scoff at them, he was 
 perfectly sincere and honest in what he said, nor did he 
 change, but he grew. He always said , and innumerable people 
 could come forward, if they had the courage—I could name 
 some—to say that they have heard him declare, that at the 
 end of all things there were only two points to stand upon—- 
 NOTHING and CATHOLICISM ; and many could ' if they would, 
 come forward and say, that when they asked him what 
 religion he was, he answered Catholic. 
 
 He never was, what is called here and nozv in England, 
 an Agnostic ; he was a Master-Sufi, he practised Tasawwuf 
 or Sufi-ism, which combines the poetiy and prose of religion, 
 and is mystic. The Sufi is a profound student of the different 
 branches of language and metaphysics, is gifted with a musical 
 ear, indulges in luxuriant imagery and description. They 
 have a simple sense—a double entendre understood amongst 
 themselves—God in Nature,—Nature in God—a mystical 
 affection for a Higher Life, dead to excitement, hope, fear, 
 etc. He was fond of quoting Sayyid Mohammad Hosayn’s 
 motto, “ It is better to restore one dead heart to Eternal Life, 
 than Life to a thousand dead bodies.” 
 
 I have seen him receive gratuitous copies of an Agnostic 
 paper in England, and I remember one in particular—I do not 
 know who wrote it,—it was very long, and all the verses ended 
 with “ Curse God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” I can 
 see him now reading it—and stroking his long moustache, and 
 muttering, “ Poor devil! Vulgar beast! ” He was quite 
 satisfied, as his friends say, that we are not gifted with the 
 senses to understand the origin of the Mysteries by which we 
 are surrounded, and in this nobody agrees more thoroughly 
 than I do. He likewise said he believed there was a God, 
 but that he could not define Him ; neither can I, neither can 
 you, but / do not want to. Great minds tower above and see 
 into little ones, but the little minds never climb sufficiently 
 high to see into the Great Minds, and never did Lord 
 Beaconsfield say a truer thing, speaking of religion than when 
 he said, “ Sensible men never tellS As I want to make this 
 work both valuable and interesting, I am not going into the 
 
Foreword. 
 
 xv 
 
 unknown or the unknowable, only into what he knew—what I 
 know; therefore I shall freely quote his early training, his 
 politics, his Mohammedanism, his Sufiism, his Brahminical 
 thread, his Spiritualism, and all the religions which he 
 studied, and nobody can give me a sensible reason why 1 
 should leave out the Catholicism, except to point the Spanish 
 proverb, “ that no one pelts a tree, unless it has fruit on it,” 
 but were I to do so, the biography would be incomplete. 
 
 Let us suppose a person residing inside a house, and 
 another person looking at the house from the opposite side 
 of the street; you would not be unjust enough to expect the 
 person on the outside to describe minutely its inner chambers 
 and everything that was in it, because he would have to take 
 it on trust from the person who resided inside, but you 
 would take the report of the man living outside as to the 
 exterior of the house. That is exactly the same as my writing 
 my husband’s history. Do you want an edition of the inside 
 or an edition of the outside? If you do not want the truth, 
 if you order me to describe a Darwin, a Spencer, a John 
 Stuart Mill, I can do it; but it will not be the home-Richard, 
 the fireside-Richard whom I knew, the two perfectly distinct 
 Richards in one person ; it will be the man as he was at 
 lunch, at dinner, or when friends came in, or when he dined 
 out, or when he paid visits ; and if the world—or, let us say, 
 a small portion of the world,—is so unjust and silly as to 
 wish for untrue history, it must get somebody else to write 
 it. To me there are only two courses : I must either tell the 
 truth, and lay open the “ inner life ” of the man, by a faithful 
 photograph, or I must let it alone, and leave his friends to 
 misrepresent him, according to their lights. 
 
 It has been threatened to me that if I speak the truth 
 I am to reap the whirlwind, because others, who claim to 
 know my husband well, see him quite in a different light. 
 (I know many people intimately, but I am quite incompetent 
 to write their lives—I am only fit to do that for the man with 
 whom I lived night and day for thirty years ; there are three 
 other people who could each write a small section of his 
 life, and after those nobody ; I do not accept the so-called 
 general term “ friend.”) I shall be very happy indeed 
 
XVI 
 
 Foreword. 
 
 to answer anybody who attacks me, who is brave enough to 
 put his or her name ; but during the two years I have been in 
 England I have hardly had anything but anonymous com¬ 
 munications and paragraphs signed under the brave names of 
 “ Agnostic,” or “ One who knows,” so I have no man or woman 
 to deal with, but empty air, which is beneath my contempt. 
 This is a very old game, perhaps even more ancient than 
 “ Prophesy, O Christ, who it was that struck Thee! ” but it 
 is cowardly and un-English—that is, if England “ stands 
 where she did.” I would also remind you of the good old 
 Arab proverb, that “a thousand curses never tore a shirt.” 
 
 I would have you remember that I gain nothing by trying 
 to describe my husband as belonging to any particular 
 religion. If I would describe him as an English Agnostic— 
 the last new popular word—the small band of people who 
 call themselves his intimate friends, and who think to honour 
 him by injuring me, would be perfectly satisfied. I should 
 have all their sympathy, and my name would be at rest, both 
 in Society and in the Press. I have no interest to serve in 
 saying he was a Catholic more than anything else; I have 
 no bigotry on the question at all. If he did something 
 Catholic I shall say it, and if he did something Mohammedan 
 or Agnostic I shall equally say it. 
 
 It is also a curious fact, that the people who are most 
 vexed with me on this score, are men who, before their wives, 
 mothers, sisters, are good Protestants, and who go twice to the 
 Protestant church on Sundays, but who are quite scandalized 
 that my husband should be allowed a religion, and are furious 
 because I will not allow that Richard Burton was their 
 Captain. No, thank you! it is not good enough : he was 
 not, never was like any of you—nor can I see what it can 
 possibly be to you what faith, or no faith, Richard Burton 
 chose to die in, and why you threaten me if I speak the truth ! 
 We only knew two things—the beautiful mysticism of the 
 East, which, until I lived here, I thought was Agnosticism, 
 and I find it is not; and calm, liberal-minded Roman 
 Catholicism. The difference between you and Richard is— 
 you, I mean, who admired my husband—that you are not 
 going anywhere,—according to your own creed you have 
 
« • 
 
 Foreword . 
 
 XVII 
 
 nowhere to go to,—whilst he had a God and a continuation, 
 and said he would wait for me ; he is only gone a long- 
 journey, and presently I shall join him ; we shall take up 
 where we left off, and we shall be very much happier even 
 than we have been here. 
 
 Of the thousands that have written to me since his death, 
 everybody writes, “What a marvellous brain your husband 
 had! How modest about his learning and everything con¬ 
 cerning himself! He was a man never understood by the 
 world.” It is no wonder he was not understood by the 
 World; his friends hindered it, and when one who knew 
 him thoroughly, offers to make him understood, it is resented. 
 
 The Press has recently circulated a paragraph saying that 
 “ I am not the fittest person to write my husband’s life.” 
 After I have finished these two volumes, it will interest me 
 very much to read those of the competent person, who will 
 be so kind as to step to the front,—with a name, please, not 
 anonymously,—and to learn all the things I do not know. 
 
 He, she, or it, will write what he said and wrote ; I write 
 what he thought and did ,. 
 
 ISABEL BURTON. 
 
 29 th May, 1893. 
 
 Note. —I must beg the reader to note, that a word often has several different 
 spellings, and my husband used to give them a turn all round. Indeed, I may 
 say that during the latter years of his life he adopted quite a different spelling, 
 which he judged to be correcter. In many cases it is caused by the English way 
 of spelling a thing, and the real native way of spelling the same. For English 
 Meeanee, native way Miani. The battle of Dabba (English) is spelt Dubba, 
 Dubbah, by the natives. Fulailee river (English) is spelt Phuleli (native). Mecca 
 and Medina have sometimes an h at the end of them. Karrachee is Karachi. 
 Sind is spelt Sind, Sindh, Scind, Scinde; and what the Anglo-Indians call 
 Bobagees are really Babarchis, and so on. I therefore beg that the spelling may 
 not be criticized. In quoting letters, I write as the author does, since I must not 
 change other people’s spelling.—I. B 
 
CONSECRATION. 
 
 TO MY EARTHLY MASTER, 
 
 WHO IS WAITING FOR ME ON HEAVEN’S FRONTIERS. 
 
 Whilst waiting to rejoin you, I leave as a message to the World we 
 inhabited, the record of the Life into which both our lives were fused. 
 Would that I could write as well as I can love, and do you that justice, 
 that honour, which you deserve ! I will do my best, and then I will leave it 
 to more brilliant pens, whose wielders will feel less—and write better. 
 
 Meet me soon—I wait the signal 1 
 
 ISABEL BURTON. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 I. Genealogy and Family . 
 
 II. Birth and Childhood . 
 
 III. The Children are Brought to England 
 
 IV. Oxford . . 
 
 V. Going to India ...... 
 
 VI. India ....... 
 
 VII. Mecca ....... 
 
 VIII. Harar—the Moslem Abyssinia . . . . 
 
 IX. The Crimea with Beatson’s Horse 
 
 X. Richard Loves Me . 
 
 XI. His Exploration of the Lake Regions, taking 
 Captain Speke as Second in Command 
 
 XII. The Real Start for Tanganyika in the Interior . 
 
 XIII. Our Reward—Success . 
 
 XIV. Richard and I Meet Again . 
 
 XV. In West Africa . . 
 
 XVI. Home . ...... 
 
 XVII. Santos, Sao Paulo, Brazil—Richard’s Second Con¬ 
 sulate . ...... 
 
 XVIII. Damascus—his Third Consulate 
 XIX. Religion . ...... 
 
 XX. Trieste—his Fourth and Last Consulate 
 XXL India ....... 
 
 XXII. The Deccan ...... 
 
 XXIII. A Quiet Time at Trieste . 
 
 XXIV. On Leave in London . 
 
 XXV. Trieste Life Again . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 44 
 64 
 6 7 
 96 
 11 3 
 
 140 
 
 146 
 
 148 
 
 170 
 
 188 
 
 214 
 
 230 
 
 240 
 
 246 
 
 289 
 
 349 
 
 374 
 
 385 
 
 392 
 
 398 
 
 407 
 
 417 
 
Contents , 
 
 nr v 
 
 A. 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 XXVI. Another Short Leave to London . . . 427 
 
 XXVII. Miscellaneous Traits of Character and Opinions . 434 
 
 XXVIII. Decline in our Well-being .... 449 
 
 XXIX. Our Last Appeal ...... 461 
 
 XXX. We Leave England ..... 470 
 
 XXXI. Changes . . ..... 4S7 
 
 XXXII. At Montreux . ..... 500 
 
 XXXIII. W t e Return Home for the Last Time . . . 526 
 
 XXXIV. The Two Contested Points between a Small 
 
 Section of Antagonists and Myself . . 544 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ■ — o~ - - 
 
 Richard Burton in his Tent in Africa 
 
 » * 
 
 • 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Lunge and Cut in Carte (Inside) 
 
 * • 
 
 • 
 
 • \ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 96 
 
 The Chief Officer of Richard’s Brigade of 
 
 Amazons 
 
 
 (sketched by himself) 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 236 
 
 Crucifix from Dahome 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 237 
 
 The Burtons’ House in SalahIyyah, 
 
 Damascus. 
 
 By 
 
 Sir 
 
 
 Frederick Leighton . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 300 
 
 SalahIyyah, Damascus in the Oasis—The Desert beyond. 
 
 By 
 
 
 Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 304 
 
 The Burtons’ House at BludAn, in 
 
 Anti-Lf.banon. 
 
 By 
 
 
 Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 312 
 
 Sir Richard Burton in 1879. By Madame Gutmansthal 
 
 DE 
 
 
 Benvenuti (Trieste) 
 
 • • 
 
 $ 
 
 0 
 
 408 
 
 Sir Richard Burton in 1880 
 
 • • 
 
 4 
 
 0 
 
 412 
 
 House at Trieste, where Burton died 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 4 
 
 432 
 
 Richard Burton in his Bedroom at Trieste 
 
 • 
 
 0 
 
 452 
 
 Arab Tents (Tunis) . 
 
 • 
 
 0 
 
 • 
 
 509 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE OF SIR RICHARD BURTON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENEALOGY AND FAMILY. 
 
 By himself. Copied from his private Journals . 
 
 “ He travels and expatriates ; as the bee 
 From flower to flower, so he from land to land, 
 
 The manners, customs, policy of all 
 Pay contributions to the store he gleans ; 
 
 He seeks intelligence from every clime, 
 
 And spreads the honey of his deep research 
 At his return—a rich repast for me!" 
 
 Autobiographers generally begin too late. 
 
 Elderly gentlemen of eminence sit down to compose memories, 
 describe with fond minuteness babyhood, childhood, and boyhood, 
 and drop the pen before reaching adolescence. 
 
 Physiologists say that a man’s body changes totally every seven 
 years. However that may be, I am certain that the moral man 
 does, and I cannot imagine anything more trying than for a man 
 to meet himself as he was. Conceive his entering a room, and 
 finding a collection of himself at the several decades. First the 
 puking squalling baby one year old, then the pert unpleasant school¬ 
 boy of ten, the collegian of twenty who, like Lothair, “knows every¬ 
 thing and has nothing to learn.” The homme fait of thirty in the 
 full warmth and heyday of life, the reasonable man of forty, who 
 first recognizes his ignorance and knows his own mind, of fifty with 
 white teeth turned dark, and dark hair turned white, whose experience 
 is mostly disappointment with regrets for lost time and vanished 
 opportunities. Sixty when the man begins to die and mourns for 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 his past youth, at seventy when he ought to prepare for his long 
 journey and never does. And at all these ages he is seven different 
 beings not one of which he would wish to be again. 
 
 My father, Joseph Netterville Burton, was a lieutenant-colonel in 
 the 36th Regiment. He must have been born in the latter quarter 
 of the eighteenth century, but he had always a superstition about 
 mentioning his birthday, which gave rise to a family joke that he 
 was born in Leap Year. Although of very mixed blood, he was 
 more of a Roman in appearance than anything else, of moderate 
 height, dark hair, sallow skin, high nose, and piercing black eyes. 
 He was considered a very handsome man, especially in uniform, and 
 attracted attention even in the street. Even when past fifty he was 
 considered the best-looking man at the Baths of Lucca. As hand¬ 
 some men generally do, he married a plain woman, and, “Just 
 like Provy,” the children favoured, as the saying is, the mother. 
 
 In mind he was a thorough Irishman. When he received a com¬ 
 mission in the army it was on condition of so many of his tenants 
 accompanying him. Not a few of the younger sort volunteered to 
 enlist, but when they joined the regiment and found that the “young 
 master ” was all right, they at once ran away. 
 
 The only service that he saw was in Sicily, under Sir John Moore, 
 afterwards of Corunna, and there he fell in love with Italy. He was 
 a duellist, and shot one brother officer twice, nursing him tenderly 
 each time afterwards. When peace was concluded he came to 
 England and visited Ireland. As that did not suit him he returned 
 to his regiment in England. Then took place his marriage, which 
 was favoured by his mother-in-law and opposed by his father-in-law. 
 The latter, being a sharp old man of business, tied up every farthing 
 of his daughter’s property, ^30,000, and it was well that he did 
 so. My father, like too many of his cloth, developed a decided 
 taste for speculation. He was a highly moral man, who would have 
 hated the idea of rouge et noir, but he gambled on the Stock 
 Exchange, and when railways came out he bought shares. Happily 
 he could not touch his wife’s property, or it would speedily have 
 melted away; yet it was one of his grievances to the end of his life 
 that he could not use his wife’s money to make a gigantic fortune. 
 He was utterly reckless where others would be more prudent 
 Before his wedding tour, he passed through Windermere, and would 
 not call upon an aunt who was settled near the Lakes, for fear that 
 she might think he expected her property. She heard of it, and 
 left every farthing to some more dutiful nephew. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 
 
 I was born at 9.30 p.m., 19th March (Feast of St. Joseph in the 
 calendar), 1821, at Barham House, Herts, and suppose I was 
 baptized in due course at the parish church. My birth took place 
 in the same year as, but the day before, the grand event of George 
 IV. visiting the Opera for the first time after the Coronation, March 
 20th. I was the eldest of three children. The second was Maria 
 Catherine Eliza, who married Henry, afterwards General Sir Henry 
 Stisted, a very distinguished officer, who died, leaving only two 
 daughters, one of whom, Georgina Martha, survives. Third, Edward 
 Joseph Netterville, late Captain in the 37th Regiment, unmarried. 
 
 The first thing I remember, and it is always interesting to record 
 a child’s first memories, was being brought down after dinner at 
 Barham House to eat white currants, seated upon the knee of a tall 
 man with yellow hair and blue eyes; but whether the memory is 
 composed of a miniature of my grandfather, and whether the white 
 frock and blue sash with bows come from a miniature of myself and 
 not from life, I can never make up my mind. 
 
 Barham House was a country place bought by my grandfather, 
 Richard Baker, who determined to make me his heir because I had 
 red hair, an unusual thing in the Burton family. The hair soon 
 changed to black, which seems to justify the following remarks 
 by Alfred Bate Richards in a pamphlet he wrote. They are as 
 follows:— 
 
 “ Richard Burton’s talents for mixing with and assimilating natives 
 of all countries, but especially Oriental characters, and of becoming 
 as one of themselves without any one doubting or suspecting his 
 origin; his perfect knowledge of their languages, manners, customs, 
 habits, and religion; and last, but not least, his being gifted by 
 nature with an Arab head and face, favoured this his first enterprise ” 
 
4 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 (the pilgrimage to Mecca). “One can learn from that versatile poet- 
 traveller, the excellent Thdophile Gautier, why Richard Burton is an 
 Arab in appearance ; and account for that incurable restlessness that 
 is unable to wrest from fortune a spot on earth wherein to repose 
 when weary of wandering like the desert sands. 
 
 “ ‘ There is a reason/ says Gautier, who had studied the Andalusian 
 and the Moor, ‘ for the fantasy of nature which causes an Arab to 
 be born in Paris, or a Greek in Auvergne; the mysterious voice of 
 blood which is silent for generations, or only utters a confused 
 murmur, speaks at rare intervals a more intelligible language. In 
 the general confusion race claims its own, and some forgotten 
 ancestor asserts his rights. Who knows what alien drops are 
 mingled with our blood ? The great migrations from the table-lands 
 of India, the descents of the Northern races, the Roman and Arab 
 invasions, have all left their marks. Instincts which seem bizarre 
 spring from these confused recollections, these hints of distant 
 country. The vague desire of this primitive Fatherland moves such 
 minds as retain the more vivid memories of the past. Hence the 
 wild unrest that wakens in certain spirits the need of flight, such as 
 the cranes and the swallows feel when kept in bondage—the 
 impulses that make a man leave his luxurious life to bury himself 
 in the Steppes, the Desert, the Pampas, the Sahara. He goes to 
 seek his brothers. It would be easy to point out the intellectual 
 Fatherland of our greatest minds. Lamartine, De Musset, and De 
 Vigny are English; Delacroix is an Anglo-Indian; Victor Hugo a 
 Spaniard ; Ingres belongs to the Italy of Florence and Rome.’ 
 
 “ Richard Burton has also some peculiarities which oblige one to 
 suspect a drop of Oriental, perhaps gipsy, blood. By gipsy we 
 must understand the pure Eastern.” 
 
 My mother had a wild half-brother—Richard Baker, junior, a 
 barrister-at-law, who refused a judgeship in Australia, and died a 
 soap-boiler. To him she was madly attached, and delayed the 
 signing of my grandfather’s will as much as possible to the prejudice 
 of her own babe. My grandfather Baker drove in his carriage to see 
 Messrs. Dendy, his lawyers, with the object of signing the will, and 
 dropped dead, on getting out of the carriage, of ossification of the 
 heart; and, the document being unsigned, the property was 
 divided. It would now be worth half a million of money. 
 
 When I was sent out to India as a cadet, in 1842, I ran down to 
 see the old house for the last time, and started off in a sailing ship 
 round the Cape for Bombay, in a frame of mind to lead any forlorn 
 hope wherever it might be. Warren Hastings, Governor-General 
 of India, under similar circumstances threw himself under a tree, 
 and formed the fine resolution to come back and buy the old place; 
 but he belonged to the eighteenth century. The nineteenth is far 
 more cosmopolitan. I always acted upon the saying, Omne solum 
 
Birth and Childhood. 
 
 5 
 
 forti patria, or, as I translated it, “ For every region is a strong 
 man’s home.” 
 
 Meantime my father had been obliged to go on half-pay by the 
 Duke of Wellington for having refused to appear as a witness against 
 Queen Caroline. He had been town mayor at Genoa when she 
 lived there, and her kindness to the officers had greatly prepossessed 
 them in her favour; so, when ordered by the War Office to turn 
 Judas, he flatly refused. A great loss to himself, as Lord William 
 Bentinck, Governor-General of India, was about to take him as aide- 
 camp, and to his family, as he lost all connection with the army, 
 and lived entirely abroad, and, eventually coming back, died with 
 his wife at Bath in 1857. However, he behaved like a gentleman, 
 nd none of his family ever murmured at the step, though I began 
 life s an East Indian cadet, and my brother in a marching regiment, 
 whilst our cousins were in the Guards and the Rifles and other crack 
 corps of the army. 
 
 The family went abroad when I was a few months old, and settled 
 at Tours, the charming capital of Touraine, which then contained 
 some two hundred English families (now reduced to a score or so), 
 attracted by the beauty of the place, the healthy climate, the economy 
 of living, the facilities of education, and the friendly feeling of the 
 French inhabitants, who, despite Waterloo, associated freely with the 
 strangers. 
 
 They had a chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Way (whose son afterwards 
 entered the Indian army; I met him in India, and he died young); 
 their schoolmaster was Mr. Clough, who bolted from his debts, and 
 then Mr, Gilchrist, who, like the Rev. Edward Irving, Carlisle’s 
 friend (whom the butcher once asked if he couldn’t assist him), caned 
 his pupils to the utmost. The celebrated Dr. Brettoneau took 
 charge of the invalids. They had their duellist, the Honourable 
 Martin Hawke, their hounds that hunted the Forest of Amboise, and 
 a select colony of Irishmen, Messrs. Hume and others, who added 
 immensely to the fun and frolic of the place. 
 
 At that period a host of these little colonies were scattered over 
 the Continent nearest England; in fact, an oasis of Anglo-Saxondom 
 in a desert of continentalism, somewhat like the society of English 
 country towns as it was in 1800, not as it is now, where society is 
 confined to the parson, dentist, surgeon, general practitioners, the 
 bankers, and the lawyers. And in those days it had this advantage, 
 that there were no snobs, and one seldom noticed the aigre discorde , 
 the maladie chronique des menages bourgeoises. Knowing nothing of 
 Mrs. Grundy, the difference of the foreign colonies was that the 
 weight of English respectability appeared to be taken off them, 
 
6 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 though their lives were respectable and respected. The Mrs. Gamps 
 and Mrs. Grundys were not so rampant. The English of these little 
 colonies were intensely patriotic, and cared comparatively little for 
 party politics. They stuck to their own Church because it was their 
 Church, and they knew as much about the Catholics at their very 
 door, as the average Englishman does of the Hindu. Moreover, they 
 honestly called themselves Protestants in those days, and the French 
 called themselves Catholics. There was no quibble about “ their 
 being Anglo-Catholics, and the others Roman-Catholics.” They sub¬ 
 scribed liberally to the Church, and did not disdain to act as church¬ 
 wardens. They kept a sharp look-out upon the parson, and one 
 of your Modern High Church Protestants or Puseyites or Ritualists 
 would have got the sack after the first sermon. They were intensely 
 national. Any Englishman in those days who refused to fight a duel 
 with a Frenchman was sent to Coventry, and bullied out of the 
 place. English girls who flirted with foreigners, were looked upon 
 very much as white women who permit the addresses of a nigger, are 
 looked upon by those English who have lived in black countries. 
 White women who do these things lose caste. Beausdjour, the 
 chateau taken by the family, was inhabited by the Mar^chale de 
 Menon in 1778, and eventually became the property of her homme 
 d'affaires, Monsieur Froguet. The dear old place stands on the 
 right bank of the Loire, halfway up the heights that bound the 
 stream, commanding a splendid view, and fronted by a French 
 garden and vineyards now uprooted. In 1875 I paid it a last visit, 
 and found a friend from Brazil, a Madame Izari^, widow of my friend 
 the French Consul of Bahia, who had come to die in the house of 
 his sister, Madame Froguet. 
 
 Tours was in those days (1820-30) the most mediaeval City in 
 France. The western half of the city, divided from the eastern by 
 the Rue Royale, contained a number of old turreted houses of free¬ 
 stone, which might have belonged to the fifteenth century. There 
 also was the tomb of the Venerable St. Martin in a crypt, where 
 lamps are ever burning, and where the destroyed cathedral has not 
 yet been rebuilt. The eastern city contained the grand Cathedral of 
 St. Garden, with its domed towers, and the Arctdv£chd or Arch¬ 
 bishop’s palace with beautiful gardens. Both are still kept in the 
 best order. In forty-five years the city has grown enormously. The 
 southern suburbs, where the Mall and Ramparts used to be, has 
 become Boulevarts Heurteloup and Bdranger; and 4< Places,” such 
 as that of the Palais de Justice, where cabbage gardens fenced with 
 paling and thorn hedges once showed a few pauper cottages 
 defended by the fortifications, are now Crescents and Kiosks for 
 
Birth and Childhood. 
 
 7 
 
 loungers, houses with tall mansarde roofs, and the large railway 
 station that connects Tours with the outer world. The river, once 
 crossed by a single long stone bridge, has now two suspension 
 bridges and a railway bridge, and the river-holms, formerly strips of 
 sand, are now grown to double their size, covered with trees and 
 defended by stone dykes. 
 
 I remember passing over the river on foot when it was frozen, but 
 with the increased population that no longer happens. Still there 
 are vestiges of the old establishments. The Boule d’Or with its 
 Golden Ball, and the Pheasant Hotel, both in the Rue Royale, still 
 remain. You still read, “ Maison Piernadine recommended for is 
 elegance, is good taste, is new fashions of the first choice.” Madame 
 Fisterre, the maker of admirable apple-puffs, has disappeared and has 
 left no sign. This was, as may be supposed, one of my first childish 
 visits. We young ones enjoyed ourselves very much at the Chateau 
 de Beausejour, eating grapes in the garden, putting our Noah’s ark 
 animals under the box hedges, picking snail-shells and cowslips in 
 the lanes, playing with the dogs—three black pointers of splendid 
 breed, much admired by the Duke of Cumberland when he after¬ 
 wards saw them in Richmond Park, named Juno, Jupiter, and 
 Ponto. Charlotte Ling, the old nurse, daughter of the lodge-keeper 
 at Barham House, could not stand the absence of beef and beer 
 and the presence of kickshaws and dandelion salad, and after Aunt 
 Georgina Baker had paid us a visit, she returned with her to Old 
 England. A favourite amusement of us children was swarming up 
 the tails of our father’s horses, three in number, and one—a horse 
 of Mecklenburg breed—was as tame as an Arab. The first story 
 Aunt Georgina used to tell of me was of my lying on my back in 
 a broiling sun, and exclaiming, “ How I love a bright burning sun ! ” 
 (Nature speaking in early years). Occasional drawbacks were 
 violent storms of thunder and lightning, when we children were 
 hustled out of our little cots under the roof, and taken to the 
 drawing-room, lest the lightning should strike us, and the daily 
 necessity of learning the alphabet and so forth, multiplication table, 
 and our prayers. 
 
 I was intended for that wretched being, the infant phenomenon, 
 and so began Latin at three and Greek at four. Things are better 
 now. Our father used to go out wild-boar hunting in the Foret 
 lTA mboise , where is the chateau in which Abd-el-Kadir was im¬ 
 prisoned by the French Government from 1847 to 1852, when he 
 was set free by Napoleon III., at the entreaties of Lord London¬ 
 derry. (It is said that his Majesty entered his prison in person and 
 set him free. Abd-el-Kadir, at Damascus, often expressed his obliga- 
 
8 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 tions to the English, and warmly welcomed any English face. On 
 one occasion I took a near relation of Lord Londonderry’s to see 
 him, and he was quite overcome.) My father was periodically 
 brought home hurt by running against a tree. Sport was so much 
 in vogue then as to come between the parson and his sermon. 
 
 This pleasant life came to a close one day. We were three: I 
 was six, Maria four, and Edward three. One morning saw the 
 hateful school-books fastened with a little strap, and we boys and 
 our little bundle were conveyed in a small carriage to the town, 
 where we were introduced into a room with a number of English 
 and French boys, who were sitting opposite hacked and ink-spotted 
 desks, looking as demure as they could, though every now and then 
 they broke out into wicked grins and nudges. A lame Irish school¬ 
 master (Clough) smiled most graciously at us as long as our father 
 was in the room, but was not half so pleasant when we were left 
 alone. We wondered “ what we were doing in that Galere espe¬ 
 cially as we were sent there day after day, and presently we learnt the 
 dread truth that we were at school at the ripe ages of six and three. 
 Presently it was found that the house was at an inconvenient dis¬ 
 tance from school, and the family transferred itself to the Rue de 
 l’Archeveche, a very nice house in the north-eastern corner of what 
 is still the best street in the town (Rue Royale being mostly com¬ 
 mercial). It is close to the Place and the Archbishop’s palace, 
 which delighted us, with small deer feeding about the dwarf lawn. 
 
 Presently Mr. Clough ran away, leaving his sister to follow as 
 best she could, and we were transferred to the care of Mr. John 
 Gilchrist, a Scotch pedagogue of the old brutal school, who took an 
 especial delight in caning the boys, especially with a rattan or ferula 
 across the palm of the hand; but we were not long in discovering a 
 remedy, by splitting the end of the cane and inserting a bit of hair. 
 We took lessons in drawing, dancing, French, and music, in which 
 each child showed its individuality. Maria loved all four; Edward 
 took to French and music and hated drawing; I took to French and 
 drawing, and hated music and dancing. My brother and I took to 
 the study of Arms, by nature, as soon as we could walk, at first with 
 popguns and spring pistols and tin and wooden sabres, and I can 
 quite well remember longing to kill the porter at five years old, 
 because he laughed at our sabres de bois and pistolets de paille. 
 
 I was a boy of three ideas. Usually if a child is forbidden to eat 
 the sugar or to lap up the cream he simply either obeys or does the 
 contrary; but I used to place myself before the sugar and cream 
 and carefully study the question, “ Have I the courage not to touch 
 them ? ” When I was quite sure of myself that I had the courage 
 
Birth and Childhood. 
 
 9 
 
 I instantly rewarded resolution by emptying one or both. More¬ 
 over, like most boys of strong imagination and acute feeling, I was 
 a resolute and unblushing liar; I used to ridicule the idea of my 
 honour being any way attached to telling the truth, I considered it 
 an impertinence the being questioned, I never could understand 
 what moral turpitude there could be in a lie, unless it was told for 
 fear of the consequences of telling the truth, or one that would attach 
 blame to another person. That feeling continued for many a year, 
 and at last, as very often happens, as soon as I realized that a lie 
 was contemptible, it ran into quite the other extreme, a disagreeable 
 habit of scrupulously telling the truth whether it was timely or not. 
 
 The school was mostly manned by English boys, sprinkled with 
 French, and the mixture of the two formed an ungodly article, and 
 the Italian proverb— 
 
 “ Un Inglese Italianato 
 & un Diavolo incarnato ” 
 
 may be applied with quite as much truth to English boys brought 
 up in France. To succeed in English life, boys must be brought up 
 in a particular groove. First the preparatory school, then Eton and 
 Oxford, with an occasional excursion to France, Italy, and Germany, 
 to learn languages, not of Stratford-atte-Bowe, and to find out that 
 England is not the whole world. I never met any of my Tours 
 schoolfellows save one—Blayden Edward Hawke, who became a 
 Commander in the Navy, and died in 1877. 
 
 We boys became perfect devilets, and played every kind of trick 
 despite the rattan. Fighting the French gutter-boys with sticks and 
 stones, fists, and snowballs was a favourite amusement, and many a 
 donkey-lad went home with ensanguined nose, whilst occasionally 
 we got the worst of it from some big brother. The next favourite 
 game was playing truant, passing the day in utter happiness, fancying 
 ourselves Robinson Crusoes, and wandering about the strip of wood 
 (long since doomed to fuel) at the top of the Tranchee. Our father 
 and mother went much into the society of the place, which was gay 
 and pleasant, and we children were left more or less to the servants. 
 We boys beat all our bonnes, generally by running at their petticoats 
 and upsetting them. There was one particular case when a new 
 nurse arrived, a huge Norman girl, who at first imposed upon this 
 turbulent nursery by her breadth of shoulder and the general rigour 
 of her presence. One unlucky day we walked to the Faubourg at 
 the south-east of the town, the only part of old Tours now remaining; 
 the old women sat spinning and knitting at their cottage doors, and 
 remarked loud enough for us boys to hear, “ Ah 5a! ces petits 
 
io The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 gamins ! Voila une honnete bonne qui ne leur laissera pas faire des 
 farces !” Whereupon Euphrosyne became as proud as a peacock, 
 and insisted upon a stricter discipline than we were used to. That 
 forest walk ended badly. A jerk of the arm on her part brought on 
 a general attack from the brood; the poor bonne measured her length 
 upon the ground, and we jumped upon her. The party returned, 
 she with red eyes, torn cap, and downcast looks, and we hooting 
 and jeering loudly, and calling the old women “Les Meres Pom- 
 ponnes,” who screamed predictions that we should come to the 
 guillotine. 
 
 Our father and mother had not much idea of managing their 
 children; it was like the old tale of the hen who hatched ducklings. 
 By way of a wholesome and moral lesson of self-command and self- 
 denial, our mother took us past Madame Fisterre’s windows, and 
 bade us look at all the good things in the window, during which we 
 fixed our ardent affections upon a tray of apple-puffs; then she said, 
 “Now, my dears, let us go away; it is so good for little children to 
 restrain themselves.” Upon this we three devilets turned flashing 
 eyes and burning cheeks upon our moralizing mother, broke the 
 windows with our fists, clawed out the tray of apple-puffs, and 
 bolted, leaving poor mother a sadder and a wiser woman, to pay the 
 damages of her lawless brood’s proceedings. 
 
 At last it became apparent that Tours was no longer a place for us 
 who were approaching the ticklish time of teens. All Anglo-French 
 boys generally were remarkable young ruffians, who, at ten years of 
 age, cocked their hats and loved the ladies. Instead of fighting and 
 fagging, they broke the fine old worked glass church windows, pur¬ 
 loined their fathers’ guns to shoot at the monuments in the church¬ 
 yards, and even the shops and bazaars were not safe from their 
 impudent raids. Political matters, too, began to look queer. The 
 revolution which hurled Charles X. from the throne, produced no 
 outrages in quiet Tours, beyond large gatherings of the people with 
 an immense amount of noise, especially of “ Vive la Chatte! ” (for 
 La Charte), the good comnieres turning round and asking one another 
 whom the Cat might be that the people wished it so long a life; but 
 when Casimir P&rier had passed through the town, and “ the three 
 glorious days of July ” had excited the multitude, things began to 
 look black, and cries of “ A has les Anglais ! ” were not uncommon. 
 
 After a long deliberation, the family resolved to leave Tours. 
 Travelling in those days, especially for a large family, was a severe 
 infliction. The old travelling carriages, which had grown shabby in 
 the coachhouse, had to be taken out and furbished up, and all the 
 queer receptacles, imperial, boot, sword-case, and plate-chest, to be 
 
Birth and Childhood. 
 
 11 
 
 stuffed with miscellaneous luggage. After the usual sale by auction, 
 my father took his departure, perhaps mostly regretted by a little 
 knot of Italian exiles, whom he liked on account of his young years 
 spent in Sicily, and whose society not improbably suggested his 
 ultimate return to Italy. Then began the journey along the inter¬ 
 minable avenues of the old French roads, lined with parallel rows of 
 poplars, which met at a vanishing point of the far distance. I found 
 exactly the same thing, when travelling through Lower Canada in 
 i860. Mighty dull work it was, whilst the French postilion in his 
 seven-league boots jogged along with his horses at the rate of five 
 miles an hour, never dreaming of increasing the rate, till he ap¬ 
 proached some horridly paved town, when he cracked his whip, like 
 a succession of pistol shots, to the awe and delight of all the sabots. 
 Very slow hours they were, especially as the night wore on, and the 
 road, gleaming white between its two dark edges, looked of endless 
 length. And when at last the inn was reached, it proved very un¬ 
 like the inn of the present day. A hard bargain had to be driven 
 with a rapacious landlady, who, if you objected to her charges, 
 openly roared at you with arms akimbo, “that if you were not rich 
 enough to travel, you ought to stay at home.” Then the beds had 
 to be inspected, the damp sheets to be aired, and the warming-pans 
 to be ordered, and, as dinner had always to be prepared after arrival, 
 it was not unusual to sit hungry for a couple of hours. 
 
 The fatigues of the journey seriously affected my mother’s health, 
 and she lost no time in falling very ill at Chartres. The family 
 passed through Paris, where the signs of fighting, bullets in the walls, 
 and burnt houses, had not been wholly obliterated, and were for¬ 
 tunate enough to escape the cholera, which then for the first time 
 attacked Europe in its very worst form. The cold plunge into 
 English life was broken by loitering on the sands of Dieppe. A 
 wonderful old ramshackle place it was in those days, holding a kind 
 of intermediate place between the dulness of Calais and the liveliness 
 of “Boolone.” as the denizens called it. It wanted the fine hotels 
 and the £.tablissement , which grew up under the Second Empire, but 
 there was during the summer a pleasant, natural kind of life, living 
 almost exclusively upon the sands and dipping in the water, gallop¬ 
 ing about on little ponies, and watching the queer costumes of the 
 bathers, and discussing the new-comers. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHILDREN ARE BROUGHT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 Landing in England was dolorous. The air of Brighton, full 
 of smoke and blacks, appeared to us unfit for breathing. The 
 cold grey seas made us shudder. In the town everything 
 appeared so small, so prim, so mean, the little one-familied 
 houses contrasting in such a melancholy way with the big 
 buildings of Tours and Paris. We revolted against the coarse and 
 half-cooked food, and, accustomed to the excellent Bordeaux of 
 France, we found port, sherry, and beer like strong medicine; the 
 bread, all crumb and no crust, appeared to be half baked, and milk 
 meant chalk and water. The large joints of meat made us think 
 of Robinson Crusoe, and the vegetables cuite d Veau, especially the 
 potatoes, which had never heard of “Maitre cP hotel” suggested the 
 roots of primitive man. Moreover, the national temper, fierce and 
 surly, was a curious contrast to the light-hearted French of middle 
 France. A continental lady of those days cautioned her son, who 
 was about to travel, against ridicule in France and the canaille in 
 England. The little children punched one another’s heads on the 
 sands, the beys punched one another’s heads in the streets, and in 
 those days a stand-up fight between men was not uncommon. Even 
 the women punched their children, and the whole lower-class society 
 seemed to be governed by the fist. 
 
 My father had determined to send his boys to Eton to prepare 
 
 for Oxford and Cambridge. In the mean time some blundering 
 
 friend had recommended him a preparatory school. This was kept 
 
 by the Rev. Charles Delafosse, who rejoiced in the title of Chaplain 
 
 to the Duke of Cumberland, a scion of royalty, who had, apparently, 
 
 very little to do with the Church. Accordingly, the family went to 
 12 
 
The Children are brought to England. 13 
 
 Richmond, the only excitement of the journey being the rage of the 
 post-boys, when we boys on the box furtively poked their horses 
 with long sticks. After sundry attempts at housing themselves in 
 the tiny doll-rooms in the stuffy village, they at last found a house, 
 so called by courtesy, in “ Maids of Honour Row,” between the river 
 and the Green, a house with a strip of garden fronting it, which a 
 sparrow could hop across in thirty seconds. Opening upon the 
 same Green, stood that horror of horrors, the school, or the “ Estab¬ 
 lishment,” as it would now be called. It consisted of a large block 
 of buildings (detached), lying between the Green and the Old Town, 
 which has long been converted into dwelling-houses. In those 
 days it had a kind of paling round a paddock, forming a long 
 parallelogram, which enclosed some fine old elm trees. One side 
 was occupied by the house, and the other by the schoobroom. In 
 the upper stories of the former, were the dormitories with their small 
 white beds, giving the idea of the Lilliput Hospital; a kind of out¬ 
 house attached to the dwelling was the place where the boys fed at 
 two long tables stretching the whole length of the room. The only 
 decoration of the palings were names cut all over their inner surfaces 
 and rectangular nails at the top, acting as chevaux de frise. The 
 school-room was the usual scene of hacked and well-used benches 
 and ink-stained desks, everything looking as mean and uncomfortable 
 as possible. 
 
 This was the kind of Dotheboys Hall, to which, in those days, 
 gentlemen were contented to send their sons, paying a hundred 
 a year, besides “ perquisites ” (plunder): on the Continent the same 
 treatment would be had. for £,20. 
 
 The Rev. Charles was a bluff and portly man, with dark hair and 
 short whiskers, whose grand aquiline nose took a prodigious deal of 
 snuff, and was not over active with the rod; but he was no more fit 
 to be a schoolmaster than the Grand Cham of Tartary. He was, 
 however, rather a favourite with the boys, and it was shrewdly 
 whispered, that at times he returned from dining abroad half-seas 
 over. His thin-lipped wife took charge of the menage , and looked 
 severely after the provisions, and swayed with an iron sceptre the 
 maid-servants, who had charge of the smaller boys. The ushers 
 were the usual consequential lot of those days. There was the hand¬ 
 some and dressy usher, a general favourite with the fair; the shabby 
 and mild usher, despised by even the smallest boy; and the un¬ 
 fortunate French usher, whose life was a fair foretaste of Purgatory. 
 
 Instead of learning anything at this school, my brother and I 
 lost much of what we knew, especially in French, and the principal 
 acquisitions were, a certain facility of using our fists, and a general 
 
14 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 development of ruffianism. I was in one perpetual scene of fights ; 
 at one time I had thirty-two affairs of honour to settle, the place of 
 meeting being the school-room, with the elder boys sitting in judg¬ 
 ment. On the first occasion I received a blow in the eye, which I 
 thought most unfair, and having got my opponent down I proceeded 
 to hammer his head against the ground, using his ears by way of 
 handles. My indignation knew no bounds when I was pulled off by 
 the bystanders, and told to let my enemy stand up again. “ Stand 
 up ! ” I cried, “ after all the trouble I've had to get the fellow down.” 
 At last the fighting went on to such an extent, that I was beaten as 
 thin as a shotten herring, and the very servant-maids, when washing 
 me on Saturday night, used to say, “ Drat the child ! what has he 
 been doing ? he’s all black and blue.” Edward fought just as well 
 as I did, but he was younger and more peaceable. Maria says that I 
 was a thin, dark little boy, with small features and large black eyes, 
 and was extremely proud, sensitive, shy, nervous, and of a melan¬ 
 choly, affectionate disposition. Such is the effect of a boys’ school 
 after a few months’ trial, when the boys learn to despise mother and 
 sisters, and to affect the rough as much as possible, and this is not 
 only in England, but everywhere where the boy first escapes from 
 petticoat government. He does not know what to do to show his 
 manliness. There is no stronger argument in favour of mixed 
 schools, up to a certain age , of boys and girls together. 
 
 At the little Richmond theatre we were taken to see Edmund 
 Kean, who lived in a cottage on the Green. He had gentle blood 
 in his veins, grandson (illegitimate) of George Savile, Marquis of 
 Halifax, and that accounted for his Italian, or rather un-John-Bull 
 appearance, and for his fiery power. I saw him in his famous 
 Richard III. role, and remember only what old Colley Grattan 
 described, “ Looks bloated with brandy, nose red, cheeks blotched, 
 and eyes blood-shot.” He was drinking himself to death. His 
 audience appeared not a little afraid of him; perhaps they had 
 heard of the Guernsey scene, where he stood at the footlights and 
 flashed out, “ Unmannered dogs ! stand ye where / command.” 
 
 Our parents very unwisely determined to correct all personal 
 vanity in their offspring by always dwelling upon our ugliness. 
 My nose was called cocked; it was a Cross which I had to carry, and 
 was a perpetual plague to me; and I was assured that the only 
 decent feature in my face was my teeth. Maria, on account of her 
 fresh complexion, was called Blousabella ; and even Edward, whose 
 features were perfect, and whom Frenchmen used to stop and stare 
 at in the streets, and call him “ Le petit Napoleon,” was told to 
 nauseousness that “ handsome is as handsome does.” In later life 
 
r 5 
 
 The Children are brought to Engla7id. 
 
 we were dressed in a marvellous fashion; a piece of yellow nankin 
 would be bought to dress the whole family, like three sticks of 
 barley sugar. Such was the discipline of the day, and nothing could 
 be more ill-judged; it inflicted an amount of torment upon sensitive 
 children which certainly was not intended, but which had the very 
 worst effect. 
 
 If we children quarrelled, and turned up our noses at the food 
 in English hotels, what must have been our surprise at the food of 
 an English school? Breakfast at 8 a.m., consisting of very blue 
 milk and water, in chipped and broken-handled mugs of the same 
 colour. The boys were allowed tea from home, but it was a 
 perpetual battle to get a single drink of it. The substantiate were 
 a wedge of bread with a glazing of butter. The epicures used to 
 collect the glazing to the end of the slice in order to convert it into 
 a final bonne bouche. The dinner at one o’clock began with stickjaw 
 (pudding) and ended with meat, as at all second-rate schools. The 
 latter was as badly cooked as possible, black out and blue inside, 
 gristly and sinewy. The vegetables were potatoes, which could 
 serve for grapeshot, and the hateful carrot. Supper was a repetition 
 of breakfast, and, at an age when boys were making bone and 
 muscle, they went hungry to bed. 
 
 Occasionally the pocket-money and tips were clubbed, and a 
 “room” would go in for a midnight feed of a quartern loaf, ham, 
 polony, and saveloys, with a quantity of beer and wine, which 
 generally led to half a dozen fights. Saturday was a day to be feared 
 on account of its peculiar pie, which contained all the waifs and 
 strays of the week. On the Sunday there was an attempt at plum¬ 
 pudding of a peculiarly pale and leaden hue, as if it had been 
 unjustly defrauded of its due allowance of plums. And this dull 
 routine lasted throughout the scholastic year. School hours were 
 from seven till nine, and ten to one, and three to five, without other 
 changes, save at the approach of the holidays, when a general burst 
 of singing, locally called “challenging,” took place. Very few were 
 the schoolfellows we met in after life. The ragged exceptions were 
 Guildford Onslow, the Claimant’s friend. Tuckey Baines, as he was 
 called on account of his exploits on Saturday pie, went into the 
 Bombay army, and was as disagreeable and ill-conditioned as when 
 he was a bully at school. He was locally celebrated for hanging the 
 wrong Mahommad, and for his cure for Sindee litigiousness, by 
 making complainant and defendant flog each other in turn. The 
 only schoolboy who did anything worthy, was Bobby Delafosse 
 (who . was appointed to the 26th Regiment, N.I.), who showed 
 immense pluck, and died fighting bravely in the Indian Mutiny. 
 
16 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 I met him in Bombay shortly before I went off to the North-West 
 Provinces, but my remembrances of the school were so painful, that 
 I could not bear to recognize him. In fact, that part of life, which 
 most boys dwell upon with the greatest pleasure, and concerning 
 which, most autobiographers tell the longest stories—school and 
 college—was ever a nightmare to us. It was like the “ Blacking- 
 shop ” of Charles Dickens. 
 
 Before the year concluded, an attack of measles broke out in the 
 school, several of the boys died, and it was found necessary to dis¬ 
 perse the survivors. We were not hard-hearted, but we were 
 delighted to get home. We worked successfully on the fears of 
 Aunt G., which was assisted by my cadaverous appearance, and it 
 was resolved to move us from school, to our infinite joy. My 
 father had also been thoroughly sick of “ Maids of Honour Row ” 
 and “ Richmond Green.” He was sighing for shooting and boar¬ 
 hunting in the French forests, and he felt that he had done quite 
 enough for the education of the boys, which was turning out so 
 badly. He resolved to bring us up abroad, and picked up the 
 necessary assistance for educating us by tutor and governess. Miss 
 Ruxton, a stout red-faced girl, was thoroughly up in the three R’s, 
 and was intended to direct Maria’s education. Mr. Du Pr^, an 
 undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford, son of the Rector of Berk- 
 hampstead, wanted to see life on the Continent, and was not un¬ 
 willing to see it with a salary. He was an awkward-looking John 
 Bull article, with a narrow forehead, eyes close together, and thick 
 lips, which secured him a perpetual course of caricaturing. He 
 used to hit out hard whenever he found the caricatures, but only 
 added bitterness to them. Before he had been in the family a 
 week, I obliged him with a sketch of his tomb and the following 
 inscription :— 
 
 “ Stand, passenger ! hang down thy head and weep, 
 
 A young man from Exeter here doth sleep ; 
 
 If any one ask who that young man be, 
 
 ’Tis the Devil’s dear friend and companion—Du Pre ”— 
 
 which was merely an echo of Shakespeare and John h Combe, but 
 it showed a fine sense of independence. 
 
 I really caught the measles at school, and was nursed by Grand- 
 namma Baker in Park Street. It was the only infantine malady that 
 [ ever had. The hooping-cough only attacked me on my return from 
 Harrar, when staying with my friend Dr. Steinhaiiser at Aden, in 
 1853. As soon as I was well enough to travel, the family embarked 
 at the Tower Wharf for Boulogne. We boys scandalized every one 
 on board. We shrieked, we whooped, we danced for joy. We 
 
The Children are brought to England. 17 
 
 shook our fists at the white cliffs, and loudly hoped we should never 
 see them again. We hurrah’d for France, and hooted for England, 
 “ The Land on which the Sun ne’er sets—nor rises,” till the sailor 
 who was hoisting the Jack, looked upon us as a pair of little monsters. 
 In our delight at getting away from school and the stuffy little 
 island, we had no idea of the disadvantages which the new kind of 
 life would inflict on our future careers. We were too young to 
 know. A man who brings up his family abroad, and who lives there 
 for years, must expect to lose all the friends who could be useful to 
 him when he wishes to start them in life. The conditions of society 
 in England are so complicated, and so artificial, that those who 
 would make their way in the world, especially in public careers, 
 must be broken to it from their earliest day. The future soldiers 
 and statesmen must be prepared by Eton and Cambridge. The 
 more English they are, even to the cut of their hair, the better. In 
 consequence of being brought up abroad, we never thoroughly 
 understood English society, nor did society understand us. And, 
 lastly, it is a real advantage to belong to some parish. It is a great 
 thing, when you have won a battle, or explored Central Africa, to be 
 welcomed home by some little corner of the Great World, which 
 takes a pride in your exploits, because they reflect honour upon 
 itself. In the contrary condition you are a waif, a stray; you are a 
 blaze of light, without a focus. Nobody outside your own fireside 
 cares. 
 
 No man ever gets on in the world, or rises to the head of affairs, 
 unless he is a representative of his nation. Taking the marking 
 characters of the last few years—Palmerston, Thiers, Cavour, and 
 Bismarck—what were they but simply the types of their various 
 nationalities ? In point of intellect Cavour was a first-rate man, 
 Thiers second-rate, Palmerston third-rate, whilst Bismarck was 
 strength, Von Moltke brain. Their success in life was solely owing 
 to their representing the failings, as well as the merits of their several 
 nationalities. Thiers, for instance, was the most thoroughbred 
 possible epicier , and yet look at his success. And his death was 
 mourned even in England, and yet he was the bitterest enemy that 
 England ever had. His Chauvinism did more than the Crimean 
 War to abolish the prestige of England. Unhappily for his Chauvin¬ 
 ism, it also thoroughly abolished France. 
 
 Mr. Du Pre, the tutor, and Miss Ruxton, the governess, had their 
 work cut out for them. They attempted to commence with a strict 
 discipline ; for instance, the family passing through Paris lodged at 
 the Hotel Windsor, and they determined to walk the youngsters out 
 school fashion. The consequence was that when the walk extended 
 
 E 
 
18 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 to the boulevards, the young ones, on agreement, knowing Paris 
 well, suddenly ran away, and were home long before the unfortunate 
 strangers could find their way, and reported that their unlucky 
 tutor and governess had been run over by an omnibus. There was 
 immense excitement till the supposed victims walked in immensely 
 tired, having wandered over half Paris, not being able to find their 
 way. A scene followed, but the adversaries respected each other 
 more after that day. 
 
 The difficulty was now where to colonize. One of the peculiarities 
 of the little English colonies was the unwillingness of their denizens 
 to return to them when once they had left them. My father had 
 been very happy at Tours, and yet he religiously avoided it. He 
 passed through Orleans—a horrid hole, with as many smells as 
 Cologne—and tried to find a suitable country house near it, but in 
 vain; everything seemed to smell of goose and gutter. Then he 
 drifted on to Blois, in those days a kind of home of the British 
 stranger, and there he thought proper to call a halt. At last a house 
 was found on the high ground beyond the city, which, like Tours, 
 lies mainly on the left bank of the river, and where most of the 
 English colonists dwelt. There is no necessity of describing this 
 little bit of England in France, which was very like Tours. When 
 one describes one colony, one describes them all. The notables 
 were Sir Joseph Leeds, Colonel Burnes, and a sister of Sir Stamford 
 Raffles, who lived in the next-door villa, if such a term may be 
 applied to a country house in France in 1831. The only difference 
 from Tours was, there was no celebrated physician, no pack of hounds, 
 and no parson. Consequently service on Sundays had to be read 
 at home by the tutor, and the evening was distinguished by one of 
 Blair’s sermons. This was read out by us children, each taking a 
 turn. The discourse was from one of Blair’s old three volumes, 
 which appeared to have a soporific effect upon the audience. Soft 
 music was gradually heard proceeding from the nasal organs of 
 father and mother, tutor and governess; and then we children, 
 preserving the same tone of voice, entered into a conversation, and 
 discussed matters, until the time came to a close. 
 
 At Blois we were now entering upon our teens; our education 
 was beginning in real earnest. Poor Miss Ruxton soon found her 
 task absolutely impossible, and threw up the service. A school¬ 
 room was instituted, where time was wasted upon Latin and Greek 
 for six or seven hours a day, besides which there was a French 
 master—one of those obsolete little old men, who called themselves 
 Professeurs-es-lettrcs , and the great triumph of whose life was that 
 he had read Herodotus in the original. The dancing-master was a 
 
19 
 
 The Children are brought to England. 
 
 large and pompous oldster, of course an a?icien militaire , whose kit 
 and whose capers were by contrast peculiarly ridiculous, and who 
 quoted at least once every visit, “ Oh, Richard! oh, mon roi! ” 
 He taught, besides country dances, square and round, the Minuet 
 de la Cour, the Gavotte de Vestris, and a Danse Chinoise, which 
 consisted mainly in turning up thumbs and toes. The only favourite 
 amongst all those professors was the fencing-master, also an old 
 soldier, who had lost the thumb of his right hand in the wars, which 
 of course made him a gauche in loose fencing. We boys gave 
 ourselves up with ardour to this study, and passed most of our 
 leisure hours in exchanging thrusts. We soon learned not to 
 neglect the mask: I passed my foil down Edward’s throat, and 
 nearly destroyed his uvula, which caused me a good deal of sorrow. 
 The amusements consisted chiefly of dancing at evening parties, we 
 boys choosing the tallest girls, especially a very tall Miss Donovan. 
 A little fishing was to be had, my father being a great amateur. 
 There were long daily walks, swimming in summer, and brass 
 cannons, bought in the toy shops, were loaded to bursting. 
 
 The swimming was very easily taught; in the present day boys and 
 girls go to school and learn it like dancing. In our case Mr. Du Prd 
 supported us by a hand under the stomach, taught us how to use our 
 arms and legs, and to manage our breath, after which he withdrew his 
 hand and left us to float as we best could. 
 
 This life lasted for a year, till all were thoroughly tired of it. Our 
 father and mother were imperceptibly lapsing into the category of 
 professed invalids, like people who have no other business in life, 
 except to be sick, This was a class exceptionally common in the 
 unoccupied little English colonies that studded the country. It was 
 a far robuster institution than the Parisian invalid, whose object in 
 life was to appear maladive et souffrante. The British malade 
 consumed a considerable quantity of butcher’s meat, but although he 
 or she always saw death in the pot, they had not the moral courage 
 to refuse what disagreed with them. They tried every kind of drug 
 and nostrum known, and answered every advertisement, whether it 
 agreed with their complaint or not. Their table de nuit was covered 
 with bottles and gallipots. They dressed themselves three or four 
 times a day for the change of climate, and insensibly acquired a 
 horror of dining out, or passing the evening away from home. They 
 had a kind of rivalry with other invalids ; nothing offended them 
 more than to tell them that they were in strong health, and that if they 
 had been hard-worked professionals in England, they would have 
 been ill once a year, instead of once a month. Homoeopathy was a 
 great boon to them, and so was hydropathy. So was the grape-cure 
 
20 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 and all the humbug invented by non-professionals, such as hunger- 
 cure and all that nonsense. 
 
 Our parents suffered from asthma, an honest and respectable 
 kind of complaint, which, if left to itself, allows you, like gout, 
 to last till your eightieth year, but treated systematically, and with 
 the aid of the doctor, is apt to wear you out. Our maternal 
 grandmamma Baker, who came over to Blois, compared them to two 
 buckets in a well. She was very wroth with my father, when, 
 remembering the days of his youth, he began to hug the idea of 
 returning to Italy and seeing the sun, and the general conclusion of 
 her philippics (“You’ll kill your wife, sir”) did not change his 
 resolution. She even insinuated that in the olden day there had 
 been a Sicilian young woman who received the Englishman’s pay, and 
 so distributed it as to keep off claims. So Grandmamma Baker was 
 sent off to her beloved England, “whose faults she still loved.” 
 
 The old yellow chariot was brought out of the dusty coach-house 
 once more, and furbished up, and, after farewell dinners and parties 
 all round, the family turned their back on Blois. The journey was 
 long, being broken by sundry attacks of asthma, and the posting 
 and style of travel were full of the usual discomforts. In crossing 
 over the Tarare a drunken postilion nearly threw one of the carriages 
 over the precipice, and in shooting the Pont de St. Esprit the 
 steamer nearly came to grief under one of the arches. We stayed 
 a short time in Lyons, in those days a perfect den of thieves. 
 From Avignon my tutor and I were driven to the Fountain of 
 Vaucluse, the charming blue well in the stony mountain, and the 
 memories of Petrarch and Laura were long remembered. The driver 
 insisted upon a full gallop, and the protests of the unfortunate 
 Englishman, who declared every quarter of an hour that he was the 
 father of a large family, were utterly disregarded. 
 
 The first view of Provence was something entirely new, and the 
 escape was hailed from the flat fields and the long poplar avenues of 
 Central France. Everything, even the most squalid villages, seemed 
 to fall into a picture. It was something like a sun that burst upon the 
 rocks. The olive trees laden with purple fruit were a delight after 
 the apples and pears, and the contrast between the brown rock and 
 the blue Mediterranean, was quite a new sensation. At Marseilles 
 we embarked for Leghorn, which was then, in Italy, very much what 
 Lyons was in France. It was the head-quarters of brigands. In¬ 
 deed it was reported that a society existed, whose members were 
 pledged to stab their fellow-creatures, whenever they could do it 
 safely. And it was brought to light by the remorse of a son, who^ 
 had killed his father by mistake. The Grand Duke of Tuscany* 
 
The Children are brought to England. 21 
 
 with his weak benevolence, was averse to shedding blood, and the 
 worst that these wretches expected was to be dressed in the red or 
 the yellow of the Galeotti, and to sweep the streets and to bully the 
 passenger for bakshish. Another unpleasant development was the 
 quantity of vermin,—even the washerwoman’s head appeared to be 
 walking off her shoulders. Still there was a touch of Italian art 
 about the place, in the days before politics and polemics had 
 made Italian art, with the sole exception of sculpture, the basest 
 thing on the Continent: the rooms were large, high, and airy, the 
 frescoes on the ceiling were good, and the pictures had not been sold 
 to Englishmen, and replaced by badly coloured daubs, and cheap 
 prints of the illustrated paper type. 
 
 After a few days, finding Leghorn utterly unfit to inhabit, mv 
 father determined to transfer himself to Pisa. There, after the usual 
 delay, he found a lodging on the wrong side of the Arno—that is 
 to say, the side which does not catch the winter sun—in a huge 
 block of buildings opposite the then highest bridge. Dante’s old 
 “ Vituperio delle gante ” was then the dullest abode known to man, 
 except perhaps his sepulchre. The climate was detestable (Iceland 
 on the non-sunny, Madeira on the sunny side of the river), but the 
 doctors thought it good enough for their patients; consequently it 
 was the hospital of a few sick Britishers upon a large scale. 
 
 The discomforts of Pisa were considerable. The only fireplace 
 in those days was a kind of brazier, put in the middle of the room. 
 The servants were perfect savages, who had to be taught the very 
 elements of service, and often at the end of the third day a great 
 burly peasant would take leave, saying, “Non mi basta l’anima ! ” 
 My father started a fearful equipage in the shape of a four-wheeled 
 trap, buying for the same a hammer-headed brute of a horse which 
 at once obtained the name of “ Dobbin.” Dobbin was a perfect 
 demon steed, and caused incalculable misery, as every person was 
 supposed to steal his oats. One of us boys was sent down to 
 superintend his breakfast, dinner, and supper. On journeys it 
 was the same, and we would have been delighted to see Dobbin 
 hanged, drawn, and quartered. We tried riding him in private, but 
 the brute used to plant his forelegs and kick up and down like a 
 rocking-horse. The trap was another subject of intense misery. 
 The wheels were always supposed to be wanting greasing, and as 
 the natives would steal the grease, it was necessary that one of 
 us should always superintend the greasing. There is no greater 
 mistake than that of trying to make boys useful by making them 
 do servant’s work. 
 
 The work of education went on nimbly, if not merrily. To former 
 
22 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 masters was added an Italian master, who was at once dubbed 
 “Signor No,” on account of the energy of his negation. The 
 French master unfortunately discovered that his three pupils had 
 poetic talents; the consequence was that we were set to write 
 versical descriptions, which we hated worse than Telemachus and 
 the Spectator. 
 
 And a new horror appeared in the shape of a violin master. 
 Edward took kindly to the infliction, worked very hard, and became 
 an amateur almost equal to a professional; was offered fair pay 
 as member of an orchestra in Italy, and kept it up after going into 
 the Army, till the calls of the Mess made it such a nuisance that 
 he gave it up; but took to it again later in life con amove. I always 
 hated my fiddle, and after six months it got me into a terrible scrape, 
 and brought the study to an untimely end. Our professor was 
 a thing like Paganini, length without breadth, nerves without flesh, 
 hung on wires, all hair and no brain, except for fiddling. The 
 creature, tortured to madness by a number of false notes, presently 
 addressed his pupil in his grandiloquent Tuscan manner, “ Gli altri 
 scolari sono bestie, ma voi siete un Arci-bestia.” The “ Arci ” 
 offended me horribly, and, in a fury of rage, I broke my violin upon 
 my master’s head; and then my father made the discovery that his 
 eldest son had no talent for music, and I was not allowed to learn 
 any more. 
 
 Amongst the English at Pisa we met with some Irish cousins, 
 whose names had been Conyngham, but they had, for a fortune, 
 very sensibly added “Jones” to it, and who, very foolishly, were 
 ashamed of it ever after. There was a boy, whose face looked as if 
 badly cut out of a half-boiled potato, dotted with freckles so as to 
 resemble a goose’s egg. There was a very pretty girl, who after¬ 
 wards became Mrs. Seaton. The mother was an exceedingly hand¬ 
 some woman of the Spanish type, and it was grand to see her 
 administering correction to “ bouldness.” They seemed principally 
 to travel in Italy for the purpose of wearing out old clothes, and 
 afterwards delighted in telling how many churches and palaces they 
 had “done” in Rome per diem. The cute Yankee always travels, 
 when he is quite unknown, in his best bib and tucker, reserving his 
 old clothes for his friends who appreciate him. Altogether the 
 C.J.’s were as fair specimens of Northern barbarians invading the 
 South, as have been seen since the days of Brennus. 
 
 The summer of ’32 was passed at Siena, where a large rambling 
 old house was found inside the walls. The venerable town, whose 
 hospitality was confined to an inscription over the city gate, was 
 perhaps one of the dullest places under heaven. No country in the 
 
The Children are brought to England. 23 
 
 world shows less hospitality—even Italians amongst themselves— 
 than Italy, and in the case of strangers they have perhaps many 
 reasons to justify their churlishness. 
 
 Almost all the English at Siena were fugitives from justice, social 
 or criminal. One man walked off with his friend’s wife, another with 
 his purse. There was only one old English lady in the place who 
 was honourable, and that was a Mrs. Russell, who afterwards killed 
 herself with mineral waters. She lived in a pretty little quinta 
 outside the town, where moonlight nights were delightful, and where 
 the nightingales were louder than usual. Beyond this amusement 
 we had little to do, except at times to peep at the gate of Palone, 
 to study very hard, and to hide from the world our suits of nankin. 
 The weary summer drew to a close. The long-surviving chariot was 
 brought out, and then Dobbin, with the " cruelty van,” was made 
 ready for the march. 
 
 Travelling in vetturino was not without its charm. It much 
 resembled marching in India during the slow old days. It is true 
 you seldom progressed along more than five miles an hour, and 
 uphill at three. Moreover, the harness was perpetually breaking, 
 and at times a horse fell lame; but you saw the country thoroughly, 
 the vetturino knew the name of every house, and you went slowly 
 enough to impress everything upon your memory. The living 
 now was none of the best; food seemed to consist mostly of 
 omelettes and pigeons. The pigeons, it is said, used to desert the 
 dove-cotes every time they saw an English travelling-carriage 
 approaching. And the omelettes showed more hair in them than 
 eggs usually produce. The bread and wine, however, were good, 
 and adulteration was then unknown. The lodging was on a par 
 with the food, and insect powder was not invented or known. Still, 
 taking all in all, it is to be doubted whether we are more comfortable 
 in the Grand Hotel in these days when every hotel is grand, when 
 all mutton is pre sa/e, when all the beer is bitter, when all the sherry 
 is dry. 
 
 It was now resolved to pass the Holy Week at Rome, and the only 
 events of the journey, which went on as usual, were the breaking 
 down of Dobbin’s “ cruelty van ” in a village near Perugia, where the 
 tutor and boys were left behind to look after repairs. We long 
 remembered the peculiar evening which we passed there. The head 
 ostler had informed us that there was an opera, and that he was the 
 primo violino. We went to the big barn, that formed the theatre. 
 A kind of “ Passion play ” was being performed, with lengthy intervals 
 of music, and all the mysteries of the faith were submitted to the 
 eyes of the faithful. The only disenchanting detail was, that a dove 
 
24 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 not being procurable, its place was supplied by a turkey-cock, and 
 the awful gabbling of the ill-behaved volatile caused much more 
 merriment than was decorous. 
 
 We, who had already examined Voltaire with great interest, were 
 delighted with the old Etruscan city of Perugia, and were allowed a 
 couple of hours’ “ leave ” to visit Pietro di Aretino’s tomb, and we 
 loitered by the Lake Thrasimene. 
 
 The march was short, and the family took a house on the north 
 side of the Arno, near the Boboli Gardens, in Florence. The City of 
 Flowers has always had a reputation beyond what it deserved. 
 Though too fair to be looked upon except upon holidays, it has 
 discomforts of its own. The cold, especially during the Tramontana 
 blowing from the Appenines, is that of Scotland. The heat during 
 the dog-days, when the stone pavements seem to be fit for baking, 
 reminds one of Cairo during a Khamsin , and the rains are at times 
 as heavy and persistent as in Central Africa. The Italians and the 
 English, even in those days, despite all the efforts of the amiable 
 Grand Duke, did not mix well. 
 
 Colonies go on as they begin, and the Anglo-Florentine flock 
 certainly has contained, contains, and ever will contain some very 
 black sheep. They were always being divided into cliques. They 
 were perpetually quarrelling. The parson had a terrible life. One 
 of the churchwardens was sure to be some bilious old Indian, and 
 a common character was to be a half-pay Indian officer who had 
 given laws, he said, to millions, who supported himself by gambling, 
 and induced all his cronies to drink hard, the whispered excuse 
 being, that he had shot a man in a duel somewhere. The old 
 ladies were very scandalous. There were perpetual little troubles, 
 like a rich and aged widow being robbed and deserted by her Italian 
 spouse, and resident old gentlemen, when worsted at cards, used to 
 quarrel and call one another liars. Amongst the number was a 
 certain old Dr. Harding who had a large family. His son was sent 
 into the army, and was dreadfully wounded under Sir Charles Napier 
 in Sind. He lived to be Major-General Francis Pirn Harding, C.B., 
 and died in 1875. 
 
 Another remarkable family was that of old Colonel de Courcy. 
 He had some charming daughters, and I met his son John when 
 he was in the Turkish Contingent and I was Chief of the Staff of 
 Irregular Cavalry in the Crimea. 
 
 Still Florence was always Florence. The climate, when it was 
 fine, was magnificent. The views were grand, and the most charming 
 excursions lay within a few hours’ walk or drive. The English were 
 well treated, perhaps too well, by the local Government, and the 
 
25 
 
 The Children are brought to England. 
 
 opportunities of studying Art were first-rate. Those wonderful 
 Loggie and the Pitti Palace contained more high Art than is to be 
 found in all London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna put together, and 
 we soon managed to become walking catalogues. A heavy storm, 
 however, presently broke the serenity of the domestic atmosphere at 
 Siena. 
 
 We boys had been allowed to begin regular shooting with an 
 old single-barrelled Manton, a hard-hitter which had been changed 
 from flint to percussion. We practised gunnery in secret every 
 moment we could, and presently gave our tutor a specimen of our 
 proficiency. He had been instituting odious comparisons between 
 Edward’s length and that of his gun, and went so far as to say that 
 for sixpence he would allow a shot at fifty yards. On this being 
 accepted with the firm determination of peppering him, he thought 
 it better to substitute his hat, and he got away just in time to see it 
 riddled like a sieve. We then began to despise shooting with small 
 shot. 
 
 Our parents made a grand mistake about the shooting excursions, 
 especially the mother, who, frightened lest anything should occur, 
 used to get up quarrels to hav^ an excuse to forbid the shooting 
 parties, as punishment. It was soon found out and resented 
 accordingly. 
 
 We hoarded the weekly francs which each received, we borrowed 
 Maria’s savings, i.e. the poor girl was never allowed to keep it for 
 a day, and invested in what was then known as a “case of pistols.” 
 My father—who, when in Sicily with his regiment, had winged 
 a brother-officer, an Irishman, for saying something unpleasant, had 
 carefully and fondly nursed him, and shot him again as soon as ever 
 he recovered, crippling him for life—saw the turn that matters were 
 taking, and ordered the “ saw-handles ” to be ignominiously returned 
 to the shop. The shock was severe to the pun (f otior of we two 
 Don Quixotes. 
 
 I have a most pleasant remembrance of Maria Garcia, a charming 
 young girl, before she became wife and “ divine devil ” to the old 
 French merchant Morbihan. Both she and her sister (afterwards 
 Madame Viardot) were going through severe training under the 
 old Tartar of a father Garcia, who was, however, a splendid musician 
 and determined to see his girls succeed. They tell me she had 
 spites and rages and that manner of thing in after life, but I can 
 only remember her as worthy of Alfred de Musset’s charming stanza. 
 
 After a slow but most interesting drive we reached the Eternal 
 City, and, like all the world, were immensely impressed by the 
 entrance at the Porto del Popolo. The family secured apartments 
 
26 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 in the Piazza di Spagna, which was then, as it is now, the capital of 
 English Rome. Everything in it was English, the librarian, the 
 grocer, and all the other little shops, and mighty little it has changed 
 during the third of a century. In 1873, when my wife and I stayed 
 there, the only points of difference observed were the presence of 
 Americans and the large gilded advertisements of the photographers. 
 The sleepy atmosphere was the same, and the same was the drowsy 
 old fountain. 
 
 At Rome sight-seeing was carried on with peculiar ardour. With 
 “ Mrs. Starke ” under the arm, for “ Murray ” and “ Baedeker ” were 
 not invented in those days, we young ones went from Vatican to the 
 Capitol, from church to palazzo, from ruin to ruin. We managed 
 to get introductions to the best studios, and made acquaintance with 
 all the shops which contained the best collections of coins, of cameos, 
 of model temples, in rosso-antico, and giallo-antico, and of all the 
 treasures of Roman Art, ancient and modern. We passed our days 
 in running about the town, and whenever we found an opportunity, 
 we made excursions into the country, even ascending Mount Soracte. 
 In those days Rome was not what it is now. It was the ghost of the 
 Imperial City, the mere shadow of the Mistress of the world. The 
 great Forum was a level expanse of ground, out of which the half- 
 buried ruins rose. The Coliseum had not changed for a century. 
 The Palatine hill had never dreamt of excavation. The greater part 
 of the space within the old walls, that represents the ancient City, was 
 a waste, what would in Africa be called bush, and it was believed 
 that turning up the ground caused fatal fevers. It had no preten¬ 
 sions to be a Capital. It wanted fortifications ; the walls could be 
 breached with six-pounders. The Tiber was not regulated, and 
 periodically flooded the lower town. The Ghetto was a disgrace. 
 Nothing could be fouler than the Trastevere : and the Leonine City, 
 with the exception of St. Peter’s and the Vatican, was a piggery. 
 
 At Rome there was then very little society. People met when 
 doing the curiosities, and the principal amusements were conversa¬ 
 ziones, when the only conspicuous object was some old Cardinal 
 sitting in red, enthroned upon a sofa. Good old Gregory XVI. 
 did not dislike foreigners, and was even intimate with a certain 
 number of heretics, but that could not disperse the sleepy atmo¬ 
 sphere of the place, whilst the classes of society were what the 
 satirical French duchesse called, 1 une noblesse de Sacrament’—and 
 yet it was the season of the year. Then, as now, the wandering 
 world pressed to Rome to see ceremonies of the Holy Week, to 
 hear the music of the Sistine Chapel, to assist at the annual conver¬ 
 sion of a Jew at St. John of Lateran, to walk gaping about at the 
 
The Children are brought to England. 27 
 
 interior of St. Peter’s, and to enjoy the magnificent illuminations, 
 which were spoiled by a high wind, and a flood of rain. 
 
 It was necessary to leave Rome in time to reach Naples before 
 the hot season began, and return to summer quarters. In those 
 days the crossing of the Pontine Marshes was considered not a little 
 dangerous. Heavy breakfasts were eaten to avoid the possible effect 
 of malaria upon an empty stomach, and the condemned pistols were 
 ostentatiously loaded to terrify the banditti, who were mostly the 
 servants and hangers-on of the foul little inns. 
 
 The family halted a short while at Capua, then a quiet little 
 country town, equally thoughtless of the honours of the past, or the 
 fierce scenes that waited it in the future; many years afterwards my 
 friend Blakely of the Guns, and I, offered the Government of King 
 Francis, to go out to rifle the cannon, which was to defend them 
 against Garibaldi and his banditti. Unfortunately the offer came 
 too late. It would have been curious had a couple of Englishmen 
 managed, by shooting Garibaldi, to baffle the plans which Lord Pam. 
 had laid with so much astuteness and perseverance. 
 
 At Naples a house was found upon the Chiaja, and after trying it 
 for a fortnight, and finding it perfectly satisfactory and agreeing to 
 take it for the next season, the family went over to Sorrento. This, 
 in those days, was one of the most pleasant villegiature in Italy. 
 The three little villages that studded the long tongue of rock and 
 fertile soil, were separated from one another by long tracts of orchard 
 and olive ground, instead of being huddled together, as they are 
 now. They preserved all their rural simplicity, baited buffalo-calves 
 in the main squares, and had songs and sayings in order to enrage 
 one another. The villas scattered about the villages were large 
 rambling old shells of houses, and Aunt G. could not open her 
 eyes sufficiently wide when she saw what an Italian villa really was. 
 The bathing was delightful; break-neck paths led down the rocks to 
 little sheltered bays with the yellowest of sands, and the bluest of 
 waters, and old smugglers’ caves, which gave the coolest shelter after 
 long dips in the tepid seas. There was an immense variety of 
 excursion. At the root of the tongue arose the Mountain of St. 
 Angelo, where the snow harvest, lasting during summer, was one 
 perpetual merry-making. There were boating trips to Ischia, to 
 Procida, to romantic Capri, with its blue grotto and purple figs, to 
 decayed Salerno, the splendid ruin, and to the temples of Paestum, 
 more splendid still. The shooting was excellent during the quail 
 season; tall poles and immense nets formed a chevaux de frisc on 
 the hilltops, but the boys went to windwards, and shot the birds 
 before they were trapped in the nets, in the usual ignoble way. In 
 
28 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 fact, nothing could be more pleasant than Sorrento in its old and 
 uncivilized days. 
 
 Amongst other classical fads, we boys determined to imitate 
 Anacreon and Horace. We crowned ourselves with myrtle and 
 roses, chose the prettiest part of the garden, and caroused upon the 
 best wine we could afford, out of cups, disdaining to use glasses. 
 Our father, aware of this proceeding, gave us three bottles of sherry, 
 upon the principle that the grocer opens to the young shopboy his 
 drawers of figs and raisins. But we easily guessed the meaning of 
 the kind present, and contented ourselves with drinking each half a 
 bottle a day, as long as it lasted, and then asked for more, to the 
 great disgust of the donor. We diligently practised pistol-shooting, 
 and delighted in cock-fighting, at which the tutor duly attended. 
 Of course the birds fought without steel, but it was a fine game- 
 breed, probably introduced of old by the Spaniards. It not a little 
 resembles the Derby game-cock, which has spread itself half over 
 South America. 
 
 There was naturally little variety in amusements. The few 
 English families lived in scattered villas. Old Mrs. Starke, Queen 
 of Sorrento, as she loved to be called, and the authoress of the 
 guide book, was the local “ lion/’ and she was sketched and carica¬ 
 tured in every possible way in her old Meg Merrilies’ cloak. Game 
 to the last, she died on the road travelling. An Englishman, named 
 Sparkes, threw himself into one of the jagged volcanic ravines that 
 seam the tongue of Sorrento; but there is hardly a place in Italy, 
 high or low, where some Englishman has not suicided himself. A 
 painter, a Mr. Inskip, brought over an introduction, and was very 
 tipsy before dinner was half over. The Marsala wine supplied by 
 Iggulden & Co. would have floored Polyphemus. The want of 
 excitement out of doors, produced a correspondent increase of it 
 inside. We were getting too old to be manageable, and Mr. Du Pre 
 taking high grounds on one occasion, very nearly received a good 
 thrashing. My father being a man of active mind, and having nothing 
 in the world to do, began to be unpleasantly chemical; he bought 
 Parke’s “Catechism;” filled the house with abominations of all kinds, 
 made a hideous substance that he called soap, and prepared a 
 quantity of filth that he called citric acid, for which he spoiled 
 thousands of lemons. When his fit passed over it was succeeded 
 by one of chess, and the whole family were bitten by it. Every 
 spare hour, especially in the evening, was given to check and check¬ 
 mating, and I soon learned to play one, and then two games, with 
 my eyes blindfolded. I had the sense, however, to give it up com¬ 
 pletely, for my days were full of Philidor, and my dreams were of 
 gambits all night. 
 
29 
 
 The Children are brought to England. 
 
 At Naples more was added to the work of education. Caraccioli, 
 the celebrated marine painter, was engaged to teach oil-painting; 
 but he was a funny fellow, and the hours which should have been 
 spent in exhausting palettes passed in pencil-caricaturing of every 
 possible friend and acquaintance. The celebrated Cavalli was the 
 fencing-master ; and in those days the Neapolitan school, which 
 has now almost died out, was in its last bloom. It was a thoroughly 
 business-like affair, and rejected all the elegancies of the French 
 school; and whenever there was a duel between a Neapolitan and 
 a Frenchman, the former was sure to win. We boys worked at it 
 heart and soul, and generally managed to give four hours a day to 
 it. I determined, even at that time, to produce a combination 
 between the Neapolitan and the French school, so as to supplement 
 the defects of the one by the merits of the other. A life of very 
 hard work did not allow me any leisure to carry out my plan; but 
 the man of perseverance stores up his resolves and waits for any 
 numbers of years till he sees the time to carry it out. The plan was 
 made in 1836, and was completed in 1880 (forty-four years). 
 
 My father spared no pains or expense in educating his children. 
 He had entered the army at a very early age. Volunteers were 
 called for in Ireland, and those who brought a certain number into 
 the field received commissions gratis. The old Grandmamma 
 Burton’s tenants’ sons volunteered by the dozen. They formed a 
 very fair company, and accompanied the young master to the wars ; 
 and when the young master got his commission, they all, with the 
 exception of one or two, levanted, bolted, and deserted. Thus my 
 father found himself an officer at the age of seventeen, when he 
 ought to have been at school; and recognizing the deficiencies of his 
 own education, he was determined that his children should complain 
 of nothing of the kind. He was equally determined they none of 
 them should enter the army; the consequence being that both the 
 sons became soldiers, and the only daughter married a soldier. 
 Some evil spirit, probably Mr. Du Pre, whispered that the best plan 
 for the boys would be to send them to Oxford, in order that they 
 might rise by literature, an idea which they both thoroughly detested. 
 However, in order to crush their pride, they were told that they 
 should enter “ Oxford College as sizars, poor gentlemen who are 
 supported by the alms of the others.” Our feelings may be imagined. 
 We determined to enlist, or go before the mast, or to turn Turks, 
 banditti, or pirates, rather than undergo such an indignity. 
 
 At last the house on the Chiaja was given up, and the family took 
 a house inside the City for a short time. The father was getting 
 tired and thinking of starting northwards. The change was afflicting. 
 
30 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 The loss of the view of the Bay was a misfortune. The only amuse¬ 
 ment was prospecting the streets, where the most extraordinary 
 scenes took place. It was impossible to forget a beastly English¬ 
 man, as he stood eating a squirting orange surrounded by a string 
 of gutter-boys. The dexterity of the pickpockets, too, gave scenes 
 as amusing as a theatre. 
 
 The lazzaroni , too, were a perpetual amusement. We learned to 
 eat maccaroni like them, and so far mastered their dialect, that we 
 could exchange chaff by the hour. In 1869 I found them all at 
 Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, dressed in cacciatore and swearing 
 “ M’nnaccia l’anima tua; ” they were impressed with a conviction 
 that I was myself a lazzarone in luck. The shady side of the 
 picture was the cholera. It caused a fearful destruction, and the 
 newspapers owned to 1300 a day, which meant say 2300. The 
 much-abused King behaved like a gentleman. The people had 
 determined that the cholera was poison, and doubtless many made 
 use of the opportunity to get rid of husbands and wives and other 
 inconvenient relationships; but when the mob proceeded to murder 
 the doctors, and to gather in the market square with drawn knives, 
 declaring that the Government had poisoned the provisions, the 
 King himself drove up in a phaeton and jumped out of it entirely 
 alone, told them to put up their ridiculous weapons, and to show 
 him where the poisoned provisions were, and, seating himself upon 
 a bench, ate as much as his stomach would contain. Even the 
 lazzarone were not proof against this heroism, and viva’d and cheered 
 him to his heart’s content 
 
 My brother and I had seen too much of cholera to be afraid of it 
 We had passed through it in France, it had followed us to Siena 
 and Rome, and at Naples it only excited our curiosity. We per¬ 
 suaded the Italian man-servant to assist us in a grand escapade. He 
 had procured us the necessary dress, and when the dead-carts passed 
 round in the dead of the night, we went the rounds with them as 
 some of the croquemorts. The visits to the pauper houses, where 
 the silence lay in the rooms, were anything but pleasant, and still less 
 the final disposal of the bodies. Outside Naples was a large plain, 
 pierced with pits, like the silos or underground granaries of Algeria 
 and North Africa. They were lined with stone, and the mouths 
 were covered with one big slab, just large enough to allow a corpse 
 to pass. Into these flesh-pots were thrown the unfortunate bodies 
 of the poor, after being stripped of the rags which acted as their 
 winding-sheets. Black and rigid, they were thrown down the aper¬ 
 tures like so much rubbish, into the festering heap below, and the 
 decay caused a kind of lambent blue flame about the sides of the 
 
The Children are brought to England. 31 
 
 pit, which lit up a mass of human corruption, worthy to be described 
 by Dante. 
 
 Our escapades, which were frequent, were wild for strictly brought 
 up Protestant English boys—they would be nothing now, when 
 boys do so much worse—but there were others that were less 
 excusable. Behind the Chiaja dwelt a multitude of syrens, who 
 were naturally looked upon as the most beautiful of their sex. One 
 lady in particular responded to the various telegraphic signs made 
 to her from the flat terrace of the house, and we boys determined to 
 pay her a visit. Arming ourselves with carving-knives, which we 
 stuffed behind our girdles, we made our way jauntily into the 
 house, introduced ourselves, and being abundant in pocket-money, 
 offered to stand treat, as the phrase is, for the whole neighbourhood. 
 The orgie was tremendous, and we were only too lucky to get 
 home unhurt, before morning, when the Italian servant let us in. 
 The result was a correspondence, consisting in equal parts of pure 
 love on our side and extreme debauchery on the syrens’. These 
 letters, unfortunately, were found by our mother during one of her 
 Sunday visitations to our chambers. A tremendous commotion 
 was the result. Our father and his dog, Mr. Du Fy 6 , proceeded to 
 condign punishment with the horsewhip; but we climbed up to the 
 tops of the chimneys, where the seniors could not follow us, and 
 refused to come down till the crime was condoned. 
 
 The family left Naples in the spring of 1836. The usual moun¬ 
 tain of baggage was packed in the enormous boxes of the period, 
 and the Custom House officers never even opened them, rely¬ 
 ing, as they said—and did in those good old days—upon the 
 word of an Englishman, that they contained nothing contraband. 
 How different from the United Italy, where even the dressing- 
 bag is rummaged to find a few cigars, or an ounce of coffee. 
 The voyage was full of discomforts. My mother, after a cam¬ 
 paign of two or three years, had been persuaded to part with 
 her French maid Eulalie, an old and attached servant, who made 
 our hours bitter, and our faces yellow. The steamer of the day 
 was by no means a floating palace, especially the English coast¬ 
 ing steamers, which infested the Mediterranean. The machinery 
 was noisy and offensive. The cabins were dog-holes, with a 
 pestiferous atmosphere, and the food consisted of greasy butter, 
 bread w r hich might be called dough, eggs with a perfume, rusty 
 bacon, milkless tea and coffee, that might be mistaken for each 
 other, waxy potatoes, graveolent greens cuite a Peau, stickjaw’ pud¬ 
 ding, and cannibal haunches of meat, charred wuthout, and blue 
 within. 
 
32 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 The only advantage was that the vessels were manned by English 
 crews, and in those days the British sailor was not a tailor, and he 
 showed his value when danger was greatest. 
 
 We steamed northwards in a good old way, puffing and panting, 
 pitching and rolling, and in due time made Marseille. 
 
 However agreeable Provence was, the change from Italians to 
 French was not pleasant. The subjects of Louis Philippe, the 
 Citizen-King, were rancorous against Englishmen, and whenever a 
 fellow wanted to get up a row he had only to cry out, “ These are 
 the miserab/es who poisoned Napoleon at St. Helena.” This 
 pleasant little scene occurred on board a coasting steamer, between 
 Marseille and Cette, when remonstrance was made with the cheat¬ 
 ing steward, backed by the rascally captain. Cette was beginning 
 to be famous for the imitation wines composed by the ingenuity 
 of Monsieur Guizot, brother of the austere i?itrigant. He could 
 turn out any wine, from the cheapest Marsala to the choicest 
 Madeiran Bual. 
 
 But he did his counterfeiting honestly, as a little “ G ” was always 
 branded on the bottom of the cork, and Cette gave a good lesson 
 about ordering wines at hotels. The sensible traveller, when in a 
 strange place, always calls for the carte , and chooses the cheapest; 
 he knows by sad experience, by cramp and acidity of stomach, that 
 the dearest wines are often worse than the cheapest, and at best 
 that they are the same with different labels. The proprietor of the 
 hotel at Cette, had charged his dame de coynptoir with robbing the 
 till. She could not deny it, but she replied with a tu quoque: “ If 
 I robbed you I only returned tit for tat. You have been robbing 
 the public for the last quarter of a century, and only the other day 
 you brought a bottle of ordinaire and escamote' d it into sixteen kinds 
 of vins fin.” The landlord thought it better to drop the proceedings. 
 From Cette we travelled in hired carriages (as Dobbin and the 
 carriages had been sold at Naples) to Toulouse. We stayed at 
 Toulouse for a week, and I was so delighted with student life there, 
 that I asked my father’s leave to join them. But he was always 
 determined on the Fellowship at Oxford. Our parents periodically 
 fell ill with asthma, and we young ones availed ourselves of the 
 occasion, by wandering far and wide over the country. W T e delighted 
 in these journeys, for though the tutor was there, the books were in 
 the boxes. My chief remembrances of Toulouse were, finding the 
 mistress of the hotel correcting her teeth with table dhdte forks, 
 and being placed opposite the model Englishman of Alexandre 
 Dumas and Eugene Sue. The man’s face never faded from my 
 
The Children are brought to England. 33 
 
 memory. Carroty hair, white and very smooth forehead, green 
 eyes, a purple-reddish lower face, whiskers that had a kind of 
 crimson tinge, and an enormous mouth worn open, so as to show 
 the protruding teeth. 
 
 In due time we reached Pau in the Pyrenees, the capital of the 
 Basses Pyrenees, and the old Bearnais. The little town on the 
 Gave de Pau was no summer place. The heats are intense, and all 
 who can, rush off to the Pyrenees, which are in sight, and distant 
 only forty miles. Our family followed suit, and went off to Bagnieres 
 de Bigorres, where we hired a nice house in the main Square. There 
 were few foreigners in the Bagnibres de Bigorres ; it was at that time 
 a thoroughly French watering-place. It was invaded by a mob of 
 Parisians of both sexes, the men dressed in fancy costumes intended 
 to be “ truly rural,” and capped with Basque bonnets, white or red. 
 The women were more wonderful still, especially when on horse¬ 
 back; somehow or other the Frangaise never dons a riding-habit 
 without some solecism. Picnics were the order of the day, and they 
 were organized on a large scale, looking more like a squadron of 
 cavalry going out for exercise than a party of pleasure. We boys 
 obtained permission to accompany one of those caravans to the 
 Breche de Roland, a nick in the mountain top clearly visible from 
 the plains, and supposed to have been cut by the good sword 
 “ Joyeuse.” 
 
 Here we boys were mightily taken with, and tempted to accept 
 the offer made to us by, a merry party of contrabandistas , who were 
 smuggling to and fro chocolate, tobacco, and aguardienta (spirits). 
 Nothing could be jollier than such a life as these people lead. They 
 travelled au clair de la lune , armed to the teeth; when they arrived 
 at the hotels the mules were unloaded and turned out to grass, the 
 guitar, played a la Figaro , began to tinkle, and all the young women, 
 like “ the Buffalo girls,” came out to dance. Wine and spirits flowed 
 freely, the greatest good humour prevailed, and the festivities were 
 broken only sometimes by “ knifing or shooting.” 
 
 We also visited Tarbes, which even in those days was beginning 
 to acquire a reputation for “ le shport; ” it presently became one of 
 the centres of racing and hunting in France, for which the excellent 
 climate and the fine rolling country admirably adapted it. It was 
 no wonder that the young French horse beat the English at the 
 same age. In the Basque Pyrenees a colt two years old is as well 
 grown as a Newmarket weed at two and a half. 
 
 When the great heat was over, the family returned to Pau, where 
 they found a good house over the arcade in the Place Gramont. 
 Pau boasts of being the birthplace of Henry IV., Gaston de Foix, 
 
 c 
 
34 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 and Bernadotte. Strangers go through the usual routine of visiting the 
 Castle, called after the Protestant-Catholic King, Henry IV.; driving 
 to Ortez, where Marshal Soult fought unjustifiably the last action of the 
 Peninsular War; and of wandering about the flat, moor-like landes , 
 which not a little resemble those about Bordeaux. The society at Pau 
 was an improvement upon that of Naples. The most remarkable per¬ 
 son was Captain (R.N.) Lord William Paget, who was living with his 
 mother-in-law (Baroness de Rothenberg), and his wife and children, 
 and enjoying himself as usual. Though even impecunious, he was the 
 best of boon companions, and a man generally loved. But he could 
 also make himself feared, and, as the phrase is, would stand no non¬ 
 sense. He had a little affair with a man whom we will call Robinson, 
 and as they were going to the meeting-place he said to his second, 
 “What’s the fellow’s pet pursuit?” “Well! ” answered the other, “ I 
 don’t know—but, let me see—ah, I remember, a capital hand at waltz¬ 
 ing.” “ Waltzing ! ” said Lord William, and hit him accurately on the 
 hip-bone, which spoilt his saltations for many a long month. 
 
 At Pau the education went on merrily. I was provided with a 
 French master of mathematics, whose greasy hair swept the collar of 
 the redingote buttoned up to the chin. He was a type of his order. He 
 introduced mathematics everywhere. He was a red republican of the 
 reddest, hating rank and wealth, and he held that Le Bon Dieu was 
 not proven, because he could not express Him by a mathematical for¬ 
 mula, and he called his fellow-men Bon-Dieusistes. We were now grown 
 to lads, and began seriously to prepare for thrashing our tutor, and 
 diligently took lessons in boxing from the Irish groom of a Captain 
 Hutchinson, R.N. Whenever we could escape from study we passed 
 our hours in the barracks, fencing with the soldiers, and delighting 
 every piou-piou (recruit) by our powers of consuming the country spirit 
 (the white and unadulterated cognac). We also took seriously to 
 smoking, although, as usual with beginners in those days, we suffered 
 in the flesh. In the later generation, you find young children, even 
 girls, who, although their parents have never smoked, can finish off a 
 cigarette without the slightest inconvenience, even for the first time. 
 
 Smoking and drinking led us, as it naturally does, into trouble. 
 There was a Jamaica Irishman with a very dark skin and a very 
 loud brogue, called Thomas, who was passing the winter for the 
 benefit of his chest at Pau. He delighted in encouraging us for 
 mischief sake. One raw snowy day he gave us his strongest cigars, 
 and brewed us a bowl of potent steaming punch, which was soon 
 followed by another. Edward, not being very w r ell, was unusually 
 temperate, and so I, not liking to w r aste it, drank for two. A w r alk 
 was then maliciously proposed, and the cold air acted as usual as 
 stimulant to stimulant. Thomas began laughing aloud, Edward 
 
The Children are brought to England. 35 
 
 plodded gloomily along, and I got into half a dozen scrimmages 
 with the country people. At last matters began to look serious, and 
 the too hospitable host took his two guests back to their home. I 
 managed to stagger upstairs; I was deadly pale, with staring eyes, 
 and compelled to use the depressed walk of a monkey, when I met 
 my mother. She was startled at my appearance, and as I pleaded 
 very sick she put me to bed. But other symptoms puzzled her. She 
 fetched my father, who came to the bedside, looked carefully for a 
 minute at his son and heir, and turned upon his heel, exclaiming, 
 u The beast’s in liquor.” The mother burst into a flood of tears, 
 and next morning presented me with a five-franc piece, making me 
 promise to be good for the future, and not to read Lord Chesterfield’s 
 “ Letters to his Son,” of which she had a dreadful horror. It need 
 hardly be said that the five francs soon melted away in laying in a 
 stock of what is popularly called “ a hair of the dog that bit.” 
 
 What we learnt last at Pau was the Bearnais dialect. It is a 
 charmingly naive dialect, mixture of French, Spanish, and Proven- 
 gale, and containing a quantity of pretty, pleasant songs. The 
 country folk were delighted when addressed in their own lingo. It 
 considerably assisted me in learning Provengale, the language of Le 
 Geysaber ; and I found it useful in the most out-of-the-way corners 
 of the world, even in Brazil. Nothing goes home to the heart of a 
 man so much as to speak to him in his own patois. Even a Lanca¬ 
 shire lad can scarcely resist the language of <£ Tummas and Mary.” 
 
 At length the wheezy, windy, rainy, foggy, sleety, snowy winter 
 passed away, and the approach of the warm four months, warned 
 strangers to betake themselves to the hills. This time the chosen 
 place was Argeles. In those days it was a little village, composed 
 mainly of one street, not unlike mining Arrayal in Brazil, or a negro 
 village on the banks of the Gaboon. But the scenery around it was 
 beautiful. It lay upon a brawling stream, and the contrast of the 
 horizontal meadow-lands around it, with the backing of almost 
 vertical hills and peaks, thoroughly satisfied the eye. 
 
 We two brothers, abetted by our tutor, had fallen into the detest¬ 
 able practice of keeping our hands in by shooting swifts and swallows, 
 of which barbarity we were afterwards heartily ashamed. Our first 
 lesson was from the peasants. On one occasion, having shot a 
 harmless bird that fell among the reapers, the latter charged us in 
 a body, and being armed with scythes and sickles, caused a precipi¬ 
 tous retreat. In those days the swallow seemed to be a kind of 
 holy bird in the Bearnais, somewhat like the pigeons of Mecca and 
 Venice. I can only remember that this was the case with old 
 Assyrians and Aramaeans, who called the swift or devilling the 
 ■destiny, or foretelling bird, because it heralded the spring. 
 
36 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 As the mountain fog began to roll down upon the valley, our father 
 found that his poor chest required a warmer climate. This time we 
 travelled down the Grand Canal du Midi in a big public barge, which 
 resembled a Dutch trekschuyt. At first, passing through the locks 
 was a perpetual excitement, but this very soon palled. The 
 L’Estranges were also on board, and the French part of the company 
 were not particularly pleasant. They were mostly tourists returning 
 home, mixed with a fair proportion of commis-voyageurs , a class that 
 corresponds with, but does not resemble, our commercial traveller. 
 The French species seems to have but two objects in social life : first, 
 to glorify himself, and secondly, to glorify Paris. 
 
 Monsieur Victor Hugo has carried the latter mania to the very 
 verge of madness, and left to his countrymen an example almost as 
 bad as bad can be. The peculiarity of the commis-voyageur in those 
 days, was the queer thin varnish of politeness, which he thought it 
 due to himself to assume. He would help himself at breakfast or 
 dinner to the leg, wing, and part of the breast, and pass the dish to 
 his neighbour when it contained only a neck and a drumstick, with a 
 pleased smile and a ready bow, anxiously asking “ Madame, veut elle 
 de la volaille?” and he was frightfully unprogressive. He wished to 
 “ let sleeping dogs lie,” and hated to move quiet things. It almost 
 gave him an indigestion to speak of railways. He found the dili¬ 
 gence and the canal boat quite fast enough for his purpose. And 
 in this to a certain extent he represented the Genius of the Nation. 
 
 With the excellent example of the Grand Canal du Midi before 
 them, the French have allowed half a century to pass before they even 
 realized the fact that their rivers give them most admirable oppor¬ 
 tunities for inland navigation, and that by energy in spending money 
 they could have a water line leading up from Manches to Paris, and 
 down from Paris to the Mediterranean. In these days of piercing 
 isthmuses, they seem hardly to have thought of a canal that would 
 save the time and expense of running round Spain and Portugal,, 
 when it would be so easy to cut the neck that connects their country 
 with the Peninsula. The rest of the journey was eventless as usual. 
 The family took the steamer at Marseille, steamed down to Leghorn, 
 and drove up to Pisa. There they found a house on the south side 01 
 the Lung’ Arno, belonging to a widow of the name of Pini. It was 
 a dull and melancholy place enough, but it had the advantage of a 
 large garden that grew chiefly cabbages. It was something like a 
 return home; a number of old acquaintances were met, and few new 
 ones were made. 
 
 The studies were kept up with unremitting attention. I kept up 
 drawing, painting, and classics, and it was lucky for me that I did- 
 
The Children are brought to England. 37 
 
 I have been able to make my own drawings, and to illustrate my own 
 books. It is only in this way that a correct idea of unfamiliar scenes 
 can be given. Travellers who bring home a few scrawls and put 
 them into the hands of a professional illustrator, have the pleasure of 
 seeing the illustrated paper style applied to the scenery and the 
 people of Central Africa and Central Asia and Europe. Even when 
 the drawings are carefully done by the traveller-artist, it is hard to 
 persuade the professional to preserve their peculiarities. For instance, 
 a sketch from Hyderabad, the inland capital of Sind, showed a number 
 of mast-like poles which induced the English artist to write out and 
 ask if there ought not to be yards and sails. In sending a sketch 
 home of a pilgrim in his proper costume, the portable Koffin worn 
 under the left arm narrowly escaped becoming a revolver. On the 
 chocolate-coloured cover of a book on Zanzibar, stands a negro in 
 gold, straddling like the Colossus of Rhodes. He was propped crane¬ 
 like upon one leg, supporting himself with his spear, and applying, 
 African fashion, the sole of the other foot to the perpendicular calf. 
 
 But music did not get on so well. We all three had good speaking 
 voices, but we sang with a “voce digola” a throaty tone which was 
 terrible to hear. It is only in England that people sing without 
 voices. This may do very well when chirping a comic song, or half¬ 
 speaking a ballad, but in nothing higher. I longed to sing, began 
 singing with all my might at Pau in the Pyrenees, and I kept it up 
 at Pisa, where Signor Romani (Mario’s old master) rather encouraged 
 me, instead of peremptorily or pathetically bidding me to hold my 
 tongue. I wasted time and money, and presently found out my 
 mistake and threw up music altogether. At stray times I took up 
 the flageolet, and other simple instruments, as though I had a kind 
 of instinctive feeling how useful music would be to me in later life. 
 And I never ceased to regret that I had not practised sufficiently, 
 to be able to write down music at hearing. Had I been able to do 
 so, I might have collected some two thousand motives from Europe, 
 Asia, Africa, and America, and have produced a musical note-book 
 which would have been useful to a Bellini, or Donizetti, or a 
 Boito. 
 
 We had now put away childish things; that is to say, we no longer 
 broke the windows across the river with slings, or engaged in free 
 fights with our coevals. But the climate of Italy is precocious, so, 
 as the Vicar of Wakefield has it, “ we cocked our hats and loved the 
 ladies.” And our poor father was once appalled by strange heads 
 being put out of the windows, in an unaccustomed street, and with 
 the words, “Oh! S’or Riccardo, Oh ! S’or Edoardo.” 
 
 Madame P-, the landlady, had three children. Sandro, the 
 
38 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 son, was a tall, gawky youth, who wore a cacciatore or Italian shooting 
 jacket of cotton-leather, not unlike the English one made loose, with 
 the tails cut off. The two daughters were extremely handsome girls, 
 in very different styles. Signorina Caterina, the elder, was tall, slim, 
 and dark, with the palest possible complexion and regular features. 
 Signorina Antonia, the younger, could not boast of the same classical 
 lines, but the light brown hair, and the pink and white complexion, 
 made one forgive and forget every irregularity. Consequently I fell 
 in love with the elder, and Edward with the latter. Proposals of 
 marriage were made and accepted. The girls had heard that, in her 
 younger days, mamma had had half a dozen strings to her bow at the 
 same time, and they were perfectly ready to follow parental example. 
 But a serious obstacle occurred in the difficulty of getting the 
 ceremony performed. As in England there was a popular but 
 mistaken idea that a man could put a rope round his wife’s neck, 
 take her to market, and sell her like a quadruped, so there was, and 
 perhaps there is still, in Italy, a legend that any affianced couple 
 standing up together in front of the congregation during the eleva¬ 
 tion of the Host, and declaring themselves man and wife, are very 
 much married. Many inquiries were made about this procedure, and 
 at one time it was seriously intended. But the result of questioning 
 was, that promessi sposi so acting, are at once imprisoned and punished 
 by being kept in separate cells, and therefore it became evident, that 
 the game was not worth the candle. This is like a Scotch marriage, 
 however—with the Italian would be binding in religion, and the 
 Scotch in law. 
 
 Edward and I made acquaintance with a lot of Italian medical 
 students, compared with whom, English men of the same category 
 were as babes, and they did us no particular good. At last the 
 winter at Pisa ended, badly—very badly. The hard studies of 
 the classics during the day, occasionally concluded with a revel at 
 night On one hopeless occasion a bottle of Jamaica gin happened 
 to fall into the wrong hands. The revellers rose at midnight, boiled 
 water, procured sugar and lemons, and sat down to a steaming soup 
 tureen full of punch. Possibly it was followed by a second, but the 
 result was that they sallied out into the streets, determined upon 
 what is called a “ spree.” Knockers did not exist, and Charleys did 
 not confine themselves to their sentry-boxes, and it was vain to ring 
 at bells, when every one was sound asleep. Evidently the choice of 
 amusements was limited, and mostly confined to hustling inoffensive 
 passers-by. But as one of these feats had been performed, and cries 
 for assistance had been uttered, up came the watch at the double, 
 and the revellers had nothing to do but to make tracks. My legs 
 
The Children are brought to England. 39 
 
 were the longest, and I escaped; Edward was seized and led off, despite 
 his fists and heels, ignobly to the local violoti , or guard-house. One 
 may imagine my father’s disgust next morning, when he was cour¬ 
 teously informed by the prison authorities that a giovinotto bearing his 
 name, had been lodged during the night at the public expense. The 
 father went off in a state of the stoniest severity to the guard-house, 
 and found the graceless one treating his companions in misfortune, 
 thieves and ruffians of every kind, to the contents of a pocket-flask 
 with which he had provided himself in case of need. This was the 
 last straw ; our father determined to transfer his head-quarters to the 
 Baths of Lucca, and then to prepare for breaking up the family. The 
 adieux of Caterina and Antonia were heartrending, and it was agreed 
 to correspond every week. The journey occupied a short time, and 
 a house was soon found in the upper village of Lucca. 
 
 In those days, the Lucchese baths were the only place in Italy 
 that could boast of a tolerably cool summer climate, and a few of 
 the comforts of life. Sorrento, Montenero, near Leghorn, and the 
 hills about Rome, were frequented by very few; they came under 
 the category of “ cheap and nasty.” Hence the Bagni collected what 
 was considered to be the distinguished society. It had its parson 
 from Pisa, even in the days before the travelling continental 
 clergyman was known, and this one migrated every year to the hills, 
 like the flight of swallows, and the beggars who desert the hot plains 
 and the stifling climate of the lowlands. There was generally at 
 least one English doctor who practised by the kindly sufferance of 
 the then Italian Government. The Duke of Lucca at times attended 
 the balls; he was married, but his gallant presence and knightly 
 manner committed terrible ravages in the hearts of susceptible 
 English girls. 
 
 The queen in ordinary was a Mrs. Colonel Stisted, as she called 
 herself, the “ same Miss Clotilda Clotworthy Crawley who was ” so 
 rudely treated by the wild Irish girl, Lady Morgan. I was also 
 obliged to settle an old score with her in after years in “ Sinde, or 
 the Unhappy Valley.” And so I wrote, “ She indeed had left her 
 mark in literature, not by her maudlin volume, ‘The Byeways of 
 Italy/ but by the abuse of her fellow authors.” She was “ the sea 
 goddess with tin ringlets and venerable limbs ” of the irrepressible 
 Mrs. Trollope. She also supplied Lever with one of the characters 
 which he etched in with his most corrosive acid. In one season 
 the Baths collected Lady Blessington, Count D’Orsay, the charming 
 Lady Walpole, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the poetess, whose 
 tight sacque of black silk gave us youngsters a series of caricatures. 
 There, too, was old Lady Osborne, full of Greek and Latin, who 
 
40 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 married her daughter to Captain Bernal, afterwards Bernal Osborne. 
 Amongst the number was Mrs. Young, whose daughter became 
 Madame Matteucci, wife of the celebrated scientist and electrician of 
 Tuscany. She managed, curiously to say, to hold her own in her 
 new position. Finally, I remember Miss Virginia Gabrieli, daughter 
 of old General Gabrieli, commonly called the “Archangel Gabriel.” 
 Virginia Gabrieli, “ all white and fresh, and virginally plain,” after¬ 
 wards made a name in the musical world, composed beautiful 
 ballads, published many pieces, and married, and died in St. George’s 
 Hospital by being thrown from a carriage, August 7, 1877. She 
 showed her savoir faire at the earliest age. At a ball given to the 
 Prince, all appeared in their finest dresses and richest jewellery. Miss 
 Virginia was in white, with a single necklace of pink coral. They 
 danced till daylight; and when the sun arose, Miss Virginia was 
 like a rose amongst faded dahlias and sunflowers. 
 
 There was a very nice fellow of the name of Wood, who had just 
 married a Miss Stisted, one of the nieces of the “ Queen of the 
 Baths,” with whom all the “ baths ” were in love. Another marking 
 young person was Miss Helen Crowley, a girl of the order “dashing,” 
 whose hair was the brightest auburn, and complexion the purest 
 white and red. Her father was the Rev. Dr. Crowley, whose Jewish 
 novel “Salathiel” made a small noise in the world. 
 
 It was evident that the Burton family was ripe for a break up. 
 Our father, like an Irishman, was perfectly happy as long as he was 
 the only man in the house, but the presence of younger males irri¬ 
 tated him. His temper became permanently soured. He could 
 no longer use the rod, but he could make himself very unpleasant 
 with his tongue. “ Senti come me li rimangia quei poveri ragazzi! ” 
 (Hear how he is chawing-up those poor lads !) said the old Pisan- 
 Italian lady’s-maid, and I do think now that we were not pleasant 
 inmates of a household. We were in the “ Sturm und drang ” of the 
 teens. We had thoroughly mastered our tutor, threw our books 
 out of the window if he attempted to give a lesson in Greek or 
 Latin, and applied ourselves with ardour to Picault Le Brun, and 
 Paulde Kock, the “Promessi Sposi,” and the “ Disfida di Barletta.” 
 Instead of taking country walks, we jodelled all about the hillsides 
 under the direction of a Swiss scamp. We shot pistols in every 
 direction, and whenever a stray fencing-master passed, we persuaded 
 him to give us a few hours of “ point.” We made experiments of 
 everything imaginable, including swallowing and smoking opium. 
 
 The break-up took place about the middle of summer. It was 
 comparatively tame. Italians marvelled at the Spartan nature of 
 the British mother, who, after the habits of fifteen years, can so 
 
The Children are brought to England. 41 
 
 easily part with her children at the cost of a lachrymose last embrace, 
 and watering her prandial beefsteak with tears. Amongst Italian 
 families, nothing is more common than for all the brothers and 
 sisters to swear that they will not marry if they are to be separated 
 from one another. And even now, in these subversive and pro¬ 
 gressive days, what a curious contrast is the English and the Italian 
 household. Let me sketch one of the latter, a family belonging to 
 the old nobility, once lords of the land, and now simple proprietors 
 of a fair Estate. In a large garden, and a larger orchard of vines 
 and olives, stands a solid old house, as roomy as a barrack, but 
 without the slightest pretension of comfort or luxury. The old 
 Countess, a widow, has the whole of her progeny around her—two 
 or three stalwart sons, one married and the others partially so, and 
 a daughter who has not yet found a husband. The servants are old 
 family retainers. They consider themselves part and parcel of the 
 household; they are on the most familiar terms with the family, 
 although they would resent with the direst indignation the slightest 
 liberty on the part of outsiders. The day is one of extreme sim¬ 
 plicity, and some might even deem it monotonous. Each individual 
 leaves his bed at the hour he or she pleases, and finds coffee, milk, 
 and small rolls in the dining-room. Smoking and dawdling pass 
 the hours till almost mid-day, when dejeuner a la fourchette, or rather 
 a young dinner, leads very naturally up to a siesta. In the afternoon 
 there is a little walking or driving, and even shooting in the case of 
 the most energetic. There is a supper after nightfall, and after that 
 dominoes or cards, or music, or conversazione, keep them awake for 
 half the night. The even tenor of their days is broken only by a 
 festival or a ball in the nearest town, or some pseudo Scientific 
 Congress in a City not wholly out of reach; and so things go on 
 from year to year, and all are happy because they look to nothing 
 else. 
 
 Our journey began in the early summer of 1840. My mother 
 and sister were left at the Baths of Lucca, and my father, with Mr. 
 Du Pr 6 , and Edward and I, set out for Switzerland. We again 
 travelled vetturino , and we lads cast longing eyes at the charming 
 country which we were destined not to see again for another ten 
 years. How melancholy we felt when on our way to the chill and 
 dolorous North ! At Schinznach I was left in charge of Mr. Du Pr£, 
 while my father and brother set out for England direct. These 
 Hapsburg baths in the Aargau had been chosen because the 
 abominable sulphur water, as odorous as that of Harrogate, was 
 held as sovereign in skin complaints, and I was suffering from 
 exanthemata, an eruption brought on by a sudden check of per- 
 
42 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 spiration. These eruptions are very hard to cure, and they often 
 embitter a man’s life. The village consisted of a single Establish¬ 
 ment, in which all nationalities met. Amongst them was an 
 unfortunate Frenchman, who had been attacked at Calcutta with 
 what appeared to be a leprous taint. He had tried half a dozen 
 places to no purpose, and he had determined to blow his brains out 
 if Schinznach failed him. The only advantage of the place was, its 
 being within easy distance of Schaffhausen and the falls of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 When the six weeks’ cure was over, I was hurried by my guardian 
 across France, and Southern England, to the rendezvous. The 
 Grandmother and the two aunts, finding Great Cumberland Place 
 too hot, had taken country quarters at Hampstead. Grandmamma 
 Baker received us lads with something like disappointment. She 
 would have been better contented had we been six feet high, bony 
 as Highland cattle, with freckled faces, and cheek-bones like horns. 
 Aunt Georgina Baker embraced and kissed her nephews with 
 effusion. She had not been long parted from us. Mrs. Frank 
 Burton, the other aunt, had not seen us for ten years, and of course 
 could not recognize us. 
 
 We found two very nice little girl-cousins, who assisted us to pass 
 the time. But the old dislike to our surroundings, returned with 
 redoubled violence. Everything appeared to us so small, so mean, 
 so ugly. The faces of the women were the only exception to the 
 general rule of hideousness. The houses were so unlike houses, 
 and more like the Nuremberg toys magnified. The outsides were 
 so prim, so priggish, so utterly unartistic. The little bits of garden 
 were mere slices, as if they had been sold by the inch. The interiors 
 were cut up into such wretched little rooms, more like ship-cabins 
 than what was called rooms in Italy. The drawing-rooms were 
 crowded with hideous little tables, that made it dangerous to pass 
 from one side to the other. The tables were heaped with nick- 
 nacks, that served neither for use or show. And there was a 
 desperate neatness and cleanness about everything that made us 
 remember the old story of the Stoic who spat in the face of the 
 master of the house because it was the most untidy place in the 
 dwelling. 
 
 Then came a second parting. Edward was to be placed under 
 the charge of the Rev. Mr. Havergal, rector of some country parish. 
 Later on, he wrote to say that “ Richard must not correspond with 
 his brother, as he had turned his name into a peculiar form of 
 ridicule.” He was in the musical line, and delighted in organ¬ 
 playing. But Edward seemed to consider the whole affair a bore. 
 
The Children are brought to Engla 7 id. 43 
 
 and was only too happy when he could escape from the harmonious 
 parsonage. 
 
 In the mean time l had been tried and found wanting. One of 
 my father’s sisters (Mrs. General D’Aguilar, as she called herself) 
 had returned from India, after an uninterrupted residence of a score 
 of years, with a large supply of children of both sexes. She had 
 settled herself temporarily at Cambridge, to superintend the education 
 of her eldest son, John Burton D’Aguilar, who was intended for the 
 Church, and who afterwards became a chaplain in the Bengal 
 Establishment. Amongst her many acquaintances was a certain 
 Professor Sholefield, a well-known Grecian. My father had rather 
 suspected that very little had been done in the house, in the way of 
 classical study, during the last two years. The Professor put me 
 through my paces in Virgil and Homer, and found me lamentably 
 deficient. I did not even know who Isis was ! worse still, it was 
 found out that I, who spoke French and Italian and their dialects 
 like a native, who had a considerable smattering of Bearnais, 
 Spanish, and Provengale, barely knew the Lord’s Prayer, broke 
 down in the Apostles’ Creed, and had never heard of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles —a terrible revelation 1 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OXFORD. 
 
 As it was Long Vacation at Oxford, and I could not take rooms at 
 once in Trinity College, where my name had been put down, it was 
 necessary to place me somewhere out of mischief. At the inter¬ 
 vention of friends, a certain Doctor Greenhill agreed to lodge and 
 coach me till the opening term. The said doctor had just married 
 a relation of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, and he had taken his bride to 
 Paris, in order to show her the world and to indulge himself in a 
 little dissecting. Meanwhile I was placed pro tem. with another 
 medical don, Dr. Ogle, and I enjoyed myself in that house. The 
 father was a genial man, and he had nice sons and pretty daughters. 
 As soon as Dr. Greenhill returned to his house in High Street, 
 Oxford, I was taken up there by my father, and was duly consigned 
 to the new tutor. Mr. Du Pre vanished, and was never seen again. 
 
 The first sight of Oxford struck me with a sense of appal. “ O 
 Domus antiqua et religiosa,” cried Queen Elizabeth, in 1664, stand¬ 
 ing opposite Pembroke College, which the Dons desecrated in 1875. 
 I could not imagine how such fine massive and picturesque old 
 buildings as the colleges could be mixed up with the mean little 
 houses that clustered around them, looking as if they were built 
 of cardboard. In after days, I remembered the feeling, when look¬ 
 ing at the Temple of the Sun in Palmyra, surrounded by its Arab 
 huts, like swallows’ nests planted upon a palace wall. And every¬ 
 thing, except the colleges, looked so mean. 
 
 The good old Mitre was, if not the only, at least the chief hostelry 
 of the place, and it had the outward and visible presence of a pot¬ 
 house. The river with the classical name of Isis, was a mere moat, 
 and its influent, the Cherwell, w T as a ditch. The country around, 
 especially just after Switzerland, looked flat and monotonous in the 
 extreme. The skies were brown-grey, and, to an Italian nose, the 
 
 smell of the coal smoke was a perpetual abomination. Queer beings 
 44 
 
walked the streets, dressed in aprons that hung behind, from their 
 shoulders, and caps consisting of a square, like that of a lancer’s 
 helmet, planted upon a semi-oval to contain the head. These 
 queer creatures were carefully shaved, except, perhaps, a diminutive 
 mutton-cutlet on each side of their face, and the most serious sort 
 were invariably dressed in vestibus nigris aut sub fuscis. 
 
 Moreover, an indescribable appearance of donnishness or incipient 
 donnishness pervaded the whole lot. The juniors looked like school¬ 
 boys who aspired to be schoolmasters, and the seniors as if their 
 aspirations had been successful. I asked after the famous Grove of 
 Trinity, where Charles I. used to walk when tired of Christ Church 
 meadows, and which the wits called Daphne. It had long been 
 felled, and the ground was covered with buildings. 
 
 At last term opened, and I transferred myself from Dr. Greenhil] 
 to Trinity College. 
 
 Then my University life began, and readers must be prepared 
 not to be shocked at the recital of my college failures, which only 
 proves the truth of what I said before, that if a father means his 
 boy to succeed in an English career, he must put him to a preparatory 
 school, Eton or Oxford, educate him for his coming profession, 
 and not drag his family about the Continent, under governesses and 
 tutors, to learn fencing, languages, and become wild, and to belong 
 to nowhere in particular as to parish or county. 
 
 In the autumn term of 1840, at nineteen and a half, I began 
 residence in Trinity College, where my quarters were a pair of dog- 
 hoies, called rooms, overlooking the garden of the Master of Balliol. 
 My reception at College was not pleasant. I had grown a splendid 
 moustache, which was the envy cf all the boys abroad, and which all 
 the advice of Drs. Ogle and Greenhill failed to make me remove. 
 I declined to be shaved until formal orders were issued to the 
 authorities of the college. For I had already formed strong ideas 
 upon the Shaven age of England, when her history, with some 
 brilliant exceptions, such as Marlborough, Wellington, or Nelson, 
 was at its meanest. 
 
 As I passed through the entrance of the College, a couple of 
 brother collegians met me, and the taller one laughed in my face. 
 Accustomed to continental decorum, I handed him my card and 
 called him out. But the college lad, termed by courtesy an 
 Oxford man, had possibly read of duels, had probably never 
 touched a weapon, sword or pistol, and his astonishment at the 
 invitation exceeded all bounds. Explanations succeeded, and I 
 went my way sadly, and felt as if I had fallen amongst epiciei's. 
 The college porter had kindly warned me against tricks played by 
 
46 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 the older hands, upon “ fresh young gentlemen,” and strongly advised 
 me to “ sport my oak,” or, in other words, to bar and lock my outer 
 door. With dignity deeply hurt, I left the entrance wide open, and 
 thrust a poker into the fire, determined to give all intruders the 
 warmest possible reception. This was part and parcel of that 
 unhappy education abroad. In English public schools, boys learn 
 first “to take,” and then “to give.” They begin by being tossed, 
 and then by tossing others in the blanket. Those were days when 
 practical jokes were in full force. Happily it is now extinct. Every 
 greenhorn coming to college or joining a regiment, was liable to the 
 roughest possible treatment, and it was only by submitting with the 
 utmost good humour, that he won the affection of his comrades, and 
 was looked upon as a gentleman. But the practice also had its 
 darker phase. It ruined many a prospect, and it lost many a life. 
 The most amusing specimen that I ever saw was that of a charming 
 youngster, who died soon after joining his Sepoy regiment. The 
 oldsters tried to drink him under the table at mess, and had notably 
 failed. About midnight, when he was enjoying his first sleep, he 
 suddenly awoke and found a ring of spectral figures dancing round 
 between his bed and the tent-walls. After a minute’s reflection, he 
 jumped up, seized a sheet, threw it over his shoulders, and joined 
 the dancers, saying, “ If this is the fashion I suppose I must do it 
 also.” The jokers, baffled a second time, could do nothing but knock 
 him down and run away. 
 
 The example of the larky Marquis of Waterford, seemed to 
 authorize all kinds of fantastic tricks. The legend was still fresh, 
 that he had painted the Dean of Christ Church’s door red, because 
 that formidable dignitary had objected to his wearing “pink” in 
 High Street. Another, and far more inexcusable prank, was his 
 sending all the accoucheurs in the town, to the house of a middle- 
 aged maiden lady, whose father, a don, had offended him. In the 
 colleges they did not fly at such high game, but they cruelly worried 
 everything in the shape of a freshman. One unfortunate youth, a 
 fellow who had brought with him a dozen of home-made wine, elder 
 and cowslip, was made shockingly tight by brandy being mixed with 
 his port, and was put to bed with all his bottles disposed on different 
 parts of his person. Another, of aesthetic tastes, prided himself upon 
 his china, and found it next morning all strewed in pieces about 
 his bed. A third, with carroty whiskers, had them daubed with 
 mustard, also while in a state of insensibility, and had to have them 
 fall, yellow, next morning under a barber’s hands. 
 
 I caused myself to be let down by a rope into the Master of 
 Balliol’s garden, plucked up some of the finest flowers by the roots, 
 
Oxford. 47 
 
 and planted in their place great staring marigolds. The study of 
 the old gentleman’s countenance when he saw them next morning 
 was a joy for ever. Another prank was to shoot with an air-cane, 
 an article strictly forbidden in college, at a brand-new watering-pot, 
 upon which the old gentleman greatly prided himself, and the way 
 which the water spirted over his reverend gaiters, gave an ineffable 
 delight to the knot of mischievous undergraduates who were pro¬ 
 specting him from behind the curtain. I, however, always had con¬ 
 siderable respect for the sturdy common sense of old Dr. Jenkins, 
 and I made a kind of amends to him in “ Vikram and the Vam¬ 
 pire,” where he is the only Pundit who objected to the tiger being 
 resurrectioned. Another neat use of the air-cane, was to shoot the 
 unhappy rooks, over the heads of the dons, as they played at bowls; 
 the grave and reverend signiors would take up the body, and gravely 
 debate what had caused the sudden death, when a warm stream of 
 blood, trickling into their shirts, explained it only too clearly. No 
 undergraduate in college could safely read his classics out loud after 
 ten o’clock p.m., or his “oak ” was broken with dumb-bells, and the 
 dirty oil lamp, that half lit the stairs, was thrown over him and his 
 books. 
 
 I made amends to a certain extent for my mischief by putting my 
 fellow-collegians to bed, and I always maintain that the Welshmen 
 were those who gave me the most trouble. 
 
 The Oxford day, considered with relation to the acquisition of 
 knowledge, was a “ fast ” pure and simple—it began in the morning 
 with Chapel, during which time most men got up their logic. We 
 then breakfasted either in our rooms, or in large parties, where 
 we consumed an immense quantity of ham, bacon, eggs, mutton 
 chops, and indigestible muffins. We then attended a couple of 
 lectures, and this was Time completely thrown away. We were 
 then free for the day, and every man passed his time as he best 
 pleased. I could not afford to keep horses, and always hated the 
 idea of riding hired hacks. My only amusements therefore were 
 walking, rowing, and the school-at-arms. My walks somehow or 
 other always ended at Bagley Wood, where a pretty gypsy girl 
 (Selina), dressed in silks and satins, sat in state to receive the 
 shillings and the homage of the undergraduates. I worked hard, 
 under a coach, at sculling and rowing; I was one of the oars in the 
 College Torpid, and a friend and I challenged the River in a two- 
 oar, but unfortunately both of us were rusticated before the race 
 came off. 
 
 My friend in misfortune belonged to an eminent ecclesiastical 
 family, and distinguished himself accordingly. Returning from 
 
48 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Australia, he landed at Mauritius without a farthing. Most 
 men under the circumstances would have gone to the Governor, 
 told their names, and obtained a passage to England. But the 
 individual in question had far too much individuality to take so 
 commonplace a step. He wrote home to his family for money, and 
 meanwhile took off his coat, tucked up his sleeves, and worked like 
 a coolie on the wharf. When the cheque for his passage was sent, 
 he invited all his brother coolies to a spread of turtle, champagne, 
 and all the luxuries of the season, at the swell hotel of the place, 
 and left amidst the blessings of Shem and the curse of Japhet. 
 Another of my college companions—the son of a bishop, by-the-by— 
 made a cavalry regiment too hot to hold him, and took his passage 
 to the Cape of Good Hope in an emigrant ship. On the third day 
 he brought out a portable roulette table, which the captain sternly 
 ordered off the deck. But the ship was a slow sailer, she fell in 
 with calms about the Line, and the official rigour was relaxed. First 
 one began to play, and then another, and at last the ship became a 
 perfect “hell.” After a hundred narrow escapes, and ail manner 
 of risks by fire and water, and the fists and clubs of the enraged 
 losers, the distinguished youth landed at Cape Town with almost 
 ^5000 in his pocket. 
 
 The great solace of my life was the fencing-room. When I first 
 entered Oxford, its only salle d'a?’mes was kept by old Angelo, 
 the grandson of the gallant old Italian, mentioned by Edgeworth, 
 but who knew about as much of fencing as a French collegian after 
 six months of salle d'armes. He was a priggish old party too, cele¬ 
 brated for walking up to his pupils and for whispering stagely, after 
 a salute with the foil, “ This, sir, is not so much a School of Arms as 
 a School of Politeness .” Presently a rival appeared in the person of 
 Archibald Maclaren, who soon managed to make his mark. He 
 established an excellent saloon, and he gradually superseded all the 
 wretched gymnastic yard, which lay some half a mile out of the 
 town. He was determined to make his way ; he went over to Paris, 
 when he could, to work with the best masters, published his systems 
 of fencing and gymnastics, and he actually wrote a little book of 
 poetry, which he called “ Songs of the Sword.” He and I became 
 great friends, which friendship lasted for life. The only question 
 that ever arose between us was touching the advisability or non 
 advisability of eating sweet buns and drinking strong ale at the same 
 time. At the fencing-rooms I made acquaintance, which afterwards 
 became a life-long friendship, with Alfred Bates Richards. He was a 
 tall man, upwards of six feet high, broad in proportion, and very 
 muscular. I found it unadvisable to box with him, but could easily 
 
Oxford. 49 
 
 master him with foil and broadsword. He was one of the few who 
 would take the trouble to learn. Mostly Englishmen go to a fencing 
 school, and, after six weeks’ lessons, clamour to be allowed to fence 
 loose, and very loose fencing it is, and is fated always to be. In 
 the same way, almost before they can fix their colours they want to 
 paint tableaux de genre , and they have hardly learnt their scales, 
 when they want to attempt bravura pieces. On the Continent men 
 work for months, and even years, before they think themselves in 
 sight of their journey’s end. A. B. Richards and I often met in 
 after life and became intimates. His erratic career is well known, 
 and he died at a comparatively early age, editor of the Morning 
 Advertiser. He had raised the tone of the Licensed Victuallers’ 
 organ to such a high pitch that even Lord Beaconsfield congratu¬ 
 lated him upon it 
 
 A. B. Richards was furious to see the treatment my services 
 received; he always stood up bravely for me—his fellow-collegian, 
 both with word and pen—in leaders too. 
 
 The time for “ Hall,” that is to say for college dinner, was five 
 p.m., and the scene was calculated to astonish a youngster brought 
 up on the Continent. The only respectable part of it was the 
 place itself, not a bad imitation of some old convent refectory. 
 The details were mean in the extreme, and made me long for the 
 meanest table d'hote. Along the bottom of the Hall, raised upon a 
 dwarf dais, ran the high table, intended for the use of fellows and 
 fellow-commoners. The other tables ran along the sides. Wine 
 was forbidden, malt liquor being the only drink. The food certainly 
 suited the heavy strong beers and ales brewed in the college. It 
 consisted chiefly of hunches of meat, cooked after Homeric or 
 Central African fashion, and very filling at the price. The vege¬ 
 tables, as usual, were plain boiled, without the slightest aid to diges¬ 
 tion. Yet the college cooks were great swells. They were paid as 
 much as an average clergyman, and put most of their sons into the 
 Church. In fact, the stomach had to do the whole work, whereas a 
 good French or Italian cook does half the work for it in his sauce¬ 
 pans. This cannibal meal was succeeded by stodgy pudding, and 
 concluded with some form of cheese, Cheshire or double Gloucester, 
 which painfully reminded one of bees’-wax, and this was called 
 dinner. Very soon my foreign stomach began to revolt at such 
 treatment, and I found out a place in the town, where, when I could 
 escape Hall, I could make something of a dinner. 
 
 The moral of the scene offended all my prepossessions. The fellow- 
 
 D 
 
50 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 commoners were simply men, who by paying double what the com¬ 
 moners paid, secured double privileges. This distinction of castes 
 is odious, except in the case of a man of certain age, who would not 
 like to be placed in the society of young lads. But worse still was 
 the gold tuft, who walked the streets with a silk gown, and a 
 gorgeous tassel on his college cap. These were noblemen, the 
 offensive English equivalent for men of title. Generosus nascitur 
 nobilis jit . The Grandfathers of these noblemen may have been 
 pitmen or grocers, but the simple fact of having titles, entitled them 
 to most absurd distinctions. For instance, with a smattering of 
 letters, enough to enable a commoner to squeeze through an ordinary 
 examination, gold tuft took a first class, and it was even asserted 
 that many took their degrees by merely sending up their books. 
 They were allowed to live in London as much as they liked, and to 
 condescend to college at the rare times they pleased. Some Heads 
 of Colleges would not stoop to this degradation, especially Dean 
 
 Gaisford of Christ Church, who compelled Lord W-to leave it 
 
 and betake himself to Trinity; but the place was, with notable 
 exceptions, a hotbed of toadyism and flunkeyism. When Mr. (now 
 Sir Robert) Peel first appeared in the High Street, man, woman, and 
 child stood to look at him because he was the son of the Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 After dinner it was the custom to go to wine. These desserts 
 were another abomination. The table was spread with a vast variety 
 of fruits and sweetmeats, supplied at the very highest prices, and 
 often on tick, by the Oxford tradesmen,—model sharks. Some men 
 got their wine from London, others bought theirs in the town. 
 Claret was then hardly known, and port, sherry, and Madeira, all of 
 the strong military ditto type, were the only drinks. These wines 
 were given in turn by the undergraduates, and the meal upon meal 
 would have injured the digestion of a young shark. At last, about 
 this time, some unknown fellow, whose name deserved to be immor¬ 
 talized, drew out a cigar and insisted on smoking it, despite the 
 disgust and uproar that the novelty created. But the fashion made 
 its way, and the effects were admirable. The cigar, and afterwards 
 the pipe, soon abolished the cloying dessert, and reduced the 
 consumption of the loaded wines to a minimum. 
 
 But the English were very peculiar about smoking. In the days 
 of Queen Anne it was so universal that dissident jurymen were locked 
 up without meat, drink, or tobacco. During the continental wars 
 it became un-English to smoke, and consequently men, and even 
 women, took snuff. And for years it was considered as disgraceful 
 to smoke a cigar out of doors as to have one’s boots blacked, or to 
 
Oxford. 51 
 
 eat an orange at Hyde Park Corner. “ Good gracious ! you don’t 
 mean to say that you smoke in the streets ? ” said an East Indian 
 Director in after years, when he met me in Pall Mall with a cigar in 
 my mouth. Admiral Henry Murray, too, vainly endeavoured to 
 break through the prohibition by leading a little squad of smoking 
 friends through Kensington Gardens. Polite ladies turned away 
 their faces, and unpolite ladies muttered something about “ snobs.” 
 At last the Duke of Argyll spread his plaid under a tree in Hyde 
 Park, lighted a cutty pipe, and beckoned his friends to join him. 
 Within a month every one in London had a cigar in his mouth. A 
 pretty lesson to inculcate respect for popular prejudice ! 
 
 After the dessert was finished, not a few men called for cognac, 
 whisky, and gin, and made merry for the rest of the evening. But 
 what else was there for them to do? Unlike a foreign University, 
 the theatre was discouraged; it was the meanest possible little 
 house, decent actors were ashamed to show themselves in it, and 
 an actress of the calibre of Mrs. Nesbitt appeared only every few 
 years. Opera, of course, there was none, and if there had been, 
 not one in a thousand would have understood the language, and 
 not one in a hundred would have appreciated the music. Occasion¬ 
 ally there was a concert given by some wandering artists, with the 
 special permission of the college authorities, and a dreary two 
 hours’ work it was. Balls were unknown, whereby the marriageable 
 demoiselles of Oxford lost many an uncommon good chance. A 
 mesmeric lecturer occasionally came down there and caused some 
 fun. He called for subjects, and amongst the half-dozen that 
 presented themselves was one young gentleman who had far more 
 sense of humour than discretion. When thrown into a deep slumber, 
 he arose, with his eyes apparently fast closed, and, passing into the 
 circle of astonished spectators, began to distribute kisses right and 
 left. Some of these salutations fell upon the sacred cheeks of the 
 daughters of the Heads of Houses, and the tableau maybe imagined. 
 
 This dull, monotonous life was varied in my case by an occasional 
 dinner with families whose acquaintance I had made in the town. 
 At Dr. Greenhill’s I once met at dinner Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) 
 Newman and Dr. Arnold, I expected great things from their 
 conversation, but it was mostly confined to discussing the size of 
 he Apostles in the Cathedral of St. Peter’s in Rome, and both these 
 eminent men showed a very dim recollection of the subject. I took 
 a great fancy to Dr. Newman, and used to listen to his sermons, 
 when I would never give half an hour to any other preacher. There 
 was a peculiar gentleness in his manner, and the matter was always 
 suggestive. Dr. Newman was Vicar of St. Mary’s, at Oxford, and 
 
52 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 used to preach, at times, University sermons; there was a stamp 
 and seal upon him, a solemn music and sweetness in his tone and 
 manner, which made him singularly attractive, yet there was no 
 change of inflexion in his voice; action he had none; his sermons 
 were always read, and his eyes were ever upon his book; his figure 
 was lean and stooping, and the tout ensemble was anything but 
 dignified or commanding, yet the delivery suited the matter of his 
 speech, and the combination suggested complete candour and 
 honesty; he said only what he believed, and he induced others to 
 believe with him. On the other hand, Dr. Pusey’s University ser 
 mons used to last for an hour and a half; they were filled with Latin 
 and Greek, dealt with abstruse subjects, and were delivered in the 
 dullest possible way, and seemed to me like a mauvais reve or night¬ 
 mare. 
 
 At Dr. Greenhill’s, too, I met Don Pascual de Gayangos, the 
 Spanish Arabist. Already wearying of Greek and Latin, I had 
 attacked Arabic, and soon was well on in Erpinius’s Grammar; 
 but there was no one to teach me, so I began to teach myself, and 
 to write the Arabic letters from left to right, instead of from right to 
 left, i.e. the wrong way. Gayangos, when witnessing this proceeding, 
 burst out laughing, and showed me how to copy the alphabet. In 
 those days, learning Arabic at Oxford was not easy. There was a 
 Regius Professor, but he had other occupations than to profess. If 
 an unhappy undergraduate went up to him, and wanted to learn, he 
 was assured that it was the duty of a professor to teach a class, and 
 not an individual. All this was presently changed, but not before 
 it was high time. The Sundays used generally to be passed in 
 “ outings.” It was a pleasure to get away from Oxford, and to 
 breathe the air which was not at least half smoke. 
 
 Another disagreeable of Oxford was, the continuous noise of bells. 
 You could not make sure of five minutes without one giving tongue, 
 and in no part of the world, perhaps, is there a place where there is 
 such a perpetual tinkling of metal. The maddening jangle of bells 
 seems to have been the survival of two centuries ago. In 1698 Paul 
 Heutzner wrote : “ The English are vastly fond of great noises that 
 fill the air, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of 
 bells, so that it is common for a number of them that have got a 
 ‘ glass ’ in their heads, to go up into some belfry, and ring the bells 
 for hours together for the sake of exercise. ” 
 
 A favourite Sunday trip used to be to Abingdon, which, by the 
 wisdom of the dons in those days, was the railway station of Oxford. 
 
Oxford. 
 
 53 
 
 L : ke most men of conservative tendency, who disliked to move quiet 
 things, who cultivated the status quo , because they could hardly be 
 better off, and might be worse off, and who feared nothing more 
 than innovations, because these might force on enquiring into 
 the disposal of the revenues and other delicate monetary questions, 
 t rey had fought against the line with such good will, that they 
 ha 1 left it nearly ten miles distant from the town. Their conduct 
 was by no means exceptional; thousands did the same. For 
 instance, Lord John Scott, determined to prevent the surveyor 
 passing through his estate, engaged a company of “ Nottingham 
 Lambs,” and literally strewed the floor of the porter’s lodge with broken 
 surveying instruments. Mrs. Partington cannot keep out the tide 
 with her rake, and the consequence was that Oxford was obliged to 
 build a branch line, and soon had to lament that she had lost the 
 advantage of the main line. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Short was at that time doing Sunday duty at 
 Abingdon. He was not distinguished for ability as a college tutor, 
 but he was a gentlemanly and kind-hearted man ; he was careful not 
 to be too sharp-eyed when he met undergraduates at Abingdon. 
 They generally drove out in tandems, which the absurd regulations 
 of the place kept in fashion, by forbidding them. No one would 
 have driven them had they not possessed the merits of stolen fruit. 
 I, having carefully practised upon “ Dobbin ” in my earlier days, used 
 thoroughly to enjoy driving. In later years I met with my old tutor, 
 the Rev. Thomas Short, who lived to a great age, and died univer¬ 
 sally respected and regretted by all who knew him. 
 
 At last the lagging autumnal term passed away, and I went up to 
 my grandmother and aunts in Great Cumberland Place. It was not 
 lively; a household full of women only, rarely is. 
 
 The style of Society was very promiscuous. The Rev. Mr. 
 Hutchins, the clergyman under whom the family “ sat ” in the 
 adjoining Quebec Chapel, introduced me to the eccentric Duke 
 of Brunswick, who used to laugh consumedly at my sallies of high 
 spirits. Lady Dinorben, with whom Mrs. Phayre still lived, gave 
 me an occasional invitation. The aunts’ near neighbours were 
 old General Sutherland of the Madras Army, whose son Alick I 
 afterwards met in the Neilgherry Hills. Mr. Lawyer Dendy was 
 still alive, and one of his sons shortly after followed me to India as a 
 Bombay civilian. Another pleasant acquaintance was Mrs. White, 
 wife of the colonel of the 3rd Dragoons, whose three stalwart sons 
 were preparing for India, and gave me the first idea of going there. 
 
54 'The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 A man who dances, who dresses decently, and who is tolerably 
 well introduced, rarely wants invitations to balls in London, and I 
 found some occupation for my evenings. 
 
 But I sadly wanted a club, and in those days the institution was 
 not as common as it is now. At odd times I went to the theatres, 
 and amused myself with the humours of the little “Pic” and the 
 old Cocoa-Nut Tree. But hazard is a terrible game. It takes a 
 man years to learn it well, and by that time he has lost all the 
 luck with which he begins. I always disliked private play, although 
 I played a tolerable hand at whist, ecai‘te, and piquet, but I found 
 it almost as unpleasant to win from my friends as to lose to my 
 friends. On the other hand, I was unusually lucky at public 
 tables. I went upon a principle, not a theory, which has ruined 
 so many men. I noted as a rule that players are brave enough 
 when they lose, whereas they begin to fear when they win. My 
 plan, therefore, was to put a certain sum in my pocket and resolve 
 never to exceed it. If I lost it I stopped, one of the advantages of 
 public over private playing; but I did not lay down any limits to 
 winning when I was in luck; I boldly went ahead, and only stopped 
 when I found fortune turning the other way. 
 
 My grandmother’s house was hardly pleasant to a devoted smoker ; 
 I was put out on the leads, leading from the staircase, whenever I 
 required a weed. So I took lodgings in Maddox Street, and there 
 became as it were a “ man about town.” My brother Edward joined 
 me, and we had, as the Yankees say, “ A high old time.” It appeared 
 only too short, and presently came on the Spring Term, when I 
 returned to my frouzy rooms in Trinity College; and I had not 
 formed many friendships in Trinity itself. It had made a name for 
 fastness amongst the last generation of undergraduates, and now a 
 reaction had set in. They laughed at me, at my first lecture, because 
 I spoke in Roman Latin—real Latin—I did not know the English 
 pronunciation, only known in England. The only men of my own 
 college I met in after life, were Father Coleridge, S.J., and Edward 
 A. Freeman, of Somerleaze, the historian. 
 
 Mrs. Grundy had then just begun to reign, inaugurated by Douglas 
 Jerrold with “What will Mrs. Grundy say?” This ancient genitrix 
 highly disapproved of my foreign ways, and my expressed dislike to 
 school and college, over which I ought to have waxed sentimental, 
 tender, and aesthetic; it appeared to her little short of blasphemy. 
 I had a few friends at “ Exeter,” including Richards, and three at 
 Brasenose, then famous for drinking heavy beers and ales as Bonn 
 or Heidelberg, especially on Shrove Tuesday, when certain verses 
 chaffingly called the “ Carmen seculare ” used to be sung. But I 
 
55 
 
 Oxford . 
 
 delighted in “Oriel,” which, both as regards fellows and under¬ 
 graduates, was certainly the nicest college of my day. There I spent 
 the chief part of my time with Wilberforce, Foster, and a little knot, 
 amongst whom was Tom Hughes (afterwards Tom Brown). We boxed 
 regularly, and took lessons from Goodman, ex-pugilist and pedestrian, 
 and actual tailor, who came down to Oxford at times. We had great 
 fun with Burke—the fighting man—who on one occasion honoured 
 Oxford with his presence. The “ Deaf ’un,” as he was called, had a 
 face that had been hammered into the consistency of sole-leather, 
 and one evening, after being too copiously treated, he sat down in a 
 heavy armchair, and cried out, “Now, lads! half a crown a hit.” 
 We all tried our knuckles upon his countenance, and only hurt our 
 own knuckles. 
 
 Balliol (it was chiefly supplied from Rugby) then held her head 
 uncommonly high. As all know, Dr. Arnold had made the fortune 
 of Rugby, and caused it to be recognized among public schools. 
 During his early government the Rugbyites had sent a cricket 
 challenge to Eton, and the Etonians had replied “ that they would 
 be most happy to send their scouts; ” but as scholarship at Eton 
 seemed to decline, so it rose in Rugby and Oxford. Scholarship 
 means £ s. d . At Balliol I made acquaintance with a few men, 
 whose names afterwards made a noise in the world. They all 
 belonged to a generation, collegically speaking, older than myself. 
 Coleridge (now Lord Coleridge) was still lingering there, but he had 
 taken his bachelor’s degree, and his brother, afterwards a Jesuit and 
 author of many works, was a scholar at Trinity. Ward of Balliol, 
 who also became a Catholic, was chiefly remarkable for his minute 
 knowledge of the circulating library novels of the Laura-Matilda type. 
 He suffered from insomnia, and before he could sleep, he was obliged 
 to get through a few volumes every night. Lake of Balliol, then a 
 young don, afterwards turned out a complete man of the world; and 
 there is no need to speak of Jowett, who had then just passed as 
 B.A., and was destined to be Master of Balliol. 
 
 Oxford between 1840 and 1842 was entering upon great changes. 
 The old style of “ fellow,” a kind of survival of the Benedictine 
 monks, was rapidly becoming extinct, and only one or two remained. 
 Men who lived surrounded by their books on vertical stands, were 
 capable of asking you if “ cats let loose in woods would turn to 
 tigers,” and tried to keep pace with the age by reading up the 
 Times of eight years past. But a great deal of reform was still 
 wanted. Popular idea about Oxford was, that the Classic groves 
 of Isis were hotbeds for classical Scholasticism , whilst Cambridge 
 succeeded better in Mathematics, but I soon found out that one would 
 
56 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 learn more Greek and Latin in one year at Bonn and Heidelberg 
 than in three at Oxford. The college teaching, for which one was 
 obliged to pay, was of the most worthless description. Two hours 
 a day were regularly wasted, and those who read for honours were 
 obliged to choose and to pay for a private coach. Amongst the said 
 coaches were some droles , who taught in very peculiar ways, by 
 Rhymes, not always of the most delicate description. One cele¬ 
 brated coach, after lecturing his blockheads upon the subject, we 
 will say, of Salmanizer, would say to them, “ Now, you fellows, you’ll 
 forget in a day everything that I’ve been teaching you for the last 
 hour. Whenever you hear this man’s name, just repeat to your¬ 
 selves ***** an d you’ll remember all about it.” 
 
 The worst of such teaching was, that it had no order and no 
 system. Its philology was ridiculous, and it did nothing to work the 
 reasoning powers. Learning foreign languages, as a child learns 
 its own, is mostly a work of pure memory, which acquires, after 
 childhood, every artificial assistance possible. My system of learn¬ 
 ing a language in two months was purely my own invention, and 
 thoroughly suited myself. I got a simple grammar and vocabulary, 
 marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely 
 necessary, and learnt them by heart by carrying them in my pocket 
 and looking over them at spare moments during the day. I never 
 worked more than a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the 
 brain lost its freshness. After learning some three hundred words, 
 easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy book-work 
 (one of the Gospels is the most come-atable), and underlined every 
 word that I wished to recollect, in order to read over my pencillings 
 at least once a day. Having finished my volume, I then carefully 
 worked up the grammar minutiae, and I then chose some other book 
 whose subject most interested me. The neck of the language was 
 now broken, and progress was rapid. If I came across a new 
 sound like the Arabic Ghayn, I trained my tongue to it by repeating 
 it so many thousand times a day. When I read, I invariably read 
 out loud, so that the ear might aid memory. I was delighted with 
 the most difficult characters, Chinese and Cuneiform, because I felt 
 that they impressed themselves more strongly upon the eye than the 
 eternal Roman letters. This, by-and-by, made me resolutely stand 
 aloof from the hundred schemes for transliterating Eastern languages, 
 such as Arabic, Sanscrit, Hebrew, and Syriac, into Latin letters, and 
 whenever I conversed with anybody in a language that I was learning, 
 I took the trouble to repeat their words inaudibly after them, and so 
 to learn the trick of pronunciation and emphasis. 
 
Oxjord. 
 
 57 
 
 During this term I formally gave up my intention to read for a first 
 class. Aut primus aut nullus was ever my motto, and though many 
 second-class men have turned out better than many first-class men, I 
 did not care to begin life with a failure. I soon ascertained the fact 
 that men who may rely upon first classes are bred to it from their child¬ 
 hood, even as horses and dogs are trained. They must not waste time 
 and memory upon foreign tongues. They must not dissipate their 
 powers of brain upon anything like general education. They may know 
 the -isms, but they must be utterly ignorant of the -ologies; but, above 
 all things, they must not indulge themselves with what is popularly 
 called “ The World.” They must confine themselves to one straight 
 line, a college curriculum, and even then they can never be certain of 
 success. At the very moment of gaining the prize their health may 
 break down, and compel them to give up work. I surprised Dr Green- 
 hill by my powers of memory when I learned Adam’s “ Antiquities” by 
 heart. But the doctor, who had not taken a class himself, threw cold 
 water on my ambition—perhaps the best thing he could do—and frankly 
 told me that, though I could take a first class, he could by no means 
 answer that I would. The fellows of Trinity were nice gentlemanly 
 men, but I by no means wished to become one of the number. My 
 father had set his heart upon both sons being provided for by the 
 Universities, and very often “when fathers propose, sons dispose.” 
 
 My disgust at the idea of University honours was perhaps not de¬ 
 creased by my trying for the two scholarships, and failing to get them. 
 
 I attributed my non-success at University College (where I was 
 beaten by a man who turned a chorus of Aeschylus into doggerel 
 verse) chiefly to my having stirred the bile of my examiners with my 
 real (Roman) Latin. At times, too, the devil palpably entered into 
 me, and made me speak Greek Romaically by accent, and not by 
 quantity, even as they did and still do at Athens. I had learnt this 
 much from one of the Rhodo-Kanakis Greek merchants at Marseille, 
 so that I could converse in Latin and Greek as spoken as well as 
 ancient Latin and Greek. 
 
 Years after I was laughed at at Oxford, public opinion took a 
 turn, and Roman pronunciation of Latin was adopted in many of 
 the best schools. I was anxious to see them drop their absurd 
 mispronunciation of Greek, but all the authorities whom I consulted 
 on the subject, declared to me that schoolmasters had quite enough 
 to do with learning Italianized Latin, and could not be expected to 
 trouble themselves with learning Athenianized Greek. 
 
 At last the dreary time passed away, and a happy family meeting 
 was promised. My father brought my mother and sister from Pisa 
 to Wiesbaden in Germany, and we boys, as we were still called, were 
 invited over to spend the Long Vacation. We were also to escort 
 
 V 
 
58 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Mrs. D’Aguilar, who with two of her daughters were determined to 
 see the Rhine. One of the girls was Emily, who died soon. The 
 other was Eliza, who married a clergyman of the name of Pope, and 
 whose son, Lieutenant Pope of the 24th Queen’s, died gallantly at 
 Isandula; though surrounded by numbers, he kept firing his revolver 
 and wounding his enemies, till he received a mortal wound by an 
 assegai in the breast. This was on January 22nd, 1879. I n the end 
 of 1875 he came to Folkestone, to take leave of my wife and me, 
 who were going out to India. We both liked him very much. 
 
 In those days travellers took the steamer from London Bridge, 
 dropped quietly down the Thames, and, gaining varied information 
 about the places on both sides of it, dined as usual on a boiled leg 
 of mutton and caper sauce, and roast ribs of beef with horse-radish, 
 and slept as best they could in the close boxes called berths or 
 on deck; if the steamer was in decent order, and there was not too 
 much head wind, they could be in the Scheldt next morning. 
 
 Our little party passed a day at Antwerp, which looked beautiful 
 from the river. The Cathedral tower and the tall roofs and tapering 
 spires of the churches around it made a matchless group. We visited 
 the fortifications, which have lately done such good work, and we 
 had an indigestion of Rubens, who appeared so gross and so fleshy 
 after the Italian school. Mrs. D’Aguilar was dreadfully scandalized, 
 when, coming suddenly into a room, she found her two nephews at 
 romps with a pretty little soubrette, whose short petticoats enabled 
 her to deliver the sharpest possible kicks, while she employed her 
 hands in vigorously defending her jolly red cheeks. The poor lady 
 threw up her hands and her eyes to heaven when she came suddenly 
 upon this little scene, and she was even more shocked when she 
 found that her escort had passed the Sunday evening in the theatre. 
 
 From Antwerp we travelled to Bruges, examined the belfry, heard 
 the chimes, and then went on to Cologne. A marvellous old 
 picturesque place it was, with its combination of old churches, 
 crumbling walls, gabled houses, and the narrowest and worst-paved 
 streets we had ever seen. The old Cathedral in those days was 
 not finished, and threatened never to be finished. Still there was 
 the grand solitary tower, with the mystical-looking old crane on the 
 top, and a regular garden growing out of the chinks and crannies of 
 the stonework. Coleridge’s saying about Cologne, was still em¬ 
 phatically true in those days, and all travellers had recourse to 
 “ Jean Marie Farina Gegeniiber” What a change there is now, with 
 that hideous Gothic railway bridge, and its sham battlements, and 
 loopholes to defend nothing, with its hideous cast-iron turret over 
 the centre of the church, where the old architect had intended a 
 
59 
 
 Oxford. 
 
 light stone lantern-tower, with the ridiculous terrace surrounding 
 the building, and with the hideous finials with which the modern* 
 German architects have disfigured the grand old building! 
 
 At Cologne we took the steamer and ran up the river. A far 
 more sensible proceeding than that of these days, when tourists take 
 the railway, and consequently can see only one side of the view. 
 The river craft was comfortable, the meals were plentiful, the 
 Pisporter was a sound and unadulterated wine, and married remark¬ 
 ably well with Knaster tobacco, smoked in long pipes with painted 
 china bowls. The crowd, too, was good-tempered, and seemed to 
 enjoy its holiday. Bonn, somehow or other, always managed to 
 show at least one very pretty girl, with blue porcelain eyes and 
 gingerbread-coloured hair. Then came the Castle Crag of Drachen- 
 fels and the charming Siebengebirge, which in those days were not 
 spoiled by factory chimneys. We landed at Mainz, and from 
 there drove over to the old Fontes Mattiace, called in modern day 
 Wiesbaden. 
 
 It has been said that to enjoy the Rhine one must go to it from 
 England, not the other way from Switzerland; and travellers’ 
 opinions are very much divided about it, some considering it ex¬ 
 tremely grand, and others simply pretty. I was curious to see what 
 its effect upon me would be after visiting the four quarters of the 
 globe ; so, in May, 1872 ,1 dropped down the river from Basle to the 
 mouth. The southern and the northern two-thirds were unin¬ 
 teresting, but I found the middle as pretty as ever, and, in fact, I 
 enjoyed the beautiful and interesting river more than when I had 
 seen it as a boy. 
 
 I found the middle, beginning at Bingen, charming. Bishop 
 Hatto’s Tower had become a cockneyfied affair, and the castles, 
 banks, and islands were disagreeably suggestive of Richmond Hill. 
 But Drachenfels, Nonnenswerth, and Rolandseck, were charming, 
 and I quite felt the truth of the saying, that this is one of the 
 paradises of Germany. At Diisseldorf the river became old and 
 ugly, and so continued till Rotterdam. 
 
 Wiesbaden in those days was intensely “ German and ordinary,” 
 as Horace Walpole says. It was a kind of Teutonic Margate, with 
 a chic of its own. In the days before railways, this was the case with 
 all these “ Baths,” where people either went to play, or to get rid of 
 what the Germans call eine sehr schone corpulenz , a corporation 
 acquired by stuffing food of three kinds, salt, sour, or greasy, during 
 nine or ten months of the year. It was impossible to mistake 
 princely Baden-Baden and its glorious Black Forest, for invalid 
 Kissingen or for Homberg, which combined mineral waters and 
 
6 o 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 gambling tables. Wiesbaden was so far interesting that it showed 
 the pure and unadulterated summer life of middle-class Germans. 
 There you see in perfection the grave blue-green German eye. 
 
 Our family found a comfortable house at Wiesbaden, and the 
 German servants received the “ boys,” as we were still called, with 
 exclamations of “ Ach ! die schone schwarze kinder.” We paid 
 occasionally furtive visits to the Kursaal, and lost a few sovereigns 
 like men. But our chief amusement was the fencing-room. Here 
 we had found new style of play, with the schldger , a pointless rapier 
 with razor-like edges. It was a favourite student’s weapon, used to 
 settle all their affairs of honour, and they used it with the silly hang¬ 
 ing guard. Some of them gave half an hour every day to working at 
 the post, a wooden pillar stuck up in the middle of the room and 
 bound with vertical ribbons of iron. 
 
 When we were tired of Wiesbaden, we amused ourselves with 
 wandering about the country. We visited the nearer watering- 
 places. 
 
 We then returned to Wiesbaden, and went over to Heidelberg, 
 which is so charmingly picturesque. Here we found a little colony 
 of English, and all fraternized at once. 
 
 We “boys” wanted to enter one of the so-called brigades, and 
 chose the Nassau, which was the fightingest of all. An Irish student, 
 who was one of the champions of the corps, and who had distinguished 
 himself by slitting more than one nose, called upon us, and, over 
 sundry schoppes of beer, declared that we could not be admitted with¬ 
 out putting in an appearance at the Hirschgasse. This was a little 
 pot-house at the other side of the river, with a large room where 
 monomachies were fought. The appearance of the combatants was 
 very ridiculous. They had thick felt caps over their heads, whose 
 visors defended their eyes. Their necks were swathed in enormous 
 cravats, and their arms were both padded, and so were their bodies 
 from the waist downwards. There was nothing to hit but the face 
 and the chest. That, however, did not prevent disagreeable 
 accidents. Sometimes too heavy a cut went into the lungs, and at 
 other times took an effect upon either eye. But the grand thing was to 
 walk off with the tip of the adversary’s nose, by a dexterous upward 
 snick from the hanging guard. A terrible story was told of a duel 
 between a handsome man and an ugly man. Beauty had a lovely 
 nose, and Beast so managed that presently it was found on the 
 ground. Beauty made a rush for it, but Beast stamped it out of all 
 shape. There was a very little retreating in these affairs, for the 
 lines were chalked upon the ground. The seconds stood by, also 
 armed with swords and protected with masks, to see that there was 
 
Oxford ’ 61 
 
 nothing like a sauhieb or unfair cut. A medical student was always 
 present, and when a cut went home, the affair was stopped to sew it 
 up. Sometimes, however, the artery shrank, and its patient was 
 marked with a cross, as it was necessary to open his cheek above and 
 below in order to tie it up. 
 
 A story is told of a doctor who attended a students’ duel, when the 
 mask fell, and one of them lost his nose. The doctor flew at it and 
 picked it up, and put it in his mouth to keep it warm, whipped out 
 his instruments, needle and thread, and so skilfully stitched on the 
 nose, and stopped it with plaster, that the edges united, and in a few 
 weeks the nose was as handsome and useful as ever. 
 
 We boys did not see the fun of this kind of thing, and when our 
 Irish friend told us what the ordeal was, we said that we were perfectly 
 ready to turn out with foils or rapiers, but that we could not stand 
 the paddings. Duels with the broadsword, and without protection, 
 were never fought except on desperate occasions. Our friend 
 promised to report it to the brigade, and the result was that some 
 time afterwards we were introduced to a student, who said that he 
 knew a little fencing, and should like to try a botte with us. We 
 smelt a rat, as the phrase is, and showed him only half of what we 
 could do. But apparently that was enough, for our conditions were 
 not accepted, and we were not admitted into the Nassau Brigade. 
 
 At Heidelberg I told my father that Oxford life did not in any 
 way suit me. I pleaded for permission to go into the Army, and, that 
 failing, to emigrate to Canada or Australia. He was inexorable. He 
 was always thinking of that fellowship. Edward, too, was deadly 
 tired of Dr. Havergal, and swore that he would rather be a “private” 
 than a fellow of Cambridge. However, he was sent nolens vole?is 
 to the University on the Cam, and there he very speedily came to 
 grief. It was remarked of him, before the end of the first term, that 
 he was never seen at Chapel. His tutor sent for him, and permitted 
 himself strong language on this delinquency. “ My dear sir,” was 
 the reply, “ no party of pleasure ever gets me out of bed before ten 
 o’clock, and do you really, really think that I am going to be in 
 Chapel at eight o’clock ?” u Are you joking, or is that your mature 
 decision ? ” said the tutor. “ My very ripest decision,” said Edward, 
 and consequently he was obliged to leave college without delay. 
 
 When the visit was over, and the autumnal term was beginning, I 
 left Germany and steamed down the Rhine. Everything that I saw 
 made me less likely to be pleased at the end of my journey. How¬ 
 ever, there was no choice for it. I arrived in London, and found my 
 grandmother and aunts still at the seaside, in a house over the cliff 
 at Ramsgate. Ramsgate I rather liked. There were some very 
 
62 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 handsome girls there, the Ladies P—t, and the place had a kind of 
 distant resemblance to Boulogne. The raffles at the libraries made 
 it a caricature of a German Bath. I wandered about the country; 
 
 I visited Margate, where the tone of society was perfectly marvellous, 
 and ran about the small adjacent bathing-places, like Broadstairs 
 and Herne Bay. This brought on the time when I was obliged to 
 return to Oxford. 
 
 I went there with no good will, and as my father had refused to 
 withdraw me from the University, I resolved to withdraw myself. 
 
 My course of action was one of boyish thoughtlessness. Reports 
 of wine-parties were spread everywhere, whispers concerning parodies 
 on venerable subjects, squibs appeared in the local papers-—in those 
 days an unpardonable offence—caricatures of Heads of Houses were 
 handed about, and certain improvisations were passed from mouth 
 to mouth. I had a curious power of improvising any number of 
 rhymes, without the slightest forethought; but the power, such as 
 it was, was perfectly useless to me, as it was accompanied with 
 occasional moments of nervousness, when I despaired, without the 
 slightest reason whatever, of finding the easiest rhyme. Probably 
 the professional Italian, who declaims a poem or a tragedy, labours 
 under the perfect conviction that nothing in the world can stop him. 
 And then it is so much easier to rhyme in Italian than in English; 
 so my efforts were mostly confined to epigrams and epitaphs, at 
 wines and supper-parties, and you may be sure that these brilliant 
 efforts did me no good. 
 
 This was the beginning of the end. My object was to be rusti¬ 
 cated, not to be expelled. The former may happen in consequence 
 of the smallest irregularity, the latter implies ungentlemanly conduct. 
 I cast about in all directions for the safest line, when fortune put 
 the clue into my hands. A celebrated steeplechaser, Oliver the 
 Irishman, came down to Oxford, and I was determined to see him 
 ride. The collegiate authorities, with questionable wisdom, forbad 
 us all to be present at the races, and especially at what they called 
 “ the disgraceful scenes of ‘ race ordinaries.’ ” Moreover, in order 
 to make matters sure, they ordered all the undergraduates to be 
 present at the college lecture, at the hour when the race was to 
 be run. 
 
 A number of high-spirited youngsters of the different colleges 
 swore that they would not stand this nonsense, that it was infringing 
 the liberty of the subject, and that it was treating them like little 
 boys, which they did not deserve. Here, doubtless, they were right. 
 But, well foreseeing what would be the result, they acted according 
 to the common saying, “ In for a penny, in for a pound; ” so 
 
Oxford. 63 
 
 the tandem was ordered to wait behind Worcester College, and 
 when they should have been attending a musty lecture in the tutor’s 
 room, they were flicking across the country at the rate of twelve 
 miles an hour. The steeplechase was a delight, and Oliver was very 
 amusing at the race ordinary, although he did not express much 
 admiration for the riding of what he called “The Oxford lads.” 
 
 Next morning there was eating of humble-pie. The various 
 culprits were summoned to the Green Room and made conscious of 
 the enormity of the offence. I secured the respect of the little knot 
 by arguing the point with the college dignitaries. I boldly asserted 
 that there was no moral turpitude at being present at a race. I 
 vindicated the honour and dignity of collegiate men by asserting 
 that tney should not be treated as children. I even dropped the 
 general axiom “ that trust begets trust,” and “ they who trust us 
 elevate us.” Now, this was too much of a good thing, to commit 
 a crime, and to declare it a virtuous action. Consequently, when 
 all were rusticated, I was singled out from the Hoi polloi , by an 
 especial recommendation not to return to Oxford from a Rus. Stung 
 by a sense of injustice, I declared at once that I would leave the 
 college, and expressed a vicious hope, that the caution-money 
 deposited by my father would be honestly returned to him. This 
 was the climax. There was a general rise of dignitaries, as if a 
 violent expulsion from the room was intended. I made them my 
 lowest and most courtly bow, Austrian fashion, which bends the 
 body nearly double, wished them all happiness for the future, and 
 retired from the scene. I did not see Oxford again till 1850, when, 
 like the prodigal son, I returned to Alma Mater with a half-reso¬ 
 lution to finish my terms and take my bachelor degree.* But the 
 idea came too late. I had given myself up to Oriental studies, and 
 1 had begun to write books. Yet I was always glad, during my 
 occasional visits home, to call at my old college, have a chat with 
 the Reverend and Venerable Thomas Short, and to breakfast and 
 dine with the dons who had been bachelors or undergraduates at 
 the time of my departure. 
 
 The way in which I left Oxford was characteristic of the rest. 
 One of my rusticated friends, Anderson of Oriel, had proposed that 
 we should leave with a splurge—go up from the land with a soar.’ 
 There was now no need for the furtive tandem behind Worcester 
 College. It was driven boldly up to the college doors. My bag 
 and baggage were stowed away in it, and with a cantering leader and 
 a high-trotting shaft-horse, which unfortunately went over the beds 
 of the best flowers, we started from the High Street by the Queen’s 
 Highway to London, I artistically performing upon a yard of tin 
 trumpet, waving adieu to my friends, and kissing my hand to the 
 pretty shop-girls. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 GOING TO INDIA. 
 
 Arriving in London, I was received by the family harem with 
 some little astonishment, for they already knew enough of “ terms ” 
 to be aware that the last was unfinished. I was quite determined tc 
 have two or three days in peace, so I thoroughly satisfied all the 
 exigencies of the position by declaring that I had been allowed an 
 extra vacation for taking a double-first with the very highest honours. 
 A grand dinner-party was given, quite the reverse of the fatted calf. 
 Unfortunately, amongst the guests was the Rev. Mr. Phillips, a 
 great friend of mine, who grinned at me, and indirectly ejaculated, 
 “ Rusticated, eh?” The aunts said nothing at the time, but they 
 made inquiries, the result of which was a tableau. 
 
 This Phillips was the brother of Major-General Sir B. T. Phillips, 
 who served long and well in the Bengal army, was rather a noted 
 figure as a young-old man in London, and died in Paris in 1880. 
 
 You will say that these are wild oats with a vengeance, but most 
 thus sow them, and it is better that they should sow them in early 
 youth. Nothing is more melancholy than to see a man suddenly 
 emancipated from family rule, and playing tricks when the heyday 
 is passed. Youth is like new wine that must be allowed to ferment 
 freely, or it will never become clear, strong, and well flavoured. 
 
 I was asked what I intended to do, and I replied simply that I 
 wished to go into the Army, but that I preferred the Indian service, 
 as it would show me more of the world, and give me a better chance 
 of active service. There was no great difficulty in getting a com¬ 
 mission. The Directors were bound not to sell them, but every now 
 and then they would give a nomination to a friend, and my friend 
 did not throw away the chance. My conviction is that the 
 commission cost ^5°°- 
 
 It was arranged that I should sail in the spring, and meanwhile I 
 determined to have a jolly time. 
 
 64 
 
Going to India . 65 
 
 Presently the day came when I was to be sworn in at the India 
 House. In those days the old building stood in Leadenhall Street, 
 and gave Thackeray a good opportunity of attacking it as the “ Hall 
 of Lead; ” a wonderful dull and smoky old place it was, with its 
 large and gorgeous porter outside, and its gloomy, stuffy old rooms 
 inside, an atmosphere which had actually produced “ The Essays of 
 Elia.” In those days it kept up a certain amount of respect for 
 itself. If an officer received a gift of a sword, he was conducted by 
 the tall porter to the general meeting of the Directors, and duly 
 spoken to and complimented in form; but as times waxed harder, 
 the poor twenty-four Kings of Leadenhall Street declined from Princes 
 into mere Shayhks. They actually sent a Sword of Honour to one of 
 their officers by a street messenger, and the donee returned it, saying, 
 he could not understand the manner of the gift; and so it went on 
 gradually declining and falling, till at last the old house was aban¬ 
 doned and let for offices. The shadowy Directors flitted to the West 
 End, into a brand-new India House, which soon brought on their 
 Euthanasia. 
 
 My bringing-up caused me to be much scandalized by the sight of 
 my future comrades and brother officers, which I will presently 
 explain. The Afghan disaster was still fresh in public memory. 
 The aunts had been patriotic enough to burst into tears when they 
 heard of it; and certainly it was an affecting picture, the idea of 
 a single Englishman, Dr. Brydone, riding into Jellalabad, the only 
 one of thirteen thousand, he and his horse so broken as almost to 
 die at the gates. 
 
 Poor General Elphinstone, by-the-by, had been my father’s best 
 man at his marriage, and was as little fitted for such field service, 
 as Job was at his worst. Alexander Burns was the only headpiece 
 in the lot. He had had the moral courage to report how critical the 
 position was ; but he had not the moral courage to insist upon 
 his advice being taken, and, that failing, to return to his regiment as 
 a Captain. 
 
 MacNaghten was a mere Indian civilian. Like too many of 
 them, he had fallen into the dodging ways of the natives, and he 
 distinctly deserved his death. The words used by Akbar Khan, 
 by-the-by, when he shot him, were, “ Shuma mulk-e-md mf gfrid ” 
 (“ So you’re the fellow who’ve come to take our country ”). 
 
 But the result of the massacre was a demand for soldiers and 
 officers, especially Anglo-Indians. Some forty medical students were 
 sent out, and they naturally got the name of the “Forty Thieves.” 
 The excess of demand explained the curious appearance of the 
 embryo cadets when they met to be sworn in at the India House. 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 They looked like raw country lads, mostly dressed in home-made 
 clothes, and hair cut by the village barber, country boots, and no 
 gloves. So my friend, Colonel White’s son, who was entering the 
 service on the same day, and I looked at one another in blank 
 dismay. We had fallen amongst young Yahoos, and we looked 
 forward with terror to such society. I was originally intended for 
 Bengal, but, as has been seen, I had relations there. I was not 
 going to subject myself to surveillance by my uncle by marriage, an 
 old general of invalids. Moreover, one of my D’Aguilar cousins was 
 married to a judge in Calcutta. I was determined to have as much 
 liberty as possible, and therefore I chose Bombay. I was always of 
 opinion that a man proves his valour by doing what he likes ; there 
 is no merit in so doing when you have a fair fortune and independent 
 position, but for a man bound by professional ties, and too often 
 lacking means to carry out his wishes, it is a great success to 
 choose his own line and stick to it. 
 
 My only companion was a bull-terrier of the Oxford breed, more 
 bull than terrier. Its box-head and pink face had been scratched 
 all over during a succession of dog-fights and various tussles with 
 rats. It was beautifully built in the body, and the tail was as thin 
 as a little finger, showing all the vertebrae. The breed seems to 
 have become almost extinct, but I found it again at Oxford when 
 I went there in 1850. The little brute bore a fine litter of pups, 
 and died in Gujarat, as usual with every sign of old age, half-blind 
 eyes, and staggering limbs. The pups grew up magnificently. One, 
 which rejoiced in the name of Bachhun, received the best of edu¬ 
 cations. He was entered necessarily on mice, rats, and Gilahris , 
 or native squirrels, which bite and scratch like cats. He was so 
 thoroughly game, that he would sally out alone in the mornings, and 
 kill a jackal single-handed. He was the pride of the regiment, and 
 came as usual to a bad end. On one of my journeys, dressed as a 
 native, I had to leave him behind in charge of my friend Dr. Arnold, 
 surgeon of the regiment. Dr. Arnold also, when absent, confided him 
 to the care of a brother-medico, Dr. Pitman, who had strict opinions 
 on the subject of drugs. The wretch actually allowed the gallant 
 little dog to die of some simple disease, because he would not give 
 him a dose of medicine belonging to the Company. 
 
 s 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 When I landed at Bombay (October 28th, 1842), “Momba 
 Devi” town was a marvellous contrast with the “ Queen of Western 
 India,” as she thrones it in 1887 ; no City in Europe, except perhaps 
 Vienna, can show such a difference. The old Portuguese port- 
 village temp. Caroli Seacndi , with its silly fortifications and useless 
 esplanade, its narrow alleys and squares like places d’armes, had not 
 developed itself into “ Sasson-Town,” as we may call the olden, and 
 “Frere-Town” the modern moiety. 
 
 Under the patriarchal rule of the Court of Directors to the Hon. 
 East Indian Company, a form of torpidity much resembling the 
 paternal government of good Emperor Franz, no arrangements were 
 made for the reception of the queer animals called “ cadets.” They 
 landed and fell into the knowing hands of some rascals ; lodged at 
 a Persian tavern, the British Hotel, all uncleanliness at the highest 
 prices. I had a touch of “ seasoning sickness,” came under the 
 charge of “ Paddy Ryan,” Fort Surgeon and general favourite, and 
 was duly drafted into the Sanitary Bungalow—thatched hovels facing 
 Back Bay, whence ever arose a pestilential whiff of roast Hindu, and 
 opened the eyes of those who had read about the luxuries of the 
 East. Life was confined to a solitary ride (at dawn and dusk), a 
 dull monotonous day, and a night in some place of dissipation—to 
 put it mildly—such as the Bhendi bazar, whose attractions consisted 
 of dark young persons in gaudy dress, mock jewels, and hair japanned 
 with cocoa-nut oil, and whose especial diversions were an occasional 
 “row”—a barbarous manner of “ town and gown.” But a few days 
 of residence had taught me that India, at least Western India, offered 
 only two specialities for the Britisher; first Shikar or sport, and 
 secondly, opportunities of studying the people and their languages. 
 These were practically unlimited; I found that it took me some 
 
 67 
 
68 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 years of hard study before I could walk into a bazar and distinguish 
 the several castes, and know something of them, their manners and 
 customs, religion and superstitions. I at once engaged a venerable 
 Parsee, Dosabhai Sohrabji, also a mubid , or priest, as his white cap 
 and coat showed, who had coached many generations of griffs , and 
 under his guidance dived deep into the “ Ethics of Hind ” (Akhlak-i- 
 Hindi) and other such text-books. 
 
 This was the year after the heir-apparent was born; when Nott, 
 Pollock, and Sale revenged the destruction of some 13,000 men by 
 the Afghans; when the Chinese War broke out; when Lord Ellen- 
 borough succeeded awkward Lord Auckland; and when Major- 
 General Sir Charles J. Napier, commanding at Poonah, was appointed 
 to Sind (August 25th, 1842), and when his subsequent unfriend, 
 Brevet-Major James Outram, was on furlough to England ; lastly, and 
 curious to say, most important of all to me, was the fact that “ Ensign 
 Burton ” was ranked and posted in the G. G. O. of October 15th, 1842, 
 to the 18th Regiment, Bombay N.I. 
 
 Nor was I less surprised by the boasting of my brother officers 
 (the Sepoys had thrashed the French in India and elsewhere, they 
 were the flower of the British army, and so forth)—fine specimen of 
 esprit de corps run mad, which was destined presently to change its 
 tone, after 1857. Meanwhile this loud brag covered an ugly truth. 
 We officers of the Indian army held her Majesty’s commission, 
 but the Company’s officers were looked upon by the Queen’s troops 
 as mere auxiliaries, locals without general rank, as it were black 
 policemen. Moreover the rules of the service did not allow us to 
 rise above a certain rank. What a contrast to the French private, 
 who carries a Marshal’s baton in his knapsack ! 
 
 Captain Cleland introduced me to his sister, the wife of a field- 
 officer, and she to sundry of her friends, whose tone somewhat 
 surprised me. Here and there a reference was made to my 
 “immortal soul,” and I was overwhelmed with oral treatises upon 
 what was expected from a “ Christian in a heathen land.” And these 
 ladies “ talked shop,” at least, so it appeared to me, like non-com¬ 
 missioned officers. After Shikar and the linguistics, the only 
 popular pursuit in India is (I should think always was) “ Society.” 
 But indigestible dinners are not pleasant in a Turkish bath ; dancing 
 is at a discount in a region of eternal dog-days; picnics are un¬ 
 pleasant on the “ palm-tasselled strand of glowing Ind,” where 
 scorpions and cobras come uninvited; horse-racing, like Cicero’s 
 “ Mercaturi,” to be honoured, must be on a large scale; the Mess 
 tiffin is an abomination ruinous to digestion and health; the billiard- 
 table may pass an hour or so pleasantly enough, but it becomes a 
 
India. 69 
 
 monotonous waste of time, and the evening bands, or meet at 
 “Scandal Point,” is open to the charge of a deadly dullness. 
 
 Visits become visitations, because that tyrant Madam Etiquette 
 commanded them about noon, despite risk of sunstroke, and “ the 
 ladies” insisted upon them without remorse of conscience. Needless 
 to say that in those days the Gym-hdnah was unknown, and that 
 the Indian world ignored lawn-tennis, even croquet. 
 
 Another point in Bombay Society at once struck me, and I after¬ 
 wards found it in the Colonies and most highly developed in the 
 United States. At home men and women live under an incubus, a 
 perfect system of social despotism which is intended to make amends 
 for an unnatural political equality, amongst classes bom radically 
 unequal. Abroad, the weight is taken off their shoulders, and the 
 result of its removal is a peculiar rankness of growth. The pious 
 become fanatically one-idea’d, pharisaical, unchristian, monomaniacal. 
 The un-pious run to the other extreme, believe nothing, sneer at the 
 holies, “and look upon the mere Agnostic as a ‘slowcoach.’” 
 Eccentricity develops itself Bedlam-wards. One of my friends had a 
 mania and swore ‘ By my halidom.’ ” Another had an image of 
 Ganpati over his door, which he never passed without the prayer, “ Shri 
 ganeshaya Hamaha ” (“I bow to auspicious Janus”). A third, of 
 whom I heard, had studied Aristotle in Arabic, and when shown the 
 “ Novum Organon,” asked, indignantly, “ who the fellow might be that 
 talked such stuff.” And in matters of honesty the social idea was 
 somewhat lax; to sell a spavined horse to a friend was considered a 
 good joke, and to pass off plated wares for real silver was looked 
 upon as only a trifle too “smart.” The Press faithfully reflected 
 these nuances with a little extra violence and virulence of its own. 
 By-the-by, I must not forget making the acquaintance of a typical 
 Scot, Dr. Buist (afterwards Sir Charles Napier’s “ blatant beast of 
 the Bombay Times”). He wrote much (so badly that only one 
 clerk could read it) and washed little; and as age advanced he 
 married a young wife. 
 
 After a month or so at Bombay, chiefly spent in mugging “ Hindo- 
 stani,” and in providing myself with the necessaries of life—servants, 
 headed by Salvador Soares, a handsome Goanese; a horse, in the shape 
 of a dun-coloured Katty w£r nag; also a “ horsekeeper,” a dog, a tent, 
 and so forth—I received my marching orders and set out to “join” 
 my own corps. The simple way of travelling in those days before 
 steam and rail was by palanquin or pattymar. I have described the 
 latter article in “Goa,” and I may add that it had its advantages. 
 True it was a “ slow coach,” creeping on seventy or eighty miles a 
 day, and some days almost stationary; it had few comforts and no 
 
70 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 luxuries. I began by actually missing “ pudding,” and have often 
 smiled at the remembrance of my stomach’s comical disappoint 
 ment. En revanche , the study of the little world within was most 
 valuable to the “ young Anglo-Indian,” and the slow devious course 
 allowed landing at places rarely visited by Europeans. During my 
 repeated trips I saw Diu, once so famous in Portuguese story, Holy 
 Dwarkd, guarded outside by sharks and filled with fierce and fanatic 
 mercenaries, and a dozen less interesting spots. 
 
 The end of this trip was Tankaria-Bunder, a small landing in the 
 Bay of Cambay, a most primitive locale to be called a port, where 
 a mud-bank, adapted for a mooring-stake, was about the only con¬ 
 venience. It showed me, however, a fine specimen of the Ghora , or 
 bore, known to our Severn and other rivers—an exaggerated high 
 tide, when the water comes rushing up the shallows like a charge of 
 cavalry. Native carts were also to be procured at Tankaria-Bunder 
 for the three days’ short march to Baroda, and a mattress spread 
 below made the rude article comfortable enough for young limbs 
 and strong nerves. 
 
 Gujarat, the classical Gujarahtra, a land of the Gujar clan, which 
 remained the Syrastrena Regio of Arian, surprised me by its tranquil 
 beauty and its vast natural wealth. Green as a card-table, flat as a 
 prairie, it grew a marvellous growth of trees, which stunted our 
 English oaks and elm trees— 
 
 “ to ancient song unknown, 
 
 The noble sons of potent heat and flood ”— 
 
 and a succession of fields breaking the glades, of townlets and 
 villages walled by luxuriant barriers of caustic milk-bush (euphorbia), 
 teemed with sights and sounds and smells peculiarly Indian. The 
 sharp bark of Hanu the Monkey and the bray of the Sha?ikh or 
 conch near the bowery pagoda were surprises to the ear, and less 
 to the nose was the blue vapour which settled over the hamlets 
 morning and evening, a semi-transparent veil, the result of Gobar 
 smoke from “ cow-chips.” A stale trick upon travellers approaching 
 India by sea was to rub a little sandal oil upon the gunwale and 
 invite them to “ smell India,” yet many a time for miles off shore I 
 have noted that faint spicy odour, as if there were curry in the air, 
 which about the abodes of man seems to be crossed with an aroma 
 of drugs, as though proceeding from an apothecary’s store. Wondrous 
 peaceful and quiet lay those little Indian villages, outlaid by glorious 
 banyan and pipal trees, topes or clumps of giant figs which rain a 
 most grateful shade, and sometimes provided by the piety of some 
 long-departed Chief with a tank of cut stone, a baurd or draw-well 
 of fine masonry and large dimensions. But what “exercised” not 
 
India. 
 
 7i 
 
 a little my “ Griffin ” thoughts was to note the unpleasant difference 
 between villages under English rule and those belonging to “ His 
 Highness the Gaikwar ” or cowkeeper ; the penury of the former and 
 the prosperity of the latter. Mr. Boyd, the then Resident at the local 
 court, soon enlightened me upon the evils of our unelastic rule of 
 “ smart Collectors,” who cannot and dare not make any allowance 
 for deficient rainfall or injured crops, and it is better to have some¬ 
 thing to lose, and to lose it even to the extent “ of being ousted of 
 possessions and disseized of freehold,” with the likely hope of gaining 
 it again, than to own nothing worth plundering. 
 
 The end of the march introduced me to my corps, the 18th 
 Regiment, Bombay Native Infantry, whose head-quarters were in 
 Gujarat, one wing being stationed at Mhow, on the Bengal 
 frontier. 
 
 The officer commanding, Captain James (C.V.), called upon me 
 at the Travellers’ bungalow, the rudimentary Inn which must satisfy 
 the stranger in India, suggesting the while such sad contrast, and 
 bore me off to his bungalow, formally presented me at Mess—then 
 reduced to eight members besides myself—and the Assistant-Surgeon 
 Arnott put me in the way of lodging myself. The regimental Mess, 
 with its large cool Hall and punkahs, its clean napery and bright 
 silver, its servants each standing behind his master’s chair, and the 
 cheroots and hookahs which appeared with the disappearance of the 
 “ table ’’-cloth, was a pleasant surprise, the first sight of comfortable 
 home-life I had seen since landing at Bombay. Not so the Sub¬ 
 alterns’ bungalow, which gave the idea of a dog-hole at which British 
 Ponto would turn up his civilized nose. The business of the day was 
 mainly goose-step and studying the drill book, and listening to such 
 equivocal words of command as “ Tandelees ” (stand at ease) and 
 “ Fiz-bagnat ” (fix bayonets). Long practice with the sword, which I 
 had began seriously at the age of twelve, sometimes taking three 
 lessons a day, soon eased my difficulties, and led to the study of 
 native swordsmanship, whose grotesqueness and buffoonery can be 
 rivalled only by its insufficiency.* 
 
 The wrestling, however, was another matter, and not a few natives 
 in my Company had at first the advantage of me, and this induced a 
 trial of Indian training, which consisted mainly of washing down 
 balls of Gur (unrefined sugar) with bowls of hot milk hotly spiced. 
 The result was that in a week I was blind with bile. Another set 
 of lessons suggested by common sense, was instruction by a chabuh- 
 
 * Those curious upon the subject will consult my “ Book of the Sword,” vol. i. 
 p. 163. Remember, young swordsman, these people never give point and never 
 parry it. 
 
72 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 sawar , or native jockey. All nations seem to despise one another's 
 riding, and none seem to know how much they have to learn. The 
 Indian style was the merit of holding the horse well in hand, making 
 him bound off at a touch of the heel, stopping him dead at a hand 
 gallop, and wheeling him round as on a pivot. The Hindu will 
 canter over a figure-of-eight, gradually diminishing the dimensions 
 till the animal leans over at an angle of 45 0 , and throwing himself 
 over the off side and hanging by the heel to the earth, will pick up 
 sword or pistol from the ground. Our lumbering chargers brought 
 us to notable grief more than once in the great Sikh War. And as I 
 was somewhat nervous about snakes, I took lessons of a “ Charmer,” 
 and could soon handle them with coolness. 
 
 The Bibi (white woman) was at that time rare in India; the result 
 was the triumph of the Bubu (coloured sister). I found every officer 
 in the corps more or less provided with one of these helpmates. 
 
 We boys naturally followed suit; but I had to suffer the protesta¬ 
 tions of the Portuguese padre , who had taken upon himself the cure 
 and charge of my soul, and was like a hen who had hatched a 
 duckling. I had a fine opportunity of studying the pros and cons of 
 the Bubu system. 
 
 Pros : The “ walking dictionary ” is all but indispensable to the 
 Student, and she teaches him not only Hindostani grammar, but the 
 syntaxes of native Life. She keeps house for him, never allowing 
 him to save money, or, if possible, to waste it. She keeps the servants 
 in order. She has an infallible recipe to prevent maternity, 
 especially if her tenure of office depends on such compact. She 
 looks after him in sickness, and is one of the best of nurses, and, 
 as it is not good for man to live alone, she makes him a manner of 
 home. 
 
 The disadvantages are as manifest as the advantages. Presently, 
 as overland passages became cheaper and commoner, the Bibi won 
 and the Bubii lost ground. Even during my day, married men 
 began, doubtless at the instance of their wives, to look coldly 
 upon the half-married, thereby showing mighty little common sense. 
 For India was the classic land of Cicisbeism,where husbands are 
 occupied between ten a.m. and five p.m. at their offices and counting- 
 houses, leaving a fair field and much favour to the sub unattached, 
 and whose duty often keeps the man sweltering upon the plains, when 
 the wife is enjoying the somer-frisch upon “ the Hills.” Moreover, 
 the confirmed hypocrite and the respectable-ist, when in power, 
 established a kind of inquisitorial inquiry into the officer’s house, 
 and affixed a black mark to the name of the half-married. At last 
 the Bubu made her exit and left a void. The greatest danger in 
 
India. 
 
 73 
 
 British India is the ever-growing gulf that yawns between the 
 governors and the governed; they lose touch of one another, and 
 such racial estrangement leads directly to racial hostility. 
 
 The day in Cantonment-way is lively. It began before sunrise 
 on the parade-ground, an open space, which any other people but 
 English would have converted into a stronghold. Followed, the 
 baths and the choti-hazri, or little breakfast, the munshi (language- 
 master), and literary matters till nine o’clock meal. The hours were 
 detestable, compared with the French system—the dejeuner d la 
 fourchette , which abolished the necessity of lunch ; but throughout the 
 Anglo-American world, even in the places worst adapted, “business’’ 
 lays out the day. After breakfast, most men went to the billiard- 
 room ; some, but very few, preferred “ peacocking,” which meant 
 robing in white-grass clothes and riding under a roasting sun, as 
 near the meridian as possible, to call upon “regimental ladies,” 
 who were gruff as corporals when the function was neglected too 
 long. The dull and tedious afternoon again belonged to munshi , 
 and ended with a constitutional ride, or a rare glance at the band ; 
 Mess about seven p.m., possibly a game of whist, and a stroll home 
 under the marvellous Gujarat skies, through a scene of perfect loveli¬ 
 ness, a paradise bounded by the whity-black line. 
 
 There was little variety in such days. At times we rode to Baroda 
 City, which seemed like a Mansion, to which the Cantonment acted 
 as porter’s Lodge. “ Good Water ” (as the Sanskritists translate it) 
 was a walled City, lying on the north bank of the Vishwamitra river, 
 and containing some 150,000 souls, mostly hostile, who eyed us with 
 hateful eyes, and who seemed to have taught even their animals to 
 abhor us. The City is a m'elange of low huts and tall houses, gro¬ 
 tesquely painted, with a shabby palace, and a Chaitk , or Bazar, where 
 four streets meet. At times H.M. the Gaikwar would show us 
 what was called sport—a fight between two elephants with cut tusks, 
 or a caged tiger and a buffalo—the last being generally the winner— 
 or a wrangle between two fierce stallions, which bit like camels. 
 The cock-fighting was, however, of a superior kind, the birds being 
 of first-class blood, and so well trained, that they never hesitated to 
 attack a stranger. An occasional picnic, for hunting, not society, 
 was a most pleasant treat. The native Prince would always lend us 
 his cheetahs or hunting leopards, or his elephants; the jungles inland 
 of the city swarmed with game, from a snipe to a tiger, and the 
 broad plains to the north were packs of fiilghai and the glorious black 
 buck. About twenty-eight miles due east, rises high above the sea of 
 verdure the picturesque hill known as Pavangarh, the Fort of Eolus, 
 and the centre of an old Civilization. Tanks and Jain temples were 
 
74 Jfie Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 scattered around it, and the ruins of Champem'r City cumbered the 
 base. In a more progressive society, this place, 2500 feet high, and 
 cooler by 18 0 to 20° F., would have become a kind of sanitarium. 
 But men, apparently, could not agree. When the Baroda races came 
 round, Major C. Crawley, commanding the 4th Bombay Rifles, used, 
 in consequence of some fancied slight, to openly ride out of canton¬ 
 ment; and Brigadier Gibbons, the commander, did nothing fcr 
 society. But the crowning excitement of the season was the report 
 of Sir Charles Napier’s battle of Miani (February 21st), followed by 
 the affair of Dubba (March 25th), the “ tail of the Afghan War.” The 
 account seemed to act as an electric shock upon the English frame, 
 followed by a deep depression and a sense of mortal injury at the 
 hands of Fate in keeping us out of the fray. 
 
 At length, in April, 1843, I obtained two months’ leave of absence 
 to the Presidency, for the purpose of passing an examination in 
 Hindostani. The function was held at the Town Hall. Major-General 
 Vans-Kennedy presided, a queer old man as queerly dressed, who 
 had given his life to Orientalism, and who had printed some very 
 respectable studies of Hinduism. The examining mu ns hi, Mohammed 
 “ Muckld,” was no friend to me, because I was coached by a rival, 
 old Dosabhai, yet he could not prevent my distancing a field of 
 eleven. This happened on May 5th, and on May 12th I had laid in 
 a full supply of Gujarati books, and set out by the old road to rejoin. 
 
 If Baroda was dull and dreary during the dries, it was mortal 
 during the rains. I had been compelled to change my quarters for 
 a bigger bungalow, close to the bank of the nullah which bounded 
 the camp to the east and fed the Vishwamitra. It was an ill-omened 
 place; an English officer had been wounded in it, and the lintel still 
 bore the mark of a sabre which some native ruffian had left, intending 
 to split a serjeant’s head. Other quarters in the cantonment were 
 obliged to keep one ramosi , alias Paggi, a tracker, a temporarily re¬ 
 formed thief who keeps off other thieves; my bungalow required two. 
 An ignoble position for a dominant race, this openly paying black¬ 
 mail and compounding felony. The rule of the good Company was, 
 however, not a rule of honour, but of expediency, and the safety of 
 its officers was little regarded ; they were stabbed in their tents, 
 or cut down by dacoits, even when travelling on the highways of 
 Gujarat. Long and loudly the survivors hoped that some fine day 
 a bishop or a Director’s son would come to grief, and when this 
 happened at last the process was summarily stopped. Indeed, no¬ 
 thing was easier to find than a remedy. A heavy fine was imposed 
 upon the district in which the outrage was committed. By such 
 means, Mohammed Ali of Egypt made the Suez Desert safer than 
 
India. 
 
 75 
 
 a London street, and Sir Charles Napier pacified Sind, and made 
 deeds of violence unknown—by means not such as Earl Russell 
 virtually encouraged the robber-shepherds of Greece to plunder and 
 murder English travellers. 
 
 The monsoon,* as it is most incorrectly termed, completely 
 changes the tenor of Anglo-Indian life. It is ushered in by a display 
 of “ insect youth ” which would have astonished Egypt in the age of 
 the plagues, “flying bugs,” and so forth. At Mess every tumbler was 
 protected by a silver lid. And when the downfall begins it suggests 
 that the “ fountains of the great deep ” have been opened up. I 
 have seen tropical rains in many a region near the Line, but never 
 anything that rivals Gujarati. Without exaggeration, the steady 
 discharge of water buckets lasted literally, on one occasion, through 
 seven days and nights without intermission, and to reach Mess we 
 had to send our clothes on, and to wear a single waterproof, and to 
 gallop through water above, around, and below at full speed. This 
 third of the year was a terribly dull suicidal time, worse even than 
 the gloomy month of November. It amply accounted for the card- 
 table surface and the glorious tree-clump of the Gujarat— 
 
 “ The mighty growth of sun and torrent-rains.” 
 
 Working some twelve hours a day, and doing nothing but work, 
 I found myself ready in later August for a second trip to the 
 Presidency, and obtained leave from September ioth to October 
 30th (afterwards made to include November ioth) for proceeding to 
 Bombay, and being examined in the Guzerattee language. 
 
 This time I resolved to try another route, and, despite the warning 
 of abominable roads, to ride down coast via Baroch and Surat. I 
 had not been deceived; the deep and rich black soil, which is so 
 good for the growth of cotton, makes a mud truly terrible to travel¬ 
 lers. Baroch, the Hindu Brighu-Khatia, or Field of Brighu, son of 
 Brahma, is generally made the modern successor of Ptolemy and 
 Arrian’s “ Barygaza,” but there are no classic remains to support 
 the identification of the spot, nor indeed did any one in the place 
 seem to care a fig about the matter. A truly Hindi! town of some 
 twelve thousand souls on the banks of the Nerbudda, it boasted of 
 only one sight, the Kabir-bar , which the English translated “ Big 
 
 * The word is a Portuguese “ corruption ” of mausim , in Arabia a season, 
 and per excellentiam the sailing season. Thence it was transferred to the dry 
 season, when the north-eastern trade-winds blow upon the Indian Ocean. But 
 popular use transferred the name to the south-western rainy winds, which last 
 from June to September. 
 
 On June 26th, 1843, “Ensign Burton” appeared in orders as “Regimental 
 Interpreter.” 
 
j 6 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Banyan,” and which meant, “ Banyan-tree of (the famous ascetic and 
 poet, Das Kabir).” I remember only two of his lines— 
 
 “Maya mare na man mare, mar mar gaya sarir ” 
 
 (“ Illusion dies ; dies not the mind, though body die and die”)— 
 
 Mayd (illusion) being sensuous matter, and old Fakirs express the 
 idea of the modern Hylozoist, “ All things are thinks.” The old 
 tree is hardly worth a visit, although it may have sheltered five 
 thousand horsemen and inspired Milton, for which see the guide¬ 
 books. 
 
 Surat (Surashtra = good region), long time the “ Gate of Meccah,” 
 where pilgrims embarked instead of at Bombay, shows nothing of 
 its olden splendour. 
 
 This was the nucleus of British power on the western coast 
 of India in the seventeenth century, and as early as May, 1609, 
 Captain Hawkins, of the Hector , obtained permission at Agra 
 here to found a factory for his half-piratical countrymen, 
 who are briefly described as “ Molossis suis ferociores.” They 
 soon managed to turn out the Portuguese, and they left a 
 Graveyard which is not devoid of some barbaric interest—Tom 
 Croyate of the Crudities, however, is absent from it. At Surat 
 I met Lieutenant Manson, R.A. He was going down to “go 
 up ” in Maharatta, and we agreed to take a pattymar to¬ 
 gether. We cruised down the foul Tapti river—all Indian, like 
 West African, streams seem to be made of dirty water — and 
 were shown the abandoned sites of the Dutch garden and 
 French factory, Vaux’s Tomb, and Dormus Island. We escaped 
 an Elephcinta storm, one of those pleasant September visitations 
 which denote the break up of the “monsoon,” and which not 
 unfrequently bestrews the whole coast of Western India with 
 wreckage. This time I found lodging in the Town Barracks, 
 Bombay, and passed an examination in the Town Hall be¬ 
 fore General Vans-Kennedy, with the normal success, being 
 placed first. The process consisted of reading from print (two 
 books), and handwriting, generally some “native letter,” and of 
 conversing and of writing an “ address ” or some paper of the 
 kind. 
 
 Returning Baroda-wards, whence my regiment was trans¬ 
 ferred to our immense satisfaction to Sind, I assisted in the 
 farewell revelries, dinners and Naches , or native dances—the 
 most melancholy form in which Terpsichore ever manifested 
 herself. 
 
 By far the most agreeable and wholesome part of regimental life 
 in India is the march; the hours are reasonable, the work not too 
 
India. 
 
 77 
 
 severe, and the results, in appetite and sleep, admirable. At Bombay 
 we encamped on the Esplanade, and on January ist, 1844, we 
 embarked for Karachi on board the H.E.I.C.’s steamer Semiramis , 
 whose uneventful cruise is told in “Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley,” 
 chap. 1, “The Shippe of Helle.” Yet not wholly uneventual 
 to me. 
 
 On board of the Semiramis was Captain Walter Scott, Bombay 
 Engineers, who had lately been transferred from commanding in 
 Candeish to the superintendence of the Sind Canals, a department 
 newly organized by the old Conqueror of “ Young Egypt,” and our 
 chance meeting influenced my life for the next six years. I have 
 before described him. With short intervals I was one of his 
 assistants till 1849. We never had a diverging thought, much 
 less an unpleasant word; and when he died, at Berlin, in 1875, I 
 felt his loss as that of a near relation. 
 
 Karachi, which I have twice described, was in 1844 a mere stretch 
 of a Cantonment, and nothing if not military; the garrison consisting 
 of some five thousand men of all arms, European and native. The 
 discomfort of camp life in this Sahara,* which represented the Libyan 
 Desert, after Gujarat, the Nile Valley, was excessive, the dust-storms 
 were atrocious,f and the brackish water produced the most un¬ 
 pleasant symptons. Parades of all kinds, regimental and brigade, 
 were the rule, and Sir Charles Napier was rarely absent from anything 
 on a large scale. 
 
 The Conqueror of Scinde was a noted and remarkable figure at 
 that time, and there is still a semi-heroic ring about the name. In 
 appearance he was ultra-Jewish, a wondrous contrast to his grand 
 brother, Sir William ; his countrymen called him Fagan, after Dickens, 
 and his subjects, Shaytan-a-Bhdi, Satan’s brother, from his masterful 
 spirit and reckless energy. There is an idealized portrait of him in 
 Mr. W. H. Bruce’s “Life” (London, Murray, 1885), but I much 
 prefer the caricature by Lieutenant Beresford, printed in my wife’s 
 volume, “ A.E.I.” Yet there was nothing mean in the Conqueror’s 
 diminutive form ; the hawk’s eye, and eagle’s beak, and powerful 
 chin would redeem any face from vulgarity. 
 
 Sir Charles, during his long years of Peninsular and European 
 service, cultivated the habit of jotting down all events in his diary, 
 with a naivete , a vivacity, and a fulness which echoed his spirit, and 
 which, with advancing years, degenerated into intemperance of 
 language and extravagance of statement. He was hard, as were 
 most men in those days, upon the great Company he termed the 
 
 * “ Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley,” 2 vols.; and “Sind Revisited,” 1877. 
 
 I Scinde,” chapter iv. 
 
73 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 i: Twenty-four Kings of Leadenhall Street”—“ephemeral sove¬ 
 reigns ; ” he quoted Lord Wellesley about the “ ignominious tyrants 
 of the East.” 
 
 In his sixtieth year he was appointed to the command of Poonah 
 (December 28th, 1841), and he was so lacking in the goods of this 
 world that a Bombay house refused to advance him ^500. He 
 began at once to study Hindostani, but it was too late; the 
 lesson induced irrisistible drowsiness, and the munshi was too 
 polite to awaken the aged scholar, who always said he would 
 give Rs. 10,000 to be able to address the Sepoys. On September 
 3rd, 1842, he set off to assume his new command in Upper and 
 Lower Sind, and he at once saw his opportunity. Major Outram 
 had blackened the faces of the Amirs, but he wanted to keep the 
 work of conquest for himself, and he did not relish its being done by 
 another. He, however, assisted Sir Charles Napier, and it was not 
 till his return to England in 1843 that he ranged himself on the side 
 of the Directors, whose hatred of the Conqueror grew with his 
 success, and two factions, Outramists and Napierists, divided the 
 little world of Western India. 
 
 The battles of Miani and Dubba were much criticized by military 
 experts, who found that the “butcher’s bill” did not justify the 
 magnificent periods of Sir William Napier. This noble old soldier’s 
 “Conquest of Scinde” was a work of fantaisie; the story was 
 admirably told, the picture was perfect, but the details were so 
 incorrect, that it became the subject of endless “chaff” even in 
 Government House, Karachi. The corrective was an official report 
 by Major (afterwards General) Waddington, B.O. Eng., which gave 
 the shady, rather than the sunlit side of the picture. And there is 
 still a third to be written. Neither of our authorities tell us, nor can 
 we expect a public document to do so, how the mulatto who had 
 charge of the Amir’s guns had been persuaded to fire high, and how 
 the Talpur traitor who commanded the cavalry, openly drew off his 
 men and showed the shameless example of flight. When the day 
 shall come to publish details concerning disbursement of “ Secret 
 service money in India,” the public will learn strange things. Mean¬ 
 while those of us who have lived long enough to see how history is 
 written, can regard it as but little better than a poor romance. 
 
 However exaggerated, little Miani taught the world one lesson 
 which should not be forgotten—the sole plan to win a fight from 
 barbarians, be they Belochis, Kafirs, or Burmese. It is simplicity 
 itself; a sharp cannonade to shake the enemy, an advance in line or 
 'echelon as the ground demands, and a dash of cavalry to expedite 
 the runaways. And presently the victory led to organizing the 
 
India. 
 
 79 
 
 “ Land Transport Corps” and the “Baggage Corps,” two prime 
 wants of the Indian army. Here Sir Charles Napier’s skill as an 
 inventor evolved order out of disorder, and efficiency from the most 
 cumbrous of abuses. The pacification of the new Province was 
 marvellously brought about by the enlightened despotism of the 
 Conqueror. Outram had predicted ten years of guerilla warfare 
 before peace could be restored ; Sir Charles made it safer than any 
 part of India within a year, and in 1844, when levelling down the 
 canals, I was loudly blessed by the peasants, who cried out, “ These 
 men are indeed worthy to govern us, as they work for our good.” 
 
 But Sir Charles Napier began India somewhat too late in life, and 
 had to pay the penalty. His mistakes were manifold, and some of 
 them miserable. When preparing for the “ Truhkee campaign,” he 
 proposed to content himself with a u Numero-cent” tent for a Com- 
 mander-in-Chief! When marching upon Multan, his idea was to 
 quarter the Sepoys in the villages, which would have been destroyed 
 at once; and it was some time before his Staff dared put it in this 
 light. 
 
 From over-deference to English opinion, he liberated all the 
 African slaves in Sind and turned them out to starve; it would have 
 been wiser to “free the womb,” and forbid importation. He never 
 could understand the “ Badli system,” where a rich native buys 
 a poor man to be hanged for him who committed the crime, and 
 terribly scandalized Captain Young, the civilian Judge Advocate- 
 General, by hanging the wrong man. Finding that the offended 
 husband in Sind was justified by public opinion for cutting down 
 his wife, he sent the unfortunate to the gallows, and the result was 
 a peculiar condition of society. On one occasion, the anonymas 
 of Hyderabad sent him a deputation to complain “ that the married 
 women were taking the bread out of their mouths.” 
 
 Sir Charles was a favourite among the juniors, in fact, amongst all 
 who did not thwart or oppose him. He delighted in Rabelaisian, 
 bon-mots, and the Conte grivois , as was the wont of field-officers in 
 his day; his comment upon a newspaper’s “ peace and plenty at 
 Karachi ” was long quoted. 
 
 After a month of discomfort at Karachi, rendered more uncom¬ 
 fortable by the compulsory joining of six unfortunate Staff-officers 
 who lost their snug appointments in India,* we were moved to 
 Gharra—“ out of the frying-pan into the fire ”—a melancholy hole 
 some forty miles by road north of Head-quarters, and within hearing 
 of the evening gun. I have already described its horror, f Our 
 
 * “ Scinde,” vol. i. p. 252. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 89. 
 
So The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 predecessors had not built the barracks or bungalows, and we found 
 only a parallelogram of rock and sand, girt by a tall dense hedge of 
 bright green milk-bush, and surrounded by a flat of stone and 
 gravel, near a filthy village whose timorous inhabitants shunned us 
 as walking pestilences. 
 
 This, with an occasional temperature of 125 0 F., was to be our 
 “ house ” for some years. As I had no money wherewith to build, 
 I was compelled to endure a hot season in a single-poled tent, 
 pitched outside the milk-bush hedge ; and after, to escape suffocation, 
 I was obliged to cover my table with a wet cloth and pass the hot 
 hours under it. However, energy was not wanting, and the regi¬ 
 mental pandit proving a good school-master, I threw away Sindi for 
 Maratha; and in October, 1844, I was able to pass my examination 
 in Maratha at the Presidency, I coming first of half a dozen. About 
 this time Southern Bombay was agitated by a small mutiny in 
 Sawantwadi, and the papers contained a long service-correspondence 
 about Colonels Outram and Wallace, the capture of Amanghar, and 
 Lieutenant Brassy’s descent on Shiva Drug. I at once laid in a 
 store of Persian books, and began seriously to work at that richest 
 and most charming of Eastern languages. 
 
 On return to Karachi, I found myself, by the favour of my friend 
 Scott, gazetted as one of his four assistants in the Sind “ Survey,” with 
 especial reference to the Canal Department; my being able to read 
 and translate the valuable Italian works on hydro-dynamics being a 
 point in my favour. A few days taught me the use of compass, 
 theodolite, and spirit-level, and on December 10th, 1844, I was sent 
 with a surveying party and six camels to work at Fulayli (Phuleli) 
 and its continuation, the Guni river. The labour was not small; 
 after a frosty night using instruments in the sole of a canal where 
 the sun’s rays seemed to pour as through a funnel, was decidedly 
 trying to the constitution. However, I managed to pull through, 
 and my surveying books were honoured with official approbation. 
 During this winter I enjoyed some sport, especially hawking, and 
 collected material for “ Falconry in the Valley of the Indus.” * I 
 had begun the noble art as a boy at Blois, but the poor kestrel upon 
 which I tried my “ ’prentice hand ” had died soon, worn out like an 
 Eastern ascetic by the severities of training, especially in the fasting 
 line. Returning northwards, I found my Corps at Hyderabad, and 
 
 * It was brought out in 1852, by my friend John Van Voorst, of Paternoster 
 Row, who, after a long and honourable career, retired at the ripe age of eighty- 
 four to take well-merited rest. He has proved himself to me a phoenix amongst 
 publishers. “ Half profits are no profits to the author,” is the common saying, and 
 yet for the last thirty years I have continually received from him small sums 
 which represented my gains. Oh that all were so scrupulous ! 
 
India. 81 
 
 passing through the deserted Gharra, joined the Head-quarters of the 
 Survey at Karachi in April. 
 
 Here I made acquaintance with Mirza Ali Akhbar, who owed his 
 rank (Khan Bahadur) to his gallant conduct as Sir Charles Napier’s 
 munshi at Miani and Dubba, where he did his best to save as 
 many unfortunate Beloch braves as possible. He lived outside the 
 camp in a bungalow which he built for himself, and lodged a friend, 
 Mirza Ddud, a first-rate Persian scholar. My life became much 
 mixed up with these gentlemen, and my brother officers fell to 
 calling me the “White Nigger.” I had also invested in a Persian 
 munshi, Mirza Mohammad Musayn, of Shiraz; poor fellow, after 
 passing through the fires of Scinde unscathed, he returned to die of 
 cholera in his native land. With his assistance I opened on the sly 
 three shops at Karachi,* where cloth, tobacco, and other small 
 matters were sold exceedingly cheap to those who deserved them, 
 and where I laid in a stock of native experience, especially regarding 
 such matters as I have treated upon in my “ Terminal Essay ” to the 
 “ Thousand Nights and a Night,” f but I soon lost my munshi friends. 
 Mirza Ddud died of indigestion and patent pills at Karachi; I last 
 saw Mirza Ali Akhbar at Bombay, in 1876, and he deceased shortly 
 afterwards. He had been unjustly and cruelly treated. Despite the 
 high praises of Outram and Napier for the honesty and efficiency 01 
 Ali Akhbar,J the new commission had brought against the doomed 
 man a number of trumped-up charges, proving bribery and corrup¬ 
 tion, and managed to effect his dismissal from the service. The 
 unfortunate Mirza, in the course of time, disproved them all, but the 
 only answer to his application for being reinstated was that what 
 had been done could not now be undone. I greatly regretted his 
 loss. He had promised me to write out from his Persian notes a 
 diary of his proceedings during the conquest of Scinde; he was more 
 “behind the curtain” than any man I knew, and the truths he 
 might have told would have been exceedingly valuable. 
 
 Kardchi was, for India, not a dull place in those days. Besides 
 our daily work of planning and mapping the surveys of the cold 
 season, and practising latitudes and longitudes till my right eye 
 became comparatively short-sighted, we organized a “ Survey Mess ” 
 in a bungalow belonging to the office “ Compound.” There were 
 six of us—Blagrave, Maclagan, Vanrenin, and afterwards Price and 
 Lambert—and local society pronounced us all mad, although I 
 cannot see that w*e were more whimsical than our neighbours. I 
 
 * “ Falconry in the Valley of the Indus,” pp. ioo, ioi. 
 t Vol. x. p. 205, et seqq. 
 
 X See, in vol. i. p. 53 of “ Sind Revisited,” Sir Charles’s outspoken opinion. 
 
 F 
 
82 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 also built a bungalow, which got the title of the “ Inquisition/’ and 
 there I buried my favourite game-cock Bhujang (the dragon), who 
 had won me many a victory—people declared that it was the grave 
 of a small human. I saw much of Mirza Husayn, a brother of Agha 
 Khan Mahallati, a scion of the Isma’iliyah, or “ Old Man of the 
 Mountain,” who, having fled his country, Persia, after a rebellion, 
 ridiculous even in that land of eternal ridiculous rebellions, turned 
 condottiere , and with his troop of one hundred and thirty ruffians 
 took service with us and was placed to garrison Jarak (Jerruch). 
 Here the Belochis came down upon him, and killed or wounded 
 about a hundred of his troop, after which he passed on to Bombay 
 and enlightened the Presidency about his having conquered Scinde. 
 His brother, my acquaintance, also determined to attack Persia via 
 Makran, and managed so well that he found himself travelling to 
 Teheran, lashed to a gun carriage. The Lodge “Hope” kindly 
 made me an “ entered apprentice,” but I had read Carlisle, “ The 
 Atheistical Publisher,” and the whole affair appeared to me a 
 gigantic humbug, dating from the days of the Crusades, and as 
 Cardinal Newman expressed it, “meaning a goose club.” But I 
 think better of it now, as it still serves political purposes in the 
 East, and gives us a point against our French rivals and enemies. 
 As the “Scinde Association ” was formed, I was made honorary 
 secretary, and had no little correspondence with Mr. E. Blyth, 
 the curator of the Zoological Department, Calcutta. Sir Charles 
 Napier’s friends also determined to start a newspaper, in order to 
 answer the Enemy in the Gate, and reply to the “ base and sordid 
 Bombay faction,” headed by the “ Rampant Buist,” with a strong 
 backing of anonymous officials. 
 
 The Karrachee Advertiser presently appeared in the modest shape 
 of a lithographed sheet on Government foolscap, and, through Sir 
 William Napier, its most spicy articles had the honour of a reprint 
 in London. Of these, the best were “the letters of Omega,” by 
 my late friend Rathborne, then Collector at Hyderabad, and they 
 described the vices of the Sind Amirs in language the reverse of 
 ambiguous. I did not keep copies, nor, unfortunately, did the 
 clever and genial author. 
 
 This pleasant, careless life broke up in November, 1845, when 
 I started with my friend Scott for a long tour to the north of Sind. 
 We rode by the high-road through Gharra and Jarak to Kotri, the 
 station of the Sind flotilla, and then crossed to Hyderabad, where 
 I found my Corps flourishing. After a very jolly week, we resumed 
 our way up the right bank of the Indus and on the extreme western 
 frontier, where we found the Beloch herdsmen in their wildest 
 
India . 
 
 83 
 
 state. About that time began to prevail the wildest reports about 
 the lost tribes of Israel (who were never lost), and with the aid of 
 Gesenius and Lynch I dressed up a very pretty grammar and 
 vocabulary, which proved to sundry scientists that the lost was 
 found at last. But my mentor would not allow the joke to appear 
 in print. On Christmas Day we entered “Sehwdn,” absurdly styled 
 “Alexander’s Camp.” Here again the spirit of mischief was too 
 strong for me. I buried a broken and hocussed jar of “ Athenceum 
 sauce,” red pottery with black Etruscan figures, right in the way of 
 an ardent amateur antiquary; and the results were comical. At 
 Larkhana we made acquaintance with “fighting FitzGerald,” who 
 commanded there, a magnificent figure, who could cut a donkey 
 in two; and who, although a man of property, preferred the 
 hardships of India to the pleasures of home. Fie had, however, 
 a mania of blowing himself up in a little steamer mainly of his 
 own construction, and after his last accident he was invalided 
 home to England, and died within sight of her shores. 
 
 At Larkhana the following letter was received :— 
 
 “Karachi, January 3, 1846. 
 
 “My dear Scott, 
 
 “The General says you may allow as many of your 
 assistants as you can spare to join their regiments, if going on 
 service, with the understanding that they must resign their appoint¬ 
 ments and will not be reappointed, etc. 
 
 (Signed) ’‘John Napier.” 
 
 This, beyond bazar reports, was our first notice of the great Sikh 
 War, which added the Punjab to Anglo-India. This news made me 
 wild to go. A carpet-soldier was a horror to me, and I was 
 miserable that anything should take place in India without my 
 being in the thick of the fight. So, after a visit to Sahkar Shikar- 
 pur and the neighbourhood, I applied myself with all my might to 
 prepare for the Campaign. After sundry small surveyings and level¬ 
 lings about Sahkar (Sukhur), I persuaded Scott, greatly against the 
 grain, to send in my resignation, and called upon General James 
 Simpson, who was supposed to be in his dotage, and was qualifying 
 for the Chief Command in the Crimea. 
 
 My application was refused. Happily for me, however, suddenly 
 appeared an order from Bengal to the purport that all we assistant- 
 surveyors must give sureties. This was enough for me. I wrote 
 officially, saying that no man would be bail for me, and was told 
 to be off to my corps; and on February 23rd, I marched with the 
 18th from Rohri. 
 
84 The Life of Sir Richard Bur toil. 
 
 Needless to repeat the sad story of our disappointment.* * * § It was 
 a model army of thirteen thousand men, Europeans and natives, and 
 under “Old Charley” it would have walked into Multan as into a 
 mutton-pie. We had also heard that N£o Mall was wasting his two 
 millions of gold, and we were willing to save him the trouble. 
 Merrily we trudged through Sabzalcote and Khanpur, and we 
 entered Bahawalpur, where we found the heart-chilling order to 
 retire and to march home, and consequently we marched and re¬ 
 turned to Rohri on April 2nd; and after a few days’ halt there, 
 tired and miserable, we marched south, vid Khayrpur, and, after 
 seventeen marches, reached the old regimental quarters in Moham¬ 
 mad Khan Ka Tanda, on the Fulayli river, f 
 
 But our physical trials and mental disappointments had soured 
 our tempers, and domestic disturbances began. Our colonel was 
 one Henry Corsellis, the son of a Bencoolen civilian, and neither 
 his colour nor his temper were in his favour. The wars began in 
 a small matter. 
 
 I had been making doggrel rhymes on men’s names at Mess, and 
 knowing something of the commanding officer’s touchiness, passed 
 him over. Hereupon he took offence, and seeing well that I was 
 “ in for a row,” I said, “ Very well, Colonel, I will write your Epitaph,” 
 which was as follows— 
 
 “ Here lieth the body of Colonel Corsellis ; 
 
 The rest of the fellow, I fancy, in hell is.’ 
 
 After which we went at it “ hammer and tongs.” 
 
 I shall say no more upon the subject; it is, perhaps, the part of 
 my life upon which my mind dwells with least satisfaction. In 
 addition to regimental troubles, there were not a few domestic dis¬ 
 agreeables, especially complications, with a young person named 
 Nur Jan. To make matters worse, after a dreadful wet night my 
 mud bungalow came down upon me, wounding my foot.J The only 
 pleasant reminiscences of the time are the days spent in the quarters 
 of an old native friend § on the banks of the beautiful Phuleli,. 
 seated upon a felt rug, spread beneath a shadowy tamarind tree, 
 with beds of sweet-smelling i A ayhan (basil) around, and eyes looking 
 over the broad smooth stream and the gaily dressed groups gathered 
 at the frequent ferries. I need hardly say that these visits were 
 paid in native costume, and so correct was it, that I, on camel’s back, 
 frequently passed my Commanding Officer in the Gateway of Fort 
 
 * “ Scinde,” vol. ii. p. 258, etc. 
 
 t “Sind Revisited,” vol. i. p. 256, shows how I found rr.y old home in 1876. 
 
 j “ Scinde,” vol. i. p. 151. 
 
 § “Falconry,” pp. 103-105. 
 
India. 
 
 85 
 
 Hyderabad, without his recognizing me. I had also a host of good 
 friends, especially Dr. J. J. Steinhaiiser, who, in after years, was to 
 have accompanied me, but for an accident, to Lake Tanganyika, and 
 who afterwards became my collaborateur in the “Thousand Nights 
 and a Night.” 
 
 The hot season of 1846 was unusually sickly, and the white regi¬ 
 ments at Karachi, notably the 78th Highlanders, suffered terribly. 
 Hyderabad was also threatened, but escaped better than she 
 deserved. In early July I went into “sick quarters,” and left my 
 regiment in early September, with a strong case. At Bombay my 
 friend Henry J. Carter assisted me, and enabled me to obtain two 
 years’ leave of absence to the Neilgherries. 
 
 My munshi , Mohammed Husayn, had sailed for Persia, and I at 
 once engaged an Arab “ coach.” This was one Haji Jauhur, a young 
 Abyssinian, who, with his wife, of the same breed, spoke a curious 
 Semitic dialect, and was useful in conversational matters. Accom¬ 
 panied by my servants and horse, I engaged the usual pattymar , the 
 Daryd Prashad (“Joy of the Ocean”), and set sail for Goa on 
 February 20th, 1847. In three days’ trip we landed in the once 
 splendid capital, whose ruins I have described in “ Goa and the 
 Blue Mountains” (1851). Dorn Pestanha was the Governor- 
 General, Senhor Gomez Secretary to Government, and Major St. 
 Maurice chief aide-de-camp, and all treated me with uncommon 
 kindness. On my third visit to the place in 1876, all my old 
 friends and acquaintances had disappeared, whilst the other sur¬ 
 roundings had not changed in the least degree. 
 
 From Goa to Punany was a trip of five days, and from the little 
 Malabar Port, a terrible dull ride cf ten days, halts and excursions 
 included, with the only excitement of being nearly drowned in a 
 torrent, placed me at Conoor, on the western edge of the “Blue 
 Mountains.” At Ootacamund, the capital of the sanitarium, I 
 found a friend, Lieutenant Dyett, who offered to share with me his 
 quarters. Poor fellow! he suffered sadly in the Multan campaign, 
 where most of the wounded came to grief, some said owing to the 
 salt in the silt, which made so many operations fatal; after three 
 amputations his arm was taken out of the socket. I have noted the 
 humours of “ Ooty ” in the book before mentioned, and I made 
 myself independent of society by beginning the study of Telugu 
 in addition to Arabic. 
 
 But the sudden change from dry Scinde to the damp cold moun¬ 
 tains induced in me an attack of rheumatic ophthalmia, which began 
 at the end of May, 1847, and lasted nearly two years, and would not 
 be shaken off till I left India in March, 1849. In vain I tried diet 
 
86 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 and dark rooms, change of place, blisters of sorts, and the whole 
 contents of the Pharmacopoeia ; it was a thorn in the flesh which 
 determined to make itself felt. At intervals I was able to work hard 
 and to visit the adjacent places, such as Kotagherry, the Orange 
 Valley, and St. Catherine’s Falls.* Meanwhile I wrote letters to the 
 Bombay Times , and studied Telugu and Toda as well as Persian and 
 Arabic, and worked at the ethnology of Hylobius the Hillman, whose 
 country showed mysterious remains of civilized life, gold mining 
 included. 
 
 “ Ooty ” may be a pleasant place, like a water-cure establishment 
 to an invalid in rude health ; but to me nothing could be duller or 
 more disagreeable, and my two years of sick leave was consequently 
 reduced to four months. On September ist, 1847, glad as a 
 partridge-shooter, I rode down the Ghat, and a dozen days later made 
 Calicut, the old capital of Camoens’ “ Jamorim,” the Samriry Rajah. 
 Here I was kindly received, and sent to visit old Calicut and other 
 sights, by Mr. Collector Conolly, whom a Madras civilianship could 
 not defend from Fate. A short time after my departure he was set 
 upon and barbarously murdered in his own verandah, by a band 
 of villain Afoplahs,\ a bastard race got by Arab sires on Hindu 
 dams. He was thus the third of the gallant brothers who came to 
 violent end. 
 
 This visit gave me a good opportunity of studying on the spot 
 the most remarkable scene of “ The Lusiads,” and it afterwards 
 served me in good stead. The Seaforth , Captain Biggs, carried 
 me to Bombay, after passing visits to Mangalore and Goa, in three 
 days of ugly monsoon weather. On October 15th I passed in Persian 
 at the Town Hall, coming out first of some thirty, with a compliment 
 from the examiners; and this was succeeded by something more 
 substantial, in the shape of an “honorarium” of Rs. 1000 from the 
 Court of Directors. 
 
 This bright side of the medal had its reverse. A friend, an Irish 
 medico, volunteered to prescribe for me, and strongly recommended 
 frictions of citric ointment (calomel in disguise) round the orbit 
 of the eye, and my perseverance in his prescription developed 
 ugly symptoms of mercurialism, which eventually drove me from 
 India. 
 
 My return to Scinde was in the s.s. Dwarka , the little vessel which, 
 in 1853, carried me from Jeddah to Suez, and which, in 1862, 
 foundered at the mouth of the Tapti or Surat river. She belonged 
 to the Steam Navigation Company, Bombay, and she had been 
 
 * “Goa,” etc., p. 355. 
 
 t See Ibid., p. 339. 
 
India . 
 
 87 
 
 brought safely round the Cape by the skipper, a man named Tribe. 
 That “ climate ” had demoralized him. He set out from Karach 
 without even an able seaman who knew the Coast; the Captain and 
 his Mate were drunk and incapable the whole way. As we were 
 about to enter the dangerous port, my fellow-passengers insisted upon 
 my taking Command as Senior Officer, and I ordered the Dwarkas 
 head to be turned westward under the easiest steam, so that next 
 morning we landed safely. 
 
 My return to head-quarters of the Survey was a misfortune to my 
 comrades; my eyes forbade regular work, and my friends had to 
 bear my share of the burden. However, there were painless intervals 
 when I found myself able to work at Sindf under Munshi Nandu, 
 and at Arabic under Shaykh Hashim, a small half-Bedawin, who had 
 been imported by me from Bombay. Under him also I began the 
 systematic study of practical Moslem divinity, learned about a 
 quarter of the Koran by heart, and became a proficient at prayer. 
 It was always my desire to visit Meccah during the pilgrimage 
 season; written descriptions by hearsay of its rites and ceremonies 
 were common enough in all languages, European as well as native, 
 but none satisfied me, because none seemed practically to know 
 anything about the matter. So to this preparation I devoted all my 
 time and energy; not forgetting a sympathetic study of Sufi-ism, the 
 Gnosticism of Al-Islam, which would raise me high above the rank 
 of a mere Moslem. I conscientiously went through the chilld , or 
 quarantine of fasting and other exercises, which, by-the-by, proved 
 rather over-exciting to the brain. At times, when overstrung, I 
 relieved my nerves with a course of Sikh religion and literature : 
 the good old priest solemnly initiated me in presence of the swinging 
 Granth , or Nana Shah’s Scripture. As I had already been duly 
 invested by a strict Hindi! with the Janeo , or “ Brahminical thread,” 
 my experience of Eastern faiths became phenomenal, and I became 
 a Master-Sufi. 
 
 The spring of 1848, that most eventful year in Europe, brought 
 us two most exciting items of intelligence. The proclamation of the 
 French Republic reached us on April 8th, and on May 2nd came 
 the news of the murder of Anderson and his companion by Nio Mall 
 of Multan. 
 
 Richard wrote a little bit of autobiography about himself in 1852. 
 In case all may not have seen it, and many may not remember it, I 
 here insert it. 
 
 Richard Burton’s Little Autobiography. 
 
 “ The only scrap of autobiography we have from Richard Burton’s 
 pen,” said Alfred Richard Bates, “ was written very early in life, whilst 
 
88 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 in India, and dates thirty years ago. It is so characteristic it deserves 
 to be perpetuated:— 
 
 tl In India two roads lead to preferment. The direct highway is 
 ‘ service; *—getting a flesh wound, cutting down a few of the enemy, 
 and doing something eccentric, so that your name may creep into 
 a despatch. The other path, study of the languages, is a rugged 
 and tortuous one, still you have only to plod steadily along its 
 length, and, sooner or later, you must come to a ‘ staff appointment.’ 
 Bien entendu , I suppose you to be destitute of or deficient in 
 Interest whose magic influence sets you down at once a heaven- 
 born Staff Officer, at the goal which others must toil to reach. 
 
 A dozen lessons from Professor Forbes and a native servant on 
 board the John Knox enabled me to land with eclat as a griff, and 
 to astonish the throng of palanquin bearers that jostled, pushed, and 
 pulled me at the pier head, with the vivacity and nervousness of my 
 phraseology. And I spent the first evening in company with one 
 Dosabhai Sohrabji, a white-bearded Parsee, who, in his quality of 
 language-master, had vernacularized the tongues of Hormuzd knows 
 how many generations of A.nglo-Indian subalterns. 
 
 “ The corps to which I was appointed was then in country quarters 
 at Baroda, in the land of Gujerat; the journey was a long one, the 
 difficulty of finding good instructors there was great, so was the 
 expense, moreover fevers abounded ; and, lastly, it was not so easy 
 to obtain leave of absence to visit the Presidency, where candidates 
 for the honours of language are examined. These were serious 
 obstacles to success ; they were surmounted, however, in six months, 
 at the end of which time I found myself in the novel position of 
 ‘ passed interpreter in Hindostani.’ 
 
 “ My success—for I had distanced a field of eleven—encouraged 
 me to a second attempt, and though I had to front all the difficulties 
 over again, in four months my name appeared in orders as qualified 
 to interpret in the Guzerattee tongue. 
 
 “ Meanwhile the Ameers of Sind had exchanged their palaces at 
 Haydardbad for other quarters not quite so comfortable at Hazaree- 
 bagh, and we were ordered up to the Indus for the pleasant purpose 
 of acting police there. Knowing the Conqueror’s chief want, a man 
 who could speak a word of his pet conquest’s vernacular dialect, I 
 had not been a week at Kardchee before I found a language-master 
 and a book. But the study was undertaken invitd minervd. We 
 were quartered in tents, dust-storms howled over us daily, drills and 
 brigade parades were never ending, and, as I was acting interpreter 
 to my regiment, courts-martial of dreary length occupied the best 
 part of my time. Besides, it was impossible to work in such an 
 atmosphere of discontent. The seniors abhorred the barren desolate 
 spot, with all its inglorious perils of fever, spleen, dysentery, and 
 congestion of the brain, the juniors grumbled in sympathy, and the 
 Staff officers, ordered up to rejoin the corps-—it was on field service 
 —complained bitterly of having to quit their comfortable appoint¬ 
 ments in more favoured lands without even a campaign in prospect. 
 So when, a month or two after landing in the country, we were 
 
India . 
 
 89 
 
 transferred from Kardchee to Gharra—purgatory to the other locale 
 —I threw aside Sindf for Maharattee, hoping, by dint of reiterated 
 examinations, to escape the place of torment as soon as possible. 
 It was very like studying Russian in an English country-town; how¬ 
 ever, with the assistance of Molesworth’s excellent dictionary, and the 
 regimental pundit, or schoolmaster, I gained some knowledge of the 
 dialect, and proved myself duly qualified in it at Bombay. At the same 
 time a brother subaltern and I had jointly leased a Persian ?noo7i- 
 shee , one Mirza Mohammed Hosayn, of Shiraz. Poor fellow, after 
 passing through the fires of Sind unscathed, he returned to his delight¬ 
 ful land for a few weeks, to die there !—and we laid the foundation 
 of a lengthened course of reading in that most elegant of Oriental 
 languages. 
 
 “ Now it is a known fact that a good Staff appointment has the 
 general effect of doing away with one’s bad opinion of any place 
 whatever. So when, by the kindness of a friend whose name his 
 modesty prevents my mentioning, the Governor of Sind was persuaded 
 to give me the temporary appointment of Assistant in the Survey, 
 I began to look with interest upon the desolation around me. The 
 country was a new one, so was its population, so was their language. 
 After reading all the works published upon the subject, I felt 
 convinced that none but Mr. Crow and Captain J. MacMurdo had 
 dipped beneath the superficies of things. My new duties compelled 
 me to spend the cold season in wandering over the districts, 
 levelling the beds of canals, and making preparatory sketches for 
 a grand survey. I was thrown so entirely amongst the people as to 
 depend upon them for society, and the ‘dignity/ not to mention 
 the increased allowances of a Staff officer, enabled me to collect a 
 fair stock of books, and to gather around me those who could make 
 them of any use. So, after the first year, when I had Persian at 
 my fingers’-ends, sufficient Arabic to read, write, and converse 
 fluently, and a superficial knowledge of that dialect of Punjaubee 
 which is spoken in the wilder parts of the province, I began the 
 systematic study of the Sindian people, their manners and their 
 tongue. 
 
 “ The first difficulty was to pass for an Oriental, and this was as 
 necessary as it was difficult. The European official in India seldom, 
 if ever, sees anything in its real light, so dense is the veil which the 
 fearfulness, the duplicity, the prejudice, and the superstitions of 
 the natives hang before his eyes. And the white man lives a life 
 so distinct from the black, that hundreds of the former serve through 
 what they call their ‘ term of exile ’ without once being present at 
 a circumcision feast, a wedding, or a funeral. More especially the 
 present generation, whom the habit and the means of taking 
 furloughs, the increased facility for enjoying ladies’ society, and, if 
 truth be spoken, a greater regard for appearances, if not a stricter 
 code of morality, estrange from their dusky fellow-subjects every day 
 more and more. After trying several characters, the easiest to be 
 assumed was, I found, that of a half-Arab, half-Iranian, such as may 
 be met with in thousands along the northern shore of the Persian 
 
90 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Gulf. The Sindians would have detected in a moment the difference 
 between my articulation and their own, had I attempted to speak 
 their vernacular dialect, but they attributed the accent to my strange 
 country, as naturally as a home-bred Englishman would account for 
 the bad pronunciation of a foreigner calling himself partly Spanish, 
 partly Portuguese. Besides, I knew the countries along the Gulf by 
 heart from books, I had a fair knowledge of the Shiah form of 
 worship prevalent in Persia, and my poor moonshee was generally 
 at hand to support me in times of difficulty, so that the danger of 
 being detected—even by a * real Simon Pure ’—was a very incon¬ 
 siderable one. 
 
 “With hair falling upon his shoulders, a long beard, face and 
 hands, arms and feet, stained with a thin coat of henna, Mirza 
 Abdullah of Bushire—your humble servant—set out upon many and 
 many a trip. He was a bazzaz , a vendor of fine linen, calicoes, and 
 muslins—such chapmen are sometimes admitted to display their 
 wares, even in the sacred harem, by ‘ fast’ and fashionable dames— 
 and he had a little pack of bijouterie and virtil reserved for 
 emergencies. It was only, however, when absolutely necessary that 
 he displayed his stock-in-trade; generally, he contented himself with 
 alluding to it on all possible occasions, boasting largely of his 
 traffic, and asking a thousand questions concerning the state of the 
 market. Thus he could walk into most men’s houses, quite without 
 ceremony; even if the master dreamed of kicking him out, the 
 mistress was sure to oppose such measure with might and main. 
 He secured numberless invitations, was proposed to by several 
 papas, and won, or had to think he won, a few hearts; for he came 
 as a rich man and he stayed with dignity, and he departed exacting 
 all the honours. When wending his ways he usually urged a return 
 of visit in the morning, but he was seldom to be found at the 
 caravanserai he specified—was Mirza Abdullah the Bushiri. 
 
 “ The timid villagers collected in crowds to see the rich merchant 
 in Oriental dress, riding spear in hand, and pistols in holsters, 
 towards the little encampment pitched near their settlements. But 
 regularly every evening on the line of march the Mirza issued from 
 his tent and wandered amongst them, collecting much information 
 and dealing out more concerning an ideal master—the Feringhee 
 supposed to be sitting in State amongst the moonshees , the Scribes, 
 the servants, the wheels, the chains, the telescopes, and the other 
 magical implements in which the camp abounded. When travelling, 
 the Mirza became this mysterious person’s factotum, and often had 
 he to answer the question how much his perquisites and illicit gains 
 amounted to in the course of the year. 
 
 “ When the Mirza arrived at a strange town, his first step was to 
 secure a house in or near the bazar, for the purpose of evening 
 conversazioni . Now and then he rented a shop, and furnished it 
 with clammy dates, viscid molasses, tobacco, ginger, rancid oil, and 
 strong-smelling sweetmeats; and wonderful tales Fame told about 
 these establishments. Yet somehow or other, though they were 
 more crowded than a first-rate milliner’s rooms in town, they throve 
 
India . 
 
 9 1 
 
 not in a pecuniary point of view; the cause of which was, I believe, 
 that the polite Mirza was in the habit of giving the heaviest possible 
 weight for their money to all the ladies, particularly the pretty ones, 
 that honoured him by patronizing his concern. 
 
 “ Sometimes the Mirza passed the evening in a mosque listening 
 to the ragged students who, stretched at full length with their 
 stomachs on the dusty floor, and their arms supporting their heads, 
 mumbled out Arabic from the thumbed, soiled, and tattered pages 
 of theology upon which a dim oil light shed its scanty ray, or he sat 
 debating the niceties of faith with the long-bearded, shaven-pated, 
 blear-eyed, and stolid-faced genus loci , the Mullah . At other times, 
 when in merrier mood, he entered uninvited the first door whence 
 issued the sounds of music and the dance;—a clean turban and 
 a polite bow are the best 1 tickets for soup ’ the East knows. Or he 
 played chess with some native friend, or he consorted with the hemp- 
 drinkers and opium-eaters in the estaminets, or he visited the Mrs. 
 Gadabouts and Go-betweens who make matches amongst the Faith¬ 
 ful, and gathered from them a precious budget of private history 
 and domestic scandal. 
 
 “ What scenes he saw ! what adventures he went through ! But 
 who would believe, even if he ventured to detail them ? * 
 
 “ The Mirza’s favourite school for study was the house of an elderly 
 matron on the banks of the Fulailee River, about a mile from the 
 Fort of HaydaraMd. Khanum Jan had been a beauty in her youth, 
 and the tender passion had been hard upon her—at least judging 
 from the fact that she had fled her home, her husband, and her native 
 town, Candahar, in company with Mohammed Bakhsh, a purblind 
 old tailor, the object of her warmest affections. 
 
 “‘Ah, he is a regular old hyaena now,’would the Joan exclaim 
 in her outlandish Persian, pointing to the venerable Darby as he sat 
 in the cool shade, nodding his head and winking his eyes over a 
 pair of pantaloons which took him a month to sew, ‘ but you should 
 have seen him fifteen years ago, what a wonderful youth he was !’ 
 
 “The knowledge of one mind is that of a million—after a fashion. 
 I addressed myself particularly to that of ‘Darby;’ and many an 
 hour of tough thought it took me before I had mastered its truly 
 Oriental peculiarities, its regular irregularities of deduction, and its 
 strange monotonous one-idea’dness. 
 
 “ Khanum Jan’s house was a mud edifice, occupying one side of 
 a square formed by tall, thin, crumbling mud walls. The respectable 
 matron’s peculiar vanity was to lend a helping hand in all manner 
 of affawes du coeur. So it often happened that Mirza Abdullah was 
 turned out of the house to pass a few hours in the garden. There 
 he sat upon his felt rug spread beneath a shadowy tamarind, with 
 beds of sweet-smelling basil around him, his eyes roving over the 
 broad river that coursed rapidly between its wooded banks and the 
 groups gathered at the frequent ferries, whilst the soft strains of 
 mysterious, philosophical, transcendental Hafiz were sounded in his 
 ears by the other Mirza, his companion; Mohammed Hosayn— 
 peace be upon him ! 
 
92 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “Of all economical studies this course was the cheapest. For 
 tobacco daily, for frequent draughts of milk, for hemp occasionally, 
 for four months’ lectures from Mohammed Bakhsh, and for sundry 
 other little indulgences, the Mirza paid, it is calculated, the sum of 
 six shillings. When he left Haydaffibad, he gave a silver talisman 
 to the dame, and a cloth coat to her protector: long may they live 
 to wear them ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 “Thus it was I formed my estimate of the native character. I 
 am as ready to reform it when a man of more extensive experience 
 and greater knowledge of the subject will kindly show me how far 
 it transgresses the well-established limits of moderation. As yet I 
 hold, by way of general rule, that the Eastern mind—I talk of the 
 nations known to me by personal experience—is always in extremes ; 
 that it ignores what is meant by ‘golden mean,’ and that it delights 
 to range in flights limited only by the ne plus ultra of Nature herself. 
 Under which conviction I am open to correction. 
 
 “ Richard F. Burton.” 
 
 During those first seven years in India, Richard passed in Hin- 
 dostani, Guzaratee, Persian, Maharattee, Sindhee, Punjaubee, Arabic, 
 Telugu, Pushtft (Afghan tongue), with Turkish and Armenian. In 
 1844 he went to Scinde with the 18th Native Infantry, and Colonel 
 Walter Scott put him on Sir Charles Napier’s staff, who soon found out 
 what he was worth, and turned his merits to account, but he accom¬ 
 panied his regiment to Mooltan to attack the Sikhs. He became 
 much attached to his Chief; they quite understood each other, and 
 remained together for five years. Richard’s training was of the 
 uncommon sort, and glorious as it was, dangerous as it was, and 
 romantic as it will ever be to posterity, he did not get from dense 
 and narrow-minded Governments those rewards which men who risk 
 their lives deserve, and which would have been given to the man 
 who took care of “number one,” and who, with average stupidity, 
 worked on red-tape lines. He was sent out amongst the wild tribes 
 of the hills and plains to collect information for Sir Charles. He 
 did not go as a British officer or Commissioner, because he knew 
 he would see nothing but what the natives chose him to see; he 
 let down a curtain between himself and Civilization, and a tattered, 
 dirty-looking dervish would wander on foot, lodge in mosques, 
 where he was venerated as a saintly man, mix with the strangest 
 company, join the Beloch and the Brahui tribes (Indo-Scythians), 
 about whom there was nothing then known. Sometimes he ap¬ 
 peared in the towns; as a merchant he opened a shop, sold stuffs 
 or sweatmeats in the bazaar. Sometimes he worked with the men 
 in native dress, “ Jats” and Camel men, at levelling canals. 
 
 When Richard was in India he at one time got rather tired of the 
 daily Mess, and living with men, and he thought he should like to 
 
India . 
 
 93 
 
 learn the manners, customs, and habits of monkeys, so he collected 
 forty monkeys of all kinds of ages, races, species, and he lived with 
 them, and he used to call them by different offices. He had his 
 doctor, his chaplain, his secretary, his aide-de-camp, his agent, and 
 one tiny one, a very pretty, small, silky-looking monkey, he used to call 
 his wife, and put pearls in her ears. His great amusement was to 
 keep a kind of refectory for them, where they all sat down on chairs 
 at meals, and the servants waited on them, and each had its bowl 
 and plate, with the food and drinks proper for them. He sat at the 
 head of the table, and the pretty little monkey sat by him in a high 
 baby’s chair, with a little bar before it. He had a little whip on the 
 table, with which he used to keep them in order when they had bad 
 manners, which did sometimes occur, as they frequently used to get 
 jealous of the little monkey, and try to claw her. He did this for 
 the sake of doing what Mr. Garner is now doing, that of ascertaining 
 and studying the language of monkeys, so that he used regularly to 
 talk to them, and pronounce their sounds afterwards, till he and the 
 monkeys at last got quite to understand each other. He obtained 
 as many as sixty words, I think twenty more than Mr. Garner—that 
 is, leading words—and he wrote them down and formed a vocabu¬ 
 lary, meaning to pursue his studies at some future time. Mr. Garner 
 has now the advantage of phonographs, and all sorts of appliances. 
 Had Richard been alive, he could have helped him greatly. Unfor¬ 
 tunately his monkey vocabulary was burnt in Grindlay’s fire. He 
 also writes—but this was with his regiment— 
 
 “ Amongst other remarkable experiments made by me, a S^nyasi, 
 whom I knew, talked to me about their manner of burying themselves 
 alive. I said I would not believe it unless I saw it. The native there¬ 
 fore told me that he would prove it, by letting me try it; but that he 
 should require three days for preparation, and hoped for a reward. 
 Accordingly for three days he made his preparations by swallowing 
 immense draughts of milk. I refused to put him in a coffin, or 
 to bury him in the earth, lest he should die ; but he lay down 
 in a hammock, rolled his tongue up in his throat, and appeared 
 to be dead. My brother officers and I then slung him up to the 
 ceiling by four large hooks and ropes, lying comfortably in the 
 hammock, and, to avoid trickery, one of us w r as always on guard 
 day and night, each taking two hours’ watch at a time. After 
 three weeks we began to get frightened, because if the man died 
 there would be such a scandal. So we lowered him down, and tried 
 to awake him. We opened his mouth and tried to unroll his tongue 
 into its natural position. He then, after some time, woke perfectly 
 well We gave him food, paid him a handsome reward, and he 
 went away quite delighted, offering to do it for three months, if it 
 pleased us.” 
 
94 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Richard would be in a dozen different capacities on his travels, 
 but when he returned, he was rich with news and information for Sir 
 Charles, for he arrived at secrets quite out of the reach of the British 
 Army. He knew all that the natives knew, which was more than 
 British officers and surveyors did. General MacMurdo consulted 
 his journals and Survey books, which were highly praised by the 
 Surveyor-General. He was frequently in the presence of and 
 speaking before his own Colonel without his having the slightest 
 idea that it was Richard. 
 
 Sir Charles Napier liked decision; he hated a man who had not 
 an answer ready for him. For instance, a young man would go and 
 ask him for an appointment. Sir Charles would say, “ What do you 
 want ? ” The youth of firm mind would answer, “ An Adjutancy, Sir.” 
 “ All right,” said Sir Charles, and he probably got it. But “ Any¬ 
 thing you please, Sir Charles,” would be sure to be contemptuously 
 dismissed. On returning from his native researches, Sir Charles 
 would ask Richard such questions as: “ Is it true that native 
 high-class landowners, who monopolize the fiefs about the heads 
 of the canals, neglect to clear out the tails, and allow Govern¬ 
 ment ground and the peasants’ fields to lie barren for want of 
 water ? ” 
 
 “ Perfectly true, Sir.” 
 
 “ What would be my best course then ? ” 
 
 “ Simply to confiscate the whole or part of those estates, 
 Sir.” 
 
 “ H’m ! You don’t mince matters, Burton.” 
 
 He once asked Richard how many bricks there were in a newly 
 built bridge (an impossible question, such as are put to lads whom the 
 examiner intends to pluck). Richard, knowing his foible, answered, 
 “229,010, Sir Charles.” He turned away and smiled. Another 
 time he ordered a review on a grand scale to impress certain 
 Chiefs— 
 
 “ Lieutenant Burton, be pleased to inform these gentlemen that I 
 propose to form these men in line, then to break into Echelon by 
 the right, and to form square on the centre battalion,” and so on, 
 for about five minutes in military technical terms, for which there 
 were no equivalents in these men’s dialects. 
 
 “Yes, Sir,” said Richard, saluting. 
 
 Turning to the Chiefs, Richard said, “ Oh, Chiefs ! our Great Man 
 is going to show you the way we fight, and you must be attentive to 
 the rules.” He then touched his cap to Sir Charles. 
 
 “ Have you explained all ? ” he asked. 
 
 “ Everything, Sir,” answered Richard. 
 
India. 
 
 95 
 
 “A most concentrated language that must be,” said Sir Charles, 
 riding off with his nose in the air. 
 
 After seven years of this kind of life, overwork, overstudy, combined 
 with the hot season, and the march up the Indus Valley, told on 
 Richard’s health, and at the end of the campaign he was attacked 
 by severe ophthalmia, the result of mental and physical fatigue, and 
 he was ordered to take a short rest. He utilized that leave in going 
 to Goa, and especially to Old Goa, where, as he said himself, he 
 made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, and explored 
 the scenes of the Inquisition. At last news reached him that another 
 campaign was imminent in Mooltan, that Sir Charles Napier would 
 take command; Colonel Scott and a host of friends were ordered 
 up. He writes as follows :— 
 
 “ I applied in almost suppliant terms to accompany the force as 
 interpreter. I had passed examinations in six native languages, be¬ 
 sides studying others, Multani included, and yet General Auchmuty’s 
 secretary wrote to me that this could not be, as he had chosen 
 for the post Lieutenant X. Y. Z., who had passed in Hindustani. 
 
 “This last misfortune broke my heart. I had been seven 
 years in India, working like a horse, volunteering for every bit of 
 service, and qualifying myself for all contingencies. Rheumatic 
 ophthalmia, which had almost left me when in hopes of marching 
 northward, came on with redoubled force, and no longer had I any 
 hope of curing it except by a change to Europe. Sick, sorry, and 
 almost in tears of rage, I bade adieu to my friends and comrades in 
 Sind. At Bombay there was no difficulty in passing the Medical 
 Board, and I embarked at Bombay for a passage round the Cape, 
 as the Austral winter was approaching, in a sixty-year-old teak-built 
 craft, the brig Eliza, Captain Cory. 
 
 “ My career in India had been in my eyes a failure, and by no 
 fault of my own; the dwarfish demon called ‘ Interest 5 had fought 
 against me, and as usual had won the fight.” 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MECCA. 
 
 When Richard came home, he first ran down full of joy to visit all 
 his relations and friends. He then went to Oxford with half a mind 
 to take his degree. He was between twenty-eight and twenty-nine 
 years of age. In 1850 he went back to France, and devoted himself 
 to fencing. To this day “ the Burton une-deux ,” and notably the 
 manchette (the upward slash, disabling the swordarm, and saving 
 life in affairs of honour), earned him his brevet de point* for the 
 
 LUNGE AND CUT IN CARTE (INSIDE). 
 
 excellence of his swordsmanship, and he became a Maitre d'armes. 
 Indeed, as horseman, swordsman, and marksman, no soldier of his 
 day surpassed him, and very few equalled him. His family, that 
 is his father, mother and sister, with her two children—-her husband 
 
 96 
 
Mecca. 
 
 97 
 
 being in India, and his brother Edward in the 37th Regiment 
 (Queen’s)—went to Boulogne, like all the rest of us, for change, quiet, 
 and economy, and there he joined them. 
 
 We did exactly the same, the object being to put me and my 
 sisters into the Sacre Cceur to learn French. Boulogne, in those 
 days, was a very different town to what it is now. It was “the 
 home of the stranger who had done something wrong.” The natives 
 were of the usual merchant, or rich bourgeoisie class; there was a 
 sprinkling of local ?ioblesse in the Haute-Ville ; the gem of the 
 natives in the lower class were the Poissardes, who hold themselves 
 entirely distinct from the town, are a cross between Spanish and 
 Flemish, and in those days were headed by a handsome “Queen” 
 called Caroline, long since dead. The English colony was very 
 large. The creme, who did not mix with the general “smart 
 people,” were the Seymours, Dundases, Chichesters, Jerninghams, 
 Bedingfelds, Cliffords, Molyneux-Seels, and ourselves. Maybe I 
 have forgotten many others. 
 
 The rest of the colony, instead of living like the colonies that 
 Richard describes at Tours, used to walk a great deal up and down 
 the Grand Rue, which was the fashionable lounge, the Rue de 
 l’ticu, the Quai, and the Pier. The men were handsome and smart, 
 and beautifully dressed, with generally an immense amount of white 
 shirt-front, as in the Park, and the girls were pretty and well 
 dressed. So were the young married women in those days. The 
 £tablissement was a sort of Casino, where everybody passed their 
 evening, except the crbme ; they had music, dancing, cards, old 
 ladies knitting, and refreshments, and it was the hotbed, like a club, 
 of all the gossip and flirtation, with an occasional roaring scandal. 
 
 The hardship of my life and that of my sisters, was, that our 
 mother would never let us set foot inside of it, which was naturally 
 the only thing we longed to do, so that we had terribly dull, slow 
 lives. Here Richard brought out his “Goa,” his two books on Scinde, 
 and his “Falconry,” and prepared a book that came out in 1853, 
 “ A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise,” of which, I regret to 
 say, the only copy I possessed has been lost with the manuscript 
 at David Bogue’s. People were now beginning to say that “ Burton 
 was an awfully clever young fellow, a man of great mark, in fact the 
 coming man.” Whilst I am speaking of that system of bayonet 
 exercise, I may say that it was, as all he did, undervalued at the 
 time , but still it has long been the one used by the Horseguards. 
 Colonel Sykes, who was Richard’s friend, sent for him, and sharply 
 rebuked him with printing a book that would do far more harm 
 than good. 
 
 G 
 
gS The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 It was thought that bayonet exercise would make the men 
 unsteady in the ranks. The importance of bayonet exercise was 
 recognized everywhere except in England. Richard detected our 
 weak point in military system, and he knew that it would be the 
 British soldier’s forte when properly used Richard was not “in 
 the ring,” but when that was proved, his pamphlet was taken 
 down from the dusty pigeon-hole, and a few modifications—not 
 improvements—were added, so as to enable a just and enlightened 
 War Office, not to send him a word of thanks, a compliment, an 
 expression of official recognition, which was all his soul craved for, 
 but a huge letter from the Treasury, with a seal the size of a baby’s 
 fist, with a gracious permission to draw upon the Treasury for the 
 sum of one shilling. 
 
 Richard always appreciated humour. He went to the War Office 
 at once, was sent to half a dozen different rooms, and, to the intense 
 astonishment of all the clerks, after three-quarters of an hour’s very 
 hard work he drew his shilling, and instead of framing it, he gave it 
 to the first hungry beggar that he saw as soon as he came out of the 
 War Office. 
 
 “ Lord love yer, sir,” said the beggar. 
 
 “No, my man, I don’t exactly expect Him to do that. But I 
 dare say you want a drink ? ” 
 
 He did not lead the life that was led by the general colony at 
 Boulogne. He had a little set of men friends, knew some of the 
 French, had a great many flirtations, one very serious one. He 
 passed his days in literature and fencing : at home he was most 
 domestic; his devotion to his parents, especially to his sick mother, 
 was beautiful. 
 
 My sisters and I were kept at French all day, music and other 
 studies, but were frequently turned into the Ramparts, which would 
 give one a mile’s walk around, to do our reading; then we had a turn 
 down the Grande Rue, the Rue de l’Ecu, the Quai, and the Pier at 
 the fashionable hour, for a treat, or else we were taken a long country 
 walk, or a long row up the river Liane in the summer time, where 
 we occasionally saw a Guingette; but we were religiously marched 
 home at half-past eight to supper and bed, unless one of the creme 
 gave a dull tea-party.' 
 
 One day, when we were on the Ramparts, the vision of my 
 awakening brain came towards us. He was five feet eleven inches 
 in height, very broad, thin, and muscular;* he had very dark hair, 
 
 * He was so broad and muscular that he did not look more than five feet nine 
 —but he really was two inches taller, and the one complaint of his life was not to 
 be able to grow another inch to make six feet. 
 
Mecca. 
 
 99 
 
 black, clearly defined, sagacious eyebrows, a brown weather-beaten 
 complexion, straight Arab features, a determined-looking mouth 
 and chin, nearly covered by an enormous black moustache. I have 
 since heard a clever friend say “ that he had the brow of a God, the 
 jaw of a Devil.” But the most remarkable part of his appearance 
 was, two large black flashing eyes with long lashes, that pierced 
 you through and through. He had a fierce, proud, melancholy 
 expression, and when he smiled, he smiled as though it hurt him, 
 and looked with impatient contempt at things generally. He was 
 dressed in a black, short, shaggy coat, and shouldered a short thick 
 stick as if he was on guard. 
 
 He looked at me as though he read me through and through in a 
 moment, and started a little. I was completely magnetized, and 
 when we had got a little distance away I turned to my sister, and 
 whispered to her, “That man will marry me” The next day he 
 was there again, and he followed us, and chalked up, “ May I 
 speak to you ? ” leaving the chalk on the wall, so I took up the chalk 
 and wrote back, “ No, mother will be angry ; ” and mother found it,— 
 and was angry ; and after that we were stricter prisoners than ever. 
 However, “ destiny is stronger than custom.” A mother and a pretty 
 daughter came to Boulogne, who happened to be a cousin of m; 
 father’s; they joined the majority in the Society sense, and one 
 day we were allowed to walk on the Ramparts with them. There I 
 met Richard, who—agony !—was flirting with the daughter; we were 
 formally introduced, and the name Burton made me start. 
 
 I did not try to attract his attention; but whenever he came 
 to the usual promenade I would invent any excuse that came, 
 to take another turn to watch him, if he was not looking. If 
 I could catch the sound of his deep voice, it seemed to me 
 so soft and sweet, that I remained spell-bound, as when I hear 
 gypsy-music. I never lost an opportunity of seeing him, when I 
 could not be seen, and as I used to turn red and pale, hot and 
 cold, dizzy and faint, sick and trembling, and my knees used to 
 nearly give way under me, my mother sent for the doctor, to 
 complain that my digestion was out of order, and that I got 
 migraines in the street, and he prescribed me a pill which I put in 
 the fire. All girls will sympathize with me. I was struck with the 
 shaft of Destiny, but I had no hopes (being nothing but an ugly 
 schoolgirl) of taking the wind out of the sails of the dashing 
 creature, with whom he was carrying on a very serious flirtation. 
 
 In early days Richard had got into a rather strong flirtation with a 
 very handsome and very fast girl, who had a vulgar, middle-class 
 
IOO 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 sort of mother. One day he was rather alarmed at getting a polite 
 but somewhat imperious note from the mother, asking him to call 
 upon her. He obeyed, but he took with him his friend Dr. Stein- 
 haiiser, a charming man, who looked as if his face was carved out of 
 wood. After the preliminaries of a rather formal reception, in a 
 very prim-looking drawing-room, the lady began, looking severely at 
 him, “I sent for you, Captain Burton, because I think it my dooty 
 to ask what your intentions are with regard to my daughter ?” 
 Richard put on his most infantile face of perplexity as he said, “ Your 
 
 dooty, madam-” and, then, as if he was trying to recall things, and 
 
 after awhile suddenly seizing the facts of the case, he got up and 
 said, “Alas! madam, strictly dishonourable,” and shaking his head 
 as if he was going to burst into tears at his own iniquities, “ I regret 
 to say, strictly dishonourable;” and bowed himself out with Dr. 
 Steinhaiiser, who never moved a muscle of his face. Richard had 
 never done the young lady a scrap of harm, beyond talking to her 
 a little more than the others, because she was so “ awfully jolly,” 
 but the next time he met her he said, “ Look here, young woman, 
 if I talk to you, you must arrange that I do not have ‘ mamma’s 
 dooty ’ flung at my head any more.” “ The old fool! ” said the girl, 
 “ how like her !” 
 
 The only luxury I indulged in was a short but heartfelt prayer for 
 him every morning. I read all his books, and was seriously struck as 
 before by the name when I came to the Jats in Scinde—but this I 
 will explain later on. My cousin asked him to write something for 
 me, which I used to wear next to my heart. One night an exception 
 was made to our dull rule of life. My cousins gave a tea-party and 
 dance, and “ the great majority ” flocked in, and there was Richard like 
 a star amongst rushlights. That was a Night of nights; he waltzed 
 with me once, and spoke to me several times, and I kept my sash 
 where he put his arm round my waist to waltz, and my gloves. I 
 never wore them again. I did not know it then, but the “little 
 cherub who sits up aloft ” is not only occupied in taking care of poor 
 Jack, for I came in also for a share of it. 
 
 Mecca. 
 
 Whilst leading this sort of life, on a long furlough, Richard deter¬ 
 mined to carry out a project he had long had in his head, to study 
 thoroughly the “ inner life of the Moslem.” He had long felt within 
 himself the qualifications, both mental and physical, which are 
 needed for the exploration of dangerous regions, impossible of 
 access, and of disguises difficult to sustain. His career as a dervish 
 
Mecca . 
 
 IOI 
 
 in Scinde greatly helped him. His mind was both practical and 
 imaginative; he set himself to imagine and note down every con¬ 
 tingency that might arise, and one by one he studied each separate 
 thing until he was master of it. As a small sample he apprenticed 
 himself to a blacksmith; he learned to make horseshoes and shoe 
 his horse. 
 
 To accomplish a journey to Mecca and Medinah quite safely 
 in those days (1853) was almost an impossibility, for the discovery 
 that he was not a Mussulman would have been avenged by a 
 hundred Khanjars. It meant living with his life in his hand, and 
 amongst the strangest and wildest companions, adopting their 
 unfamiliar manners, and living for perhaps nine months in the 
 hottest and most unhealthy climate, upon repulsive food, complete 
 and absolute isolation from all that makes life tolerable, from all 
 civilization, from all his natural habits—the brain at high tension, 
 never to depart from the role he had adopted. 
 
 He obtained a year’s leave on purpose, and left London as a 
 Persian, for, during the time, he had to assume and sustain several 
 Oriental characters. Captain Grindlay, who was in the secret, 
 travelled to Southampton and Alexandria as his English interpreter. 
 John Thurburn, who, curiously to say, was also the host of Burck- 
 hardt till he died, and was buried in Cairo, received Richard at 
 Alexandria. He and his son-in-law, John Larking, of the Firs, Lee, 
 Kent, were the only persons throughout the perilous expedition who 
 knew of his secret. He went to Cairo as a dervish, and he lived 
 there as a native, till (as he told me) he actually believed himself 
 to be what he represented himself to be, and then he felt he was 
 safe, and he practised on his own country-people the finding out 
 that he was unrecognizable. He had wished to cross the whole 
 length of Arabia, but the Russian War had caused disturbances, 
 which might have delayed him over his year’s leave. 
 
 In those days it was almost impossible to visit the Holy City as 
 one of the Faithful. First, therewas the pilgrim-ship to embark on ; 
 then there were long desert caravan marches, with their privations 
 and their dangers; then there was the holy shrine, the Ka’abah, to 
 be visited, and all the ceremonies to be gone through, like a Roman 
 Catholic Holy Week at Rome. Burckhardt, the Swiss traveller, did 
 get in, but he never could see the Ka’abah, and he confessed after¬ 
 wards that he was so nervous that he was unable to take notes, and 
 unable to write or sketch for fear of being detected, whereas Richard 
 was sketching and writing in his white burnous the whole time he 
 was prostrating and kissing the holy Stone. He did not go in 
 mockery, but reverentially. He had brought his brain to believe 
 
102 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 himself one of them. Europeans, converted Moslems, have of late 
 gone there, but they have been received with the utmost civility, 
 consistent with coldness, have been admitted to outward friendship, 
 but have been carefully kept out of what they most wished to know 
 and see, so that Richard was thus the only European who had beheld 
 the inner and religious life of the Moslems as one of themselves. 
 
 Amongst the various Oriental characters that Richard assumed, the 
 one that suited best was half-Arab, half-Iranian, such as throng the 
 northern shores of the Persian Gulf. With long hair falling on his 
 shoulders, long beard, face and hands, arms and legs browned and 
 stained with a thin coat of henna, Oriental dress, spear in hand, and 
 pistols in belt, Richard became Mirza Abdullah, el Bushiri. Here he 
 commenced his most adventurous and romantic life, explored from 
 North to South, from East to West, mixed with all sorts of people 
 and tribes without betraying himself in manners, customs, or speech, 
 when death must often have ensued, had he created either dislike or 
 suspicion. 
 
 I here give a slight sketch from his private notes, and for fuller 
 details refer the reader to his “ Pilgrimage to Mecca and El 
 Medinah,” 3 vols., with coloured illustrations, published in 1855, 
 and which made a great sensation. Although he has been the 
 author of some eighty books and pamphlets, I think that this 
 original edition of three volumes is the one that his name should live 
 by, and it will be the first of the Uniform Library with the Meccan 
 Press. The Uniform Library means a reproduction of all his hitherto 
 published works, and eventually his unpublished ones, so that the 
 world may lose nothing of what he has ever written. 
 
 As I have said, on the night of the 3rd of April, 1853, a Persian 
 Mirza, accompanied by an English interpreter, Captain Henry 
 Grindlay, of the Bengal Cavalry, left London for Southampton, and 
 embarked on the P. and O. steamer Bengal. The voyage was profit¬ 
 able but tedious; Richard passed it in resuming his Oriental 
 character, with such success, that when he landed at Alexandria, 
 he was recognized and blessed as a true Moslem by the native 
 population. 
 
 John Thurburn and his son-in-law, John Larking, received him at 
 their villa on the Mahmudfyah Canal, but he was lodged in an outhouse, 
 the better to deceive the servants. Here he practised the Koran 
 and prayer, and all the ceremonies of the Faith, with a neighbouring 
 Shaykh. He also became a hakim , or doctor, and called himself 
 Shaykh Abdullah, preparing to be a dervish. The dervish is a 
 chartered vagabond; nobody asks why he comes, where he goes; he 
 may go on foot, or on horseback, or alone, or with a large retinue, 
 
Mecca. 
 
 103 
 
 and he is as much respected without arms, as though he were armed 
 to the teeth. “ I only wanted,” he said, “a little knowledge of medicine, 
 which I had, moderate skill in magic, a studious reputation, and 
 enough to keep me from starving.” He provided himself with a few 
 necessaries for the journey. 
 
 When he had to leave Alexandria he wrote— 
 
 “ Not without a feeling of regret, I left my little room among 
 the white myrtle blossoms and the rosy oleander flowers with the 
 almond scent. I kissed with humble ostentation my good host’s 
 hand, in the presence of his servants. I bade adieu to my patients, 
 who now amounted to about fifty, shaking hands with all meekly, and 
 with religious equality of attention; and mounted in a ‘ trap ’ 
 which looked like a cross between a wheelbarrow and a dog-cart, 
 drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and biting mule, I set out for the 
 steamer, the Little Asthmatic .” 
 
 “ The journey from Alexandria to Cairo lasted three days and 
 nights. We saw nothing but muddy water, dusty banks, sand, mist, 
 milky sky, glaring sun, breezes like the blasts of a furnace, and the 
 only variation was that the steamer grounded four or five times a day, 
 and I passed my time telling my beads with a huge rosary. I was a 
 deck passenger. The sun burnt us all day, and the night dews were 
 raw and thick. Our diet was bread and garlic, moistened with muddy 
 water from the canal. At Cairo I went to a caravanserai. Here I 
 became a Path^n. I was born in India of Afghan parents, who had 
 settled there, and I was educated at Rangoon, and sent out, as is 
 often the custom, to wander. I knew all the languages that I required 
 to pass me, Persian, Hindostani, and Arabic. It is customary at the 
 shop, on the camel, in the Mosque, to ask, ‘ What is thy name ? 
 Whence comest thou ? ’ and you must be prepared. I had to do the 
 fast of the Ramazan, which is far stricter than the Catholics’ Lent, 
 and in Cairo I studied the Moslem faith in every detail. I had great 
 difficulty in getting a passport without betraying myself, but the 
 chief of the Afghan college at the Azhar Mosque contrived it for 
 me. I hired a couple of camels, and put my Meccan boy and 
 baggage on one, and I took the other. I had an eighty-four mile 
 ride in midsummer, on a bad wooden saddle, on a bad dromedary, 
 across the Suez Desert. 
 
 “ Above, through a sky terrible in its stainless beauty, and the 
 splendours of a pitiless blinding glare, the simoom caresses you like 
 a lion with flaming breath. Around lie drifted sand-heaps, upon 
 which each puff of wind leaves its trace in solid waves, frayed rocks, 
 the very skeletons of mountains, and hard unbroken plains, over 
 which he who rides is spurred by the idea that the bursting of a 
 waterskin, or the pricking of a camel’s hoof, would be a certain 
 death of torture; a haggard land infested with wild beasts and 
 wilder men ; a region whose very fountains murmur the warnmg 
 words, ‘ Drink and away ! ’ 
 
 “ In the desert, even more than upon the ocean, there is present 
 
104 The Life of Sir Richard Bzirton. 
 
 Death, and this sense of danger, never absent, invests the scene of 
 travel with a peculiar interest. 
 
 “ Let the traveller who suspects exaggeration leave the Suez road, 
 and gallop northwards over the sands for an hour or two ; in the 
 drear silence, the solitude, and the fantastic desolation of the place, 
 he will feel what the desert may be. And then the oases, and little 
 lines of fertility—how soft and how beautiful!—even though the 
 Wady-el-Ward (‘the Vale of Flowers’) be the name of some stem 
 flat in which a handful of wild shrubs blossom, while struggling 
 through a cold season’s ephemeral existence. 
 
 “In such circumstances the mind is influenced through the body. 
 Though your mouth glows, and your skin is parched, yet you feel 
 no languor,—the effect of humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your 
 sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone, and your spirits 
 become exuberant. Your fancy and imagination are powerfully 
 aroused, and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around you, 
 stir up all the energies of your soul, whether for exertion, danger, 
 or strife. Your morale improves ; you become frank and cordial, 
 hospitable and single-minded; the hypocritical politeness and the 
 slavery of Civilization are left behind you in the City. Your senses 
 are quickened ; they require no stimulants but air and exercise; in 
 the desert spirituous liquors excite only disgust. 
 
 “ There is a keen enjoyment in mere animal existence. The 
 sharp appetite disposes of the most indigestible food ; the sand is 
 softer than a bed of down, and the purity of the air suddenly puts 
 to flight a dire cohort of diseases. 
 
 “ Here Nature returns to Man, however unworthily he has treated 
 her, and, believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the 
 tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to 
 the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate the bustle and the 
 confusion of artificial life, its luxuries and its false pleasures, with 
 repugnance. Depressed in spirits, you will for a time after your 
 return feel incapable of mental or bodily exertion. The air of Cities 
 will suffocate you, and the careworn and cadaverous countenances 
 of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment. 
 
 .“I was nearly undone by Mohammed, my Meccan boy, finding 
 my sextant amongst my clothes, and it was only by Umar Effendi 
 having read a letter of mine to Haji Wall that very morning on 
 Theology, that he was able to certify that I was thoroughly 
 orthodox. 
 
 “When I started my intention had been to cross the all but 
 unknown Arabian Peninsula, and to map it out, either from El 
 Medinah to Maskat, or from Mecca to Makallah on the Indian 
 Ocean. I wanted to open a market for horses between Arabia 
 and Central India, to go through the Ruba-el-Khali (‘ the Empty 
 Abode ’), the great wilderness on our maps, to learn the hydrography 
 of the Hejaz, and the ethnographical details of this race of Arabs 
 I should have been very much at sea without my sextant. I managed 
 to secrete a pocket compass. 
 
 “The journey would have been of fifteen or sixteen hundred miles, 
 
Mecca, 
 
 105 
 
 and have occupied at least ten months longer than my leave. The 
 quarrelling of the tribes prevented my carrying it out. I had 
 arranged with the Beni Harb, the Bedawin tribe, to join them after 
 the Pilgrimage like a true Bedawin, but it meant all this above- 
 mentioned work; I found it useless to be killed in a petty tribe- 
 quarrel, perhaps, about a mare, and once I joined them it would 
 have been a point of honour to aid in all their quarrels and 
 raids. 
 
 “ At Suez we embarked on a Sambuk , an open boat of about fifty 
 tons. She had no means of reefing, no compass, no log, no sounding¬ 
 line, no chart. Ninety-seven pilgrims (fifteen women and children) 
 came on deck. They were all barefoot, bare-headed, dirty, ferocious, 
 and armed. The distance was doubled by detours; it would have 
 been six hundred miles in a straight line. Even the hardened Arabs 
 and Africans suffered most severely. After twelve days of purga¬ 
 tory, I sprang ashore at Yambu; and travelling a fortnight in this 
 pilgrim-boat gave me the fullest possible knowledge of the inner life 
 of El Islam. However, the heat of the sun, the heavy night dews, 
 and the constant washing of the waves over me, had so affected one 
 of my feet that I could hardly put it to the ground. 
 
 “ Yambu is the port of El Medinah, as Jeddah is that of Mecca. 
 The people are a good type, healthy, proud, and manly, and they 
 have considerable trade. Here I arranged for camels, and our 
 Caravan hired an escort of irregular cavalry—very necessary, for, as 
 the tribes were out, we had to fight every day. They did not want 
 to start till the tribes had finished fighting; but I was resolved, 
 and we went. Here I brought a shugdi/f, or litter, and seven days’ 
 provisions for the journey, and here also I became an Arab, to 
 avoid paying the capitation tax, the Jizyat. 
 
 “ We eventually arrived at El Hamra, the ‘ Red Village,’ but in 
 a short while the Caravan arrived from Mecca, and in about four 
 hours we joined it and went on our way. That evening we were 
 attacked by Bedawi, and we had fighting pretty nearly the whole 
 way. We lost twelve men, camels, and other beasts of burden; the 
 Bedawi looted the baggage and ate the camels. 
 
 “One morning El Medinah was in sight. We were jaded and hungry; 
 and we gloried in the gardens and orchards about the town. I 
 was met at El Medinah by Shaykh Hamid, who received me into 
 his family as one of the faithful, and where I led a quiet, peaceful, 
 and pleasant life, during leisure hours ; but of course, the pilgrimage 
 being my object, I had a host of shrines to visit, ceremonies to 
 perform, and prayers to recite, besides the usual prayers five times 
 a day; for it must be remembered that El Medinah contains the 
 tomb of Mahommad.” (For description see Burton’s 4 Mecca and El 
 Medinah,’ 3 vols.) 
 
 “The Damascus Caravan was to start on the 27th Zu’l Ka’adah 
 (1 st. September). I had intended to stay at El Medinah till the last 
 moment, and to accompany the Kafilat el I'ayyarah , or the ‘ Flying 
 Caravan,’ which usually leaves on the 2nd Zu’l Hijjah, two days 
 after that of Damascus. 
 
106 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “Suddenly arose the rumour that there would be no Tayyarah* 
 and that all pilgrims must proceed with the Damascus Caravan 
 or await the Rakb .f The Sherif Zayd, Sa’ad, the robbers’ only 
 friend, paid Sa’ad an unsuccessful visit. Sa’ad demanded back his 
 shaykhship, in return for a safe conduct through his country; 
 ‘ otherwise,’ said he, ‘ I will cut the throat of every hen that 
 ventures into the passes.’ 
 
 “ The Sherif Zayd returned to El Medinah on the 25th Zu’l Ka’adah 
 (30th August). Early on the morning of the next day, Shaykh 
 Hamid returned hurriedly from the bazar, exclaiming, ‘You must 
 make ready at once, Effendi! There will be no Tayycirah. All 
 Hajis start to-morrow. Allah will make it easy to you ! Have you 
 your water-skins in order ?. You are to travel down the Darb el 
 Sharki, where you will not see water for three days ! ’ 
 
 “Poor Hamid looked horror-struck as he concluded this fearful 
 announcement, which filled me with joy. Burckhardt had visited 
 and described the Darb el Sultani, the ‘ High ’ or ‘ Royal Road ’ 
 along the coast ; but no European had as yet travelled down by 
 Hariin el Rashid’s and the Lady Zubaydah’s celebrated route 
 through the Nejd Desert. And here was my chance ! 
 
 “Whenever he was ineffably disgusted, I consoled him with singing 
 the celebrated song of Maysunah, the beautiful Bedawin wife of the 
 Caliph Muawiyah.” (Richard was immensely fond of this little song, 
 and the Bedawin screams with joy when he hears it.) 
 
 “ * Oh, take these purple robes away, 
 
 Give back my cloak of camel’s hair, 
 
 And bear me from this tow’ring pile 
 To where the black tents flap i’ the air. 
 
 The camel’s colt with falt’ring tread, 
 
 The dog that bays at all but me, 
 
 Delight me more than ambling mules, 
 
 Than every art of minstrelsy ; 
 
 And any cousin, poor but free, 
 
 Might take me, fatted ass, from thee.’ X 
 
 “The old man was delighted, clapped my shoulder, and exclaimed, 
 ‘Verily, O Father of Moustachios, I will show thee the black Tents 
 of my Tribe this year.’ 
 
 “So, after staying at Medinah about six weeks, I set out with the 
 Damascus Caravan down the Darb el Sharki, under the care of a 
 very venerable Bedawin, who nicknamed me ‘Abd Shuwarib,’ mean¬ 
 ing, ‘ Father of Moustachios,’ mine being very large. I found myself 
 standing opposite the Egyptian gate of El Medinah, surrounded by 
 my friends—those friends of a day, who cross the phantasmagoria of 
 one’s life. There were affectionate embraces and parting mementoes. 
 
 * “The Tayydrah , or ‘Flying Caravan,’ is lightly laden, and travels by 
 forced marches.” 
 
 t “ The Rakb is a dromedary-caravan, in which each person carries only his 
 saddle-bags. It usually descends by the road called El Khabt, and makes Mecca 
 on the fifth day.” 
 
 X ‘By the term ‘fatted ass’ the intellectual lady alluded to her royal husband.” 
 
Mecca . 
 
 107 
 
 The camels were mounted; I and the boy Mohammed in the litte r 
 or shugduf, and Shaykh Nur in his cot. The train of camels 
 with the Caravan wended its way slowly in a direction from north 
 to north-east, gradually changing to eastward. After an hour’s 
 travel, the Caravan halted to turn and take farewell of the Holy 
 City. 
 
 “ We dismounted to gaze at the venerable minarets and the 
 green dome which covers the tomb of the Prophet The heat 
 was dreadful, the climate dangerous, and the beasts died in 
 numbers. Fresh carcases strewed our way, and were covered with 
 foul vultures. The Caravan was most picturesque. We travelled 
 principally at night, but the camels had to perform the work 
 of goats, and step from block to block of basalt like moun¬ 
 taineers, which being unnatural to them, they kept up a continual 
 piteous moan. The simoom and pillars of sand continually threw 
 them over. 
 
 “ Water is the great trouble of a Caravan journey, and the only 
 remedy is to be patient and not to talk. The first two hours 
 gives you the mastery, but if you drink you cannot stop. Forty- 
 seven miles before we reached Mecca, at El Zaribah, we had to 
 perform the ceremony of El Ihrai?i , meaning { to assume the 
 pilgrim garb.’ A barber shaved us, trimmed our moustachios; 
 we bathed and perfumed, and then we put on two new cotton 
 cloths, each six feet long by three and a half broad. It is 
 
 white, with narrow red stripes and fringe, and worn something as 
 you wear it in the baths. Our heads and feet, right shoulder and 
 arm, are exposed. 
 
 “We had another fight before we got to Mecca, and a 
 
 splendid camel in front of me was shot through the heart. Our 
 Sherff Zayd was an Arab Chieftain of the purest blood, and very 
 brave. He took two or three hundred men, and charged them. 
 However, they shot many of our dromedaries, and camels, 
 and boxes and baggage strewed the place; and when we were 
 gone the Bedawi would come back, loot the baggage, and eat 
 the camels. On Saturday, the 10th of September, at one 
 
 in the morning, there was great excitement in the Caravan, 
 and loud cries of * Mecca! Mecca! Oh, the Sanctuary, the 
 
 Sanctuary ! ’ All burst into loud praises, and many wept. We 
 reached it next morning, after ten days and nights from El 
 Medinah. I became the guest of the boy Mohammed, in the 
 house of his mother. 
 
 “ First I did the circumambulation at the Haram. Early next 
 morning I was admitted to the house of our Lord; and we went 
 to the holy well Zemzem, the holy water of Mecca, and then the 
 Ka’abah, in which is inserted the famous black stone, where they 
 say a prayer for the Unity of Allah. Then I performed the seven 
 circuits round the Ka’abah, called the Tawaf. I then managed to 
 have a way pushed for me through the immense crowd to kiss it. 
 While kissing it, and rubbing hands and forehead upon it, I narrowly 
 
108 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 observed it, and came away persuaded that it is an aerolite. It 
 is curious that almost all agree upon one point, namely, that the 
 stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it mineralogically a ‘ block of 
 volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, 
 pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of tile-red felspath upon a dark 
 ground like velvet or charcoal, except one of its protuberances, 
 which is reddish.’ It is also described as ‘ a lava containing 
 several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a. yellowish 
 substance.’ 
 
 “All this time the pilgrims had scorched feet and burning heads, 
 as they were always uncovered. I was much impressed with the 
 strength and steadfastness of the Mohammedan religion. It was 
 so touching to see them; one of them was clinging to the curtain, 
 and sobbing as though his heart would break. * At night I and 
 Shaykh Nur and the boy Mohammed issued forth with the lantern 
 and praying-carpet. 
 
 “ The moon, now approaching the full, tipped the brow of Abu 
 
 * N.B.—I found in later years he had recently copied into this part of his 
 journal, from some paper, “The Meditations of a Hindu Prince and Sceptic,” by 
 the author of “ The Old Pindaree ”— 
 
 “ All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, 
 
 Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God ? 
 
 Westward across the ocean, and Northward ayont the snow. 
 
 Do they all stand gazing, as ever? and what do the wisest know? 
 
 “ Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm, 
 
 Like the wild bees heard in the treetops, or the gusts of a gathering storm ; 
 
 In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen, 
 
 Yet we all say, ‘ Whence is the message ? and what may the wonders mean?’ 
 
 “Shall I list to the word of the English, who came from the uttermost sea? 
 
 ‘ The secret, hath it been told you ? and what is your message to me ? ’ 
 
 It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens began; 
 How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once a man. 
 
 “I had thought, ‘Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, 
 
 Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell, 
 
 They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the unknown main : ’ 
 Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. 
 
 “ Is life, then, a dream and delusion? and where shall the dreamer awake? 
 
 Is the world seen like shadows on water? and what if the mirror break? 
 
 Shall it pass, as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone, 
 From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone? 
 
 “ Is there nought in the heavens above, whence the hail and the levin are hurled, 
 But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world ?— 
 
 The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep 
 With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and the voices of women who 
 weep.” 
 
Mecca. 
 
 109 
 
 Kubdya, and lit up the spectacle with a more solemn light. In the 
 midst stood the huge bier-like erection— 
 
 ‘ Black as the wings 
 
 Which some spirit of ill o’er a sepulchre flings ! ’ 
 
 except where the moonbeams streaked it like jets of silver falling 
 upon the darkest marble. It formed the point of rest for the eye; 
 the little pagoda-like buildings and domes around it, with all their 
 gilding and framework, faded to the sight. One object, unique in 
 appearance, stood in view—the temple of the one Allah, the God 
 of Abraham, of Ishmael, and of their posterity. Sublime it was, and 
 expressing by all the eloquence of fancy the “grandeur of the one 
 idea which vitalized El Islam, and the strength and steadfastness of 
 its votaries. 
 
 “ One thing I remarked, and think worthy of notice, is that ever 
 since Noah’s dove, every religion seems to consider the pigeon a 
 sacred bird ; for example, every Mosque swarms with pigeons ; St. 
 Mark’s, at Venice, and the same exists in most Italian market¬ 
 places ; the Hindoo pandits and the old Assyrian Empire also 
 have them; whilst Catholics make it the emblem of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 “ The day before I went to Arafat, I spent the night in the Mosque, 
 where I saw many strange sights. One was a negro possessed by 
 the devil. There, too, he prayed by the grave of Ishmael. After 
 this we set out for Arafat, where is the tomb of Adam. (I have 
 seen two since—one at Jerusalem, and one in the mountains behind 
 Damascus.) 
 
 “It was a very weary journey, and, with the sun raining fire on our 
 heads and feet, we suffered tortures. The camels threw themselves 
 on the ground, and I myself saw five men fall out and die. On 
 the Mount there were numerous consecrated shrines to see, and we 
 had to listen to an immensely long sermon. On the great festival 
 day we stoned the Devil, each man with seven stones washed in 
 seven waters, and we said, while throwing each stone, 4 In the name 
 of Allah—and Allah is Almighty—I do this in hatred of the Devil, 
 and to his shame.’ There is then an immense slaughter of victims 
 (five or six thousand), which slaughter, with the intense heat, swarms 
 of flies, and the whole space reeking with blood, produces the most 
 noisome vapours, and probably is the birthplace of that cholera 
 and small-pox which generally devastate the World after the Haj. 
 Noiv we were allowed to doff the pilgrim’s garb. 
 
 “ We all went to barbers’ booths, where we were shaved, had our 
 beards trimmed and our nails cut, saying prayers the while; and, 
 though we had no clothes, we might put our clothes over our heads, 
 and wear our slippers, which were a little protection from the heat. 
 We might then twirl our moustachios, stroke our beards, and return 
 to Mecca. At the last moment I was sent for. I thought, ‘Now 
 something is going to happen to me ; now I am suspected.’ 
 
 “A crowd had gathered round the Ka’abah, and I had no wish to 
 stand bare-headed and bare-footed in the midday September sun. 
 
I IO 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 At the cry of ‘ Open a path for the Haji who would enter the 
 House ! * the gazers made way. Two stout Meccans, who stood below 
 the door, raised me in their arms, whilst a third drew me from above 
 into the building. At the entrance I was accosted by several 
 officials, dark-looking Meccans, of whom the blackest and plainest 
 was a youth of the Benu Shaybah family, the true blood of the El 
 Hejaz. He held in his hand the huge silver-gilt padlock of the 
 Ka’abah, and presently, taking his seat upon a kind of wooden press 
 in the left corner of the hall, he officially inquired my name, nation, 
 and other particulars. The replies were satisfactory, and the boy 
 Mohammed was authoritatively ordered to conduct me round the 
 building, and to recite the prayers. I will not deny that, looking at 
 the windowless walls, the officials at the door, and a crowd of excited 
 fanatics below— 
 
 ‘ And the place death, considering who I was,' 
 
 my feelings were of the trapped-rat description, acknowledged by the 
 immortal nephew of his uncle Perez. A blunder, a hasty action, a 
 misjudged word, a prayer or bow, not strictly the right shibboleth, 
 and my bones would have whitened the desert sand. This did not, 
 however, prevent my carefully observing the scene during our 
 long prayer, and making a rough plan with a pencil upon my white 
 ihram . 
 
 “ I returned home after this quite exhausted, performed an elaborate 
 toilet, washing with henna and warm water, to mitigate the pain the 
 sun had caused on my arms, shoulders, and breast, head and feet, 
 and put on my gayest clothes in honour of the festival. When the 
 moon rose, there was a second stoning, or lapidation, to be per¬ 
 formed, and then we strolled round the coffee-houses. There was 
 also a little pilgrimage to undertake, which is in honour of Hagar 
 seeking water for her son Ishmael. 
 
 “ I now began to long to leave Mecca; I had done everything, 
 seen everything; the heat was simply unendurable, and the little 
 room where I could enjoy privacy for about six hours a day, and jot 
 my notes down, was a perfect little oven.* 
 
 “ I slowly wended my way with a Caravan to Jeddah, with donkeys 
 and Mohammed; I must say that the sight of the sea and the 
 British flag was a pleasant tonic. I went to the British Consulate, 
 but the Dragomans were not very civil to the unfortunate Afghan. 
 
 “ So I was left kicking my heels at the Great Man’s Gate for a long 
 time, and heard somebody say, ‘ Let the dirty nigger wait.’ Long 
 inured to patience, however, I did wait, and when the Consul 
 consented to see me, I presented him with a bit of paper, as if it 
 were a money order. On it was written, ‘ Don’t recognize me; I am 
 
 * I have only given the barest outlines of what took place, referring my readers 
 to the original, because, as there were between fifty and fifty-five mosques, besides 
 other places, and various interesting ceremonies to be performed in each one, 
 there would be no room for anything else; and the same may be said of 
 El Medinah.—I. B. 
 
Mecca. 
 
 hi 
 
 Dick Burton, but I am not safe yet. Give me some money’ (naming 
 the sum), ‘ which will be returned from London, and don’t take any 
 notice of me.’ He, however, frequently afterwards, when it was 
 dark, sent for me, and, once safe in his private rooms, showed me 
 abundance of hospitality. Necessity compelled me living with Shayk 
 Nur in a room (to myself), swept, sprinkled with water, and spread 
 with mats. 
 
 “ When I went out in gay attire, I was generally mistaken for the 
 Pasha of El Medinah. After about ten days’ suspense, an English 
 ship was sent by the Bombay Steam Navigation Company to convey 
 pilgrims from El Hejaz to India, so one day the Afghan disappeared 
 —was supposed to have departed with other dirty pilgrims, but in 
 reality, had got on board the Dwdrka * an English ship, with a first- 
 class passage; he had emerged from his cabin, after washing all his 
 colouring off, in the garb of an English gentleman ; experienced 
 the greatest kindness from the Commander and Officers, which 
 he much needed, being worn out with fatigue and the fatal fiery 
 heat, and felt the great relief to his mind and body from being 
 able to take his first complete rest in safety on board an English 
 ship; but was so changed that the Turkish pilgrims, who crowded 
 the deck, never recognized their late companion pilgrim.” 
 
 He ends his personal narrative of his sojourn in El Hejaz thus :— 
 
 “ I have been exposed to perils, and I have escaped from them; 
 I have traversed the sea, and have not succumbed under the severest 
 fatigues ; but they with fatal fiery heat have worn me out, and my 
 heart is moved with emotions of gratitude that I have been per¬ 
 mitted to effect the objects I had in view.” 
 
 I can remember, at a reception at Lady Salisbury’s, the Persian 
 Ambassador and his suite following Richard about the whole 
 evening, and when I joked them about it, they said, “ It is such 
 an extraordinary thing to us, to see any foreigner, especially an 
 Englishman, speaking our language like ourselves. He might 
 have never been out of Teheran; he even knows all the slang 
 of the market-place as well as we do.” When he arrived in 
 Damascus, his record was perfectly clean with the Mohammedans, 
 and the only bitter, unreasoning prejudice was in the breast of 
 
 * On the Dwarka\ before he had time to go down to the cabin and change his 
 clothes, one of his English brother officers, who was on board the ship, gave him a sly 
 kick, and said, “ Get out of the way, you dirty nigger.” He often told me how he 
 longed to hit him, but did not dare to betray himself. He was also part of the 
 way in the Red Sea with my cousin William Strickland, a priest, and he used to 
 tease him by sitting opposite to him, reciting his Koran out loud, while William 
 was saying his breviary also out loud. At last one day Strickland got up, saying, 
 “Oh, my God, I can’t stand this much more,” and afterwards these two became 
 great friends.—I. B. 
 
I 12 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Christian missionaries, and Christian Foreign Office employes, whose 
 friends wanted the post. Burton and Palgrave were quite two 
 different men, as silver and nickel. I know exactly the sort of 
 Arabic Palgrave spoke. 
 
 In the days that Richard went to Mecca, no converted Englishman 
 would have been received as now. As to his Arabic, Abd el Kadir 
 told me—and, mind, he was the highest cultivated and the most 
 religious Moslem in Damascus; the only Sufi, I believe—that there 
 were only two men in Damascus whose Arabic was worth listening 
 to; one was my husband, and the other was Shaykh Mijwal El 
 Mezrab, Lady Ellenborough’s Bedawin husband. We may remem¬ 
 ber that at Jeddah his life was saved by being mistaken for the Pasha 
 of El Medinah, and when he went to the departure of the Haj at 
 Damascus, as he rode down the lines in frock-coat and fez, he was 
 accosted by more than one as the Pasha of the Haj; and when the 
 mistake was explained, and he told them who he was, they only 
 laughed and said, “ Why don’t you come along with us again to Mecca, 
 as you did before ? ” He was looked upon by all as a friend to the 
 Moslem. He never profaned the sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina, 
 and so far from being unpopular with the Moslems, he received 
 almost yearly an invitation to go back with the Haj, and no opposi¬ 
 tion would have been made to him had he made another pilgrimage 
 to the jealously guarded Haramayn or the holy Cities of the Moslems. 
 Even / am always admitted to the Mosques with the women for his 
 sake. 
 
 There was no tinsel and gingerbread about anything Richard did; 
 it was always true and real. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HARAR—THE MOSLEM ABYSSINIA. 
 
 Richard returned up the Red Sea to Egypt, and much enjoyed the 
 rest and safety for a short time, and then returned to Bombay, his 
 leave being up; but the wandering fever was still upon him, and as 
 the most difficult place for a white man to enter was Harar, in 
 Somali-land, Abyssinia, he determined that that should be his object. 
 It is inhabited by a very dangerous race to deal with, and no white 
 man had ever penetrated to Harar. The first white man who went 
 to Abyssinia was kept prisoner till he died. The East India Com¬ 
 pany had long wished to explore it, because Berberah, the chief port 
 of Somali-land, is the safest and best harbour on the western side of 
 the Indian Ocean—far better than Aden. They went to work with 
 that strange mixture of caution and generosity with which they 
 treated those of their servants who stepped out of what Richard 
 calls their “ quarter-deck ” routine, that is, to let him go as a private 
 traveller, and the Government to give him no protection, but would 
 allow him to retain the same pay that he would enjoy whilst on 
 leave. Dr. Carter and others refused to do more than to coast 
 along in a cruiser. 
 
 Richard applied for Lieutenant Herne, of the ist Bombay 
 Fusileers, Lieutenant Stroyan, Indian Navy, and Lieutenant Speke, 
 46th Bengal Native Infantry. Herne was distinguished by his sur¬ 
 veys, photography, and mechanics on the west coast of India, in 
 Scinde, and on the Punjaub rivers; Stroyan as amateur surveyor; 
 and Speke, collector of the Fauna of Tibet and the Himalayas and 
 sportsman. Assistant-Surgeon Ellerton Stocks, botanist, traveller, 
 and a first-rate man in all ways, died before the expedition started. 
 
 Jealousy, as usual, immediately rose up in opposition. First, Sir 
 James Outram, Political Resident at Aden, called it a tempting of 
 
 h ”3 
 
114 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Providence, and Dr. Buist, the editor of the Bombay Times , was told 
 to run down the Somali Expedition, in which task he was assisted 
 by the unpopular chaplain. This was not very gratifying to four 
 high-spirited men; so, instead of using Berberah as a base of opera¬ 
 tions, then westward to Harar, and then south-east to Zanzibar, the 
 Resident changed the whole scheme and made it fail. Herne was to 
 go to Berberah, where he was joined later by Stroyan. Speke was to 
 land in a small harbour called Bunder Guray, and to trace the water¬ 
 shed of the Wady Nogal, to buy horses and camels, and collect red 
 earth with gold in it; but his little expedition failed through his 
 guide’s treachery. Herne and Stroyan succeeded. Richard reserved 
 for himself the post of danger. Harar was as difficult to enter as 
 Mecca. It is the southernmost masonry-built settlement in North 
 Equatorial Africa. He would go as an Arab merchant. Harar had 
 never been visited, has its own language, its own unique history and 
 traditions. The language was unwritten, but he wrote a grammar, 
 and a vocabulary in which the etymology is given, and there he had 
 enough savage anthropology to interest him. 
 
 He writes— 
 
 “ In the first place, Berberah is the true key of the Red Sea, 
 the centre of East African traffic, and the only safe place for ship¬ 
 ping upon the Western Erythraean shore, from Suez to Guardafui, 
 backed by lands capable of cultivation, and by hills covered with 
 pine and other valuable trees, enjoying a comparatively temperate 
 climate, with a regular, though thin monsoon. This harbour has 
 been coveted by many a foreign conqueror. Circumstances have 
 thrown it into our arms, and if we refuse a chance, another and 
 a rival nation will not be so blind. [We have since given it away, 
 and kept the far inferior Aden.] We are bound to protect the lives 
 of subjects on this coast. In 1825 the crew of the Mary Ann brig 
 was treacherously murdered by the Somal. They continued in that 
 state, and if to-morrow a Peninsular and Oriental Company steamer 
 by any chance fell into their power, it would be the same history. 
 Harar, scarcely three hundred miles distance from Aden, is a 
 counterpart of the ill-famed Timbuctoo. A tradition exists that 
 with the entrance of the first Christian, Harar will fall. All 
 therefore who have attempted it were murdered. It was there¬ 
 fore a point of honour with me to utilize my title of Haji, by entering 
 this City, visiting its Ruler, and returning in safety, after breaking the 
 Guardian’s spell.” 
 
 This exploration of Harar was one of Richard’s most splendid 
 and dangerous expeditions, and, for some reason or other, the 
 least known; the reason being, as I think, that his pilgrimage to 
 Mecca was still making a great noise, and that the Crimean War had 
 
Harar — The Moslem Abyssinia. 115 
 
 cropped up, deadening the interest in all personal adventure. He 
 therefore thought himself fortunate in being able to persuade Lord 
 Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay, to patronize an expedition into 
 Somali-land. 
 
 He was away four months. The journey was useful; at least, it 
 has proved so to the Egyptians, to the English, and now to the 
 Italians. He sailed away, leaving Herne, Stroyan, and Speke, each 
 engaged on his respective work, and arrived at Zayla. 
 
 “My ship companions,” he writes, “ were the wildest of the wild, and 
 as we came into port Zayla a barque came up to give us the bad news. 
 Friendship between the Amir of Harar and the Governor of Zayla had 
 been broken ; the road through the Eesa Somal had been closed 
 by the murder of Masud, a favourite slave and adopted son of Shar- 
 markay ; all strangers had been expelled the City for some misconduct 
 by the Harar chief; moreover, small-pox was raging there with 
 such violence that the Galla peasantry would allow neither ingress nor 
 egress. The tide was out, and we waded a quarter of a mile amongst 
 giant crabs, who showed gristly claws, sharp coralline, and seaweed 
 so thick as to become almost like a mat. In the shallower parts the 
 sun was painfully hot even to my well-tried feet. I was taken 
 immediately to the Governor at Zayla, a fellow Haji, who gave me 
 hospitality. 
 
 “The well-known sounds of El Islam returned from memory. 
 Again the melodious chant of the muezzin —no evening bell can 
 compare with it for solemnity and beauty—and in the neighbouring 
 Mosque, the loudly intoned ‘Amin’ and ‘ Allaho Akbar,’ far superior 
 to any organ, rang in my ear. The evening gun of camp was repre¬ 
 sented by the nakkarah, or kettle-drum, which sounded about seven 
 p.m. at the southern Gate; and at ten a second drumming warned 
 the paterfamilias that it was time for home, and thieves and lovers, 
 that it was the hour for bastinado. Nightfall was ushered in by the 
 song, the dance, and the marriage festival—here no permission is 
 required for ‘ native music in the lines ’—and muffled figures flitted 
 mysteriously through the dark alleys. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 “ After a peep through the open window, I fell asleep, feeling once 
 more at home. 
 
 “ I was too much of an Arab to weary of the endless preparations 
 for forming a caravan. I used to provide myself with a Koran 
 .and sit receiving visitors, and would occasionally go into the 
 Mosque, my servant carrying the prayer carpet, three hundred 
 pair of eyes staring at me, and after reciting the customary two- 
 bow prayer, in honour of the Mosque, I would place a sword and 
 rosary before me, and, taking the Koran, read the cow-chapter, 
 No. 18, in a loud and twanging voice. This is the character I 
 .adopted. You will bear in mind, if you please, that I am a Moslem 
 merchant, a character not to be confounded with the notable 
 
116 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 individuals seen on ‘’Change.’ Mercator, in the East, is a compound 
 of tradesmen, divine, and T.G. Usually of gentle birth, he is 
 everywhere welcomed and respected; and he bears in his mind 
 and manner that, if Allah please, he may become Prime Minister 
 a month after he has sold you a yard of cloth. Commerce appears 
 to be an accident, not an essential, with him, yet he is by no means 
 deficient in acumen. He is a grave and reverend seignior, with 
 rosary in hand and Koran on lip; is generally a pilgrim; talks at 
 dreary length about Holy Places; writes a pretty hand ; has read 
 and can recite much poetry; is master of his religion ; demeans 
 himself with respectability; is perfect in all points of ceremony and 
 politeness, and feels equally at home whether Sultan or slave sit 
 upon his counter. He has a wife and children in his own country, 
 where he intends to spend the remnant of his days; but ‘ the world 
 is uncertain ’—‘ Fate descends, and man’s eyes seeth it not ’—‘ the 
 earth is a charnel-house; ’ briefly, his many old saws give him a 
 kind of theoretical consciousness that his bones may moulder in 
 other places but his fatherland. 
 
 “For half a generation we have been masters of Aden, filling 
 Southern Arabia with our calicos and rupees—what is the present 
 state of affairs there? We are dared by the Bedouins to come forth 
 from behind our stone walls and fight like men in the plain,— 
 British proteges are slaughtered within the range of our guns,—our 
 allies’ villages have been burned in sight of Aden,—our deserters are 
 welcomed and our fugitive felons protected,—our supplies are cut 
 off, and the garrison is reduced to extreme distress, at the word of 
 a half-naked bandit,—the miscreant Bhagi, who murdered Captain 
 Mylne in cold blood, still roams the hills unpunished,—gross insults 
 are the sole acknowledgements of our peaceful overtures,—the British 
 flag has been fired upon without return, our cruisers being ordered to 
 act only on the defensive,—and our forbearance to attack is univer¬ 
 sally asserted and believed to arise from mere cowardice. Such is, 
 and such will be, the opinion and the character of the Arab ! 
 
 “ I stayed here for twenty-six days, rising at dawn; then went tO' 
 the Terrace to perform my devotions, and make observation of my 
 neighbours ; breakfast at six, then coffee, pipe, and a nap ; then 
 receive visitors, who come by dozens with nothing to do or say.. 
 When they were only Somal, I wrote Arabic, or extracted from some 
 useful book. When Arabs were there, I would recite tales from the 
 ‘ Arabian Nights,’ to their great delight. At eleven, dinner, more 
 coffee and pipes; then the natives would go to sleep, and I wrote 
 my journals and studies. At about two p.m. more visitors would come, 
 and at sunset again to the Terrace, or walk to a mosque, where 
 games are going on, or stroll to a camp of Bedawi. The Gates 
 are locked at sunset, and the keys are carried to the Haji. It is not. 
 safe to be without the City later. Then comes supper. 
 
 “ After it we repair to the roof to enjoy the prospect of the far 
 Tajarrah Hills and the white moonbeams sleeping upon the nearer 
 sea. The evening star hangs like a diamond upon the still horizon ^ 
 around the moon a pink zone of light mist, shading off into turquoise 
 
Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. ny 
 
 blue and a delicate green-like chrysopraz, invests the heavens with a 
 peculiar charm. The scene is truly suggestive; behind us, purpling 
 in the night air and silvered by the radiance from above, lie the wolds 
 and mountains tenanted by the fiercest of savages, their shadowy 
 mysterious forms exciting vague alarms in the traveller’s breast. 
 Sweet as the harp of David, the night-breeze and the music of the 
 water comes up from the sea; but the ripple and the rustling sound 
 alternate with the hyaena’s laugh, and the jackal’s cry, and the wild 
 dog’s lengthened howl. 
 
 “ This journey, which occupied nearly four months, was to be 
 through a savage, treacherous, ferocious, and bloodthirsty people, 
 whose tribes were in a constant state of blood-feud. The party 
 consisted of nine, an abban or guide, three Arab matchlock men, 
 two women cooks, who were called Shehrazade and Deenarzade 
 after the ‘Arabian Nights,’ a fourth servant, and a Bedawin woman 
 to drive a donkey, which camels will follow and which is the custom. 
 We had four or five mules, saddled and bridled, and camels for 
 the baggage. Every one wept over us, and considered us dead 
 men. The abban objected to some routes on account of avoiding 
 tribes with which he had a blood-feud.” 
 
 This was, as I have said, far the most dangerous of Richard’s 
 explorations, quite as difficult as Mecca, and far more difficult than 
 anything Stanley has ever done, with his advantages of men, money, 
 and luxuries. The women seemed to be much hardier than the men ; 
 they carried the pipe and tobacco, led the camels, adjusted the 
 burdens, at the halt unloaded the cattle, disposed the baggage, 
 covered them with a mat tent, cooked the food, made tea and 
 coffee, and bivouacked outside the tent. 
 
 He writes— 
 
 “The air was fresh and clear; and the night breeze was 
 delicious after the stormy breath of day. The weary confinement 
 of walls made the weary expanse a luxury to the sight, whilst 
 the tumbling of the surf upon the near shore, and the music 
 of the jackal, predisposed to sweet sleep. We now felt that at 
 length the die was cast. Placing my pistols by my side, with 
 my rifle butt for a pillow, and its barrel as a bed-fellow, I 
 sought repose with none of the apprehension which even the most 
 stout-hearted traveller knows before the start. It is the difference 
 between fancy and reality, between anxiety and certainty; to men 
 gifted with any imaginative powers the anticipation must ever be 
 worse than the event. Thus it happens, that he who feels a thrill 
 of fear before engaging in a peril, exchanges it for a throb of exultation 
 when he finds himself hand to hand with the danger.” 
 
 The description of the journey is filled in his notes by being 
 hindered and almost captured by Bedawi, lamed with thorns, the 
 
118 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 camels casting themselves down from fatigue, famishing from hunger, 
 and, worse, from thirst—the only water being sulphurous, which 
 affected both man and beast—and attacks from lions, sleep being dis¬ 
 turbed by large ants, three-quarters of an inch long, with venomous 
 stings. Everywhere they went, everybody wept over them, as dead 
 men. He finds time, nevertheless, to remark, that at the height of 
 335ofeet he found a buttercup and heard a woodpecker tapping, 
 that reminded him of home. He describes a sham attack of twelve 
 Bedawi, who, when they saw what his revolver could do, said they 
 were only in fun. 
 
 At one of the kraals he gives an account of how, being surrounded 
 by Somals, they were boasting of their shooting, and of the skill with 
 which they used the shield, but they seemed not to understand the 
 proper use of the sword. 
 
 “ Thinking it was well to impress them with the superiority of 
 arms, I requested them to put up one of their shields as a mark. 
 They laughed very much, but would not comply. The Somal hate 
 a vulture, because it eats the dead and dying; so, seeing a large 
 brown bare-necked vulture at twenty paces distance, I shot it with 
 my revolver; then I loaded a gun with swan-shot, which they had 
 never seen, and, aiming at a bird that they considered far out of 
 gunshot distance, I knocked it over flying. Fresh screams followed 
 this marvellous feat, and they said, ‘ Lo! he bringeth down the 
 birds from heaven.’ Their Chief, putting his forefinger in his mouth, 
 praised Allah, and prayed to be defended from such a calamity; 
 and always after, when they saw me approach, they said, ‘ Here comes 
 the Shaykh who knows knowledge.’ I then gave a stick to the 
 best man; I provided myself in the same way, and allowed him to 
 cut at me as much as ever he liked, easily warding off the blows 
 with a parry. After repeated failures, and tiring himself enormously, 
 he received a sounding blow from me upon the least bony part of 
 his person. The crowd laughed long and loud, and the knight-at- 
 arms retired in confusion. 
 
 “ Every now and then we got into difficulties with the Bedawi, who 
 would not allow us to proceed, declaring the land was theirs. We 
 did not deny the claim, but I threatened sorcery, death, and wild 
 beasts, and foraging parties to their camels, children, and women. 
 It generally brought them to their senses. They would spit on us 
 for good luck, and let us depart. Once a Chief was smitten by 
 Shehrazade’s bulky charms, and wanted to carry her off. Once in 
 the evening we came upon the fresh trail of a large Habr Awal 
 cavalcade, which frightened my companions dreadfully. We were 
 only nine men and two women, to contend against two hundred 
 horsemen, and all, except the Hammal and Long Guled, would have 
 run away at the first charge. The worst of the ride was over rough 
 and stony road, the thorns tearing their feet and naked legs, and the 
 camels slipping over the rounded pebbles. 
 
Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 119 
 
 “ The joy of coming to a kraal was great, where the Chiefs of the 
 village appeared, bringing soft speech, sweet water, new milk, fat sheep 
 and goats, for a tobe of Cutch canvas. We passed a quiet, luxurious 
 clay of coffee and pipes, fresh cream and roasted mutton. After the 
 great heats and dangers from horsemen on the plain, we enjoyed the 
 cool breeze of the hills, cloudy skies, and the verdure of the glades 
 which refreshed our beasts. Here I shot a few hawks, and was 
 rewarded with loud exclamations of ‘ Allah preserve thy hand ! may 
 thy skill never fail thee before the foe.’ A woman ran away from my 
 steam kettle, thinking it was a weapon. They looked upon my 
 sunburnt skin with a favour they denied to the lime-white face. 
 The Somali Bedawi gradually affiliated me to their tribes. 
 
 “ At one village the people rushed out, exclaiming, ‘ Lo ! let us look 
 at the Kings ;* at others, ‘ Come and see the white man ; he is the 
 Governor of Zayla.’ My fairness (for, brown as I am, I am fair to 
 them) and the Arab dress made me sometimes the ruler of Aden, 
 the Chief of Zayla, the Haji’s son, a boy, an old woman, a man 
 painted white, a warrior in silver armour, a merchant, a pilgrim, a 
 head priest, Ahmed the Indian, a Turk, an Egyptian, a Frenchman, 
 a Banyan, a Sherff, and, lastly, a calamity sent down from heaven 
 to weary out the lives of the Somal. Every kraal had its own 
 conjecture. 
 
 “ On December 9th, I rode a little off my way to visit some ruins, 
 Darbfyah Kola, or Kola’s Fort, so called on account of its Galla 
 queen. There were once two cities, Aububah, and they fought like 
 the Kilkenny cats till both were eaten up. This was about three 
 hundred years ago, and the substantial ruins have fought a stern 
 fight with Time. 
 
 “ Remnants of houses cumber the soil, and the carefully built wells 
 are filled with rubbish. The palace was pointed out to me, with its 
 walls of stone and clay, intersected by layers of woodwork. The 
 Mosque is a large, roofless building, containing twelve square pillars 
 of rude masonry, and the mihrab , or prayer niche, is denoted by a 
 circular arch of tolerable construction. But the voice of the muezzin 
 is hushed for ever, and creepers now twine around the ruined fane. 
 The scene was still and dreary as the grave ; for a mile and a half in 
 length all was ruins—ruins—ruins. 
 
 “ Leaving this Dead City, we rode towards the south-west between 
 two rugged hills. Topping the ridge, we stood for a few minutes to 
 observe the view before us. Beneath our feet lay a long grassy 
 plain—the sight must have gladdened the hearts of our starving 
 mules—and for the first time in Africa horses appeared grazing free 
 amongst the bushes. A little further off lay the Aylonda Valley, 
 studded with graves and dark with verdure. Beyond it stretched 
 the Wady Harawwah, a long gloomy hollow in the general level. 
 The background was a bold sweep of blue hill, the second gradient 
 of the Harar line, and on its summit, closing the western horizon, 
 lay a golden streak, the Marar Prairie. Already I felt at the end of 
 my journey. 
 
 “ It was not an unusual thing in the dusk to see a large animal 
 
120 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 following us with quick stealthy strides, and that I, sending a rifle 
 ball as correctly as I could in the direction, put to flight a large 
 lion. 
 
 “ The nearer I got to Harar, the more I was stopped by parties 
 of Gallas, and some went on to report evil of me, and many threats 
 were uttered. The ‘End of Time’ in the last march turned tail. 
 ‘ Dost thou believe me to be a coward, O Pilgrim ? ’ ‘ Of a truth 
 
 I do,’ I answered. Nothing abashed, and with joy at his heart, 
 he hammered his mule with his heel, and rode off, saying, ‘What 
 hath man but a single life, and he who throweth it away, what is 
 he but a fool ? ’ ” 
 
 He gives a good account of elephant-hunting, but they did not 
 get near any. The water was in some places so hard it raised 
 lumps like nettle-stings, and they had to butter themselves. At one 
 place the inhabitants flocked out to stare at them. He fired his 
 rifle by way of salute over the head of the prettiest girl. The people, 
 delighted, exclaimed, “ Mod ! Mod! honour to thee ! ” and he 
 replied with shouts of “ Kulliban ! may Heaven aid thee ! ” 
 
 “ When there is any danger a Somali watchman sings and addresses 
 himself in dialogue, with different voices, to persuade thieves that 
 several men are watching. Ours was a spectacle of wildness as he 
 sat before the blazing fire. The ‘ End of Time ’ conceived the 
 jocose idea of crowning me King of the country, with loud cries of 
 ‘ Buh ! Buh! Buh ! ’ while showering leaves from a gum tree and 
 water from a prayer-bottle over my head, and then with all solemnity 
 bound on my turban. I was hindered and threatened in no end 
 of places, and my companions threatened to desert me, saying, 
 
 ‘ They will spoil that white skin of thine at Harar.’ Still I pushed 
 on. The Guda Birsi Bedawi number ten thousand spears. 
 
 “ One night we came upon a sheet of bright blaze, a fire threaten¬ 
 ing the whole prairie. 
 
 “ At last came the sign of leaving the Desert. The scene lifted, 
 and we came to the second step of the Ethiopian highlands. In 
 the midst of the valley beneath ran a serpentine of shining waters, 
 the gladdest spectacle we had yet witnessed. Further in front, 
 masses of hill rose abruptly from shady valleys, encircled on the 
 far horizon by a straight blue line of ground resembling a distant sea. 
 Behind us glared the desert. We had now reached the outskirts of 
 civilization, where man, abandoning his flocks and herds, settles, 
 cultivates, and attends to the comforts of life. 
 
 “ We saw fields, with lanes between, the daisy, the thistle, and 
 the sweet-briar, settled villages, surrounded by strong abatis of 
 thorns, which stud the hills everywhere, clumps of trees, to which 
 the beehives are hung, and yellow crops of holcus, or grain. The 
 Harvest-Home-song sounded pleasant to my ears, and, contrast¬ 
 ing with the silent desert, the hum of man’s habitation was music. 
 
I 2 I 
 
 Harar■—The Moslem Abyssinia. 
 
 They flocked out to gaze upon us, unarmed, and welcomed us. 
 We bathed in the waters, on whose banks were a multitude of 
 huge Mantidse, pink and tender green. I now had ample time to 
 see the manners and customs of the settled Somali, as I was con¬ 
 ducted to the cottage of the Gerad’s pretty wife, and learned the 
 home, and the day, and the food. They spoke Harari, Somali, Galla, 
 Arabic, and dialects. My kettle seems to have created surprise 
 everywhere. 
 
 “ Here the last preparations were made for entering this dread¬ 
 ful City. All my people, and my camels, and most of my goods, 
 had to be left here for the return journey, and it was the duty 
 of this Chief (Gerad) to accompany me. I happened to hear 
 one of them say, ‘ Of what use is his gun ? Before he could 
 fetch fire I should put this arrow through him.’ I wheeled round, 
 and discharged a barrel over their heads, which threw them into 
 convulsions of terror. The man I had now to depend upon was 
 Adan bin Kaushan, a strong wiry Bedawin. He was tricky, ambitious, 
 greedy of gain, fickle, restless, and treacherous, a cunning idiot, 
 always so difficult to deal with. His sister was married to the father 
 of the Amir of Harar, but he said, ‘ He would as soon walk into a 
 crocodile’s mouth as go into the walls of Harar.’ He received a 
 sword, a Koran, a turban, an Arab waistcoat of gaudy satin, about 
 seventy tobes, and a similar proportion of indigo-dyed stuff—he 
 privily complained to me that the Hammal had given him but 
 twelve cloths. A list of his wants will best explain the man. He 
 begged me to bring him from Berberah a silver-hilted sword and 
 some soap, one thousand dollars, two sets of silver bracelets, twenty 
 guns with powder and shot, snuff, a scarlet cloth coat embroidered 
 with gold, some poison that would not fail, and any other little 
 article of luxury which might be supposed to suit him. In return he 
 was to present me with horses, mules, slaves, ivory, and other 
 valuables : he forgot, however, to do so before he departed. 
 
 “ Whilst we were discussing the project, and getting on satisfactorily, 
 five strangers well mounted rode in. Two were citizens, and three 
 were Habr Awal Bedawi, high in the Amir’s confidence ; they had 
 been sent to settle blood-money with Adan. They then told him that 
 I, the Arab, was not one who bought and sold, but a spy; that I and 
 my party should be sent prisoners to Harar. Adan would not give 
 us up, falsely promising to present our salaams to the Amir. When 
 they were gone he told me how afraid he was, and that it was 
 impossible for him to conduct me to the City. I then relied upon 
 what has made many a small man Great, my good star and audacity. 
 
 “ Driven to bay, I wrote an English letter from the Political Agent 
 at Aden, to the Amir of Harar, intending to deliver it in person ; it 
 was 4 neck or nothing.’ I only took what was necessary, Sherwa 
 the son of Adan, the Bedawi Actidon and Mad Said, and left every¬ 
 thing behind me, excepting some presents for the Amir, a change of 
 clothes, an Arab book or two, a few biscuits, ammunition, and a little 
 tobacco. I passed through a lovely country, was stopiped by the 
 Gallas, and by the Habr Awal Bedawi, who offered, if we could 
 
122 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 wait till sunrise, to take us into the City ; so I returned a polite 
 answer, leading them to expect that I should wait till eight a.m. for 
 them. 1 left my journals, sketches, and books in charge of Adan. 
 
 “ The journey was hard, and I encountered a Harar Grandee, 
 mounted upon a handsomely comparisoned mule, and attended by 
 servants. He was very courteous, and, seeing me thirsty, ordered 
 me a cup of water. Finally arriving, at the crest of a hill, stood 
 the City—the end of my present travel—a long, sombre line, 
 strikingly contrasting with the white-washed towns of the East. The 
 spectacle, materially speaking, was a disappointment; nothing con¬ 
 spicuous appeared but two grey minarets of rude shape ; many would 
 have grudged exposing three lives to win so paltry a prize. But 
 of all that have attempted it, none ever succeeded in entering that 
 pile of stones; the thoroughbred traveller will understand my exulta¬ 
 tion, although my two companions exchanged glances of wonder. 
 Stopping while my companions bathed, I retired to the wayside and 
 sketched the town. We arrived at three p.m., and advancing to the 
 gate, Mad Said accosted a warder whom he knew, sent our salaams 
 to the Amir, saying we came from Aden, and requested the honour 
 of audience. The Habr Awal collected round me inside the town, 
 and scowling, inquired why we had not apprised them of our inten¬ 
 tion of entering the City; but it was ‘ war to the knife,’ and I did 
 not deign to answer. 
 
 Ten Days at Harar—the Most Exciting Trial of all. 
 
 “We were kept waiting half an hour, and were told by the warder 
 to pass the threshold. Long Guled gave his animal to the two 
 Bedawi, every one advising my attendants to escape with the 
 beasts, as we were going to be killed, on the road to this African 
 St. James. We were ordered to run, but we leisurely led our 
 mules in spite of the guide’s wrath, entered the gate, and strolled 
 down the yard, which was full of Gallas with spears, and the 
 waiting gave me an opportunity to inspect the place. I walked into 
 a vast hall, a hundred feet long, between two long rows of Galla 
 spearmen, between w r hose lines I had to pass. They were large 
 half-naked savages, standing like statues, with fierce movable eyes, 
 each one holding, with its butt end on the ground, a huge spear, with 
 a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered down them 
 coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their dangerous-look¬ 
 ing faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt, and 
 determined, at the first show of excitement, to run up to the Amir, 
 and put it to his head, if it were necessary, to save my own life. 
 
 “The Amir was like a little Indian Rajah, an etiolated youth about 
 twenty-four or twenty-five years old, plain, thin bearded, with a 
 yellow complexion, wrinkled brows, and protruding eyes. His dress 
 was a flowing robe of crimson cloth, edged with snowy fur, and a 
 narrow white turban tightly twisted round a tall conical cap of red 
 velvet, like the old Turkish headgear of our painters. His throne 
 
123 
 
 Harar — The Moslem Abyssinia. 
 
 was a common Indian hurst, or raised cot, about five feet long, with 
 back and sides supported by a dwarf railing; being an invalid, he 
 rested his elbow upon a pillow, under which appeared the hilt of a 
 Cutch sabre. Ranged in double line, perpendicular to the Amir, 
 stood the ‘ Court,’ his cousins and nearest relations, with right arms 
 bared after the fashion of Abyssinia. 
 
 “I entered this second avenue of Galla spearsmen with a loud 
 ‘ Peace be upon ye! ’ to which H.H. replying graciously, and 
 extending a hand, bony and yellow as a kite’s claw, snapped his 
 thumb and middle finger. Two chamberlains stepping forward, 
 held my forearms, and assisted me to bend low over the fingers, 
 which, however, I did not kiss, being naturally averse to performing 
 that operation upon any but a woman’s hand. My two servants 
 then took their turn : in this case, after the back was saluted, the 
 palm was presented for a repetition.* These preliminaries con¬ 
 cluded, we were led to, and seated upon a mat in front of the Amir, 
 who directed towards us a frowning brow and an inquisitive eye. 
 
 “ I made some inquiries about the Amir’s health : he shook his 
 head captiously, and inquired our errand. I drew from my pocket 
 my own letter : it was carried by a chamberlain, with hands veiled 
 in his tohe , to the Amir, who, after a brief glance, laid it upon the 
 couch, and demanded further explanation. I then represented in 
 Arabic that we had come from Aden, bearing the compliments of 
 our Dciulah, or Governor, and that we had entered Harar to see the 
 light of H.H.’s countenance : this information concluded with a little 
 speech describing the changes of Political Agents in Arabia, and 
 alluding to the friendship formerly existing between the English and 
 the deceased Chief Abubakr. 
 
 “The Amir smiled graciously. 
 
 “This smile, I must own, was a relief. We had been prepared for 
 the worst, and the aspect of affairs in the Palace was by no means 
 reassuring. 
 
 “ Whispering to his Treasurer, a little ugly man with a baldly shaven 
 head, coarse features, pug nose, angry eyes, and stubbly beard, the 
 Amir made a sign for us to retire. The bais'e main was repeated, and 
 we backed out of the audience-shed in high favour. According to 
 grandiloquent Bruce, ‘ the Court of London and that of Abyssinia 
 are, in their principles, one; ’ the loiterers in the Harar palace-yard, 
 who had before regarded us with cut-throat looks, now smiled as 
 though they loved us. Marshalled by the guard, we issued from the 
 precincts, and, after walking a hundred yards, entered the Amir’s 
 second palace, which we were told to consider our home. There we 
 found the Bedawi, who, scarcely believing that we had escaped 
 alive, grinned in the joy of their hearts, and we were at once provided 
 from the Chiefs kitchen with a dish of shabta , holcus cakes soaked in 
 sour milk, and thickly powdered with red pepper, the salt of this 
 inland region. 
 
 * In Abyssinia, according to the Lord of Geesh, this 
 liarity and confidence. 
 
 is a mark of royal fami- 
 
124 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 “ When we had eaten, the Treasurer reappeared, bearing the Amir’s 
 command that we should call upon his Wazir, the Gerad Mohammad. 
 We found a venerable old man, whose benevolent countenance 
 belied the reports current about him in Somali-land. Half rising, 
 although his wrinkled brow showed suffering, he seated me by his 
 side upon the carpeted masonry-bench, where lay the implements 
 of his craft—reeds, inkstands, and whitewashed boards for paper— 
 politely welcomed me, and, gravely stroking his cotton-coloured 
 beard, desired to know my object in good Arabic. 
 
 “ I replied almost in the words used to the Amir, adding, however, 
 some details, how in the old day one Madar Farfh had been charged 
 by the late Sultan Abubakr with a present to the Governor of Aden, 
 and that it was the wish of our people to re-establish friendly 
 relations and commercial intercourse with Harar. 
 
 “ ‘ Khayr Inshallah ! it is well, if Allah please! * ejaculated the 
 Gerad. I then bent over his hand, and took leave. 
 
 “ Returning, we inquired anxiously of the Treasurer about my 
 servants’ arms, which had not been returned, and were assured that 
 they had been placed in the safest of storehouses, the Palace. I 
 then sent a common six-barrelled revolver as a present to the Amir, 
 explaining its use to the bearer, and we prepared to make ourselves 
 as comfortable as possible. The interior of our new house was 
 a clean room, with plain walls, and a floor of tamped earth; opposite 
 the entrance were two broad steps of masonry, raised about two 
 feet, and a yard above the ground, and covered with hard matting. 
 I contrived to make upon the higher ledge a bed with the cushions 
 which my companions used as shabracques , and after seeing the 
 mules fed and tethered, lay down to rest, worn out by fatigue and 
 profoundly impressed with the poesie of our position. I was under 
 the roof of a bigoted prince whose least word was death; amongst 
 a people who detest foreigners; the only European that had ever 
 passed over their inhospitable threshold ; and, more than that, I was 
 the fated instrument of their future downfall .” 
 
 He gives a very detailed account of the City of Harar, its inhabi¬ 
 tants, and all he saw during his ten days there, for which I refer 
 people to “ First Footsteps in East Africa,” one large volume, 
 1856. He says— 
 
 “ The explorer must frequently rest satisfied with descrying from 
 his Pisgah, the knowledge which another more fortunate is destined 
 to acquire. Inside Harar, I was so closely watched, that it was 
 impossible to put pen to paper. It was only when I got back to 
 Wilensi that I hastily collected the grammatical forms, and a 
 vocabulary which proves that the language is not Arabic; that it 
 has an affinity with the Amharic. Harar has its own tongue, unin¬ 
 telligible to any save the citizens. Its little population of eight 
 thousand souls is a distinct race. A common proverb is, ‘ Hard as 
 the heart of Harar.’ They are extremely bigoted, especially against 
 
Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 
 
 125 
 
 Christians, and are fond of a religious war, or jehad , with the Gallas. 
 They hold foreigners in hate and contempt, and divide them into 
 two classes, Arabs and Somal. 
 
 The Somals say that the State dungeon is beneath the palace, 
 and that he who once enters it lives with unkempt beard and 
 untrimmed nails till the day when death sets him free. There is 
 nothing more terrible; the captive is heavily ironed, lies in a filthy 
 dungeon, and receives no food, except what he can obtain from 
 his own family, or buy or beg from his guards. The Amir has 
 bad health; I considered him consumptive. It is something in 
 my favour that, as soon as I departed, he wrote to the acting 
 Political Resident at Aden, earnestly begging to be supplied with 
 a Frank physician, and offering protection to any European who 
 might be persuaded to visit his dominions. His rule was severe, 
 if not just, and it has all the prestige of secrecy. Even the Gerad 
 Mohammad, even the Queen Dowager, are threatened with fetters 
 if they offer uncalled-for advice. His principal occupation is spying 
 his many stalwart cousins, indulging in vain fears of the English 
 and the Turks, amassing treasure by commerce and cheating. 
 
 “The Amir Ahmed is alive to the fact that some State should 
 hedge in a Prince. Neither weapons nor rosaries are allowed in 
 his presence; a chamberlain’s robe acts as spittoon; whenever 
 anything is given to or taken from him his hand must be kissed ; 
 even on horseback two attendants fan him with the hems of their 
 garments. Except when engaged on the Haronic visits, which he, 
 like his father, pays to the streets and byways at night, he is always 
 surrounded by a strong body-guard. He rides to Mosque escorted 
 by a dozen horsemen, and a score of footmen with guns and whips 
 precede him ; by his side walks an officer, shading him with a huge 
 and heavily fringed red-satin umbrella—from India to Abyssinia the 
 sign of princely dignity. Even at his prayers, two or three chosen 
 matchlockmen stand over him with lighted fusees. When he rides 
 forth in public, he is escorted by a party of fifty men; the running 
 footmen crack their whips and shout, ‘ Let! Let! ’ (Go ! go !), and 
 the citizens avoid stripes by retreating into the nearest house, or 
 running into another street. 
 
 “ Immediately on our arrival we were called upon by all sorts of 
 Arabs; they were very civil to me at first, but when the Amir 
 ceased to send for me, just as at civilized Courts, they prudently 
 cut me. The moment the Amir sent for me, my Habr Awal 
 enemies, seeing the tide of fortune setting in my favour, changed 
 their tactics, and proposed themselves as my escort to return to 
 Berberah, which I politely refused. They did me all the harm they 
 could, but my good star triumphed. After one day’s rest, I was 
 summoned to wait upon the Gerad Mohammad, who was Prime 
 Minister. Sword in hand, and, followed by my two attendants, I 
 walked to the Palace, and found him surrounded by six counsellors; 
 they were eating/#/, which has somewhat the effect of hashish. 
 
 He sat me by his right hand on the dais, where I ate/#/, being, 
 fortunately, used to these things, and fingered the rosary. Then 
 
126 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 followed prayer, and then a theological discussion, in which, fortu¬ 
 nately, I was able to distinguish myself. My theology won general 
 approbation and kind glances from the elders. In a very short 
 time I was sent for by the Amir, and this time was allowed to 
 approach the outer door with covered feet. I entered as cere¬ 
 moniously as before, and the prince motioned me to sit near the 
 Gerad, on a Persian rug to the right of the throne; my attendants 
 on humble mats at a greater distance. After sundry inquiries of 
 what was going on at Aden, the Resident’s letter was suddenly pro¬ 
 duced by the Amir, who bade me explain its contents, and wished 
 to know if it was my intention to buy and sell at Harar. I replied, 
 ‘ We are neither buyers nor sellers ; we have become your guests to 
 pay our respects to the Amir, who may Allah preserve, and that 
 the friendship between the two Powers may endure.’ The Amir was 
 pleased, and I therefore ventured to hope that the Prince would 
 soon permit me to return, as the air of Harar was too dry for me, 
 and that we were in danger of small-pox, then raging in the town, 
 and through the Gerad, the Amir said, ‘The reply will be vouchsafed,’ 
 and the interview was over. 
 
 “ I sent my salaam to one of the Ulema, Shaykh Jdmi; he accepted 
 the excuse of health and came to see me. He was remarkably well 
 read in the religious sciences, and a great man at Mecca, with much 
 influence with the Sultan, and employed on political Missions amongst 
 the Chiefs. He started with the intention of winning the Crown of 
 Glory by murdering the British Resident at Aden, but he was so 
 struck with the order of justice of our rule, he offered El Islam 
 to that officer, who received it so urbanely, that the simple Eastern, 
 ins:ead of cutting the Kaffir’s throat, began to pray fervently for his 
 conversion. We were kindly looked upon by a sick and decrepid 
 eunuch, named Sultdn. I used to spend my evenings preaching to 
 the Gatlas. 
 
 The Gerad Mohammad was now worked upon by the Habr 
 Awal, my enemies, to make inquiries about me, and one of the 
 Ayyal Gedfd clan came up and reported that three brothers * had 
 landed in the Somal country, that two of them were anxiously 
 waiting at Berberah the return of the fourth from Harar, and that, 
 though dressed like Moslems, they were really English spies in 
 Government employ, and orders were issued for cutting off Caravans. 
 We, however, were summoned to the Gerad’s, where, fortunately for 
 me, I found him suffering badly from bronchitis. I saw my chance. 
 I related to him all its symptoms, and told him that if I could only 
 get down to Aden, I could send him all the right remedies, with 
 directions. He clung to the hope of escaping his sufferings, and 
 begged me to lose no time. Presently the Amir sent for him, and 
 in a few minutes I was sent for alone. A long conversation ensued 
 about the state of Aden, of Zayla, of Berberah, and of Stamboul. 
 The Chief put a variety of questions about Arabia, and every object 
 there ; the answer was that the necessity of commerce, confined us 
 
 tf “Speke, Herne, and Stroyan.” 
 
Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 127 
 
 to the gloomy rock Aden. He used some obliging expressions about 
 desiring our friendship, and having considerable respect for a people 
 who built, he understood, large ships. I took the opportunity of 
 praising Harar in cautious phrase, and especially of regretting that 
 its coffee was not better known amongst the Franks. The small 
 wizen-faced man smiled, as Moslems say, the smile of Umar; * seeing 
 his brow relax for the first time, I told him that, being now restored 
 to health, we requested his commands for Aden. He signified con¬ 
 sent with a nod, and the Gerad, with many compliments, gave me 
 a letter addressed to the Political Resident, and requested me to 
 take charge of a mule as a present I then arose, recited a short 
 prayer, the gist of which was that the Amir’s days and reign might 
 be long in the land, and that the faces of his foes might be blackened 
 here and hereafter, bent over his hand, and retired. Returning to 
 the Gerad’s levee-hut, I saw by the countenances of my two atten¬ 
 dants that they were not a little anxious about the interview, and 
 comforted them with the whispered word, ‘ Achha ! ’ (all right!) 
 
 “ Presently appeared the Gerad, accompanied by two men, who 
 brought my servants’ arms, and the revolver which I had sent to 
 the prince. This was a contretemps. It was clearly impossible 
 to take back the present; besides which, I suspected some finesse 
 to discover my feelings towards him. The other course would ensure 
 delay. I told the Gerad that the weapon was intended especially to 
 preserve the Amir’s life, and, for further effect, snapped caps in rapid 
 succession, to the infinite terror of the august company. The Minister 
 returned to his Master, and soon brought back the information that, 
 after a day or two, another mule should be given to me. With 
 suitable acknowledgments we arose, blessed the Gerad, bade adieu 
 to the assembly, and departed joyful; the Hammal, in his glee, 
 speaking broken English, even in the Amir’s courtyard. 
 
 “ Shaykh Jami was rendered joyful by the news he told me when 
 I arrived; he had been informed that in the Town was a man who 
 had brought down the birds from heaven, and the citizens had 
 been thrown into a great excitement by my probable intentions. 
 One of the principal Ulema, and a distinguished Haji, had been 
 dreaming dreams in my favour, and sent their salaams. My long 
 residence in the East had made me grateful to the learned, whose 
 influence over the people, when unbiased by bigotry, is for the good. 
 On January nth, I was sent for by the Gerad, and given the second 
 mule ; he begged me not to forget his remedies as soon as I reached 
 Aden, and I told him that I would start on the morrow. I scarcely 
 had got in, when there were heavy showers and thunder. When I 
 got up to mount early on Friday morning, of course a mule had 
 strayed; then Shaykh Jami would not go till Monday. Now, as 
 I had been absent from my goods and chattels a whole fortnight, 
 as the people at Harar are immensely fickle, as you never know the 
 moment that the Amir may change his mind, for all African Cities 
 are prisons on a large scale—you enter by your own will, but you 
 
 * “ Because it was reported that he had never smiled but once.” 
 
128 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 leave by another’s—I longed to start; however, the storms warned 
 me to be patient, and I deferred my departure till next morning. 
 
 “Long before dawn on Saturday, January 13th, the mules were 
 saddled, bridled, and charged with our scanty luggage. After a 
 hasty breakfast we shook hands with old Sultdn, the eunuch, 
 mounted and pricked through the desert streets. Suddenly my 
 weakness and sickness left me—so potent a drug is joy—and, as 
 we passed the Gates, loudly salaaming to the warders, who were 
 crouching over the fire inside, a weight of care and anxiety fell 
 from me like a cloak of lead. 
 
 “Yet I had time, on the top of my mule, for musing upon how 
 melancholy a thing is Success. Whilst failure inspirits a man, 
 attainment reads the sad prosy lesson that all our glories 
 
 ‘ Are shadows, not substantial things.’ 
 
 Truly said the sayer, ‘Disappointment is the salt of life’—a salutary 
 bitter which strengthens the mind for fresh exertion, and gives a 
 double value to the prize. 
 
 “This shade of melancholy soon passed away. We made in a 
 direct line for Kondura. At one p.m. we safely threaded the Gallas’ 
 pass, and about an hour afterwards we exclaimed, ‘ Alhamdulillah,’ 
 at the sight of Sagharrah and the distant Marar Prairie. Entering 
 the village, we discharged our firearms. The men gave cordial 
 poignees de mains —some danced with joy to see us return alive; they 
 had heard of our being imprisoned, bastinadoed, slaughtered; they 
 swore that the Gerad was raising an army to rescue or revenge us— 
 in fact, had we been their kinsmen, more excitement could not have 
 been displayed. Lastly, in true humility, crept forward the “ End of 
 Time,” who, as he kissed my hand, was upon the point of tears. 
 
 “ A pleasant evening was spent in recounting our perils, as 
 travellers will do, and complimenting one another upon the power 
 of our star. 
 
 “ At eight next morning we rode to Wilensi, and as we approached, 
 all the villagers and wayfarers inquired if we were the party that had 
 been put to death by the Amir of Harar. 
 
 “ Loud congratulations and shouts of joy awaited our arrival. 
 The Kalendar was in a paroxysm of delight; both Shehrazade and 
 Deenarzade were affected with giggling and what might be blushing. 
 We reviewed our property and found that the One-eyed had been a 
 faithful steward, so faithful indeed that he had wellnigh starved 
 the two women. Presently appeared the Gerad and his sons, 
 bringing with them my books ; the former was at once invested 
 with a gaudy Abyssinian tobe of many colours, in which he sallied 
 forth from the cottage the admired of all admirers. The pretty 
 wife, Sudfyah, and the good Khayrah were made happy by sundry 
 gifts of huge Birmingham ear-rings, brooches and bracelets, scissors, 
 needles, and thread. The evening as usual ended in a feast. 
 
 “We were obliged to halt a week at Wilensi to feed, for both 
 man and beast to lay in a stock of strength for the long desert 
 
129 
 
 Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 
 
 march before us, to buy onions, tobacco, spices, wooden platters, 
 and a sort of bread called karanji. Here I made my grammar and 
 vocabulary of the Harari tongue, under the supervision of Mad Said 
 and Ali the poet, a Somali educated at Harar, who knew Arabic, 
 Somali, Galla, and Harar languages. 
 
 On January 21st I wanted to start, but Shaykh Jami appeared 
 with all the incurables of the country. Nobody can form an idea 
 of the difficulties that an Eastern will put in your way when you 
 want to start, and unfortunately in nine cases out of ten the ruses 
 they have resort to, do prevent your starting. Now, in this case, 
 I decided that talismans were the best and safest medicines in 
 these mountains. The Shaykh doubted them, but when I exhibited 
 my diploma as a Master-Sufi, a new light broke in upon him and 
 his attendants. £ Verily he hath declared himself this day!’ whis¬ 
 pered each to his neighbour, sorely mystified. Shaykh Jami carefully 
 inspected the document, raised it reverently to his forehead, muttered 
 prayers, and owned himself my pupil. 
 
 Now, however, all my followers had got some reason why they 
 could not go, so I sauntered out alone, attended only by the 
 Hammal, and, in spite of the Chief summoning me to halt, I took 
 an abrupt leave and went off, and entered the Marar Prairie with 
 pleasure. The truants joined us later on, and we met a party 
 whose Chief, a Somali, expressed astonishment at our escaping from 
 Harar, told us that the Berberi were incensed with us for leaving 
 the direct road, advised us to push on that night, to ’ware the bush, 
 whence the Midjans would use their poisoned arrows. The Berberi 
 had offered a hundred cows for our person dead or alive. Then 
 my party sat down to debate; they palavered for three hours. They 
 said that the camels could not walk, that the cold of the prairies 
 was death to man, till darkness came on. Experience had taught 
 me that it was waste of time to debate overnight about dangers 
 to be faced next day, so I ate my dates, drank my milk, and lay 
 down to enjoy sweet sleep in the tranquil silence of the desert. 
 Although I did not know it till after my return from Berberah, 
 Gerad Adan was my greatest danger. If his plotting had succeeded 
 it would have cost him dear, but would also have proved fatal to me. 
 The 23rd of January passed in the same manner, and the explana¬ 
 tion I had with my men was, that on the morrow at dawn I would 
 cross the Marar Prairie by myself; and we started at dawn on the 
 24th, giving a wide berth to the Berberis, whose camp-fires were quite 
 visible at a distance. As we were about to enter the lands of the 
 Habr Awal, our enemies, a week would elapse before we could get 
 protection. We had resolved to reach the coast within the fortnight, 
 instead of which a month’s march was in prospect. Suddenly Beuh 
 appeared, and I proposed to him that he should escort the Caravans 
 to Zayla, and that I and the two others who had accompanied me to 
 Harar would mount our mules, only carrying arms and provisions for 
 four days. I pushed through the land of our enemies the Habr Awal. 
 In the land we were to traverse every man’s spear would be against 
 us, so I chose the desert roads, and carefully avoided all the kraals. 
 
130 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 It was with serious apprehension that I pocketed all my remaining 
 provisions—five biscuits, a few limes, a few lumps of sugar. Any 
 accident to our mules, any delay would starve us; we were traversing 
 a desert where no one would sell us meat or milk, and only one 
 water-bottle in the whole party. 
 
 We rode thirty-five miles over awful tracks. Our toil was 
 rendered doubly dreadful by the Eastern traveller’s dread—the 
 demon of Thirst rode like Care behind us—for twenty-four hours 
 we did not taste water, the sun parched our brains, the mirage 
 mocked us at every turn, and the effect was a species of monomania. 
 As I jogged along with eyes closed against the fiery air, no image 
 unconnected with the want suggested itself. Water ever lay before 
 me, water lying deep in the shady well, water in streams bubbling 
 icy from the rock, water in pellucid lakes inviting me to plunge and 
 revel in their treasures. Now an Indian cloud was showering upon 
 me fluid more precious than molten pearl, then an invisible hand 
 offered a bowl for which the mortal part would gladly have 
 bartered years of life. Then—drear contrast!—I opened my eyes 
 to a heat-reeking plain, and a sky of that eternal metallic blue so 
 lovely to painter and poet, so blank and death-like to us, whose 
 yaXov was tempest, rain-storm, and the huge purple nimbus. I 
 tried to talk—it was in vain ; to sing—in vain; vainly to think; 
 every idea was bound up in one subject—water.* 
 
 “As a rule, twelve hours without water in the desert during hot 
 weather kill a man. We had another frightful journey to the next 
 water. I never suffered severely from thirst but on this expedition ; 
 probably it was in consequence of being at the time but in weak 
 health so soon after Mecca. A few more hours and the little party 
 would have been food for the desert beasts. We were saved by 
 a bird. When we had been thirty-six hours without water we 
 could go no further, and we were prepared to die the worst of all 
 deaths. The short twilight of the tropics was drawing in, I looked 
 up and saw a katta, or sand-grouse, with its pigeon-like flight, 
 making for the nearer hills. These birds must drink at least once 
 a day, and generally towards evening, when they are safe to carry 
 water in their bills to their young. I cried out, ‘ See, the katta / 
 the katta ! ’ All revived at once, took heart, and followed the bird, 
 which suddenly plunged down about a hundred yards away, showing 
 us a charming spring, a little shaft of water, about two feet in 
 diameter, in a margin of green. We jumped from our saddles, and 
 men and beasts plunged their heads into the water and drank till 
 they could drink no more. I have never since shot a katta. 
 
 “ With unspeakable delight, after another thirty hours, we saw in 
 the distance a patch of lively green: our animals scented the blessing 
 from afar, they raised their drooping ears, and started with us at 
 
 * I often thought Grant Allen, in the third volume of “The Devil’s Die,” 
 drew his account of the journey of Mohammed Ali and Ivan Royle from Eagle 
 City through the desert to Carthage on the edge of the desert from Richard’s 
 journey from Harar; it is so like it—but he told me he did not.—I. B. 
 
Harar — The Moslem Abyssinia. 131 
 
 a canter, till, turning a corner, we suddenly sighted sundry little 
 wells. To spring from the saddle, to race with our mules, who now 
 feared not the crumbling sides of the pits, to throw ourselves into 
 the muddy pools, to drink a long slow draught, and to dash the 
 water over our burning faces, took less time to do than to recount. 
 A calmer inspection showed a necessity for caution; the surface was 
 alive with tadpoles and insects : prudence, however, had little power 
 at that time—we drank, and drank, and then drank again. As our 
 mules had fallen with avidity upon the grass. I proposed to pass 
 a few hours near the wells. My companions, however, pleading the 
 old fear of lions, led the way before dark to a deserted kraal upon a 
 neighbouring hill. We had marched this time about thirty hour, 
 eastward , and had entered a safe country belonging to the Bahgobas 
 our guide’s clan. 
 
 “There is nothing so dreadful as crossing a country full of blocks 
 and boulders piled upon one another in rugged steps, and it was 
 such a ravine, the Spliigen of Somali-land, that we had to dismount. 
 To a laden camel it is almost impossible; the best-fed horses, mules, 
 or asses, having to perform the work of goats instead of their own, 
 are worn out by it after a few hours; and this was what I and my 
 party had to do, and often the boulders were covered with thorns 
 two inches long, tipped with wooden points as sharp as a needle. 
 After three days of hard travelling in this way we saw the face 
 of man—some shepherds, who fled at our approach. We then 
 followed an undulating growth of parched grass, shaping our 
 course for Jebel Almis, to sailors the chief landmark of this coast, 
 and for a certain thin blue stripe on the far horizon,—the sea,— 
 upon which we gazed with gladdened eyes. That night we 
 arrived at a kraal, unsaddled, and began to make ourselves com¬ 
 fortable, w'hen we found we had fallen upon the Ayyal Shirdon, 
 our bitterest^ enemies. They asked, ‘What tribe be ye?’ I boldly 
 answered, ‘ Of Habr Gerhagis.’ Thereupon ensued a war of words; 
 they rudely insisted on knowing what had taken us to Harar, 
 when a warrior armed with two spears came forward, recognized 
 the ‘ End of Time,’ and they retired but spoke of fighting. So 
 we made ready with our weapons and bade them come on; but 
 while they were considering, we saddled our mules and rode off*. 
 We stopped at three villages, and the Hammal failed to obtain even 
 a drop of water from his relations. It was most distressful, as men 
 and beasts were faint from thirst, so I determined to push forward 
 for water that night. Many times the animals stopped,—a mute hint 
 that they could go no further;—but / pushed on, and the rest had 
 learned to follow without a word. The moon arose, and still we 
 tottered on. About midnight—delightful sound !—the murmur of 
 the distant sea. Revived by the music, we pushed on more cheerily. 
 At three in the morning we found some holes which supplied us 
 with bitter water, truly delicious after fifteen hours’ thirst. Repeated 
 draughts of this element, and coarse stubbly grass, saved us and our 
 mules. Rain came on, but we slept like the dead. At six, we 
 resumed our march, going slowly along the seacoast, and at noon 
 
132 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 we were able to sit on the sands and bathe in the sea. Our beasts 
 could hardly move, and slippery mud added to their troubles. 
 At three p.m. we again got a patch of grass, and halted the animals 
 to feed; and a mile further some wells, where we again rested them, 
 watered them, finished our last mouthful of food, and prepared for 
 a long night march. 
 
 “We managed to pass all our enemies in the dark, and they cursed 
 the star that had enabled us to slip unhurt through their hands. 
 
 I was obliged to call a halt within four miles of Berberah; the 
 animals could not move, neither could the men, except the Hammal 
 and I, and they all fell fast asleep on the stones. As soon as we could 
 go on, a long dark line appeared upon the sandy horizon, the sil¬ 
 houettes of shipping showing against sea and sky. A cry of joy burst 
 from every mouth. ‘ Cheer, boys, cheer ! our toils here touch their 
 end.’ The ‘End of Time’ still whispered anxiously lest enemies 
 might arise; we wound slowly and cautiously round the southern 
 portion of the sleeping town, through bone-heaps, and jackals tearing 
 their unsavoury prey, straight into the quarter of the Ayyal Gedid, 
 our protectors. Anxiously I inquired if my comrades had left 
 Berberah, and heard with delight that they were there. It was two 
 o’clock in the morning, and we had marched forty miles. 
 
 “ I dismounted at the huts where my comrades were living. A 
 glad welcome, a dish of rice, and a glass of strong waters made 
 amends for past privations and fatigue. The servants and the 
 wretched mules were duly provided for, and I fell asleep, conscious 
 of having performed a feat which, like a certain ride to York, will 
 live in local annals for many and many a year. 
 
 u Great fatigue is seldom followed by long sleep. Soon after 
 sunrise I woke, hearing loud voices, seeing masses of black faces, and 
 tawny wigs. The Berberah people, who had been informed of our 
 five-day ride, swore that the thing was impossible, that we had never, 
 could never have been near Harar, but were astonished when they 
 found it was true. I then proceeded to inspect my attendants and 
 cattle. The former were delighted, having acquitted themselves of 
 their trust; the poor mules were by no means so easily restored. 
 Their backs were cut to the bone by the saddle, their heads drooped 
 sadly, their hams showed dread marks of the spear-point. I directed 
 them to be washed in the sea, to be dressed with cold-water bandages, 
 and copiously fed. Through a broad gap, called Duss Malablay, 
 appear in fine weather the granite walls of Wagar and Gulays, 
 5700 feet above the level of the sea. Lieutenant Herne found 
 it would make an admirable sanitarium. The emporium of Eastern 
 Africa has a salubrious climate, abundance of sweet water, a mild 
 monsoon, a fine open country, an excellent harbour, a highly pro¬ 
 ductive soil, is the meeting-place of commerce, has few rivals, and 
 for half the money wasted on Aden, might have been covered with 
 houses, gardens, and trees. My companions and I, after a day’s 
 rest, made some excursions. We had a few difficulties about our 
 Abans , or protectors. We did not choose to be dictated to, so there 
 was a general council of the elders. It took place upon the shore,. 
 
*33 
 
 Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 
 
 each Chief forming a semicircle with his followers, all squatting on 
 the sand, with shield and spear planted upright in the ground. I 
 entered the circle sword in hand, and sat down in their midst. 
 After much murmuring had gone on the Chief asked, in a loud 
 voice, ‘Who is thy protector?’ The reply was, * Burhale Nuh,’ 
 followed by an Arabic speech as long as an average sermon, and then, 
 shouldering my blade, I left the circle abruptly. It was a success ; 
 they held a peace conference, and the olive waved over the braves 
 of Berberah. On the 5th of February, 1855, I left my comrades pro 
 te?n ., and went on board El Kasai , or the Reed, the ill-omened 
 name of our cranky craft, and took with me the Hammal, Long 
 Guled, and the ‘ End of Time,’ who were in danger, and rejoiced at 
 leaving Berberah with sound skins. I met with opposition at land¬ 
 ing. I could not risk a quarrel so near Berberah, and was returning 
 to moralize on the fate of Burckhardt—after a successful pilgrimage 
 refused admittance to Aaron’s tomb at Sinai—when a Bedawin ran 
 to tell us that we might wander where we pleased. 
 
 “ The captain of the Reed drew off a great deal further than I 
 ordered, and when I went down to go on board, the vessel was a 
 mere speck upon the sea horizon. He managed to cast anchor at 
 last, after driving his crazy craft through a bad sea. I stood on the 
 shore making signs for a canoe, but he did not choose to see me till 
 about one p.m. As soon as I found myself on quarter-deck— 
 
 “ ‘ Dawwir el farman ! ” (Shift the yard !) I shouted, with a voice 
 of thunder. 
 
 “ The answer was a general hubbub. ‘ He surely will not sail in a 
 sea like this ? ’ asked the trembling captain of my companions. 
 
 “ ‘ He will!’ sententiously quoth the Hammal, with a Burleigh nod. 
 
 “ ‘ It blows wind,’ remonstrated the rais. 
 
 “ ‘ And if it blew fire ? ’ asked the Hammal, with the air goguenard , 
 meaning that from the calamity of Frankish obstinacy there was no 
 refuge. 
 
 “ A kind of death-wail rose, during which, to hide untimely 
 laughter, I retreated to a large drawer in the stern of the vessel, 
 called a cabin. There my ears could distinguish the loud entreaties 
 of the crew, vainly urging my attendants to propose a day’s delay. 
 Then one of the garrison, accompanied by the Captain, who shook 
 as with fever, resolved to act forlorn hope, and bring a feu a!e?ifer of 
 phrases to bear upon the Frank’s hard brain. Scarcely, however, had 
 the head of the sentence been delivered, before he was playfully 
 upraised by his bushy hair and a handle somewhat more substantial, 
 carried out of the cabin, and thrown, like a bag of biscuit, on the 
 deck. 
 
 “ The case was hopeless. All strangers plunged into the sea—-the 
 popular way of landing in East Africa—the anchor was weighed, 
 the ton of sail shaken out, and the Reed began to dip and rise in 
 the yeasty sea laboriously, as an alderman dancing a polka. 
 
 “ For the first time in my life I had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 Somal unable to eat—unable to eat mutton !! In sea-sickness and 
 needless terror, the Captain, crew, and passengers abandoned to us 
 
134 The Life of Sir Richard Burton, 
 
 all the baked sheep, which we three, not being believers in the Evil 
 Eye, ate from head to trotters with especial pleasure. That night 
 the waves broke over us. The ‘ End of Time * occupied himself in 
 roaring certain orisons which are reputed to calm stormy seas ; he 
 desisted only when Long Guled pointed out that a wilder gust seemed 
 to follow, as in derision, each more emphatic period. The Captain, a 
 noted reprobate, renowned on shore for his knowledge of erotic verse 
 and admiration of the fair sex, prayed with fervour; he was joined 
 by several of the crew, who apparently found the charm of novelty 
 in the edifying exercise. About midnight a sultan el bahr , or sea- 
 King—a species of whale—appeared close to our counter; and 
 as these animals are famous for upsetting vessels in waggish¬ 
 ness, the sight elicited a yell of terror, and a chorus of religious 
 exclamations. 
 
 “ On the morning of Friday, the 9th of February, 1855, we hove 
 in sight of Jebel Shamsan, the loftiest peak on the Aden crater. 
 And ere evening fell, I had the pleasure of seeing the faces of 
 friends and comrades once more. 
 
 “ If I had ‘ let well alone/ I should have done well; but I 
 wanted to make a new expedition Nile-wards, via Harar, on a 
 larger and more imposing scale. For that I went back to Aden. 
 On April 7th, 1855, I returned successful. Lieutenant King, 
 Indian Navy, commanded the gunboat Main , and entered the 
 harbour of Berberah with us on board. I was in command 
 of a party of forty-two men, armed, and we established an agency, 
 and selected the site of our camp in a place where we could have 
 the protection of the gunboat; but the Commander of the schooner 
 had orders to relieve another ship, and so could not remain and 
 superintend the departure of the Expedition. It was the time after 
 the Fair, and one might say that Berberah was empty, and that there 
 was scarcely any one but ourselves. Our tents were pitched in one 
 line—Stroyan’s to the right, Herne and myself in the middle, and 
 Speke on the left. The baggage was placed between our tents, the 
 camels were in front, the horses and mules behind us. Two sentries 
 all night w r ere regularly relieved and visited by ourselves. We were 
 very well received, and they listened with respectful attention to a 
 letter, in which the Political Resident at Aden enjoined them to 
 treat us with consideration and hospitality. We had purchased 
 fifty-six camels ; Ogadayn Caravan was anxious for our escort. If 
 we had departed then, perhaps all would have been well; but we 
 expected instruments and other necessaries by the mid-April mail 
 from Europe. Three days afterwards, a craft from Aden came in 
 with a dozen Somals, who wanted to accompany us, and fortunately 
 I feasted the Commander and the crew, which caused them to remain. 
 We little knew that our lives hung upon a thread, and that had the 
 vessel departed, as she would otherwise have done, the night before 
 the attack, nothing could have saved us. Between two and three 
 a.m. of April 19th, there was a cry that the enemy was upon us, 
 three hundred and fifty strong. Hearing a rush of men, like a 
 
135 
 
 Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 
 
 stormy wind, I sprang up, and called for my sabre, and sent 
 Herne to ascertain the force of the foray. Armed with a ‘ Colt,’ he 
 went to the rear and left of the camp, the direction of danger, 
 collecting some of the guards—others having already disappeared— 
 and fired two shots into the assailants. Then finding himself alone, 
 he turned hastily towards the tent; in so doing, he was tripped up by 
 the ropes, and, as he arose, a Somali appeared in the act of striking 
 at him with a club. Herne fired, floored the man, and, rejoining me, 
 declared that the enemy was in great force and the guard nowhere. 
 Meanwhile, I had aroused Stroyan and Speke, who were sleeping in 
 the extreme right and left tents. The former, it is presumed, arose 
 to defend himself, but, as the sequel shows, we never saw him alive. 
 Speke, awakened by the report of firearms, but supposing it to be the 
 normal false alarm—a warning to plunderers—remained where he 
 was; presently, hearing clubs rattling upon his tent, and feet shuffling 
 around, he ran to my rowtie, which we prepared to defend as long 
 as possible. 
 
 “ The enemy swarmed like hornets, with shouts and screams, intend¬ 
 ing to terrify, and proving that overwhelming odds were against us. 
 It was by no means easy to avoid in the shades of night the jobbing 
 of javelins, and the long, heavy daggers thrown at our legs from 
 under and through the opening of the tent. We three remained 
 together ; Herne knelt by my right, on my left was Speke guarding 
 the entrance, I stood in the centre, having nothing but a sabre. 
 The revolvers were used by my companions with deadly effect; 
 unfortunately there was but one pair. When the fire was exhausted, 
 Herne went to search for his powder-horn, and, that failing, to find 
 some spears usually tied to the tent-pole. Whilst thus engaged, 
 he saw a man breaking into the rear of our rowtie, and came back 
 to inform me of the circumstance. 
 
 “ At this time, about five minutes after the beginning of the affray, 
 the tent had been almost beaten down—an Arab custom, with which 
 we were all familiar—and had we been entangled in its folds, like 
 mice in a trap, we should have been speared with unpleasant facility. 
 I gave the word for escape, and sallied out, closely followed by 
 Herne, with Speke in the rear. The prospect was not agreeable. 
 About twenty men were kneeling and crouching at the tent entrance, 
 whilst many dusky figures stood further off, or ran about shouting 
 the war-cry, or with shouts and blows drove away our camels. 
 Among the enemy were many of our friends and attendants; the 
 coast being open to them, they naturally ran away, firing a few 
 useless shots, and receiving a modicum of flesh-wounds. 
 
 “After breaking through the mob at the tent entrance, imagining 
 that I saw the form of Stroyan lying upon the sand, I cut my 
 way with my sabre towards it amongst dozens of Somal, whose 
 war-clubs worked without mercy, whilst the Balyuz, who was 
 violently pushing me out of the fray, rendered the strokes of my 
 sabre uncertain. This individual was cool and collected. Though 
 incapacitated by a sore right thumb from using the spear, he did not 
 shun danger, and passed unhurt through the midst of the enemy. 
 
136 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 His efforts, however, only illustrated the venerable adage, ‘Defend 
 me from my friends/ I mistook him in the dark and turned to 
 cut him down; he cried out in alarm. The well-known voice 
 stopped me, and that instant’s hesitation allowed a spearman 
 to step forward, and leave his javelin in my mouth, and retire 
 before he could be punished. Escaping as by a miracle, I sought 
 some support. Many of our Somal and servants lurking in the 
 darkness offered to advance, but ‘ tailed off’ to a man as we 
 approached the foe. Presently the Balyuz reappeared, and led me 
 towards the place where he believed my three comrades had taken 
 refuge. I followed him, sending the only man that showed presence 
 of mind, one Golab of the Yusuf tribe, to bring back the Aynterad 
 craft from the Spit into the centre of the harbour. Again losing 
 the Balyuz in the darkness, I spent the interval before dawn wander¬ 
 ing in search of my comrades, and lying down when overpowered 
 with faintness and pain. As the day broke, with my remaining 
 strength I reached the head of the creek, was carried into the vessel, 
 and persuaded the crew to arm themselves and visit the scene of 
 our disasters. 
 
 “ Meanwhile, Herne, who had closely followed me, fell back, 
 using the butt-end of his discharged six-shooter upon the hard 
 heads around him. In so doing he came upon a dozen men, who, 
 though they loudly vociferated, ‘ Kill the Franks who are killing 
 the Somal! ’ allowed him to pass uninjured. 
 
 “ He then sought his comrades in the empty huts of the town, and 
 at early dawn was joined by the Balyuz, who was similarly employed. 
 When day broke, he also sent a negro to stop the native craft, which 
 was apparently sailing out of the harbour, and in due time he came 
 on board. With the exception of sundry stiff blows with the war- 
 club, Herne had the fortune to escape unhurt. 
 
 “ On the other hand, Speke’s escape was in every way wonder¬ 
 ful. Sallying from the tent, he levelled his ‘ Dean and Adams ’ 
 close to an assailant’s breast. The pistol refused to revolve. A 
 sharp blow of a war-club upon the chest felled our comrade, who 
 was in the rear and unseen. When he fell, two or three men sprang 
 upon him, pinioned his hands behind, felt him for concealed 
 weapons—an operation to which he submitted in some alarm— 
 and led him towards the rear, as he supposed, to be slaughtered. 
 There, Speke, who could scarcely breathe from the pain of the 
 blow, asked a captor to tie his hands before instead of behind, and 
 begged a drop of water to relieve his excruciating thirst. The 
 savage defended him against a number of the Somal who came up 
 threatening and brandishing their spears. He brought a cloth for 
 the wounded man to lie upon, and lost no time in procuring a 
 draught of water. 
 
 “ Speke remained upon the ground till dawn. During the 
 interval he witnessed the war-dance of the savages—a scene 
 striking in the extreme; the tallest and largest warriors marching 
 with the deepest and most solemn tones, the song of thanksgiving. 
 At a little distance the grey uncertain light disclosed four or five 
 
Harar—The Moslem Abyssinia. 137 
 
 men lying desperately hurt, whilst their kinsmen kneaded their 
 limbs, pouring water upon their wounds, and placing lumps of dates 
 in their stiffening hands.* As day broke, the division of plunder 
 caused angry passions to rise. The dead and dying were abandoned. 
 One party made a rush upon the cattle, and with shouts and yells 
 drove them off towards the wilds. Some loaded themselves with 
 goods; others fought over pieces of cloth, which they tore with hand 
 and dagger; whilst the disappointed, vociferating with rage, struck 
 at one another and brandished their spears. More than once during 
 these scenes a panic seized them; they moved off in a body to 
 some distance; and there is little doubt that, had our guard struck 
 one blow, we might still have won the day. 
 
 “ Speke’s captor went to seek his own portion of the spoil, when 
 a Somal came up and asked in Hindostani what business the Frank 
 had in their country, and added that he would kill him if a 
 Christian, but spare the life of a brother Moslem. The wounded 
 man replied that he was going to Zanzibar, that he was still a 
 Nazarene, and therefore that the work had better be done at once. 
 The savage laughed, and passed on. He was succeeded by a 
 second, who, equally compassionate, whirled a sword round his 
 head, twice pretending to strike, but returning to the plunder without 
 doing damage. Presently came another manner of assailant. 
 Speke, who had extricated his hands, caught the spear levelled at 
 his breast, but received at the same moment a blow which, para¬ 
 lyzing his arm, caused him to lose his hold. In defending his 
 heart from a succession of thrusts, he received severe wounds on 
 the back of his hand, his right shoulder, and his left thigh. Pausing 
 a little, the wretch crossed to the other side, and suddenly passed 
 his spear clean through the right leg of the wounded man. The 
 latter, ‘ smelling death/ then leapt up, and, taking advantage of 
 his assailant’s terror, rushed headlong towards the sea. Looking 
 behind, he avoided the javelin hurled at his back, and had the good 
 fortune to run, without further accident, the gauntlet of a score of 
 missiles. When pursuit was discontinued, he sat down, faint from 
 loss of blood, upon a sandhill. Recovering strength by a few 
 minutes’ rest, he staggered on to the town, where some old women 
 directed him to us. Then, pursuing his way, he fell in with the 
 party sent to seek him, and by their aid reached the craft, having 
 walked and run at least three miles, after receiving eleven wounds, 
 two of which had pierced his thighs. A touching lesson how difficult 
 it is to kill a man in sound health! f My difficulty was, with my 
 comrades’ aid, to extract the javelin which transfixed my jaws. It 
 destroyed my palate and four good back teeth, and left wounds on 
 my two cheeks. 
 
 * “ The Somal place dates in the hands of the fallen to ascertain the extent of 
 injury. He that cannot eat that delicacy is justly decided to be in articulo 
 
 t “In less than a month after receiving such injuries, Speke was on his way to 
 England. He never felt the least inconvenience from the woands, which closed 
 up like indiarubber.” 
 
138 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “When we three survivors had reached the craft, Yusuf, the 
 Captain, armed his men with muskets and spears, landed them near 
 the camp, and ascertained that the enemy, expecting a fresh attack, 
 had fled, carrying away our cloth, tobacco, swords, and other 
 weapons. The corpse of Stroyan was then brought on board. Our 
 lamented comrade was already stark and cold. A spear had traversed 
 his heart, another had pierced his abdomen, and a frightful gash, 
 apparently of a sword, had opened the upper part of his forehead. 
 The body had been bruised with war-clubs, and the thighs showed 
 marks of violence after death. This was the severest affliction that 
 befell us. We had lived together like brothers. Stroyan was a 
 universal favourite, and his sterling qualities of manly courage, 
 physical endurance, and steady perseverance had augured for him 
 a bright career, thus prematurely cut off. Truly melancholy to 
 us was the contrast between the evening when he sat with us full 
 of life and spirits, and the morning when we saw amongst us a livid 
 corpse. 
 
 “ We had hoped to preserve the remains of our friend for interment 
 at Aden. But so rapid were the effects of exposure that we were 
 compelled most reluctantly, on the morning of the 20th of April, to 
 commit them to the deep, Herne reading the Funeral Service. 
 
 “Then, with heavy hearts, we set sail for the near Arabian shore, 
 and, after a tedious two days, carried our friends the news of the 
 unexpected disaster. 
 
 “ Richard F. Burton.” 
 
 When Speke wrote the manuscript of this affair, and in Blackwood ’ 
 and also in his book on the “ Sources of the Nile,” he said that he was 
 the Head of the Expedition; he had given the order for the night, 
 it was before him the spies were brought, he was the first to turn out, 
 and no one but he had the courage to defend himself. It is hardly 
 worth while to contradict it. It is obvious that this expedition 
 could only be commanded by a man who knew Arabic and some of 
 the other languages, of which he was perfectly ignorant. 
 
 So the results of this Expedition, to sum up in short, were, that 
 they barely escaped being caught like mice in a trap, by having their 
 tents thrown down upon them, the four fought bravely against three 
 hundred and fifty Bedawi, poor Stroyan was killed, Herne was 
 untouched, Richard and Speke were desperately wounded, though 
 they all cut their way gallantly through the enemy. Poor Speke had 
 eleven wounds, and Richard, with a lance transfixing his jaws, which 
 carried away four back teeth and part of his palate, wandered up 
 and down the coast suffering from his wounds, fever, hunger, and 
 thirst consequent on the wounds; but they met, they carried off the 
 dead body of their comrade, and were taken on board the native dhow 
 or boat, which the fortunate accident of Richard’s hospitality had 
 retained there just half an hour, long enough to save them, and the 
 
139 
 
 Harar—The Moslem Abyssi?iia. 
 
 natives sacked their property. They were so badly wounded, he had 
 to return to England, and here his wounds soon healed and he 
 picked up health. He rendered an account of his explorations 
 before the Royal Geographical Society.* After a month’s rest, he 
 obtained leave to volunteer for the Crimea. Here I would rather 
 give his own original manuscript word for word, because it is so 
 fresh, and, in a few pages, gives a better insight into outspoken 
 truth than many other large volumes. 
 
 * He began to prepare his public account of Harar in “First Footsteps in 
 East Africa,” one large volume, which, however, did not see the light till 1856. 
 It might have been called “ Harar,” to distinguish it from the trial trip previous 
 to the Great Lake Expedition. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CRIMEA WITH BEATSON’S HORSE 
 
 After the disastrous skirmish with the Somali at Berberah, it 
 is no wonder that I returned to England on sick certificate, 
 wounded and sorely discomfited. The Crimean War seemed 
 to me some opportunity of recovering my spirits, and as soon 
 as my health permitted, I applied myself to the ungrateful 
 task of volunteering. London then was in the liveliest state of 
 excitement about the Crimean bungles, and the ladies pitilessly 
 cut every officer who shirked his duty. So I read my paper 
 about Harar before the Royal Geographical Society, and had 
 the pleasure of being assured by an ancient gentleman, who 
 had never smelt Africa, that when approaching the town Harar 
 I had crossed a large and rapid river. It was in vain for me 
 to reject this information. Everyone seemed to think he must 
 be right. 
 
 Having obtained a few letters of introduction, and remember¬ 
 ing that I had served under General James Simpson, at Sakhar, 
 in Sind, I farewelled my friends, and my next step was to hurry 
 through France, and to embark at Marseille on board one of the 
 Messageries Imperiales, bound for Constantinople. 
 
 It was a spring voyage on summer seas, and in due time 
 we stared at the Golden Horn, and lodged ourselves at Missiri’s 
 Hotel. 
 
 At Stamboul, I met Fred Wingfield, who was bound to Balaclava, 
 as assistant under the unfortunate Mr Commissary-General Filder, 
 and had to congratulate myself upon my good fortune. We steamed 
 together over the inhospitable Euxine, which showed me the reason 
 for its sombre name. 
 
 The waters are in parts abnormally sweet, and they appear veiled 
 
The Crimea with Beatsons Horse. 141 
 
 in a dark vapour. Utterly unknown the blues, amethyst and 
 turquoise, of that sea of beauty, the Mediterranean; the same 
 is the case with the smaller Palus Meotis—Azoff. After the 
 normal three days we sighted the Tauric Chersonese, the land 
 of the Cimmerians and Scythians, the colony of the Greek, the 
 conquest of Janghiz and the Khans of Turkey, and finally 
 annexed by Russia after the wars, in which Charles XII. had 
 taught the Slav to fight. We then made Balaclava (Balik-liwa, 
 “ Fish town ”), with its dwarf fjord, dug out of dove-coloured lime¬ 
 stones, and forming a little port stuffed to repletion with every 
 manner of craft. 
 
 I passed a week with Wingfield and other friends, in and about 
 Balaclava, in frequent visits to the front and camp. A favourite 
 excursion from the latter was to the Monastery of St. George, classic 
 ground where Iphigenia was saved from sacrifice. There was a 
 noble view from this place, a foreground of goodly garden, a deep 
 ravine clad with glorious trees, a system of cliffs and needles studding 
 a sandy beach, and a lovely stretch of sparkling sea. No wonder 
 that it had been chosen by a hermit, whose little hut of unhewn 
 blocks lay hard by ; he was a man upwards of sixty apparently, 
 unknown to any one, and was fed by the black-robed monks. At 
 Kadikeui also I made the acquaintance of good Mrs. Seacole, 
 Jamaican by origin, who did so much for the comfort of invalids, 
 and whom we afterwards met with lively pleasure at Panama. 
 
 The British cavalry officers in the Crimea were still violently 
 excited by reports that Lord Cardigan was about returning to 
 command; and I heard more than one say, “We will not serve 
 under him.” And after a long experience of different opinions on 
 the spot, I came to the following conclusion:—The unhappy charge 
 of the “Six Hundred ” was directly caused by my old friend, Captain 
 Nolan of the 15th Hussars. An admirable officer and swordsman, 
 bred in the gallant Austrian Cavalry of that day, he held, and 
 advocated through life, the theory that mounted troops were an 
 overmatch for infantry, and wanted only good leading to break 
 squares and so forth. He was burning also to see the Lights 
 outrival the Heavies, who, under General Scarlett, had charged down 
 upon Russians said to be four times their number. Lord Lucan 
 received an order to take a Russian 12-gun battery on the Cause¬ 
 way Heights, from General Liprandi, and he sent a verbal message 
 by Nolan (General Airey’s aide-de-camp) to his brother-in-law, 
 Lord Cardigan, there being bad blood between the two. 
 
142 The Life of Sir Richard Burton ,. 
 
 Nolan, who was no friend to the hero of the Black Bottle, 
 delivered the order disagreeably, and when Lord Cardigan showed 
 some hesitation, roughly cut short the colloquy with, “ You have 
 your commands, my Lord,” and prepared, as is the custom, to join 
 in the charge. Hardly did it begin, than he was struck by a shot 
 in the breast, and, as he did not fall at once, some asked Lord 
 Cardigan where he was, and the reply came, “ I saw him go off 
 howling to the rear.” During the fatal charge Lord Cardigan lost 
 his head, and had that mome?it depeur to which the best soldiers are 
 at times subject. He had been a fire-eater with the “ Saw-handles,” 
 and the world expected too much of him ; again, a man of ordinary 
 pluck, he was placed in extraordinary circumstances, and how few 
 there are who are born physically fearless. I can count those 
 known to me on the fingers of my right hand. Believing that his 
 force was literally mown down, he forgot his duty as a Commanding 
 Officer, and instead of rallying the fugitives, he thought only of 
 sauve qui pent . Galloping wildly to the rear, he rushed up to 
 many a spectator, amongst others to my old Commander, General 
 Beatson, nervously exclaiming, “You saw me at the guns?” and 
 almost without awaiting a reply, rode on. Presently returning to 
 England, he had not the sound sense and good taste to keep himself 
 in the background; but received a kind of “ovation,” as they call it, 
 the ladies trying to secure hairs from his charger’s tail by way of 
 keepsake. Of course he never showed his face in the Crimea again. 
 The tale of this ill-fated and unprofessional charge has now changed 
 complexion. It is held up as a beau fait cCarmes, despite the best 
 bit of military criticism that ever fell from soldier’s lips : “ dest beau , 
 mais ce riest pas la guerre ,” the words of General Bosquet, who saved 
 the poor remnants of the Lights. 
 
 At head-quarters I called upon the Commander-in-Chief, General 
 Simpson, whom years before I had found in charge of Sakhar, 
 Upper Sind, held by all as wellnigh superannuated. He was 
 supposed to be one of Lever’s heroes, the gigantic Englishman 
 who, during the occupation of Paris, broke the jaw of the duelling 
 French officer, and spat down his throat. But age had told upon 
 him, mentally as well as bodily, and he became a mere plaything in 
 the hands of the French, especially of General P&issier, the typical 
 Algerian officer, who well knew when to browbeat and when to 
 cajole. “Jimmy Simpson,” as the poor old incapable was called, 
 could do nothing for me, so I wrote officially at once to General 
 Beatson, whom I had met at Boulogne, volunteering for the Irregular 
 Cavalry then known as “ Beatson’s Horse,” and I was delighted 
 when my name appeared in orders. Returning to Constantinople 
 
The Crimea with Beat sons Horse . 
 
 M3 
 
 I called upon the Embassy, then in summer quarters at Therapia, 
 where they had spent an anxious time. The gallant Vukados, 
 Russianized in Boutakoff, a Greek, who, in the nineteenth century, 
 belonged to the heroic days of Thermopylae and Marathon, and who 
 was actually cheered by his enemies, with the little merchant-brig 
 the Wladimir , alias Arciduca Giovcnini , had shown himself a master- 
 breaker-of-blockades, and might readily have taken into his head to 
 pay the Ambassador a visit. 
 
 I looked forward to a welcome and found one; a man who had 
 married my aunt, Robert Bagshaw, of Dovercourt, M.P., and 
 quondam Calcutta merchant, who had saved from impending bank¬ 
 ruptcy the house of Alexander and Co., to which Lady Stratford 
 belonged. 
 
 Nothing quainter than the contrast between that highly respectable 
 middle-class British peer and the extreme wildness of his sur¬ 
 roundings. There were but two exceptions to the general rule of 
 eccentricity—one, Lord Napier andEttrick with his charming wife, and 
 the other, Odo (popularly called “ O don’t! ”) Russell, who died as 
 Lord Ampthill, Ambassador to Berlin. It was, by-the-by, no bad idea 
 to appoint this high-bred and average talented English gentleman 
 to the Court of Prince Bismarck, who disliked and despised nothing 
 more thoroughly than the pert little political, the “ Foreign Office 
 pet ” of modern days. 
 
 After seeing all that was to be seen at Therapia and Constantinople, 
 I embarked on an Austrian Lloyd steamer, and ran down to the 
 Dardanelles, then the head-quarters of the Bashi-Bazouks. The 
 little town shared in the factitious importance of Gallipoli, and 
 other places more or less useful during the war; it had two Pashas, 
 Civil and Military, with a large body of Nizam or Regulars, whilst 
 the hillsides to the north were dotted with the white tents of the 
 Irregulars. General Beatson had secured fair quarters near the 
 old windmills, and there had established himself with his wife and 
 daughters. I at once recognized my old Boulogne friend, although 
 slightly disguised by uniform. He looked like a man of fifty-five, 
 with bluff face and burly figure, and probably grey hair became him 
 better than black. He always rode English chargers of good blood, 
 and altogether his presence was highly effective. 
 
 There had been much silly laughing at Constantinople, especially 
 amongst the grinning idiot tribe, about his gold coat, which was 
 said to stand upright by force of embroidery. But here he was 
 perfectly right, and his critics perfectly wrong. He had learnt 
 by many years’ service to recognize the importance of show and 
 splendour when dealing with Easterns. And no one had criticised 
 
144 716 * Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 the splendid Skinner or General Jacob of the Sind Horse, for wearing 
 a silver helmet and a diamond-studded sabretache. General Beatson 
 had served thirty-five years in the Bengal army, and was one of the 
 few amongst his contemporaries who had campaigned in Europe 
 during the long peace which followed the long war. In his subaltern 
 days he had volunteered into the Spanish Legion, under the Com¬ 
 mander, General Sir de Lacy Evans. After some hard fighting there, 
 and seeing not a few adventures, he had returned to India. When 
 the Crimean War broke out he went to Head-quarters at once, and, 
 for the mere fun of the thing, joined in the Heavy Cavalry charge. 
 
 In October, 1854, the Duke of Newcastle, then Minister of War, 
 addressed him officially, directing him to organize a Corps of Bashi- 
 Bazouks, not exceeding in number four thousand, who were to be 
 independent of the Turkish Contingent, consisting of twenty-five 
 thousand Regulars under General Vivian. 
 
 General Beatson wisely determined that his four thousand sabres 
 should be wholly unconnected with the twenty-five thousand men 
 of the Turkish Contingent. He wished to raise them in Syria, Asia 
 Minor, Bulgaria, and other places, regiment them according to their 
 nationalities, and to officer them, like Sepoy regiments, with English¬ 
 men and Subalterns of their own races. 
 
 The idea was excellent, but it was badly carried out, mainly by 
 default of the War Office, which had overmuch to do and could 
 not be at the trouble of sending out officers. So the men, whose 
 camps looked soldier-like enough, were left lying on the hillsides, 
 and Satan found a very fair amount of work for them. This was, 
 however, chiefly confined to duelling, and other such pastimes. 
 
 The exaggerated mutinies were mere sky-larking. After a few 
 days’ grumbling, a knot of “ Rotten Heads ” would mount their nags 
 with immense noise and clatter, and, loudly proclaiming that they 
 could stand the dulness of life no longer, would ride away, hoping 
 only to be soon caught. But the worst was, I could see no business 
 doing; there were no morning roll-calls or evening parades, no drilling 
 or disciplining of men, and the General contented himself with riding 
 twice a day through the camp, and listening to many grievances. 
 However, as soon as I was made “ Chief of the Staff,” I persuaded 
 him that this was not the thing, and induced him to establish all 
 three, and to add thereto a riding school for sundry officers of 
 infantry who were not very firm in the saddle, and also to open a. 
 School of Arms for the benefit of all (the last thing a British officer 
 learns is, to use his “ silly sword ”); and the consequence was, that 
 we soon had a fine body of well-trained sabres, ready to do anything 
 or to go anywhere. 
 
The Crimea with Beat son s Horse. 
 
 145 
 
 I now thought that I saw my way to a grand success, and my 
 failure was proportionally absurd. This was nothing less than the 
 relief of Kars, which was doomed to fall by famine, to the Russians. 
 
 It was reported that General Williams, who, with the Hungarian 
 General Metz, was taking a prominent part in the defence, addressed 
 upwards of eighty officials to Lord Stratford without receiving a 
 single reply; in fact, as Mr. Skene’s book shows, the great man 
 only turned them into ridicule. However, the “ Eltchi ” feared 
 ultimate consequences, and wrote to Lieut.-General (afterwards Sir) 
 Robert J. Hussey-Vivian, to consult him concerning despatching on 
 secret errand the Turkish Contingent, consisting, as it may be 
 remembered, of twenty-five thousand Nizam or Regulars, com¬ 
 manded by a sufficiency of British officers. 
 
 The answer was that ?io carriage could be procured. Vivian, 
 who was a natural son of Lord Vivian’s, had seen some active 
 service in his youth, but he was best known as an Adjutant-General 
 of the Madras army, a man redolent of pipe-clay and red tape, and 
 servilely subject to the Ambassador. So I felt that the game was in 
 my hands, and proceeded in glorious elation of spirits to submit my 
 project for the relief of Kars to his Excellency. We had already 2640 
 sabres in perfect readiness to march, and I could have procured any 
 quantities of carriage. The scene which resulted passes description. 
 He shouted at me in a rage, “You are the most impudent man 
 in the Bombay Army, Sir ! ” But I knew him, and understood him 
 like Alison, and did not mind. It ended with, “ Of course you’ll 
 dine with us to-day ? ” 
 
 * ****** 
 
 It was not until some months afterwards that I learnt what my 
 unhappy plan proposed to do. Kars was doomed to fall as a make¬ 
 weight for the capture of half of Sebastopol, and a Captain of Bashi- 
 Bazouks (myself) had madly attempted to arrest the course of haute 
 politique . 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 K 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 RICHARD LOVES ME. 
 
 Aye free, aff-hand your story tell. 
 
 When wi’ a bosom crony ; 
 
 But still keep something to yoursel* 
 
 Ye scarcely tell to ony.” 
 
 Burns. 
 
 As soon as Richard was well home from the Crimea, and had 
 attended Beatson’s trial, he began to turn his attention to the “Un¬ 
 veiling of Isis,” in other words, “ Discovering the sources of the Nile, 
 the Lake Regions of Central Africa,” on which his heart had long 
 been set, and he passed most of his time in London working it up. 
 
 One summer day, in August, 1856, thirty-seven years ago, we had 
 not gone out of town, and I was walking in the Botanical Gardens 
 with my sister, Blanche Pigott, and a friend, and Richard was there, 
 walking with the gorgeous creature of Boulogne—then married. We 
 immediately stopped and shook hands, and asked each other a 
 thousand questions of the four intervening years, and all the old 
 Boulogne memories and feelings which had lain dormant, but not 
 extinct, returned to me. He asked me before I left if I came very 
 often to the Botanical Gardens, and I said, “ Oh yes, we always 
 come and read and study here from eleven to one, because it is 
 so much nicer than staying in the hot rooms at this season.” 
 “ That is quite right,” he said. “ What are you studying ? ” I 
 had that day with me an old friend, Disraeli’s “ Tancred,” the book 
 of my heart and tastes, which he explained to me. We were there 
 about an hour, and when I had to leave, as I moved off, I heard 
 him say to his companion, “ Do you know that your cousin has 
 grown charming ? I would not have believed that the little schoolgirl 
 of Boulogne would have become such a sweet girl; ” and I heard 
 her say, “ Ugh ! ” with a tone of disgust. 
 
 Next day, when we got there, he was also there—alone—composing 
 poetry to show to Monckton-Milnes on some pet subject, and he came 
 forward, saying laughingly, “You won’t chalk up ‘Mother will be 
 angry ’ now, will you, as you did when you were a little girl ? ” Again 
 we walked and talked. This went on for a fortnight—I trod on air. 
 
 146 1 
 
 T j 
 
Richard loves me . 
 
 147 
 
 At the end of a fortnight he asked me “if I could dream of 
 doing anything so sickly as to give up Civilization, and if he could 
 obtain the Consulate at Damascus, to go and live there.” He said, 
 “ Don’t give me an answer now, because it will mean a very serious 
 step for you—no less than giving up your people, and all that you 
 are used to, and living the sort of life that Lady Hester Stanhope 
 led. I see the capabilities in you, but you must think it over.” I 
 was so long silent from emotion—it was just as if the moon had 
 tumbled down and said, “ I thought you cried for me, so I came ”— 
 that he thought I was thinking worldly thoughts, and said, “ Forgive 
 me ! I ought not to have asked so much.” At last I found my voice, 
 and said, “I don’t want to ‘think it over’—I have been ‘thinking 
 it over ’ for six years, ever since I first saw you at Boulogne on the 
 Ramparts. I have prayed for you every day, morning and night. I 
 have followed all your career minutely. I have read every word you 
 ever wrote, and I would rather have a crust and a tent wi\hyou than 
 be Queen of all the world. And so I say now, Yes ! Yes ! YES ! ” I 
 will pass over the next few minutes. Then he said, “ Your people 
 will not give you to me.” I answered, “ I know that, but I belong 
 to myself—I give myself away.” “ That is all right,” he answered ; 
 “ be firm, and so shall I.” 
 
 After that he came and visited a little at our house as an acquaint¬ 
 ance, having been introduced at Boulogne, and he fascinated, 
 amused, and pleasantly shocked my mother, but completely magne¬ 
 tized my father and all my brothers and sisters. My father used 
 to say, “ I don’t know what it is about that man, but I can’t get 
 him out of my head, I dream about him every night” 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman and Richard had become friends in early days. 
 Languages had brought them together, and the Cardinal now fur¬ 
 nished him with a special passport, recommending him to all the 
 Catholic Missions in wild places all over the World. 
 
 That last afternoon I had placed round his neck a medal of 
 the Blessed Virgin upon a steel chain, which we Catholics com¬ 
 monly call “ the miraculous medal.” He promised me he would 
 wear it throughout his journey, and show it me on his return. I had 
 offered it to him on a gold chain, but he had said, “ Take away 
 the gold chain; they will cut my throat for it out there.” He did 
 show it me round his neck when he came back; he wore it all his 
 life, and it is buried with him. 
 
 What made my position more painful was, that he knew that I 
 should not be allowed to receive any letters from him, and therefore 
 it was not safe to write often, and then only to say what others might 
 read. He left to me, at my request, the task of breaking the fact of 
 my engagement to my people, when, where, and how I pleased, as it 
 would be impossible to marry me until he came back. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HIS EXPLORATION OF THE LAKE REGIONS, TAKING CAPTAIN SPEKE 
 
 AS SECOND IN COMMAND. 
 
 My Foreword. 
 
 It was the Royal Geographical Society which induced Lord 
 Clarendon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to supply Richard 
 with funds for an exploration of the then utterly unknown Lake 
 Regions of Central Africa. In October, 1856, he set out for 
 Bombay, applied lor Captain Speke, and landed at Zanzibar on 
 December 19th, 1856. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, her Majesty’s 
 Consul at Zanzibar, was very good to them ; they made a tentative 
 expedition from January 5th to March 6th, 1857, about the Mombas 
 regions. They got a bad coast fever, and returned to Zanzibar. 
 They then set out again into the far interior, into which only one 
 European, Monsieur Maizan, a French naval officer, had attempted 
 to penetrate; he was cruelly murdered at the outset of his journey. 
 
 It was the first successful attempt to penetrate that country, and 
 laid the foundation for others. It was the base on which all subse- 
 I quent journeys were founded; Livingstone, Cameron, Speke and 
 Grant, Sir S. Baker, and Stanley carried it out Where Richard 
 found the rudest barbarians, Church missions have been established, 
 and commerce, and now a railway is proposed to connect the coast 
 with the Lake Regions. This expedition brought neither honour 
 nor profit to Richard ; but the world is not likely to forget it; the 
 future will be more generous and juster than the past or present. 
 During these African explorations, Richard was attacked by fever 
 twenty-one times, by temporary paralysis and partial blindness. On 
 his return he brought out “ The Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa,” 
 2 vols., i860, and the Royal Geographical Society devoted the 
 whole of their thirty-third volume to its recital (Clowes and Son). 
 Richard’s book was translated into French by Madame H. Loreau, 
 and republished in New York by Fakir, 1861. It will shortly be 
 added to the Uniform Library in preparation. In May, 1859, the 
 
149 
 
 Exploration of the Lake Regions. 
 
 moment he returned to England, he immediately proposed another 
 Expedition, which, however, the Royal Geographical Society gave to 
 his disloyal companion, who completely and wilfully spoiled the first 
 Expedition as far as lay in his power. 
 
 Zanzibar ; and Two Months in East Africa. 
 
 (From his own notes.) 
 
 Preliminary Canter. 
 
 “ Of the gladdest moments, methinks, in human life, is the depart¬ 
 ing upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with 
 one effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the 
 cloak of carking care, and the slavery of Civilization, Man feels once 
 more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of youth, 
 excitement gives a new vigour to the muscles, and a sense of sudden 
 freedom adds an inch to the stature. Afresh dawns the morn of life, 
 again the bright world is beautiful to the eye, and the glorious face of 
 Nature gladdens the soul. A journey, in fact, appeals to Imagination, 
 to Memory, to Hope—the sister Graces of our moral being. 
 
 “ The shrill screaming of the boatswain’s whistle, and sundry 
 shouts of, ‘Stand by yer booms!’ ‘All ready, for’ard?’ ‘Now 
 make sail ! ’ sounded in mine ears with a sweet significance. 
 
 Zanzibar. 
 
 “ Our captain decided, from the absence of Friday flags on the 
 Consular Staffs, that some great man had gone to his long home. 
 The Elphinstone , however, would not have the trouble of casting 
 loose her guns for nothing; with H.H. the Sayyid of Zanzibar’s 
 ensign—a plain red—at the fore, and the Union at the main, she cast 
 anchor in Front Bay, about half a mile from shore, and fired a salute 
 of twenty-one. A gay bunting thereupon flew up to every truck, and 
 the brass cannon of the Victoria roared a response of twenty-two. 
 We had arrived on the fortieth, or the last day of mourning. 
 
 “ When ‘ chivalry ’ was explained to the late ruler, Said of Zanzibar 
 3(1856), as enlightened a prince as Arabia ever produced, and sur¬ 
 rounded by intrigue, he was shrewd enough to remark ‘ that only 
 the siflah (low fellows) interfere between husband and wife.’ 
 
 “ Peace to his soul! he was a model of Arab princes, a firm 
 friend to the English nation, and a great admirer of the ‘ Malikat el 
 Aazameh,’ our most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. 
 
 “ The unworthy merchants of Zanzibar, American and European, 
 did their best to secure for us the fate of M. Maizan, both on this 
 and on a subsequent occasion, by spreading all manner of reports 
 amongst the Banyans, Arabs, and Sawahilis. 
 
 “ Considering the unfitness of the season, we were strongly advised 
 to defer exploration of the interior until we had learned something of 
 the coast, and for that purpose we set out at once, for a two or three 
 months’ cruise. 
 
150 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “ If we, travellers in transit, had reason to be proud of our country¬ 
 man’s influence at Zanzibar, the European and American merchants 
 should be truly thankful for it. Appointed in 1840 H.B.M.’s 
 Consul and H.E.I. Co.’s agent at the court of H.H. Sayyid Said, 
 and directed to make this island his Head-quarters, Colonel Hamerton 
 found that for nine years not a British cruiser had visited it, and 
 that report declared us to be no longer Masters of the Indian seas. 
 Slavery was rampant. Wretches were thrown overboard, when sick, 
 to prevent paying duty ; and the sea-beach before the town, as well 
 as the plantations, presented horrible spectacles of dogs devouring 
 human flesh. The Consul’s representations were accepted by Sayyid 
 Said; sundry floggings and confiscation of property instilled into 
 slave-owners the semblance of humanity. The insolence of the 
 negro was as summarily dealt with. The Arabs had persuaded 
 the Sawahilis and blacks that a white man is a being below con¬ 
 tempt, and the ‘ poor African ’ carries out the theory. Only 
 seventeen years have elapsed since an American Trader-Consul, in 
 consular cocked hat and sword, was horsed upon a slave’s back, and 
 solemnly ‘ bakered ’ in his own consular house, under his own con¬ 
 sular flag. A Sawahili would at any time enter the merchant’s 
 bureau, dispose his sandalled feet upon the table, call for a cognac, 
 and if refused, draw his dagger. Negro fishermen would anchor 
 their craft close to a window, and, clinging to the mast, enjoy the 
 novel spectacle of Kafirs feeding. 
 
 “ Now an Englishman here is even more civilly treated than at 
 one of our Presidencies. This change is the work of Colonel 
 Hamerton, who, in the strenuous and unremitting discharge of his 
 duties, has lost youth, strength, and health. The iron constitution 
 of this valuable public servant—I have quoted merely a specimen of 
 his worth—has been undermined by the terrible fever, and at fifty 
 his head bears the ‘ blossoms of the grave,’ as though it had seen its 
 seventieth summer. 
 
 “ The reader asks, What induced us to take a guide apparently so 
 little fit for rough-and-ready work ? In the first place, the presence 
 of Said bin Salim el Lamki was a pledge of respectability. And 
 lastly, a bright exception to the rule of his unconscientious race, he 
 appears truthful, honest, and honourable. I have never yet had 
 reason to suspect him of a low action. ‘ Verily,’ was the reply, 
 ‘ whoso benefiteth the beneficent becometh his Lord; but the vile 
 well-treated turneth and rendeth thee.’ I almost hope that he may 
 not deceive us in the end. 
 
 “ The traveller in Eastern Africa must ever be prepared for three 
 distinct departures—the little start, the great start, and the start. 
 
 “ On the 10th of January we ran through the paradise of verdant 
 banks and plateaus, forming the approach to Pemba,* and halted a 
 day to admire the Emerald Isle of these Eastern seas. In a.d. 1698 
 the bold buccaneer, Captain Kidd, buried there his blood-stained 
 
 * The distance between Bombay and Zanzibar is two thousand five hundred 
 miles. 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions. 151 
 
 hoards of precious stones and metal, the plunder of India and the 
 further Orient. The people of Pemba have found pots full of gold 
 lumps, probably moulded from buttons that the pirate might wear 
 his wealth. 
 
 “ On the heights of Chhaga, an image or statue of a long-haired 
 woman, seated in a chair and holding a child, is reported to remain. 
 Iconolatry being here unknown, the savages must have derived them 
 from some more civilized race—Catholic missionaries. 
 
 “ The Mazrui, a noble Arab tribe, placed themselves under 
 British protection in their rebellion against the late Sayyid. They 
 were permitted to fly our flag—a favour for which, when danger 
 disappeared, they proved themselves ungrateful; and a Mr. Reece 
 was placed at Mombas to watch its interests. The travellers lamented 
 that we abandoned Mombas: had England retained it, the whole 
 interior would now be open to us. But such is the history of 
 Britain the Great: hard won by blood and gold, her conquests are 
 parted with for a song. 
 
 “ The very Hindus required a lesson in civility. With the Wali y 
 or Governor, Khalfan bin Ali, an Omani Arab of noble family, we 
 were on the best of terms. But the manifest animus of the public 
 made us feel light-hearted, when, our inquiries concluded, we bade 
 adieu to Mombas. 
 
 “ The people of Eastern Intertropical Africa are divided by their 
 occupations into three orders. First is the fierce pastoral nomad, 
 the Galla and Masai, the Somal and the Kafir, who lives upon the 
 produce of his cattle, the chase, and foray. Secondly rank the 
 semi-pastoral, as the Wakamba, who, though without fixed abodes, 
 make their women cultivate the ground. And the last degree of 
 civilization, agriculture, is peculiar to the Wam'ka, the Wasumbira, 
 and the various tribes living between the coast and the interior lakes. 
 
 “The Wanika, or Desert race, is composed of a Negritic base, 
 now intimately mixed with Semitic blood. 
 
 “ When that enlightened Arab statesman, H.E. Ali bin Nasir, 
 H.H. the Imaum of Muscat’s Envoy Extraordinary to H.B. 
 Majesty, was Governor of Mombas, he took advantage of a scarcity 
 to feed the starving Wam'ka from the public granaries. He was 
 careful, however, to secure as pledges of repayment, the wives and 
 children of his debtors, and he lost no time in selling off the whole 
 number. Such a feat was probably little suspected by our country¬ 
 men, when, to honour enlightened beneficence, they welcomed the 
 Statesman with all the triumphs of Exeter Hall, presented him with 
 costly specimens of Government, and sent him from Aden to 
 Zanzibar in the H.E.I. Co.’s brig of war Tigris. This Oriental votary 
 of free trade came to a merited end. Recognized by the enraged 
 savages, he saw his sons expire in torments ; he was terribly mutilated 
 during life, and was put to death with all the refinements of cruelty. 
 
 “ A report, prevalent in Mombas—even a Sawahili sometimes 
 speaks the truth—and the march of an armed party from the town 
 which denoted belief in their own words, induced my companion s 
 and myself to hasten up once more to the Rabai Hills, expecting to 
 
152 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 find the mission-house invested by savages. The danger had been 
 exaggerated, but the inmates were strongly advised to take temporary 
 shelter in the town. Left Kisulodiny on the 22nd of January, 1857. 
 Some nights afterwards, fires were observed upon the neighbouring 
 hills, and Wanfka scouts returned with a report that the Masai were 
 in rapid advance. The wise few fled at once to the baza , or hidden 
 and barricaded stronghold, which these people prepare for extreme 
 danger. The foolish many said, ‘ To-morrow morning we will drive 
 our flocks and herds to safety.’ But ere that morning dawned upon 
 the world, a dense mass of wild spearmen, sweeping with shout and 
 yell, and clashing arms, by the mission-house, which they either 
 saw not or they feared to enter, dashed upon the scattered villages 
 in the vale below, and left the ground strewed with the corpses of 
 hapless fugitives. When driving off their cattle, the Masai, rallying, 
 fell upon them, drove them away in ignominious flight, and slew 
 twenty-five of their number. 
 
 “ Jack* and I landed at Wisin, and found the shore crowded with 
 a mob of unarmed gazers, who did not even return our salaams : we 
 resolved in future to keep such greetings for those who deserved 
 them. Abd-el-Karim led us to his house, seated us in chairs upon 
 a terrace, and mixed a cooling drink in a vase not usually devoted 
 to such purpose. There is no game on the island, or on the main. 
 In the evening we quitted the squalid settlement without a single 
 regret. 
 
 “ Our nakhoda again showed symptoms of trickery; he had 
 been allowed to ship cargo from Mombas to Wasin, and, Irish-like, 
 he thereupon founded a right to ship cargo from Wasin to Tanga. 
 Unable to disabuse his mind by mild proceedings, I threatened to 
 cut the cable. 
 
 “ At last, having threaded the bdb, or narrow rock-bound passage 
 which separates the bluff headland of Tanga Island from Ras Rashid 
 on the main, we glided into the bay, and anchored in three fathoms 
 of water, opposite, and about half a mile from, the town. 
 
 “ Tanga Bay extends six miles deep by five in breadth. The 
 entrance is partially barred by a coralline bank, the ancient site of 
 the Arab settlement. 
 
 “We landed on the morning of the 27th of January, and were 
 met upon the sea-shore, in absence of the Arab Governor, by the 
 Diwans or Sawahili Headmen, the Jemadar and his Belochies, the 
 Collector of customs, Mizan Sahib, a daft old Indian, and other 
 dignitaries. They conducted us to the hut formerly tenanted by 
 M. Erhardt; brought coffee, fruit, and milk; and, in fine, treated 
 us with peculiar civility. Here Sheddad built his City of brass, and 
 encrusted the hill-top with a silver dome that shines with various 
 and surpassing colours. 
 
 “ The mountain recedes as the traveller advances, and the higher 
 he ascends the higher rises the summit. At last blood bursts from 
 the nostrils, the fingers bend backwards, and the most adventurous 
 
 * Jack was Speke’s Christian name. 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions. 153 
 
 is fain to stop. Amongst this Herodotian tissue of fact and fable, 
 ran one fine thread of truth : all testified to the intense cold. 
 
 “They promised readily, however, to escort me to one of the 
 ancient Cities of the coast. 
 
 “ Setting out at eight a.m. with a small party of spearmen, I walked 
 four or five miles south of Tanga, on the Tangata road, over 
 a country strewed with the bodies of huge millepedes, and dry as 
 Arabian sand. 
 
 “ I assumed an Arab dress—a turban of portentous circumference, 
 and a long henna-dyed shirt—and, accompanied by Said bin Salim, 
 I went to inspect the scene. 
 
 “The wild people, YVashenzy, YVasembira, Wadigo, and Was^geju, 
 armed as usual, stalking about, whilst their women, each with baby 
 on back, carried heavy loads of saleable stuff, or sat |opposite their 
 property, or chaffered and gesticulated upon knotty questions of 
 bargain. 
 
 “ The heat of the ground made my barefooted companions run 
 forward to the shade, from time to time, like the dogs in Tibet. 
 Sundry excursions delayed us six days at Tanga. 
 
 “ Five hours of lazy sailing ran us into Tangata, an open road 
 between Tanga and Pangany. FI ere we delayed a day to inspect 
 some ruins, where we had been promised Persian inscriptions and 
 other wonders. 
 
 “We spent the remainder of the day and night at Tangata, 
 fanned by the north-east breeze, and cradled by the rocking send of 
 the Indian Ocean. 
 
 “At five a.m. on the 3rd of February we hoisted sail, and slipped 
 down with the tepid morning breeze to Pangany, sighting Maziny 
 Island, its outpost, after three hours’ run. Soon after arrival I sent Said 
 bin Salim, in all his bravery, on shore with the Sayyid of Zanzibar’s 
 circular letter to the Wall or Governor, to the Jemadar , to the 
 Collector of customs, and the different Diwans. All this preparation 
 for a mere trifle ! We were received with high honour. The Diwans 
 danced an ancient military dance before us with the pomp and cir¬ 
 cumstance of drawn swords, whilst bare-headed slave-girls, with hair 
 a la Brutus , sang and flapped their skirts over the ground, with 
 an affectedly modest and downcast demeanour. After half an hour’s 
 endurance, we were led into the upper-storied house of the Wali 
 Meriko, a freedman of the late Sayyid Said, and spent the evening 
 in a committee of ways and means. 
 
 “ African villages are full of bleared misery by day, and animated 
 filth by night, and of hunting adventures and hair-breadth escapes, 
 lacking the interest of catastrophe. 
 
 “We arose early in the morning after arrival at Pangany, and 
 repaired to the terrace for the better enjoyment of the view. 
 
 “ If it had half-a-dozen white kiosks, minarets, and latticed summer¬ 
 houses, it would almost rival that gem of creation, the Bosphorus. 
 
 “ The settlement is surrounded by a thorny jungle, which at tmies 
 harbours a host of leopards. One of these beasts lately scaled the 
 high terrace of our house, and seized upon a slave-girl. Her 
 
[54 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 master, the burly black Wali, who was sleeping by her side, gallantly 
 caught up his sword, ran into the house, and bolted the door, 
 heedless of the miserable cry, ‘ B’ana, help me ! ’ The wretch was 
 carried to the jungle and devoured. The river is equally full of 
 alligators, and whilst we were at Pangany a boy disappeared. 
 
 “ Of course the two tribes, Wasumbara and Wazegura, are deadly 
 foes. Moreover, about a year ago, a violent intestine feud broke 
 out amongst the Wazegura, who, at the time of our visit, were 
 burning and murdering, kidnapping, and slave-selling in all 
 directions. 
 
 “ The timid townsmen had also circulated a report that we were 
 bound for Chhaga and Kilimanjaro: the Masai were ‘ out,’ the rains 
 were setting in, and they saw with us no armed escort. They 
 resolved therefore not to accompany us. 
 
 “ With abundance of money—say not less than £5000 per annum 
 —an exploring party can trace its own line, pay the exactions of 
 all Chiefs; it can study whatever is requisite; handle sextants in 
 presence of negroes, who would cut every throat for one inch of 
 brass; and, by travelling in comfort, can secure a very fair chance 
 of return. Even from Mombas or from Pangany, with an escort of 
 one hundred matchlock-men, we might have marched through the 
 Masai plunderers to Chhaga and Kilimanjaro. But pay, porterage, 
 and provisions for such a party would have amounted to at least £100 
 per week; a month and a half would have absorbed our means. 
 Thus it was, gentle reader, that we were compelled to rest contented 
 with a visit on foot to Fuga, for we had only one thousand pounds. 
 
 “ Presently the plot thickened. Muigni Khatib, son of Sultan 
 Kimwere, a black of most unprepossessing physiognomy, with a 
 4 villanous trick of the eye, and a foolish hanging of the nether lip,’ 
 a prognathous jaw, garnished with cat-like moustaches and cobweb 
 beard, a sour frown, and abundant surliness by way of dignity, 
 dressed like an Arab, and raised by El Islam above his fellows, sent 
 a message directing us to place in his hands what we intended for 
 his father. This Chief was travelling to Zanzibar in fear and 
 trembling. He had tried to establish at his village, Kirore, a 
 Romulian asylum for runaway slaves, and, having partially succeeded, 
 he dreaded the consequences. The Beloch Jemadar strongly urged 
 us privily to cause his detention at the islands, a precaution some¬ 
 what too Oriental for our tastes. We refused, however, the muigni's 
 demand in his own tone. Following their Prince, the dancing 
 Diwans claimed a fee for permission to reside; as they worded it, 
 
 4 el adah ’ —the habit; based upon an ancient present from Colonel 
 Hamerton; and were in manifest process of establishing a local 
 custom which, in Africa, becomes law to remotest posterity. We 
 flatly objected, showed our letters, and in the angriest of moods 
 threatened reference to Zanzibar. Briefly, all began to beg bakh¬ 
 shish ; but I cannot remember any one obtaining it. 
 
 “Weary of these importunities, we resolved to visit Chogway, a 
 Beloch outpost, and thence, aided by the Jemadar who had preceded 
 us from Pangany, to push for the capital village of Usumbara. We 
 
i55 
 
 Exploration of the Lake Regions. 
 
 made preparations secretly, dismissed the ‘ Riami,’ rejected the 
 Diwa/is who wished to accompany us as spies, left Said bin Salim and 
 one Portuguese to watch our property in the house of Meriko, the 
 Governor, who had accompanied his muigni to Zanzibar, and, under 
 pretext of a short shooting excursion, hired a long canoe with four 
 men, loaded it with the luggage required for a fortnight, and started 
 with the tide at eleven a.m. on the 6th of January, 1857. 
 
 “ First we grounded; then we were taken aback; then a puff of 
 wind drove us forward with railway speed; then we grounded again. 
 
 “ And now, while writing amid the soughing blasts, the rain, and 
 the darkened air of a south-western monsoon, I remember with 
 yearning the bright and beautiful spectacle of those African rivers, 
 whose loveliness, like that of the dead, seems enhanced by proximity 
 to decay. We had changed the agreeable and graceful sandstone 
 scenery, on the sea-board, for a view novel and most characteristic. 
 The hippopotamus now raised his head from the waters, snorted, 
 gazed upon us, and sank into his native depths. Alligators, terrified 
 by the splash of oars, waddled down with their horrid claws, dinting 
 the slimy bank, and lay like yellow logs, measuring us with small, 
 malignant, green eyes, deep set under warty brows. Monkeys 
 rustled the tall trees. Below, jungle—men and woman— 
 
 ‘ So withered, so wild in their attire, 
 
 That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth, 
 
 And yet are on’t.’ 
 
 And all around reigned the eternal African silence, deep and 
 saddening, broken only by the curlew’s scream, or by the breeze 
 rustling the tree-tops, whispering among the matted foliage, and 
 swooning upon the tepid bosom of the wave. 
 
 “ We sat under a tree till midnight, unsatiated with the charm of 
 the hour. The moon rained molten silver over the dark foliage of 
 the wild palms, the stars were as golden lamps suspended in the 
 limpid air, and Venus glittered diamond-like upon the front of the 
 firmament. The fireflies now sparkled simultaneously over the 
 earth; then, as if by concerted impulse, their glow vanished in the 
 glooms of the ground. At our feet lay the black creek ; in the jungle 
 beasts roared fitfully ; and the night wind mingled melancholy sounds 
 with the swelling murmuring of the stream. 
 
 “The tide flowing about midnight, we resumed our way. The 
 river then became a sable streak between lofty rows of trees. The 
 hippopotamus snorted close to our stern, and the crew begged me to 
 fire, for the purpose of frightening ‘Sultan Momba’—a pernicious 
 rogue. At times we heard the splashing of the beasts as they 
 scrambled over the shoals ; at others, they struggled with loud grunts 
 up the miry banks. Then again all was quiet. After a protracted 
 interval of silence, the near voice of a man startled us in the deep 
 drear stillness of the night, as though it had been some ghostly 
 sound. At two a.m., reaching a clear tract on the river side—the 
 Ghaut or landing-place of Chogway—we made fast the canoe, looked 
 to our weapons, and, covering our faces against the heavy, clammy 
 
156 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 dev?, lay down to snatch an hour’s sleep. The total distance rowed 
 was about 13*5 miles. 
 
 “ Fifty stout fellows, with an ambitious leader and a little money, 
 might soon conquer the whole country, and establish there an 
 absolute monarchy. 
 
 ‘‘These Beloch mercenaries merit some notice. They were 
 preferred, as being somewhat disciplinable, by the late Sayyid Said, 
 to his futile blacks and his unruly and self-willed Oman Arabs. He 
 entertained from one thousand to fifteen hundred men, and scattered 
 them over the country in charge of the forts. The others hate them 
 —divisions even amongst his own children was the ruler’s policy— 
 and nickname them ‘ Kurara Kurara.’ The Jemadar and the 
 Governor are rarely on speaking terms. Calling themselves Belochies, 
 they are mostly from the regions about Kech and Bampur. They 
 are mixed up with a rabble rout of Afghans and Arabs, Indians and 
 Sudies, and they speak half a dozen different languages. Many of 
 these gentry have left their country for their country’s good. A body 
 of convicts, however, fights well. The Mekrani are first-rate behind 
 walls; and if paid, drilled, and officered, they would make as 
 ‘ varmint ’ light-bobs as Arnauts. They have a knightly fondness 
 for arms. A ‘ young barrel and an old blade * are their delight. 
 All use the matchlock, and many are skilful with sword and shield. 
 
 “ Having communicated our project to the Jemadar of Chogway, 
 he promised, for a consideration, all aid; told us that we should 
 start the next day; and, curious to relate, kept his word. 
 
 “A start was effected at five p.m., every slave complaining of 
 his load, snatching up the lightest, and hurrying on regardless of 
 what was left behind. This nuisance endured till summarily stopped 
 by an outward application easily divined. The evening belling of 
 deer and the clock-clock of partridge struck our ears. In the open 
 places were the lesses of elephants, and footprints retained by the 
 last year’s mud. These animals descend to the plains during the 
 monsoon, and in summer retire to the cool hills. The Belochies 
 shoot, the wild people kill them with poisoned arrows. More than 
 once during our wanderings we found the grave-like trap-pits, called 
 in India, ogi. 
 
 “Tusks weighing 100 lbs. each are common, those of 175 lbs. are 
 not rare, and I have heard of a pair whose joint weight was 560 lbs. 
 
 “At Makam Sayyid Sulayman—a half-cleared ring in the thorny 
 jungle—we passed the night in a small babel of Belochies. One 
 recited his Koran; another prayed; a third told funny stories ; 
 whilst a fourth trolled lays of love and war, long ago made familiar 
 to my ear upon the rugged Asian hills. This was varied by slapping 
 lank mosquitoes that flocked to the camp-fires; by rising to get rid 
 of huge black pismires, whose bite burned like a red-hot needle; 
 and by challenging two parties of savages, who, armed with bows 
 and arrows, passed amongst us. 
 
 “Tongway is the first offset of the mountain-terrace composing 
 the land of Usumbara. It rises abruptly from the plain, lies north¬ 
 west o£ and nine miles, as the crow flies, distant from, Chogway. 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions. 157 
 
 The summit, about two thousand feet above the sea-level, is clothed 
 with jungle, through which, seeking compass-sights, we cut a way with 
 our swords. 
 
 “ The climate appeared delicious—even in the full blaze of an 
 African and tropical summer; and whilst the hill was green, the 
 land around was baked like bread-crust. 
 
 “ The escort felt happy at Tongway, twice a day devouring our 
 rice— an unknown luxury; and they were at infinite pains to defer 
 the evil hour. 
 
 “ Petty pilferers to the backbone, they steal, like magpies, by 
 instinct. On the march they lag behind, and, not being professional 
 porters, they are restive as camels when receiving their load. One 
 of these youths, happening to be brother-in-law—after a fashion—to 
 the Jemadar , requires incessant supervision to prevent him burdening 
 the others with his own share. The guide, Muigni Wazira, is a huge 
 broad-shouldered Sawahili, with a coal-black skin; his high, massive, 
 and regular features look as if carved in ebony, and he frowns like a 
 demon in the ‘Arabian Nights.’ 
 
 “A prayerless Sherif, he thoroughly despises the Makapry or 
 Infidels; he has a hot temper, and, when provoked, roars like a wild 
 beast. He began by refusing his load, but yielded, when it was 
 gently placed upon his heavy shoulder, with a significant gesture in 
 case of recusance. 
 
 “ Rahewat, the Mekrani, calls himself a Beloch, and wears the 
 title of Shah-Sawar, or the Rider-king. He is the chelebi , the 
 dandy and tiger of our party. A ‘ good-looking brown man,’ about 
 twenty-five years old, with a certain girlishness and affectation of 
 tournure and manner, which bode no good, the Rider-king deals in 
 the externals of respectability ; he washes and prays with pompous 
 regularity, combs his long hair and beard, trains his bushy moustache 
 to touch his eyes, and binds a huge turban. Having somewhat high 
 ideas of discipline, he began with stabbing a slave-boy by way of a 
 lesson. 
 
 “ The Rider-king, pleading soldier, positively refuses to carry 
 anything but his matchlock, and a private stock of dates, which he 
 keeps ungenerously to himself. He boasts of prowess in vert and 
 venison: we never saw him hit the mark, but we missed some 
 powder and ball. 
 
 “ The gem of the party is Sudy Mubhrak, who has taken to 
 himself the cognomen of ‘ Bombay.’ His sooty skin, and teeth 
 pointed like those of the reptilia, denote his Mhiav origin. He is 
 one of those rare ‘ Sudies ’ that delight the passengers in an Indian 
 steamer. Bombay, sold in early youth, carried to Cutch by some 
 Banyan, and there emancipated, looks fondly back upon the home 
 of his adoption, and sighs for the day when a few dollars will enable 
 him to return. He has ineffable contempt for all ‘ jungly niggers/ 
 His head is a triumph of phrenology. He works on principle, and 
 works like a horse, openly declaring that not love of us, but 
 attachment to his stomach, make him industrious. He had 
 enlisted under the Jei?iadar of Chogway. We thought, however, so 
 
) 53 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 highly of his qualifications, that persuasion and paying his debts 
 induced him, after a little coquetting, to take leave of soldiering and 
 follow our fortunes. Sudy Bombay will be our head gun-carrier, if 
 he survives his present fever, and, I doubt not, will prove himself a 
 rascal in the end. 
 
 “ During the first night all Bombay’s efforts were required to 
 prevent a sauve qui peut. 
 
 “ On the ioth of February, after a night of desert silence, we arose 
 betimes, and applied ourselves to the work of porterage. Our 
 luggage again suffered reduction. It was, however, past six a.m. 
 when, forming Indian file, we began to descend the thorn-clad goat- 
 track which spans the north-east spur of Mount Tongway. Over¬ 
 head floated a filmy canopy of sea-green verdure, pierced by myriads 
 of sunbeams, whilst the azure effulgence above, purified as with fire, 
 from mist and vapour set the picture in a frame of gold and ultra- 
 marine. Painful splendours ! The men began to drop off. None 
 but Hamdan had brought a calabash. Shaaban clamoured for water. 
 Wazira and the four slave-boys retired to some puddle, a discovery 
 which they wisely kept to themselves, leaving the rest of the party 
 to throw themselves under a tree and bush upon the hot ground. 
 
 “ As the sun sank westward, Wazira joined us with a mouthful of 
 lies, and the straggling line advanced. Our purblind guide once 
 more lagged in the rear, yielding the lead to old Shaaban. This 
 worthy, whose five wits were absorbed in visions of drink, strode 
 blunderingly ahead, over the Wazira Hills and far away. Jack, 
 keeping him in sight, and I in rear of both, missed the road. 
 Shortly after sunset we three reached a narrow fiumara , where stood, 
 delightful sight! some puddles bright with chickweed, and black 
 with the mire below. We quenched our thirst, and bathed our 
 swollen feet, and patted, and felt, and handled the water as though 
 we loved it. But even this charming occupation had an end. 
 Evidently we had lost our way. Our shots and shouts remained 
 unanswered. It would have been folly to thread the thorny jungle 
 by the dubious light of a young moon. We therefore kindled a fire, 
 looked at our arms, lay down upon a soft sandy place, and certain 
 that Shaaban would be watchful as a vestal virgin, were soon lulled 
 to sleep by the music of the night breeze, and by the frogs chanting 
 their ancient querele upon the miry margins of the pools. That 
 day’s work had been little more than five leagues. But— 
 
 ‘ These high wild hills and rough uneven ways 
 Draw out the miles.’ 
 
 “ Our guide secured, as extra porters, five wild men, habited in 
 primitive attire. Their only garment was a kilt of dried and split 
 rushes or grass. All had bows and poisoned arrows, except one, who 
 boasted a miserable musket and literally a powder-horn, the vast 
 spoils of a cow. The wretches were lean as wintry wolves, and not 
 less ravenous. We fed them with rice and ghee. Of course they 
 asked for more, till their stomachs, before like shrunken bladders, 
 stood out in the shape of little round bumps from the hoop-work of 
 
159 
 
 Exploration of the Lake Regions . 
 
 ribs. We had neglected to take their arms. After feeding, they 
 arose, and with small beady eyes, twinkling with glee, bade us 
 farewell. Though starving they would not work. A few hours 
 afterwards, however, they found a hippopotamus in the open, killed 
 it with their arrows, and soon left nothing but a heap of bones and a 
 broad stain of blood upon the ground. 
 
 “ Arrived at Kohoday, the elders, as we landed, wrung our hands 
 with rollicking greetings, and those immoderate explosive laughings 
 which render the African family to all appearance so £ jolly ’ a race. 
 
 u We were shown, on the mountain-pass of Usumbara, the watch- 
 fire which is never extinguished ; and the Mzegura chief, when 
 supplying us with a bullock, poked his thumb back towards the 
 hills and said, with a roar of laughter, that already we had become 
 the King’s guests. Our Beloch guard applauded this kindred soul, 
 patted him upon the shoulder, and declared that, with a score 
 of men of war like themselves, he might soon become lord of 
 all the mountains. 
 
 “ Our parting was pathetic. He swore he loved us, and promised, 
 on our return, the boat to conduct us down the river; but when we 
 appeared with empty hands, he told the truth, namely, that it is a 
 succession of falls and rapids. 
 
 “ At five p.m., passing two bridges, we entered Msiky Mguru, a 
 Wazegura village distant twelve miles from Kohoday. It is a cluster 
 of hay-cock huts, touching one another, built upon an island formed 
 by divers rapid and roaring branches of the river. The headman 
 was sick, but we found a hospitable reception. We spent our nights 
 with ants and other little murderers of sleep which shall be nameless. 
 Our hosts expressed great alarm about the Masai. It was justified 
 by the sequel. Scarcely had we left the country when a plundering 
 party of wild spearmen attacked two neighbouring villages, slaughter¬ 
 ing the hapless cultivators, and, with pillage and pollage, drove off 
 the cows in triumph. 
 
 “After an hour’s march we skirted a village, where the people 
 peremptorily ordered us to halt. We attributed this annoyance to 
 Wazira, who was forthwith visited with a general wigging. But the 
 impending rain sharpened our tempers; we laughed in the faces 
 of our angry expostulators, and, bidding them stop us if they could, 
 pursued our road. 
 
 “ Presently ascending a hill, and turning abruptly to the north-east, 
 we found ourselves opposite, and about ten miles distant from, a tall 
 azure curtain, the mountains of Fuga. Water stood in black pools, 
 and around it waved luxuriant sugar-canes. In a few minutes 
 every mouth in the party was tearing and chewing at a long pole. 
 This cane is of the edible kind. The officinal varieties are too 
 luscious, cloying, and bilious to be sucked with impunity by civilized 
 men. After walking that day sixteen miles, at about four p.m. a violent 
 storm of thunder, lightning, and raw south-west wind, which caused 
 the thermometer to fall many degrees, and the slaves to shudder and 
 whimper, drove us back into the bandany y or palaver-house of a large 
 
160 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 village. The place swarmed with flies and mosquitoes. We lighted 
 fires to keep off fevers. 
 
 “Sunday, the 15th of February, dawned with one of those steady 
 little cataclysms, which, to be seen advantageously, must be seen 
 near the Line. At eleven a.m., weary of the steaming banda?iy , our 
 men loaded, and in a lucid interval set out towards the Fuga Hills,* 
 to which we walked for economy sake. As we approached them, 
 the rain shrank to a spitting, gradually ceased, and was replaced by 
 that reeking, fetid, sepulchral heat which travellers in the tropics 
 know and fear. The slippery way had wearied our slaves, though 
 aided by three porters hired that morning; and the sun, struggling 
 through vapour, was still hot enough to overpower the whole party. 
 
 “ Issuing from the dripping canopy, we followed a steep goat- 
 track, fording a crystal burn, and having reached the midway, sat 
 down to enjoy the rarefied air, and to use the compass and spyglass. 
 The view before us was extensive, if not beautiful. Under our feet 
 the mountains fell in rugged folds, clothed with plantain fields, wild 
 mulberries, custard-apples, and stately trees, whose lustrous green 
 glittered against the ochreous ground. The sarsaparilla vine hung 
 in clusters from the supporting limbs of the tamarind, the toddy 
 palm raised its fantastic arms over the dwarf coco, and bitter oranges 
 mingled pleasant scent with herbs not unlike mint and sage. Below, 
 half veiled by rank streams, lay the yellow Nika or Wazegura 
 wilderness, traversed by a serpentine of trees denoting the course of 
 the Mkomafi affluent. Far beyond we could see the well-wooded 
 line of the Lufu river, and from it to the walls of the southern and 
 western horizon stretched a uniform purple plain. 
 
 “ The three fresh porters positively refused to rise unless a certain 
 number of cloths were sent forward to propitiate the magnates of 
 Fuga. This was easily traced to Wazira, who received a hint that 
 such trifling might be dangerous. He had been lecturing us all that 
 morning upon the serious nature of our undertaking. Sultan Kimwere 
 was a potent monarch, not a Momba. His Ministers and councillors 
 would, unless well paid, avert from us their countenances. We must 
 enter with a discharge of musketry to awe the people, and by all 
 means do as we are bid. The Belochies smiled contempt, and, 
 pulling up the porters, loaded them, deaf to remonstrance. 
 
 “ Resuming our march after a short halt, we climbed rather than 
 walked, with hearts beating from such unusual exercise, up the deep 
 zigzag of a torrent. Villages then began to appear perched like 
 eyries upon the hilltops, and the people gathered to watch our 
 approach. At four p.m. we found ourselves upon the summit of a 
 ridge. The Belochies begged us to taste the water of a spring hard 
 by. It was icy cold, with a perceptible chalybeate flavour, sparkled 
 in the cup, and had dyed its head with rust. 
 
 “ The giant flanks of Mukumbara bound the view. We stood 
 about four thousand feet above the sea-level, distant thirty-seven 
 miles from the coast, and seventy-four or seventy-five along the 
 
 * One of the places forbidden to strangers. 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions. 161 
 
 winding river. There is a short cut from Kohoday across the 
 mountains; but the route was then waterless, and the heat would 
 have disabled our Belochies. 
 
 “ After another three-mile walk along the hill flanks, we turned a 
 corner and suddenly sighted, upon the opposite summit of a grassy 
 cone, an unfenced heap of hay-cock huts—Fuga. This being one of 
 the Cities where ingress is now forbidden to strangers, we were led 
 by Wazira through timid crowds that shrank back as we approached, 
 round and below the cone, to four tattered huts, which superstition 
 assigns as the ‘travellers’ bungalow.’ Even the son and heir of 
 great Kimwere must abide here till the lucky hour admits him to 
 the presence and the Imperial City. The cold rain and sharp rarefied 
 air rendering any shelter acceptable, we cleared the huts of sheep 
 and goats, housed our valuables, and sent Sudy Bombay to the 
 Sultan, requesting the honour of an interview. 
 
 “ Before dark appeared three bareheaded mdue, or ‘ Ministers,’ 
 who in long palaver declared that council must squat upon two 
 knotty points —Primo, Why and wherefore we had entered the 
 country vicL the hostile Wazegura ? Secu?ido , What time might be 
 appointed by his Majesty’s mganga, or medicine-man, for the 
 ceremony ? Sharp-witted Hamdan at once declared us to be 
 European wizards, and waganga of peculiar power over the moon 
 and stars, the wind and rain. Away ran the Ministers to report the 
 wonder. 
 
 “ The mganga , who is called by the Arabs tabib , or doctor, and 
 by us priest, physician, divine, magician, and medicine-man, com¬ 
 bines, as these translations show, priestly with medical functions. 
 
 “At six p.m. the Ministers ran back and summoned us to the 
 ‘ Palace. 5 They led the way through rain and mist to a clump of 
 the usual huts, half hidden by trees, and overspreading a little 
 eminence opposite to and below Fuga. 
 
 “Sultan Kimwere half rose from his cot as we entered, and 
 motioned us to sit upon dwarf stools before him. He was an old, 
 old man, emaciated by sickness. His head was shaved, his face 
 beardless, and wrinkled like a grandam’s; his eyes were red, his 
 jaws disfurnished, and his hands and feet were stained with leprous 
 spots. Our errand was inquired and we were welcomed to Fuga. 
 As none could read the Sayyid of Zanzibar’s letter, I was obliged to 
 act secretary. The centagenarian had heard of our scrutinizing 
 stars, stones, and trees. He directed us at once to compound a 
 draught which would restore him to health, strength, and youth. I 
 replied that our drugs had been left at Pangany. He signified that 
 we might wander about the hills and seek the plants required. 
 After half an hour’s conversation, Hamdan being interpreter, we 
 were dismissed with a renewal of welcome. 
 
 “ On our return to the hovels, the present was forwarded to the 
 Sultan with the usual ceremony. We found awaiting us a fine 
 bullock, a basketful of sima —young Indian corn pounded and 
 boiled to a thick hard paste—and balls of unripe bananas, peeled 
 and mashed up with sour milk. Our Belochies instantly addressed 
 
 L 
 
162 The Life of Sir Rickard Burton. 
 
 themselves to the making of beef, which they ate with such a will 
 that unpleasant symptoms presently declared themselves in camp. 
 We had covered that day ten miles—equal, perhaps, to thirty in a 
 temperate climate and a decent road. The angry blast, the groaning 
 trees, and the lashing rain, heard from within a warm hut, affected 
 us pleasurably, and I would not have exchanged it for the music of 
 Verdi. We slept the sweet sleep of travellers. 
 
 “The African Traveller, in this section of the nineteenth century, 
 is an animal overworked. Formerly, the reading public was satisfied 
 with dry details of mere discovery; was delighted with a few lati¬ 
 tudes and longitudes. Of late, in this, as in other pursuits, the 
 standard has been raised. Whilst marching so many miles per diem , 
 and watching a certain number of hours per noctem , the traveller, 
 who is in fact his own general, adjutant, quarter-master, and execu¬ 
 tive, is expected to survey and observe—to record meteorology, 
 hygrometry, and hypsometry—to shoot and stuff birds and beasts, 
 to collect geological specimens, to gather political and commercial 
 information, to advance the infant study ethnology, to keep accounts, 
 to sketch, to indite a copious legible journal, to collect grammar 
 and vocabularies, and frequently to forward long reports which shall 
 prevent the Royal Geographical Society napping through evening 
 meetings. It is right, I own, to establish a high standard which 
 insures some work being done; but explorations should be dis¬ 
 tinguished from railway journeys, and a broad line drawn between 
 the feasible and the impossible. The unconscionable physicist now 
 deems it his right to complain, because the explorer has not used 
 his theodolite in the temple of Mecca, and introduced his sympie- 
 someter within the walls of Harar. An ardent gentlemen once re¬ 
 quested me to collect beetles, and another sent me excellent recipes 
 for preserving ticks. 
 
 “These African explorations are small campaigns, in which the 
 traveller, unaided by discipline, is beset by all the troubles, hard¬ 
 ships, and perils of savage war. He must devote himself to feeding, 
 drilling, and directing his men to the use of arms and the conduct 
 of a Caravan, rather than the study of infusoria and barometers. 
 The sight of an instrument convinces barbarians that the stranger is 
 bringing down the sun, stopping rain, causing death, and bewitching 
 the land for ages. Amidst utter savagery such operations are some¬ 
 times possible; amongst the semi-civilized they end badly. The 
 climate also robs man of energy as well as health. He cannot, if he 
 would, collect ticks and beetles. The simplest geodesical labours, 
 as these pages will prove, are unadvisable. Jack has twice suffered 
 from taking an altitude. Why is not a party of physicists sent out 
 to swallow the dose prescribed by them to their army of martyrs ? 
 
 “ The rainy monsoon had set in at Fuga. Heavy clouds rolled up 
 from the south-west, and during our two days and nights upon the 
 hills the weather was a succession of drip, drizzle, and drench. In 
 vain we looked for a star; even the sun could not disperse the thick 
 raw vapours that rose from the steamy earth. We did not dare to 
 linger upon the mountains. Our Belochies were not clad to resist 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions. 163 
 
 the temperature—here 12 0 lower than on the coast; the rain would 
 make the lowlands a hotbed of sickness, and we daily expected the 
 inevitable ‘ seasoning-fever.’ In the dry monsoon this route might 
 be made practicable to Chhaga and Kilimanjaro. With an escort of 
 a hundred musketeers, and at an expense of £600, the invalid who 
 desires to avail himself of this ‘ sanitarium,’ as it is now called by 
 the Indian papers, may, if perfectly sound in wind, limb, and diges- 
 t on, reach the snowy region, if it exist, after ten mountain-marches, 
 which will not occupy more than a month. 
 
 “ The head-quarter village of Usumbara is Fuga, a heap of some 
 five hundred huts, containing, I was told, three thousand souls. It 
 is defenceless, and composed of the circular abodes common from 
 Harar to Timbuctoo. 
 
 “On Monday, the 16th of February, we took leave of, and were 
 duly dismissed by, Sultan Kimwere. The old man, however, was 
 mortified that our rambles had not produced a plant of sovereign 
 virtue against the last evil of life. He had long expected a white 
 mganga , and now two had visited him, to depart without even a 
 trial ! I felt sad to see the wistful lingering look with which he 
 accompanied ‘ Kuahery ! ’ (farewell!) But his case was far beyond 
 my skill. 
 
 “ None of Sultan Kimwere’s men dared to face the terrible 
 Wazegura. 
 
 “We descended the hills in a Scotch mist and drizzle, veiling 
 every object from view. It deepened into a large-dropped shower 
 upon the foetid lowlands. That night we slept at Pasunga; the next 
 at Msiky Mguru; and the third, after marching seventeen miles—our 
 greatest distance—at Kohoday. 
 
 “Our Belochies declared the rate of marching excessive; and 
 Hamdan, who personified ‘ Master Shoetie, the great traveller,’ 
 averred that he had twice visited the Lakes, but had never seen such 
 hardships in his dreams. 
 
 “With some toil, however, we coaxed him into courage, and joined 
 on the way a small party bound for Pangany. At one p.m. we 
 halted to bathe and drink, as it would be some time before we 
 should again sight the winding stream. During the storm of thunder 
 and lightning which ensued, I observed that our savage companions, 
 like the Thracians of old Herodotus, and the Bheels and coolies of 
 modern India, shot their iron-tipped arrows in the air. 
 
 “About four p.m. we found ourselves opposite Kizanga, a large 
 Wazegura village on the right bank of the river. From Kizanga 
 we followed the river by a vile footpath. The air was dank and 
 oppressive; the clouds seemed to settle upon the earth, and the 
 decayed vegetation exhaled a feverish foetor. As we advanced, the 
 roar of the swollen stream told of rapids, whilst an occasional 
 glimpse through its green veil showed a reefous surface, flecked 
 with white froth. Heavy nimbi purpled the western skies, and we 
 began to inquire of Wazira whether a vifjge was at hand. 
 
 “ About sunset, after marching fifteen miles, we suddenly saw tall 
 -cocos—in these lands the ‘ traveller’s joy ’—waving their feathery 
 
164 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 heads against the blue eastern firmament. Presently, crossing a 
 branch of the river by a long bridge, we entered an island settlement 
 of Wazegura. This village, being upon the confines of civilization, 
 and excited by wars and rumours of wars, suggested treachery to 
 experienced travellers. Jack and I fired our revolvers into trees, 
 and carefully reloaded them for the public benefit. The sensation 
 was such that we seized the opportunity of offering money for rice 
 and ghee. No provision, however, was procurable. Our escort 
 went to bed supperless; Hamdan cursing this Safar khais — 
 Anglic rotten journey. Murad Ali had remained at Msiky Mguru 
 to purchase a slave without our knowledge. A novice in such 
 matters, he neglected to tie the man’s thumb, and had the exquisite 
 misery to see, in the evening after the sale, his dollars bolting at 
 a pace that baffled pursuit. We then placed our weapons handy, 
 and were soon lulled to sleep, despite smoke, wet beds, and other 
 plagues, by the blustering wind and the continuous pattering of 
 rain. 
 
 “At sunrise on Friday, the 20th of February, we were aroused by 
 the guide; and, after various delays, found ourselves on the road 
 about seven a.m. This day was the reflection of the last march. 
 At nine a.m. we stood upon a distant eminence to admire the falls 
 of the Pangany river. Here the stream, emerging from a dense 
 dark growth of tropical forest, hurls itself in three huge sheets, 
 fringed with flashing foam, down a rugged wall of brown rock. 
 Halfway the fall is broken by a ledge, whence a second leap pre¬ 
 cipitates the waters into the mist-veiled basin of stone below. 
 These cascades must be grand during the monsoon, when the river, 
 forming a single horseshoe, acquires a volume and a momentum 
 sufficient to clear the step which divides the shrunken stream. Of 
 all natural objects, the cataract most requires that first element of 
 sublimity—size. Yet, as it was, this fall, with the white spray and 
 bright mist, set off by black jungle, and a framework of slaty rain- 
 cloud, formed a picture sufficiently effective to surprise us. 
 
 “ As we journeyed onwards the heat became intense. The nimbi 
 hugged the mountain tops. There it was winter; but the sun, whose 
 beams shot slingingly through translucent air, parched the summer 
 plains. At ten a.m. our Belochies, clean worn out by famine and 
 fatigue, threw themselves upon the bank of a broad and deep ravine, 
 in whose sedgy bed a little water still lingered. Half an hour’s rest, 
 a cocoa-nut each, a pipe, and, above all things, the spes finis, restored 
 their vigour. We resumed our march over a rolling waste of green, 
 enlivened by occasional glimpses of the river, whose very aspect 
 cooled the gazer. Villages became frequent as we advanced, far 
 distancing our Belochies. At three p.m., after marching fourteen 
 miles, we sighted the snake-fence and the pent-houses of friendly 
 Chogway. 
 
 “The Jemadar and his garrison received us with all the honours 
 of travel, and admired our speedy return from Fuga. As at Harar, 
 a visitor can never calculate upon a prompt dismissal. We were 
 too strong for force, but Sultan Kimwere has detained Arab and 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions . 165 
 
 other strangers for a fortnight before his mganga fixed a fit time 
 for audience. Moreover, these walking journeys are dangerous in 
 one point: the least accident disables a party, and accidents will 
 happen to the best-regulated expedition. 
 
 “ Our feet were cut by boots and shoes, and we had lost ‘ leather ’ 
 by chafing and sunburns. A few days’ rest removed these incon¬ 
 veniences. Our first visit was paid to Pangany, where Said bin 
 Salim, who had watched his charge with the fidelity of a shepherd’s 
 dog, received us with joyous demonstrations. After spending a day 
 upon the coast, we returned, provided with munitions de bouche and 
 other necessaries, to Chogway, and settled old scores with our 
 escort. Then, as the vessel in which we were to cruise southward 
 was not expected from Zanzibar till the 1st of March, and we had 
 a week to spare, it was resolved to try a fall with Behemoth.* 
 
 “ Captain Owen’s officers, when ascending streams, saw their 
 boats torn by Behemoth’s hard tusks; and in the Pangany, one 
 1 Sultan Momba,’ a tyrant thus dubbed by the Belochies in honour 
 of their friend the Kohoday chief, delighted to upset canoes, and 
 was once guilty of breaking a man’s leg. 
 
 “ Behold us now, O brother in St. Hubert, dropping down the 
 stream in a monoxyle, some forty feet long, at early dawn, when 
 wild beasts are tamest. 
 
 “As we approach the herds, whose crests, flanked with small 
 pointed ears, dot the mirrory surface, our boatmen indulge in such 
 vituperations as ‘ Mana marira ! ’ (O big belly !) and ‘ Hanamkia ! ’ 
 (O tasteless one!) In angry curiosity the brutes raise their heads, 
 and expose their arched necks, shiny with trickling rills. Jack, a 
 man of speculative turn, experiments upon the nearest optics with 
 two barrels of grape and B shot. The eyes, however, are oblique; 
 the charge scatters, and the brute, unhurt, slips down like a seal. 
 This will make the herd wary. Vexed by the poor result of our 
 trial, we pole up the rippling and swirling surface, that proves the 
 enemy to be swimming under water towards the further end of the 
 pool. After a weary time he must rise and breathe. As the smooth 
 water undulates, swells, and breaches a way for the large black head, 
 eight ounces of lead fly in the right direction. There is a splash, 
 a struggle; the surface foams, and Behemoth, with mouth bleeding 
 like a gutter-spout, rears, and plunges above the stream. Wounded 
 near the cerebellum, he cannot swim straight. At last a coup de 
 grace speeds through the air; the brute sinks, gore dyes the surface 
 purple, and bright bubbles seethe up from the bottom. Hippo is 
 dead. We wait patiently for his reappearance, but he appears not. 
 At length, by peculiar good luck, Bombay’s sharp eye detects an 
 object some hundred yards down stream. We make for it, and find 
 our “bag” brought up in a shallow by a spit of sand, and already in 
 process of being ogled by a large fish-hawk. The hawk suffers the 
 penalty of impudence. We tow our defunct to the bank, and de¬ 
 liver it to certain savages, whose mouths water with the prospect of 
 
 * Hippopotamus. 
 
166 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 hippopotamus beef. At sundown they will bring to us the tusks 
 and head picked clean, as a whistle is said to be. 
 
 “ The herd will no longer rise; they fear this hulking craft; we 
 must try some ‘artful dodge.' Jack, accompanied by Bombay, who 
 strips to paddle in token of hot work expected, enters into a small 
 canoe, ties fast his shooting-tackle in case of an upset, and, whilst I 
 occupy one end of the house, makes for the other. Whenever a 
 head appears an inch above water, a heavy bullet ‘ puds ’ into or 
 near it; crimson patches adorn the stream ; some die and disappear, 
 others plunge in crippled state, and others, disabled from diving by 
 holes drilled through their noses, splash and scurry about with 
 curious snorts, caused by breath passing through their wounds. At 
 last Jack ventures upon another experiment. An infant hippo, 
 with an imprudence pardonable at his years, uprears his crest; off 
 flies the crown of the kid’s head. The bereaved mother rises for a 
 moment, viciously regards Jack, who is meekly loading, snorts a 
 parent’s curse, and dives as the cap is being adjusted. Presently a 
 bump, a shock, and a heave send the little canoe’s bows high in 
 the air. Bombay, describing a small parabola in frog-shape, lands 
 beyond the enraged brute’s back. Jack steadies himself in the 
 stern, and as the assailant, with broad dorsum hunched up and 
 hogged like an angry cat, advances for another bout, he rises, and 
 sends a bullet through her side. Bombay scrambles in, and, nothing 
 daunted, paddles towards the quarry, of which nothing is visible but 
 a long waving line of gore. With a harpoon we might have secured 
 her; now she will feed the alligators or the savages. 
 
 “ The Belochies still take great interest in the sport, as Easterns 
 will when they see work being done. They force the boatmen to 
 obey us. Jack lands with the black woodmen, carrying both 
 ‘ smashers.’ He gropes painfully through mangrove thicket, where 
 parasitical oysters wound the legs with their sharp edges, and the 
 shaking bog admits a man to his knees. After a time, reaching a 
 clear spot, he takes up position behind a bush impending the 
 deepest water, and signals me to drive up the herd. In pursuit of 
 them I see a hole bursting in the stream, and a huge black head 
 rises with a snort and a spirt. ‘ Momba! Momba! ’ shout the 
 Belochies, yet the old rogue disdains flight. A cone from the Colt 
 strikes him full in front of the ear; his brain is pierced ; he rises 
 high, falls with a crash upon the wave, and all that flesh ‘ cannot 
 keep in a little life.’ Momba has for ever disappeared from the 
 home of hippopotamus; never shall he break nigger’s leg again. 
 Meanwhile the herd, who, rubbing their backs against the great 
 canoe, had retired to the other end of the pool, hearing an unusual 
 noise, rise, as is their wont, to gratify a silly curiosity. Jack has 
 two splendid standing shots, and the splashing and circling in the 
 stream below tell the accuracy of the aim. 
 
 “We soon learned the lesson that these cold-blooded animals 
 may be killed with a pistol-ball if hit in brain or heart; otherwise 
 they carry away as much lead as elephants. At about ten a.m. we 
 had slain six, besides wounding I know not how many of the 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions . 167 
 
 animals. They might be netted, but the operation would not pay 
 in a pecuniary sense; the ivory of small teeth, under four pounds 
 each, is worth little. Being perpetually pop-gunned by the Belo- 
 chies, they are exceedingly shy, and after an excess of bullying they 
 shift quarters. We returned but once to this sport, finding the 
 massacre monotonous, and such cynegetics about as exciting as 
 partridge-shooting. 
 
 “ On Thursday, the 26th of February, we left ‘the bazar.’ Jack 
 walked to Pangany, making a route survey, whilst I accompanied 
 the Jemadar and his tail in our large canoe. 
 
 “ For two days after returning to the coast we abstained from 
 exercise. On the third we walked out several miles, in the hottest 
 of suns, to explore a cavern, of which the natives, who came upon it 
 when clearing out a well, had circulated the most exaggerated 
 accounts. Jack already complained of his last night’s labour—an 
 hour with the sextant upon damp sand in the chilly dew. This walk 
 finished the work. On entering the house we found the Portuguese 
 lad, who had accompanied us to Fuga, in a high fever. Jack was 
 prostrated a few hours afterwards, and next day I followed their 
 example. 
 
 “As a rule, the traveller in these lands should avoid exposure 
 and fatigue beyond a certain point, to the very best of his ability. 
 You might as well practise sitting upon a coal-fire as inuring yourself 
 
 (which green men have attempted) to the climate. Dr. B-, a 
 
 Polish divine, who had taken to travelling at the end of a sedentary 
 life, would learn to walk bareheaded in the Zanzibar sun; the result 
 was a sunstroke. Others have paced barefooted upon an exposed 
 terrace, with little consequence but ulceration and temporary lame¬ 
 ness. The most successful in resisting the climate are they who 
 tempt it least, and the best training for a long hungry march is 
 repose, with good living. Man has then stamina to work upon; he 
 may exist, like the camel, upon his own fat. Those who fine them¬ 
 selves down by exercise and abstinence before the march, commit 
 the error of beginning where they ought to end. 
 
 “ Our attacks commenced with general languor and heaviness, a 
 lassitude in the limbs, a weight in the head, nausea, a frigid sensa¬ 
 tion creeping up the extremities, and dull pains in the shoulders. 
 Then came a mild, cold fit, succeeded by a splitting headache, 
 flushed face, full veins, vomiting, and an inability to stand upright. 
 Like ‘General Tazo’ of Madagascar, this fever is a malignant 
 bilious-remittent. The eyes become hot, heavy, and painful when 
 turned upwards; the skin is dry and burning, the pulse full and 
 frequent, and the tongue furred ; appetite is wholly wanting (for a 
 whole week I ate nothing), but a perpetual craving thirst afflicts the 
 patient, and nothing that he drinks will remain upon his stomach. 
 During the day extreme weakness causes anxiety and depression ; 
 the. nights are worse, for by want of sleep the restlessness is aggra¬ 
 vated. Delirium is common in the nervous and bilious tempera¬ 
 ment, and if the lancet be used, certain death ensues; the action of 
 the heart cannot be restored. The exacerbations are slightly but 
 
168 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 distinctly marked (in my own case they recurred regularly between 
 two and three a.m. and p.m.), and the intervals are closely watched 
 for administering quinine, after due preparation. This drug, how¬ 
 ever, has killed many, especially Frenchmen, who, by overdosing 
 at a wrong time, died of apoplexy. 
 
 “Whilst the Persians were at Zanzibar they besieged Colonel 
 Hamerton’s door, begging him to administer Warburg’s drops, which 
 are said to have a wonderful effect in malignant chronic cases. 
 When the disease intends to end fatally, the symptoms are aggra¬ 
 vated ; the mind wanders, the body loses all power, and after perhaps 
 an apparent improvement, stupor, insensibility, and death ensue. 
 On the other hand, if yielding to treatment, the fever, about the 
 seventh day, presents marked signs of abatement; the tongue is 
 clearer, pain leaves the head and eyes, the face is no longer flushed, 
 nausea ceases, and a faint appetite returns. The recovery, however, 
 is always slow and dubious. Relapses are feared, especially at the 
 full and change of the moon ; they frequently assume the milder in¬ 
 termittent type, and in some Indians have recurred regularly through 
 the year. In no case, however, does the apparent severity of the 
 fever justify the dejection and debility of the convalescence. For 
 six weeks recovery is imperfect; the liver acts with unusual energy, 
 the stomach is liable to severe indigestion, the body is lean, and 
 the strength wellnigh prostrated. At such times change of air is the 
 best of restoratives; removal, even to a ship in the harbour, or to 
 the neighbouring house, has been found more beneficial than all 
 the tonics and the preventatives in the Pharmacopoeia. 
 
 “ In men of strong nervous diathesis the fever leaves slight conse¬ 
 quences, in the shape of white hair, boils, or bad toothaches. 
 Others suffer severely from its secondaries, which are either visceral 
 or cerebral. Some lose memory, others virility, others the use of 
 a limb ; many become deaf or dim-sighted; and not a few, tormented 
 by hepatitis, dysentery, constipation, and similar disease, never 
 completely recover health. 
 
 “ Captain Owen’s survey of the Mombas Mission, and of our 
 numerous cruisers, proves that no European can undergo exposure 
 and fatigue, which promote the overflow of bile, without undergoing 
 the ‘ seasoning.’ It has, however, one advantage—those who pass 
 the ordeal are acclimatized; even with a year’s absence in Europe, 
 they return to the tropics with little danger. The traveller is always 
 advised to undergo his seasoning upon the coast before marching 
 into the interior; but after recovery he must await a second attack, 
 otherwise he will expend in preparation the strength and bottom 
 required for the execution of his journey. Of our party the Portu¬ 
 guese boy came in for his turn at Zanzibar. The other has ever 
 since had light relapses; and as a proof that the negro enjoys no 
 immunity, Seedy* Bombay is at this moment (June 8th) suffering 
 severely. 
 
 “ The Banyans intended great civility; they would sit with us 
 
 * He was originally Sudy, but afterwards they dubbed him Seedy.—I. B. 
 
Exploration of the Lake Regions . 169 
 
 for hours, asking, like Orientals, the silliest of questions, and think¬ 
 ing withal that they were ‘ doing the agreeable repose was out of 
 the question. During the day, flies and gnats added another sting 
 to the mortifications of fever. At night, rats nibbled at our feet, 
 mosquitoes sang their song of triumph, and a torturing thirst made 
 the terrible sleeplessness yet more terrible. Our minds were 
 morbidly fixed upon one point, the arrival of our vessel; we had 
 no other occupation but to rise and gaze, and exchange regrets as 
 a sail hove in sight, drew near, and passed by. We knew that there 
 would be no failure on the part of our thoughtful friend, who had 
 written to promise us a battela on the 1st of March, which did not 
 make Pangany till the evening of the 5 th of March. 
 
 “ After sundry bitter disappointments, we had actually hired 
 a Banyan’s boat that had newly arrived, when the expected craft 
 ran into the river. Not a moment was to be lost. Said bin Salim, 
 who had been a kind nurse, superintended the embarkation of our 
 property. Jack, less severely treated, was able to walk to the shore; 
 but I—alas for manliness!—was obliged to be supported like a 
 bedridden old woman. The worst part of the process was the 
 presence of a crowd. The Arabs were civil, and bade a kindly 
 farewell. The Sawahili, however, audibly contrasted the present 
 with the past, and drew dedecorous conclusions from the change 
 which a few days had worked in the man who bore a twenty-four 
 pound gun, my pet four-ounce. 
 
 “ All thoughts of cruising along the southern coast were at an end. 
 Colonel Hamerton had warned us not to despise bilious-remittents; 
 and evidently we should not have been justified in neglecting his 
 caution to return, whenever seized by sickness. With the dawn of 
 Friday, the 6th of March, we ordered the men to up sail; we stood 
 over for Zanzibar with a fine fresh breeze, and early in the afternoon 
 we found ourselves once more within the pale of Eastern civilization. 
 Deogratias / our excellent friend at once sent us to bed, whence, 
 gentle reader, we have the honour to make the reverential salaam.” 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE REAL START FOR TANGANYIKA IN THE INTERIOR. 
 
 “ When we left Zanzibar the Sultan of Zanzibar and the Sawahil and 
 his sons came on board with three letters of introduction. One was 
 to Mu^a Mzuri, the Indian doyen of the merchants settled at Unya- 
 mwezi; secondly, a letter to the Arabs there resident, and thirdly, one 
 to all his subjects who were travelling in the interior. I carried, in 
 an etui round my neck, the diploma of the Shaykh El Islam of 
 Mecca, and a passport from Cardinal Wiseman to all the Catholic 
 missionaries. His Highness the Sultan Said of Muscat had died on 
 his way from Arabia to Zanzibar. The party, besides Jack and I, 
 were two Goanese boys, two negro gun-carriers, the Seedy Mubarak 
 Mombai (Bombay), his brother, and eight Beloch mercenaries 
 appointed by the Sultan. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, her Majesty’s 
 Consul at Zanzibar, a friend of mine, gave me all particulars and 
 recommendations, and enlisted in my favour the Sayyid Sulayman 
 bin Hamid bin Said (the noble Omani, ‘ who never forgets the 
 name of his Grandsire ’), landed us upon the coast, and super¬ 
 intended our departure, attended by Mr. Frost, the apothecary 
 attached to the Consulate. 
 
 “ My desire was to ascertain the limits of the Sea of Ujiji, Tanga¬ 
 nyika, or Unyamwezi Lake, to learn the ethnography of its tribes, and 
 determine the export of the produce of the interior. The Foreign 
 Office granted jjiooo, and the Court of Directors allowed me 
 two years’ leave of absence to command the Expedition. Consul 
 Hamerton warned us against Kilwa, where any one attempting to 
 open the interior ran the danger of being murdered. 
 
 “We landed at Wale Point, about eighty-four miles distant from 
 the little town of Bagamoyo. We wanted to engage one hundred 
 and seventy porters, but we could only get thirty-six, and thirty 
 animals were found, which were all dead in six months, so we had 
 to leave part of our things behind, greater part of the ammunition, 
 and our iron boat. The Hindoos were faithful to their promise to 
 forward everything, but, great mistake, received one hundred and fifty 
 dollars for the hire of twenty-two men to start in ten days; we went 
 on, obliged to trust, but we did not get them for eleven months. 
 We paid various visits to the hippopotamus haunts, and had our 
 
The Real Start for Tanganyika. 1 71 
 
 boat uplifted from the water upon the points of two tusks, which 
 made corresponding holes in the bottom. My escort were under 
 the impression that nothing less than one hundred guards, one 
 hundred and fifty guns, and several cannon would enable them to 
 fight a way through the perils of the interior. We were warned 
 that for three days we must pass through savages, who sat on the 
 trees, and discharged poisoned arrows into the air with extraordinary 
 dexterity (meaning the Amazons) ; that they must avoid trees (which 
 was not easy in a land all forest) ; that the Wazaramo had sent six 
 several letters forbidding the white man to enter their country, and 
 that they buried their provisions in the jungle, that travellers might 
 starve ; that one rhinoceros kills two hundred men; that armies of 
 elephants attack camps by night; that the craven hyaena is more 
 dangerous than a Bengal tiger. 
 
 “We owed all our intrigues to a rascal named Ramji, who had his 
 own commerce in view, and often to our Ras Kaplan , or Caravan 
 leader, Said bin Salim, who did not wear well. The varnish soon 
 melted, and showed him as great a liar and thief as his men. At 
 times it is good to appear a dupe, to allow people to think and to 
 say that you are a muff, chronicling a vow that they shall change 
 places with you before the end of the game. I confided to Mr. 
 Frost two manuscripts addressed through the Foreign Office, one 
 to Mr. John Blackwood of Edinburgh, the other to Mr. Norton 
 Shaw, of the Royal Geographical Society. Blackwood’s arrived 
 safe, Norton Shaw’s in six years.* I took a melancholy leave 
 of my warm-hearted friend, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who had 
 death written on his features. He looked forward to death with 
 a feeling of delight, the result of his Roman Catholic religious 
 convictions, and, in spite of my entreaties, he would remain near 
 the coast till he heard of our safe transit through the lands of the 
 dangerous Wazaramo. This courage was indeed sublime, an ex¬ 
 ample not often met with. After this affecting farewell we landed 
 at Kaold. I insisted that Ladha, the Collector of customs, and 
 Ramji, his clerk, should insert in the estimate the sum required to 
 purchase a boat upon the Sea of Ujiji. Being a Hindoo, he thought 
 I was ignorant of Cutchee, so the following conversation took place:— 
 
 “ Ladha. Will he ever reach it ? 
 
 “ Ramji. Of course not. What is he that he should pass through 
 Ugogo? (a province about halfway). 
 
 * Some ot these things disappeared in a very singular manner, and one was very 
 curiously fated. It was missed here, and came home to me in six years. Later 
 on, in 1863, it again disappeared for six years. It was stolen at Fernando Po in 
 1863 ; it was marked by somebody on a bit of parchment, “ Burton’s Original 
 Manuscript Diary, Africa, 1857.” Colonel Maude, the Queen’s Equerry, saw it 
 outside an old book-shop, was attracted by the label on the Letts’s Diary. He 
 bought it for a few shillings, called on Lord Derby, and left it in the hall, forgetting 
 it. Lord Derby, coming down, saw the book, recognized my handwriting, wrote 
 to Colonel Maude for permission to restore the private diary to its rightful owner. 
 We happened to be in town. He kindly called and gave it back to us, so that 
 journal twice disappeared for six years, but had to come home. Who shall say 
 there is no destiny in this ? 
 
\J2 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “So I remarked at once that I did intend to cross Ugogo, and also 
 the Sea of Ujiji, that I did know Cutchee, and that I was even able 
 to distinguish between the debits and the credits of his voluminous 
 sheets. The worst loss that I had was that my old and valued 
 friend, Dr. Steinhaiiser, civil surgeon at Aden, sound scholar, good 
 naturalist, skilful practitioner, with rare personal qualities, which 
 would have been inestimable, was ill and could not come. His 
 Highness the late Sayyid Said, that great ally of the English nation, 
 had made most public-spirited offers to his friend, Lieut.-Colonel 
 Hamerton, for many years. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s extra¬ 
 ordinary personal qualities enabled him to perform anything but 
 impossibilities amongst the Arabs, and he was dying. Finally, as 
 Indian experience taught me, I was entering the ‘ unknown land ’ at 
 the fatal season when the shrinking of the waters after the wet 
 monsoon would render it a hotbed of malaria, but I was tied by 
 scanty means and a limited ‘ leave ;' it was neck or nothing, and I 
 determined to risk it. All the serving men in Zanzibar Island and 
 the East African coast are serviles. There is no word to express a 
 higher domestic. There was no remedy, so that I paid them 
 wages, and treated them as if they were free men. I had no power 
 to prevent my followers purchasing slaves, because they would say, 
 
 ‘ VVe are allowed by our law to do so; ’ all I could do was to see 
 that their slaves were well fed and not injured; but I informed all 
 the wild people that Englishmen were pledged against slavery, and 
 I always refused all slaves offered as presents. 
 
 “ In eighteen days we accomplished (despite sickness and every 
 manner of difficulty) a march of one hundred and eighteen indirect 
 statute miles, and entered K’hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign 
 merchants, on the 14th of July. On the 15th we entered Kiruru, 
 where I found a cottage, and enjoyed for the first time an atmo¬ 
 sphere of sweet, warm smoke.” (In all Richard’s wilder travels in 
 damp places, he laid such a stress upon “sweet, warm smoke.”) 
 “Jack (that is, Speke), in spite of my endeavours, would remain in 
 the reeking miry tent, and laid the foundations of the fever which 
 threatened his life in the mountains of Usagara. 
 
 “ As soon as we reached Dut’humi, where we were detained nearly 
 a week, the malaria brought on attacks of marsh fever. In my case 
 it lasted twenty days.” (In all Richard’s fever fits, and for hours 
 afterwards, both now and always, he had a queer conviction of 
 divided identity, never ceasing to be two persons, who generally 
 thwarted and opposed each other, and also that he was able to 
 fly.) “Jack suffered still more; he had a fainting-fit which strongly 
 resembled a sunstroke, and it seemed to affect him more or less 
 throughout our journey. Our sufferings were increased by the losses 
 of our animals, and we had to walk, often for many miles, 
 through sun, rain, mud, and miasmatic putridities. The asses 
 shy, stumble, rear, run away, fight, plunge and pirouette when 
 mounted; they hog and buck till they burst their girths; they love 
 to get into holes and hollows; they rush about like pigs when the 
 wind blows; they bolt under tree-shade when the sun shines; so they 
 
The Real Start for Tanganyika . 173 
 
 have to be led, and if the least thing happens the slave drops the 
 halter and runs away. 
 
 “ The Zanzibar riding-asses were too delicate and died ; we were 
 then reduced to the half-reclaimed beast of Wamyamwezi. As to 
 the baggage animals, they were constantly thrown, and the Beloch 
 only grumbled, sat down, and stared. They stole the ropes and 
 cords; they never were pounded for the night, nobody counted 
 them, and we were too ill to look after it. We were wretched ; 
 each morning dawned with a fresh load of care and trouble, and 
 every evening we knew that another miserable morrow was to dawn, 
 but I never relinquished the determination to risk everything, 
 myself included, rather than to return unsuccessful. At Dut’humi, 
 two Chiefs fought, and the strongest kidnapped five of his weaker 
 neighbour subjects. I could not stand by and see iniquity done 
 without an attempt, so I headed a little Expedition against the 
 strong, and I had the satisfaction of restoring the rescued, the five 
 unhappy stolen wretches, to their hearths and homes, and two 
 decrepit old women, that had been rescued from slavery, thanked 
 me with tears of joy” (Richard lightly calls this “an easy good 
 deed ” done), “ after which I was able, though with swimming head 
 and trembling hands, to prepare a report for the Geographical 
 Society. 
 
 “ On the 24th of July we were able to move on under the oppressive 
 rain-sun. From Central K’hutu to the base of the Usagara Mountains 
 there were nothing but filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in 
 holes of the jungle. Their miserable inhabitants, whose frames are 
 lean with constant intoxication, and whose limbs are distorted by 
 ulcerous sores, attest the hostility of Nature to Mankind. 
 
 “Arrived at Zungomero, we waited a fortnight for the twenty-two 
 promised porters. It was a hotbed of pestilence, where we nearly 
 found wet graves. Our only lodging was the closed eaves of a hut; 
 the roof was a sieve, the walls all chinks, and the floor a sheet of 
 mud. The Beloch had no energy to build a shed, and became almost 
 mutinous because we did not build it for them. 
 
 “ Our life here was the acme of discomfort; we had pelting showers, 
 followed by fiery sunshine, which extracted steam from the grass, 
 bush, and trees. My Goanese boys got a mild form of ‘ yellow 
 Jack,’ and I was obliged to take them into my hut, already populated 
 with pigeons, rats, flies, mosquitoes, bugs, and fleas. We were weary’ 
 of waiting for the porters and baggage, so we prepared our papers, 
 and sent them down by a confidential slave to the coast. Jack and 
 I left Zungomero on the 7th of August. We were so weak, we could 
 hardly sit our asses, but we were determined to get to the nearest 
 ascent of the Usagara Mountains, a march of five hours, and 
 succeeded in rising three hundred feet from the plain, ascending its 
 first gradient. 
 
 “This is the frontier of the second region, or Ghauts. There 
 was no vestige of buildings, nor sight nor sound of Man. There 
 was a wondrous change of climate at this place, called Mzizi 
 Maogo; strength and health returned as if by magic, even the 
 
174 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Goanese shook off their mild ‘ yellow Jack.’ Truly delicious was 
 the escape from the nebulous skies, the fog-driving gusts, the pelting 
 rain, the clammy mists veiling a gross growth of foetor, the damp raw 
 cold rising as it were from the earth, and the alternations of fiery 
 and oppressive heat; in fact, from the cruel climate of the river 
 valley, to the pure sweet mountain air, alternately soft and balmy, 
 cool and reviving, and to the aspect of clear blue skies, which lent 
 their tints to highland ridges well wooded with various greens. 
 
 “ Dull mangrove, dismal jungle, and monotonous grass were 
 supplanted by tall solitary trees, amongst which the lofty tama¬ 
 rind rose conspicuously graceful, and a card-table-like swamp, 
 cut by a network of streams, nullahs, and stagnant pools, gave way 
 to dry healthy slopes, with short steep pitches and gently shelving 
 hills. The beams of the large sun of the Equator—and nowhere 
 have I seen the Rulers of Night and Day so large—danced gaily upon 
 blocks and pebbles of red, yellow, and dazzling snowy quartz, and 
 the bright sea-breeze waved the summits of the trees, from which 
 depended graceful llianas and wood-apples large as melons, whilst 
 creepers, like vine tendrils, rising from large bulbs of brown-grey 
 wood, clung closely to their stalwart trunks. Monkeys played at 
 hide-and-seek, chattering behind the bolls, as the iguana, with its 
 painted scale-armour, issued forth to bask upon the sunny bank; 
 white-breasted ravens cawed when disturbed from their perching 
 places, doves cooed on the well-clothed boughs, and hawks soared 
 high in the transparent sky. The field-cricket chirped like the 
 Italian cicala in the shady bush, and everywhere, from air, from 
 earth, from the hill-slopes above, and from the marshes below, 
 the hum, the buzz, and the loud continuous voice of insect life, 
 through the length of the day, spoke out its natural joy. Our gypsy 
 encampment lay 
 
 * By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals.* 
 
 By night, the soothing murmurs of the stream at the hill’s base 
 rose mingled with the faint rustling of the breeze, which at times, 
 broken by the scream of the night-heron, the bellow of the bull¬ 
 frog in his swamp home, the cynhyaena’s whimper, and the fox’s 
 whining bark, sounded through the silence most musical, most 
 melancholy. Instead of the cold night rain, and the soughing of 
 the blast, the view disclosed a peaceful scene, the moonbeams lying 
 like sheets of snow upon the ruddy highlands, and the stars hanging 
 like lamps of gold from the dome of infinite blue. I never wearied 
 with contemplating the scene, for, contrasting with the splendours 
 around me, still stretched in sight the ‘ Slough of Despond,’ 
 unhappy Zungomero, lead-coloured above, mud-coloured below, 
 wind-swept, fog-veiled, and deluged by clouds that dared not ap¬ 
 proach these Delectable Mountains. 
 
 “ All along our way we were saddened by the sight of clean-picked 
 skeletons, and here and there the swollen corpses of porters who 
 had perished in this place by starvation. A single large body which 
 
175 
 
 The Real Start for Tanganyika. 
 
 passed us but yesterday had lost fifty of their number by small-pox, 
 and the sight of their deceased comrades made a terrible impression. 
 Men staggering on, blinded by disease, mothers carrying on their 
 backs infants as loathsome as themselves. The poor wretches would 
 not leave the path, as every step in their state of failing strength was 
 precious. He who once fell would never rise again. No village 
 would admit a corpse into its precincts, no friend or relation would 
 return for them, and they would lie till their agony was ended by 
 the raven, the vulture, and the fox. Near every kraal were detached 
 huts set apart for those seized with the fell disease. Several of our 
 party caught the infection, and must have thrown themselves into 
 some jungle, for when they were missed we came back to look and 
 there was no sign of them. The further we went on, the more 
 numerous were the corpses. Our Moslems passed them with averted 
 faces, and with the low ‘ La haul! ’ of disgust, and a decrepit old 
 porter gazed and wept for himself. At the foot of the ‘ Goma Pass ’ 
 we found the outlying huts for the small-pox, and an old kraal, 
 where we made comfortable for the night. All around peeped the 
 little beehive villages of the Wakaguru and the Wakwivi. 
 
 “ When we arrived at Rufuta I found that nearly all our instru¬ 
 ments had been spoilt or broken, the barometer had come to grief, 
 no aneroid had been sent from Bombay, and we had chiefly to get 
 on with two bath thermometers. Zonhwe was the turning-point of 
 the expedition’s difficulties. The 17th of August, as we went on, 
 the path fell easily westwards down a long grassy jungly incline, 
 cut by several water-courses. At noon I lay down fainting in the 
 sandy bed of the Muhama nullah, meaning the ‘ Palmetto ’ or ‘ Fan- 
 palm,’ and keeping Wazira and Mabruki with me, I begged Jack to 
 go on, and send me back a hammock from the halting-place. The 
 men, who were partly mutinous and deserting, suddenly came out 
 well; they reappeared, led me to a place where stagnant water was 
 found, and showed abundant penitence. At three o’clock, as Jack 
 did not send the hammock, I remounted and passed through another 
 ‘ Slough of Despond ’ like Zungomero, and found two little villages, 
 and on a hillside my caravan halted, which had been attacked by 
 a swarm of wild bees. At Muhama we halted three days, and 
 forded the Makata, and pursuing our march next day, I witnessed 
 a curious contrast in this strange African nature, which is ever in 
 extremes, and where extremes ever meet, where grace and beauty 
 are seldom seen without a sudden change to a hideous grotesqueness. 
 
 “ A splendid view charmed me in the morning. Above lay a sky 
 of purest azure, flaked with fleecy opal-tinted vapours floating high 
 in the empyrean, and catching the first roseate smiles of the unrisen 
 sun. Long lines, one bluer than the other, broken by castellated 
 crags and towers of the most picturesque form, girdled the far 
 horizon; the nearer heights were of a purplish-brown, and snowy 
 mists hung like glaciers about their folds. The plain was a park in 
 autumn, burnt tawny by the sun or patched with a darker hue where 
 the people were firing the grass—a party was at work merrily, as if 
 preparing for an English harvest home—to start the animals, to 
 
176 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 promote the growth of a young crop, and, such is the popular belief, 
 to attract rain. Calabashes, palmyras, tamarinds, and clumps of 
 evergreen trees, were scattered over the scene, each stretching its 
 lordly form over subject circlets of deep dew-fed verdure. Here 
 the dove cooed loudly, and the guinea-fowl rang its wild cry, whilst 
 the peewit chattered in the open stubble, and a little martin, the 
 prettiest of its kind, contrasted by its nimble dartings along the 
 ground, with the vulture wheeling slowly through the upper air. 
 The most graceful of animals, the zebra and the antelope, browsed 
 in the distance ; now they stood to gaze upon the long line of 
 porters, then, after leisurely pacing, with retrospective glances, in 
 an opposite direction, they halted motionless for a moment, faced 
 about once more to satiate curiosity, and lastly, terrified by their own 
 fancy, they bounded in ricochets over the plain. 
 
 44 About noon the fair scene vanished as if by enchantment. We 
 suddenly turned northwards into a tangled mass of tall foetid reeds, rank 
 jungle, and forest. One constantly feels, in malarious places, suddenly 
 poisoned as if by miasma; a shudder runs through the frame and a 
 cold perspiration, like a prelude for a fainting fit, breaks from the 
 brow. We came upon the deserted—once flourishing—village of 
 Wasagara, called Mbumi. The huts were torn and half burnt, the 
 ground strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots and 
 fragments of rude furniture; the sacking seemed to be about ten 
 days old. Two wretched villagers were lurking in the jungle, not 
 daring to revisit the wreck of their own homes. The demon of 
 Slavery reigns over a solitude of his own creation ; can it be, that 
 by some inexplicable law, where Nature has done her best for the 
 happiness of Mankind, Man, doomed to misery, must work out his 
 own unhappiness ? 
 
 44 Next day our path was slippery as mud, and man and beast 
 were rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small red ant and a 
 huge black pismire. They are large headed; they cannot spring, 
 but show great quickness in fastening themselves to the foot 
 or ankle as it brushes over them. The pismire is a horse-ant, 
 about an inch in length, whose bulldog head and powerful man¬ 
 dibles enable it to destroy rats and mice, lizards and snakes; its 
 bite burns like a pinch of a red-hot needle. When it sets to work, 
 twisting itself round, it may be pulled in two without relaxing its 
 hold. As the people stopped to drink they were seized by these 
 dreadful creatures, and suddenly began to dance and shout like 
 madmen, pulling off their clothes, and frantically snatching at their 
 lower limbs. In the evening it was like a savage opera scene. One 
 would recite his Koran, another pray; a third told funny stories; 
 a fourth trolled out in a minor key lays of love and war that were 
 familiar to me upon the Scindian hills. This was varied by slapping 
 away the black mosquitoes, ridding ourselves of ants, and challenging 
 small parties of savages who passed us from time to time with bows 
 and arrows. 
 
 44 Now we also began to suffer severely from the tzetze fly, which is 
 the true Glossina morsitans. It extended from Usagara westward as 
 
177 
 
 The Real Start for Tanganyika. 
 
 far as the Central Lakes. It has more persistency of purpose than 
 an Egyptian fly; when beaten off, it will return half a dozen times to 
 the charge. It cannot be killed except by a smart blow, and its 
 long sharp proboscis draws blood through a canvas hammock. The 
 sting is like an English horse-fly and leaves a lasting trace. This 
 land is eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, 
 which, without animals, cannot be greatly extended. Why this 
 plague should have been placed here, unless to exercise human 
 ingenuity, I cannot imagine. Perhaps some day it will be extermi¬ 
 nated by the introduction of some insectiferous bird, which will 
 be the greatest benefactor that Central Africa ever knew. The 
 brown ant has cellular hills of about three feet high, whereas in 
 Somali-land they become dwarf ruins of round towers. When we 
 reached Rumuma the climate was new to us, after the incessant 
 rains of the Maritime Valley, and the fogs and mists of the Rufuta 
 range; but it was in extremes—the thermometer under the in¬ 
 fluence of dewy gusts sank in the tent to 48° F., a killing tempe¬ 
 rature in these latitudes to half-naked and houseless men. During 
 the day it showed 90° F.; the sun was fiery, and a furious south wind 
 coursed through skies purer and bluer than I had ever seen in 
 Greece or Italy. 
 
 “When we were ill our followers often mutinied, and would do 
 nothing, but stole and lost our goods, and would not work. Some¬ 
 times, though they carried the water, they would refuse us any. 
 Jack was as ill as I was. We reached Rubeho, the third and 
 westernmost range of the Usagara Mountains, and here we were 
 welcomed with joy, and given milk and butter and honey, a real 
 treat. Here we were in danger of being attacked by the Wahumba. 
 Next day a Caravan arrived, under the command of four Arab 
 merchants, of which Isa bin Hijji was most kind, and did us good 
 service. I was always at home when I got amongst Arabs. They 
 always treat me practically as one of themselves. They gave us 
 useful information for crossing the Rubeho range, and superintended 
 our arrangements. When they went away I charged them not to 
 spread reports of our illness. I saw them depart with regret. It 
 had really been a relief to hear once more the voice of civility 
 and sympathy. 
 
 “ Our greatest labour was before us. Trembling with ague, 
 with swimming heads, ears deafened by weakness, and limbs 
 that would hardly support us, we contemplated with dogged 
 despair the perpendicular scramble over the mountains and the 
 ladders of root and boulder, up which we and our starving, droop¬ 
 ing asses had to climb. Jack was so weak that he had three 
 supporters; I, having stronger nerves, managed with one. We 
 passed wall-like sheets of rock, long steeps of loose white soil and 
 rolling stones. Every now and then we were compelled to lie 
 down by cough and thirst and fatigue; and when so compelled, fires 
 suddenly appeared on the neighbouring hills. The War-cry rang loud 
 from hill to hill, and Indian files of archers and spearmen, streaming 
 like lines of black ants, appeared in all directions down the paths. 
 
 M 
 
178 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 It was the Wahumba, who, waiting for the Caravans to depart, were 
 going down to fall fiercely on the scattered villages in the lowlands, 
 kill the people, and to drive off the cattle, and plunder the villages 
 of Inenge. Our followers prepared to desert us, but, strange to say, 
 the Wahumba did not touch us. By resting every few yards, and 
 clinging to our supporters, we reached the summit of this terrible 
 path after six hours, and we sat down amongst aromatic flowers and 
 bright shrubs, to recover strength and breath. Jack was almost in 
 a state of coma, and could hardly answer. The view disclosed a 
 retrospect of severe hardships past and gone. 
 
 “ We eventually arrived, after more walking, at a place called the 
 Great Rubeho, where several settlements appeared, and where poor 
 Jack was seized with a fever fit and dangerous delirium ; he became 
 so violent that I had to remove his weapons, and, to judge from 
 certain symptoms, the attack had a permanent cerebral effect. Death 
 appeared stamped upon his features, and yet our followers clamoured 
 to advance, because it was cold. This lasted two nights, when he 
 was restored and came to himself, and proposed to advance. I had 
 a hammock rigged up for him, and the whole Caravan broke ground. 
 We went on ascending till we reached the top of the third and 
 westermost range of the Usagdra Mountains, raised 5700 feet above 
 sea level, and we begin to traverse Ugogi, which is the halfway 
 district between the Coast and Unyanyembe, and stands 2760 feet 
 above sea level, and the climate of Ugogi pleases by its elasticity 
 and its dry healthy warmth. 
 
 “The African traveller’s fitness for the task of Exploration depends 
 more upon his faculty of chafing under delays and kicking against 
 the pricks than upon his power of displaying the patience of a 
 Griselda or a Job. Another Caravan of coast Arabs arrived. They 
 brought news from the sea-board, and, wondrous good fortune, the 
 portmanteau containing books, which a porter, profiting by the con¬ 
 fusion when they were attacked by bees, had deposited in the long 
 grass at the place where I directed the slaves to look for it. Some 
 half-caste Arabs had gone forward and spread evil reports of us. 
 They said we had each one eye and four arms ; we were full of 
 magic; we caused rain to fall in advance, and left droughts in our 
 rear ; we cooked water-melons, and threw away the seeds, thus 
 generating small-pox; we heated and hardened milk, thus breeding 
 a murrain amongst cattle ; our wire, cloth, and beads caused a 
 variety of misfortunes ; we were Kings of the Sea, and therefore 
 white-skinned and straight-haired, as are all men who live in salt 
 water, and next year we would seize their land. 
 
 “ As far as our followers were concerned, there was not a soul to 
 stand by Jack and me except ourselves. Had anything happened 
 we must have perished. We should have been as safe with six as 
 with sixty guns, but six hundred stout fellows, well armed, might march 
 through the length and breadth of Central Africa.” (Richard said 
 when the Government sent Gordon to Khartoum they failed because 
 they sent him alone. Had they sent him with five hundred soldiers 
 there would have been no war.) “ And now a word to sportsmen in 
 
179 
 
 The Real Start for Tanganyika . 
 
 this part of Africa. Let no future travellers make my mistake. I 
 expected great things without realizing a single hope. In the more 
 populous parts the woodman’s axe and the hunter’s arrows have 
 melted away game. Even where large tracks of jungle abound with 
 water and forage, the nctes of a bird rarely strike the ear, and 
 during the day’s march not a single large animal will be seen. In 
 places such as the park-lands of Dut’humi, the jungles and forests 
 of Ugogi and Mgunda Mk’hali, the barrens of Usukuma, and the 
 tangled thickets of Ujiji, there is abundance of noble game—lions, 
 leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, wild cattle, giraffes, gnus, zebras, 
 quaggas, and ostriches; but the regions are so dangerous that a 
 sportsman cannot linger. There is miasma, malaria, want of food, 
 rarely water, no camels, and every porter would desert, whilst the 
 extraordinary expense of provision and of carriage would be the 
 work of a very rich man. As for us, we could only shoot on halting 
 days at rare periods, and there is nothing left but the hippopotamus 
 and the crocodile of the seacoast. 
 
 “On the 8th of October we fell in with a homeward-bound 
 Caravan headed by Abdullah bin Nasib, who was very, very kind to 
 us. He kindly halted a day that we might send home a mail, and 
 gave me one of his riding animals, and would take nothing for it 
 except a little medicine. We left K’hok’ho, a foul strip of crowded 
 jungle, where we were stung throughout the fiery day by the tzetze 
 fly, swarms of bees, and pertinacious gadflies, where an army of 
 large poisonous ants drove us out of the tent by the wounds which 
 they inflicted between the fingers and other tender parts of the 
 body, till kettles of boiling water persuaded them to abandon us. 
 These ant-fiends made the thin-skinned asses mad with torture. In 
 this ill-omened spot my ass Seringe, the sole survivor of the riding 
 animals brought from Zanzibar, was so torn by a hysena that it died 
 of its wounds, and fifteen of my porters deserted, so that I thought 
 that it was no use continuing my weary efforts and anxiety about 
 baggage. 
 
 “I gave Jack my good donkey, because he was worse than 
 I was, and I took one of the poor ones, and found that I must 
 either walk or leave valuable things behind. Trembling with weak¬ 
 ness, I set out to march the length of the Mdiburu jungle. The 
 memory of that march is not pleasant. The burning sun and the 
 fiery reflected heat arising from the parched ground—here a rough, 
 thorny, and waterless jungle, where the jessamine flowered and the 
 frankincense was used for fuel; there a grassy plain of black and 
 sun-cracked earth—compelled me to lie down every half-hour. The 
 water-gourds were soon drained by my attendant Beloch; and the 
 sons of Ramji, who, after reaching the resting-place, had returned 
 with ample stores for their comrades, hid their vessels on my 
 approach. Sarmalla, a donkey-driver, the model of a surly negro, 
 whose crumpled brow, tightened eyes, and thick lips, which shot out 
 on the least occasion of excitement, showed what was going on 
 within his head, openly refused me the use of his gourd, and—thirst 
 is even less to be trifled with than hunger—found ample reason to 
 
180 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 repent himself of the proceeding. Near the end of the jungle I 
 came upon a party of the Beloch, who, having seized upon a porter 
 belonging to a large Caravan of Wanyamwezi that had passed us on 
 that march, were persuading him, half by promises and half by 
 threats, to carry their sleeping mats and their empty gourds. 
 
 “Towards the end of that long march I saw with pleasure the 
 kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was returning to me in hot haste,, 
 leading an ass and carrying a few scones and hard-boiled eggs. 
 Mounting, I resumed my way, and presently arrived at the confines 
 of Mdaburu, where, under a huge calabash, stood our tent, amidst 
 a kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge of 
 thorns. 
 
 “ We left Ugogi and pursued our way to ‘ Mgunda Mk'hali,’ a 
 very wild part, and at last got to Jiwella Mkoa, the halfway house. 
 We were cheered by the sight of the red fires glaring in the kraal, 
 but Jack’s ass, perhaps frightened by some wild beast which we did 
 not see, reared high in the air, bucked like a deer, broke his girths, 
 and threw Jack, who was sick and weak, heavily upon the hard earth. 
 Our people had become so selfish that they always attended to 
 themselves first, and Said bin Salim, the leader, actually refused to 
 give us a piece of canvas to make a tent. Bombay made a memo¬ 
 rable speech : ‘ If you are not ashamed of your Master, O Said, be 
 at least ashamed of his servant,’ which had such an effect that he 
 sent the whole awning, and refused the half which I sent back to 
 him. 
 
 “ The three Tribes of this part are the Wagogo (the Wamasai), the 
 Wahumba, and the Wakwafi, who are remarkable for their strength 
 and intelligence, and for their obstinate and untamable characters. 
 They only sell their fellow tribesmen when convicted of magic, or 
 from absolute distress, and many of them would rather die under the 
 stick than work. The Wagogo are thieves ; they would rob during 
 the day, are importunate beggars, and specify their long lists of 
 wants without stint or shame. An Arab merchant once went out to 
 the Wahumba to buy asses. He set out from Tura in Eastern 
 Unyamwezi, and traversing the country of the wild Wataturu, 
 arrived on the eighth day at the frontier district, I’ramba, where 
 there is a river which separates the tribes. He was received with 
 civility, but none have ever since followed his example. 
 
 “As we neared Unyanyembe the porters became more restive 
 under their light loads, their dignity was hurt by shouldering a pack, 
 and day after day, till I felt weary of life, they left their burdens upon 
 the ground. At Rubuga I was visited by an Arab merchant, who 
 explained something which had puzzled me. Whenever an advance 
 beyond Unyanyembe was spoken of, Said bin Salim’s countenance 
 fell. The merchant asked me if I thought the Caravan was strong 
 enough to bear the dangers of the road between that and Ujiji, and 
 I replied that I did, but even if I did not, I should go on. The 
 perpetual risk of loss, discourages the traveller in these lands. In a 
 moment papers which have cost him months of toil may be scattered 
 to the winds. Collectors should never make them on the march 
 
The Real Start for Tanganyika. 181 
 
 upwards , but on their leisurely return. My field and sketch-books 
 were entrusted to an Arab merchant who preceded me to Zanzibar. 
 Jack sent down maps, papers, and instruments, and I my vocabu¬ 
 laries, ephemeris, and drawing-books, which ran no danger, except 
 from Hamerton’s successor, who seemed careless. 
 
 “ The hundred and thirty-fourth day from leaving the coast, after 
 marching over six hundred miles, we prepared to enter Kazeh. I was 
 met by Arabs who gave me the Moslem salutation, and courteously 
 accompanied me. I was to have gone to the te?nbe kindly placed at my 
 disposal by Isa bin Hijji and the Arabs met at Ineng^, but by mistake 
 we were taken to that of Musa Mzuri, an Indian merchant, for whom 
 I bore an introductory letter, graciously given by H.H. the Sayyid 
 Majjid of Zanzibar. Here I dismissed the porters, who separated to 
 their homes. What a contrast between the open-handed hospitality 
 and the hearty good will of this truly noble race (Arabs), and the 
 niggardliness of the savage and selfish African ! It was heart of flesh 
 after heart of stone. They warehoused my goods, disposed of my 
 extra stores, and made all arrangements for my down march on 
 return. During two long halts at Kazeh, Snay bin Amir never 
 failed to pass the evening with me, and, as he thoroughly knew 
 the country all around, I derived immense information from his 
 instructive and varied conversation. 
 
 “Here were the times when Jack was at such a disadvantage 
 from want of language; he could join in none of these things, and 
 this made him, I think, a little sour, and partly why he wished 
 to have an expedition of his own. Snay bin Amir was familiar with 
 the language, the religion, the manners, and the ethnology of all the 
 tribes. He was of a quixotic appearance, high featured, tall, gaunt, 
 and large limbed. He was well read, had a wonderful memory, fine 
 perceptions, and passing power of language. He was the stuff of 
 which I could make a friend, brave as all his race, prudent, ready to 
 perish for honour, and as honest as he was honourable. At Unya- 
 nyembe the merchants expect some delay, because the porters, whether 
 hired at the coast or at Tanganyika, here disperse, and a fresh gang 
 has to be collected. When Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri, the 
 Indian, settled at Kazeh, it was only a desert; they built houses, 
 sunk wells, and converted it into a populous place. The Arabs here 
 live comfortably and even splendidly. The houses are single-storied, 
 but large, substantial, and capable of defence. They have splendid 
 gardens ; they receive regular supplies of merchandise, comforts, and 
 luxuries from the coast; they are surrounded by troops of concubines 
 and slaves, whom they train to divers crafts and callings. The rich 
 have riding asses from Zanzibar, and the poorest keep flocks and 
 herds. When a stranger appears he receives hishmat Fil gharib , 
 or ‘ the guest welcome.’ He is provided with lodgings, and introduced 
 by the host to the rest of the society at a general banquet. A draw¬ 
 back to their happiness is the failure of constitution. A man who 
 escapes illness for a couple of months boasts, and, as in Egypt, no one 
 enjoys robust health. The residents are very moderate in their 
 appetites, and eat only light dishes that they may escape fever. 
 
182 The Life of Sir Richard Burton, 
 
 “ From Unyanyembe there are twenty marches to Ujiji upon the 
 Tanganyika, seldom accomplished under twenty-five days. The two 
 greatest places are, first, Msene; the second is the Malagarazi river; 
 but now I bade adieu for a time to the march, the camp, and the 
 bivouac, and was comfortably housed close to my new friend, Shakyh 
 Snay bin Amir. You are all familiar with the Arab Kafilah and its 
 hosts of litters, horses, camels, mules, and asses; but the porter- 
 journeys in East Africa have, till this year of my arrival, escaped the 
 penman’s pen. There are three kind of Caravans. These are the 
 Wanyamwezi, the Wasawahili free men, and lastly that of the Arabs. 
 That of the Arabs is splendid, and next to the Persian, he is the most 
 luxurious traveller in the East. A veteran of the way, he knows the 
 effects of protracted hardship and scarcity upon a wayfarer’s health ; 
 but the European traveller does not enjoy it, because it marches by 
 instinct rather than reason. It dawdles, it hurries, it lingers, losing 
 time twice. It is fatal to observation, and nothing will induce them 
 to enable an Explorer to strike into an unbeaten path, or to progress 
 a few miles out of the main road. Malignant epidemics attack 
 Caravans, and make you repent joining them. For the rest, the 
 porters, one and all, want to eat, drink, sleep, carry the lightest 
 load or none at all; for the slightest service they want double 
 pay; they lose your mules and your baggage; they steal what 
 they can; they desert when they can; they run away when 
 there is the slightest danger. When it is safe, they are mutinous 
 and insolent, because you are dependent on them. If you come 
 to a comfortable place, you cannot dislodge them; if you come 
 to a dangerous place, they will not give the necessary time for food 
 or sleep, or resting the animals. Everything is done to get as much 
 out of you as possible, to do as little as they can for it; gain and self 
 are almost their only thoughts. Bombay proved more or less an 
 exception. During our journey from start to finish, there was not 
 one, from Said bin Salim, the leader, to the very porter, except 
 Bombay and the two Goanese Catholics, who did not attempt to 
 desert. 
 
 “ About five p.m. the camp was fairly roused, and a little low chatting 
 commences. The porters overnight have promised to start early, 
 and to make a long wholesome march; but, ‘ uncertain, coy, and 
 hard to please,’ the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the 
 warm evening, and so one of them will have fever. In every 
 Caravan there is some lazy lout and unmanageable fellow whose sole 
 delight is to give trouble. If no march be in prospect, they sit 
 obstinately before the fire, warming their hands and feet, and casting 
 quizzical looks at their fuming and fidgety employer. If all be 
 unanimous it is vain to tempt them; even soft sawder is but ‘ throw¬ 
 ing comfits to cows,’ and we return to our tent. If, however, there 
 be a division, a little active stimulating will cause a march. They 
 hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads piled 
 before our tents and pour out of camp or village. Jack and I, 
 when able, mount our asses; we walk when we can, but when 
 unable for either we are borne in hammocks. The heat of the 
 
The Real Start for Tanganyika. 183 
 
 ground, against which the horniest sole never becomes proof, tries 
 the feet like polished leather boots on a quarter-deck in the dog-days 
 near the Line. Sometimes, when in good humour, they are very 
 sportive. When two bodies meet, that commanded by an Arab claims 
 the road. When friendly caravans meet, the two kirangozis sidle 
 up with a stage pace, a stride and a stand, and, with sidelong looks, 
 prance till they arrive within distance; then suddenly and simul¬ 
 taneously ‘ ducking,’ like boys ‘ giving a back,’ they come to 
 loggerheads and exchange a butt violently as fighting rams. Their 
 example is followed by all with a rush and a crush, which might be 
 mistaken for the beginning of a fight; but it ends, if there be no 
 bad blood, in shouts of laughter. 
 
 “ When a Unyamwezi guide is leader of a Caravan the kirangozi 
 deliberately raises his plain blood-red flag, and they all follow him. 
 If any man dares to go before him, or into any but his own place, 
 an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his identity at 
 the end of the march. 
 
 “ The Wamrima willingly admit strangers into their villages, and 
 the Wazaramo would do the same, but they are constantly at feud 
 with the Wanyamwezi, and therefore it is dangerous hospitality. 
 My Goanese boys, being 4 Christians,’ that is to say, Roman 
 Catholics, consider themselves semi-European, and they will not 
 feed with the heathenry, so there are four different messes in the 
 Camp. The dance generally assumes, as the excitement increases, 
 the frantic semblance of a ring of Egyptian dervishes. The per¬ 
 formance often closes with a grand promenade, all the dancers being 
 jammed in a rushing mass, a galop in female, with features of satyrs, 
 and gestures resembling aught but human. Sometimes they compose 
 songs in honour of me. I understand them, and the singers know 
 that I do. They sing about the Muzungu Mbaya, ‘ the wicked 
 white man;’ to have called me a ‘good white man’ would mean 
 that one was a natural, an innocent, who would be plucked and 
 flayed without flinching; moreover, despite my wickedness, it was 
 always to me that they came for justice and redress if any one bullied 
 or ill-treated them. 
 
 “ The Caravan scene at night is often very impressive. The 
 dull red fires flickering and forming a circle of ruddy light in the 
 depths of the black forest, flaming against the tall trunks, and 
 defining the foliage of the nearer trees, illuminate lurid groups 
 of savage men, in every variety of shape and posture. Above, 
 the dark purple sky, studded with golden points, domes the 
 earth with bounds narrowed by the gloom of night. And, behold, 
 in the western horizon, a resplendent crescent, with a dim, ash- 
 coloured globe in its arms, and crowned by Hesperus, sparkling 
 like a diamond, sinks through the vast space in all the glory and 
 gorgeousness of Eternal Nature’s sublimest works. From such a 
 night, methinks, the Byzantine man took his device, the crescent 
 and the star. 
 
 “At Kdzeh, as in Ugogi and everywhere else, the lodgings are a 
 menagerie of hens, pigeons, rats, scorpions, earwigs (the scorpions 
 
184 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 are spiteful), and in Ugogi there is a green scorpion from four to 
 five inches long, which inflicts a torturing wound. Here they say 
 that it dies after inflicting five consecutive stings, and kills itself if 
 a bit of stick be applied to the middle of its back. House crickets 
 and cockroaches are plentiful, as well as lizards, and frightful spiders 
 weave their webs. One does not count ticks, flies of sorts, bugs, 
 fleas, mosquitoes, and small ants, and the fatal bug of Miana, which 
 vary in size, after suction, from almost invisible dimensions to three- 
 quarters of an inch. The bite does not poison, but the irritation 
 causes sad consequences. Huts have to be sprinkled with boiling 
 water to do away with some of these nuisances. 
 
 “ It is customary for Caravans proceeding to the Tanganyika to 
 remain for six weeks or two months at Unyanyembe for repose and 
 recovery from the labours they are supposed to have endured, to 
 enjoy the pleasures of f civilized society,’ to accept the hospitality 
 offered by the Arabs. All our party, except Jack and I, con¬ 
 sidered Unyanyembi the end of the exploration, but to us it merely 
 meant a second point of departure easier than the first, because we 
 hai gained experience. We had, thowever, a cause of delay. Jack 
 had become strong, but all the res got ill. Valentine, my Goanese 
 boy, was insensible for three days and nights from bilious fever, 
 and when he recovered Gaetano got it and was unconscious. Then 
 followed the bull-headed slave, Mabruki, and lastly Bombay, while 
 the rest of the following, who had led a very irregular life, began to 
 pay the penalty of excess. They brought us a mganga , or witch, 
 who doctored us. However, we got distressing weakness, liver 
 derangement, burning palms, tingling soles, aching eyes, and alter¬ 
 nate chills of heat and cold, and we delayed till the 1st of December, 
 during which we learnt a lot of necessary things. 
 
 “ My good Snay bin Amir sent into the country for plantains and 
 tamarinds, and brewed a quantity of beer and plantain wine. He 
 lent me valuable assistance concerning the country and language, 
 and we were able, through him, to learn all about the Nyanza or 
 Northern Lake, and the maps forwarded from K£zeh to the Royal 
 Geographical Society will establish this fact, as they were subse¬ 
 quently determined, after actual exploration, by Jack. Snay bin 
 Amir took charge of all the letters and papers for home, and his 
 energy enabled me afterwards to receive the much-needed reserve 
 of supplies in the nick of time. 
 
 “On the 15th we went on to Yombo, where I remarked three 
 beauties who would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. 
 Their faces were purely Grecian, they had laughing eyes, their figures 
 were models for an artist, like the bending statue that delights the 
 world, cast in bronze. These beautiful domestic animals smiled 
 graciously when, in my best Kinyamwezi, I did my devoir to the sex, 
 and a little tobacco always secured for me a seat in the ‘ undress 
 circle.’ 
 
 “ On the 22nd of December Jack came back, and we left on the 
 23rd of December, and marched to the district of Eastern Wilyankuru; 
 and there we again separated, and I went on alone to Muinyi 
 
The Real Start for Tanganyika. 185 
 
 Chandi, and my people were very troublesome. Said bin Salim, 
 believing that my days were numbered, passed me on the last march 
 without a word. The sun was hot, and he and his party were 
 hastening to shade, and left me with only two men to carry the 
 hammock in a dangerous jungle, where shortly afterwards an Arab 
 merchant was murdered. On Christmas Day I mounted my ass, 
 passed through the western third of the Wilyankuru district, and was 
 hospitably received by one Salim bin Said, surnamed Simba the 
 Lion, who received me with the greatest hospitality. He was a 
 large, middle-aged man, with simple and kindly manners, and an 
 honesty of looks and words which rendered his presence extremely 
 prepossessing. 
 
 “ The favourite dish in this country is the pillaw , or pilaff here 
 called pulao; and here I want to digress. For the past century, 
 which concluded with reducing India to the rank of a British 
 province, the proud invader has eaten her rice after a fashion which 
 has secured for him the contempt of the East. He deliberately 
 boils it, and after drawing off the nutritious starch, or gluten, called 
 conjee , which forms the perquisite of the Portuguese or his pariah 
 cook, he is fain to fill himself with that which has become little 
 more nutritious than the prodigal’s husks. Great, indeed, is the 
 invader’s ignorance upon that point. Peace be to the manes of 
 Lord Macaulay, but listen to and wonder at his eloquent words: 
 
 ‘ The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, 
 but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, 
 who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The 
 thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, would 
 suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance 
 of military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.’ 
 Indians never fail to drink the conjee. The Arab, on the other 
 hand, mingles with his rice a sufficiency of ghee to prevent the 
 extraction of the ‘ thin gruel,’ and thus makes the grain as palatable 
 and as nutritious as Nature intended it to be—and dotted over with 
 morsels of fowl, so boiled that they shredded like yarn under the 
 teeth. 
 
 “ Shaykh Masud boasted of his intimacy with the Sultan Msimbira, 
 wffiose subjects had plundered our portmanteau, and offered, on 
 return to Unyanyambe, his personal services in ransoming it. I 
 accepted with joy, but it afterwards proved that he nearly left his 
 skin in the undertaking. The climate of Kfrfra, where I arrived on 
 the 27 th of December, is called by the Arabs a medicine, and I 
 spent a delicious night in the cool Barzah after the unhealthy air of 
 Kazeh. Three marches more brought me to Msene, where I was 
 led to the temhe of one Saadullah, a low-caste Msawahili, and there 
 I found Jack, looking very poorly. We were received with great 
 pomp and circumstance; the noise was terrific, and Gaetano, Jack’s 
 boy, was so excited by the scene that he fell down in an epileptic 
 fit, which fits returned repeatedly. 
 
 “On the 10th of January we left, and arrived at Mb’hali, and 
 passed through dense jungle, and eventually came to Sorora and 
 
186 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Kajjanjeri, and here we were freshly ill from miasma. About three 
 in the afternoon I was forced to lay aside my writing by an unusual 
 sensation of nervous irritability, which was followed by a general 
 shudder as in the cold paroxysm of fevers. Presently my extremities 
 began to weigh, and began to burn as though exposed to a glowing 
 fire, and my jack-boots became too tight and heavy to wear. At 
 sunset the attack reached its height. I saw yawning wide to 
 receive me— 
 
 * Those dark gates across the wild 
 That no man knows.* 
 
 My body was palsied, powerless, motionless; the limbs appeared to 
 wither and die; the feet had lost all sensation, except a throbbing 
 and a tingling as if pricked by needle points, the arms refused to be 
 directed by will, and to the hands the touch of cloth and stone was 
 the same. Gradually the attack spread upwards till it seemed to 
 compress my ribs, and stopped short there. This at a distance of 
 two months of any medical aid, and with the principal labour of the 
 expedition still in prospect! If one of us was lost, I said to myself, 
 the other might survive to carry home the results of the exploration, 
 which I had undertaken with the resolve either to do or die. I had 
 done my best, and now nothing appeared to remain for me but to 
 die as well. 
 
 “ It was partial paralysis, brought on by malaria, well known in 
 India. I tried the usual remedies without effect, and the duration 
 of the attack presently revealed what it was. The contraction of 
 the muscles, which were tightened like ligatures above and below 
 the knees, and those X-urayovvara , a pathological symptom which 
 the old Greek loves to specify, prevented me from walking to any 
 distance for nearly a year; the numbness of the hands and feet 
 disappeared more slowly, but the Fundi predicted that I should be 
 able to move in ten days, and on the ioth I again mounted my ass. 
 At Usagozi, Jack, whose blood had been impoverished, and whose 
 system had been reduced by many fevers, now began to suffer from 
 inflammation of the eyes, which produced an almost total blindness, 
 rendering every object enclouded by a misty veil. Goanese Valentine 
 suffered the same on the same day, and subsequently, at Ujiji, was 
 tormented by inflammatory ophthalmia. I suffered in a minor degree. 
 On the 3rd of February we debouched from a jungle upon the river 
 plain; the swift brown stream, there fifty yards broad, was swirling 
 through the tall wet grasses of its banks on our right hand, hard by 
 our track. Upon the off-side, a herd of elephants in Indian file 
 broke through the reed fence in front of them. 
 
 “ The Malagarhzi, corrupted by speculative geographers to Mdji- 
 gidgi—the uneuphonious terminology of the ‘Mombas Mission Map* 
 —to ‘ Magrassie,’ and to ‘ Magozi,’ has been wrongly represented to 
 issue from the Sea of Ujiji. According to all travellers in these 
 regions, it rises in the mountains of Urundi, at no great distance 
 from the Kitangure, or river of Karagwah; but whilst the latter, 
 springing from the upper counterslope, feeds the Nyanza, or 
 
The Real Start for Tanganyika. 187 
 
 Northern Lake, the Malagarazi, rising in the lower slope of the 
 equatorial range, trends to the south-east, till it becomes entangled 
 in the decline of the Great Central African Depression—the hydro- 
 graphical basin first indicated in his address of 1852 by Sir Rode¬ 
 rick I. Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society of 
 London.* Thence it sweeps round the southern base of Urundi, 
 and, deflected westwards, it disembogues itself into the Tanganyika. 
 Its mouth is in the land of Ukaranga, and the long promontory 
 behind which it discharges its waters is distinctly visible from 
 Kawele, the head-quarters of Caravans in Ujiji. The Malagarazi 
 is not navigable; as in primary and transition countries generally, 
 the bed is broken by rapids. Beyond the ferry the slope becomes 
 more pronounced, branch and channel islets of sand and verdure 
 divide the stream, and as every village near the banks appears to 
 possess one or more canoes, it is probably unfordable. The main 
 obstacle to crossing it on foot, over the broken and shallower parts 
 near the rock-bars, would be the number and the daring of the 
 crocodiles. 
 
 “The mukunguru of Unyamwezi is the severest seasoning-fever 
 in this part of Africa; it is a bilious-remittent lasting three days, 
 which reduces the patient to nothing, and often followed by a long 
 attack of tertian type. The consequences are severe and lasting, 
 even in men of the strongest nervous diathesis; burning and painful 
 eyes, hot palms and soles, a recurrence of shivering and flushing 
 fits, extremities alternately icy cold, then painfully hot and swollen, 
 indigestion, sleeplessness, cutaneous eruptions, fever sores, languor, 
 dejection, all resulting from torpidity of liver, from inordinate secre¬ 
 tion of bile, and shows the poison in the system. Sometimes the 
 fever works speedily; some become at once delirious, and die on 
 the first or second day. 
 
 “ From Tura to Unyamwezi the Caravans make seven marches of 
 sixty geographical miles. The races requiring notice in this region 
 are two—Wakimbu and the Wanyamwezi.” 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OUR REWARD—SUCCESS. 
 
 “At length we sight the Lake Tanganyika, or the ‘Sea of Ujiji. 
 The route before us lay through a howling wilderness laid waste by 
 the fierce Watuta. Mpete, on the right bank of the Malagarazi 
 river, is very malarious, and the mosquitoes are dreadful. We 
 bivouacked under a shady tree, within sight of the ferry. The 
 passage of this river is considered dangerous on account of attacks 
 of the tribes. At one place I could only obtain a few corn cobs, 
 and I left the meat, with messages, for the rear. In the passages 
 of the river our goods and chattels were thoroughly sopped. After 
 a while, from a hillside we saw, long after noon, the other part of 
 our Caravan, halted by fatigue, upon a slope beyond a weary swamp; 
 a violent storm was brewing, and the sky was black, and we were 
 anxious and sorry about them. 
 
 “On the 13th February, after about an hour’s march, I saw the 
 Fundi running forward, and changing the direction of the Caravan, 
 and I followed him to know why he had taken this responsibility 
 upon himself. We breasted a steep stony hill, sparsely clad with 
 thorny trees, which killed Jack’s riding ass. Our fagged beasts 
 refused to proceed. ‘ What is that streak of light which lies below?’ 
 said I to Bombay. ‘ I am of opinion,’ said Bombay, ‘ that that is 
 the water you are in search of.’ I gazed in dismay; the remains of 
 my blindness, the veil of trees, a broad ray of sunshine illuminating 
 but one reach of the lake, had shrunk its fair proportions. I began 
 to lament my folly in having risked life and lost health for so poor 
 a prize, to curse Arab exaggeration, and to propose an immediate 
 return to explore the Nyanza, or Northern Lake. 
 
 “Advancing a few yards, the whole scene suddenly burst upon 
 my view, filling me with admiration, wonder, and delight. Nothing 
 in sooth could be more picturesque than this first view of Tan¬ 
 ganyika Lake, as it lay in the lap of the mountains, basking in 
 the gorgeous tropical sunshine. There were precipitous hills, a 
 narrow strip of emerald green, a ribbon of glistening yellow sand, 
 sedgy rushes, cut by the breaking wavelets, an expanse of light, 
 soft blue water foam thirty to thirty-five miles wide, sprinkled 
 
Our Reward — Success . 
 
 18 9 
 
 by crisp tiny crescents of snowy foam, with a background of high 
 broken wall of steel-coloured mountain flecked and capped with 
 pearly mist, sharply pencilled against the azure sky, yawning chasms 
 of plum-colour falling towards dwarf hills, which apparently dip 
 their feet in the wave. One could see villages, cultivated lands, 
 fishermen’s canoes on the water, and a profuse lavishness and 
 magnificence of Nature and vegetation. The smiling shores of 
 this vast crevasse appeared doubly beautiful to me after the silent 
 and spectral mangrove-creeks on the East African sea-board, and the 
 melancholy monotonous experience of desert and jungle scenery, 
 tawny rock and sun-parched plain, or rank herbage and flats of black 
 mire. Truly it was a revel for Soul and Sight! Forgetting toils, 
 dangers, and the doubtfulness of return, I felt willing to endure 
 double what I had endured ; and all the party seemed to join with 
 me in joy. Poor purblind Jack found nothing to grumble at, except 
 the ‘ mist and glare before his eyes.’ Said bin Salim looked exult¬ 
 ing —he had procured for me this pleasure ; the monoculous Jemadar 
 grinned his congratulations, and even the surly Beloch made civil 
 salaams. 
 
 As soon as we were bivouacked, I proceeded to get a solid- 
 built Arab craft, capable of containing thirty or thirty-five men, 
 belonging to an absent merchant. It was the second largest on the 
 lake, and being too large for paddling, the crew rowed, and at eight 
 next morning we began coasting along the eastern shore of the lake 
 in a north-westerly direction, towards the Kawele district. The 
 picturesque and varied forms of the mountains rising above and 
 dipping into the lake were clad in purplish blue, set off by the rosy 
 tints of the morning, and so we reached the great Ujiji. A few 
 scattered huts in the humblest beehive shape represent the Port 
 town. This fifth region includes the alluvial valley of the Malagarazi 
 river, which subtends the lowest spires of the highlands of Karagwah 
 and Urundi, the western prolongation of the chain which has obtained, 
 probably from African tradition, the name of ‘ Lunar Mountains.’ 
 
 “ At Ujiji terminates, after twelve stages, the transit of the fifth 
 region. The traveller has now accomplished a hundred stages, which 
 with necessary rests, but not including detentions and long halts, 
 should occupy a hundred and fifty days. The distance, on account 
 of the sinuosities of the road, numbers nine hundred and fifty statute 
 miles, which occupied us seven and a half months on account of our 
 disadvantages and illnesses. Arab Caravans seldom arrive at the 
 Tanganyika, for the same reasons, under six months, but the lightly 
 laden and the fortunate may get to Unyamyembe in two and a half, 
 and to the Tanganyika in four months. It is evident that the African 
 authorities (this was written thirty-five years ago) have hitherto 
 confounded the Nyanza, the Tanganyika, and the Nyassa Lakes. 
 Ujiji was first visited in 1840 by the Arabs, and after that they 
 penetrated to Unyamwesi. They found it conveniently situated as 
 a central point from whence their factors and slaves could navigate 
 the waters, and collect slaves and ivory from the tribes upon its banks, 
 but the climate proved unhealthy, the people dangerous, and the 
 
190 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 coasting voyages ended in disaster. Ujiji never rose to the rank of 
 Unyamyembe, or Msene. Now, from May to September, flying 
 Caravans touch here, and return to Unyamyembe so soon as they 
 have loaded their porters. The principal tribes are the Wajiji, the 
 Wavfnza, the Wakardnga, the Watiita, the Wabuha, and the Wahha; 
 but the fiercest races in the whole land, and also the darkest, are the 
 Wazarimo, the Wajiji, and the Wataturu. The Lakists are almost 
 an amphibious race, are excellent divers, strong swimmers and fisher¬ 
 men, and vigorous eaters of fish, and in the water they indulge in 
 gambols like sportive water-fowls, whether skimming in their hollow 
 logs, or swimming. 
 
 “ It is a great mistake not to go as a Trader. It explains the 
 Traveller’s motives, which are always suspected to be bad ones. Thus 
 the Explorer can push forward into unknown countries, will be civilly 
 received and lightly fined, because the host expects to see him or 
 his friends again: to go without any motive only induces suspicion, 
 and he is opposed in every way. Nobody believes him to be so 
 stupid as to go through such danger and discomfort for exploring or 
 science, which they simply do not understand. 
 
 “ The cold damp climate, the over-rich and fat fish diet, and the 
 abundance of vegetables, which made us commit excesses, at first 
 disagreed with us. I lay for a fortnight upon the earth, too blind to 
 read or write, too weak to ride, too ill to converse. Jack was almost 
 as groggy upon his legs as I was, suffering from a painful ophthalmia, 
 and a curious contortion of the face, which made him chew sideways, 
 like an animal that chews the cud. Valentine was the same. Jack 
 and Valentine were always ill of the same things, and on the same 
 days, showing that certain climates affected certain temperaments 
 and not others. Gaetano ate too much and brought on a fever. I was 
 determined to explore the northern extremity of the lake, whence, 
 every one said, issued a large river flowing northwards, so I tried to 
 hire the only dhow or sailing craft, and provision it for a month’s 
 cruise, and at last Jack went to look after it, and I was twenty-seven 
 days alone. 
 
 “ I spent my time chiefly in eating, drinking, smoking, dozing. 
 At two or three in the morning I lay anxiously expecting the grey 
 light to creep through the door-chinks; then came the cawing of 
 crows, and the crowing of the village cocks. When the golden rays 
 began to stream over the red earth, torpid Valentine brought me 
 rice-flour boiled in water with cold milk. Then came the slavey with 
 a leafy branch to sweep the floor and to slay the huge wasps. This 
 done, he lit the fire, the excessive damp requiring it, and sitting over 
 it, he bathed his face and hands—luxurious dog!—in the pungent 
 smoke. Then came visits from Said bin Salim and the Jemadar 
 (our two headmen), who sat and stared at me, were disappointed 
 to see no fresh symptoms of approaching dissolution, told me so with 
 their eyes and faces, and went away; and I lay like a log upon my 
 cot, smoking, dreaming of things past, visioning things present , and 
 indulging myself in a few lines of reading and writing. 
 
 “ As evening approached, I made an attempt to sit under the 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 191 
 
 broad eaves of the tembe, and to enjoy the delicious spectacle of 
 this virgin Nature, and the reveries to which it gave birth— 
 
 * A pleasing land of drowsihed it was, 
 
 Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, 
 
 And of gay castles in the clouds that pass 
 For ever flushing round a summer sky.’ 
 
 “ It reminded me of the loveliest glimpses of the Mediterranean ; 
 there were the same ‘ laughing tides/ pellucid sheets of dark blue 
 water, borrowing their tints from the vinous shores beyond ; the same 
 purple light of youth upon the cheek of the earlier evening; the same 
 bright sunsets, with their radiant vistas of crimson and gold opening 
 like the portals of a world beyond the skies; the same short-lived 
 grace and loveliness of the twilight; and, as night closed over the 
 earth, the same cool flood of transparent moonbeams, pouring on the 
 tufty heights and bathing their sides with the whiteness of virgin 
 snow. 
 
 “At seven p.m., as the last flush faded from the Occident, the lamp 
 —a wick in a broken pot full of palm oil—was brought in. A dreary, 
 dismal day you will exclaim, a day that— 
 
 ‘ lasts out a night in Russia, 
 
 When nights are longest there.’ 
 
 “On the 29th of March the rattling of matchlocks announced 
 Jack’s return. He was moist, mildewed, and wet to the bone, and 
 all his things were in a similar state ; his guns grained with rust, his 
 fireproof powder-magazine full of rain, and, worse than that, he had 
 not been able to gain anything but a promise that, after three months , 
 the dhow should be let to us for five hundred dollars. The very 
 dhow that had been promised to me whenever I chose to send for 
 it! The faces of my following were indeed a study. 
 
 “ I then set to work to help Jack with his diaries, which afterwards 
 appeared in Blackwood , September, 1859, when I was immensely sur¬ 
 prised to find, amongst many other things, a vast horseshoe of lofty 
 mountains that Jack placed, in a map attached to the paper, near the 
 very heart of Sir R. Murchison’s Depression. I had seen the moun¬ 
 tains growing upon paper under Jack’s hand, from a thin ridge of hills 
 fringing the Tanganyika until they grew to the size given in Black¬ 
 wood, and Jack gravely printed in the largest capitals, ‘This moun¬ 
 tain range I consider to be the true Mountains of the Moon; * thus 
 men do geography, and thus discovery is stultified. The poor fellow 
 had got a beetle in his ear, which began like a rabbit at a hole to 
 dig violently at the tympanum, and maddened him. Neither 
 tobacco, salt, n >r oil could be found; he tried melted butter, and all 
 fading, he applied the point of a penknife to its back, and wounded 
 his ear so badiy that inflammation set in and affected his facial 
 glands, till he could not open his mouth, and had to feed on suction. 
 Six or seven months after, the beetle came away in the wax. At last 
 I got hold of Kannena the Chief, and after great difficulty and 
 enormous extortion, I promised him a rich reward if he kept his 
 
192 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 word ; for I was resolved at all costs, even if we were reduced to 
 actual want, to visit the mysterious stream. I threw over his 
 shoulders a six-foot length of scarlet broadcloth, which made him 
 tremble with joy, and all the people concerned in my getting the 
 dhow received a great deal more than its worth. I secured two large 
 canoes and fifty-five men. 
 
 “ On the nth of April, at four in the morning, I slept comfortably 
 on the crest of a sand-wave, and under a mackintosh escaped the 
 pitiless storm, so as to be ready to start lest they should repent, and 
 at 7.20 on the 12th of April, 1858, my canoe, bearing for the first 
 time on those dark waters— 
 
 * The flag that braved a thousand years 
 The battle and the breeze,’ 
 
 stood out of Bangwe Bay, and, followed by Jack’s canoe, we made for 
 the cloudy and storm-vexed north. The best escort to a European 
 capable of communicating with and commanding them, would be a 
 small party of Arabs, fresh from Hazramaut, untaught in the ways 
 and tongues of Africa. They would save money to the explorer, 
 and also his life. There were great rejoicings at our arrival at 
 Uvira, the ne plus iiltra, the northernmost station to which mer¬ 
 chants have as yet been admitted. Opposite still, rose in a high 
 broken line the mountains of the inhospitable Urundi, apparently 
 prolonged beyond the northern extremity of the waters. Some say 
 the voyage is of two days, some say six hours; the breadth of the 
 Tanganyika here is between seven and eight miles. 
 
 “ Now my hopes were rudely dashed to the ground. The stalwart 
 sons of the Sultan Maruta, the noblest type of Negroid seen near the 
 lake, visited me. They told me they had been there, and that the 
 Rusizi enters into and does not flow out of the Tanganyika. I felt 
 sick at heart. Bombay declared that Jack had misunderstood, and 
 his (Bombay’s) informer now owned that he had never been beyond 
 Uvira, and never intended to do so. We stopped there nine days, 
 and there I got such a severe ulceration of the tongue that I could 
 not articulate. An African traveller may be arrested at the very 
 bourne of his journey, on the very threshold of his success, by a 
 single stage, as effectually as if all the waves of the Atlantic or the 
 sands of Arabia lay between him and it. Now Maruta and his 
 young giants claimed their blackmail, and also Kannena, and I had 
 to pay up. Slaves are cheaper here than in the market of Ujiji. 
 Gales began to threaten, and the crews, fearing wind and water, 
 insisted on putting out to sea on the 6th of May. 
 
 “ We touched at various stages and anchored at Mzimu, our 
 former halting-place, where the crew swarmed up a ladder of rock, 
 and returned with pots of palm oil. We left again at sunset; the 
 waves began to rise, the wind also, and rain in torrents, and it was 
 a doubt whether the cockleshell craft could live through the short 
 chopping sea in heavy weather. The crew was frightened, but held 
 on gallantly, and Bombay, a noted Agnostic in fine weather, spent 
 the length of that wild night in reminiscences of prayer. I sheltered 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 193 
 
 myself under my then best friend, my mackintosh, and thought of 
 the couplet— 
 
 ‘This collied night, these horrid waves, these gusts that sweep the whirling deep ; 
 What reck they of our evil plight, who on the shore securely sleep ? * 
 
 Fortunately the rain beat down the wind and sea, or nothing could 
 have saved us. The next morning Mabruki rushed into the tent, 
 thrust my sword into my hands, said the Warundi were upon us, 
 and that the crews were rushing to their boats and pushing them off. 
 Knowing that they would leave us stranded in case of danger, we 
 hurried in without delay; but presently no enemy appeared, and 
 Kannena, the Chief, persuaded them to re-land, and demand satis¬ 
 faction of a drunken Chief who had badly wounded a man, and then 
 there was a general firing and drawing of daggers. The crew 
 immediately confiscated the three goats that were for our return, 
 cut their throats, and spitted the meat upon their spears. Thus 
 the lamb died and the wolf dined; the innocent suffered, the plun¬ 
 derer was joyed; the strong showed his strength, the weak his 
 weakness—as usual. I saw the sufferer’s wounds washed, forbade 
 his friends to knead and wrench him as they were doing, and gave 
 him a purgative which did him good. On the second day he was 
 able to rise. This did not prevent the report at home that I had 
 killed the man. 
 
 “On the nth of May we paddled round to Wafanya Bay, to 
 Makimoni, a little grassy inlet, where our canoes were defended 
 from the heavy surf. On the 12th we went to Kyasanga, and the 
 next night we spent in Bangwe Bay. We were too proud to sneak 
 home in the dark; we deserved the Victoria Cross, we were heroes, 
 braves of braves; we wanted to be looked at by the fair, to be 
 howled at by the valiant. 
 
 “On the 13th of May we appeared at the entrance of Kawele, 
 and had a triumphal entrance ; the people of the whole country-side 
 collected to welcome us, and pressed waist-deep into the water. 
 Jack and I were repeatedly * called for,’ but true merit is always 
 modest; it aspires to 4 Honour, not honours.’* We regained the 
 old tembe , were salaamed to by everybody, and felt like a ‘return 
 home.’ We had expended upwards of a month boating about the 
 Tanganyika Lake. All the way down, we were like baited bears, 
 mobbed every moment; they seemed to devour us; in an ecstasy of 
 curiosity they shifted from Jack to me, and back again, like the 
 well-known ass between the bundles of hay. Our health palpably 
 improved. Jack was still deaf, but cured of his blindness; the 
 ulcerated mouth, which had compelled me to live on milk for 
 seventeen days, returned to its usual state, my strength increased, 
 my feet were still swollen, but my hands lost their numbness, and I 
 could again read and write. I attribute the change from the days 
 
 * This was Richard’s favourite and self-composed motto, and Chinese Gordon 
 quoted it in every letter he wrote him to the last day of his life, with a word of 
 congratulation as to its happy choice.—I. B, 
 
 N 
 
194 77 ^ Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 and nights spent in the canoe, and upon the mud of the lake. 
 Mind also acted upon matter; the object of my Mission was now 
 effected, and I threw off the burden of grinding care, with which 
 the imminent prospect of a failure had before sorely laden me.” 
 
 Although Richard did not get the meed of success in England, and 
 it has taken the world thirty-four years to realize the grandeur of 
 that Exploration, he was the Pioneer (without money, without food, 
 without men or proper escort, without the bare necessaries of life, 
 to dare and do, in spite of every obstacle, and every crushing thing, 
 bodily and mentally) who opened up that country. It is to him 
 that later followers, that Grant and Speke, and Baker and Stanley, 
 Cameron, and all the other men that have ever followed, owe it, 
 that he opened the oyster-shell for them, and they went in to take 
 the pearl. I do not want to detract from any other traveller’s merits, 
 for they are all brave and great, but I will say that if Richard 
 Burton had had Mr. Stanley’s money, escort, luxuries, porterage, and 
 white comrades, backed by influence, there would not have been 
 one single white spot on the whole map of the great Continent of 
 Africa that would not have been filled up. Owing to shameful 
 intrigues (which prospered none of the doers, but injured him, the 
 man who did all this), he got very few words of praise, and that 
 from a few, yet the World owes it to him now that there are Missions 
 and Schools and Churches, and Commerce, and peaceful Settle¬ 
 ments, and that anybody can go there. To him you owe ‘‘Tanga¬ 
 nyika in a Bath-Chair;” but Speke got the cheering of the gallery 
 and the pit, and Stanley inherited them. And here I insert the 
 innocent joy-bells of his own heart, as I found them scribbled on 
 the edge of his private journal, and anybody thinking of what he 
 had done and what he had passed through, can warmly enter into 
 his feelings of self-gratulation, so modestly hidden— 
 
 “ I have built me a monument stronger than brass, 
 
 And higher than the Pyramids’ regal site ; 
 
 Nor the bitterness shown, nor the impotent wind, 
 
 Nor the years’ long line, nor the ages’ flight 
 
 Shall e’en lay low 1 
 
 “ Not all shall I perish ; much of me 
 
 Shall vanquish the grave, and be living still 
 When Mr. Macaulay’s Zealanders view 
 The ivied ruin on Tower Hill, 
 
 And men shall know 
 
 M That when Isis hung, in the youth of Time, 
 
 Her veil mysterious over the land, 
 
 And defied mankind and men’s puny will, 
 
 All that lay in the shadow, my daring hand 
 
 Was first to show. 
 
Our Reward — Success . 
 
 195 
 
 64 Then rejoice thee, superb in the triumph of mind, 
 
 And the Delphian bay-leaf, O sweet Muse, bind 
 
 Around my brow ! ” 
 
 “ The rainy monsoon broke up after our return to Kawele. The 
 climate became truly enjoyable, but it did not prevent the strange 
 inexplicable melancholy which accompanies all travellers in tropical 
 countries. Nature is beautiful in all that meets the eye; all is soft 
 that affects the senses ; but she is a syren whose pleasures pall, and 
 one sighs for the rare simplicity of the desert. I never felt this 
 sadness in Egypt and Arabia; I was never without it in India and 
 Zanzibar. We got not one single word from the agents who were 
 to forward our things, and Want began to stare us in the face. We 
 had to engage porters for the hammocks, to feed seventy-five 
 mouths, to fee several Sultans, and to incur the heavy expenses of 
 two hundred and sixty miles’ march back to Unyanyembe, so I had 
 to supplement with my own little patrimony. One thousand pounds 
 does not go very far, when it has to be divided amongst a couple 
 of hundred greedy savages in two and a half years. On the 22nd of 
 May musket-shots announced arrivals, and after a dead silence of 
 eleven months arrived a Caravan with boxes, bales, porters, slaves, 
 and a parcel of papers and letters from Europe, India, and Zanzibar. 
 Here we first knew of the Indian Mutiny. This good fortune 
 happened at a crisis when it was really wanted, but as my agent 
 could find no porters for the packages, he had kept back some, 
 and what he had sent me, were the worst. They would take us to 
 Unyamyembe, but were wholly inadequate for exploring the southern 
 end of the Tanganyika, far less for returning to Zanzibar, via the 
 Nyassa Lake and Kilwa, as I hoped to do. 
 
 “At the time I write, the Tanganyika, though situated in the 
 unexplored centre of intertropical Africa, and until 1858 unvisited by 
 any European, has a traditionary history of its own, extending over 
 three centuries. The Tanganyika, 250 miles in length, occupies 
 the centre of the length of the African continent. The general 
 formation suggests the idea of a volcanic depression, while the 
 Nyanza is a vast reservoir formed by the drainage of the mountains. 
 The lay is almost due north and south, and the form a long oval 
 widening at the centre, and contracting at the extremities; the breadth 
 varies from thirty to thirty-five miles, the circumference about 550 
 miles, and the superficial area covers about 5000 square miles. By 
 the thermometers we had with us, the altitude was 850 feet above 
 sea-level, and about 2000 feet below the Nyanza or Northern Lake, 
 with high hill ranges between the lakes, which precluded a possibility 
 of a connection between the waters. The parallel of the northern 
 extremity of the Tanganyika nearly corresponds with the southern 
 creek of the Nyanza, and they are separated by an arc of the 
 meridian of about three hundred and forty-three miles. The waters 
 of the Nyanza are superior to those of Tanganyika. The Tanganyika 
 has a clear soft blue, like the ultramarine of the Mediterranean, with 
 the light and milky tints of tropical seas. I believe that the Tanga- 
 
ig 6 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 nyika receives and absorbs the whole river system, the network of 
 streams, nullahs, and torrents of that portion of the Central African 
 Depression, whose watershed converges towards the great reservoir. 
 I think that the Tanganyika, like the Dead Sea, as a reservoir, 
 supplies with humidity the winds which have parted with their 
 moisture in the barren and arid regions of the south, and maintains 
 its general level by the exact balance of supply and evaporation, and 
 I think it possible that the saline particles deposited in its waters may 
 be wanting in some constituent, which renders them evident to the 
 taste; hence the freshness. 
 
 “ According to the Wajiji, from their country to the Marungii river, 
 which enters the lake at the south , there are twelve stages, number¬ 
 ing one hundred and twenty stations, but at most of them provisions 
 are not procurable, and there are sixteen tribes and districts. The 
 people of Usige, no?'th of the Tanganyika, say that six rivers fall into 
 the Tanganyika from the east , and westernmost is the Rusizi, and that 
 it is an influent. 
 
 “ The Chief Kazembe is like a viceroy of the country lying south¬ 
 west of the Tanganyika, and was first visited by Dr. Lacerda, 
 Governor of the Rios de Sena, in 1798-99. He died, and his 
 party remained nine months in the country, without recording the 
 name and position of this African capital. A second expedition 
 went in 1831, and the present Chief was the grandson of Dr. 
 Lacerda’s Kazembe. He is a very great personage in these parts, 
 and many Arabs are said to be living with him in high esteem. 
 Marungii, though dangerous, was visited by a party of Arab 
 merchants in 1842, who assisted Simd in an expedition against a 
 rival. He compelled the merchants to remain with him; they had 
 found means of sending letters to their friends, they are unable to 
 leave the country, but they are living in high favour with the 
 Kazembe who enriched them. Of course there are people who 
 doubt their good fortune. I collect my details from a mass of Arab 
 oral geography. 
 
 “ The 26th of May, 1858, was the day appointed for our departure 
 en route for Unyamyembe. Kannena had been drunk for a fortnight, 
 and was attacked by the Watuta, and fled. I heard of him no more. 
 He showed no pity for the homeless stranger—may the World show 
 none to him ! I shall long remember my last sunrise look at Tanga¬ 
 nyika, enhanced by the reflection that I might never again behold it. 
 Masses of brown purple clouds covered the sunrise. The mists, 
 luminously fringed with Tyrian purple, were cut by filmy rays, and 
 the internal living fire shot forth broad beams like the spokes of a 
 huge aerial wheel, rolling a flood of gold over the light blue waters of 
 the lake, and a soft breeze, the breath of morn, awoke the waters 
 into life. 
 
 “ The followers were very tiresome, mutinous, and inconsequent 
 in their anxiety to escape from Kannena and the fighting Watuta. 
 So, desiring the headman to precede me with a headstrong gang to 
 the first stage, and to send back men to carry my hammock and 
 remove a few loose loads, I breakfasted, and waited alone till the after- 
 
Cur Reward — Success. 
 
 197 
 
 noon in tie empty and deserted tetnbe; but no one came back, and the 
 utter misery depicted in the countenance of the Beloch induced me 
 to mount my manchil , and to set out carried by only two men. As 
 the shades of evening closed around us we reached the ferry of the 
 Ruche river, and we found no camp. The mosquitoes were like 
 wasps, and the hippopotamus bellowed, snorted, and grunted; the 
 roars of the crocodiles made the party miserable, as the porters 
 waded through water waist-deep, and crept across plains of mud, 
 mire, and sea-ooze. As it was too dark and dangerous to continue 
 the march, and that, had I permitted, they would have wandered 
 through the outer gloom, without fixed purpose, till permanently 
 bogged, I called a halt, and we snatched, under a resplendent moon 
 and a dev/ that soaked through the blankets, a few hours of sleep. 
 We were destitute of tobacco and food, and when the dawn broke, 
 I awoke and found myself alone; they had all fled and left me. 
 About two p.m., some of them came back to fetch me; but they 
 were so impertinent, ordering me to endure the midday heat and 
 labour, that I turned them out, and told them to send back their 
 master, Said bin Salim, in the evening or the next morning. Ac¬ 
 cordingly, the next morning, the 28th of May, at nine o’clock, 
 appeared Said, the Jemadar, and a full gang of bearers. He was 
 impertinent too, but I soon silenced him, and then we advanced till 
 evening : for having tricked me he lost two days. Later on, a porter 
 placed his burden upon the ground and levanted, and being cognac 
 and vinegar, it was deeply regretted. Then the Unyamwczi guide 
 (because his newly purchased slave-girl had become footsore and 
 was unable to advance) cut off her head, lest out of his evil should 
 come good to another. The bull-headed Mabruki bought a little 
 slave of six years old. He trotted manfully alongside the porters, 
 bore his burden of hide bed and water gourd upon his tiny shoulders. 
 At first Mabruki was like a girl with a new doll, but when the 
 novelty wore off, the poor little devil was so savagely beaten that 
 I had to take him under my own protection. All these disagree¬ 
 ables I was obliged to smooth down, because a traveller who 
 cannot utilize the raw material that comes to his hand, will make 
 but little progress. Their dread of the Wavinza increased as they 
 again approached the Malagarizi ferry. Here there are magnificent 
 spectacles of conflagration. 
 
 “ A sheet of flame, beginning with the size of a spark, overspreads 
 the hillside, advancing on the wings of the wind with the roaring 
 rushing sound of many hosts where the grass lay thick, shooting 
 huge forky tongues high into the dark air, where tall trees, the 
 patriarchs of the forest, yielded their lives to the blast, smouldering 
 and darkening, as if about to be quenched, where the rock afforded 
 scanty fuel, then flickering, blazing up and soaring again till, topping 
 the brow of the hill, the sheet became a thin line of fire, and gradu¬ 
 ally vanished from the view, leaving its reflection upon the canopy 
 of lurid smoke studded with sparks and bits of live braise, which 
 marked its descent on the other side of the buttress. 
 
 “ We were treated with cruel extortion at the crossing of the 
 
198 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Malagarazi, but the armies of ants, and an earthquake at 11.15 a.m. 
 on the 4th of June, which induced us to consent, was considered a 
 bad omen by my party. They took seven hours to transport us, 
 and at four p.m. we found ourselves, with hearts relieved of a heavy 
 load, once more at Ugogi, on the left bank of the river. Fortunately 
 I arrived just in time to prevent Jack from buying a little pig for 
 which he was in treaty, otherwise we should have lost our good 
 name amongst the Moslem population. On the 8th of June we 
 emerged from the inhospitable Uvinza into neutral ground, where 
 we were pronounced * out of danger.’ The next day, when in the 
 meridian of Usagozi, we were admitted for the first time to the 
 comforts of a village. / 
 
 “On the 17th of June, in spite of desertions, we came to Irora^ 
 the village of Salim bin Salih, who received us very hospitably. Here 
 we saw the blue hills of Unyanyembe, our destination. Next day we 
 got to Yombo, where we met some of our things coming up by the 
 coast, sent by the Consul of France—the French do things smartly 
 —and a second packet of letters. Every one had lost some friend 
 or relation near and dear to him. My father had died on the 6th 
 of last September, afrer a six weeks’ illness, at Bath, and was buried 
 on the 10th, and I only knew it on the 18th of June—the following 
 year. Such tidings are severely felt by the wanderer who, living 
 long behind the world, is unable to mark its gradual changes, lulls 
 (by dwelling upon the past) apprehension into a belief that his home 
 has known no loss, and who expectsag ain to meet each old familiar 
 face ready to smile upon his return, as it was to weep at his departure. 
 
 “ We collected porters at Yombo, passed Zimbili, the village of 
 our former miseries, and re-entered Kazeh, where we were warmly 
 welcomed by our hospitable Snay bin Amir, who had prepared his 
 house and everything grateful to starving travellers. Our return 
 from Ujiji to Unyanyembe had been accomplished in twenty-two 
 stations, two hundred and sixty-five miles. After a day’s repose, all the 
 Arab merchants called upon me, and I had the satisfaction of finding 
 that my last order on Zanzibar for four hundred dollars’ worth of 
 cloth and beads had arrived, and I also recovered the lost table and 
 chair which the slaves had abandoned. 
 
 “ During the first week following the march, we all paid the penalty 
 of the toilsome trudge through a perilous jungly country in the 
 deadly season of the year, when the waters are drying up under a 
 fiery sun, and a violent vent de bise from the east pours through the 
 tepid air like cold water into a warm bath. I again got swelling and 
 numbness of the extremities; Jack was a martyr to deafness and dim¬ 
 ness of sight, which prevented him from reading, writing, and observ¬ 
 ing correctly; the Goanese were down with fever, severe rheu¬ 
 matism, and liver pains; Valentine got tertian type, and was so 
 long insensible that I resolved to try the tinctura Warburgii. Oh, 
 Doctor Warburg! true apothecary ! we all owe you a humble tribute 
 of gratitude ; let no traveller be without you. The result was mira¬ 
 culous ; the paroxysms did not return, the painful sickness at once 
 ceased ; from a death-like lethargy, sweet childish sleep again visited 
 
Our Reward — Success . 
 
 199 
 
 nis aching eyes; chief boon of all, the corroding thirst gave way to 
 appetite, followed by digestion. We all progressed towards conva¬ 
 lescence, and in my case, stronger than any physical relief, was the 
 moral effect of Success and the cessation of ghastly doubts and fears, 
 and the terrible wear and tear of mind. I felt the proud conscious¬ 
 ness of having done my best, under conditions, from beginning to 
 end, the worst and most unpromising, and that whatever future evils 
 Fate might have in store for me, it could not rob me of the meed 
 won by the hardships and sufferings of the past. 
 
 “ I had not given up the project of returning to the seaboard vid 
 Kilwa. As has already been mentioned, the merchants had detailed 
 to me, during my first halt here, their discovery of a large lake, 
 lying about sixteen marches to the north; and, from their descriptions 
 and bearings, Jack laid down the water in a hand-map, and forwarded 
 it to the Royal Geographical Society. All agreed in claiming for it 
 superiority of size over the Tanganyika, and I saw that, if we could 
 prove this, much would be cleared up. Jack was in a much fitter state 
 of health to go. There was no need for two of us going, and I was 
 afraid to leave him behind at Kdzeh. It is very difficult to associate 
 with Arabs as one of themselves. Jack was an Anglo-Indian, with¬ 
 out any knowledge of Eastern manners and customs and religion, 
 and of any Oriental language beyond broken Hindostanee. Now, 
 Anglo-Indians, as everybody knows, often take offence without 
 reason ; they expect civility as their due , they treat all skins a shade 
 darker than their own as ‘ niggers,’ and Arabs are, or can be, the 
 most courteous gentlemen, and exceedingly punctilious.* 
 
 “Jack did not afterwards represent this fairlyin Blackwood , October, 
 1859. He said I‘was most unfortunately quite done up, and most 
 graciously consented to wait with the Arabs and recruit my health ; * 
 but in July, 1858, writing on the spot, he wrote, ‘ To diminish the 
 disappointment caused by the shortcoming of our cloth, and in not 
 seeing the whole of the Sea of Ujiji, I have proposed to take a flying 
 trip to the unknown lake, while Captain Burton prepares for our 
 return homewards.’ Said bin Salim did all he could to thwart the 
 project, and Jack threatened him with the forfeiture of his reward 
 after he returned to Zanzibar. Indeed, he told him it was already 
 forfeited. He said ‘ he should certainly recommend the Government 
 not to pay the gratuity , which the Consul had promised on condition 
 that he worked entirely for our satisfaction , in assisting the expeditio?i 
 to carry out the arranged plansl How Jack reconciled himself to 
 misrepresent my conduct about the payment on reaching home, will 
 never be understood. 
 
 * The Arabs always gave Richard the most courteous and cordial reception, 
 treating him practically as one of themselves. They could not be expected to think 
 so much of Speke, because he did not know their language or their religion, and 
 he always treated them as an Anglo-Indian treats a nigger. He was burning to 
 escape from Kazeh, and the society of an utterly idle man to one incessantly 
 occupied is always a drawback, and Richard, whose stronger constitution had 
 enabled him to bear up at first with greater success, was gradually but surely 
 succumbing to the awful African climate.—I. B. 
 
200 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 “ Our followers were to receive certain pay in any case , which they 
 did receive, and a reward in case they behaved well; our asses, 
 thirty-six in number, all died or were lost; our porters ran away ; 
 our goods were left behind and stolen ; specimens of the fine 
 poultry of Unyamwezi, intended to be naturalized in England, were 
 bumped to death in the cases; our black escort were so unmanage¬ 
 able as to require dismissal; the weakness of our party invited 
 attacks, and our wretched Beloch deserted us in the jungle, and 
 throughout were the cause of an infinity of trouble. Jack agreed 
 with me thoroughly, that it would be an act of weakness to pay the 
 reward of ill-conduct; instead of putting it down to generosity, they 
 would have put it down to fear, and they would have played the 
 devil with every future traveller; yet he used this afterwards as a 
 means to procure the Command of the next Expedition for himself, 
 and pointed it at me as a disgrace. 
 
 “ By dint of severe exertion, Jack was able to leave Kdzeh on the 
 ioth of July. These northern kingdoms were Kardgwah, Uganda, 
 and Unyoro. The Mkama , or Sultan, of Kardgwah was Armanika, 
 son of Ndagara, who was a very great man. He is an absolute 
 Ruler, and governs without squeamishness. He receives the traveller 
 with courtesy, he demands no blackmail, but you are valued accord¬ 
 ing to your gifts. A European would be received with great kind¬ 
 ness, but only a rich man could support the dignity of the white 
 face. Corpulence is a beauty. Girls are fattened to a vast bulk 
 by drenches of curds and cream, thickened with flour, and are beaten 
 when they refuse, and they grow an enormous size. 
 
 “ From the Kitangure river, fifteen stations conduct the traveller to 
 Kibuga, the capital of Uganda, the residence of its powerful despot, 
 Suna. The Chief of Uganda has but two wants, with which he troubles 
 his visitors. One is a medicine against Death, the other a charm 
 to avert thunderbolts, and immense wealth would reward the man 
 who would give him either of these two things. The army of Uganda 
 numbers three hundred thousand men ; each brings an egg to muster, 
 and thus something like a reckoning of the people is made. Each 
 soldier carries one spear, two assegais, a long dagger, and a shield ; 
 bows and swords are unknown. The women and children accom¬ 
 pany, carrying spare weapons, provisions, and water. They fight to 
 the sound of drums, which are beaten with sticks like ours; should 
 this performance cease, all fly the field. 
 
 “ Suna, when last visited by the Arabs, was a red man, of about 
 forty-five, tall, robust, powerful of limb, with a right kingly presence, 
 a warrior carriage, and a fierce and formidable aspect. He always 
 carried his spear, and wore a long piece of bark-cloth from neck to 
 ground; he makes over to his women the rich clothes presented by 
 the Arabs. He has a variety of names, all expressing something 
 terrible, bitter, and mighty. He used to shock the Arabs by his 
 natural, unaffected impiety. He boasted to them that he was the 
 God of earth, as their Allah was the Lord of heaven. He mur¬ 
 mured loudly against the abuse of lightning, and claimed from his 
 subjects divine honours, such as the facile Romans yielded to their 
 
Our Reward — Success . 
 
 201 
 
 Emperors. His sons, numbering more than a hundred, were con¬ 
 fined in dungeons; the heir elect was dragged from his chains to 
 fill a throne, and the cadets linger through their dreadful lives till 
 death releases them. His female children were kept under the 
 most rigid surveillance within the palace; but he had one favourite 
 daughter, named Nasurii, whose society was so necessary to him, that 
 he allowed her to appear with him in public. 
 
 “ Suna encouraged, by gifts and attentions, the Arab merchants to 
 trade in his capital, but the distance has prevented more than half a 
 dozen caravans from reaching him ; yet all loudly praised his courtesy 
 and hospitality. My friend Snay Bin Amir paid him a visit in 1852. 
 He was received in the audience hall, outside which were two 
 thousand guards, armed only with staves. He was allowed to retain 
 his weapons. He saluted the Chief, who motioned his guest to sit in 
 front of him. Two spears were close to his hand. He has a large 
 and favourite dog, resembling an Arab greyhound. The dog was, 
 and is always, by his side. The ministers and the women were also 
 present, but placed so that they could only see the visitor’s back. 
 He was eager of news. When the despot rose, all dispersed. At 
 the second visit, Snay presented his blackmail, and it was intimated 
 to the ‘ King’s Stranger ’ that he might lay hands upon whatever 
 he pleased, animate or inanimate \ but Snay was too wise to avail 
 himself of this privilege. There were four interviews, in which Suna 
 inquired much about the Europeans, and was anxious for a close 
 alliance with the Sultan of Zanzibar. He treated Snay very gene¬ 
 rously ; but Snay, when he could without offence, respectfully de¬ 
 clined things. Like all African Chiefs, the despot considered these 
 visits as personal honours paid to himself. It would depend, how¬ 
 ever, upon his ingenuity and good fortune whether a traveller would 
 be allowed to explore further, and perhaps the best way would 
 have been to buy or to build boats upon the nearest western shore, 
 with Suna’s permission. During Jack’s absence, I collected speci¬ 
 mens of the multitudinous dialects. Kisawahili, or coast language, 
 into which the great South African family here divides itself, is the 
 most useful, because most generally known, and, once mastered, it 
 renders the rest easy. With the aid of the slaves, I collected about 
 five hundred words in the three principal dialects upon this line of 
 road—the Kisawahili, the Kizaramo, which included the Kik’hutu, 
 and the Kinyamwezi. It was very difficult, for they always used to 
 answer me, ‘ Verily in the coast tongue, words never take root, nor 
 do they ever bear branches.’ The rest of my time was devoted to 
 preparation for journeying, and absolute work—tailoring, sail-making, 
 umbrella-mending, etc. 
 
 “ On the 14th of July the last Arab Caravan left Unyanyembe, under 
 the command of Sayf bin Said el Wardi. He offered to convey letters 
 and anything else, and I forwarded the useless surveying instruments, 
 manuscripts, maps, field and sketch books, and reports to the Royal 
 Geographical Society. This excitement over, I began to weary ol 
 Kizeh. 
 
202 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Differences begin between Speke and Richard. 
 
 “ Already I was preparing to organize a little expedition to K’hokoro 
 and the southern provinces, when unexpectedly—in these lands a 
 few cries and gun-shots are the only credible precursors of a Caravan 
 —on the morning of the 25 th of August reappeared Jack. 
 
 “At length Jack had been successful. His ‘flying trip’ had led 
 him to the northern water, and he had found its dimensions sur¬ 
 passing our most sanguine expectations. We had scarcely, however, 
 breakfasted before he announced to me the startling fact that ‘he 
 had discovered the sources of the White Nile.’ It was an inspiration 
 perhaps. The moment he sighted the Nyanza, he felt at once no 
 doubt but that the ‘ lake at his feet gave birth to that interesting 
 river, which has been the subject of so much speculation and the 
 object of so many explorers.’ The fortunate discoverer’s conviction 
 was strong. His reasons were weak, were of the category alluded 
 to by the damsel Lucetta, when justifying her penchant in favour of 
 the ‘ lovely gentleman,’ Sir Proteus— 
 
 ‘ I have no other but a woman’s reason— 
 
 I think him so because I think him so ; ’ 
 
 and probably his Sources of the Nile grew in his mind as his 
 Mountains of the Moon had grown under his hand. 
 
 “ His main argument in favour of the lake representing the great 
 reservoir of the White Nile was that the ‘principal men’ at the 
 southern extremity ignored the extent northward. ‘ On my inquiring 
 about the lake’s length,’ said Jack, ‘ the man (the greatest traveller in 
 the place) faced to the north, and began nodding his head to it. At 
 the same time he kept throwing forward his right hand, and making 
 repeated snaps of his fingers, endeavouring to indicate something 
 immeasurable ; and added that nobody knew, but he thought it 
 probably extended to the end of the world.’ Strongly impressed 
 by this valuable statistical information, Jack therefore placed the 
 northern limit about 4 0 to 5 0 N. lat., whereas the Egyptian Expedition 
 sent by the late Mohammed Ali Pacha, about twenty years ago, to 
 explore the coy Sources, reached 3 0 22' N. lat. The expedition 
 therefore ought to have sailed fifty miles upon the Nyanza Lake. 
 On the contrary, from information derived on the spot, that 
 expedition placed the fountains at one month’s journey—three 
 hundred to three hundred and fifty miles—to the south-east, or 
 upon the northern counterslope of Mount Kenia. 
 
 “ Whilst marching to the coast, Jack—he tells us—was assured 
 by a ‘ respectable Sawahili merchant that when engaged in traffic, 
 some years previously, to the northward of the Line and the west¬ 
 ward of this lake, he had heard it commonly reported that large 
 vessels frequented the northern extremity of these waters, in which 
 the officers engaged in navigating them used sextants and kept a log, 
 precisely similar to what is found in vessels on the ocean. Query, 
 Could this be in allusion to the expedition sent by Mohammed Ali 
 up the Nile in former years ? ’ (. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 203 
 
 Society , May 9, 1859). Clearly, if Abdullah bin Nasib, the Msawahili 
 alluded to, had reported these words, he merely erred. The 
 Egyptian Expedition, as has been shown, not only did not find, 
 they never even heard of a lake. But not being present at the 
 conversation, besides the geographical difficulties which any scientific 
 geographer could see at a glance, I am tempted to assign further 
 explanation. Jack, wholly ignorant of Arabic, was obliged to 
 depend upon ‘ Bombay.’ Bombay misunderstood Jack’s bad Hin- 
 dostani. He then mistranslated the words in Kisawahili to the best 
 African, who, in his turn, passed it on in a still wilder dialect to the 
 noble savages who were under cross-examination. My experience is 
 that words in journeys to and fro are liable to the severest accidents 
 and have often bad consequences, and now I felt that an influent 
 of the Nyanza was described as an ejfluent, and the real original 
 and only genuine White Nile would remain thus described for 
 years to our shame, and it is easy to see how the blunder originated. 
 
 “ The Arabic bahr and the Kisawahili bahari are equally applicable, 
 in vulgar parlance, to a river or sea, a lake or river. Traditions 
 concerning a Western sea—the to them now unknown Atlantic— 
 over which the white men voyage, are familiar to many East Africans; 
 I have heard at Harar precisely the same report concerning the log 
 and sextants. Either, then, Abdullah bin Nasib confounded, or 
 Jack’s ‘ interrupter ’ caused him to confound, the Atlantic and the 
 lake. In the maps forwarded from Kdzeh by Jack, the river Kivira 
 was, after ample inquiry, made a western influent of the Nyanza 
 Lake. In the map appended to the paper in • Blackwood , before 
 alluded to, it has become an ejflue 7 it , and the only minute concerning 
 so very important a modification is, ‘This river (although I must 
 confess at first I did not think so) is the Nile itself.’ 
 
 “ Beyond the assertion, therefore, that no man had visited the 
 north, and the appearance of ‘sextants’ and ‘logs’ upon the 
 waters, there is not a shade of proof pro. Far graver considerations 
 lie on the con side ; the reports of the Egyptian Expedition, and the 
 dates of the several inundations which—as will presently appear— 
 alone suffice to disprove the possibility of the Nyanza causing the 
 flood of the Nile. It is doubtless a satisfactory thing to disclose 
 to an admiring public of ‘ Statesmen, Churchmen, Missionaries, 
 Merchants, and more particularly Geographers,’ the ‘ solution of 
 a problem, which it had been the first geographical desideratum of 
 many thousand years to ascertain, and the ambition of the first 
 Monarchs in the World to unravel’ (. Blackwood's Magazine, 
 October, 1859). But how many times since the days of a certain 
 Claudius Ptolemaeius, surnamed Pelusiota, have not the fountains 
 of the White Nile been discovered and re-discovered after this 
 fashion ? 
 
 “ What tended at the time to make me the more sceptical, was the 
 substantial incorrectness of the geographical and other details 
 brought back by Jack. This was natural enough. The first thing 
 reported to me was ‘ the falsehood of the Arabs at Kazeh, who 
 had calumniated the good Sultan Muhayya, and had praised 
 
204 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 the bad Sultan Machunda:’ subsequent inquiries proved their 
 rigid correctness. Jack’s principal informant was one Mansur 
 bin Salim, a half-caste Arab, who had been flogged out of Kazeh, 
 by his compatriots; he pronounced Muhayya to be a ‘ very excel¬ 
 lent and obliging person,’ and of course he was believed. I 
 then heard a detailed account ‘of how the Caravan of Salim bin 
 Rashid had been attacked, beaten, captured, and detained at 
 Ukerewe, by its Sultan Machunda.’ The Arabs received the 
 intelligence with a smile of ridicule, and in a few days Salim bin 
 Rashid appeared in person to disprove the report. These are 
 but two cases of many . And what knowledge of Asiatic customs 
 can be expected from the writer of the following lines?—‘The 
 Arabs at Unyanyembe had advised my donning their habit for 
 the trip in order to attract less attention; a vain precaution, which 
 I believe they suggested more to gratify their own vanity in seeing 
 an Englishman lower hi?nself to their position (?), than for any 
 benefit that I might receive by doing so ’ ( Blackzvood , loco cit.). 
 This galamatias of the Arabs! the haughtiest and the most clannish 
 of all Oriental peoples. 
 
 “Jack changed his manners to me from this date. His differ¬ 
 ence of opinion was allowed to alter companionship. After a 
 few days it became evident to me that not a word could be uttered 
 upon the subject of the lake, the Nile, and his trouvaille gener¬ 
 ally without offence. By a tacit agreement it was, therefore, 
 avoided, and I should never have resumed it, had Jack not stulti¬ 
 fied the results of my expedition by putting forth a claim which 
 no geographer can admit, and which is at the same time so weak 
 and flimsy, that no geographer has yet taken the trouble to con¬ 
 tradict it. 
 
 “Now, for the first time, although I had pursued my journey 
 under great provocations from time to time, I never realized 
 what an injury I had done the Expedition publicly, as well as 
 myself, by not travelling alone, or with Arab companions, or at 
 least with a less crooked-minded, cantankerous Englishman. He 
 is energetic, he is courageous and persevering. He distinguished 
 himself in the Punjaub Campaign. I first found him in Aden 
 with a three years’ furlough. Elis heart was set on spending two 
 years of his leave in collecting animals north of the Line in 
 Africa. He never thought in any way of the Nile, and he was 
 astonished at my views, which he deemed impracticable. He 
 had no qualifications for the excursion that he proposed to him¬ 
 self, except that of being a good sportsman. He was ignorant 
 of the native races in Africa, he had brought with him about 
 ^400 worth of cheap and useless guns and revolvers, swords 
 and cutlery, beads and cloth, which the Africans would have 
 rejected with disdain. He did not know any of the manners 
 and customs of the East; he did not know any language except 
 a little Anglo-Hindostani; he did not even know the names of 
 
Our Reward — Success . 
 
 205 
 
 the Coast Towns. I saw him engage, as protectors or Abbans, 
 any Somali donkey-boys who could speak a little English. I 
 saw that he was going to lose his money and his ‘ leave ’ and his 
 life. Why should I have cared ? I do not know; but as ‘ virtue 
 is really its own reward/ I did so, and have got a slap in the 
 face, which I suppose I deserve. I first took him to Somali¬ 
 land ; then I applied officially for him, and thus saved his fur¬ 
 lough and his money by putting him on full service. You 
 would now think, to see his conduct, that the case was reversed 
 —that he had taken me, not I him; whereas I can confidently 
 say that, except his shooting and his rags of Anglo-Hindostani, 
 I have taught him everything he knows. He had suffered in 
 purse and person at Berberah, and though he does not know 
 French or Arabic, though he is not a man of science, nor an 
 acute astronomical observer, I thought it only just to offer him 
 the opportunity of accompanying me as second in command 
 into Africa. He quite understood that it was in a subordinate 
 capacity, as we should have to travel amongst Arabs, Belochs, 
 and Africans, whose language he did not know. The Court of 
 Directors refused me, but I obtained it by an application to the 
 Local Authorities at Bombay. He knew by experience in Somali¬ 
 land what travelling with ?ne meant, and yet he was only too glad 
 to come. 
 
 “ I have also done more than Jack in the cause. The Royal 
 Geographical Society only allowed us ^1000, and sooner than fail 
 I have sacrificed a part of the little patrimony I inherited, and 
 my reward is, that I and my expenditure, and the cause for which I 
 nave sacrificed everything, are made ridiculous.” 
 
 Our Return. 
 
 “ At Kazeh, to my great disappointment, it was settled, in a full 
 Arab conclave, that we must return to the coast by the path with 
 which we were painfully familiar. It was only the state of our 
 finances which prevented us, whilst at Ujiji, from navigating the 
 Tanganyika southwards and arriving, after a journey of three months, 
 at Kilwa. That and ‘ leave ’ prevented us from going to Karigwah 
 and Uganda. The rains, which rendered travelling impossible, set 
 in about September; our two years’ leave of absence were drawing 
 to a close, and we were afraid to risk it, but we meant to return 
 and do these things, tracing the course of the Rufiji river (Rwaha) 
 and visiting the coast between the Usagdra Mountains and Kilwa, an 
 unknown line. 
 
206 The Life of Sir Richard Burton 
 
 “ Musa Mzuri returned with great pomp to Kazeh; he is 
 between forty-five and fifty, tall, gaunt, with delicate extremities, 
 and the regular handsome features of a high-caste Indian 
 Moslem. He is sad and staid, wears a snowy skull-cap, and 
 well-fitting sandals. His abode is a village in size, with lofty 
 gates, spacious courts, full of slaves and hangers-on, a great con¬ 
 trast to the humility of the Semite tenements. His son knew 
 a little English, but he had learnt no Hindostani from his 
 father, who, though expatriated for thirty-five years, spoke his 
 mother tongue purely and well. Musa was a man of quiet, 
 unaffected manner, dashed with a little Indian reserve. One 
 Salim bin Rashid, while collecting ivory to the eastward of the 
 Nyanza Lake, had recovered a Msawahili porter, who, having 
 fallen sick on the road, had been left by a Caravan amongst 
 the wildest of the East African tribes, the Wahuma (the 
 Wamasai). From this man, who spent two years amongst these 
 plunderers and their rivals in villany, the Warudi, I gained 
 most valuable information. I also was called upon by Amayr 
 bin Said el Shaksi, a strong-framed, stout-hearted Arab, who, 
 when his vessel foundered in the Tanganyika, swam for his 
 life, and lived for five months on roots and grasses, until 
 restored to Ujiji by an Arab canoe. He spent many hours a 
 day with me—he gave me immense information; and Hilal bin 
 Nasur, a well-born Harisi returned from K’hokoro, also gave me 
 most valuable facts. 
 
 “ It is needless to say that, with all our economy and care, 
 we arrived at the coast destitute. The hospitable Snay bin 
 Amir came personally, although only a convalescent, to super¬ 
 intend our departure, provided us with his own slaves and a 
 charming Arab breakfast; he spent the whole of that day with 
 us, and followed us out of the compound through a white- 
 hot sun and a chilling wind; nay, he did more—he followed 
 us to our next station with Musa, and he helped us to put 
 the finishing touches to the journals. I thanked these kind- 
 hearted men for their many good deeds and services, and 
 promised to report to H.H. the Sayyid Majid the hospitable 
 reception of his subjects generally, and of Snay and Musa 
 in particular. In the evening we took a most affecting fare¬ 
 well. On the 4th of October, insufficiency of porterage com¬ 
 pelled me to send back men for articles left by them at 
 several of the villages, and we at last reached Hanga, our 
 former quarters. Desertions were rife, and so were quarrels, 
 in which I was always begged to take an active part, but ex¬ 
 perience amongst the Bashi-Bazouks in the Dardanelles taught 
 me better. 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 207 
 
 Little Irons. 
 
 “At Hanga, Jack had been chilled on the march from the cruel 
 easterly wind, and at the second march he had ague. At Hanga 
 we were lodged in a foul cowhouse full of vermin, and exposed to 
 the fury of the gales. He had a deaf ear, an inflamed eye, and a 
 swollen face, but worst of all was a mysterious pain, which shifted— 
 he could not say whether it was liver or spleen. It began with a 
 burning sensation as by a branding iron above the right breast, and 
 then extended to the heart with sharp twinges. It then ranged 
 round the spleen, attacked the upper part of the right lung, and 
 finally settled in the liver. 
 
 “ On the 10th of October, at dawn, he woke with a horrible dream 
 of tigers, leopards, and other beasts, harnessed with a network of 
 iron hooks, dragging him, like the rush of a whirlwind, over the 
 ground. He sat up on the side of his bed, forcibly clasping both 
 sides with his hands. Half stupefied by pain, he called to Bombay ’ 
 who had formerly suffered from this kichyomachyoma , ‘the little 
 irons,’ who put him in the position a man must lie in, who gets this 
 attack. The next spasm was less severe, but he began to wander. 
 In twenty-four hours, supported by two men, he staggered towards 
 the tent to a chair; but the spasms returning, he was assisted back 
 into the house, where he had a third fit of epileptic description, like 
 hydrophobia. Again he was haunted by crowds of devils, giants, 
 lion-headed demons, who were wrenching with superhuman force, 
 and stripping the sinews and tendons of his legs down to his ankles. 
 With limbs racked by cramps, features drawn and ghastly, frame 
 fixed and rigid, eyes glazed and glassy, he began to bark with a 
 peculiar chopping motion of the mouth and tongue, with lips pro¬ 
 truding, the effect of difficulty of breathing, which so altered his 
 appearance that he was not recognizable, and terrified all beholders. 
 When the third and severest spasm had passed away, and he could 
 speak, he called for pen and paper, and wrote an incoherent letter 
 of farewell to his family. That was the crisis. I never left him, taking 
 all possible precautions, never letting him move without my assist¬ 
 ance, and always having a resting-place prepared for him ; but for 
 some weeks he had to sleep in a half sitting-up position, pillow- 
 propped, and he could not lie upon his side. Although the pains 
 were mitigated, they did not entirely cease; this he expressed by 
 saying, “ Dick, the knives are sheathed ! ’ 
 
 “ During Jack’s delirium he let out all his little grievances of fancied 
 wrongs, of which I had not had even the remotest idea. He was 
 vexed that his diary (which I had edited so carefully, and put into 
 the Appendix of ‘ First Footsteps in Eastern Africa ’) had not been 
 printed as he wrote it—geographical blunders and all; also because 
 he had not been paid for it, I having lost money over the book 
 
208 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 myself. He asked me to send his collections to the Calcutta 
 Museum of Natural History; now he was hurt because I had done 
 so. He was awfully grieved because in the thick of the fight at 
 Berberah, three years before, I had said to him, ‘ Don’t step back, 
 or they will think we are running.’ I cannot tell how many more 
 things I had unconsciously done, and I crowned it by not accepting 
 immediately his loud assertion that he had discovered the Sources 
 of the Nile; and I never should have known that he was pondering 
 these things in his heart, if he had not raved them out in delirium. 
 I only noticed that his alacrity had vanished; that he was never 
 contented with any arrangement; that he left all the management to 
 me, and that then he complained that he had never been consulted; 
 that he quarrelled with our followers, and got himself insulted; and, 
 previously to our journey, having been unaccustomed to sickness, he 
 neither could endure it himself, nor feel for it in others. He took 
 pleasure in saying unkind, unpleasant things, and said he could not 
 take an interest in any exploration if he did not command it. 
 
 “These illnesses are the effects of fever, and a mysterious mani¬ 
 festation of miasma in certain latitudes; for in some tracts we were 
 perfectly well, in other tracts we were mortally sick, and the changes 
 were instantaneous. Cultivation and Civilization will probably wear 
 these effects out, by planting, clearing jungle, and so on. 
 
 “ I immediately sent an express back to Snay bin Amir, for the 
 proper treatment, and found that they powdered myrrh with yolk of 
 egg and flour of muug for poultices. I saw that, in default of physic, 
 change of air was the only thing for him, and I had a hammock 
 rigged up for him, and by good fortune an unloaded Caravan was 
 passing down to the coast. We got hold of thirteen unloaded 
 porters, who for a large sum consented to carry us to Rubuga, else 
 we should have been left to die in the wilderness. Bombay had 
 long since returned to his former attitude, that of a respectful and 
 most ready servant. He had on one trip broken my elephant gun, 
 killed my riding-ass, and lost his bridle, and did all sorts of irrational 
 things, but for all that he was a most valuable servant, for his 
 unwearied activity, his undeviating honesty, and his kindness of 
 heart. Said bin Salim had long forfeited my confidence by his 
 carelessness and extravagance, and the disappearance of the outfit 
 committed to him at Ujiji—in favour of one of his friends, as I after¬ 
 wards learned—rendered him unfit for stewardship. The others 
 praised each other openly and without reserve, and if an evil tale 
 ever reached my ear, it was against innocent Bombay, its object 
 being to ruin him in my estimation. 
 
 As I knew we should be short of water, I prepared by pack¬ 
 ing a box with empty bottles, which we could fill at the best 
 springs, and by the result of that after-wisdom which some have 
 termed ‘fool’s wit,’ I commenced the down march happy as a 
 bourgeois or a trapper in the Pays Sauvage. Before entering 
 the ‘ Fiery Field ’ the hammock-bearers became so exorbitant 
 that I drew on my jackboots and mounted an ass, and Jack 
 had so far convalesced that he wanted to ride too. He had still, 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 209 
 
 however, harassing heartache, nausea, and other bilious symptoms, 
 when exposed to the burning sun; but when he got to K’hok’ho in 
 Ugogi, sleep and appetite came, he could carry a heavy rifle, and 
 do damage amongst the antelope and guineafowl. Now all began 
 to wax civil, even to servility, grumbling ceased, smiles mantled 
 every countenance, and even the most troublesome rascal was to be 
 seen meekly sweeping out our tents with a bunch of thorns. We 
 made seven marches between Hanga and Tura, where we arrived 
 on the 28th of October, and halted six days to procure food. My 
 own party were 10; Said bin Salim’s, 12; the Beloch, 38; Ramji’s 
 party, 24; the porters, 68—in all 152 souls. We plunged manfully 
 into the ‘ Fiery Field,’ and after seven marches in seven days, we 
 bivouacked at Jiwe la Mkoa, and on the 12th of November, after 
 two days’ march, came into the fertile red plain of Mdaduru, in the 
 transit of Ugogi. After that, where I had been taught to expect 
 danger, it reduced itself to large disappearances of cloth and beads. 
 Gul Mabommed was our Missionary, but he was just like the 
 European old lady, who believes that on such subjects all the world 
 must think with her. I have long been suspected of telling lies, 
 when describing the worship of a god with four arms, and the 
 goddesses with two heads. The transit of Ugogi occupied three 
 weeks. At Kanyenye we were joined by a large down-Caravan of 
 Wanyamwezi, who, amongst other news, told us that our former line 
 through Usagira was closed through the fighting of the tribes. 
 
 “ On the 6th of December we arrived at our old ground in 
 the Ugogi Dhun, and met another Caravan, which presently drew 
 forth a packet of letters and papers. This post brought me 
 rather an amusing official wigging. Firstly, there was a note from 
 Captain Rigby, my friend Hamerton’s successor at Zanzibar. 
 Secondly, the following letter :— 
 
 “ 3, Savile Row. 
 
 “ ‘ Dear Burton, 
 
 “ { Go ahead ! Vogel and MacGuire dead—murdered. Write 
 
 often. 
 
 “ ‘ Yours truly, 
 
 “ 4 Norton Shaw.’ 
 
 “ The ‘ wig ’ was this. I had paid the Government the compliment 
 of sending it, through the Royal Geographical Society, an account of 
 political affairs in the Red Sea, saying I feared trouble at Jeddah, 
 which I had had from my usual private information from the 
 interior, being fearful that there would be troubles at Jeddah; and 
 the only thanks I got was a letter, stating ‘that my want of 
 discretion and due regard for the authorities to whom 1 am subor¬ 
 dinate, has been regarded with displeasure by the Government.’ 
 They are cold and crusty to reward a little word of wisdom from their 
 babes and sucklings; but what was so comically sad was this :— 
 The official wig was dated the 1st of July, 1857. Posts are slow in 
 
210 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Africa, so that by the same post I got a newspaper with an account 
 of the massacre of nearly all the Christians at Jeddah on the Red 
 Sea, expressing great fears that the Arab population of Suez also 
 might be excited to commit similar outrages. This took place on the 
 30th of June, 1858, exactly eleven months after I had warned the 
 Government. 
 
 “ We loaded on the 7th of December, and commenced the 
 passage of the Usagara Mountains by the Kiringaw^na line. This 
 is the southern route, separated from the northern by an interval 
 of forty-three miles. It contains settlements like Maroro and 
 Kisanga. It is nineteen short stages; provisions are procurable, 
 water plentiful, and plenty of grass, as long as you can pass the 
 Warori tribe. Mosquitoes are plentiful. The owners of the land 
 have a chronic horror of the Warori, and on sighting our peaceful 
 Caravan they raised the war-cry, and were only quieted on knowing 
 that we were much more frightened than they were. We had wild 
 weather, we stayed at Maroro for food ; at Kiperepeta there were 
 gangs of four hundred touters, with their muskets, waiting the 
 arrival of Caravans. 
 
 “ On Christmas Day, 1858, at dawn, we toiled along the Kikoboga 
 river, which we forded four times. Jack and I had a fat capon 
 instead of roast beef, and a mess of ground nuts sweetened with 
 sugar-cane, which did duty for plum-pudding. The contrast of 
 what was, with what might be, now however suggested pleasurable 
 sensations. We might now see Christmas Day of 1859, whereas on 
 Christmas Day, 1857, we saw no chance of that of 1858. Fourteen 
 marches took us from the foot of Usagdra Mountains to Central 
 Zungomero, traversing the districts of Eastern Mbwiga, Marundwe, 
 and Kirengwe. It is a road hideous and grotesque: no animals, 
 flocks, or poultry; the villages look like birds’ nests torn from the 
 trees; the people slink away—they are all armed with bows and 
 poisoned arrows. At Zungomero, the village on the left bank of the 
 Mgeta, which we had occupied on the outer march, was razed to the 
 ground. I here offered a liberal reward to get to Kilwa. However, 
 I did not succeed, and there was some intrigue about the pay after¬ 
 wards, which I never understood, which was annoying to me ; but 
 such events are common on the slave-paths in Eastern Africa. Of 
 the seven gangs of porters engaged on this journey, only one , an 
 unusually small portion, left me without being fully satisfied, , and that 
 one fully deserved to be disappointed. 
 
 “ On the 14th of January, 1859, we received Mr. Apothecary Frost’s 
 letters, drugs, and medical comforts, for which we had written to 
 him July, 1857. After crossing the Mgeta, we sat down patiently 
 on a bank, in spite of the ants, to await the arrival of a Caravan to 
 complete our gang, but the new medical comforts enabled us to 
 have ether-sherbet and ether-lemonade, and it did not hurt us. 
 Ori the 17th of January a Caravan came, which I had been longing 
 to meet. The Arab Chiefs Sulayman bin Rashid ei Riami and 
 Mohammed bin Gharib, who called upon me without delay, gave me 
 most interesting information. To the south, from Uhehe to Ubena, 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 21 I 
 
 was a continuous chain of highlands pouring affluents across the 
 road into the Rwaha river, and water was only procurable in the 
 beds of the nullahs and fiumaras. If this chain be of any con¬ 
 siderable length, it may represent the water-parting between the 
 Tanganyika and Nyassa Lakes, and thus divide by another and a 
 southerly lateral band the great Depression of Central Africa. 
 
 “ The 2 ist of January we left Zungomero, and made Konduchi on 
 the 3rd of February in twelve marches. The mud was almost 
 throat-deep near Dut’humi, and we had a weary trudge of thick 
 slabby mire up to the knees. In places, after toiling under a sickly 
 sun, we crept under the tunnels of thick jungle-growth veiling the 
 streams, the dank foetid cold of which caused a deadly sensation of 
 faintness, which was only relieved by a glass of ether-sherbet or a 
 pipe of the strongest tobacco. By degrees it was found necessary 
 to abandon the greater part of the remaining outfit and luggage. 
 The 27 th of January saw us pass safely by the village where M. 
 Maizan was murdered. 
 
 “ On the 28th there was a report that we were to be attacked at a 
 certain place, and Said bin Salim came to tell me that the road was 
 cut off, and that I must delay till an escort could be summoned 
 from the coast. I knew quite well that it was only an intrigue, but 
 I feared that real obstacles might be placed in our way by the wily 
 little man, and as soon as bakshish was mentioned, four naked 
 varlets appeared in a quarter of an hour as escort. 
 
 “ On the 30th of January the men screamed with delight at the 
 sight of the mango tree, and all their old familiar fruits. 
 
 /“ On the 2nd of February, 1859, Jack and I caught sight of the sea. 
 
 / We lifted our caps, and gave ‘ three times three and one more.’ The 
 3rd of February saw us passing through the poles decorated with 
 skulls—a sort of negro Temple Bar—at the entrance of Konduchi; 
 they now grin in the London Royal College of Surgeons. 
 
 “ Our entrance was immense. The war-men danced, shot, shouted; 
 the boys crowded ; the women lulliloo’d with all their might; and a 
 general procession conducted us to the hut, swept, cleaned, and 
 garnished for us, by the principal Banyan of the Head-quarter village, 
 and there the crowd stared and laughed until they could stare and 
 laugh no more. A boat transferred most of our following to their 
 homes, and they kissed my hand and departed, weeping bitterly 
 with the agony of parting. I sent a note to the Consul at Zanzibar, 
 asking for a coasting craft to explore the Delta and the unknown 
 course of the Rufiji river. I liberally rewarded Zaw^da, who had 
 attended to Jack in his illness. We were detained at Konduchi for 
 six days, from the 3rd to the 10th of February. 
 
 “On the 9th of February the craft arrived at Konduchi from 
 Zanzibar, and we rolled down the coast with a fair, fresh breeze 
 towards Kilwa, the Quiloa of De Gama and of Camoens. We lost 
 all our crew by cholera, and we were unable to visit the course ot 
 the great Rufiji river, a counterpart of the Zambesi in the south, 
 and a water-road which appears destined to become the highway of 
 nations into Eastern Equatorial Africa. The deluge of rain and 
 
2 12 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 floods showed me that the travelling season was at an end. I turned 
 the head of the craft northwards, and on the 4th of March, 1859, 
 we landed once more on the island of Zanzibar. Sick and wayworn, 
 
 I entered the house in sad memory of my old friend, which I was 
 fated to regret still more. The excitement of travel was succeeded 
 by an utter depression of mind and body; even the labour of 
 talking was too great. The little State was in the height of confusion, 
 in a state of Civil war; the eldest brother of the Sultan was preparing 
 a hostile visit to his youngest brother, the Sultan Sayyid Majid of 
 Zanzibar. After a fortnight of excitement and suspense, a gunboat 
 was sent to the elder brother to persuade him to return. His High¬ 
 ness Sayyid Majid had honoured me with an expression of his 
 desire that I should remain until the expected hostilities might be 
 brought to a close. I did so willingly, in gratitude to a Prince to 
 whose good will my success was mainly indebted, but the Consulate 
 was no longer bearable to me. I was too conversant with local 
 politics, too well aware of what was going on, to be a pleasant com¬ 
 panion to its new tenant. I was unwilling to go, because so much 
 remained to be done. I wanted to wait for fresh leave of absence 
 and additional funds, but the evident anxiety of Consul Rigby to 
 get rid of me, and Jack’s nervous impatience to go on, made me 
 abandon my intentions. Said bin Salim called often at the Con¬ 
 sulate, but Captain Rigby agreed with me that he had been more 
 than sufficiently rewarded, and the same with the others. Jack also 
 was of the same opinion, but it suited Jack, with his secret prospects 
 or intentions of returning without me, to change his mind afterwards, 
 and he was evidently able to get Captain Rigby to do the same. 
 There can be little doubt that Jack’s intention of returning on the 
 second Expedition, on the lines of the one which he had done so 
 much to spoil, had a great deal to do with his action on this 
 occasion. When H.M.S. Furious , carrying Lord Elgin and Mr. 
 Laurence Oliphant, his secretary, arrived at Aden, passage was 
 offered to both of us. I could not start, being too ill. But he 
 went, and the words Jack said to me, and I to him, were as 
 follows :—‘ I shall hurry up, Jack, as soon as I can,’ and the last 
 words Jack ever spoke to me on earth were, ‘ Good-bye , old fellow ; 
 you may be quite sure I shall not go up to the Royal Geographical 
 Society until you come to the fore and we appear together. Make your 
 mind quite easy about thatl 
 
 “ With grateful heart I bid adieu to the Sultan, whose kindness and 
 personal courtesy will long dwell in my memory, and who expressed 
 a hope to see me again, and offered me one of his ships of war to 
 take me home. However, a clipper-built barque, the Dragon of 
 Salem , Captain Macfarlane, was about to sail with the south-west 
 monsoon for Aden. Captain Rigby did not accompany us on board, 
 a mark of civility usual in the East, but Bombay’s honest face turned 
 up and seemed peculiarly attractive. 
 
 “ On the 22nd of March, 1859, the clove shrubs and coco trees of 
 Zanzibar faded from my eyes, and after crossing and recrossing 
 three times the tedious Line, we found ourselves anchored, on the 
 
Our Reward — Success. 
 
 21 3 
 
 16th of April, near the ill-omened black walls of the Aden crater. 
 The crisis of my African sufferings had taken place at the Tanga¬ 
 nyika ; the fever, however, still clung to me. 
 
 “ I left the Aden coal-hole of the East on the 20th of April, 1859, 
 and in due time greeted with becoming heartiness my native shores. 
 
 “The very day after he returned to England, May 9th, 1859, Jack 
 called at the Royal Geographical Society and set on foot the scheme 
 of a new exploration. He lectured in Burlington House, and when 
 I reached London on May 21st I found the ground completely cut 
 from under my feet. Sir Roderick Murchison had given Jack the 
 leadership of a new Expedition; my own long-cherished plan of 
 entering Africa through Somali-land, landing at the Arab town 
 Mombas, was dismissed as unworthy of notice. Jack published 
 two articles in Blackwood's Magazine, assumed the whole credit to 
 himself, illustrated a wonderful account of his own adventures and 
 discoveries, with a chart where invention is not in it. He said he 
 did all the astronomical work, and had taught me the geography of 
 the country through which we travelled, which made me laugh. 
 Jack, who literally owed everything to me, habitually wrote and 
 spoke of me to mutual friends in a most disagreeable manner. 
 Many people who professed to be friendly to me said it would be 
 more dignified to say nothing, but I knew how unwise it is to let 
 public sentence pass by default, and how delay may cause everlast¬ 
 ing evil, so I wrote the most temperate vindication of my position.” 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RICHARD AND I MEET AGAIN. 
 
 “ For life, with all its yields of joy and woe 
 And hope and fear, 
 
 Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love— 
 
 How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.” 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 “ Dying is easy ; keep thou steadfast. 
 
 The greater part, to live and to endure.” 
 
 Mrs. Hamilton King, The Disciples . 
 
 “ When Calumny’s foul dart thy soul oppresses, 
 
 Think’st thou the venomed shaft could poison me ? 
 
 No ! the world’s scorn, still more than its caresses, 
 
 Shall bind me closer, O my love, to thee. 
 
 “ Should the days darken, and severe affliction 
 Close whelming o’er us like a stormy sea, 
 
 Love shall transform them into benedictions 
 Binding me closer, O my love, to thee.” 
 
 “When truth or virtue an affront endures, 
 
 The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours; 
 
 Mine as a friend to every worthy mind, 
 
 And mine as man who feels for all mankind.” 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Just as I was getting into despair, and thinking whether I should 
 go and be a Sister of Charity (May, 1859), as the appearance of 
 Speke alone in London was giving me the keenest anxiety, and as 
 I heard that Richard was staying on in Zanzibar, in the hopes of 
 being allowed to return into Africa, I was very sore.* 4 
 
 * “ Aussitot qu’un malheur nous arrive il se recontre toujours un ami prSt X venir 
 nous le dire et a nous fouiller le coeur avec un poignard en nous faisant admirer le 
 manche.”— Balzac. This friend I had, but— 
 
 “There are no tricks in plain and simple Faith .”—Julius Ccesar, iv. ii. 
 
 I received only four lines in the well-known hand by post from Zanzibar—no 
 letter. 
 
 To Isabel. 
 
 “ That brow which rose before my sight. 
 
 As on the palmers’ holy shrine ; 
 
 Those eyes—my life was in their light; 
 
 Those lips my sacramental wine ; 
 
 That voice whose flow was wont to seem 
 The music of an exile’s dream.” 
 
 I knew then it was all right. 
 
215 
 
 Richard and / meet again. 
 
 On May 22nd, 1859, I chanced to call upon a friend. I was told 
 she was gone out, but would be in to tea, and was asked if I would 
 wait. I said, “ Yes;” and in about five minutes another ring came 
 to the door, and another visitor was also asked to wait. The door 
 was opened, and I turned round, expecting to see my friend. Judge 
 of my feelings when I beheld Richard. For an instant we both 
 stood dazed, and I cannot attempt to describe the joy that followed 
 He had landed the day before, and came to London, and now he 
 had come to call on this friend to know where I was living, where 
 to find me. No one will wonder if I say that we forgot all about 
 her and tea, and that we went downstairs and got into a cab, and 
 took a long drive. 
 
 I felt like one stunned ; I only knew that he put me in and told 
 the cabman to drive. I felt like a person coming to after a fainting 
 fit or in a dream. It was acute pain, and for the first half-hour I 
 found no relief. I would have given worlds for tears or breath; 
 neither came, but it was absolute content, which I fancy people must 
 feel the first few moments after the soul is quit of the body. The first 
 thing that happened was, that we mutually drew each other’s pictures 
 out from our respective pockets at the same moment, which, as we 
 had not expected to meet, showed how carefully they had been 
 kept. 
 
 After that, we met constantly, and he called upon my parents. I 
 now put our marriage seriously before them, but without success as 
 regards my mother. 
 
 I shall never forget Richard as he was then ; he had had twenty-one 
 attacks of fever, had been partially paralyzed and partially blind ; 
 he was a mere skeleton, with brown yellow skin hanging in bags, his 
 eyes protruding, and his lips drawn away from his teeth. I used to 
 give him my arm about the Botanical Gardens for fresh air, and 
 sometimes convey him almost fainting to our house, or friends’ 
 houses, who allowed and encouraged our meeting, in a cab. 
 
 The Government and the Royal Geographical Society looked 
 coldly on him; the Indian army brought him under the reduction; 
 he was almost penniless, and he had only a few friends to greet him. 
 Speke was the hero of the hour, the Stanley of 1859-1864. This 
 was one of the martyrdoms of that uncrowned King’s life, and I think 
 but that for me he would have died. 
 
 He told me that all the time he had been away the greatest con¬ 
 solation he had had was my fortnightly journals, in letter form, to 
 him, accompanied by all newspaper scraps and public and private 
 information, and accounts of books, such as I knew would interest 
 him, so that when he did get a mail, which was only in a huge batch 
 
216 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 now and then, he was as well posted up as if he were living in 
 London. 
 
 He never abused Speke, as a mean man would have done; he 
 used to say, “Jack is one of the bravest fellows in the world; if 
 he has a fault it is overweening vanity, and being so easily flattered; 
 in good hands he would be the best of men. Let him alone; he 
 will be very sorry some day, though that won’t mend my case.” It 
 is interesting now to mark in their letters how they descend from 
 “Dear Jack,” and “Dear Dick,” to “Dear Burton,” and “Dear 
 Speke,” until they become “ Sir! ” But I must relate in Speke’s 
 favour that the injury once done to his friend, and the glory won 
 for himself, he was not happy with it. 
 
 Speke and I had a mutual friend, a lady well known in Society 
 as Kitty Dormer (Countess Dormer)—she would be ninety-four 
 were she now living. She was one of the fashionable beauties of 
 George IV.’s time, and was engaged to my father when they were 
 young. 
 
 About a hundred years or more ago, a John Hanning Speke had 
 married one of the Arundells of Wardour, and Lord Arundell always 
 considered the Spekes as sort of neighbours and distant connec¬ 
 tions, so through this lady’s auspices, Speke and I met, and also 
 exchanged many messages; and we nearly succeeded in reconciling 
 Richard and Speke, and would have done so, but for the anti¬ 
 influences around him. He said to me, “ I am so sorry, and I don’t 
 know how it all came about. Dick was so kind to me; nursed me 
 like a woman, taught me such a lot, and I used to be so fond of 
 him; but it would be too difficult for me to go back now.” And 
 upon that last sentence he always remained and acted. 
 
 Richard was looking so lank and thin. He was sadly altered; his 
 youth, health, spirits, and beauty were all gone for the time. He 
 fully justified his fevers, his paralysis and blindness, and any amount 
 of anxiety, peril, hardship, and privation in unhealthy latitudes. 
 Never did I feel the strength of my love as then. He returned 
 poorer, and dispirited by official rows and every species of annoyance; 
 but he was still, had he been ever so unsuccessful, and had every 
 man’s hand against him, my earthly god and king, and I could have 
 knelt at his feet and worshipped him. I used to feel so proud of 
 him; I used to like to sit and look at him, and to think, “ You are 
 mine, and there is no man on earth the least like you.” 
 
 At one time, when he was at his worst, I found the following in his 
 journal—- 
 
Richard and I meet again . 
 
 217 
 
 “ I hear the sounds I used to hear, 
 
 The laugh of joy, the groan of pain ; 
 
 The sounds of childhood sound again. 
 
 Death must be near ! 
 
 “ Mine eye reviveth like mine ear ; 
 
 As painted scenes pass o’er the stage, 
 
 I see my life from youth to age. 
 
 Ah, Death is near 1 
 
 “ The music of some starry sphere, 
 
 A low, melodious strain of song, 
 
 Like to the wind-harp sweeps along. 
 
 Yes, Death is near! 
 
 “ A lovely sprite of smiling cheer, 
 
 Sits by my side in form of light; 
 
 Sits on my left a darker sprite. 
 
 Sure, Death is near ! 
 
 “ The meed for ever deemed so dear, 
 
 Repose upon the breast of Fame ; 
 
 (I did but half), while lives my name. 
 
 Come then. Death, near ! 
 
 “ Where now thy sting ? Where now thy fear ? 
 Where now, fell power, the victory ? 
 
 I have the mastery over thee. 
 
 Draw, Death, draw near ! ” 
 
 I felt bitterly not having the privilege of staying with Richard 
 and nursing him, and he was very anxious that our marriage 
 should take place; so I wrote a long letter to my mother, 
 who was still violently opposing me, and who was absent on 
 some visits. 
 
 The only answer to this letter was an awful long and solemn 
 sermon, telling me “that Richard was not a Christian, and had 
 no money.” I do not defend my letter to my mother; I only 
 plead that I was fighting for my whole future life, and my natural 
 destiny ; that I had waited for five years; and that I saw that I 
 had to force my mother’s hand, or lose all that made life worth 
 living for. Richard used to say that my mother and I were both 
 gifted with “ the noble firmness of the mule.” 
 
 Richard now brought out the “ Lake Regions of Equatorial 
 Africa” (2 vols., i860), and the Royal Geographical Society dedi¬ 
 cated the whole of Vol. XXXIII. to the same subject (Clowes and 
 Sons,, i860). My mother still remained obstinate, and Richard 
 thought we should have to take the law into our own hands. I 
 could not bear the thoughts of going against my mother. 
 
2 I 8 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Btirton 
 
 One day in April, i860, I was walking out with two friends, 
 and a tightening of the heart came over me that I had known 
 before. I went home and said to my sister, “ I am not going to 
 see Richard for some time.” She said, “ Why, you will see him 
 to-morrow.” “No, I shall not,” I said; “I don’t know what 
 is the matter.” A tap came at the door, and a note with the 
 well-known writing was put into my hand. I knew my fate, and 
 with deep-drawn breath I opened it. He had left—could not 
 bear the pain of saying good-bye; would be absent for nine 
 months, on a journey to see Salt Lake City. He would then 
 come back, and see whether I had made up my mind to choose 
 between him or my mother, to marry me if I would; and if I had 
 not the courage to risk it, he would go back to India, and from 
 thence to other explorations, and return no more. I was to take 
 nine months to think about it. 
 
 I was for a long time in bed, and delirious. For six weeks I was 
 doctored for influenza, mumps, sore throat, fever, delirium, and 
 everything that I had not got, when in reality I w r as only heartsick, 
 struggling for what I wanted, a last hard struggle with the suspense 
 of my future before me, and nothing and nobody to help me. I 
 felt it would be my breaking up if circumstances continued adverse, 
 but I determined to struggle patiently, and suffer bravely to the end. 
 
 At this juncture, as I was going to marry a poor man, and also 
 to fit myself for Expeditions, I went, for change of air, to a farm¬ 
 house, where I learnt every imaginable thing that I might possibly 
 want, so that if we had no servants, or if servants were sick or 
 mutinous, we should be perfectly independent. 
 
 On my return I saw the murder of a Captain Burton in the paper, 
 and even my mother pitied me, and took me to the mail office, 
 where a clerk, after numberless inquiries, gave us a paper. My life 
 seemed to hang on a thread till he answered, and then my face 
 beamed so that the poor man was quite startled. It was a Captain 
 Burton, murdered by his crew. I could scarcely feel sorry—how 
 selfish we are !—and yet he too, doubtless, had some one to love him. 
 
 Richard, meantime, had gone all over the United States, and 
 made a wonderful lot of friends ; had gone to Salt Lake City to see 
 Brigham Young, where he stayed with the Mormons and their Prophet 
 for six weeks at great Salt Lake City, visiting California, where he 
 went all over the gold-diggings, and learnt practically to use both 
 pick and pan. He asked Brigham Young if he would admit him 
 as a Mormon, but Brigham Young shook his head, and said, “No, 
 Captain, I think you have done that sort of thing once before.” 
 Richard laughed, and told him he was perfectly right. 
 
219 
 
 Richard and I meet again. 
 
 About this time there was a meeting at the Royal Geographical 
 Society, Lord Ashburton (President) in the chair. The Chairman 
 said that a letter would be read from Captain Burton, by the Secre¬ 
 tary. It would be a matter of pleasure to all present to know 
 that Captain Burton was in good health. Dr. Shaw then read the 
 following characteristic letter, which had been addressed to him 
 by that officer :— 
 
 “ Salt Lake City, Deserat, Utah Territory, September 7. 
 
 “ My dear Shaw, 
 
 “You’ll see my whereabouts by the envelope; I reached 
 this place about a week ago, and am living in the odour of sanctity, 
 —a pretty strong one it is too,—apostles, prophets, et hoc genus 
 omne . In about another week I expect to start for Carson Valley 
 and San Francisco. The road is full of Indians and other scoun¬ 
 drels, but I’ve had my hair cropped so short that my scalp is not 
 worth having. I hope to be in San Francisco in October, and in 
 England somewhere in November next. Can you put my where¬ 
 abouts in some paper or other, and thus save me the bother of 
 writing to all my friends? Mind, I’m travelling for my health, 
 which has suffered in Africa, enjoying the pure air of the prairies,, 
 and expecting to return in a state of renovation and perfectly ready 
 to leave a card on Muata Yanoo, or any other tyrant of that kind. 
 
 “ Meanwhile, ever yours, 
 
 “R. F. Burton.” 
 
 Richard travelled about twenty-five thousand miles, and then he 
 turned his head homewards. He wrote the “ City of the Saints,” 
 1 vol., on the Mormons, and he brought it out in 1861. It was 
 reprinted by Messrs. Harper of New York, and extensively reviewed, 
 especially by the Tour du Monde. 
 
 It was Christmas, i860, that I went to stop with my relatives, Sir 
 Clifford and Lady Constable (his first wife, nee Chichester), at 
 Burton Constable,—the father and mother of the present baronet. 
 There was a large party in the house, and we were singing; some 
 one propped up the music with the Times which had just arrived, 
 and the first announcement that caught my eye was that “ Captain 
 R. F. Burton had arrived from America.” 
 
 I was unable, except by great resolution, to continue what I was 
 doing. I soon retired to my room, and sat up all night, packing, 
 and conjecturing how I should get away,—all my numerous plans 
 tending to a “ bolt ” next morning,—should I get an affectionate 
 letter from him. I received two ; one had been opened and read 
 by somebody else, and one, as it afterwards turned out, had been 
 burked at home before forwarding. It was not an easy matter. I 
 
220 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 was in a large country-house in Yorkshire, with about twenty- 
 five friends and relatives, amongst whom was one brother, and I 
 had heaps of luggage. We were blocked up with snow and 
 nine miles from the station, and (contra miglior noler voter mat 
 pugna) I had heard of his arrival only early in the evening, and 
 twelve hours later I had managed to get a telegram ordering me 
 to London, under the impression that it was of the most vital 
 importance. 
 
 What a triumph it is to a woman’s heart, when she has patiently 
 and courageously worked, and prayed, and suffered, and the moment 
 is realized that was the goal of her ambition 1 
 
 As soon as we met, and had had our talk, he said, “ I have 
 waited for five years. The three first were inevitable on ac¬ 
 count of my journey to Africa, but the last two were not. Our 
 lives are being spoiled by the unjust prejudices of your mother, 
 and it is for you to consider whether you have not already 
 done your duty in sacrificing two of the best years of your 
 life out of respect to her. If once you really let me go, mind, 
 I shall never come back, because I shall know that you have 
 not got the strength of character which my wife must have. 
 Now, you must make up your mind to choose between your 
 mother and me. If you choose me, we marry, and I stay; if 
 not, I go back to India and on other Explorations, and I return 
 no more. Is your answer ready ? ” I said, “ Quite. I marry you 
 this day three weeks, let who will say nay.” 
 
 When we fixed the date of our marriage, I wanted to be 
 married on Wednesday, the 23rd, because it was the Espousals 
 of Our Lady and St. Joseph, but he would not, because 
 Wednesday, the 23rd, and Friday, the 18th, were our unlucky 
 days; so we were married on the Vigil, Tuesday, the 22nd of 
 January. 
 
 We pictured to ourselves much domestic happiness, with youth, 
 health, courage, and talent to win honour, name, and position. We 
 had the same tastes, and perfect confidence in each other. No one 
 turns away from real happiness without some very strong temptation 
 or delusion. I went straight to my father and mother, and told 
 them what had occurred. My father said, “1 consent with all my 
 heart, if your mother consents,” and my mother said, “Never!” 
 I said, “Very well, then, mother! I cannot sacrifice our two lives 
 to a mere whim, and you ought not to expect it, so I am going to 
 marry him, whether you will or no.” I asked all my brothers and 
 sisters, and they said they would receive him with delight. My 
 mother offered me a marriage with my father and brothers present. 
 
22 1 
 
 Richard and I meet again. 
 
 my mother and sisters not. I felt that that was a slight upon him . 
 a slight upon his family, and a slur upon me, which I did not 
 deserve, and I refused it. I went to Cardinal Wiseman, and I told 
 him the whole case as it stood, and he asked me if my mind was 
 absolutely made up, and I said, “ Absolutely.” Then he said, 
 Leave the matter to me.” He requested Richard to call upon 
 him, and asked him if he would give him three promises in writing— 
 
 1. That I should be allowed the free practice of my religion. 
 
 2. That if we had any children they should be brought up 
 Catholics. 
 
 3. That we should be married in the Catholic Church. 
 
 Which three promises Richard readily signed. He also amused 
 the Cardinal, as the family afterwards learnt, by saying sharply, 
 “ Practise her religion indeed ! I should rather think she shall. A 
 man without a religion may be excused, but a woman without a 
 religion is not the woman for me.” The Cardinal then sent for me, 
 promised me his protection, said he would himself procure a special 
 dispensation from Rome, and that he would perform the ceremony 
 himself. He then saw my father, who told him how bitter my 
 mother was about it; that she was threatened with paralysis; that we 
 had to consider her in every possible way, that she might receive no 
 shocks, no agitation, but that all the rest quite consented to the 
 marriage. A big family council was then held, and it was agreed 
 far better for Richard and me, and for every one, to make all propei 
 arrangements to be married, and to be attended by friends , and for 
 me to go away on a visit to some friends, that they might not come 
 to the wedding, nor participate in it, in order not to have a quarrel 
 with my mother; that they would break it to her at a suitable time, 
 and that the secret of their knowing it, should be kept up as long 
 as mother lived. “ Mind,” said my father, “ you must never bring 
 a misunderstanding between mother and me, nor between her and 
 her children.” 
 
 I passed that three weeks preparing very solemnly and earnestly 
 for my marriage day, but yet something differently to what many 
 expectant brides do. I made a very solemn religious preparation, 
 receiving the Sacraments. Gowns, presents, and wedding pageants 
 had no part in it, had no place. Richard arranged with my own 
 lawyer and my own priest that everything should be conducted in 
 a strictly legal and strictly religious way, and the whole programme 
 of the affair was prepared. A very solemn day to me was the eve of 
 my marriage. The following day I was supposed to be going to 
 pass a few weeks with a friend in the country. 
 
 At nine o’clock on Tuesday, the 22nd of January, 1861, my cab 
 
222 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 was at the door with my box on it. I had to go and wish my 
 father and mother good-bye before leaving. I went downstairs with 
 a beating heart, after I had knelt in my own room, and said 
 a fervent prayer that they might bless me, and if they did, I 
 would take it as a sign. I was so nervous, I could scarcely stand. 
 When I went in, mother kissed me and said, “ Good-bye, child, God 
 bless you.” I went to my father’s bedside, and knelt down and said 
 good-bye. “ God bless you, my darling,” he said, and put his hand 
 out of the bed and laid it on my head. I was too much overcome 
 to speak, and one or two tears ran down my cheeks, and I remember 
 as I passed down I kissed the door outside. 
 
 I then ran downstairs and quickly got into my cab, and drove 
 to a friend’s house (Dr. and Miss Bird, now of 49, Welbeck Street), 
 where I changed my clothes—not wedding clothes (clothes which 
 most brides of to-day would probably laugh at)—a fawn-coloured 
 dress, a black-lace cloak, and a white bonnet—and they and I drove 
 off to the Bavarian Catholic Church, Warwick Street, London. 
 When assembled we were altogether a party of eight. The Registrar 
 was there for legality, as is customary. Richard was waiting on the 
 doorstep for me, and as we went in he took holy water, and made 
 a very large sign of the Cross. The church doors were wide open, 
 and full of people, and many were there who knew us. As the 10.30 
 Mass was about to begin, we were called into the Sacristy, and we 
 then found that the Cardinal in the night had been seized with 
 an acute attack of the illness which carried him off four years later, 
 and had deputed Dr. Hearne, his Vicar-general, to be his proxy. 
 
 After the ceremony was over, and the names signed, we went back 
 to the house of our friend Dr. Bird and his sister Alice, who have 
 always been our best friends, where we had our wedding breakfast. 
 
 During the time we were breakfasting, Dr. Bird began to chaff 
 him about the things that were sometimes said of him, and which 
 were not true. “Now, Burton, tell me; how do you feel when 
 you have killed a man ? ” Dr. Bird (being a physician) had given 
 himself away without knowing it Richard looked up quizzically, 
 and drawled out, “ Oh, quite jolly ! How do you?” 
 
 We then went to Richard’s bachelor lodgings, where he had a 
 bedroom, dressing-room, and sitting-room, and we had very few 
 pounds to bless ourselves with, but were as happy as it is given 
 to any mortals out of heaven to be. The fact is that the only 
 clandestine thing about it, and that was quite contrary to my desire, 
 was that my poor mother, with her health and her religious scruples, 
 was kept in the dark, but I must thank God that, though paralysis 
 came on two years later, it was not I that caused it. 
 
223 
 
 Richard and I meet again. 
 
 My husband wrote to my father on the following day a beautiful 
 and characteristic letter, in case he should wish to give it to my 
 mother. For the first few days of our marriage, Richard used to 
 be so worried at being stared at as a bridegroom, that he always 
 used to say that we had been married a couple of years ; but that 
 sort of annoyance soon wore off, and then he became rather proud 
 of being a married man. To say that I was happy would be to say 
 nothing; a repose came over me that I had never known. I felt 
 that it was for Eternity, an immortal repose, and I was in a bewilder¬ 
 ment of wonder at the goodness of God, who had almost worked 
 miracles for me. 
 
 During this time my brothers visited us, keeping us up in all that 
 was going on. Some weeks later, two dear old aunts, Mrs. Strick- 
 land-Standish and Monica, Lady Gerard, who lived at Portobello 
 House, Mortlake, nearly opposite to where I live now, and where I 
 had frequently passed several weeks every year (for they made a sort 
 of family focus), got to hear that I was seen going into a bachelor 
 lodging, and bowled up to London to tell my mother. She wrote 
 in an agony to my father, who was visiting in the country, “ that a 
 dreadful misfortune had happened in the family; that I been seen 
 going into a bachelor lodging in London, and could not be at the 
 country house where I was supposed to be.” My father telegraphed 
 back to her, “ She is married to Dick Burton, and thank God for 
 it; ” and he wrote to her, enclosing the letter just mentioned, and 
 desired her to send one of my brothers for us, who knew where to 
 find us, and to mind and receive us properly. We were then sent 
 for home. My mother behaved like a true lady and a true Christian. 
 She kissed us both, and blessed us. I shall never forget how shy I 
 felt going home, but I went in very calmly, I kissed them all round, 
 and they received Richard in the nicest way, and then mother em¬ 
 barrassed us very much by asking our pardon for flying in the face 
 of God, and opposing what she now knew to be His will. My 
 husband was very much touched. It was not long before she 
 approved of the marriage more than anybody, and as she grew to 
 know him, she loved him as much as her own sons. And this is 
 the way we came to be married. 
 
 In short, mother never could forgive herself, and was always 
 alluding to it either personally or by letter. It always was the same 
 burthen of song—“that she exposed me to such a risk, that my rela¬ 
 tions might have abandoned me, that Society might not have received 
 me, that I might have been forbidden to put my name down for the 
 Drawing-room, when I had done nothing wrong; ” and she said, “ All 
 through me, and God had destined it, but I could not see it. I never 
 
224 Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 thought you would have the courage to take the law in your own 
 hands; ” and I used to answer her, “ Mother, if you had all cast me 
 out, if Society had tabooed me, if I had been forbidden to go to 
 Court, it would not have kept me from it—I could not have helped 
 myself—I am quite content with my future crust and tent, and I 
 would not exchange places with the Queen; so do not harass 
 yourself.” 
 
 However, by the goodness of God, and the justness and kindness 
 of a few great people, none of these catastrophes did happen. 
 We used to entreat of her not to say anything more about it, but 
 even on her deathbed she persisted in doing so. I shall never forget 
 that first night when we went home; I went up to my room and 
 changed my things, and ate my dinner humbly and silently. We 
 were a very large family and were all afraid to speak, and as 
 Richard was so very clever, the family stood rather in awe of him; 
 so there was a silence and restraint upon us ; but the children were 
 allowed to come down to dessert for a treat, and, with the intuition 
 that children have, they knew that he wanted them, and that they 
 could do what they liked with him. One was a little enfant 
 terrible , and very fond of copying our midshipmen brothers’ slang. 
 They crowded round my mother with their little doll-tumblers 
 waiting for some wine. He was so constrained that he forgot to 
 pass the wine at dessert as it came round to him, when a small voice 
 piped out from the end of the long table, “ I say, old bottle-stopper 
 —pass the wine! ” He burst out laughing, and that broke the 
 ice, and we all fell to laughing and talking. Mother punished the 
 child by giving him no wine, but Richard looked up and said so 
 sweetly, “ Oh, Mother , not on my first night at home /” that her 
 heart went out to him. 
 
 We had seven months of uninterrupted bliss. Through the kind¬ 
 ness of Lord John Russell, Richard obtained the Consulship of Fer¬ 
 nando Po, in the Bight of Biafra, West Coast of Africa, with a coast 
 line of six or seven hundred miles for his jurisdiction, a deadly 
 climate, and a year. He was too glad to get his foot on the 
 
 first rung of the ladder, so, though it was called the “ Foreign Office 
 Grave,” he cheerfully accepted it. It was not quite so cheerful for 
 me, because it was a climate of certain death to white women, and 
 he would not allow me to go out in an unlimited way. 
 
 We had a glorious season, and took up our position in Society. 
 He introduced me to all the people he knew, and I introduced him to 
 all the people that I knew. Lord Houghton (Monckton-Milnes), the 
 father of the present Lord Houghton, was very much attached to 
 Richard, and he settled the question of our position by asking his 
 
225 
 
 Richard and I meet again . 
 
 friend Lord Palmerston to give a party, and to let me be the bride 
 of the evening; and when I arrived, Lord Palmerston gave me his 
 arm, and he introduced Richard and me to all the people we had 
 not previously known, and my relatives clustered around us as well. 
 
 I was allowed to put my name down for a Drawing-room. And 
 Lady Russell, now the Dowager, presented me at Court “ on my 
 marriage.” 
 
 Shortly after this, happened Grindlay’s fire, where we lost all we 
 possessed in the world, except the few boxes we had with us. 
 The worst was that all his books, and his own poetry, which was 
 beautiful, especially one poem, called “ The Curse of Vishnu,” and 
 priceless Persian and Arabic manuscripts, that he had picked up in 
 various out-of-the-way places, and a room full of costumes of every 
 nation, were burnt. He smiled, and said in a philosophical sort of 
 way, “ Well, it is a great bore, but I dare say that the world will be 
 none the worse for some of those manuscripts having been burnt ” 
 (a prophetic speech, as I now think of it). When he went down to 
 ask for some compensation, he found that Grindlay was insured, but 
 that he was not—not, he said, that any money could repay him for 
 the loss of the things. As he always saw the comic side of a tragedy 
 as well as the pathetic, “the funniest thing was the clerk asking me 
 if I had lost any plate or jewellery, and on my saying, ‘ No,’ the change 
 in his face from sympathy to the utter surprise that I could care so 
 much for any other kind of loss, was amusing.” 
 
 In 1861, when the Indian army changed hands, Richard suffered, 
 and, as Mr. Hitchman remarked, “ his enemies may be congratulated 
 upon their mingled malice and meanness.” He just gave the official 
 animus a chance. It was a common thing in times of peace for 
 Indian officers to be allowed to take appointments and remain on the 
 cadre of their regiment, temporarily or otherwise. Richard, in remon¬ 
 strance, would not quote names for fear of injuring other men, but 
 any man who knew Egypt could score off half a dozen. His know¬ 
 ledge of the East, and of so many Eastern languages, would have 
 been of incalculable service in Egypt, upon the Red Sea, in 
 Marocco, Persia, in any parts of the East, and yet he, who in any 
 other land would have been rewarded with at least a K.C.B. and 
 a handsome pension, was glad to get his foot on the lowest rung 
 of the ladder of the Consular service, called the “ Foreign Office 
 Grave,” the Consulate of Fernando Po, and we could not think 
 enough of, talk enough of, or be grateful enough to Lord John 
 Russell, who gave it him ; yet the acceptance of this miserable post 
 was made an excuse to strike his name off the Indian army list, and 
 the rule, which had been allowed to lapse in a score of cases, was 
 
 p 
 
226 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 revived for Richard’s injury under circumstances of discourtesy so 
 great, that it would be hard to believe the affront unintentional. 
 He received no notice whatever, and he only realized, on seeing his 
 successor gazetted, that his military career was actually ended, and 
 his past life become like a blank sheet of paper. It would have 
 been stretching no point to have granted this appointment, and to 
 have been retained in the army on half-pay, but it was refused; they 
 swept out his whole nineteen years’ service as if they had never 
 been, without a vestige of pay or pension. 
 
 All his services in Sind had been forgotten, all his Explorations 
 were wiped out, and at the age of forty he found himself at home, 
 with the rank of Captain, no pay, no pension, plenty of fame, a newly 
 married wife, and a small Consulate in the most pestilential climate, 
 with Ljoo a year. In vain he asked to go to Fernando Po 
 temporarily till wanted for active service. He wrote— 
 
 “It will be an act of injustice on the part of the Bombay Govern¬ 
 ment to solicit my removal on account of my having risked health 
 and life in my country’s service. 
 
 “ They are about to treat me as a man who has been idling 
 away my time and shirking duty; whereas I can show that every 
 hour has been employed for my country’s benefit, in study, writings, 
 languages, and explorations. Are my wounds and fevers, and 
 perpetual risk of health and life, not to speak of personal losses, 
 to go for nothing ? 
 
 “ The Bombay Government does not take into consideration one 
 iota of my service, but casts the whole into oblivion. I consider 
 the Bombay Government to be unjustly prejudiced against me on 
 account of the private piques of a certain half-dozen individuals. 
 Will the Bombay Government put all its charges against me in black 
 and white, and thus allow me a fair opportunity of clearing myself 
 of my supposed delinquencies ? Other men—I will merely quote 
 Colonel Greathed and Lieut.-Colonel Norman—are permitted to 
 take service in England, and yet to retain their military service 
 in India. 
 
 “ In the time of the Court of Directors, an officer might be serving 
 the Foreign Office and India too, as in the case of Lieut.-Colonel 
 Hamerton, late Consul at Zanzibar; but since the amalgamation, 
 the officers of her Majesty’s Indian Army hope that they may take 
 any appointment in any part of the world, as a small recompense 
 for their losses ; i.e. supercession and inability to sell their com¬ 
 missions, after having paid for steps.” 
 
 At first he wanted to try me, so he pretended he did not like my 
 going to Confession, and I used to say, “ Well, my religion teaches 
 
227 
 
 Richard and I meet again. 
 
 me that my first duty is to obey you,” and I did not bother to go; 
 so he at once took off this restraint, and used to send me to Mass, 
 and remind me of fish-days. It astonished me, the wonderful way 
 he knew our doctrine, and frequently explained things to me 
 that I did not know myself. He always wore his medal. I was 
 very much surprised, shortly after we were married, at my husband 
 giving me ^5. Whilst he had been away one of my brothers had 
 met with a sudden death; his horse had fallen on him and crushed 
 him in a moment. He said, “ Take this and have Masses said with 
 it for your poor brother.” I only thought then what generosity and 
 what good taste it was. He was always delighted with the society 
 of priests—not so much foreign priests, as English ones—especially 
 if he got hold of a highly educated, broad theologian of a Jesuit: 
 but in all cases he was most courteous to any of them, and protected 
 them and their Missions whenever he was in a position to do so. 
 Once he went with me to a midnight Mass, and he cried all the 
 time. I could not understand it, and he said he could not explain 
 it himself. I had no idea then that he had ever been once received 
 into our Church in India. He always bowed his head at “ Hallowed 
 be Thy Name,” and he did that to the day of his death. 
 
 We passed delightful days at country houses, notably at Lord 
 Houghton’s (Fryston), where, at his house in the country, and his 
 house in Brook Street, and at Lord Strangford’s house in Great 
 Cumberland Place, we met all that was worth meeting of rank 
 and fashion, beauty and wit, and especially all the most talented 
 people in the world. I can shut my eyes and mentally look round 
 his (Lord Houghton’s) large round table even now , which usually 
 held twenty-five guests. I can see Buckle, and Carlyle, and all the 
 Kingsleys, and Swinburne, and Froude, and all the great men that 
 were, and many that are, for the last thirty-two years, and remember 
 a great deal of the conversation. But I am not here to describe 
 them, but to give a description of Richard Burton. I can remember 
 the Due d’Aumale cheek by jowl with Louis Blanc. The present 
 Lord Crewe, and his two sisters, Lady Fitzgerald and the 
 Hon. Mrs. Henniker, were babes in the nursery. I can remember 
 the good old times in the country, at Fryston, where breakfast 
 was at different little round tables, so people came down when 
 they liked, and sat at one or another, and he would stroll from 
 one table to another, with a book in his hand. Swinburne was 
 then a boy, and had just brought out his “ Queen Mother Rosa¬ 
 mund,” and Lord Houghton brought it up to us, saying, “ I bring 
 you this little book, because the author is coming here this evening, 
 so that you may not quote him as an absurdity to himself.” I can 
 
228 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 remember Vambdry telling us Hungarian tales, and I can remember 
 Richard cross-legged on a cushion, reciting and reading “ Omar el 
 Khayydm” alternately in Persian and English, and chanting the 
 call to prayer, “ Allahhu Akbar.” 
 
 My Society recollections, my happy days, are all of the plea¬ 
 santest and most interesting. The evil day came far too soon; this 
 was a large oasis of seven months in my life, and even if I had had 
 no other it would have been worth living for. We went down to 
 Worthing to my family, where we passed a very happy time, and he 
 here gave me a proof of affection which I shall never forget. He 
 had gone to see his cousin, Samuel Burton, at Brighton, and had 
 promised to be back by the last train, but he did not make his 
 appearance. I was in a dreadful state of mind lest anything should 
 have happened to him. He arrived about one in the morning, pale 
 and worn out. He had gone to sleep in the train, and had been 
 carried some twenty miles away from Worthing. He could get no 
 kind of conveyance, being in the night; so, inquiring in what 
 direction Worthing lay, and settling the matter by a pocket com¬ 
 pass, he started across country, and between a walk and a sort of 
 long trot, from nine to one, he reached me, instead of waiting, 
 as another man would have done, till the next morning for a train 
 back. 
 
 I shall never forget when the time came to part, and I was to go to 
 Liverpool to see him off, for he would not allow me to accompany 
 him till he had seen what Fernando Po was like. It was in August, 
 1861, when we went down to Liverpool, and we were very sad, 
 because he was not going to a Consulate where we could hope to 
 remain together as a home. It was a deadly climate, and we were 
 always going to be climate-dodging. I was to go out, not now, but 
 later, and then, perhaps, not to land, and to return and ply up and 
 down between Madeira and Teneriffe and London, and I, knowing he 
 had Africa at his back, was in a constant agitation for fear of his doing 
 more of these Explorations into unknown lands. There were about 
 eighteen men (West African merchants), and everybody took him 
 away from me, and he had made me promise that if I was allowed 
 to go on board and see him off, that I would not cry and unman 
 him. It was blowing hard and raining; there was one man who was 
 inconsiderate enough to accompany and stick to us the whole time, 
 so that we could not exchange a word (how I hated him !). I went 
 down below and unpacked his things and settled his cabin, and 
 saw to the arrangement of his luggage. My whole life and soul 
 was in that good-bye, and I found myself on board the tug, which 
 flew faster and faster from the steamer. I saw a white handkerchief 
 
Richard and I meet again, 229 
 
 go up to his face. I then drove to a spot where I could see the 
 steamer till she became a dot. 
 
 “ Fresh as the first beam 
 Glittering on a sail, 
 
 Which brings our friends up 
 From the under world ; 
 
 Sad as the last, which reddens over one, 
 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge.” 
 
 Here I give Richard’s description of going out, read later— 
 
 “ A heart-wTench—and all is over. Unhappily I am not one of 
 those independents who can say, Ce riest que le premier pas qui cotite, 
 
 “Then comes the first nightfall on board outward-bound, the 
 saddest time that the veteran wanderer knows. Saadi the Persian, 
 one of the best travellers,—he studied books for thirty years, did 
 thirty of wanderjahre, and for thirty wrote and lived in retirement— 
 has thus alluded to the depressing influence of what I suppose may 
 philosophically be explained by an absence of Light-stimulus or 
 Od-force— 
 
 * So yearns at eve’s soft tide the heart, 
 
 Which the wide wolds and waters part 
 From all dear scenes to which the soul 
 Turns, as the lodestone seeks its pole.’ 
 
 “ We cut short the day by creeping to our berths, without even a 
 * nightcap,’ and we do our best to forget ourselves, and everything 
 about us.” 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IN WEST AFRICA. 
 
 “Oh, when wilt thou return, my love? 
 
 For as the moments glide, 
 
 They leave me wishing still for thee, 
 
 My husband, by my side ; 
 
 And ever at the evening hour 
 My hopes more fondly burn, 
 
 And still they linger on that word, 
 
 ‘Oh, when wilt thou return ? ’ ” 
 
 To a Husband during a Long Absence. 
 
 Richard left me plenty of occupation during this awfully long 
 absence of sixteen months. Firstly, all kinds of official fights about 
 India, and then for a gunboat and other privileges for Fernando 
 Po. I lived with my father, mother, and family, and then I had a 
 great deal to do for his book, “ The City of the Saints,” and every 
 letter brought its own work and commissions, people to see and 
 to write to, and things to be done for him, so that I was never idle 
 for a minute. I began to feel, what I have always felt since, that he 
 was the glorious, stately ship in full sail, commanding all attention 
 and admiration; and sometimes, if the wind drops, she still sails 
 gallantly, and no one sees the humble little steam-tug hidden at the 
 other side, with her strong heart and faithful arms working forth, and 
 glorying in her proud and stately ship. 
 
 I think a true woman, who is married to her proper mate, recog¬ 
 nizes the fully performed mission, whether prosperous or not, and 
 that no one can ever take his place for her , as an interpreter of that 
 which is betwixt her and her Creator, to her as the shadow of God’s 
 protection here on earth. 
 
 In winter he made me go to Paris with the Napoleon ring and 
 sketch, mentioned in the little story called “ The Last Hours of 
 Napoleon; ” and, through want of experience and proper friends 
 and protection, my little mission of courtesy failed. The failure drew 
 down upon me some annoyances, which appeared very disagreeable 
 and important to me at the time ; they are not worth mentioning, 
 
 * 3 ° 
 
In West Africa. 231 
 
 nor, indeed, had I been older and more experienced, should I have 
 thought them worth fretting about. 
 
 The rest of the time of those dreary sixteen months was wearing 
 to a degree, and diversified by ten weeks of diphtheria and its results. 
 One day I betook myself to the Foreign Office, and I cried my heart 
 out to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Layard. He seemed very sorry 
 for me, and he asked me to wait awhile whilst he went upstairs; and, 
 when he came back, he told me that he had got four months’ leave 
 home for my husband, and had ordered the despatch to be sent off 
 that very afternoon. I could have thrown my arms round his neck 
 and kissed him, but I did not; he might have been rather surprised. 
 I had to go and sit out in the Green Park till the excitement wore 
 off; it was more to me than if he had given me a large fortune. 
 
 At last the happy day came to go and meet Richard at Liverpool, 
 and I shall never forget the joy of our meeting. It was December, 
 1863, and we had some happy weeks in England—a pleasant Christ¬ 
 mas with my people at Wardour, and at Lord Gerard’s at Garswood, 
 where the family parties mustered strong, and at Fryston (Lord 
 Houghton’s), and several other country-houses; and he brought out 
 two books—“Wanderings in West Africa” (2 vols., 1863), also 
 “ Abeokuta and the Cameroons ” (2 vols., 1863), which he dedi¬ 
 cated to me, with a lovely inscription and motto, of which I am 
 very proud. And then came round the time again to leave. But 
 I told him I could not possibly go on living as I was living; it was 
 too miserable, one’s husband in a place where one was not allowed 
 to go, and I living with my mother like a girl—I was neither wife, nor 
 maid, nor widow; so he took me with him. Excepting yachting, it 
 was my first experience of real sea-going. 
 
 The African steamships were established in January, 1852, by the 
 late Mr. MacGregor Laird, who was the second pioneer of the Niger 
 Exploration, and an enthusiastic improver of Africa. These steamers 
 were seven in number, and went once a month ; four of them were of 
 978 tons. They went out to the West Coast, Fernando Po being 
 their furthest station save one, and the whole round from England 
 and back again caused them to visit twenty-two ports, and cover 
 ten thousand nautical miles at eight knots an hour; but they were 
 built for cargo, not for passengers. There was no doctor, no bath ; 
 the conveniences were difficult, and the stewardess only went as 
 far as Madeira, the first port. We sometimes had seven or eight 
 human beings stuffed into a cabin, which had four berths. I speak 
 of 1861-2-3-4; it may be all changed since then. We now started in 
 the worst circumstances. It was the big storm of January, 1863, one 
 of the worst that has ever been known. My mother, who was a very 
 
232 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 bad sailor, insisted on coming on board to see us off. It was terribly 
 rough, and an ironclad just shaved us going out, as we lay to in the 
 river. There were even wrecks in the Mersey. Our Captain frankly said 
 that he had an accident every January, but he would almost rather 
 sink than have a mark put against his name for not going out on his 
 right day. Mother behaved most pluckily. She went back in the 
 tug, and she just reached Uncle Gerard’s, which was three-quarters of 
 an hour from Liverpool, got up to her bedroom, took up the poker 
 to poke the fire, which fell out of her hand—she had the strength to 
 crawl to the bell—and when they came up she was on the floor in 
 that attack of paralysis with which she had been so long threatened, 
 and to stave off which, we had hid my marriage from her just two 
 years before. 
 
 Long before we had got past the Skerries, we were in serious 
 trouble, and the passengers implored the Captain to alter his course, 
 and take refuge in some harbour ; but he explained to them that it 
 would be awfully dangerous to turn the ship’s head round, as the 
 going round might sink her. I had forgotten in my ignorance to 
 secure a berth, and the Captain gallantly gave up his own cabin to 
 me, till Madeira. It was just on the break of the poop, and every 
 wave broke over that before it reached the saloon. The ship 
 appeared quite unmanageable; she bucked and plunged without 
 stopping. There were seven feet of water in the hold, and all 
 hands and available passengers were called on to man the pumps. 
 The under berths were full of water, the bird-cages and kittens and 
 parcels were all floating about, most of the women were screaming, 
 many of the men-passengers were drunk, the lights went out, the 
 furniture came unshipped and rolled about at its own sweet wilL 
 The cook was thrown on the galley fire, so there could be 
 nothing to eat Fortunately the sea put the fire out. It was very 
 difficult for men to get along the deck. 
 
 A rich lady gave the stewardess ^5 to hold her hand all night, 
 so the rest of us poorer ones had to do without consolation. One 
 most painful scene occurred. There were seven women, mission¬ 
 aries’ wives, going out either with or to join their husbands. One, 
 a poor child of sixteen, just married, missed her husband, and she 
 called out in the dark for him. A naval officer who was going out 
 to join his ship, and was tipsy the whole way, called out, “ Oh, he 
 has tumbled overboard, and is hanging on outside; you will never 
 see him any more.” The poor child believed it, and fell down in 
 an epileptic fit, to which she remained subject as long as I ever 
 heard of her. Her husband and mine were working at the pumps. 
 I crawled to my bunk in the Captain’s cabin, sick and terrified. 
 
In West Africa. 233 
 
 and I thought that the terrible seas breaking against its side were 
 loosening the nails, and that the sea would come in and wash me 
 out. I was far away from any help and quite alone, and I hung on 
 to the door, calling, “ Carpenter! carpenter! ” He came to my 
 assistance, but a huge wave covered us; it carried him overboard 
 and left me—he was never seen again. We lost two men that night. 
 
 As I lay there trembling, and terribly sea-sick, something tumbled 
 against my door, and rolled in and sank down on the floor. It was 
 the tipsy naval officer. I could not rise, I could not shut the door, 
 I could not lug him out, so I lay there. When Richard had 
 finished his work, he crawled along the decks till he got to the cabin, 
 where the sea had swamped through the open door pretty con¬ 
 siderably. “Hullo! what’s that?” he said. I managed faintly to 
 ejaculate, “The tipsy naval officer.” He picked him up by the 
 scruff of his neck, and, regardless of consequences, he propelled 
 him, with a good kick behind, all down the deck, and shut the 
 door. He said, “ The Captain says we can’t live more than two 
 hours in such a sea as this.” At first I was frightened that I should 
 die, but now I was only frightened that I shouldn’t, and I uttered 
 feebly, “ Oh, thank God it will be over so soon.” I shall never 
 forget how angry he was with me, because I was not frightened, and 
 gave me quite a sermon. We were like that mostly three days and 
 nights, and then it got better, and I saw the steward passing with 
 some boiled mutton and caper sauce, and called out, “ Oh, stop and 
 give me some.” He cut me some slices, and I ate them like a 
 starved dog. I got up and dressed and went on deck, and have 
 never been sea-sick since to speak of. I do not speak of Richard, 
 because he never was sea-sick in his life; he never knew what it was; 
 and I believe if it had not been for spilling the ink, he would have 
 been writing his manuscripts, even if the ship had been going round 
 like a squirrel’s cage, as he always did all his life, no matter what the 
 weather, and ate and slept enough for three. 
 
 The temperature changed by magic. There was a tropical calm 
 at night; the usual rough north-easterly breeze of the outside sub¬ 
 sided into a luxurious, sensual calm, with occasional puffs of soft, 
 exciting westerly zephyrs, or viento de las mugeres , formed by the 
 land wind of the night. We arrived in thirteen days at Madeira, 
 having been longer than usual on account of the three days’ storm. 
 We could smell the land strong of clover hay long before we reached 
 it. I shall never forget my astonishment and delight when I looked 
 out of the port-hole one morning and found myself at Madeira. 
 We had left a frightful English winter, we had suffered much on 
 the sea journey: here was summer—luxuriant and varied foliage, 
 
234 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 warmth and splendour, the profusion and magnificence of the tropics, 
 a bright blue sky and sun, a deep blue sea, mountains, hills covered 
 with vines, white villas covered with glorious creepers, and picturesque 
 churches and convents. Here we passed a most delightful six weeks, 
 and here I wrote my first book on Madeira and Teneriffe; but my 
 husband would not let me print it, because he did not think it was 
 up to the mark. He thought I must study and copy many more years 
 before I tried authorship. And he was right, both in this and not 
 letting me share with him the climate of West Africa. But I thought 
 both very hard at the time. 
 
 The time came when he had to go back to his post, but I was 
 not allowed to sleep at Fernando Po. I thought it dreadfully hard, 
 and cried and begged, but he was immovable; and he was right. 
 So I turned back again with a heavy heart, and had a passage 
 back, if not quite as bad, very nearly as bad, via Teneriffe and 
 Madeira. Being alone, I had gone into the ladies’ cabin—a very 
 small hole with four berths, and what is called by courtesy a sofa; 
 but there were eight of us packed in it. It was pitch dark; the port¬ 
 hole being closed on account of the weather, the effluvia was dis¬ 
 gusting. I got on a dressing-gown, and crawled out to a stack of 
 arms, which I fondly embraced, to keep myself from rolling over¬ 
 board, where I was found by one of the officers, who ran off to the 
 Captain; he found there was an empty deck cabin, which they 
 immediately put me into, and in a few hours, having got rid 
 of the noxious vapours, I quite recovered; I again passed a long 
 and dreary time, during which he kept me either with my parents 
 well at work, or at sea coming out and going back, with visits to 
 Madeira and Teneriffe. I had one very anxious time, inasmuch as 
 he was sent as her Majesty’s Commissioner to the King of Dahomfc r 
 in those days by no means a safe or easy thing. 
 
 DahomL 
 
 “ Beautiful feet are those that go 
 On kindly ministry to and fro— 
 
 Down lowliest ways if God wills so, 
 
 “ Beautiful life is that whose span 
 Is spent in duty to God and man, 
 
 Forgetting ‘ self’ in all that it can. 
 
 “ Beautiful calm when the course is run, 
 
 Beautiful twilight at set of sun— 
 
 Beautiful death with a life well done.” 
 
 Richard, being British Consul for Fernando Po, went to visit 
 Agbome, the capital of the kingdom of Dahomb. Lord Russell, hear¬ 
 ing of this, gave him instructions to proceed as her Majesty’s Con*. 
 
235 
 
 In West Africa. 
 
 missioner, on a friendly mission to King Gelele, to impress upon the 
 King the importance the British Government attached to the cessa¬ 
 tion of the slave-trade, and to endeavour by every possible means to 
 induce him to cease to continue the Dahoman customs. Now the 
 Dahoman customs, as all know, meant the cutting of the throats 
 of prisoners of war, and, in old days, making a little lake of blood 
 on which to sail a boat. Not only this, cruelty was the rule of every 
 day. Throats cuts, to send a message to the king’s father in the 
 other world; women cut open alive in a state of pregnancy to see 
 what it was like ; animals tied up in every sort of horrible position. 
 He writes— 
 
 “ There is apparently in this people a physical delight in cruelty 
 to beasts as well as to men. The sight of suffering seems to bring 
 them enjoyment, without which the world is tame. Probably the 
 wholesale murderers and torturers of history, from Phalaris and Nero 
 downwards, took an animal and sensual pleasure—all the passions 
 are sisters—in the look of blood, and in the inspection of mortal 
 agonies. I can see no other explanation of the phenomena which 
 meets my eye in Africa. In almost all the towns on the Oil Rivers, 
 you see dead or dying animals fastened in some agonizing position. 
 Poultry is most common, because cheapest—eggs and milk are juju 
 to slaves here—they are tied by the legs, head downwards, or lashed 
 round the body to a stake or a tree, where they remain till they fall 
 in fragments. If a man be unwell he hangs a live chicken round his 
 throat, expecting that its pain will abstract from his sufferings. 
 Goats are lashed head downwards tightly to wooden pillars, and are 
 allowed to die a lingering death. Even the harmless tortoise cannot 
 escape impalement. Blood seems to be the favourite ornament for 
 a man’s face, as pattern-painting with some dark colour, like indigo, 
 is the proper decoration for a woman. At funerals, numbers of 
 goats and poultry are sacrificed for the benefit of the deceased, and 
 the corpse is sprinkled with the warm blood. The headless trunks 
 are laid upon the body, and if the fowls flap their wings, which they 
 will do for some seconds after decapitation, it is a good omen for the 
 dead man. 
 
 “ When male prisoners of war are taken they are brought home for 
 sacrifice and food, whilst their infants and children are sometimes 
 supported by the middle, from poles planted in the canoe. The 
 priest decapitates the men—for ordinary executions each Chief has 
 his own headsman—and no one doubts that the bodies are eaten. 
 Mr. Smith and Dr. Hutchinson both aver that they witnessed actual 
 cases. The former declares that, when old Pepple, father of the 
 present King, took captive King Amakree, of New Calabar, he gave 
 a large feast to the European slave-traders on the river. All was on 
 a grand scale. But the reader might perhaps find some difficulty in 
 guessing the name of the dish placed before his Majesty at the head 
 of the table. It was the bloody heart of the King of Calabar, just 
 
236 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 as it had been torn from the body. He took it in his hand and 
 devoured it with the greatest apparent gusto, remarking, ‘This is 
 the way I serve my enemies ! ’ 
 
 “ Shortly after my first visit, five prisoners of war were 
 
 brought in from the eastern country. I saw in the juju -house 
 their skulls, which were suspiciously white and clean, as if 
 boiled, and not a white man doubted that they had been 
 
 eaten. The fact is, that they cannot afford to reject any kind 
 
 of provisions.” 
 
 Richard was the bearer of presents from Her Majesty to the 
 King—one forty-feet circular crimson silk damask tent, with pole 
 complete ; a richly embossed silver pipe with amber mouth¬ 
 piece ; two richly embossed silver belts, with lion and crane 
 in raised relief; two silver waiters; one coat of mail and 
 
 gauntlets. 
 
 With regard to his Mission, the King said that if he renounced 
 the customs of his forefathers his people would kill him; that 
 the slaves represented his fortune, but if the Queen would 
 allow him ^50,000 a year, that he would be able to do with¬ 
 out it. With regard to the tent, it was exceedingly handsome, 
 
 but it was too small to sit under in that climate, and the only 
 
 thing he cared for was the gingerbread lion on the top of the 
 pole. He liked his old red-clay and wooden-stem pipe better 
 than the silver one ; he liked the silver waiters very much, 
 but he thought they were too small to use as shields ; he could 
 not get his hand into the gauntlet; the coat of mail he hung 
 
 up and made into a target; and then he explained that the 
 
 only thing he really did want, and would be much obliged 
 to her Majesty for, was a carriage and horses, and a white 
 woman ! 
 
 He made my husband a Brigadier-General of his Amazons, 
 and I was madly jealous from afar; for I imagined lovely women 
 in flowing robes, armed, and riding thoroughbred Arabs. The 
 King gave him a string of green beads, which was a kind of Dahoman 
 “ Garter,” a necklace of human bones for his favourite squaw, and 
 a silver chain and Cross with a Chameleon on it. We traced in 
 it the presence of former missionaries, who doubtless found that 
 their crucifixes were thought to be a delightful invention for the 
 King to crucify men, and therefore they replaced it by the chame¬ 
 leon. I have lost my paper on it, and am afraid to quote Greek 
 without it. The King sent return presents to Her Majesty; they 
 consisted of native pipes and tobacco for Her Majesty’s smoking, 
 and loin-cloths for Her Majesty to change while travelling, and 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TIIE CHIEF OFFICER OF RICHARD’S BRIGADE OF AMAZONS 
 
 Sketched by himself. 
 
In West Africa . 237 
 
 an umbrella to be held over Her Majesty’s head whilst drinking. 
 The presents arrived one day whilst I was at the Foreign Office, 
 but as there had been a murder at Fernando Po, and Richard 
 had been ordered to send home the clothes of the murdered man, 
 on opening the box they were supposed to be these latter articles, 
 
 CRUCIFIX. 
 
 and were put on one side. I was told they looked quite dirty 
 enough to be that. 
 
 The journey occupied three months, during the whole of which 
 time the King made much of him, but holding his life in his 
 hand, and any spiteful moment might have ended it. He told 
 
238 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 me when he came back, that he had seen enough horrid sights 
 to turn a man’s brain; and he said, “ I used to have to be 
 perfectly calm and dignified whilst seeing these things, or 
 they would have had a contempt for me; but I frequently 
 used to send to the King to say, that if such or such hap¬ 
 pened again, I should be obliged to leave his Court, as my 
 Government did not countenance such proceedings, which 
 always had the desired effect.” On his return, he received no 
 acknowledgment whatever of his services, but Earl Russell wrote 
 me a kind little note, in which he said, “Tell Captain Burton 
 that he has performed his Mission to my utmost and entire 
 satisfaction.” 
 
 The Bight of Biafra, on the West Coast of Africa, extends from 
 Fernando Po to Bathurst, about six hundred miles of coast, and that 
 was Richard’s jurisdiction. The lawless conduct of the rum-cor¬ 
 rupted natives gave him a good deal of trouble. The traders and 
 the merchants of the coast are called “ palm-oil lambs,” and they 
 used to call Richard their “shepherd” (supercargoes and skippers 
 are also called “palm-oil ruffians” and “coast-lambs”). I believe 
 he managed them very amicably, and, in spite of business and the 
 dangerous climate, he was supported by all the better class of 
 European agents and supercargoes. He pursued his explorations 
 with ardour. He knew the whole coast from Bathurst (Gambia) 
 to St. Paulo de Loanda (Angola). He marched up to Abeokuta, he 
 ascended the Cameroon Mountains, the wonderful extinct volcano 
 described by Hanno the Carthagenian and Ptolemy’s “ Theon 
 Ochema.” He wanted the English Government to establish a 
 sanitarium there for the West Coast, and a convict-station for gar¬ 
 rotters, the last new crime of that day, and to be allowed to use them 
 to construct roads, and in cultivating cotton and chocolate. He 
 told Lord Russell that he would be responsible for them, and should 
 never chain them or lock them up, because, as long as they remained 
 within a certain extent of ring-fence, they would be well and hearty, 
 and the moment they went outside it, they would die without any¬ 
 body looking after them. The British Government was too tender 
 over their darling human brutes, the cruel, ferocious, and murderous 
 criminals, though the climate was considered quite good enough for 
 Richard and other honourable and active British subjects. He then 
 told Earl Russell that if he would make him Governor of the 
 “ Gold Coast,” he could send home annually one million pounds 
 sterling; but Lord Russell answered him, “ that gold was becoming 
 too common.” 
 
 He then visited the cannibal Mpangwe, the Fans of Du Chaillu, 
 
In West Africa . 239 
 
 whose accuracy he had always stood up for when the world had 
 doubted him, and now he was able to confirm it. He then went to 
 Benin City, which was mostly unknown to the Europeans. Belzoni 
 was born in Padua in 1778. During the last eight years of his life 
 he was an African explorer; and he died in Africa, at Benin, in 
 1823, and he was buried at Gwato, at the foot of a very large tree; 
 guns were fired, and a carpenter from one of the ships put up a 
 tablet to his memory. It is suspected that he was poisoned for the 
 sake of plunder. It was said that some native had inherited his 
 papers. Richard offered fzo for them, but without avail. Belzoni’s 
 tree is of a fine spreading growth, which bears a poison apple, and 
 whose boughs droop nearly to the ground. It is a pretty and 
 romantic spot. He writes, “I made an attempt at digging, in 
 order that I might take home his bones and, if possible, his papers, 
 but I was obliged to content myself with sketching his tree, and 
 sending home a handful of wild-flowers to Padua. He died, some 
 say, on the 26th of November, and some say the 3rd of December, 
 1820.” It is remarkable the tender feeling that Richard had for 
 Travellers’ graves abroad; indeed, any English graves abroad, but 
 especially Travellers or Englishmen. The number of graves that we 
 have sought out, and put in a state of repair and furnished with 
 tombstones and flowers, you would hardly believe—Lady Hester 
 Stanhope’s in Syria, Jules Jaquemont’s in Bombay, a French 
 traveller, and many, many others. It showed the feeling that he had 
 about a traveller coming home to lay his bones to rest in his own 
 land, and the respect he had for their resting-place. It makes me 
 all the more thankful that I was able to bring him home to the 
 place he chose himself, and that our friends enabled me to put up 
 such a monument to him. 
 
 He brought out, in Fraser's Magazine , several letters in February, 
 March, and April, 1863, previous to his “ Wanderings.” He ascended 
 the Elephant Mountain, and when he came home he lectured upon 
 that before the Geographical Society. 
 
 He visited the line of lagoons between Lagos and the Volta river. 
 He explored the Yellahlah rapids of the Congo river, and while 
 engaged in all this he collected 2859 proverbs in different African 
 tongues. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 At last the time came round for a second leave, and we had a 
 second joyous meeting at Liverpool—this time to part no more as 
 previously. It was on the 28th of August, soon after his landing, 
 1864, that we chose our burial-place in the Mortlake Cemetery. 
 We had been for that purpose to one of the big cemeteries—I think 
 it was Kensal Green—and we had seen with discomfort that there 
 was so much damp, and looking into an open grave we saw it was 
 full of water; so he looked round rather woeful, and instead of 
 saying it was melancholy, as most men would have done, and as / 
 thought , he espied a tomb on which the instruments of the Passion 
 were represented, amongst them the cock of St. Peter. So he said, 
 41 1 don’t think we had better be too near that cock, he will always 
 be crowing and waking us up.” We were on a visit to my aunts at 
 Mortlake, who had bought Portobello House, close to the station, 
 nearly opposite to where I live now, had been settled there for 
 some years, and where we had had many large family reunions. 
 We walked into the burial-ground where numbers of my people are 
 buried, and he said, “We will have it here; it is like a nice little 
 family hotel;” and he again confirmed the idea in 1882, when we 
 came down to visit my mother’s grave. 
 
 Whilst Richard had been on the West Coast of Africa, Speke 
 and Grant had been on their Expedition, and returned and had a 
 grand ovation. The labours of the first Expedition had rendered 
 the road easy for the second . 44 The line had been opened,” Richard 
 
 wrote, “ by me to Englishmen; they had only to tread in my steps.” 
 In the closing days of December, 1863, Speke made a speech at 
 Taunton, which for vain-gloriousness and bad taste was unequalled. 
 He referred to Richard as 44 Bigg,”asserted “that in 1857 he (Speke) 
 had hit the Nile on the head, but that now (1863) he had driven it 
 into the Mediterranean.” It is not much to be wondered at if the 
 
 240 
 
Home. 
 
 241 
 
 following epigram on one of Richard's visiting cards was left on the 
 table of the Royal Geographical Society— 
 
 “ Two loves the Row of Savile haunt, 
 
 Who both by nature big be ; 
 
 The fool is Colonel (Barren) Grant, 
 
 The rogue is General Rigby.” 
 
 The first great event was the British Association Meeting at 
 Bath, September, 1864. Laurence Oliphant conveyed to Richard 
 that Speke had said that “if Burton appeared on the platform at 
 Bath ” (which was, as it were, Speke’s native town) “ he would kick 
 him.” I remember Richard’s answer—“ Well, that settles it! By 
 God, he shall kick me; ” and so to Bath we went. There was 
 to be no speaking on Africa the first day, but the next day was 
 fixed for the “ great discussion between Burton and Speke.” The 
 first day we went on the platform close to Speke. He looked at 
 Richard, and at me, and we at him. I shall never forget his face. 
 It was full of sorrow, of yearning, and perplexity. Then he seemed 
 to turn to stone. After a while he began to fidget a great deal, and 
 exclaimed half aloud, “Oh, I cannot stand this any longer.” He 
 got up to go out. The man nearest him said, “ Shall you want your 
 chair again, Sir ? May I have it ? Shall you come back ? ” and he 
 answered, “ I hope not,” and left the Hall. The next day a large 
 crowd was assembled for this famous discussion. All the distin¬ 
 guished people were with the Council; Richard alone was excluded , 
 and stood on the platform, we two alone, he with his notes in his 
 hand. There was a delay of about twenty-five minutes, and then the 
 Council and speakers filed in and announced the terrible accident 
 out shooting that had befallen poor Speke shortly after his leaving 
 the Hall the day before. Richard sank into a chair, and I saw by the 
 workings of his face the terrible emotion he was controlling, and the 
 shock he had received. When called upon to speak, in a voice that 
 trembled, he spoke of other things and as briefly as he could. When 
 we got home he wept long and bitterly, and I was for many a day 
 trying to comfort him. 
 
 Richard at this time wrote, secretly, a little “ squib ” of one 
 hundred and twenty-one pages, called “ Stone Talk,” being some of 
 the marvellous sayings of a petral portion of Fleet Street, London, to 
 one Dr. Polyglot, Ph.D., by Frank Baker, D.O.N., 1865. He kept it 
 quite secret from me, and one day brought it out of his pocket on a 
 
 Q 
 
242 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 railway journey, as if he had bought it from a stall, and gave it to 
 me to read. I was delighted with it, kept reading him out passages 
 from it, with peals of laughter. Fortunately we were alone, and 
 I kept saying to him, “Jemmy, I wish you would not go about 
 talking as you do; I am sure this man has been associating with 
 you at the club, picked up all your ideas and written this book, 
 and won’t he just catch it! ” At last, after going on like that for 
 a considerable time, the amused expression of his face flashed an 
 idea into my brain, and I said, “ You wrote it yourself, Jemmy, and 
 nobody else;” and he said, “I did.” When I showed it to Lord 
 Houghton, he told me that he was afraid that it would do Richard 
 a great deal of harm with the “ powers that were,” and advised me 
 to buy them up, which I did. He took the nom de plume of 
 “Frank Baker” from his second name Francis and his mother’s 
 name Baker. 
 
 It has been thrown in my teeth, since his death, that he would 
 have married twice before he married me, and as he was between 
 thirty-nine and forty at the time of our marriage, it is very natural 
 that it should be so. I sometimes take comfort in reading passages 
 from “ Stone Talk ” anent former loves — I do not know who 
 they are. 
 
 This year, 1864, Richard edited and annotated Marcy’s “Prairie 
 Traveller ” for the Anthropological Review. 
 
 This year we became very intimate with Winwood Reade. We 
 went over to Ireland, where we spent a delightful two months. 
 We took an Irish car, and drove by degrees over all the most 
 interesting and prettiest parts of Ireland, at the rate of so many 
 miles a day, stopping where it was most interesting. I had an 
 Irish maid with me, whose chief delight was to see Richard and 
 me clinging on to the car as it flew round the corners, while she 
 sat as cool and calm as possible, with her hands in her muff. 
 “Ye devil,” Richard said to her, “I believe you were born on 
 a car; I will pay you out for laughing at me.” Some days after¬ 
 wards, she dropped her muff. There was a great deal of snow 
 on the ground, so Richard said to her very kindly, “ Don’t get 
 down, Kiernan; I will get your muff for you.” He stopped the 
 car, got down, pretended to be very busy with his boot, but in 
 reality he was filling her muff with snow. When he gave it back 
 to her she gave a little screech. “Ah,” he said, with glistening 
 eyes, “ you’ll laugh at me for clinging on the car like a monkey on 
 a scraper again.” 
 
 We were asked to numbers of country-houses on the way—to the 
 Bellews’, Gormanstons’, and Lord Drogheda’s; and we had the 
 
Home. 
 
 243 
 
 pleasure of making acquaintance with Lady Rachel Butler and 
 Lord James, who were very kind to us. Dublin was immensely 
 hospitable, and at that time very gay. One of our interesting 
 events was making acquaintance with Mr. Lentaigne, the great 
 convict philanthropist. His mania was to reform his convicts, and 
 make his friends take them for service, if nobody else would. He 
 was the man to whom Lord Carlisle said, “Why, Lentaigne, you 
 will wake up some morning, and find you are the only spoon in 
 the house.” He took us to see the prisons and the reformatories, 
 and he implored of me to take out with me a convict woman of 
 about thirty-four, who had been fifteen years in prison. I said, 
 “ Well, Mr. Lentaigne, what did she do ? ” “ Poor girl! the sweetest 
 creature—she murdered her baby when she was sixteen.” “ Well,” 
 I answered, “ I would do anything to oblige you, but I dare say I 
 shall often be quite alone with her, and at thirty-four she might like 
 larger game.” 
 
 Richard was veritably, though born of prosaic parents, a child 
 of romance. He had English, Irish, Scotch, and French blood in 
 his veins, and, it has often been suggested (though never proved), 
 a drop of Oriental or gypsy blood from some far-off ancestor. His 
 Scottish, North England, and Border blood came out in all posts of 
 trust and responsibility, in steadiness and coolness in the hour of 
 danger, in uprightness and integrity, and the honour of a gentleman. 
 Of Irish blood he showed nothing excepting fight, but the two 
 foreign strains were strong. From Arab or gypsy he got his fluency 
 of languages, his wild and daring spirit, his Agnosticism, his melan¬ 
 choly pathos, his mysticism, his superstition (I am superstitious 
 enough, God knows, but he was far more so), his divination, his 
 magician-like foresight into events, his insight, or reading men 
 through like a pane of glass, his restless wandering, his poetry. 
 From a very strong strain of Bourbon blood (Richard showed 
 “ race ” from the top of his head to the sole of his feet) which the 
 Burtons inherit—that is, my Burtons—he got his fencing, knowledge 
 of arms, his ready wit and repartee, his boyish gaiety of character as 
 alternately opposed to his melancholy, and, lastly, but not least, his 
 Catholicism as opposed to the mysticism of the East, which is not 
 in the least like the Agnosticism of the West. But it was not a 
 fixed thing like my Catholicism ; it ran silently threaded through 
 his life, alternately with his mysticism, like the refrain of an opera. 
 
 He was proud of his Scottish and North England blood, he 
 liked his Rob Roy descent, and also his Bourbon blood, and he 
 used to laugh heartily when, sometimes, I was half-vexed at some¬ 
 thing and used to chaff him by saying, “You dirty Frenchman!” 
 
244 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Richard was a regular gamin; his keen sense of humour, his 
 ready wit, were always present. He adored shocking dense people 
 and seeing their funny faces and stolid belief, and never cared about 
 what harm it would do him in a worldly sense. I have frequently 
 sat at the dinner-table of such people, praying him by signs not to 
 go on, but he was in a very ecstasy of glee; he said it was so funny 
 always to be believed when you were chaffing, and so curious never 
 to be believed when you were telling the truth. He had a sort of 
 schoolboy bravado about these things that in his high spirits lasted 
 him all the seventy years of his life. 
 
 But especially strong were the melancholy, tender, sad hours of 
 the man, full of sensitiveness to pathos in all he said, or did, or 
 wrote. The one paid too much for the other, if I may so express it. 
 
 Talking of the Bourbon blood and his gaminerie, during this 
 visit to Ireland we were in Dublin, where we had the pleasure of 
 knowing Sir Bernard and Lady Burke, and Richard and he were 
 talking in his study over his genealogy and this Louis XIV. descent. 
 He said, “ I want this to be made quite clear.” Sir Bernard 
 said, “ I wonder, Captain Burton, that you, who have such good 
 Northern and Scottish blood in your veins, and are connected 
 with so many of the best families, should trouble about what can 
 only be a morganatic descent at best.” I can see him now, carelessly 
 leaning against the bookcase with his hands in his pockets, with his 
 amused face on, looking at the earnest countenance of Sir Bernard 
 and saying, “Why! I would rather be the bastard of a King, than 
 the son of an honest man,” and his hearty laugh at the shocked 
 expression and “ Oh / Captain Burton,” which he had been 
 waiting for. 
 
 One of the amusing things, and interesting as well, was going 
 to Gerald’s Cross by rail, and when we arrived, there was only one 
 car. There was another gentleman and ourselves, and as we had 
 telegraphed for the car, it was ours. Still we did not like to leave 
 him without anything. So we asked him if we could give him a lift. 
 He asked us where we were going, and we told him. So he said, 
 “Well, you pass my house, so I shall be grateful.” As we drove 
 along for about half an hour between Gerald’s Cross and Cashel, 
 he told us that he was Bianconi, the first inventor of outside Irish 
 cars, that his house was called Longfield, and the whole of his most 
 interesting history. His house was a nice little residence in a 
 garden with a lawn and trees in front, and he insisted upon taking 
 us into it, and giving us afternoon tea, after which we drove on. 
 
 We visited Tuam, which we both thought a dreadful place ; but 
 the name of Burton was big there, on account of the Bishop 
 
Home. 
 
 245 
 
 and the Dean, Richard’s grandfather and uncle, and hundreds of 
 the poor crowded round us for bakshish (presents). Richard had 
 still some old aunts there, who came to dine with us, his grand¬ 
 father’s daughters. They had a large tract of land here, but 
 Richard’s father had made it over to the aunts, and I was very glad 
 of it, as I should have been very sorry to have had to stop there. 
 We were delighted with the fishing population of Lough Corrib, a 
 cross between Spanish and Irish, who have nothing in common with 
 the town; they are called Claddhah, pronounced Clather. We 
 stopped long at the Armagh Cathedral, looking for Drelincourt 
 tombs, of which there are plenty belonging to Richard’s people. 
 From Drogheda we went to see the Halls of Tara, the site of the 
 Palace of the Kings, the Stone of Destiny, and then to the site of 
 the Battle of the Boyne, afterwards to Maynooth College, where 
 the boys cheered Richard. Then we proceeded to Blarney and 
 kissed the stone; near Cork to see Captain and Mrs. Lane Fox, 
 now General and Mrs. Pitt-Rivers; and also to Killarney, and 
 thought it very pretty but very small. We enjoyed much hos¬ 
 pitality at the Castle during our stay. During all our car-driving 
 our little horse used to have a middle-of-the-day feed, with a pint 
 of whisky and water, and she came in at the end of the time in 
 better condition, and looking in every way better, and twice as frisky 
 as when she started. 
 
 On the 17th of May the Polytechnic in London opened with an 
 account of Richard’s travels in Mecca, and a dissolving view of 
 Richard’s picture in uniform. It was arranged by Mr. Pepper 
 of “ Pepper’s Ghost,” and a quantity of little green pamphlets with 
 the lecture were sold at the door. On the 22nd of May we dined 
 with George Augustus Sala, previous to his going to Algiers, and 
 also with poor Blakeley of the Guns, in his and Mrs. Blakeley’s 
 pretty little home; he died so sadly afterwards. 
 
 Richard was now transferred to Santos, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 
 
 \ 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SANTOS, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL—RICHARD’S SECOND CONSULATE. 
 
 “ My native land’s the land of Palms, 
 
 The Sabia sings there. 
 
 In this drear land no song-birds* notes 
 With our sweet birds compare. 
 
 “More radiant stars bestrew our skies, 
 
 More flowers bedeck our fields, 
 
 A fuller life teems in our woods, 
 
 More love our Plome-life yields. 
 
 “ My wakeful thoughts—alone—at night 
 Full of sweet memories are, 
 
 Of mine own land,—the land of Palms, 
 
 Where sings the Sabia. 
 
 “ My land has sweetest fruits and flowers, 
 
 Such sweets I find not here. 
 
 Alone—at night—in wakeful hours 
 More pleasures find I there, 
 
 Mine own dear land,—the land of Palms, 
 
 Where sings the Sabia. 
 
 “ God, in His mercy, grant I may 
 To that dear land return, 
 
 Ere the sweet flowers and fruits decay, 
 
 Which here, alas ! I mourn ; 
 
 That once again, before I die, 
 
 I may the Palm-Trees see, 
 
 And hear again the Sabia 
 Sing its sweet melody.’* 
 
 Daniel Fox {translated from the Brazilian 
 of the poet Antonio Gonsalves Dias). 
 
 During this stay at home we had represented to Lord Russell how 
 miserable our lives were, being always separated by the climate of 
 Fernando Po, and he very kindly transferred us to Santos, in the 
 Brazils, where I could go. So Richard agreed that I should go out 
 with him to Portugal for a trip; that he should go on to Rio de 
 Janeiro; that I should return to London to wind up our affairs, and 
 
 246 
 
Richard’s Seco?id Consulate. 
 
 247 
 
 then join him at Santos ; and we set sail in May. I now began to 
 learn Portuguese. We had very bad weather, and on the fourth day 
 we arrived at Lisbon, and went to the Braganza Hotel. 
 
 Here was a totally new experience for me. Our bedroom was a 
 large white-washed place ; there were three holes in the wall, one at 
 the bedside bristling with horns, and these were cockroaches some 
 three inches long. The drawing-room was gorgeous with yellow 
 satin, and the magnificent yellow curtains were sprinkled with these 
 crawling things \ the consequence was that I used to stand on a 
 chair and scream. This annoyed Richard very much. “A nice 
 sort of traveller and companion you are going to make,” he said. 
 “ I suppose you think you look very pretty and interesting, standing 
 on that chair and howling at those innocent creatures.” This hurt 
 me so much that, without descending from the chair, I stopped 
 screaming and made a meditation, like St. Simon Stylites on his 
 pillar, and it was, “ that if I was going to live in a country always 
 in contact with these and worse things, though I had a perfect 
 horror of anything black and crawling, it would never do to go on 
 like that.” So I got down, fetched a basin of water and a slipper, 
 and in two hours, by the watch, I had knocked ninety-seven of them 
 into it. It cured me. From that day I had no more fear of vermin 
 and reptiles, which is just as well in a country where nature is over- 
 luxuriant. A little while after we changed our rooms, we were 
 succeeded by the late Lord and Lady Lytton, and, to my infinite 
 delight, I heard the same screams coming from the same rooms a 
 little while after. “ There! ” I said in triumph, “ you see, I am 
 not the only woman who does not like cockroaches.” 
 
 Here he insisted on taking me to a bull-fight, because he said 
 I ought to see everything once. But there is a great difference 
 between a Spanish and a Portuguese bull-fight. In Portugal the 
 bull’s horns are knobbed ; he does not gore horses nor dogs— 
 he tosses men softly, and if I do not mind that, it is because the 
 men go in for it willingly, are paid for it, and are bred to 
 it as a profession from father to son for endless generations. The 
 only torment the bull has to endure is the darts thrown into the 
 fat part of his neck. If he fights well, they are taken out after¬ 
 wards and his wounds dressed with oil, and he is turned out loose 
 to fight another day. If he won’t fight, he is killed for beef; so you 
 get all the science and the play without the disgusting cruelty. At 
 first I crouched down with my hands over my face, but I gradually 
 peeped through first one finger and then another, until I saw the 
 whole of it; but it awed me so much that I was almost afraid to 
 come out of our box, for fear we should meet a bull on the stairs. 
 
248 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 We then went to Cintra, and to Mafra. Richard found an old 
 mosque in Cintra, and we saw Mr. Cooke’s beautiful house.* For 
 people who have not been to Lisbon, I may say that Belem Church 
 is, I think, quite the most beautiful thing in the world. It is one of 
 the noted dreams in marble. From Lisbon we went on to Corregado, 
 to SerQal and Caldas, to see Alcobago, where there is a most beautiful 
 monastery. In the days of rebellion and persecution, the days of 
 Don Miguel, somewhere in the early thirties, the monks had to clear 
 out, and my father took one of them, whose name was Antonio 
 Barboza de Lima, to be our tutor and chaplain, when we were 
 children (and he is now buried at Mortlake); so Richard and I took 
 an extra interest in the details. We then went to Batalha, where 
 there is another beautiful monastery, to Pombal, to Leiria, and to 
 Coimbra. This seat of learning is one of the prettiest, dirtiest, 
 and slowest places imaginable, and we soon made our way to 
 Oporto, and went to Braga to see the Whit-Sunday fete , from thence 
 to Malozinhos. This northern part of Portugal is ever so much more 
 beautiful than Lisbon. The more you get into Douro, and the 
 nearer you are to Spain, the larger and handsomer become the 
 people. 
 
 However, our time was short, and, after a delightful two months’ 
 Portuguese exploration, we had to get back to Lisbon, where 
 we saw another bull-fight, and Richard embarked for Brazil. I 
 promised him to go back by the very next steamer that sailed. 
 As I used to keep my word very literally , a few hours after his 
 departure, a very tiny steamer came in, much worse than the West 
 African boats ; but I thought myself obliged to go, and we started 
 at 9.20 in the evening, in spite of north-easterly gales, and had a 
 bad time of it in the Bay of Biscay, she being only 428 tons. The 
 route was from London to Lisbon, Gibraltar, Mazagan, Mogador, 
 Canary Islands, coast of Spain, Morocco, and Portugal. On board, 
 besides myself, having made the same mistake, was Dona Maria Rita 
 Tenorio y Moscoso, who afterwards married the Portuguese Minister 
 in London, Count Lavradio. We were in a tremendous fog oft 
 Beachy Head, went aground somewhere near Erith in the fog, and 
 were very glad to land on the eighth day, having roughed it pro¬ 
 digiously. I note nothing important except some very interesting 
 experiments at Mr. William Crookes’s, both chemically and spiritual¬ 
 istically. 
 
 By end of August, ue. in a month, my work was accomplished, and 
 I may as well now say, that whenever we were going to leave England 
 
 * One of the lions of Cintra. 
 
Richard's Second Constilate. 249 
 
 for any length of time, he used mostly to like to start at once in 
 light marching order, go forward and prospect the place, and leave 
 me behind to settle up our affairs, pay and pack, bringing up the 
 heavy baggage in the rear. It saved time, as double work got done 
 in the space; so, having completed all, I embarked from Southampton 
 in one of the Royal mails. Heavy squalls and thunder and lightning 
 began next day, and at Lisbon the thermometer was 8o° in the 
 cabin. We passed Santa Cruz, off Teneriffe, having a good view 
 of the Peak. We got to St. Vincent in ten days, quite the most 
 wretched hole in the world—only barren rocks, and the heat was like 
 a dead wall. We had very charming people on board, mostly all 
 foreigners, except Mr. and Mrs. Wodehouse, and Mr. Conyngham. 
 Neptune came on board on the night of the 24th, we crossed the 
 Line on the 25th, and the ceremonies of “crossing the Line” were 
 gone through, the tubbing and shaving, the greasy pole and running 
 in sacks, and a hair was drawn across the field-glasses, through 
 which you were requested to look at the “Line.” The perhaps 
 most striking thing to a new-comer going opt, is losing the Great 
 Bear and the Northern Star, and all that one is accustomed to, and 
 exchanging them for the Southern Cross and others. 
 
 We arrived at Pernambuco on the 27 th, and there I found all the 
 letters that I had written to my husband since we parted, accumu¬ 
 lated in the post-office, consequently I did not know what he would 
 think had become of me. Here we had a very rough sea and boiling 
 surf. I passed the evening miserably, thinking about the letters; 
 though everything was looking very beautiful, and the band was 
 playing tunes and everybody waltzing, I sat by the wheel and had a 
 good “ boo-hoo” in the moonlight. On the 30th we reached Bahia, 
 and went ashore and lunched with Mrs. Baines, and visited Mr. 
 Charles Williams. The women wanted to sell me small black babies 
 in the market for two shillings. We sailed the same day, and had 
 heavy weather. I rose at five, just before we went into the harbour 
 at Rio. It is about the most glorious sight that a human being can 
 behold, at sunrise and at sunset, the mountains being of most fantastic 
 shapes, and the colours that of an opal. Richard said it beats all 
 the scenery he had ever seen in his life—even the Bosphorus. He 
 came on board at half-past eight in the morning, and we bad a joyful 
 meeting, and I handed him all the letters which, by some strange 
 mischance, had accumulated at Pernambuco during our month’s 
 separation. 
 
 We stayed at the Estrangeiros Hotel, where there was quiet, 
 fresh ’air, beautiful scenery, and several disadvantages, including 
 cockroaches and mosquitoes. We enjoyed a great deal of hospitality, 
 
250 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 both Naval and Diplomatic, and had several excursions and picnics. 
 All nations have a “ Flagship ” and other ships in the harbour ; there 
 is a great deal of gaiety and esprit de corps amongst the Diplomatic 
 and Consular service. Amongst others here was Mr. Gerald Perry, 
 our Minister, Sir Edward and Lady Thornton, Chevalier Bunsen, 
 the son of the great Bunsen, with whom we used to have learned 
 discussions very often in the evening on “ Geist ” and other scientific 
 subjects, and German metaphysics generally. Mrs. Elliot, the wife 
 of Admiral Elliot, the Admiral of the Station, was a very kind friend 
 to me, on this my first debut into this kind of life. We had our first 
 dinner-party at our hotel, and after all the formal people had gone, 
 Richard and the young ones proposed a moonlight walk. We went 
 down to the Botanical Gardens, and tried to get in, but the gates 
 were locked—tall iron gates—and nothing would do but that, as we 
 could not get in, we should scramble over them. It was quite con¬ 
 trary to law, but we had a nice walk about the gardens. There was 
 either no watch-dog, or the guard being unaccustomed to such 
 daring, was not on the look-out; but there were too many snakes 
 about, and particularly the coral snake, of which nobody has any 
 idea in England, because its colours fade as soon as it is put in 
 Spirits ; so we all came back and climbed over the gate again, and 
 got back without any danger. 
 
 But we had come out of hot rooms, and it was dewy and damp, 
 so next day I had my first fever. It consisted of sickness and 
 vomiting, colic, dizziness, faintness, shivering, heat and cold, delirium, 
 thirst, disgust of food. The treatment was calomel, castor oil, hot 
 baths, blankets, emetics, ice, starvation, and thirty grains of quinine. 
 It did not last long, but my being delirious alarmed Richard very 
 much, and he mesmerized me. 
 
 In Rio one generally takes a native steamer, which is not 
 very comfortable, to go to Santos, one hundred and twenty miles 
 south of Rio. As soon as I was able to move, Captain Napier 
 took us on board H.M.S. Triton for Santos. It was very rough. 
 The captain had given up his quarters to me; the stern ports were 
 not closed, and at night a tremendous sea came in, and swept our 
 cots. It continued very squally, and we anchored at Ilha Grande ; 
 next day the men practised gunnery and small-arms, and Captain 
 Napier made me practise with a revolver. It was fifty-eight miles from 
 Rio to Ilha Grande, a pretty mountainous island, which surrounds a 
 lovely bay, with a few huts on it. We then proceeded seventy-eight 
 miles further to St. Sebastian, which is a grand copy of the Straits of 
 Messina (Scylla and Charybdis), and spoils your after-view of what 
 people who have seen nothing bigger, think so wonderful. You 
 
 f 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 
 
 251 
 
 steam through an arm of the sea, appearing like a gigantic river, 
 surrounded by mountains (whose verdure casts a green shade upon 
 the water), dotted with houses, small towns, and gardens. The chief 
 town is St. Sebastian, which is very populous. The water is calm ; 
 there is a delicious sea-breeze. When Richard went ashore they 
 saluted him with the usual number of guns, and Brazilian local 
 “swells” came off to visit us. 
 
 Santos, Brazil, his Second Consulate. 
 
 We awoke next morning, the 9th of October, 1865, off the Large. 
 About eleven we were at the mouth, whence one steams about 
 nine miles up a serpentine river, and at one o’clock anchored 
 opposite Santos. We saluted, and the Consular corps came off to 
 see us. We stayed on board that night, and we left the ship at 
 half-past seven next day, loitering about Santos. 
 
 Santos was only a mangrove swamp, and in most respects 
 exactly like the West Coast of Africa, the road slushy and deep. 
 Tree-ferns, African mangrove, brown water full of tannin, patches 
 of green light and green dark, in rare clearings here and there 
 houses and fields near town, much water, and good rice. The sand 
 runs up to the mangrove jungle; there is good fishing, and deer in 
 the forests. The heavy sea sometimes washes into the gardens, 
 spoils the flowers, and throws up whale-bones in all directions. At 
 the time of our arrival, the railway from Santos to Sao Paulo, about 
 eighty miles into the interior, was only just beginning, and a large 
 staff of Englishmen were engaged upon it. Mr. J. J. Aubertin, now, 
 since his freedom, poet, author, and traveller, was then superintendent 
 of it. Richard had been here, and inspected the place before my 
 arrival, although he had met me at Rio, and he had arranged, as 
 there were two places equally requiring the presence of a Consul (Sao 
 Paulo on the top of the Serra, and Santos on the coast), that we 
 should live at both places, riding up and down as occasion required, 
 thus keeping our health; and Mr. Glennie, the Vice-Consul—who 
 had gone to Santos as a boy, had been there over forty years, had 
 married there, was perfectly devoted to it, and the only hardship he 
 would have known would have been to live out of it—could remain 
 there. His one ambition of life was to be Consul of Santos, and 
 when we left, some years after, and his nomination was just going 
 out to him, he died—as Richard used to say, “so like Provy.” 
 
 We therefore, that same day, went in trollies to Mugis, where we 
 lunched. Richard and Captain Napier had started on foot, and 
 soon after Mr. Aubertin and thirteen others joined us. We were 
 
252 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 twenty-one people. Dr. and Mrs. Hood lived at the foot of the 
 Serra, and they gave us a big tea-dinner. Mrs. Hood, the widow, 
 with her now large grown-up family, strange to say, is now my near 
 neighbour in Mortlake. Next day, what with mules, walking, riding, 
 and occasional trollies, we got at the top of the Serra. There was a 
 huge chasm over which the rail would have to pass on a bridge, with 
 an almost bottomless drop. There were only planks across it; but, 
 as I was on in front, supposing that was what we had got to cross, 
 I walked right across it, about some two hundred yards. When I 
 got to the other side, I turned round to speak, but nobody answered 
 me, and facing round I saw the whole company standing on the 
 other side, not daring to breathe, and my husband looking ghastly; 
 so I turned round and was going to walk back again, when they 
 motioned me off by signs, and all began to file round another way 
 on terra firma. It was fortunate that I had such a good head, and 
 did not know my danger. 
 
 The train line up the Serra is a very steep incline, one in nine, 
 and is managed by a chain with a stationary engine at the top, 
 a train being hooked on at each end of the rope. On one side 
 was a mountain wall, and the other side a bottomless abyss, but the 
 whole thing was quite beautiful through virgin forest. At this time 
 it was not far advanced enough, and we rode up on mules. At the top 
 a locomotive was kept to take us into Sao Paulo, which reminded us 
 of Bergamo, in Italy, where we all dined at the little French inn. 
 The next day we took a trip to what was then the end of the line, 
 twelve miles beyond Sao Paulo, but at this time these trips were 
 part mules, part trollies, part walking ones. We came back to 
 dinner; there were speeches, and we wished the “Tritons” good¬ 
 bye. Richard went down with them to set up his Consulate, and 
 I remained to look for a house, and set up our first real home. 
 After twelve or thirteen days, I went down to Santos by the diligence, 
 by bad roads, but with a lovely panorama. The diligence takes 
 one as far as Cubatao, where a little steamer plies for a couple of 
 hours, first up a fine stream, between banks of tangled magnificence 
 in the vegetation line, then an arm of the sea, or rather lagoons. 
 The journey occupies seven carriage and two boat hours. 
 
 The worst of Santos, besides the steaming heat enclosed within 
 and at the bottom of the hills, arising from the mangrove swamps, 
 was the sand-flies and the mosquitoes. Richard was quite impervious 
 to all other vermin, but the sand-flies used to make him come out 
 all over bumps. For the rest, he used to say that he liked to have me 
 near him—it was just like having “ catch ’em alive ” for flies, as every¬ 
 thing came and bit me, and I was not fit to be seen, and spared him. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate . 
 
 253 
 
 The fact is, I had fresh English blood, and it was rather a treat 
 to them. The nicest thing was to drive out to the Barra. Captain 
 Richard Hare, R.N., then came in, and we made a large party to 
 stay there. The Barra was our fashionable bathing-place; the sea 
 rolled right in to the strip of sand between it and the mangrove 
 swamps, on the edge of which were (at that time) a few huts, with 
 windows and doors opening on to the sand. In some there were 
 no windows; they only closed by a wooden shutter. 
 
 After staying there for some time with Richard, I went up to 
 Sao Paulo again, because I was getting feverish ; it was wet and 
 windy, and it took me eleven hours and a half. On going up, 
 I engaged a very curious little fellow in our service, who deserves 
 a few lines. Chico was thirty-five years of age; he was about 
 four feet high, but perfectly well proportioned, as black as a coal, 
 brimming full of intelligence, and could put his hand to anything. 
 He had just been emancipated. He remained with us the whole 
 time we were in Brazil, and became my right-hand man—more of 
 him anon. 
 
 At last I found an old convent, No. 72, Rua do Carmo, which 
 opened on the street in its front, and ran a long way back behind on 
 an eminence, which commanded a view of almost boundless horizon 
 into the country, and was exceedingly healthy. I immediately took 
 it, cleaned it, painted and whitewashed it, and furnished it, and 
 engaged slaves, paying their masters so much, and so much to them, 
 as if they were free men. They were all Catholics, and I made a 
 little chapel for them. 
 
 The slaves in Brazil, as a rule, formed, as it were, part of the 
 family, and in ninety-five houses out of a hundred they were 
 kindly treated and happy, but the remaining five out of the 
 hundred were brutal; but, however, in all cases, the poor creatures 
 were told, or, if not told, were allowed to believe, that they had 
 no souls, and nothing to look forward to. I, on the contrary, 
 taught them, and had regular lecture and catechism for them, that 
 not only had they souls, but that, although they were condemned by 
 class and colour and custom to be slaves upon earth, just as it was 
 in the Bible, that once dead, they, and we, would stand equal before 
 God. The priest used to come to my little Oratory, where I had the 
 Bishop’s leave to have Mass and the Sacraments, and we all received 
 Communion together. They were very happy, the house went 
 upon oiled wheels, and I never had occasion to dismiss a servant 
 the whole time I was there. The differences were chiefly amongst 
 themselves. Richard having settled his Consulate at Santos, and 
 I having prepared our home in Sao Paulo, he came up and joined 
 
254 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 me, and for the first time since our marriage we were absolutely 
 settled in a home of our own. 
 
 Up the country in Brazil, people always get one or two things in 
 their first few years. You either break out all over boils, so that you 
 cannot put a pin’s point between them, and if you have a weak place, 
 they come there in clusters, and you can neither sit nor stand, kneel 
 or lie, and you are an object of misery for some months; but if you 
 have strength, and can pull through it, you bloom out with stronger 
 health than ever after that. This happened to me. I had to be 
 slung up. A friend gave me a barrel of porter, and it was alter¬ 
 nately “ faint ” and a “glass of porter,” which revived me for a few 
 minutes, and then more faint and more porter, ad infinitum. By the 
 time the barrel of porter was finished, I was convalescent, and when 
 any new ones attempted to break out, a friend gave me two things 
 to try—and I tell it for the sake of those who may follow me ; it was 
 to draw a ring of caustic round one, and a ring of laudanum round 
 the other. The caustic ones did not answer, but the ring of laudanum 
 made them disappear, and I got splendid health, which lasted at 
 least seventeen years. Now, people who do not get the boils are 
 bound to get one or more of the complicated diseases of the country, 
 and that is just what happened to Richard. We had no doctors up 
 there, that I am aware of. 
 
 On the 17th of January, 1866, we had an awful storm, worse than 
 any known for twenty-five years; there was an awful blackness, the 
 lightning was red, the wind drove in the windows, the hail was jagged 
 pieces of ice one inch in diameter, sharp and long, and made round 
 holes like a bullet, there was a network of flashes, rain from all 
 quarters—a regular cyclone. It drove through the room fronting 
 north, which was like a ship’s cabin in a gale. We saw the cathedral 
 struck, the cross knocked off, tiles blown away; the hotel room was 
 like a shower-bath, with a continuous stream of rain. Several houses 
 were struck, some of the doors split, and the streets quite flooded; 
 people were frightened, and lighted candles, and brought out the 
 Madonna. There were sharp rattlings like earthquake ; it blew a clock 
 against the walls away; the people all met as after a revolution in 
 Paris. The windows were everywhere broken, and the water looked 
 black. It was quite local, and did not touch the shipping. In 
 the town four were killed and five wounded. The next day was 
 very hot. 
 
 Santos is six thousand miles away from Europe, and we only got 
 letters once a month. 
 
 Richard’s study was the most important feature in the house. It 
 was a long room, running out on an eminence forty feet long, with a 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 
 
 good terrace at the end of it, on which we had a telescope, and 
 every convenience for astronomy and observations; and perhaps 
 the other most striking part of the house was a large room, which 
 occupied the whole centre of the house, and opened on the stairs. 
 This was dining-room, receiving-room, and everything. Directly below 
 that was a similar place, that was more like stables than room. It 
 was my refuge for the needy and homeless after dark ; they were fed 
 and housed, and turned out in early morning. 
 
 On the 27th of July he notes in his journal: “ Dream that a bad 
 tooth fell out, followed by five or six big drops of blood ; noted the day, 
 and found that my poor friend Steinhaiiser had died of heart disease 
 quite suddenly in Switzerland that day.” On the 14th of August, 1866, 
 the first through-train went from Santos to Jundiahy. There was 
 a fete in consequence, and the company had the bad taste only to 
 omit the Consul and his wife from the invitations to all the English. 
 On the 22 nd of August Richard went to stop with the priests of the 
 seminary (Capuchins), which he often did, in their chacara ,, or country- 
 house, where he studied astronomy with Fray Joao, and metaphysics, 
 physics, and algebra, with Pbre Germain. Here he was engaged in 
 writing “ Vikram and the Vampire,” and he got a concession for the 
 lead mines of Iporanga, in Sao Paulo. On the 21st of December 
 we went down to Rio for our Christmas, which we spent at Petro- 
 polis. On the 12th of November some one put a stone on the railway 
 to throw the train off, and on the 19th it was said that a part of 
 the rails was pulled up. 
 
 In Santos and Sao Paulo we remained from 1865 to 1869, and 
 I may say that his career here was equally active and useful, both 
 on the coast and in the interior. We thoroughly explored our own 
 province, Sao Paulo, which is larger than France. (I do not bore 
 you with two pages of Brazilian names of places, because very few 
 would know where they were, unless they had lived there and had 
 worked in wild places, which is not likely.) We spent a good time 
 at the gold mines and diamond diggings of Minas Geraes. He 
 canoed down the river of San Francisco, fifteen hundred miles. He 
 went to the Argentine Republic of the Pata-Parank; he went to 
 Paraguay for the purpose of reporting the state of the Paraguayan War 
 to the Foreign Office. He crossed the Pampas and the Andes to 
 Chili and Peru, amongst the dangerous Indians, whilst on sick leave 
 for an illness which brought him almost to death’s door. He visited 
 the Pacific coast to inspect the scenes of the earthquake at Arica, 
 returning by the Straits of Magellan, Buenos Ayres, and Rio de 
 Janeiro. 
 
 Letters from Richard to Fraser's Magazine appeared in three 
 
256 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 numbers, headed, “ From London to Rio de Janeiro.” He like¬ 
 wise wrote three books—“ The Highlands of Brazil,” 2 vols., which 
 I edited and brought out in 1869; “ Vikram and the Vampire,” 
 one vol. of Hindu tales brought out in 1870; “Paraguay,” 1 vol., 
 brought out in 1870. He interested himself immensely in the coffee 
 and cotton produce, Mr. Aubertin being at that time the “father 
 of cotton” in Brazil, but his chief interest lay in the mining and 
 mineral productions of the country. As I have said, he obtained 
 the concession for the lead mines of Iporanga, and Sir Edward 
 Thornton was very angry with him—took it in the sense of Consuls 
 trading, and reported him home. Fortunately, we had the large 
 mind of Lord Stanley (Lord Derby) at the head of the Foreign 
 Office, and he, knowing how caged and misplaced Richard was at 
 such a Consulate, thought he might at least be allowed that little 
 bit of amusement, and sent back a despatch that he did not think 
 that being interested in mineral production could be exactly classed 
 under the head of trading. 
 
 Amongst other things, Richard discovered something remarkable. 
 On one of our Expeditions we were stopping at a shanty close to a river, 
 and seeing something glistening, he walked up the bed of the river, 
 which was not deep, and scooped up some of the sand and put it in a 
 jar. On washing it we found that it looked very like rubies. We sent it 
 home to Mr. Crookes, F.R.S., the great chemical savant, and he wrote 
 back, “If you get any more, bigger than this, throw up the Consulate 
 and stick to the rubies.” Now, Richard told me that this was only the 
 dust washed down, and that the great stones must lie further up the 
 head of the river. The shanty belonged to an old woman with a right 
 for a good stretch up the river, and she would have joyfully sold it 
 for ^50. When I implored Richard almost on my knees to buy it> 
 he would not, saying it would be quite wrong to defraud that poor 
 woman out of her place, when she did not know that rubies were 
 there; that if she did know, she would ask him an exorbitant sum ; 
 and, what was more, that no one could live there for three days 
 without getting Brazilian fever, so that we should end by being like 
 the dog in the fable, with the bit of cheese and the shadow in the 
 water, and drop the reality for a shadow. 
 
 Life in Brazil, if in Rio, was very gay; life at Sao Paulo was 
 very like a farmhouse life, with cordiality and sociability with the 
 other farmhouses, and some of the good Brazilian society was very 
 charming. The Brazilians are to the Portuguese what the Americans 
 are to us. The Portuguese is heavy; the Brazilian is light, active, 
 nervous, spirituel. Their parties are much enlivened by music and 
 dance. They have several native dances, which are danced at the 
 
RicharcCs Second Consulate . 257 
 
 balls—one especial one, which is called the carangueijo, which is 
 very active, very amusing, and very significant. The gentlemen 
 and ladies dance it as furiously as the common people, as the 
 Hungarians do the czardas. The Music consists of the modinha , 
 which answers to our ballad, and is generally mournful ; the lundu, 
 which is mostly comic, and almost always in the minor key; and the 
 recitativo , which consists of playing a flowing melodious accompani¬ 
 ment, and in a voice pitched and attuned to that, reciting a 
 story of love or war or anything, often improvised at the moment. 
 The negroes have their balls in the Plaza, or Square, and they will 
 dance furiously for three consecutive days and nights to the same 
 tune. It is amusing to watch for about an hour out of a window. 
 The negro girls come out decolletbe in pink or blue cotton —those are 
 the swells—the others dress like natives. 
 
 What is so beautiful is Nature, the luxuriance of vegetable and 
 animal life. Everything is so large—the palms, the cacti, and all the 
 things which here are treasured as plants and bushes, are there fine 
 trees. I have seen arums of which one leaf would be six feet long and 
 five broad, behind which a big man could easily hide himself. The 
 virgin forests are unspeakably beautiful, with their wild tangle of 
 creeper and parasite. Orchids, of which (during the rage that lasted 
 in England for them) one single one would have sold for ^60, here 
 grow wild—one only had to go out with a knife and grub them up from 
 the trees or rocks ; we sent boxes home to our friends. The fir of 
 the country is the araucaria; the gum copaiba is eighty feet high. 
 Flights of gaudy-coloured parrots and all sorts of beautiful coloured 
 birds are on the trees; butterflies, some of which measure ten 
 inches from one wing-tip to the other, when spread, float about the 
 air like large sheets of paper—scarlet, peacock blue, emerald green, 
 cream, white—in fact, every colour; and coming in and out of your 
 room, are little humming-birds the size of a large bee, looking like 
 an emerald or a ruby flitting about, and if you have the sense not 
 to offer to touch them, and put a little wet sugar in a saucer, they 
 will stay there for days; but if you try to catch them, they break 
 their hearts and die. The tints of Brazil are always the tints of the 
 opal in fine weather. The heat is awful, like the damp heat of a 
 conservatory ; I flourished in it. 
 
 En revanche, Brazil has no history save three hundred years, which 
 relates its discovery and its gradual transfer from Indian natives to 
 the first Portuguese settlers. The Jesuits erected all the buildings 
 on the best sites, made roads, and cultivated ; but the Indians are not 
 exterminated—they are only driven inwards—and about ten days 
 from our home our nearest Indians were the Botacudos. You may 
 
 R 
 
258 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 see them in the Crystal Palace with their under-lip distended by a 
 bit of wood. The nearest to us were friendly ones, and they would 
 come down to Sao Paulo on rare occasions. They walk in Indian 
 file, and when they passed our house, or any other friendly house, 
 they threw their arms out towards the house—as if the whole file 
 were pulled by a string—till they had gone by it; and that is their 
 mode of friendly salute. When the railway was opened, they came 
 down out of curiosity to see it. They looked upon the engine as 
 a sort of malignant beetle, but at last they got less frightened, and 
 all clambered upon it; but when it was time to start, and the 
 driver gave the preliminary whistle, they sprang off like mad, and 
 ran for their lives, nor could they be persuaded to mount again. 
 
 Another drawback was the reptiles and vermin. There is a large 
 mosquito that fastens its prongs into your hand. I have seen a man 
 let it suck, and then cut half its tail off, and it has gone on sucking 
 and the blood running through—the mosquito being not in the least 
 aware of its loss. Then there is a little grey, almost invisible, mos¬ 
 quito that makes no noise. In Trieste they call them papataci (papa- 
 hold-your-tongue). There is the jigger, that gets into your flesh, 
 generally under your toe-nail or under the sole of your foot, and the 
 first time you are aware that there is anything the matter is by your 
 limping, and you then discover that there is a something about the 
 size of a pea in your foot. You send for a negress, who picks at 
 your foot for a few minutes with a common pin—they won’t use a 
 needle or any other instrument, because if they did the bag would 
 break, and the eggs would get into your blood—and presently, with 
 a little hurting, she triumphantly holds it up at the end of the pin, 
 puts on a soothing ointment, and you are all right at once. A man 
 thought he should like to take a jigger home to show an English 
 doctor, but it was six weeks from home, and his foot was cut off 
 before he got there. 
 
 Another nuisance is the carapato. It is everywhere, but chiefly 
 inhabits the coffee plantations. There are three sorts, which only 
 vary in size and colour. It is a cross between a tick and a small 
 crab; the biggest would be the size of a little finger-nail. If you 
 ride through a coffee plantation you come out covered with them. 
 I have more than once taken off my riding habit and found my 
 jacket nailed to the skin from the outside; to pull them is to tear 
 your flesh and produce a festering wound. You have to get into a 
 hot bath, in which you put one or two bottles of cacha$a, the spirit 
 of the country, and that clears off most of them ; and if any obstinate 
 ones remain, you have to light a cigarette, and apply the hot end 
 to their tails till they wriggle their own head and shoulders out from 
 
Richard's Second Consulate . 
 
 259 
 
 under your skin. Cockroaches you don’t count, but you must 
 always look in your sleeves, and dress, and boots, for large horned 
 beetles or spiders or other horrors. 
 
 Poor W. H. Bates (the naturalist of the Royal Geographical 
 Society), who was a great friend of ours, was laughed at because he 
 spoke of spiders as big as a toy-terrier ; but it is perfectly true—there 
 are such spiders, though they are not seen in towns, only out in the 
 forest, and they are the size of a good-sized crab. The body is 
 hairy, and when they are angry they kick up and throw their hairs 
 on you, which are poisonous. I was going to hit one, and a native 
 drew me back and made me run away, for, he said, “ it can spring at 
 you, and it is instantaneous death.” Richard and I did not go so 
 far as to believe this, unless your blood is in a very bad state, but 
 we did believe in its making people ill for several days. A priest 
 was once going to say Mass, and he took his vestment down from 
 the wall where it was hung up, and put it on, when he suddenly felt 
 something hard in the centre of his back. He called to the servers 
 and asked them to remove his vestment gently, without touching his 
 back, telling them there was something inside. They did so, and it 
 was one of these big spiders; when it was removed he fainted. 
 
 The people eat a large black ant, an inch and a half long. They 
 bite off the fat body, which has to them a pleasant acid, and throw 
 the head and legs away. Another use they make of them is to dress 
 them up like dolls and sell them. The copun , or white ants, build 
 nests like milestones. The people here believe in a sort of house- 
 that-Jack-built as regards animal feeding. They believe that toads 
 eat ants, that snakes eat toads, that owls eat snakes, also the geese, 
 and that is why they are cheap. 
 
 Snakes are eyerywhere—in your garden, in your basement, in your 
 rafters ; and there is every description of them, from the boa- 
 constrictor in the wilder parts, to the smallest. It is a common 
 thing to hear the rattlesnake in the grass, and to scamper quickly. 
 Those who kill them cut out the rattle and give it you for good 
 luck. I have one now. At night, when you walk out you go with 
 a lantern at the end of a stick, for the snake called jararaquassu lies 
 curled up at night on the road, looking exactly like a heap of dust, 
 and you would certainly put your foot on it; it bites your ankle, and 
 they say that you live about ten minutes. 
 
 These things, which sound so wonderful in England, become so 
 common to us who live and travel in Brazil, out of towns and off 
 beaten tracks, that we get quite accustomed to them, as everyday 
 parts of our lives, as you do to showers in April and dying flies in 
 ^September; so that I should not know now that they had ever hap- 
 
260 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 pened if I had not written them down at the time. No one who 
 means to write, should ever trust to memory, because scene after 
 scene fades like a dissolving view and is never caught again, whilst 
 others rise to replace them. 
 
 The storms were another thing to be somewhat dreaded. For 
 our three summer months, which are December, January, and 
 February (whilst the Thames is frozen over in London), we, maybe, 
 have 115 0 in the shade, and you see a semicircle of clouds beating up. 
 As our house was on a kind of promontory running out, not to sea, 
 but to grassy plain, we used to have to make “ all taut ” as if we 
 were on board a ship, because when it did come it was like a cyclone, 
 lasting two or three hours, and then clearing off, leaving everything 
 bright and beautiful, the earth and air barely refreshed; but while 
 it lasted the thunder and lightning were close to you. I have 
 frequently thought that if there was one more clap my head would 
 split—it deafened one. The windows were generally broken, there 
 were balls of fire flying through the air—blue, red, yellow ; and on 
 one occasion, on a pitch-black night, perceiving a light from an 
 opposite angle in my husband's room, I thought the house was on 
 fire. The door was locked for the night. I ran down the corridor, 
 unlocked the door, and, going in, found that the lightning had 
 broken a window and had set on fire one of my husband’s large 
 rolling atlases on canvas, which hung from the walls. I ran back 
 and called him, and it made him very uncomfortable. He thought 
 that one of these lightning balls of fire must have done it, but there 
 was no aerolite or anything to show. There was no fireplace in the 
 room, not even a box of matches. 
 
 At nine p.m. on the 20th of October, a meteor fell with a loud 
 sound, and lit up the City of Sao Paulo. Martinico Prado and some 
 others were standing near it, and he fell insensible. It fell on the 
 hill near Sao Bemte; blue flame was seen in our house at the same 
 moment. It was intensely cold, but bright, beautiful weather. 
 
 We bought horses—one that had something of the mustang in it, 
 called Hawa, which always carried me, and Penha, a smaller one 
 from Campos for Richard. When we drove, it was in an American 
 buckboard, seat for two, with huge wheels, and a little place to hold 
 a box, with a pair of wild mules that used to pull one’s arm off. 
 When Richard did not ride with me, Chico used to take the second 
 horse. 
 
 Chico and I never had but one quarrel, and I will give it as 
 an illustration. When I first arrived, Richard used always to laugh 
 at me, because I was so miserable at the way the cruel people treat 
 the blacks—just in the same way that I, and so many others, feel 
 
Richard's Second Cons7tlate. 
 
 261 
 
 about the treatment of animals—and he kept saying, “ Oh, wait a bit, 
 till you have lived with negroes a little; you philanthropic people 
 always have to give in.” Well, about six weeks after I got Chico, 1 
 heard a tremendous noise, and shrieks of agony proceeding from the 
 kitchen, and rushing in the direction I found Chico roasting my 
 favourite cat at the fire. I made one spring at his wool, and brought 
 him to the ground. Richard, who had also rushed out at the noise, 
 saw me, and clapped his hands, saying, “ Brava ! brava ! I knew it 
 would happen, but I did not think it would be quite so soon.” I 
 could only blubber out, “Oh, Jemmy, the little beast has roasted 
 my cat.” He then punished him himself, and Chico was a good boy 
 evermore. In begging for forgiveness, he told us that their fathers 
 and mothers always instructed them, that when Christ was thirsty, 
 if He asked a little dog for water, the dog would go and fetch it for 
 Him, but if He asked a cat for water, that it gave Him something in 
 a cup, which I cannot mention in polite society; and that all the 
 little negroes were taught to be cruel to cats, and that he had done 
 atrocious things to cats, but he would never do so any more. 
 
 A very amusing thing was that this little monkey used to imitate 
 his master in everything. If Richard bought a suit of clothes, he used 
 immediately to take it to the tailor and get it exactly copied in 
 small, and his evening suit especially. To go to a ball he was the 
 exact copy of his master—white shirt, white tie, little dress suit, little 
 gibus* and all. We used to make him come and show himself to us 
 
 c> ' 
 
 when he was dressed, to amuse us. Then, unlike his master, he 
 started a toilette-table with mirror, perfumes, and scents, and his 
 pillow was all edged with deep lace. Each of the best families had 
 one of these intelligent negroes; they used to give supper-parties, 
 and then stand up and make speeches, just like us. Mr. Aubertin’s 
 used to talk about the railway shares, and the value of cotton, and 
 the coffee produce ; another, belonging to a reverend gentleman, 
 used to stand up and speak of the “ benighted state of the souls of 
 the black man and the brother; ” but our Chico used to declaim 
 on “ the Negro’s place in Nature,” as he had heard Richard do in 
 his lectures, and talk of the progress that they had made from the 
 original ape (Darwinism), and how they might eventually hope to rise 
 into a white man. 
 
 Portuguese studies got on very well, and the more I knew of it, the 
 more I enjoyed myself; but it made me quite forget the Spanish I 
 had learnt during my stay at Teneriffe, and whilst Richard occupied 
 Fernando Po. Richard had always known Portuguese from his 
 Goanese Padre in India. You cannot speak Spanish, Portuguese, 
 and Italian at the same time; they are so alike, and yet so different 
 
262 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Portuguese is the most Latin, and the most difficult of the lot, and 
 has much more literature to reward you with than Spanish ; but 
 Spanish is the grandest and the most beautiful, albeit with less 
 literature. Still it once happened to me to be in company with a 
 priest, an Italian, and a Spaniard, and we agreed to talk for an 
 hour in each of the four languages. The priest took Latin, the 
 Italian and the Spaniard each their own, and I Portuguese, and we 
 could understand and answer each other, but we could not speak 
 the other three languages. Italians come out to Brazil and can only 
 speak Italian, not a word of Portuguese; they then come to a crisis, 
 when they can speak neither; they then convalesce in Portuguese, 
 speak it perfectly and remain with it—they forget their Italian. I 
 speak of colonists. 
 
 We had two very charming picnic-places. One was the Tropic of 
 Capricorn, just five miles from Sao Paulo ; your insurances suffer all 
 the difference, whether you are on this side or that. A boy who was 
 about to pass his examination for the army, who supported a poor 
 widow mother, and consequently was extremely anxious about 
 passing, and with no interest, was destined to be plucked ; so the 
 arrogant and ignorant examiner asked the timid, humble boy, “ Plow 
 far is it from the city of Sao Paulo to the tropical line of Capricorn.” 
 The boy, radiant answered, “ Between four and five miles, sir.” “ Go 
 down, sir, you are plucked ; it is twenty miles.” It was the last 
 question. The boy grew red and white, and turned despairingly to 
 go; suddenly he remembered his mother, turned round, and said 
 nervously, “ Please, sir, of course you ought to know better than me, 
 but I lived there five years, sir, and I had to walk it twice a week, 
 to go home from school to mother’s house on the Line, from Saturday 
 to Monday.” Chorus of laughter at the examiner, and the poor boy 
 passed. (I have already quoted this in my “A.E.I.”) Another charm¬ 
 ing place to picnic, in the mountains, was Nossa Senhora do O. 
 
 We occasionally had big dinners, when all the English of Santos 
 and Sao Paulo assembled to do honour to some railway swell going 
 home. We had for a time some fortnightly balls, at a good-sized 
 hall at the corner of the Plaza, called the Concordia, and we had 
 one curious case of sporadic yellow fever from there. Mrs. Ralston, 
 the young wife of a very nice man (indeed a charming couple), came 
 out of the ball-room with me at five o’clock one morning. I had 
 only to run across fifty yards to my house ; they had about twenty 
 minutes to walk home, and she was well wrapped up with shawls. 
 She suddenly drooped her head on her husband’s shoulder, saying 
 she felt very queer, and he had to support her home. Almost 
 directly he had laid her on her own bed, she turned round and 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 263 
 
 said, “ Oh, is this death ? ” and died. Next morning, my maid ran 
 in and without any preface said, “ Mrs. Ralston’s dead.” “Oh, 
 nonsense,” I said; “I saw her seven hours ago;” and, thinking 
 perhaps it was possible she might be ill, and require some woman- 
 neighbour, I hastily threw on my things, and ran down to her house. 
 The street door opened on to the principal sitting-room, and was 
 unlocked, and to my horror the house was deserted and still, and 
 something was lying covered up on the sofa. I drew back the sheet, 
 and there was my young friend, dead. I knelt down and said a few 
 prayers, and then, feeling rather faint, I stooped to kiss her forehead 
 before covering her up again. The husband and child and servants 
 had all been removed to another house; as I stooped to kiss her a 
 dreadful effluvia knocked me back again, and I perceived that she 
 was covered with large black spots. I fled and ran home again, and 
 told Richard. He looked very grave, and rang the bell, and ordered 
 the horses to the door. He fetched me a large glass of brandy, and 
 made me drink it, with some bread. He said, “ It does not matter ; 
 I have got to have a long ride to-day on business, and you have got 
 to go with me.” We rode about ten miles at a great pace, till I was 
 in a good perspiration. When I got back he gave me a teaspoonful 
 of Warburg drops. He kept me employed all day, and at night he 
 took me to the little theatre, and then he told me that he had done 
 that to save my life, without which I probably should have caught it, 
 if I had not perspired, and partly from sympathy. 
 
 One thing I always regret in writing, is that I could recite so 
 many amusing and interesting things that would immensely please 
 a very large portion of English people; but England is so very queer, 
 and I am become convinced it is not the same England that I used 
 to know, that I do not like to venture them. They are not in the 
 least risky, only amusing and adventurous, but being very honest 
 and straightforward, would be sure to tread upon somebody’s corns; 
 blame or sneers would be sure to crop up from some quarter or 
 another, and make me regret it. Richard was very fond of quoting 
 the following lines to me over our writing — 
 
 “ They eat and drink and scheme and plod ; 
 
 They go to church on Sunday, 
 
 And many are afraid of God, 
 
 And more of Mrs. Grundy.” 
 
 We had one very curious character at Sao Paulo. It was the 
 Marchesa de Santos. She was a beauty and a favourite in the time 
 of the present Emperor’s father, and led a very brilliant and stormy 
 life. She got finally banished by his Empress (they say) to Santos, 
 with a pension for life, and she lived in a small house a few doors 
 
264 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 from me. I used to see a great deal of her. She was quite grande 
 dame, most sympathetic, most entertaining, full of stories of Rio 
 and the Court, and the Imperial people, and the doings of that time. 
 She had been obliged to adopt up-country habits, and the last time 
 I saw her, she received me en intime in her own kitchen, where she 
 sat on the floor, smoking, not a cigarette, but a pipe. She had beauti¬ 
 ful black eyes, full of sympathy, and intelligence, and knowledge. 
 She was a great bit of interest to me in that out-of-the-way place. 
 
 The Seminary was the most palatial building in that part, and 
 was just beyond the town. It was inhabited by Capuchins, French 
 and Italians from Savoy and Piedmont. One of the monks was a 
 tall, magnificent, and very powerful man, an ex-cavalry officer, Count 
 Somebody, whose name I forget, then Fray G-. 
 
 Before he arrived, there was a bully in the town, rather of a free- 
 thinking class, so he used to go and swagger up and down before 
 the Seminary and call out, “Come out, you miserable petticoated 
 monks! come out and have a free fight! For God or the devil! ” 
 
 When Fray G-arrived, he heard of this, and it so happened he had 
 
 had an English friend, when he was with his regiment, who had taught 
 him the use of his fists. He found that his brother monks were 
 dreadfully distressed at this unseemly challenge, so he said, “The next 
 time he comes, don’t open the gate, but let the porter call me.” So 
 the next time the bully appeared, it was so arranged that the gate was 
 
 opened by Fray G-(the usual crowd had collected in the road to 
 
 see the fun), who looked at him laughingly and said, “ Surely, brother, 
 we wiil fight you for God or the devil, if you please. Let us get well 
 into the open, and the public will see fair play.” So saying, the friar 
 tucked up his sleeves and gown, and told his adversary to “ come 
 on,” which he did, and he was immediately knocked into a cocked 
 hat. “ Come, get up,” said the friar. “No lying there and whimper¬ 
 ing ; the devil won’t win that way.” The man stood three rounds, at 
 the end of which he whimpered and holloaed for mercy, and amidst 
 the jeers and bravos of a large crowd, the “village cock” retired, a 
 mass of jelly and pulp, to his own dunghill, and was never seen more 
 within half a mile of the Seminary. Richard rejoiced in it, and used 
 to say, “ What is that bull-priest doing in that gallret” Richard used 
 to stay a great deal with them, for they were the best-educated men 
 in the province, and knew everything. He said he could always 
 learn something from them. 
 
 During the time of the Paraguayan War provisions were very 
 scarce. If muleteers came down to the town, they and their mules 
 were seized for the war. They tried sending their women down with 
 the mules, but then the mules and provisions were seized; the 
 
Richard's Second Consulate . 265 
 
 consequence was that the towns were more or less in a state of famine. 
 Chico and I used to sally forth, with paniers and ropes to our saddles, 
 and forage about, and I found that by riding about ten miles out, I 
 came to large flocks of geese and other poultry, and I also ascertained 
 that as the geese were supposed to feed upon snakes, nobody ate 
 them; they were chiefly kept for ornament, and so were cheap. 
 So the first day I came back with both our horses laden with geese, 
 and as I passed through the town the squawking was immense, 
 and most of the Grundy, respectable English tried to avoid me, 
 which made me take an especial pleasure in riding up to them and 
 inquiring after their wives and families, and entering into a con¬ 
 versation, which I, perhaps, should not have otherwise done. When 
 I got up to our house, Richard, hearing the noise, came out on to 
 the balcony, and seeing what was the matter, he threw back his 
 head and laughed, and shook his fist, and he said, “Oh, you 
 delightful blackguard, how like you ! ” I turned the geese into our 
 poultry-yard and fed them well, and from that, I issued forth to all 
 the country round about, twice a week, and brought in various 
 stocks of other provisions. 
 
 Mr. Aubertin, who was the Head of the railway, and whose 
 chacara was about a quarter of an hour from us, had opportunities 
 of getting up drinks and having a very tidy cellar, so I used to 
 send down a neighbourly note—“ Dear Mr. Aubertin, bring up 
 the drink—I have got the food; dinner seven o’clock.” Thus we 
 contrived between us, to feed very well during the whole of the war, 
 while provisions were scarce. Once we managed to give a ball; it was 
 very amusing, and it was kept up till sunrise. We had a delightful 
 American there, who was very witty, and used to keep us all alive, 
 though in after years, for some unknown reason, he blew his brains 
 out. I still recall some of his bon mots . I once asked him whether 
 he did not think that a gentleman of our acquaintance was very con¬ 
 ceited this morning. “ Conceited, ma’am ? ” he said. “Why, God 
 Almighty’s waistcoat would not fit him.” On another occasion, there 
 was a rather pronounced flirtation going on, and I asked him if he 
 did not think it would be a case. “ A case, ma’am ? Why, she nestles 
 up to him like a chicken to a hot brick.” He was constantly saying 
 these things that one never forgot. 
 
 I think I may say in our own favour, that in this, as well as in all 
 our subsequent Consulates, we never allowed any scandal to be 
 told to us, or uncharitable talk, and we always forbid discussions on 
 religion and politics, which served us in good stead in all our career. 
 Indeed, in this particular place, there was a little bit of scandal, and 
 we had seventeen calls on one Monday morning, but every one 
 
266 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 went away without daring to deliver themselves of their intended 
 tale. “ What is the meaning of this ? ” said Richard to me. I said, 
 “ It means that there is some scandal afloat, and nobody dares tell 
 it to us.” But a few days afterwards we saw it in the papers. One 
 day a gentleman called upon us, and a few minutes later a lady 
 came, of whom he was rather fond. After a while the lady got up 
 and went down the street, and about five minutes after the jealous 
 husband arrived on the scene, and saw the gentleman sitting there 
 —his supposed rival. Without saying “ How do you do ?” he turned 
 on me and said, “ Have you seen my wife?” “ Yes,” I said; “I saw 
 her go down the street a few minutes ago.” The lover had turned 
 very pale. Richard looked hard at me over the top of his newspaper, 
 and the man had hardly got down the stairs in pursuit of his wife, 
 when my Irish maid poked her face through the door and said, 
 “ Well, after that, ye’d swear a hole through a tin p-hot.” Now, what 
 on earth would have been the use of making a row and a scandal, 
 and setting on the husband to ill-treat his wife ? He did not say, 
 “ Has my wife been here ? ”—he said, “ Have you seen her ? ” 
 Rousseau says, “ Mensonge plein d’honnetete, de fidelite, de generosite, 
 tandis que la verite n’eut etd qu’une perfidie; ” and without some 
 feeling of this kind—not a lie, but a harmless throwing one’s self into 
 the breach to save another’s reputation, not one’s own, nor from base 
 fear—the milk of human kindness would turn into cream of tartar. 
 
 I do not think that a list of the aboriginal tribes of Brazil at 
 the time of its discovery (one hundred discovered by Cabral in 1500) 
 would amuse my readers, or fit in with my subject, but they were 
 mostly destroyed or driven inwards in three hundred and sixty-seven 
 years. 
 
 There is an intervening race called the Caboclas ; they are the 
 progeny of the Indians and Portuguese settlers. They are a very hand¬ 
 some race, much addicted to superstition and fortune-telling, and the 
 only thing I can remember was learning from them to tell fortunes 
 by the cards, which I afterwards perfected amongst the Moghdribehs 
 in Syria; but it is a practice which, though it interested my husband 
 enormously, and I constantly told them for him, I have long since 
 given up as wicked. For those who tell them ill, it is foolery; for 
 those who tell them well, it is better let alone. 
 
 I am not going to give a description of Brazil, because by so doing 
 I should take away from the subject of the book, which is solely 
 Richard Burton, and if I mention incidents, or myself, it is only 
 because I or they are woven up with his life, and cannot well be 
 separated from it, each one showing how he behaved, or what he did. 
 or thought on any particular occasion. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 267 
 
 x 
 
 The 14th of February was the opening day of the railway, as far as 
 Jundiahy, and this time we were invited and had a very gay time. 
 
 Here, in Sao Paulo, Richard worked hard at Camoens, and we both 
 worked together at our translations—“ Iragema, or Honey-lips,” and 
 “ Manuel de Moraes, the Convert,” and the “ Uruguay,” all from 
 great Brazilian authors; but we found, although we printed the two 
 first, that they were not well received in England, because they were 
 translations, and I could write a page or two upon the amount of 
 literature and education we lose by boycotting that of other countries. 
 
 In spring of 1867 there was fighting in the streets for a couple of 
 nights, about the election time. 
 
 The staple food of the people of the country, which takes the place 
 of what the potato would be to the Irish, is a savoury mess of small 
 brown beans, called fejao; a very coarse flour, called farmha , 
 which looks like a dish of shaved horse-radish, is usually sprinkled 
 over the beans, and then it is called a fejoada. It is delicious, and I 
 should have been quite content to, and often did, dine on it. 
 Another favourite dish is a scone of fnilho , the full-grown Indian 
 corn, made hot and buttered. The only way to eat it, is to take it 
 up in your two hands and gnaw it up and down like a bone, which 
 is rather disagreeable, because it covers you with butter. A pepper¬ 
 pot is also a usual thing, and is kept up a perpetuite ; it comes on 
 the table in its native earthenware pot, and everybody takes a little 
 bit at the end to digest dinner, in lieu of cheese. Of course 
 Europeans have their own dishes besides. 
 
 The greatest difficulty that I found was, that I was obliged to have 
 five relays of every meal. First of all, Richard and I sat down, and 
 our guests, if we had any ; after we left the table, succeeded my Irish 
 maid, who had become Donna Maria, and an Irish brother that she 
 had imported, who was very like the “ Mulligan ” in “ Perkinses’ ball,” 
 and for whom I was fortunate enough to get a good berth on the 
 railway at ^£200 a year, through the kindness of Mr. Daniel Fox and 
 Mr. Aubertin, and he rose to in course of time, traded, but 
 
 unfortunately died after some years. After these the food was 
 removed to some other room, where the German servants dined, 
 because they would not sit down with the blacks. When they had 
 finished the emancipated slaves sat down, who would not sit down 
 with the slaves ; these being too near their own kind, they obliged 
 them to stand or to sit on the floor in the corners, where they gave 
 them the leavings. But do not let anybody imagine that the slaves 
 suffered, because when they had been about three months with me, 
 from having had a little rice at their old masters’, they would 
 sometimes clamour for ducks and chickens, not being content with 
 
268 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 the good meat and bread and everything else that they got in 
 plenty. 
 
 At Rio we met with a very funny and interesting man—a 
 certain Dr. Gunning, with a kind good wife. They lived in a pretty 
 cottage somewhere along the rail up in the forests, and we went to 
 spend a day or two with them. He was a tall gaunt Scotchman, 
 with a good deal of character, and some very curious ideas. He 
 used to do what some people did wkh horses in Trieste. He used 
 to buy up diseased and useless negroes, treat them well, feed them 
 up, cure them, and then make them work for him; so he got their 
 labour in return for his outlay and his kindness and trouble, and he 
 left in his desk their papers of manumission. Unfortunately, one 
 day in a soft moment he told them so, so the next night they shot 
 him; but as his skull was a good hard one it only gave him a wound, 
 and after that he went on some different tack with them. 
 
 He had a curious way of treating snake-bites, of which many thou¬ 
 sands die during the year. He told us this himself. He said, “ When I 
 am called to attend a negro for a snake-bite, I cauterize the wound, 
 and tie a ligature, and then I give him an awful thrashing, and," he said, 
 “that counteracts the torpor or sleep, produces perspiration, and 
 stimulates the action of the heart; and then I give him spirits or 
 milk in large quantities.” However, we all liked him very much. One 
 of the nicest things at Rio was the bathing in the sea. We used to go 
 out of a little gate at the bottom of the garden, and walk along the 
 beach till we came to some circular rocks which acted as bathing- 
 machines, where we could undress, get into the sea and bathe, and 
 come back. In my time there were no bathing-machines in Brazil, 
 only sometimes it was very rough and very deep, and one had to be 
 on the look-out. One day I put my maid to sit upon my clothes, 
 and thought I would swim out to a log of wood, lying apparently 
 about a hundred yards off, when to my horror I saw it move. 
 I swam back for my life, where I found my maid in deadly terror; 
 and, looking, we saw it was a shark, and a good big one too. 
 
 One thing that made staying at Rio so very pleasant was the 
 great kindness of the Emperor and Empress to us. The Emperor 
 delighted in scientific men, and the Empress liked good Catholics, 
 so that we were frequently sent for—Richard alone to the Emperor, 
 and I alone to the Empress, or both together. Richard gave two 
 lectures at which all the Imperial family attended. The Imperial 
 family consisted of the Emperor and Empress, the Imperial Princess 
 Isabel, heir to the throne, her husband the Count d’Eu, and the 
 Duke and Duchess de Saxe. These last, however, were less known, 
 less cordial, and less popular in Rio. I can remember on one 
 
Richard's Second Consulate . 269 
 
 occasion, when we were sent for to an audience, at which were 
 present the Emperor and Empress, the Princess Isabel and her 
 husband, her Majesty’s little dog came in and sat on the rug in 
 the centre of the circle, and sat up begging. They all burst out 
 laughing very heartily. The Emperor was a tall, handsome, fair 
 man, with blue eyes, and brimful of kindness and learning. The 
 Empress was not handsome, but she was the kindest and best of 
 Empresses—very devout, dressed very plainly, but was most imperial 
 in her manners and carriage. The Princess also had the manner 
 of her rank, and was soft and sweet The Princess Isabel used to 
 give balls every Monday fortnight during the season, to which all 
 persons entitled to go to Court were invited. One night, at one of 
 Princess Isabel’s balls, the Emperor walked up to Richard and said, 
 “ How is it, Captain Burton, that you are not dancing ?” “ I never 
 
 dance, your Majesty—that is, not often ; but the last time I did so, it 
 was with the King of Dahome, to the music of cutting off heads—in 
 pantomime, of course.” The Emperor laughed, and he said, “ The 
 best of it was, Sir, that the authorities at home were in an awful rage 
 with me, as her Majesty’s Commissioner, for dancing with him; but 
 I should like to have seen them refuse his dusky Majesty, when, at a 
 single moment of impatience or irritability, he had only got to give 
 a sign, to have fifty spears run into one, or to be instantly impaled.” 
 
 It was very pretty to see the Princess and her husband go 
 down to the door, the street door, and receive and kiss the hands 
 of the Emperor and Empress. They circulated freely amongst us, 
 and talked to us. The Empress would draw her chair over to me 
 or to any other lady that she had a fancy to talk to, and sit down 
 and chat as affably as any other great lady without ever abating one 
 little bit of her Imperial dignity. 
 
 I remember one night Richard and I were giving a large dinner 
 to nearly all the Diplomatic corps at the hotel, after the reception 
 at the palace. At the latter there was a room for the Ministers to 
 wait in, and a room for the Consuls. We were, of course, put 
 into the Consular room. Presently a messenger came and took us 
 into the Ministers’ room. This rather offended official etiquette, 
 and they said, “ Oh, you must not come here; you must go into the 
 Consuls’ room.” “But,” we said, “we have just been fetched out of 
 the Consuls’ room and put in here, so we do not know what to do.” 
 There was an immense long wait, and several times a messenger 
 came to let in somebody else, and we all stood up in our places, 
 expecting the Emperor. After a long time, when everybody was 
 getting very impatient, a messenger arrived, and said, “ This way.” 
 They all flocked to the door, and we hung back, thinking we must 
 
270 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 not have audience with the Ministers. Then the messenger said, “ No, 
 no ! not for you, gentlemen, but Captain and Mrs. Burton.” The 
 poor humble people were exalted; their Majesties had sent for us to 
 their private drawing-rooms, and gave us a long sitting-down audience. 
 As we were driving home, Richard said, “ I am afraid all the other 
 fellows will be awfully angry ; ” and the fact of the matter is, that 
 though we waited dinner for a long time, there were a great many 
 empty chairs that night, which disappointed us sorely; but they 
 were all right next morning. 
 
 Whenever we were sickly we used to go down to the Barra, near 
 Santos, which I described before as our fashionable watering-place, 
 where somebody generally lent us a hut. We used to sit in the 
 water and let it roll over us, and walk about without our shoes and 
 stockings (there was not a soul to see us). We took to making 
 collections of butterflies, reptiles, snakes, and ferns, of which 
 there are some four thousand specimens; the orchids we used to 
 send home. I can recollect on some occasions, being down there 
 alone, and being asked to dinner about a mile and a half along the 
 sands from my hut, I used to put my dress and my shoes and 
 stockings up in a parcel, and mounting barefooted, with waterproof 
 on, ride the small pony lent to me; sometimes I used to have to get 
 down and lead him through the streams that were rushing to the sea, 
 to which he had a dislike; so we used to wade through, and then I 
 would get up and ride him on to the next one, and when we reached 
 the hospitable door I was conducted into a room to put on my shoes 
 and stockings and my dinner dress. However, we were not decollete , 
 nor did we wear flowers or diamonds on that lonely coast. 
 
 Whenever we went down to Rio, it always meant a great deal ot 
 gaiety with the Diplomats and the Squadron, and receptions at the 
 palace. It was especially gay in Sir Edward and Lady Thornton’s 
 reign, and I think we all look back to that time as a happy and a 
 very pleasant and lively one. 
 
 One of the great charms of Rio, was our little club, numbering 
 about twenty-five intimates, all belonging either to the Diplomatic 
 corps or the Navy. We used to give each other some very nice 
 dinner-parties, and ours was by necessity at the hotel; we mostly 
 dined together at one house or the other every night. Then, 
 besides the frequent palace entertainments, was the Alcazar, where 
 there was a charming French troupe, of which the star was Mdlle. 
 Aimee, and we used to have all Offenbach’s music and operas. 
 
 One time we went up to Robeio and to Uba, the end of the 
 railway, and I was given a treat to go on the engine and drive it, 
 with the engine-driver by me. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 
 
 271 
 
 On the 12th of June we started on a delightful Expedition. We 
 sailed in a steam launch across the Bay of Rio, which is like a 
 beautiful broad lake studded with islands and boulder rocks and 
 bordered by mountains. Two hours brings you to a rickety wharf, 
 where a little railway, running for eleven miles through a mangrove 
 flat, lands you at the foot of the mountains. Here a carriage waits 
 for you, drawn by four mules, and you commence a zigzag ascent for 
 two hours up these most regal mountains, and arrive at a table-land 
 some distance from the summit, where the small white settlement 
 called Petropolis lies. It is a German town with Swiss valleys, 
 pretty views, rides, and drives. The Cascadinha leads down a wind¬ 
 ing path, or a steep wooded mountain, and as you reach its depths, 
 facing you from opposite, comes the body of water frothing and 
 bounding over the boulders. From the top of the Serra there 
 is a lovely panorama of Rio and its bay, seen as from an inverted 
 arch of mountains. The little settlement of Petropolis possesses a 
 theatre, a Catholic church, the Emperor’s palace, and two small 
 hotels; the Court of Ministers and the Diplomats have snuggeries 
 here, and form a pleasant society. The climate is fine and cold when 
 it does not rain, and the scattered houses are like Italian cascine. 
 
 Here we took coach, which is very much after the fashion 
 of the old diligence, and we drove to Juizdafora. These coaches 
 are drawn by perfectly wild mules; they stand straight on their hind 
 legs. While the passengers are getting in, the coachman is already 
 mounted with reins and whip, and two or three men hang on to 
 each mule. When all is ready the driver shouts “ Larga ! ” The men 
 fall back and the mules rush on at full gallop, swaying the coach 
 from side to side. After three months, when the mules are trained 
 and tamed down, they are pronounced no longer fit for their work, 
 and are sold for carriage-driving.* My pleasant recollection of 
 Juizdafora is of lying all day on the grass under the orange trees, 
 and picking about nine different species overhead, just within reach 
 of my arms. I have never tasted oranges equal, before or since. 
 We then started for Barbagena, which terminated the coach journey. 
 After this there was no means of getting along except on horseback. 
 We had to discard our boxes and leave them under the care of a 
 trustworthy person, and to make up a pack that we could carry 
 behind us on our saddles, such as a change of linen, tooth-brush, a 
 cake of soap, and a comb. We then mounted and rode twenty 
 
 * In travelling, the mules are mostly difficult to treat, and one never passes 
 their noses or their heels without care. I have seen a fine mule spring like a goat 
 on the, top of a piano case in the yard, to avoid being saddled. I never before 
 understood the French expression, Michantc comme une dne rouge. 
 
272 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 miles to Barrozo, a small village with a ranch. We rose at three 
 next morning, and rode twenty-four miles further, and so on, and so 
 on, till we reached San Joao d’El Rey, where we saw the Mines. 
 We then went on to S. Josd. Our next place was Cerandahy to 
 Lagos Dourado; here we met a party of English engineers. 
 
 On the 24th—a great feast, St. John Baptist—they were laying 
 the foundation for a new railway, and we enjoyed the fun very much. 
 We then, after breakfasting by a brook with the engineers, rode on 
 to an awful place called Camapuao. Here we found the stables better 
 than the house, and we slept by the side of the mules and horses. 
 At one of these shelters that we asked to sleep at, the accommodation 
 was fearful, but the reception was kind and cordial There was 
 not much to eat In the middle of the night I woke, and could 
 hear loud hoarse whisperings through the thin partition wall; it 
 sounded like the man and his wife disputing. At length I heard the 
 man say distinctly, “ Don’t bother me any more ; it will be quite easy 
 to kill them both, and I mean to do it.” My hair stood on an end, 
 as the saying is, and I softly got up and walked on tiptoe over to 
 Richard, touched him, and said in a whisper, “ Hush ! don’t speak ; 
 I have something to tell you.” I told him exactly what I had heard. 
 He said, “ You will make less noise than I; go softly to that table and 
 take our weapons, hand me mine, and creep into bed with yours. We 
 will sit and watch the door. If it opens, I’ll let fly at the door; and if 
 a second comes in, then you fire.” However, nothing came, though 
 we lay awake till daylight, with our pistols cocked. Next morning 
 they brought us for our breakfast a couple of nice roast chickens, 
 and he said, “ My wife and I had a regular quarrel in the night; we 
 had only these two hens, and she did not want to kill them, but 
 we had nothing else, and I was determined that you should have 
 them both.” So we said to him, “You shall not lose anything by it.” 
 Nor did they, for we paid four times the value; but we were glad 
 when he went out of the room, that we might laugh. 
 
 Next day we rode on to Sassuhy, to Congonhas do Campo, about 
 twenty-two miles. We saw the church of Congonhas and the seven 
 stations of the Cross. We left at midday, and riding through a 
 difficult country, arrived at Teixeiros. Next day was a very hard 
 day. We started at half-past three in the morning; at half-past ten 
 we breakfasted under a tree by the river. We crossed different 
 rivers about twelve times, wading our horses through. We passed 
 through virgin forests, and up and down scarped rocky mountains 
 till dark, and arrived at Corche d’Agua, a miserable place, where there 
 were no beds or food. We started again before dawn, rode about twelve 
 miles in the dark, passed two villages, and about nine a.m. arrived at 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 
 
 273 
 
 Morro Velho, our destination, where we were most kindly received 
 by Mr. and Mrs. Gordon and family (Superintendent of all the 
 Mines), and soon had bath and breakfast, and our animals quartered 
 in good stables under the care of the host’s English groom. 
 
 Here we stayed with our kind host for five and a half weeks, 
 making excursions, and seeing most interesting things concerning 
 the Mines. The Establishment consisted of the Superintendent and 
 his family, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, two sons, and two daughters, and 
 twenty-five officers (English); under them, about three thousand 
 negroes (slaves), who work the mines* On Sunday we went to their 
 church, saw their hospital and the stables, which contained some 
 sixty horses, and we saw an Indian dance. 
 
 Here there was much of interest—the muster of the slaves, and 
 pay-day on Saturday. We saw baptisms, and marriages, and burials. 
 We went to see the quicksilver washed in the amalgamation house, 
 and Mr. William Crookes’s amalgamation; but this last did not 
 succeed. 
 
 We started again after we were rested, passing through interesting 
 mining places, sleeping the night at a friendly fazenda; next day we 
 rode on to S. Jose de Morra Grande, Barro, Brumado, Santa Barabara, 
 and Cates Atlas. There we slept. Next morning we rode to Agua, 
 Queule, Fonseca, Morreia, and Affeixonada; from thence to Benito 
 Rodriguez, then Comargo, then S. Anna, and then Marianna. 
 Here we slept, went to church, visited the Bishop, the Seminary, 
 the Sisters of Charity, hospitals, orphanage, and schools, and rode 
 to Passagem, where we slept. Next day we went down the Passagem 
 mines (gold), forty-five fathoms down, and in another place thirty-two 
 fathoms, and saw the stamps ; and then we went and did the same 
 at the S. Anna mines. This day we were so near Mr. Treloar’s 
 house, that we gave away ail our provisions, saying, “ By breakfast¬ 
 time to-morrow we shall be in a English house.” Imagine our horror, 
 on arriving, to find that poor Mrs. Treloar had died the evening 
 before, and that her poor husband was in such a state that it was 
 impossible for him to receive us. He thanked God for Richard’s 
 coming, because there was no church, no clergyman, and no 
 burial-ground, and an English Consul performing the burial service 
 is valid; so the sorrowful ceremony was performed, winding up the 
 hill-top, where she was buried, and I was left in charge of all his 
 negroes. They had prepared something for us to eat, for which I 
 had given them five milreis , about ten shillings. They all squabbled 
 so violently over this, as to draw their knives, and to begin to stab 
 each other; so, with that ascendency which whites generally have 
 over blacks, I ordered them all to come into my presence and to 
 
274 714 * Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 put their knives down near me, and I asked them if they were not 
 ashamed, when their poor mistress was being carried up the hill to 
 her last burial-place, to behave in so unseemly a fashion, and, order¬ 
 ing them all down upon their knees, I took out my Prayer-book and 
 read the burial service too; and I read it over and over again, until 
 the party came back from the grave. 
 
 We then started immediately for Ouro Preto. Here Richard 
 went up the Itacalumi, and I visited the two martyrs of Ouro Preto, 
 the house of Gonzaga. We then slept and dined, and had cham¬ 
 pagne, and we went to tea at Mr. and Mrs. Spiers’, who had a party. 
 Next day we rode on to Casa Branca, S. Vicente, to Rio das Pedras, 
 where we joined some American emigrants. Afterwards we had a 
 very weary and hard ride to Corele d’Agua, our old sleeping-place, 
 where we took a cup of coffee and rode to S. Antonio. We had a 
 pelting rain, and we breakfasted at a troupeiro's ranch; thence to 
 S. Rita, and from thence to Morro Velho, six leagues away, arriving 
 like wet dogs. 
 
 On the 24th of July we went down the big mine at Morro Velho. 
 Now, this was a great event; few men visitors had been down, and 
 no woman. I forget the positive depth of it, but am under the 
 impression now that it was three-quarters of a mile straight down 
 into the bowels of the earth, including the last thirty-five fathoms 
 to the depths. We were dressed in miners’ dresses, with the usual 
 candle in our caps, and we got into a basket like a caldron hang¬ 
 ing to the end of a long chain, and then we began to descend. 
 It seemed an eternity, going down, down, and down, and of all the 
 things we ever have done, it seemed to me that it was the one that 
 required the most pluck, so dark, so cold, and slimy it looked, and 
 yet suffocating, and if anything happened, you felt that ne’er an arm 
 or leg would ever be found ; it realized more than any amount of 
 sermons could do “ the bottomless pit.” The chain had broken a 
 little while before, and we had seen the poor smashed negroes brought 
 up, and it did break the next day, but our time was not yet come. I 
 have got the broken link of that chain now; Mr. Gordon gave it to 
 me, and it is my one relic of those days. After an apparently inter¬ 
 minable time we began to see lights below, at a great distance, as 
 you see a seaport town from a mountain as you come down at 
 night, and by-and-by we began to hear voices, and finally we touched 
 ground, and were heartily received by those who had previously 
 gone down to take care of us, including Mr. Gordon himself They 
 gave us a hearty cheer. We were shown all over the mine, and ali 
 its workings, and I must say I think Dante must have seen a similar 
 place wherewith to make his Inferno. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 
 
 275 
 
 There were the large dark halls with vaults and domes; they 
 were covered with negroes, each with a candle stuck in his black 
 head, hammering in time to some tune to which they were all 
 singing. It would have been a wonderful picture for a painter. 
 How often all my life I have regretted not to have been an 
 artist, instead of musical! The negroes are healthy and well 
 doing; they only work eight hours a day, and have over-pay 
 for anything extra. The mulattoes were the most surly-looking 
 
 ones. After having seen everything we ascended again, and if 
 
 I may say so, I think the ascent was worse than the going 
 down, and nobody knows, until they have tried that sort of dark¬ 
 ness, what daylight and sunlight and fresh air mean. After long 
 mounting, you see at last one star sparkling in the distance like 
 an eye, which appears miles off, and that is the mouth of the 
 shaft. 
 
 In the evening there was a concert and a ball amongst our¬ 
 selves. On the 27 th Richard lectured ; there were some private 
 theatricals in which I took a part, and forgetting the drop behind 
 
 the open-air theatre when I backed off, I fell. I sprained my 
 
 ankle so badly that my leg was all black, and I could not move. 
 Now, the worst of it was that we were going to canoe down the 
 San Francisco river, to come out at the falls of Paulo Affonso, 
 issuing at Bahfa, and back to Rio by steamer; but it was im¬ 
 possible to take a woman who could not walk. We could embark 
 at Sahara, a short distance from where we were, and as Richard’s 
 time was very short, and he could not take a lame woman, he had 
 to start without me, and I went in the litter to see him embark in 
 the boat Elisa . 
 
 As soon as I got well, Mr Gordon, who was an exceedingly 
 liberal, large-minded man, recognized that having three thousand 
 Catholic negroes under him, manned by twenty-five English Pro¬ 
 testant officers, is was quite possible that in a religious sense, 
 things might be made more comfortable to them, and he asked 
 me, as an educated English Catholic, to go the rounds of Church 
 and Hospital, and find out if there was anything that could 
 improve their condition. Having been for some time in Brazil, 
 and seeing the wants of the negroes, I thought I could put 
 my finger on the right spot at once. There was one particular 
 ward in the hospital where incurables were put, and a black 
 cross over their beds told them Dante’s old words, “ Lasciate 
 ogni speranza, voi ch’ entrate” (“Leave every hope (outside), 
 all ye who enter (here)”). I dismissed the attendant, for fear 
 they should be afraid to answer, walked round the wards and sat 
 
276 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 by them, and I will take one case as a specimen of the whole. 
 She was dying of diseases which need not be named here. I said 
 to her— 
 
 “ Has your case been given over by the doctor ? ” 
 
 “ Alas ! yes,” she said ; “ I have only got to wait.” 
 
 “ Should you like to live ? ” 
 
 “Yes, of course I should.” 
 
 “ Has the priest been to hear your confession ? Have you sent 
 for him ? ” 
 
 “ Oh no; I should not dare do that.” 
 
 “ Why not ? What is he for ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, lady, we must not ask, and he doesn’t come to us in this 
 ward, only to those who go to church.” 
 
 “ Do you mean to tell me that none of you in this ward get the 
 last Sacraments ? 
 
 “ Oh no; we should be so ashamed to see his Reverence.” 
 
 “Why, you are not ashamed to see the doctor? What is 
 the difference between the doctor and the priest, except that 
 one is for your body and one is for your soul? You say you 
 are afraid of the priest; will you not be more ashamed of 
 God, whose servant he is ? ” That seemed to strike them; so, 
 wishing them good-bye, I trotted off to the Padre. No matter 
 his name, but he appeared to take things very easy when I 
 told him. He said he “ could not administer the Sacraments, 
 because he had not a pyx nor any of the vessels to convey them 
 in.” 
 
 “ Well,” I said, “ Father, I have been commissioned by the 
 Superintendent to examine into these things, and to report to 
 him what is done and what ought to be done, and he is going 
 to see it carried out; so will you oblige me by going to hear 
 all those confessions, now at once , and taking the holy ingredients 
 in a wine-glass, and administering Viaticum and Extreme Unction, 
 and say a few consoling words to them, and let us see the 
 results? You know that you can break these glasses into little 
 atoms, and you can burn the remnants in one of the furnaces, 
 or keep them for that purpose until I send up the proper things 
 from Rio.” 
 
 Well, this was done, and, to cut a long story short, that woman 
 was back to work in a fortnight; and when Mr Gordon saw the 
 immense advantage produced by relief of mind, and the considera¬ 
 tion of their feelings, and the action of the brain upon the body, 
 he made it an institution, and commissioned me to send up all the 
 necessary things from Rio. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 277 
 
 As soon as I was well enough for a long ride, Mr. Gordon sup¬ 
 plied me with horses—one for me, one for Chico, and one for our 
 small baggage—a sail and a few poles to make a tent in the day, 
 a gypsy-kettle on three prongs, a bag of maize for the horses, and 
 rice and other things for ourselves, and taking an affectionate leave 
 of the whole company there, and especially my kind host and 
 family, whom we have always remembered with the sincerest affec¬ 
 tion, and sadness too, for poor Mrs. Gordon died eventually from a 
 horrible shock (her youngest and favourite son was caught in the 
 machinery in an instant and ground to death—a subject too sad 
 to dwell upon), I commenced my long ride home—a very pleasant 
 ride. 
 
 1 rose at dawn; we made some tea in our kettle. Replenishing 
 our sack of provisions at every village, and having fed, watered, 
 and groomed the horses, we rode until it was too hot. We put 
 up our bit of sail and rested during the heat, and then we 
 rode on till nightfall; after this we fed again, looked after the 
 horses and picketed them. Some of the country, and especially 
 the forests, were lovely. Whenever we came to a village or a 
 ranch, we and our animals got housed; and when we did not, 
 which was rare, we camped out, for it was very warm. We 
 never met with a single scrap of danger the whole way, nor a 
 rude word; for defence we had only a penknife, our toasting- 
 fork, and an old pistol that would not go off. I had given my 
 weapons to Richard, whose journey was longer and more dangerous 
 than mine. 
 
 We arrived in Rio about the fifteenth day. I had never enjoyed 
 anything more ; but as I had been out for three months without 
 any change of clothes, I was a very curious object to look at, to 
 say nothing of my face and hands being the colour of mahogany. 
 I had been told before getting in that the Estrangeiros, where 
 I had left my maid and baggage, was full, so I waited till night, 
 and then went straight to the next best hotel in the town. The 
 landlord naturally did not recognize me, and he pointed to a 
 little place on the other side of the street, where sailors’ wives 
 went, and he said, “ I think that will be about your place, my 
 good woman, not here.” “Well,” I said, “I think I am coming 
 in here all the same.” So, wondering, he took me upstairs and 
 showed me his rooms; but I was so mighty particular, that it 
 was not till I got to his best rooms that I stopped and said, 
 “This-will do. Be kind enough to send up this letter for me to 
 the Estrangeiros.” 
 
 Presently down came my maid, who was a great swell, with my 
 
278 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 boxes. After a bath and dressing, I rang the bell and ordered some 
 supper. He came up himself, as I was such an object of curiosity. 
 When he saw me again he said, “ Did that woman come to take the 
 apartments for you, madam ? I do beg your pardon; I am afraid I 
 was rather rude to her.” “ Well,” I said, “ I am that woman myself; 
 but you need not apologize, because I saw myself in the glass, and I 
 don’t wonder at it.” He nearly tumbled down, and when I had ex¬ 
 plained my adverse circumstances to him, begged my pardon till I was 
 quite tired of hearing it. I went up to Santos for some time; and when 
 I thought Richard could arrive, I went down to Rio to meet him, and 
 used to go on board every steamer that came in from Bahia in the 
 hopes of his being there. At this time came out to Rio Mr. Wilfrid 
 Blunt and his sister Alice. I went on board ship after ship to meet 
 Richard, but as he never came, I got at last very anxious and miser¬ 
 able, and only used to make a fool of myself by crying when I did 
 not find him. He had been gone over four months. At last the 
 first steamer that I did not go to meet, he arrived in, and was quite 
 angry to find that I was not on board to meet him. He had had 
 a very jolly journey, canoeing down the river to the “falls of the 
 Paulo Affonso,” and sleeping at different ranches on the banks of 
 the river. It was something like fifteen hundred miles, coming out 
 eventually at Bah fa, where he had a great friend, an old gentleman 
 popularly known as “Charley Williams,” who gave him hosp : tality 
 till he embarked, or could catch a steamer to Rio. We then went 
 down to Santos together. 
 
 As Richard was canoeing down the San Francisco river, he found 
 a lot of stones called Pingua d’Agua; they are formed by congealed 
 rain in the rocks; they get fossilized, and if polished have the glitter 
 of diamonds. Richard met an Englishman, who told him that he 
 had come over with all he had in the world, ^1500, and expended 
 it in diamonds, of which he fondly believed he had got about 
 ^£30,000 worth, and was going home with them. So Richard told 
 him that he had just come from the diamond mines, and that he 
 should immensely like to see them. When he showed them to him, 
 Richard’s face fell, and he said, “ What is the matter ? ” “ Well,” 
 
 he said, “ I hardly like to tell you, but I am afraid you have been 
 done. Some one has passed off these Pingua d’Agua upon you for 
 diamonds, and I am afraid you have exchanged L 1 5 °° for thirty 
 shillings’ worth.” So the man said, “ Oh, you must be a fool! ” 
 “Well,” said Richard, “if it isn’t that I am so sorry for you, I 
 should say ‘ serve you right,’ because I really do happen to know.” 
 
 About the 17th of April, 1868, Richard, who had been looking 
 queer and seedy for six weeks, but persisting all the time that he was 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 279 
 
 perfectly well, felt feverish and agueish, and went to bed. I gave him 
 calomel and castor oil, and then every sort of thing that I could 
 think of. He got worse and worse, and I was in despair, for there 
 were no doctors; but at last, after some days, a doctor did arrive 
 from Rio, and I sent for him at once, and he passed the night 
 in the house. Of course it was purely Brazilian treatment for a 
 Brazilian disease, and nothing we knew touched it. He had six 
 cuppings, with thirty-six glasses and twelve leeches, tartar emetic, 
 and all sorts of other things, and there was something to be given 
 or rubbed every half-hour, of which a very large ingredient was 
 orange tea. The doctor came twice a day, and the number of 
 remedies was wonderful, every half-hour, and I never left him day 
 or night. They blistered him terribly. 
 
 When Richard thought he was dying, he sent me for Fray Joao, 
 with whom he had been learning astronomy; but Fray Joao was 
 gone on an expedition up country for two months, and he would 
 not have anybody else for the Sacraments; but he accepted the 
 Scapular, which all Catholics will understand, and to others it is 
 not needful to explain, and he wore it to the day of his death. 
 One night he gave me a terrible fright; he asked me to give him 
 twenty drops of chlorodyne. I objected, but he was so imperative 
 about it that I thought he had been ordered it; fortunately, I only 
 gave him fifteen. He found i£ too strong, and, also fortunately, 
 he spat it out, and asked me to mix him another of ten, which he 
 drank. He soon frightened me by feeling sick and faint, and I 
 gave him lukewarm water to make him bring it up, and sent for the 
 doctor, who was very frightened about him. He was insensible 
 an hour. He gave ether pills, applied mustard to the calves of the 
 legs and inside the thighs, and then Richard had a calm and good 
 sleep all night, and from that got a great deal better. He was 
 able to go into his study after a month, and took his first drive five 
 weeks after he was taken ill, and at the end of seven weeks I was 
 able to take him down to the Barra, where Mr. Ford had kindly 
 lent us his bungalow, where Richard could sit on the sands and let 
 the sea roll over him, and here he got much better. I may now tell 
 a horrid little story, as it illustrates Richard’s power of mesmerizng. 
 
 Richard was a great mesmerizer, a thing which everybody who 
 knew him will understand.* He always preferred women, and 
 especially of the blue-eyed, yellow-haired type. I need not say 
 that he began with me as soon as we married; but I did not like it, 
 
 * Captain Gambier tells me that he used to mesmerize him when he was a 
 child, and tell him to go up to some room in the dark, and fetch him some 
 particular article or book which he only thought of. 
 
280 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 and used to resist it, but after a while I consented. At first it was 
 a little difficult, but when once he had complete control, no passes 
 or contact were necessary; he used simply to say, “ Sleep,” and I did. 
 He could also do this at a distance, but with more difficulty if water 
 were between us, and if he tried to mesmerize anybody else and I 
 was anywhere in the neighbourhood, I absorbed it, and they took 
 nothing. I used to grow at last to be afraid to be in the same room 
 with a mesmerizer, as I used to experience the greatest discomfort, 
 and I knew if there was one in the room, the same as some people 
 know if there is a cat in the room; but I could resist them , though 
 I could not resist Richard. He used to mesmerize me freely, but he 
 never allowed any one else, nor did I, to mesmerize me. Once 
 mesmerized, he had only to say, “ Talk,” and I used to tell everything 
 I knew, only I used to implore of him to forbid me to tell him other 
 people’s secrets, and as a matter of honour he did, but all my own 
 used to come out freely; only he never took a mean advantage of 
 what he learnt in that way, and he used laughingly to tell every¬ 
 body, “ It is the only way to get a woman to tell you the truth.” I 
 have often told him things that I would much rather keep to 
 myself. 
 
 In the particular instance that I am about to recount, he had 
 mesmerized me to consult about an expedition that he was going 
 to take, as he had previous to his illness meant to start, and I had 
 said to him, “ Don’t start, because you are going to have a very bad 
 illness, and you will want me and your home comforts ; ” so he now 
 re-mesmerized me to know what he should do, and I said to him, 
 “ Don’t take the man that you are going to take with you, because 
 he is a scoundrel; don’t buy the things that you are going to buy 
 for the expedition, because you will never use them. You will go 
 a long journey south for your health.” I then said to him, “Look ! 
 what a curious procession is passing our door, a long procession of 
 people in white, and headed by Maria and Julia” *—who were our 
 old cook and her daughter, aged about seventeen—“ they are all in 
 white, with flowers on their heads. What can it mean ? ” I raved 
 all night about this procession, till Richard got up and shut the 
 shutters, and closed the door, which opened out on to the sands, 
 the night being very hot. The next day this procession made an 
 impression on him, and for curiosity’s sake he sent up a mounted 
 messenger to Sao Paulo to know if anything had occurred, or if 
 there was any news. We had brought no servants with us, had left 
 my maid and everybody behind. 
 
 * We were then at the Barra. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate . 
 
 281 
 
 Now, on a former occasion, about three months back, he had 
 mesmerized me, and I had had this very cook called to me, and 
 I had said to her, “ Maria, go to confession and communion, then 
 send to a lawyer and make your will. You have got a little cottage, 
 and you have saved ^150; you have a few boxes of clothes and things. 
 Leave everything to Little Peter ”—her son aged six—“ and don’t 
 trouble about Julia.” When I came to, she told me the extraordinary 
 things I had been saying to her, and how frightened she was; but 
 she said, “ I will do all that you have told me, only I can’t leave 
 Julia without anything;” and I said to her, “I am not conscious of 
 having said anything; but in that case, you had better say that 
 whatever you leave to Julia goes to Peter at her death.” Well, this 
 was the news that we got by the mounted messenger : The old cook 
 had died that day in an apoplectic fit, and before the maid had time 
 to call or send for the daughter, she walked in, looking very ill, and 
 sat upon the sofa, rocking and moaning, and she said, “ I have come 
 from my mistress to die here. I feel so very ill, I will not leave you.’ 
 From all she told the maid, and the strange way she was going on, 
 the maid inferred that the girl was in a particular kind of trouble, 
 and it would be impossible to keep her there, and she begged of her 
 to let her fetch a carriage and conduct her back to her mistress, 
 where at least if she was ill she could be taken care of, and seeing 
 her in such a state, she was afraid to inform her that her mother 
 was lying dead. One of the slaves fetched a carriage, and they put 
 her into it, and were conducting her home, but she was so bad on 
 the road they had to lift her out, and take her into a little venda 
 (a place where they sell wine), and run to fetch a priest, who was 
 just in time to give her the last Sacraments, when she expired. The 
 blood oozed from her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and from all the pores 
 of her skin. She died very shortly and was buried, and the smell 
 was so bad in the venda that the walls had to be scraped and re¬ 
 whitewashed, although she was only there a few hours. It was 
 afterwards proved that she and the black cook at her mistress’s were 
 both in love with the same man, and as she had announced her 
 intention of visiting my house, the cook had given her a cup of 
 coffee before she set out, and had said, “ Go ! you will never come 
 back.” The body was exhumed. It was supposed she had received 
 in the coffee a Brazilian poison, mixed with powdered glass, made 
 of some herbs of which the negroes have the secret. Little 
 Peter would have now become practically, though not theoretically, 
 a Brazilian slave, and his little property would have been absorbed; 
 but by the will made at the Consulate, he was under the protection 
 of the Consul. His education was undertaken, and he was sole 
 
282 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 inheritor of the cottage, ^£150, and the boxes of clothes and other 
 property. 
 
 At Santos we had a regatta, a separate boat for each nation, about 
 nine or ten in all. The English blustered awfully, and the Americans 
 also—talked a great deal about “ Bull’s Run,” and so forth. All 
 the other people sat very quiet, expecting to be beaten; the con¬ 
 sequence was the Portuguese won, and the English came in last, and 
 we sent up and hauled our flag down. The sea was very rough, 
 and surrounded our bungalow ; we walked through bare-legged, and 
 went into Santos, and then went back again, and eventually to Sao 
 Paulo, partly on an engine, and partly walking—butterfly-catching. 
 
 When we got back to Sao Paulo, Richard told me that he could 
 not stand it any longer; it had given him that illness, it was far away 
 from the world, it was no advancement, it led to nothing. He was 
 quite right. I felt very sorry, because up to the present it was the 
 only home I had ever really had quietly with him, and we had had it 
 for three years ; but I soon sold up everything, and we came down to 
 Santos, and embarked on the 24th of July, 1868. Here he applied 
 for leave, as the doctors advised him not to go to England at once, 
 but to go down south to Buenos Ayres for a trip, and he asked me 
 to go to England and see if I could not induce them to give him 
 another post. I saw Richard off down south, and taking an affec¬ 
 tionate leave of all kind friends, embarked for England. 
 
 Our Separate Journeys. 
 
 Richard had a splendid journey to the Argentine Republic and the 
 rivers Plata-Parana and Paraguay, for the purpose of reporting the 
 state of the Paraguayan War to the Foreign Office. He crossed 
 the Pampos and the Andes to Chili and Peru amongst the bad 
 Indians. He went to the Pacific Coast to inspect the scene of the 
 earthquake at Arica, returning by the Straits of Magellan, Buenos 
 Ayres, and Rio to London. 
 
 During his delightful trip, which completely recovered his health, 
 he fell in with the Tichborne Claimant, and travelled with him for a 
 week, and never having seen the real man, and as he appeared very 
 gentlemanly, and when he gambled, lost his money and won it 
 without any emotion, he concluded that he was the real thing until 
 he came home. He acquired all the history of the ins and outs of 
 the war, and later produced his book on Paraguay—“ Letters from 
 the Battle-Fields of Paraguay,” which did not see the light till 1870. 
 
 1 had, as usual, all my work cut out for me. First I was to try 
 and work the Iporanga mines in London, whole mountains of lead 
 
Richard's Second Consulate . 283 
 
 and quicksilver, also gold and copper (twenty-eight square miles). I 
 was to bring out his “ Highlands of Brazil,” the “ Journey of Lacerda,” 
 and a second edition of “ Mecca,” “ Uruguay,” “ Iracema,” and 
 “ Manoel de Moraes.” 
 
 I also had a small adventure on the way home at Bahia. I went 
 ashore with a friend from the ship to dine with “ Charley Williams,” 
 my husband’s friend. He was very fond of keeping a menagerie; 
 besides having his garden stocked with wild beasts, his hall contained 
 cages of snakes, amongst them two rattlesnakes. After we had 
 dined in his chdcara , he insisted on showing me his snakes, and he 
 quietly took one up (out of its cage) near its head. He was used to doing 
 this, but whether he was agitated or what I cannot say, but the snake 
 slipped through his hand, and bit him on the wrist. The friend had 
 bolted upstairs the moment the cage was opened ; Mr. Williams just 
 had time to dash it back into the cage and lock it, and staggered 
 against the wall. 
 
 Richard had always taught me how to be ready on such emer¬ 
 gencies travelling up the country, but the only thing in the hall was 
 a box of wooden lucifer-matches, so I struck them one after another, 
 and kept cramming them into the mark on his wrist made by the 
 snake till I had made a regular little hole. I tied my handker¬ 
 chief tightly above it, called out loudly for the servants, told them 
 what had happened, and to go and get a bottle of whisky. By 
 degrees I got the whole bottle down his throat, and then my friend 
 and I and the negroes kept walking him up and down for about 
 three hours. We then allowed him to go to bed, and next morning 
 he was no worse for what had happened. I think the bite must have 
 been very feeble not to have done more harm—probably the snake 
 had only time to graze the skin; anyway, the dear old man was so 
 pleased, he brought me home a riding-whip of solid silver up to the 
 lash, which I keep now as a memento. 
 
 We had a bad sea and strong trade winds most of the way ; the ship 
 was horribly lively off Finisterre, and the hatches down. We found 
 it bitterly cold in August, and on the 1st of September my family met 
 me at Southampton. They were then all puffing and panting and 
 fanning themselves on account of the “tropical weather,” as they 
 called it, and I found it so bitterly cold, I had to have several 
 blankets and a big fire, showing the difference of the climates. 
 There was great amusement when my sisters came on board. I took 
 them to my cabin, which was considered the best in the ship. The 
 Captain was showing it off, when one of them, who had never been 
 at sea in her life, turned round to me and said, “Now, Isabel, do 
 you really mean to say that you have lived in that housemaid’s closet 
 
284 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 for a month, and slept on that shelf?” The Captain laughed, 
 “ Really, ladies,” he said, “this is considered a very swell ship, and 
 everybody fights for that cabin.” 
 
 I did my work well, carrying out everything according to Richard's 
 directions, and Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, whose sound sense 
 and great judgment knew exactly the man to suit the post, and the 
 post to suit the man, gave him the long-coveted Consulship of 
 Damascus, and was brave enough not to heed the jealousy and spite 
 which did its best to prevent his being allowed to take the post. The 
 Missionaries raised up their heads on the one side, and the people 
 who wanted it for their friends, did all they could to persuade Lord 
 Stanley that it would displease the Moslems, because he had been 
 to Mecca. Richard was delighted when he got the intelligence of 
 his transfer from Brazil to Damascus. He heard it casually in a 
 cafe at Lima, where he was congratulated, having missed most of his 
 letters. He hastened back at once, and he wrote and guaranteed 
 to Lord Stanley that all would be well with the Moslems, as it had 
 ever been from the starting of his career in 1842 up to the present 
 time, 1868—a period of twenty-six years; consequently the appoint¬ 
 ment was signed, with a thousand a year. Richard’s prospects were 
 on the rise, and it was hinted that if he succeeded there he might 
 eventually get Marocco, Teheran, and finish up at Constantinople. 
 In fact, we were on the zenith of our career. I had one very pleasant 
 dinner at Mr. Froude’s to meet Giffard Palgrave, Mr. Ruskin, and 
 Carlyle. I brought out Richard’s “ Highlands of Brazil ” for Christ¬ 
 mas. I was not successful with the mines, and I found no market 
 for the Brazilian translations, though I published two of them. 
 
 This year, before Richard arrived, I had the pleasure of making the 
 acquaintance of Sir Samuel and Lady Baker; I was very much fasci¬ 
 nated by the latter, and thought her very pretty. Next day I lunched 
 with them. I also saw a good deal of the Petherwicks, and amongst 
 others on his return we dined more than once with my husband’s old 
 Egyptian friend, John Larking, at his place, “The Firs,” Lea, Kent. 
 At last the time came round when I got a telegram to say that the 
 Douro , Royal Mail, would be at Southampton, with Richard on board; 
 so I went down to Southampton, and at four o’clock in the morning, 
 when Richard looked over the side, I was the first person he saw, and 
 when the plank was thrown across, I was the first to go on board. As 
 far as clothes went, he was pretty nearly in the same condition that I 
 was in, when I arrived from the mines; but for all that, as soon as he 
 had had bath and breakfast, we drove to Netley Abbey, and went to 
 the flower show; then came up to town, and drove to a haberdasher, 
 tailor, and hatter, that he might be fit to dine with my people, who 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 
 
 285 
 
 had a party and an enthusiastic reception for him. He went straight 
 to the Foreign Office next day to report himself, and call on Lord 
 Stanley and Lord Clarendon, who had succeeded to the Foreign Office, 
 and went a round of publishers, mappers, and commissions. That 
 night we had to go to the Admiralty party, and from thence to the 
 Foreign Office party, and the next night, at the Literary Fund, Richard 
 made a speech. He dined with Sir Roderick Murchison, and he went 
 to the Royal Geographical Society Meeting, found it slow, and was not 
 satisfied with his reception ; he also went to the Levee. We then went 
 down to Shrewsbury, to stay with Mr. Henry Wace, a bachelor lawyer 
 and a faithful friend, and drove to Uriconium, the Pompeii of Shrews¬ 
 bury, and then to Haughmond ruins, formerly a Cistercian monastery. 
 Amongst other pleasant things was a lunch-party at Bernal Osborne’s, 
 and delightful dinners at Shirley Brookes’. At last we crossed to 
 France, visited our old haunts where we met as boy and girl. 
 Boulogne, however, was very much changed since our days. She 
 was then “a girl of the period”; she was now “vieille and devote .” 
 From here he sent me back, as usual, to “pay, pack, and follow.” 
 He was going to Vichy, to take a month’s course of the waters, after 
 which he would drop down to Brindisi and go to Damascus. Soon 
 after Richard had started to Vichy, I began to get unhappy, and 
 wanted to join him, and I did not see why I could not have the month 
 there with him and make up double-quick time after; so I just started 
 off with Mr. J. J. Aubertin (of Brazil memory, whose many works have 
 made him well known, and whose charming “Wanderings and Won- 
 derings” is attracting the literary world now), who was also going 
 there to join him. As soon as I arrived at Vichy, Richard, with 
 Swinburne, came to the station to meet me, and we were joined by 
 Sir Frederick Leighton, and later on, Mrs. Sartoris. 
 
 They were very happy days. We made excursions in the day, and 
 in the evenings the conversation, I need not say, was brilliant; every¬ 
 body contributed something that made him or her valuable. Swin¬ 
 burne recited poetry, Mrs. Sartoris sang to us. All will remember 
 her exquisite contralto voice, and she sang en intime without accom¬ 
 paniment. We went to the Chateau Bourbonnais at Bussy, and then 
 to Ardoisiere cascade and cave, and lovely walks to Malavaux, where 
 there is a chalet at the foot of the mountain and a steep ascent. Here 
 is the ruin of a convent of Templars, who are said to have committed 
 atrocities, who blew up a chateau containing their only neighbours 
 with gunpowder. There were no roads this way, and they were Lords 
 of the soil. There is a cemetery in the distance, and close to us the 
 Devil’s Well, said to have no bottom, and also the Blessed Virgin’s 
 Well. Whilst we were at the top, the harvest moon arose ; there was 
 a glorious scene of beautiful lights and shadows. 
 
286 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 From St. Armand there is a splendid view of Vichy, and also for 
 forty-four leagues, if it is clear enough to see around ; and the drives 
 are lovely through the mountains and ravines. There was another 
 splendid view from the Montagne Vert. We went to St. Germain 
 des Fosses, and drove all over Clermont, where we visited the 
 Cathedral, all the Churches, Museums, and springs, and bought some 
 of the wonderful petrifactions.* We then made our way to Langdac, 
 from whence we drove thirty-six miles through a most interesting 
 country to Puy. The descent to Puy is very beautiful, it is a 
 curious and striking-looking town; mountains of rock, like huge 
 combs, rise out of its heart. On the top of one of these is a huge 
 statue of the Blessed Virgin, sixteen metres high, cast in iron from 
 the metal cannons of Sebastopol, and we got up into its head to 
 look out of the eyes. When we were in the head we were nearly 
 five hundred feet high from the plain. The Child’s head holds three 
 people. The Cathedral has a miraculous black Virgin, and St. 
 Michael has his church too. All these great heights mean climbing 
 five hundred feet, and then ascending two or three hundred steps. 
 On another cone stands an old church. There are basaltic masses 
 just like organ-pipes. We drove to the old Castle and Fortress of 
 Polignac, and to the basaltic rocks, and then we went to see the 
 Museum of Puy. We made our way by the train to Lyons. The 
 country was beautiful, with mountains, gorges, rivers, and old ruined 
 castles, which spoke of feudal times; but two hours before reaching 
 Lyons it is as bad as the black country in Lancashire. Here Swin¬ 
 burne left us for Paris. Richard and I went to Fourvibres to make 
 a pilgrimage, f We went to the Cathedral, and the great shrine of 
 Notre Dame de Fourvibres. From here Lyons spreads out under 
 your feet like a map; on a clear day you may see Mont Blanc. 
 We visited the source of the Rhone and Saone, and then went on 
 to Culoz; thence to Aix les Bains, where we went to look at the 
 Roman ruins. We changed trains at S. Michel for “ Fell’s Com¬ 
 pany ” across the Mont Cenis (the railway not being made in those 
 days as it is now). Mr. Bayless, the superintendent, and his secre¬ 
 tary met us, and took us on the engine, and showed us everything. 
 The scenery was splendid all day; the rise began from S. Michel 
 to Lanslebourg, which is four thousand four hundred feet high. The 
 ascent was most amusing ; we whisked about in the most frolicsome 
 way, close to frightful gorges and over ravines. From inside, you 
 
 * Faubourg St. Alyre, “la Fontaine petrifiante ” (like Matlock), issues from 
 volcanic tufa on granite. Carbonic acid dissolves calcareous matter. 
 
 f There were three things Richard could never resist—a pilgrimage to a holy 
 shrine, mining, and talking with and enjoying gypsies’ society. 
 
Richard's Second Consulate. 287 
 
 could sometimes hear little hysterical squeaks, or people taken 
 worse, as the curves were very sharp and the pace good. Lansle- 
 bourg is a group of old broken-down chalets, and two broken- 
 down chapels, grouped in a corner. It has a new chapel now. 
 A mountain-torrent sweeps through the village, and the new rail¬ 
 way runs by it. Magnificent piles of mountains rose on all sides; 
 the lower range are pine-covered, the higher by snow and glaciers 
 —the snow and fresh mountain air are most exhilarating. I can 
 remember passing this place ten years before, in March, with a 
 carriage and eleven mules, and, owing to the snow, we were 
 five days and nights travelling from Venice to Geneva. It was 
 then a savage country; now every available spot is cultivated in 
 little patches. We had a charming evening at the inn, and dined 
 on fresh mountain trout. The descent next day was marvellous. 
 How little Napoleon I. thought, when he was making a road, 
 that he was only the pioneer for an English railway, thereby 
 making their labour and expense only half of what it would have 
 been ! We went from here to Susa and Turin, and from Turin 
 we drove up the Collina, and got a splendid view of the City and 
 of Mount Rosa before going to bed. Here I saw Richard off to 
 Damascus; he was to catch the P. and O. at Brindisi. My train 
 Londonwards left a few hours after, and I did not stop till I 
 reached Paris. 
 
 I worked in earnest during my few weeks in England, to be 
 able to join him the quicker. First, I had to go down to Stratford, 
 to the Essex flats, to see the tube-wells worked, as Richard was 
 anxious to be able to produce water, if possible, wherever we 
 stopped in the desert. I had many publishers and mappers to 
 see. Not knowing exactly what Damascus was like, I invested in 
 a pony-carriage, and Uncle Gerard gave me a very handsome old 
 family chariot, which was out of fashion in England, and must 
 originally have cost at least three hundred guineas. Lord Houghton 
 made a great many jokes about our driving in our chariot drawn 
 by camels. I very prudently left it in England until I saw what 
 sort of place it was, but took out the pony-carriage. There was only 
 one road in the country, of seventy-two miles, so I sold it, and was 
 actually lucky enough to find a willing customer, who kept it as 
 a curio. I took lessons about taking off wheels and patent axles, 
 and oiling them and putting them together again, and taking my 
 own guns and pistols also to pieces, cleaning and putting them 
 together again. The time passed in buying things to stock the 
 house with. Richard did not receive any of my letters, just as at 
 Pernambuco, so I had to telegraph to him. 
 
288 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 At last the day came round when everything was bought and paid 
 for, and packed and sent off, and I was at liberty to start; and the 
 same night that my arrangements were complete, I left my mother’s 
 house for Dover. It was blowing a hurricane, waves mountain high, 
 and a black night, and my brother and sisters, who accompanied 
 me, decided that I must not go on board. I have told that story in 
 my “ Inner Life of Syria.” Next morning, however, we picked up 
 the poor passengers, who had crossed the night before, and had 
 come to grief. At Paris I found that two of my nine boxes were 
 missing; one contained all my ship comforts, and the other f 300 
 in gold—my little all. I had already taken my passage at Marseilles, 
 and I had to choose between losing my money and losing my 
 passage. I went to the station-master, registered my tale, omitting 
 all about the money, told him where to forward the baggage,'* 
 travelled on, and was just in time to catch the P. and O. Tatijore 
 before she steamed out, and I immediately, on arrival at Alexandria, 
 took my passage on board the first steamer for Beyrout, which was 
 a Russian, the Ceres, which passes or touches at Port Said and J affa 
 and Kaifa, the ancient Helba of the tribe of Aser, St. Jeanne d’Acre, 
 and then I arrived at Beyrout. 
 
 * They both arrived five months later, and, strange to say, intact. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DAMASCUS—HIS THIRD CONSULATE. 
 
 There was no husband to meet me, and I felt very indignant, 
 just as had happened at Rio last year to him. (Here I met Madame 
 de Persigny.) I at once started for Damascus by road, in a private 
 carriage, and drove for seven hours, putting up at Shtorra, where 
 I was obliged to sleep. Next day I drove on and on, and reached 
 Damascus at sunset; went straight to the inn, which by courtesy was 
 called a hotel, known as Demetri’s. It had taken me fifteen days 
 and nights without stopping from London to Damascus. After an 
 hour Richard came in, and I was glad that I had waited for nothing 
 but necessity, as I found him looking very old and ilL He had 
 arrived, and had had a most cordial reception, but he had been dis¬ 
 pirited by not getting a single one of my letters, which all arrived in 
 a heap afterwards. He had gone down over and over again to meet 
 me, and I had not appeared, and now the steamer that I had come 
 in, was the only one he did not go down to meet, so that when he 
 came in from his walk, it was a pleasant surprise to him to find me 
 ensconced comfortably in his room; and I found the enclosed 
 scribbled on the corner of his journal, anent my non-arrival— 
 
 “’Twas born, thou whisperest,born in heaven, 
 
 And heavenly births may never die ; 
 
 While truth is pure of leasing’s leaven, 
 
 I hear and I believe then—I! 
 
 Heaven-born, thy love is born to be 
 An heir of immortality. 
 
 “ And yet I hear a small voice say, 
 
 But yesterday ’twas not begot; 
 
 It lives its insect-life to-day, 
 
 To-morrow death shall be its lot. 
 
 Peace, son of lies ! cease, Satan, cease 
 To mumble timeworn lies like these ! ” 
 
 A few persons who disliked the appointment, and certain mis¬ 
 sionaries who feared that he was anti-missionary, and have since 
 
 T 289 
 
290 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 handsomely acknowledged their mistake, took measures to work 
 upon Lord Clarendon on the plea that he was too fond of Moham¬ 
 medans, that he had performed a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that 
 their fanaticism would lead to troubles and dangers. On becoming 
 aware that he had lived in the East, and with Moslems, for many 
 years after his pilgrimage, Lord Clarendon, with that good taste 
 and justice which always characterized him, refused to change his 
 appointment until that fanaticism was proved. He had the pleasure 
 of reporting to him a particularly friendly reception. 
 
 He wrote before he left London— 
 
 “I now renew in writing the verbal statement, in which I assured 
 your lordship that neither the authorities nor the people of Damascus 
 will show for me any but a friendly feeling ; that, in fact, they will 
 receive me as did the Egyptians and the people of Zanzibar for years 
 after my pilgrimage to Mecca. But, as designing persons may have 
 attempted to complicate the situation, I once more undertake to act 
 with unusual prudence, and under all circumstances to hold myself, 
 and myself only, answerable for the consequences.” 
 
 Though he had not received his barat (exequatui) and firman till 
 October 27th, he exchanged friendly unofficial visits with his Ex¬ 
 cellency the Wali (Governor-General) of Syria. Then he was 
 honoured with the visits of all the prelates of the Oriental Churches, 
 as well as by a great number of the most learned and influential 
 Moslems, and of the principal Christians. Amongst them were his 
 Highness the Amir Abd el Kadir, his Excellency the Bishop of the 
 Greek Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox and the Syrian Catholic 
 Bishops, the Archimandrite Jebara of the Russian Orthodox Church, 
 the Shaykh el Ulemd (Abdullah Effendi el H£labi), the Shaykh el 
 Molawfyyeh of Koniah, Ali Pasha el Aazam, and Antun Effendi 
 Shami; Said Effendi Ustuwdneh, President of the Criminal Court of 
 Damascus and its dependencies; Mohammed Effendi el Minnini, 
 Vice-President of the Criminal Court of Appeal; the Mufti Mahmud 
 Effendi Hamzeh; Shaykh Mohammed Effendi el Hdlabi, member of 
 the Lower Court, and several others. 
 
 All these dignitaries evinced much pleasure and satisfaction at his 
 being appointed H.M.’s Consul in their City. Some of them, indeed, 
 earnestly requested him to interest the English public in forming a 
 company for making railways through Syria, that being the sole means 
 of bringing about the civilization of the country. 
 
 In conclusion, notwithstanding Abdullah Effendi, the Chief of the 
 Ulemd, being the most learned, influential, and Orthodox Moslem, 
 and though it is not consistent with his principles to call upon any 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 291 
 
 Christian before being visited, he did so; and, after an interview of 
 fifty minutes, departed with a promise to renew the visit. 
 
 Owing to the great quantity of fountains and tanks about the house, 
 neuralgia had set in, and Richard had not been getting any sleep ; 
 so the following day we cast about for a better sort of living-place, 
 and a quarter ot an hour away, through the gardens of Damascus, 
 higher up than Damascus, and just under and on the north of Jebel 
 Kaysun, the Camomile Mountain, in what is called a wild and law¬ 
 less Kurdish village, we found a house that suited us,* and we took 
 it, and moved into it next day, starting with a small quantity of 
 furniture, but soon made it very comfortable. After all said and 
 done, although some of the houses in Damascus were very grand 
 and very romantic, they were all damp ; cold in winter; suffocating, 
 from being closed in, in summer. If there is an epidemic, it is like 
 being hived. If there is an emeute , you are like a mouse in a trap. 
 If there is a fire at night, you are safely locked within the town 
 gates. Ours was a freer and wilder life; you could mount your 
 horse, and be out in the desert in ten minutes, or in Damascus 
 either. 
 
 Mr. and Lady Adelaide Law arrived in Damascus, and I took her 
 to Lady Ellenborough and to Abd el Kadir. It was her father, 
 Lord Londonderry, whose diplomacy with Louis Napoleon delivered 
 this great hero from imprisonment in the Chateau d’Amboise, and 
 he received her with effusion. Later on came Lord Stafford 
 (present Duke of Sutherland), Mr. Crawley, and Mr. Barty Mitford. 
 
 We were soon installed, and bought horses, and I began to study 
 Arabic. The first thing Richard determined to do was to go to 
 Tadmor. This journey was an awfully difficult thing in those days, 
 though I am not aware whether it is now. First of all, six thousand 
 francs used to be charged by the El Mezrab, who were the tribe who 
 escorted for that journey. It was the tribe of Lady Ellenborough 
 and her Bedawin husband, and she was more Bedawin than the 
 Bedawi. There was no water, that is, only two wells the whole way, 
 and only known to them. The difficulties and dangers were great; 
 they travelled by night and hid by day. You may say that camels 
 were about ten days on the road, and horses about eight days. 
 The late Lady Ellenborough was the third of a small knot of 
 ladies, of whom I had hoped to make the fifth—Lady Mary Wortley 
 
 * “We were living at the foot of the eastern spur of the Anti-Libanus, upon 
 whose south-eastern slopes lies the large northern suburb of Damascus, El Sala- 
 hiyyah (* of the Saints ’), facetiously changed on account of its Kurdish popula¬ 
 tion into El Talaln'yyah (‘ of the Sinners ’). Our friend Bedr Beg was its Chief.” 
 —R. F. B. 
 
292 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Montagu, Lady Hester Stanhope, Lady Ellenborough, and the 
 Princesse de la Tour d’Auvergne. 
 
 Lady Ellenborough was married to a Bedawin, brother to the 
 Chief, and second in command of the tribe of El Mezrab, a 
 small branch of the great Anazeh tribe. She aided the tribe in 
 concealing the wells and levying blackmail on Europeans who 
 wished to visit Palmyra, which brought in considerable sums to 
 the tribe, whose demand was six thousand francs a head (^240). 
 Richard was determined to go, and we had not the money to throw 
 away; he asked me whether I would be willing to risk it, and I said ? 
 what I always did, “ Whither thou goest, I will go.” Lady Ellen¬ 
 borough was in a very anxious state when she heard this announce¬ 
 ment, as she knew it was the death-blow to a great source of revenue 
 to the tribe. She was very intimate with us, and distantly connected 
 by marriage with my family, and she would have favoured us, if she 
 could have done it without abolishing the whole system. She did 
 all she could to dissuade us; she wept over our loss, and she told us 
 that we should never come back—indeed, everybody advised us to 
 make our wills; finally, she offered us the escort of one of her 
 Mezrabs, that we might steer clear of the Bedawi raids, and be con¬ 
 ducted quicker to water, if it existed. Richard made me a sign 
 to accept the escort, and we did. 
 
 From our earliest married days, one of his peculiarities (used 
 rather, I suspect, for training me to observe him, and to understand 
 his wants) would be that he would not tell me directly to do a thing, 
 but I used to find in a book I was reading, or some drawer that I 
 opened every day, or in his own room, marked by a weight, a few 
 words of what he wanted, conveying no direct order, and yet I knew 
 that it was one. I grew quite accustomed to this, and used regularly 
 to visit the places where I was likely to find them, and if I missed 
 there was a sort of “Go seek ” expression on his face, that told me 
 that I had not hunted properly, and I knew (by another expression) 
 when I had succeeded. I used to call these “ African spoors.” ' We 
 could almost talk before outsiders in this way, without speaking a 
 word out loud. 
 
 On the same principle, he used to teach me to swim without my 
 arms, and afterwards to swim without my legs, using either one or 
 the other, but not both, in case of falling out of a feteamer and being 
 entangled. 
 
 I mention this, because we always talked before people without 
 their perceiving it, and he told me in this way exactly what to say 
 to her; but we provided ourselves with seventeen camels, laden 
 with water, in case of accident. We had each two horses, and 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 293 
 
 everything necessary for tenting out, and were armed to the teeth. 
 We had a very picturesque breakfast, affectionate farewells—the 
 Mushir and the whole cavalcade to see us out of the town. We 
 cleared Damascus and its environs by a three hours’ march; then 
 Richard, according to his custom, called a halt, and we camped 
 out and picketed, because, he said, it would be so easy to send 
 back for anything, if aught were missing. 
 
 We eventually reached Da’as Agha, the Chief of Jerud, who has a 
 hundred and fifty fighting men. These little villages in the middle 
 of a desert are sometimes very acceptable for the renewal of pro¬ 
 visions. This Jerud was a large one, and was surrounded with salt 
 and gypsum. After this there was only one more village, Atneh, 
 till the Great Karryatayn, in the heart of the desert. Here we 
 were told of some underground curiosities, and we stopped to dig, 
 and discovered an old catacomb. The women only wear one 
 garment; they are covered with coins, and bits of stone made into 
 necklaces and charms against the evil eye. Aftor this we had a long 
 desert ride, and were caught in a dust-storm. A dust-storm is no 
 joke; you may lie down and perhaps make your horse lie, and cover 
 yourself up with rugs, but if it is a bad storm, like a snowstorm, 
 you may be buried. Richard advised our galloping through it, 
 laying the reins on the horses’ necks, and letting them go where they 
 would, for, he said, they would know a great deal more than we 
 should ; so, covering our faces up in our kuftyyehs —for, as far as heads 
 and shoulders went, we dressed like natives—we gave our horses 
 their heads, and they went at a rattling pace, and about three hours 
 took us out of the storm. Richard and I were alone; all the rest 
 lagged behind. When the horses once got out of the storm (they 
 seemed to understand all about it—one was desert bred and took 
 the lead), they relapsed into a walk till they got cool. We then 
 went by the compass in the direction we meant to take, and were 
 joined eventually by our followers. 
 
 We now had to sleep in our clothes, revolvers and guns at our 
 sides, and make our men take turn to watch, in case of an attack 
 from a ghazu , or Bedawi raid, and we took off the camels’ bells. A 
 ghazu may pass you in the night, and if you are quite silent, and a 
 foal does not whinny, nor a dog bark, you are all right; but those 
 are the two things you have to dread. I ought to have said that, 
 though we accepted the escort, we were not hoodwinked. I kept 
 taking stock of our Mezrab between Damascus and our first halt, 
 and I thought he had an uncanny and amused look; so I rode up to 
 Richard, and told him, in a language that was not understood, what 
 I thought. Richard gave a grim smile, as Ouida says, “ under his 
 
294 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 moustache,” and said, “Yes, I have thought all that out too. Mo¬ 
 hammed Agha, come here.” 
 
 Whatever Richard told Mohammed to do, he did it thoroughly. If 
 he wanted a culprit that had run away, he would say, “ Bring me So- 
 and-so, Mohammed.” “ Eywallah ! ya Sidi Beg” (Yes, by Allah, my 
 Lord Beg); and he would go off, saying, “ If he were in hell I would 
 have him out.” Once he brought a man kicking and struggling 
 under his arm, and put him down before Richard, saying, “ There 
 he is, your Excellency.” 
 
 This faithful Afghan had served him in India, and he had acci¬ 
 dentally found him in Damascus, and made him his chief kawwds . 
 He now rode up. Richard gave him a few orders in Afghani, which 
 no one else understood. He saluted and retired. When we got 
 about three hours away from Damascus in the open desert, the 
 Bedawin had his mare and his arms taken from him, and was 
 mounted on a baggage mule. Every kindness was shown to him, 
 and he enjoyed every comfort that we had, but two mounted guard 
 over him day and night, and he was thus powerless. We knew 
 quite well that the Bedawin, on his thoroughbred mare, would have 
 curveted off in circles, pretending to look for wells, when in reality he 
 would have fetched the tribe down upon us, and we should have been 
 captured; orders would have been given to respect and treat us 
 well, and then we should have to be ransomed, and this would 
 have proved the impossibility of visiting Palmyra without a Bedawi 
 escort at six thousand francs a head, and the Foreign Office would 
 have smartly reproved, and perhaps recalled, their Consul for running 
 such a risk. We stuck our Mezrab up for a show, to prove that we 
 had a Bedawin escort, whenever Bedawi raids were near, but he was 
 not allowed to move or to make a sign. Da’as joined us with ten 
 of his men, and whenever there was the smallest occasion for joy 
 or self-congratulation, they used to do a Jeiid. When I say the men 
 are riding Jerid, I mean that they are galloping about violently, 
 firing from horseback at full speed, yelling, hanging over in their 
 stirrups with their bridles in their mouth, playing with and quiver¬ 
 ing their long feathered lances in the air, throwing them and catch¬ 
 ing them again at full gallop, picking things from the ground that 
 they have thrown there, firing pistols, throwing themselves under the 
 horses" bellies and firing under them at full gallop, yelling and 
 shouting their war-cry, as Buffalo Bill’s cowboys do, only far more 
 picturesque figures, with their many-coloured dresses, and better 
 mounted on their beautiful mares. The wildness of the whole 
 spectacle is very refreshing; but you have to be a good rider your¬ 
 self, as the horses simply go wild. 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 
 
 295 
 
 On one occasion we saw a large body, apparently of mounted 
 Bedawi. We waved and whistled our stragglers in, and drew up in 
 line; the others did the same. We fully expected a charge. By this 
 time I had transformed myself into a boy (Richard’s son)—found 
 it more convenient for riding long distances, and for running away. 
 It sounds indecent, but all Arab clothes are so baggy and draping 
 that it little matters whether you are dressed as a man or woman. 
 So he let me ride out with two other horsemen from -the ranks 
 forward (it would have been undignified for him to do so, being in 
 command of the party); they did the same, and this is what it proved 
 to be—the Shaykh and his fighting men on the part of a distant 
 village, and a priest on the part of the Archbishop of Karryatayn, 
 with invitations. All the men embraced, my hand was kissed, and 
 we were escorted back in great triumph, riding Jerid as before. We 
 rode to the village of the Shaykh, and we sent on others with our 
 letters to Omar Beg, the Brigadier at that time commanding troops 
 at Karryatayn, because they expected a revolt of the tribes. 
 
 We eventually arrived at Karryatayn. We were treated with great 
 hospitality by Omar Beg, and when we left he accompanied us a 
 little way with an immense cavalcade, which was very picturesque 
 and pretty. We saw a mirage that day in the desert, and were very 
 tired, and had to sleep with our arms, without undressing. We then 
 had a somewhat dangerous defile to pass through mountains, where 
 we found a well. I had invented a capital way of watering the 
 beasts. Man can always draw water, but nobody thinks of the 
 horses, and in a cup or tin pot you cannot get enough water for 
 them. I had bags made of skins, exactly like a huge tobacco-pouch 
 with ropes, and whenever we came to inaccessible water these were 
 lowered until every animal had drank its fill. At each of these 
 places, Jerud, Atneh, and Karryatayn, several who had been longing 
 to go to Tadmor wanted to join us, secure of protection, of food 
 for themselves, and corn for their animals without paying a farthing 
 for it. We increased to a hundred and sixty persons, and some 
 had one and some two animals. I had one man with me as my own 
 servant, a Syrian Christian, who gave us a great deal of trouble. 
 He was very clever, and the best dancer; but the second or third 
 day after a hard day’s ride, the horses were dead beat, and instead 
 of taking his horse and watering and feeding it, and putting it in 
 shelter as I desired, he drew his sword and cut its throat, in hopes 
 of being allowed to ride my second horse, so I ordered him off 
 to the baggage in the rear. No Moslem would have done such 
 a thing. I never liked him after. We could not turn the man out 
 to die in the desert, but the day that we got back to Damascus, my 
 
296 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 husband sent him to prison, for that and thefts in the houses where 
 we stayed. 
 
 We met with another ghazti before we arrived, but we imposed 
 on them by calling a halt, planting the flag, showing our Bedawin, 
 and ordering breakfast to be spread. We then improvised a tir 
 by planting a lance in the sand at a good distance, with a pumpkin 
 at the top, or an orange, and showed them how far our rifles would 
 carry, and the ghazu being mounted on mares, not camels, we were 
 not attacked. A few of ours curveted about, preparatory to bolting, 
 but my husband called out to the men to form into line, and then 
 he shouted, “ The first man who leaves this line, I’ll shoot him in the 
 back as he rides away.” That made them settle down. 
 
 The first sight of Palmyra makes you think it is a regiment of 
 cavalry drawn out in single line on the horizon; it was the most 
 imposing sight I ever looked upon, though I have seen plenty of 
 other ruins. It is so gigantic, so extensive, so bare, so desolate, rising 
 out of, and partially buried in a sea of sand. There is something that 
 almost takes your breath away about this splendid City of the Dead. 
 When you are alone and gazing in silence upon her solitary grandeur, 
 you feel as if you were wandering in some unforgotten world, and re¬ 
 spect and wonder bid you hush like a child amidst the tombs of a 
 long-closed and forgotten churchyard. This was the Tadmor built 
 by Solomon, as a safe halt for the treasures of India and Persia 
 passing through the desert (2 Paralipomenon or Chronicles viii. 4), 
 “ And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store cities, 
 which he built in Hamar.” Read also 3 Kings or 1 King ix. 18. 
 
 I shall never forget the imposing sight of Tadmor. There is 
 nothing so deceiving as distance in the desert. At sea you may 
 calculate it, but in the desert you never can. A distant ruin stands 
 out of the sea of sand, the atmosphere is so clear that you think you 
 will reach it in half an hour; you ride all day and you never seem to 
 get any nearer to it, just as if it receded in proportion as you 
 advanced. We camped outside, close to the great colonnade. We 
 had five tents, our free-lances ten, the rest of the party theirs, and 
 the animals close by. There were four sulphurous streams; we kept 
 one to drink, and one to bathe, and two for the animals. There is 
 a height of rock on which is a castle; the mountain-top was cruised 
 all around with an infinity of labour to form a drawbridge and moat. 
 The ascent is exceedingly steep. On two sides is a fine range of 
 mountains, on the other two a desert of sand, stretching far away 
 like a yellow sea. The ruins and a small oasis caused by the 
 foundation lie at our feet. It is possible that Tadmor once spread 
 over all the irrigated part of the plain. A few orchards, and the 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 297 
 
 splendid ruins, and a handful of wretched people have huts 
 plastered like wasps’ nests within them. The whole City must have 
 been composed of parallel streets, and similar streets crossing them, 
 some formed by immense columns, and stretching far over the 
 plains, and cornered by temples and castles. The Temple of the Sun 
 was carved from great blocks of rock from the mountains; has some 
 fine cornices, some still perfect. In one direction there is a falling 
 wall on the slant, as if it was arrested in falling. It has a square court 
 of seven hundred and forty feet each side, encompassed by a wall 
 seventy feet high. The central door is thirty-two feet high and 
 sixteen wide. The temple still has one hundred columns standing. 
 The few people who live there are disgusting and ophthalmic. 
 
 The tombs are a great interest—tall square towers with a handsome 
 frontage. Inside are four stories. The ceilings are beautiful; the 
 entrances are lined with Corinthian columns and busts. There are 
 tiers to the very top for bodies. One contained one hundred bodies. 
 One bore a 102 b.c. date, one Anno Domini 2—evidently a very swell 
 family, and all speaking of sad ruined grandeur. The ruins are 
 enormous and extensive, and simply splendid. I cannot describe 
 the sensation of being in a great City of the Dead, and thinking ever 
 all the story of Zenobia and her capture, especially by moonlight. 
 The simoom blew our tents nearly down part of the time. Richard 
 discovered caves, and he spent several days excavating. We found 
 human curios, human bones, and skulls with hair on them, which 
 we brought home. There is a sulphurous river, bright as crystal, 
 and tepid with the properties of Vichy. Water issues from a 
 cavernous hole in the mountain, and streams through Palmyra. A 
 separate spring, of the same quality, bubbles up in the sand near 
 it. The Damascenes send for Vichy water; why don’t they get it 
 from here ? We also found some Greek statues; one of Zenobia, 
 life size. Some of our men were taken with wahteb , a disease 
 peculiar to Syria, and hereditary—a sort of convulsions or hysteria. 
 They generally get a firstborn to tread up and down the back, but 
 I brought them to quicker with doses of hot brandy and water. 
 We returned by a different route part of the way. There is a well- 
 known river and outwork six hours’ ride away from Palmyra, called 
 Selamfyyah, and bearing east-south-east of the Mount of Hamah. 
 Here begins a high rolling ground called El Alah, which we come 
 to later on. We had very bad weather, and our tents were nearly 
 carried away at night We had a wild-boar hunt on the way. We 
 fell in with fifty Bedawi; they were not strong enough to attack us, 
 but we had to stick to our baggage. Our usual day in the desert 
 (in which we lived off and on) was as follows :— 
 
298 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 The usual travelling day is that those who had anything to do 
 rose two hours before starting, but those who had not got into their 
 saddles at dawn. Being, as one may say, head sais, or groom, I saw 
 the horses groomed, fed, watered, and saddled. Our dragomans * 
 attended to striking the tents and the baggage. We started at dawn, 
 and rode until the sun was unbearable; we then halted for one or 
 two hours. The animals were ungirthed, fed, and watered, and we 
 had our food and smoke, and perhaps a short sleep; after which we 
 mounted, and rode till near sunset. We then halted for the night. 
 The tents were pitched. If we were near an inhabited place Richard 
 sat in state on his divan and received the Chiefs with narghlleh 
 and sherbet; I saluted, and walked off with the horses. I had drilled 
 my people so well that they were all drawn up in line; at one 
 word of command, off with the bridles, and on with the head- 
 stalls ; at another word the saddles off, the perspiring backs rubbed 
 with a handful of raki , to prevent galls, and the horse-cloths thrown 
 on. They were then led about to cool for a quarter of an hour, 
 then ridden down to water, if there was any, or watered out of the 
 skins if there were not, and their nose-bags put on with tibn —straw 
 chopped up as fine as mincemeat, the hay of this country—then 
 picketed in a ring, heels out, heads in, hobbled fore and aft, and grooms 
 in the middle. 
 
 I would then go back to my husband, and sit on the divan at a re¬ 
 spectful distance and in respectful attitude, speak little, and be invited 
 to have a sherbet or narghileh. I then saluted, and went to see the 
 horses groomed for the night, and get their suppers; then I returned 
 to my husband’s tent, supper and bed, and to-morrow da capo. The 
 baggage animals, with provisions and water, are directed to a given 
 place so many hours in advance by the compass. One man of our 
 riding-party slings on the saddle-bags, containing something to eat 
 and drink ; another hangs a water-melon or two to his saddle, another 
 the skins to draw water for the horses, and another or two, nose-bags 
 with corn. We ride on till about eleven, and dismount at the most 
 convenient place, and water as we go along, if there is any. The 
 horses’ girths are slackened, their bridles changed for halters; they 
 drink, if possible, and their nose-bags are filled with one measure 
 of barley. We eat, smoke, and sleep for one hour or two; we then 
 ride on again till we reach our tents. 
 
 We are supposed to find them pitched, mattresses and blankets 
 spread, mules and donkeys free and rolling to refresh themselves, 
 baggage stacked, the gypsy-pot over a good fire, and perhaps a 
 
 * If any one wants dragomans, let them give preference above all to Melhero 
 Wardi, of Beyrout, and consult his brother Antun. 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 299 
 
 glass of lemonade or a cup of coffee ready for us. It does some¬ 
 times happen that we miss our camp, that we have the ground for 
 bed, the saddle for pillow, and the water-melon for supper. Richard 
 used to take all the notes, sketches, observations, and maps, and 
 gather all the information. The sketches and maps were Charles 
 Drake’s business, when with us. I acted as secretary and aide-de- 
 camp, and had the care of the stable and any sick or wounded men; 
 I could also help him with the sextant, and with some of his 
 scientific instruments. 
 
 A short day’s riding would be eight hours, a very long one would 
 be thirteen, and we generally stayed at any place of interest till 
 it was exhausted. In this way we saw all Syria, Palestine, and 
 the Holy Land off the beaten tracks, and through the deserts, the 
 Haur^n and wild places included. I do not like to say too much 
 about it, because my two volumes of “ Inner Life of Syria,” which 
 were published in 1875, and “ Unexplored Syria,” written by Richard, 
 Charley Drake, and me (2 vols., 1872), have mostly told everything. 
 These will be republished in the Uniform Library. 
 
 Camping out is the most charming thing in the world, and its 
 scenes will always live in my memory. It is a very picturesque 
 life, although hard, but one gets so used to it, as quite to dislike a 
 house. I can never forget some of those lovely nights in the desert, 
 as after supper we all sat round in circles ; the mules, donkeys, 
 camels, horses, and mares picketed about, screaming, kicking, and 
 holloaing; the stacked loads, the big fires, the black tents, the 
 Turkish soldiers, the picturesque figures in every garb, and wild and 
 fierce-looking men in wonderful costumes lying here and there, 
 singing and dancing barbarous dances (especially the sword-dance); 
 or stories told, or Richard reciting the “ Arabian Nights,” or poor 
 Palmer chanting Arab poetry, or Charley Drake practising magic to 
 astonish the Moghiribehs, though neither of these two were with 
 us then. A glorious moon lights our tripod and kettle; the jackals 
 howl and chatter as they sniff the savoury bones, and if you can 
 remain breathless, it is the prettiest thing to see them gambol in the 
 moonlight, jumping over one another’s backs, but if one, smelling 
 food, runs round your tent when all are asleep, the shadow on the 
 white canvas is so large that it frightens you. A distant pack coming 
 along sounds like the war-cry of the Bedawi booming down upon 
 you; their yell is unearthly as it sweeps by you, passes, and dies 
 away in the distance. I used to love the sound, because it told me 
 I was in camp, by far the most delightful form of existence when 
 the weather is not too cruel. 
 
 Madame Omar Beg’s two pets were a hyaena, which received me 
 
300 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 at the gate, and a lynx that lay upon the divan. The first put its 
 fore-paws on my shoulders and smelt my cheek, and did “pouf” 
 (like a bellows blowing in your face) to frighten me; and the other 
 sprang at me and mewed and lashed its tail. For sheer fright I 
 stood stock still and they did nothing to me, and amused Madame 
 Omar immensely when she came in. 
 
 Camel-riding is very pleasant, if it is a delul with a long trot, but 
 a slow walk is horribly tedious, a baggage animal is bone-breaking, 
 and a gallop would be utter annihilation. A shugduf or takhtarawdn 
 shakes you till you are sore. The nicest mount is horse or mare— 
 mare safer; but Richard did a very wise thing—he chose rahwans. 
 They run an American trot, and there is no more fatigue in riding 
 them than sitting in an armchair. You have only to sit still and let 
 them go, and they cover enormous spaces in the day; so he used 
 to arrive perfectly fresh when we were all tired out. I possessed 
 a couple of stallions. I was headstrong and foolish, and I would ride 
 them, because I hated the rahwans ’ paces; so I took a great deal 
 more out of myself than I need have done, as they generally danced 
 for a couple of hours before they settled down to their work. 
 However much you may love the desert and camp life, when you 
 have had your fill of it, I cannot tell how refreshing it is to see the 
 first belt of green, like something dark lining the horizon, and to 
 long to reach it. When you enter by degrees under the trees, the 
 orchards, the gardens of Damascus, you smell the water from afar, 
 and you hear its gurgling long before you come to the rills and 
 fountains; you scent and then see the fruit—the limes, figs, citron, 
 water-melon; you feel a madness to jump into the water, to eat your 
 fill of fruit, to go to sleep under the delicious shade. 
 
 Such is entering Damascus. You forget the bitter wind, the scorch¬ 
 ing sun, the blistering sand; you wonder if it is true that you are 
 going to have a bath, to change your clothes, to sleep in a real bed, 
 without having to watch against Bedawi, or if your brain is hurt by 
 the sun, or if your blinded eyes are seeing a mirage. Your tired, 
 drooping horse tells you it is true; he pricks his ears, he wants to 
 break out into a mild trot; done up as he is, he stops to drink at every 
 rill, and, with a low whinny of joy, gathers a mouthful of grass at 
 every crop. You who have never travelled in the desert do not know 
 what water means. I have seen forty Bedawi race to a hole in a 
 rock where as much rainwater had gathered as would fill a hand- 
 basin, fling themselves off their horses, bend and put their lips to 
 it, and then courteously make way for each other. You will see 
 people in the East sitting, in what would appear to you a placid 
 idiotcy of delight, by a little trickling stream not a foot wide, with 
 
THE BURTONS’ HOUSE IN SALAMIYYAH, DAMASCUS. 
 By Sir Frederick Leighton. 
 

 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 301 
 
 a nargJnleh , and calling it kayf , which means doles far niente, or “ sweet 
 do-nothing/’ 
 
 Our House. 
 
 “ Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of Spring, blooming 
 as thine own rosebud, as fragrant as thine own orange flower, O Damascus, 
 Pearl of the East 1 ” 
 
 Our house in Damascus overhung the road and opposite gardens, 
 with projecting lattice windows, was bounded on the right by a 
 Mosque, on the left by a Hammdm (Turkish bath), and front and 
 back by gardens. On the other side of the road, among the apricot 
 orchards, I had a capital stable for twelve horses, with a good room 
 for saises (grooms), and a small garden with the river running 
 through it. As soon as you got out of our village there was a bit 
 of desert sand, and a background of tall yellow-coloured mountain, 
 called Jebel Kaysun, or the Camomile Mountain, and that was what 
 our village smelt of. When you entered our house, you came into 
 a square courtyard, coarsely painted in broad stripes of red, white, 
 and blue. All around were orange, lemon, and jessamine trees, a 
 fountain playing in the middle, opposite the liwan , a raised room 
 with one side taken out of it, open on to the court, spread with 
 carpets and divans, and the niches filled with plants. Here, on hot 
 days, one receives and offers coffee, lemonade, sherbet, chibouques, 
 narghilehs , and cigarettes. On one side is a dining-room, on the 
 other a cool sitting-room; all the rest is for servants and offices. 
 Upstairs, six rooms run round two sides of the courtyard ; a long 
 terrace occupies the other two sides, joining and opening into the 
 room at either end. There is a cool house-top with plants, to spread 
 mats and divans, to sit amongst the flowers under the trees and 
 by the Mosque-minaret, to look either towards our mountain, or over 
 Damascus and the gardens, and inhale the desert-air from the other 
 side of Damascus. 
 
 We also made a beautiful arbour in the garden opposite, which 
 contained chiefly roses and jessamine. By lifting up the overladen 
 vines and citrons, and branches of the lemon and orange trees, and 
 supporting them on a frame-work, so that no sun could penetrate 
 their luxuriance; we had a divan made under them for the cool 
 summer evenings near the rushing river, and many happy hours of 
 kayf we passed there. The Mosque next door to us, seemed to 
 be built round and clung to a huge vine tree, which spread up and 
 down all over it and its terrace, and the Muezzifts Minaret and my 
 study window were cheek by jowl. The village was charming— 
 
302 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 domes and minarets peeping out of trees, bubbling streams, the music 
 of the water-wheel. 
 
 Whenever we were in Eastern life, whether in Syria or elsewhere, we 
 always made a point of being thoroughly English, and European in our 
 Consulate; but, when not obligatory, we used to live a great deal with 
 the natives, and as the natives, for the purpose of experience. We wore 
 European dress in Damascus and Beyrout, and we wore native dress up 
 the country or in the desert. It was as easy for me to wear men’s dress 
 as my own, because it was all drapery, and does not in the least show the 
 figure. There is nothing but the face to tell by, and if you tuck up your 
 kufiyyah you show only half a face, or only the eyes. Thus we would eat 
 what they ate. If I went to stay with a harem, I always went in my own 
 clothes; but if I went to the bazar, I frequently used to dress like a 
 Moslemah with my face covered,and sit in the shops in the bazar, and 
 let my Arab maid do all the talking lest I might be suspected, that I 
 might hear all the gossip, and enter something into their lives. And 
 the women frequently took me into the mosques in the same way, 
 knowing who I was. We attended every sort of ceremony, whether it 
 was a circumcision, or a wedding, or a funeral, or a dervishes’ dance, 
 or anything that was going on, or any religious ceremony—my husband 
 to the Cafes and the Mosques, the evening story-tellers haunts; I to 
 the charm shops, where the khosis (fortune-tellers) hang out and 
 administer love philters, or, in short, every sort of thing, and mix with 
 all classes, religions, and races and tongues. The small rides and 
 excursions round Damascus are innumerable and beautiful; they lead 
 through garden and orchard with bubbling water, under the shady fig 
 and vine, pomegranate and walnut. You emerge on the soft yellow 
 sand, and you throw off your superfluous strength, by galloping 
 as hard as you will. There is no one to check your spirits ; the 
 breath of the desert is liberty. It was very pleasant for us, as we 
 used to get acquainted with all the Shaykhs and people for two or 
 three days’ ride all round Damascus, and if we felt dull—which, 
 by the way, we never did—we could run out and pay them a visit, 
 such as Shaykh Sali’s camp, passing El Bassuleh to Hijaneh. 
 Lakes are marked on the maps a day’s journey from Damascus. 
 There are four lakes supposed to receive the Abana and Pharphar, 
 but they are generally dry, the rivers evaporating or disappearing 
 in the sand. You ride across the Ghutah plain, the Merj, and 
 Abbs (the plains of Damascus) into the Wady el Ajam. It is also 
 pleasant to ride down to the coast, seventy-two miles, and take 
 a steamer going to Tyre, Sidon, and other coast places. 
 
 Richard’s day, as I said, was divided into reading, writing, study¬ 
 ing, and attending to his official work. There was one kind of duty 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 
 
 303 
 
 within the town, another without the town, to scour mountain and 
 desert, to ride hard, and to know everything that is going on in the 
 country, and personally , not through dragomans only. His talents 
 were particularly Eastern, and of a political and diplomatic kind; his 
 knowledge of Eastern character was as perfect as his languages. He 
 was as much needed out of the town as in it, and very often when they 
 thought he was far away, he was amongst them, and they wondered 
 how he knew things. I interested myself in all his pursuits, and I 
 was a most fortunate woman that he allowed me to be his companion, 
 his secretary, and his aide-de-camp. I looked after our house, 
 servants, stables, and animals. I did a little gardening. I helped my 
 husband, read and wrote, studied Arabic, received and returned visits, 
 saw and learnt Damascus through, till I knew it like my own pocket, 
 looked after the poor and sick of my village and its environs. Some¬ 
 times I galloped over the plains, and sat in the Bedawi tents, some¬ 
 time went up all the mountains. Summer times I smoked narghilehs 
 by the waterside in a neighbour’s garden. Sometimes I went to pass 
 two or three days with a harem. Our lives were wild, romantic, 
 and solemn. After sunset the only sounds were the last call to 
 prayer on the Minaret top, the howling of the wild dogs, the cries of 
 the jackals in the burial-ground outside the village, the bubbling of 
 the fountains, the hootings of the owls in the garden, the soughing of 
 the wind through the mountain gorges, and the noise of the water¬ 
 wheel in a neighbour’s orchard. There was often a free fight in the 
 road below, to steal a mare, or to kill. We have often gone down to 
 take some poor wretch in, and bind up his sabre-cuts. 
 
 I used to have a large reception every Friday, and not only of the 
 Europeans, but the Authorities as well as the natives of every tongue, 
 race, and creed, who used to assemble in our Divan for ?iarghtlehs , 
 sherbet, and coffee. It used to begin at sunrise, and go on till 
 sunset How I look back to those romantic days when the assembled 
 party, being afraid to remain in our quarters after the sun was down, 
 used to file down through the orchards and gardens to the safe 
 shelter of the Damascus gates at sunset, and the mattresses and 
 cushions of the divans were spread on the housetop, backed by the 
 romantic Jebel Kaysun, with a bit of desert sand between it and us, 
 and on all the other three sides a view over Damascus, and its sur¬ 
 rounding oasis, and the desert beyond ! 
 
 Then the supper was prepared on the roof, and there remained 
 with us the two most interesting and remarkable characters of 
 Damascus, the two who never knew what fear meant—the famous 
 Abd el Kadir and Lady Ellenborough, known there as the “ Hon. 
 Jane Digby el Mezrab.” Abd el Kadir was a dark, handsome, 
 
304 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 thoroughbred-looking man, with dignified bearing and cool self- 
 possession. He dressed in snowy white, both turban and burnous. 
 Not a single ornament except his jewelled arms, which were 
 splendid. If you saw him on horseback you would single him 
 out from a million; he had the seat of a gentleman and a soldier. 
 He was’ every inch a Sultan. His mind was as beautiful as 
 his face. He spoke the perfection of Arabic, he was a true 
 Moslem, and he and Richard were both Master-Sufi. All readers 
 will know his history. He was the fourth son of the Algerine 
 Marabout Abd el Kadir Mahi ed Din, and was born in 1807. You 
 all remember his hopeless struggles for the independence of Algeria, 
 his capture, his imprisonment in France from 1847 to 1852—a 
 treacherous act, and a tarnish to the French Government. Lord 
 Londonderry earnestly entreated Louis Napoleon to set him free, 
 which he did, going to the prison himself to let him out, and treating 
 him with the greatest honour. He pensioned him and sent him to 
 Damascus, where he was surrounded by five hundred faithful Algerines. 
 He divided his time into prayer, study, business, and very little 
 sleep. He loved the English, but he was loyal to Louis Napoleon. 
 When the massacre in i860 took place, he used to sleep at his 
 own door, lest any poor Christian wretch should knock and petition 
 to be saved from slaughter, and for fear his Algerines, being Moslems, 
 should turn a deaf ear; and he saved many, sending guards down to 
 the convents of women, and to his friends. 
 
 Our other friend was the Hon. Jane Digby, of the family of Lord 
 Digby, married to Lord Ellenborough, and divorced. She made 
 her home in Damascus, and eventually married a Bedawin Shaykh 
 (Mijwal el Mezrab), the tribe of Mezrab being a branch of the great 
 Anazeh. She was a most beautiful woman, though at the time I 
 write she was sixty-one, tall, commanding, and queen-like. She was 
 grande dame au bout des doigts , as much as if she had just left the 
 salons of London and Paris, refined in manner and voice, nor did 
 she ever utter a word you could wish unsaid. My husband said she 
 was out and out the cleverest woman he ever met; there was 
 nothing she could not do. She spoke nine languages perfectly, and 
 could read and write in them. She painted, sculptured, was musical. 
 Her letters were splendid ; and if on business, there was never a 
 word too much, nor a word too little. She had had a most romantic, 
 adventurous life, and she was now, one might say, Lady Hester 
 Stanhope’s successor. She lived half the year in a romantic house 
 she had built for herself in Damascus, and half her life she and her 
 husband lived in his Bedawi tents, she like any other Bedawin 
 woman, but honoured and respected as the queen of her tribe, 
 
SAEAHIYYAH, DAMASCUS IN THE OASIS. THE DESERT BEYOND 
 
 By Charles Tynvhitt-Drake. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 305 
 
 wearing one blue garment, her beautiful hair in two long plaits 
 down to the ground, milking the camels, serving her husband, pre¬ 
 paring his food, giving him water to wash his hands and face, sitting 
 on the floor and washing his feet, giving him his coffee, his sherbet, 
 his narghilehs, and while he ate she stood and waited on him, and 
 glorying in it; and when in Damascus they led semi-European lives. 
 She looked splendid in Oriental dress, and if you saw her as a 
 Moslem woman in the bazar you would have said she was not more 
 than thirty-four years of age. She was my most intimate friend, 
 and she dictated to me the whole of her biography, beginning 15th 
 March, 1871, and ending July 7th. 
 
 After I left a report came home that she was dead. I answered 
 some unpleasant remarks in the Press about her, throwing a halo 
 over her memory, in which I stated that I being the possessor of 
 the biography, no one had a right to say anything about her except 
 myself. She reappeared again, having only been detained in the 
 desert by the fighting of the tribes. Her relatives attacked her for 
 having given me the biography, and she, under pressure, denied it 
 in print through one of the missionaries, and then wrote and asked 
 me to give it back to her; but I replied that she should have had 
 it with the greatest pleasure, only having “ given me the lie ” in 
 print, I was obliged for my own sake to keep it, and she eventually 
 died. I have got it now, but I shall never publish it.* 
 
 Richard and Children. 
 
 Richard’s love for children was quite extraordinary. If there was a 
 child in the room, even a baby in arms, no one could get a word out 
 of him ; but you would find him on the floor, romping with them, and 
 they were never afraid of him. I do not think there could possibly 
 be a better illustration than the very admirable and striking account 
 given by Salih, who was one of the missionaries in Damascus:— 
 
 “ Burton at Damascus . 
 
 “ My first sight of Captain Burton revealed not only the man in 
 his complex character, but supplied the key to the perplexing vicissi¬ 
 tudes of his extraordinary career. 
 
 “ On his arrival in Damascus, Burton called at my house. My 
 study adjoined the drawing-room, into which he was shown by a 
 native servant. I heard him command the Arab to fetch me in 
 harsh, peremptory tones, which were meant to be obeyed. 1 he 
 servant, not thinking that I was in the study, went to seek me else¬ 
 where. I advanced, in noiseless Damascus slippers, to the drawing¬ 
 room door, and I came upon a scene never to be forgotten. 
 
 “At one side of the room stood my curly-headed, rosy-cheeked little 
 boy of five, on the other side stood Burton. The two were staring at 
 each other. Neither was aware of my presence. Burton had twisted 
 
 * The MSS. has now been destroyed.—W. H. W. 
 
 U 
 
306 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 his face into the most fiendish-like aspect. His eyes rolled, exposing 
 the whites in an alarming manner. The features were drawn to one 
 side, so as to make the gashes on his jaw and brow appear more 
 ghastly. The two cheeks were blown out, and Burton, raising a 
 pocket-handkerchief to his left cheek, struck his right with the flat 
 of his right hand, thus producing an explosion, and making the 
 pocket-handkerchief fly to the left as if he had shot it through his 
 two cheeks. 
 
 “The explosion was followed by a suppressed howl, something 
 between the bark of a hyaena and a jackal. All the time Burton 
 glared on the little fellow with the fiery eyes of a basilisk, and the 
 child stood riveted to the floor as if spell-bound and fascinated, 
 like a creature about to be devoured. Suddenly a very wonderful 
 thing happened. The little boy, with a wild shout of delight, sprang 
 into the monster’s arms, and the black beard was instantly mingled 
 with the fair curls, and Burton was planting kisses all over the flaxen 
 pate. The whole pantomime was gone through as quick as light¬ 
 ning, and Burton, disentangling himself, caught sight of my Arab 
 returning without me, and, instead of waiting for an explanation, 
 hurled at him a volley of exasperating epithets, culled from the rich 
 stores of spicy and stinging words which garnish Arabic literature. 
 Burton had revealed himself to me fully before he saw me. The 
 child’s clear, keen instinct did not mislead it. The big, rough 
 monster had a big child’s heart behind the hideous grimaces. The 
 child’s unerring instinct was drawn by affinity to the child’s heart 
 in the man.” 
 
 Syria. 
 
 Each year in January we rode out with the Meccan Caravan, or 
 Haj, as far as Ramsah, the third station, and one year returned to 
 Damascus via Izra (the Edhra of the Handbook) and the celebrated 
 Haurdn valley plain, inspecting the chief settlements and making 
 acquaintance with the principal Shaykhs. Richard writes— 
 
 “ I had business at Hums (Emesa), generally written Homs, and 
 Hamdh (Hamath Epiphaneia), on the northern borders of the con¬ 
 sular district of Damascus. From there I examined and sent home 
 native facsimiles of the four unique basaltic stones, whose characters, 
 raised in cameo, apparently represent a system of local hieroglyphics 
 peculiar to this part of Syria, and form the connecting link between 
 picture-writing and the true syllabarium. A friend was kind enough 
 to give me some valuable papers, amongst them two maps noting 
 the most important of the three hundred and sixty villages, which 
 he had traced himself by aid of native information. These stud the 
 plain known as El ’Alah; the same number of villages are allotted to 
 the Lejd. This plain is a high rolling ground beginning at Sela- 
 mfyyah, the well-known ruin and outwork of Palmyra, six hours’ ride 
 from, and bearing east-south-east of the Mound of Hamdh. It ex¬ 
 tends five days’ journey to the north, and from east to west two or 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 307 
 
 three days’. Some call it the ‘ Great Syrian Desert: ’ but the Seleu- 
 cidae here kept their immense studs of elephants and horses. The 
 whole is virgin ground, as are also the eastern slopes of the Jebel 
 Kalbfyyah, on the left bank of the Orontes, and of the country 
 extending from the parallel of Hums to that of Selarmyyah. In the 
 first five hours we had examined five ruins; and the basaltic build¬ 
 ings are exactly those of the Giant Cities of Bashan. We returned 
 to Damascus by Jebel el Hulah; saw the fine crusading castle called 
 Hush el Akrad, the plain of the Nahr el Kaffir, the Eleutherus river. 
 Our hardships were considerable; the country was under water, and 
 the rushing torrents and deep ditches caused long detours. We had 
 heavy and continuous rains, furious blasts, snow and sleet like 
 Norway. One of the followers sickened and died, and we were all 
 frostbitten. In all my trips and peregrinations, I had business to 
 do as well as pleasure. 
 
 “ Throughout Syria, when the basaltic soil runs to any depth, the 
 earth is loose and treacherous, fatiguing to traverse in summer, and 
 impassable in winter. In some places the water is sulphurous or 
 brackish, but in most places without any unpleasant taste; it is 
 strongly diuretic.” 
 
 Unexplored Syria. 
 
 Taken from Richard’s journals of excursions to the Libanus with 
 Charley Drake and me, and once with Drake alone, the Tulul el 
 Safa, the Anti-Libanus, the Northern Libanus, and the ’Alah. We 
 collected eighty-one original Greek inscriptions in the Haurin 
 mountain, and in the ’Alah, a collection of Alpine plants from the 
 Libanus, shells, and geological specimens. Charley Drake did the 
 plans and sketches and maps, Richard and I the writing. 
 
 Richard wrote— 
 
 “ The fact was we had long been tantalized by the sight of 
 the forbidden Tulul el Safd, or Hillocks of the Safa Pyramids, 
 looking at the distance like baby finger-tops, dotting the eastern 
 horizon within sight of our housetop, and, thinning out northwards, 
 prolonged the lumpy blue wall of the Jebel Duruz Hauffin, which 
 appears to reflect the opposite line of the Anti-Libanus. Many also 
 were the vague and marvellous reports which had reached our ears 
 concerning a cave called by the few who knew it Umm Nfran, the 
 mother of fires. The difficulty and danger of visiting these places 
 arose in my time simply from the relations of the Waifs government 
 with the hill tribes of Bedawin, who, mixed up with the Druzes, infest 
 the Trachonic countries. The hill tribes proper are AgayHt, the 
 Hasan, the Shurafat, the Azamat, and the Masd’id. The Saffi is 
 tenanted by the Shitayi, the Ghiyds, and the Anjad, whilst the Lejd 
 belongs to the Sulut, as clients of the Druzes. These are nine hordes 
 intermarried, who combine together in the warfare of the tribes. 
 They are the liege descendants of the refractory robbers of the 
 Trachonitis, who, to revenge the death of their Captain Naub, rose 
 up against the garrison of three thousand Idumaeans stationed in 
 their country by Herod, son of Antipater. Their prowess as 
 plunderers is still famous. 
 
308 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “ To the scandal of every honest man, they are allowed to scour 
 the plains, carry off the flocks, and harry the flocks and herds of the 
 peasantry. They served as ready implements of revenge against all 
 those disaffected to or disliked by the petty autocrat [Rashid Pasha] 
 who then disgraced the land by his rule. They are small and slightly 
 made, with oval face, bright brown eyes, and restless roving look of 
 the civilized pickpocket. The features high and well formed, the skin 
 a clear olive yellow. They wear long love-locks of raven-wings’ tint, 
 well buttered. Their dress scanty and irregular. The action, like 
 the eyes, is wild and startled; the voice is a sort of bark. When 
 attacked, they put the women, children, and cattle in the rear, form 
 a rude line, carefully guard against being out-flanked, and advance 
 file-firing with great regularity. They attack strangers, and they 
 have no sense of hospitality, and for this reason it was not really 
 safe to ride alone three hours beyond the Eastern gate of Damascus. 
 The Sub£’a, therefore, made the plain of Damascus a battle-field, 
 and the Wuld Ali levied black-mail in Coele-Syria. 
 
 “ Dust was thrown in the eyes of the civilized world whilst the 
 Wali employed hordes of banditti to plunder its own hapless subjects, 
 whilst the satellites had the audacity to publish, ‘ Le ddsert est 
 cultive, les Bedouins sont soumis, et le brigandage aneanti.’ So it 
 came to pass that all the broken-down Gassanian convents had 
 never to our knowledge been visited by any European traveller. Mr. 
 Porter was told that a hundred horsemen would not attempt a 
 journey to El Diyura. We received no damage, and nighted in 
 the old temple of Ba’al, called Harr^n el ’Awamid. However, the 
 Ghiyas found us out, advanced in a steady line, treated us to a 
 shower of bullets, severely wounding in the leg our gallant com¬ 
 panion and friend, Bedr Beg. As we were well mounted and armed, 
 and the riding ground good, we could have brought down as many 
 of them as we pleased, for we were all armed with six-shooters, and 
 eight shot rifles, but, as we wanted to avoid a blood-feud, we did not 
 return fire. After Rashid Pasha was gone, the mystery of their 
 attacking us was cleared up. 
 
 “ These convents are in an excellent state of preservation. What 
 we have to complain of is that the spirit of clique too often succeeds 
 in ignoring the real explorer, the true inventor, the most learned 
 writer, and the best artist. The honour is denied to the right man. 
 Party is successful against principle. The Pharisee, with his aggres¬ 
 sive, vigorous, narrow-minded nature, with his hard thin character, 
 all angles and stings, with his starch inflexible opinions upon 
 religion, politics, science, literature, and art, with his broad assurance 
 that his ways are the only right ways, rules with a rod of iron the 
 large herd of humanity, headed by Messrs. Feeblemind and Ready- 
 to-halt. We find in our national life, when the Battle of the Creeds, 
 or rather of ‘Non-Credo’ versus ‘Credo/ has been offered and 
 accepted; when every railway station is hung with texts and strewed 
 with tracts for the benefit of that British-public-cherished idol the 
 working-class; when the South Kensington Museum offers pro¬ 
 fessional instruction in science and art for women before they 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 
 
 309 
 
 become mothers, suggesting that creation by law may be as reason¬ 
 able as creation by miracle ; when Secularism draws the sword against 
 Denominationalism; briefly, when those who ‘believe’ and those 
 who do not, can hardly keep hands off one another in a melee, it 
 suggests a foretaste of the mystical Armageddon.” 
 
 Richard and Charley Drake sketched and fixed the positions of 
 some fifty ruins which are fated to disappear from the face of the 
 earth. They took squeezes of from twenty to twenty-five Greek 
 inscriptions, of which six or seven have dates, and explored the 
 Harrah, or ‘ Hot-Country,’ the pure white blank in the best maps, 
 and took hydrographic charts, as they found that the guide-books 
 and the maps teemed with mistakes. 
 
 “I thought,” he said, “when I came here that Syria and Palestine 
 would be so worn out that my occupation as an explorer was clean 
 gone, but I soon found that although certain lines had been well 
 trodden, that scarcely ever a traveller, and no tourists , have ever 
 ridden ten miles off the usual ways. No one knows how many 
 patches of unvisited and unvisitable country lie within a couple of 
 days’ ride of great cities and towns, such as Aleppo and Damascus, 
 Hums, and Hamdh. 
 
 “ Where the maps show a virgin white patch in the heart of Jaydur, 
 the classical Itursea, students suppose that the land has been 
 examined, and has been found to contain nothing of interest. The 
 reverse is absolutely the case. Finally, as will presently appear, 
 there are valid reasons for that same, for the unexplored spots are 
 either too difficult or too dangerous for the multitude to under¬ 
 take. To visit carefully even the beaten tracks in the Holy Land 
 occupies six months, and none except a resident can afford leisure 
 or secure health for more, and the reason that these places have 
 escaped European inspection is, that they do not afford provisions, 
 or forage, or water ; they are deadly with malarious fever, they are 
 infested by the Bedawi. They do not often detain you for ransom, 
 nor mutilate you ; but they will spear you. They will not kill you 
 in cold blood ; that is only done for a Thar , which is the blood- 
 feud between tribes. Still, under these mitigated circumstances, 
 travellers may know that their escorts will turn tail, and will hardly 
 care to expose themselves, their attendants, and baggage to a charge 
 of Bedawin cavalry. Indeed, the running away of the escort is the 
 traveller’s safeguard. If the tribe could seize all, it knows that dead 
 men are dumb, but it knows that the fugitives have recognized 
 them, and that before evening the tale will be known through all 
 the land. 
 
 “ There is no reverence in this ancient place for antiquity. Syria 
 would ivillingly change from ancient and Oriental to modern and 
 European. The ruins of the ’Alah are pulled to pieces to build houses 
 for Hamdh. The classical buildings of Saccsea are torn down and 
 
310 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 made into rude hovels for the Druzes, who fled from the Anti- 
 Libanus and Hermon. Syria, north of Palestine, is an old country, 
 geographically and technologically and other ways, but it is absolutely 
 new. A land of the past, it has a future as promising as that of 
 Mexico or the Argentine Republic. The first railway that spans it 
 will restore the poor old lethargic region to rich and vigorous life. 
 
 ‘ Lazare, veni foras ! ’—it will raise this Lazarus of Eastern provinces, 
 this Niobe of nations, from a neglected grave. There is literally no 
 limit that can be laid down to the mother-wit , the ambition , the 
 intellectual capabilities of its sons. They are the most gifted race 
 that 1 have as yet ever seen , and when the curse shall have left the 
 cou?itry—?iot the bane of superstition , but the bane and plague-spot 
 of bad rule—it will agai?i rise to a position not unworthy of the days 
 when it gave to the world a poetry and a system of religion still un¬ 
 forgotten by our highest civilization. 
 
 “My object was to become acquainted with the Hauran and its 
 Druzes, to see the Umm-Niran Cave, called the ‘fire cave,’of which 
 one hears such extraordinary legends, and the Tulul el Safa, which is 
 the volcanic region, east of the Damascus swamps. 
 
 “ The South Pacific Coast, and Mediterranean Palestine, are two 
 pendants in the world, only the East is on a much smaller scale. 
 The lakes and rivers, plains and valleys, cities and settlements, storms 
 and earthquakes, in fact, all the geographical, physical, and the 
 meteorological, as well as the social features of the two regions, show 
 a remarkable general likeness with a difference of proportion. 
 
 “ The world is weary of the past. In these regions there is hardly 
 a mile without a ruin, hardly a ruin that is not interesting, and in 
 some places, mile after mile and square mile after square mile of ruin 
 show a luxuriance of ruin. There is not a large ruin in the country 
 which does not prove, upon examination, to be the composition of 
 ruins more ancient still. The mere surface of the antiquarian mine 
 has only been scratched; it will be long years before the country 
 can be considered explored, before even Jerusalem can be called 
 ‘ recovered/ and the task must be undertaken by Societies, not by 
 individuals. 
 
 “ Of history, of picturesque legend, of theology and mythology, of 
 art and literature, as of archaeology, of palaeography, of palaeo- 
 geography, of numismatology, and all the other ’ologies and ’ographies, 
 they have absolutely no visible end. If the New World be bald and 
 tame, the Syrian old world is, to those who know it well , perhaps a 
 little too fiery and exciting, paling with its fierce tints and angry 
 flush the fair vision which a country has a right to contemplate in 
 the days to be. There is a disease here called ‘ Holy Land on the 
 Brain/ which makes patients babble of hanging gardens and par¬ 
 terres of flowers. The ‘ green sickness ’ attacks tourists from Europe 
 and North America, especially where the sun is scarce. It attacks 
 the Protestant with greater violence than the Catholic (the Catholic 
 from long meditation is prepared for it). The Protestant fit is excited 
 and emotional, spasmodic and hysterical, ending in a long rhapsody 
 about himself, his childhood, and his mother. It spares the Levan- 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 311 
 
 tine, as ‘yellow Jack ’ does the negro. His brain is too well packed 
 with the wretched intrigues and petty interest of material life to have 
 any room for excitement at * the first glimpse of Emmanuel’s Land.’ 
 The sufferer will perhaps hire a house at Siloam, and pass his even¬ 
 ings in howling from the roof, at the torpid little town of Jebus, 
 ‘Woe! woe to thee, Jerusalem!’ Men fail to shaking hands with 
 one another, and exchange congratulations for the all-sufficient reason 
 that the view before them ‘ embraces the plain of Esdraelon.’ 
 
 “ A long a?id happy life should be still before it. The ruined heaps 
 shew us what has been ; the appliances of civilization , provided with 
 railways and tramways , will offer the happiest blending of the ancient 
 and the modern worlds . It will become another Egypt , with the 
 advantages of a superior climate , and far nobler races of men. Time 
 was when I dreamt of the Libanus as my future pied d terre. When 
 weary with warfare and wander, one could repose in peace and com 
 fortable ease. I thought of pitching a tent for life on Mount 
 Lebanon, whose raid and tobacco are of the best, whose Vino Toro 
 is compared with the best, whose winter climate is like an English 
 summer, whose views are lovely, a place at the same time near and 
 far from society—it was riant in the extreme;* but in the state of 
 Syria in my time, the physical mountain had no shade, the moral 
 mountain no privacy, the village life would have been dreary and 
 monotonous, broken only by a storm, an earthquake, a murder, a 
 massacre. Such is the rule of the Wali in this unfortunate time, 
 when drought and famine, despotism and misrule, maddens its un¬ 
 fortunate inhabitants. 
 
 “ We now determined the forms and bearings of the Cedar Block, 
 the true apex of the Libanus. We then went to the unknown and 
 dangerous region called Tulul el Safi, the Hillocks of the Safi 
 district, a mass of volcanic cones lying east of the Damascus swamps 
 called lakes. Then we explored the northern Anti-Libanus, a 
 region which is innocent of tourists and traveller, and appears 
 a blank of mountains upon the best maps. Of my fellow-traveller 
 Charley Drake I can only say that every one knows his public 
 worth. At the end of my time here came three tedious months of 
 battling unsupported, against all that falsehood and treachery could 
 devise; the presence of this true-hearted Englishman, staunch to the 
 backbone, inflexible in the cause of right, and equally disdainful of 
 threats and promises, was our greatest comfort: I can only speak 
 of him with enthusiasm. Our journey to the northern slopes of 
 Lebanon, and the ’AMh or the highland of Syria, is an absolute 
 gain to geography, as the road lay through a region marked on 
 our maps ‘ Great Syrian Desert,’ and the basaltic remains in the 
 extensive and once populous plain lying north-east and south-east 
 of Hamah have been visited, sketched, and portrayed for the first 
 time. We found lignite, true coal, bituminous schists and limestone, 
 the finest bitumen or asphalt, mineral springs of all sorts, and 
 ores of all kinds, and plants and rhubarb. And then the duty of a 
 
312 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Consular officer in Syria is to scour the country, and see matters 
 with his own eyes, and personally to investigate the cases which are 
 brought before him at head-quarters, where everything except the 
 truth appears. 
 
 “ After our visit to Ba’albak and the northern Libanus, we * did ’ the 
 southern parts of the mountain, the home of the Druzes as opposed 
 to that of the Maronites; then we ascended Hermon, then we had 
 our gallop to the Waters of Merom, that hideous expanse of fetid 
 mire and putrefying papyrus. We paid a visit to the only Bedawin 
 Amir in this region, the Amir Hasan el Fa’iir of the Bend Fadl 
 tribe, and then we visited most of the romantic and hospitable 
 Druze villages which cling to the southern and eastern folds of 
 Hermon.” 
 
 We used to spend all the summers in the Anti-Lebanon. Bluddn 
 is a little Christian village, Greek orthodox, which clings to the 
 Eastern flank of the mountain overlooking the Zebeddni valley, 
 which is well known to travellers, because it leads from Damascus 
 to Ba’albak. In it we found the official sources of the Barada, 
 the river of Damascus, but its real source is a pool just behind 
 our quarters, fed in winter by the torrent of Jebel el Shakff. 
 The Bludan block is a few miles north of the site of Abila, the 
 highest summit of Anti-Lebanon, and is fronted on the west by 
 Jebel el Shakff, or “ Mountain of Cliffs,” with gaps and gorges. 
 Bluddn lies twenty-seven miles to the north-west across country, away 
 from Damascus. 
 
 Ours was a large claret-case-shaped house of stone; the centre 
 was a large barn-like limestone hall with a deep covered verandah; 
 a wild waste of garden extends all round the house, a bare ridge 
 of mountain behind; a beautiful stream with two small waterfalls 
 rushes through the garden. It is five thousand feet high—an 
 eagle’s nest, commanding an unrivalled view. The air was perfect, 
 only hot at three p.m. for an hour or two, and blankets at night. 
 There was stabling for eight horses; no windows, only wooden 
 shutters to close at night. We see five or six ranges of moun¬ 
 tains, one backing the other, of which the last looks down upon 
 the Hauran. We can see Jebel Sannin, which does not measure 
 nine thousand feet above sea-level, monarch of the Lebanon, and on 
 the left, Hermon, king of the Anti-Lebanon. The Greek villages 
 cling like wasps’ nests to our mountain, and Zebeddni, on the plain 
 beneath, contains thirty-five thousand Mohammedans. 
 
 The utter solitude, the wildness of the life, the absence of 
 luxe , and no society, the being thoroughly alone with Nature and 
 one’s own thoughts, was all too refreshing; we led half-Eastern lives 
 and half-farmhouse life. We made our own bread, we bought 
 
THE BURTONS’ HOUSE AT BLUDAN, IN ANTI-LEBANON. 
 By Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Damascus—His Third Co 7 isulate. 313 
 
 butter and milk from the Bedawi, we bought sheep or kids from 
 passing flocks. We woke at dawn, and after a cup of tea, we 
 used to take the dogs, and have long walks over the mountains with 
 our guns. 
 
 The game were bears (very scarce), gazelles, wolves, wild boars, 
 and a small leopard called nirnr, but for these we had to go far, and 
 watch in silence before dawn. But Richard had opinions about sport; 
 he only wanted to kill a beast that would kill us if we did not 
 kill it, and the smaller game, partridges, quails, woodcocks, hares, 
 and wild duck, we never shot unless we were hungry, and we would 
 not have the gazelles hunted. He had the greatest contempt for the 
 Hurlingham matches, and the battue slaughters in English parks, 
 where, instead of honestly walking for your game, and bringing it 
 home to eat, the young men of to-day have a gentle stroll to eat 
 p&te de foie gras, drink champagne, and the keeper hands them a 
 gun with a pheasant almost tied to the end of it to blow to pieces. 
 And what Richard thought about sport I heartily agreed with. 
 The hot part of the day was spent in reading, writing, and 
 studying x\rabic. He sent home from Bludan, during 1870, 
 “Vikram and the Vampire” (Hindu tales), “Paraguay,” and “ Pro- 
 verbia Communia Syriaca ” (Royal Asiatic Society, 1871)—three 
 works he had been long preparing. 
 
 His three literary necessities were Shakespeare, the Bible, and 
 Euclid, and they were bound up together, with three large clasps, 
 like a breviary, and went everywhere. His method of language¬ 
 learning he has described in his autobiography. He taught me this 
 way. He made me learn ten new words a day by heart. “ When 
 a native speaks, then say the words after him to get his accent. 
 Don’t be English—that is, shy or self-conscious—if you know five 
 words, air them wherever you can; next day you will know ten, and 
 so on till you can speak. Don’t be like the Irishman who would 
 not go into the water until he could swim. Then take a very easy 
 childish book, in the colloquial language of the day. and translate it 
 word for word underneath the original, and you will be surprised 
 how soon you find yourself unconsciously talking.” 
 
 At twelve we had our first meal; in the afternoon native Shaykhs, 
 or English from Beyrout or Damascus, came to visit us, or rare tourists 
 would crawl up to see what sort of people we were, and how we lived. 
 They all used to say, “ Well, it is glorious, but the thing is to get here.” 
 We set up a tir (shooting-place) in the garden, and used to practise 
 pistol or rifle shooting, or fence, or put on the cavesson , and lunge 
 the horses if they had had no exercise. When the sun became cooler, 
 all the poor within sixteen miles round would come to be doctored; 
 
3 i4 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 the hungry, the thirsty, the ragged, the sick and sorry, filled our 
 garden, and Richard used to settle grievances, and they all got money 
 or clothing, food or medicine, and sympathy. Before dinner we 
 used to assemble in the garden to eat a few mouthfuls of leban 
 salad and drink a liqueur glass of raki, which was quite necessary 
 to give us sufficient appetite. Divans were then spread on the 
 housetop, and we used to watch the moon lighting up Hermon, 
 whilst we smoked the after-dinner narghileh. The horses were 
 picketed out all these summer nights, and the saises slept with them. 
 The last thing was to have night prayers, and then to go the rounds 
 to see that everything was right, turn out the dogs on guard, and 
 then to bed. 
 
 The mails came once a fortnight, and Richard would ride 
 into Damascus and see that all was well. Sometimes we used 
 to give a picnic to some of our Moslem neighbours, and we 
 would gallop out in the plain, and stay in the black tents of the 
 Arabs. I used to have to ride down to the Moslem village Zebedffiii 
 every Sunday for church. The path was steep, and covered with 
 rolling stones, so that the horses used mostly to slide down, and it 
 occupied about an hour and a half. The most curious part was 
 that the Shaykhs and chief Moslems always accompanied me to 
 Mass. The thing that astonished the Shaykhs the most, was the 
 small acolytes being able to read and sing in Latin, and they 
 constantly exclaimed, “ Mashalldh ! ” 
 
 We were much grieved about this time to hear the sad news of 
 poor Lord Clarendon’s death. Few amongst us that have not some 
 happy recollection of that kind, true heart. He belonged to a 
 breed of gentlemen that with one or two exceptions may be said 
 to have died out. R.I.P. At this juncture Mr. E. H. Palmer and 
 Charley Drake had come back from Sinai and the Tih Desert, and 
 came to stay with us. 
 
 We wandered about for a long time together. On a long day we 
 might easily zigzag forty or fifty miles, and thirty or thirty-six on 
 a short day. We never rode straight to a place, and always rode 
 two horses, as there is so much to be seen on both sides of a 
 direct way. 
 
 Ba’albak is far more beautiful, though much smaller than Tadmor, 
 and can be seen without any danger. Tadmor is more romantic, 
 picturesque, more startling, and there is the attraction of the danger, 
 and being in the absolute desert. Londoners and Parisians would 
 consider Ba’albak in the desert, but we from Damascus do not. 
 This was the holy place of the old Phoenicians, and I do not know a 
 finer sight, from a distant height, when Ba’aibak is lit up by the setting 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 3 1 5 
 
 sun. The fertile plain of the BukTa, with its black Turcoman tents 
 and camels, lies in the distance. There is a big stone still lying there, 
 which would weigh eleven thousand tons. The Hajar el Hablah, or 
 pregnant stone, is a huge unfinished block. Our measurements were 
 seventy feet long, fourteen feet two inches high, and thirteen feet 
 eleven inches broad. The extraordinary sight makes you exclaim, 
 “ Something must have frightened them before they had time to 
 carry it off.” 
 
 Riding about, you come to the Turcomans’ tents, who have 
 wandered about Syria since the days of the Crusaders, and have 
 preserved, like their neighbours the Nuwar (gypsies), their ancestral 
 language and customs. We then went to live for a short while with 
 the Maronites, two hundred thousand people, under the rule of their 
 Patriarch, and we camped for some time under the cedars of Lebanon. 
 There are only nine of these large and ancient trees left; the four 
 largest are in the form of a cross, and three smaller. There are 
 555 trees (newer than these nine), all told, and they are 7368 feet 
 above sea-level. While stopping with his “ Beatitude the Maronite 
 Primate of Antioch, and of all the East,” whom his flock calls “ our 
 Patriarch, our Pope, and our Sultan,” we saw for once the simplicity 
 and sincerity of the Apostolic ages. 
 
 B’sherri, Jezzfn, and Sad£d produce a manly, independent race of 
 Christians, fond of horses and arms, with whom I am not ashamed 
 to own community of faith. In all my life I have never seen worse 
 riding than the Kasraw^n ; it consists of nothing but debris of rock, 
 fields, valleys, and mountains, all of the largest jagged stones. Our 
 horses had to do the work of goats, and jump from one bit of rock 
 to another, and it lasted over twelve hours at once. We lost our camp, 
 but after seeing our exhausted horses groomed, fed, watered, and 
 tethered in a warm spot, we were glad to eat a water-melon, and 
 sleep on our saddle-cloths in the open. The next day was just as 
 bad until we reached Affka, but the scenery was glorious. We had 
 three days of this awful riding, which the Syrians call “ Darb 
 el Jehannum,” the “road of hell.” We visited Mr. Palgrave’s old 
 quarters, a monastery of fifty or sixty Jesuits, where Mr. Palgrave 
 was a Jesuit for seventeen years. Here we all got fever. 
 
 Upon the 26th of August, Richard received at night, by a mounted 
 messenger, the two following letters from Mr. Wright, Chief Mis¬ 
 sionary at Damascus (No. 2), and from Mr. Nasif Meshaka, Chief 
 Dragoman of the British Consulate (No. 1). I give them as they 
 were written:— 
 
316 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 No. i. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, 
 
 “ The Christians in Damascus are in great alarm; most of 
 them have left for Safdnayah, and others are about to leave for else¬ 
 where. Their alarm was occasioned from the following facts: signs 
 of crosses were made in the streets in the same way which preceded 
 the massacre of i860. On the 23rd instant a certain Mohammed 
 Rashid, a Government inspector (teftish), being in disguise, caught 
 a young Jew, twelve years old, in the service of Solomon Donemberg, 
 a British-protected subject, making signs of crosses in a cabinet of 
 a mosque at Suk el Jedfd. Yesterday another young Jew, in the 
 service of Marco, a French Jew, was caught also. Both of these 
 two boys were taken to the Government; being under age, they 
 were at once released by order of Mejlis Tamiz Hukuk. It is 
 believed that the Moslems are the authors of these signs, either 
 directly or indirectly, to stop the Government from taking the Redi'f 
 (militia), which is managed in a very oppressive manner, that is, 
 leaving many families without males to support them. Such kinds 
 of Redi'f prefer rather to be hanged than seeing their harfms without 
 support or any one to maintain them in their absence. A certain 
 Nicolas Ghartous, a Protestant from Ain Sh£ra, reported to me 
 yesterday that while waiting on Mr. Anhouri, near the barracks of 
 the Christian quarter, being dressed like a Druze, three soldiers of 
 the same barracks came to him and said, i Yakfk el ’ijl,’ a technical 
 term used by the Druzes, meaning, 1 Are you ready for another 
 outbreak?’ Ghartous replied, ‘We are at your disposal.’ The 
 soldiers replied, 1 Prepare yourself, and we will reap our enemies 
 from here to the Bab Sharki ’ (the Christian quarter), and thus they 
 departed. Hatem Ghanem, a Catholic member in the Haur£n, 
 came here to recover some money due to him by Atta Zello of the 
 Meydan Aghas. While claiming the money he was beaten, and his 
 religion and Cross were cursed by his debtor, who was put in prison 
 at the request of the Catholic Patriarchate. Twenty to thirty Redffs 
 of the Meyddn ran away to the LejTa, to take refuge there. The 
 Redffs will be collected next Saturday, the 27th instant, some say 
 at the Castle of Damascus, others at Khabboon and Mezzeh. The 
 report is current that on that day there will be no work in town, and 
 that there will be an outbreak. Although Ibraham Pasha, the new 
 Governor, arrived on the 23rd instant, he will not undertake his 
 duties till the return of the Wali. The Governor, as well as some 
 Frenchmen, through M. Roustan, who is now at Jerusalem, intend 
 to propose to the Wali to leave Holo Pasha to continue occupying 
 his present function under the present circumstances. The Mushir 
 left on the 19th instant. The Wali is absent The Muffetish , 
 whom you know his inefficiency, is the Acting Governor-General. 
 Consuls are absent (that is, the French and English). The presence 
 of the high functionaries, and especially the Consuls, is a great 
 comfort to the Christians in general.” 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 
 
 3 T 7 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, 
 
 “ I have just got in from Rasheiya, and before I sat down 
 several Christians and one Moslem came in to ask if I knew what 
 was coming. They seemed to be very much afraid; but, except 
 that people don’t act logically, I see no reason for fear. The fear, 
 however, does seem very great. I know nothing. Any English of 
 us here should be ready at the worst to fight our corner. Many 
 thanks for your prompt action in our affairs. It is something to 
 have 
 
 * One firm, strong man in a blatant land, 
 
 Who can act and who dare not lie.’ 
 
 “W. W.” 
 
 It appeared that one of those eruptions of ill-feeling, which are 
 periodically an epidemic in Damascus, resulting from so many 
 religions, tongues, and races, was about to simmer into full boil 
 between Moslem and Christian. The outsiders are fond of stirring 
 up both, for they reap all the benefit. It appeared that a slaughter- 
 day was fixed for the 27th of August, 1870; all the Chief Authorities, 
 by an accidental combination of affairs, were absent as well as the 
 Consuls. Wednesday is the Moslem’s unlucky day, and also, I 
 believe, the 23rd; it is thought it will be the day of the end of the 
 world. There would be nobody to interfere, and nobody to be 
 made responsible. It was the night of the 26th when he got these 
 letters. Richard ordered the horses to be saddled, the weapons to 
 be cleaned. In ten minutes he told me what his plans and arrange¬ 
 ments were. He said, “ We have never before been in a Damascus 
 riot, but if it takes place it will be like the famous affair of i860. 
 I shall not take you into Damascus, because I intend to protect 
 Damascus, and you must protect Bludan and Zebedd,ni. I shall 
 take half the men, and I shall leave you half. You shall go down 
 into the plain with me to-night, and we shall shake hands like two 
 brothers and part; tears or any display of affection will tell the secret 
 to our men.” 
 
 So it was done, and at six o’clock the next morning he walked into 
 the mejlis (council chamber). He was on good terms with them all, 
 so he told them frankly what was going on, and said, “ Which of 
 you is to be hanged if this is not prevented ? It will cost you Syria, 
 and unless you take measures at once, I shall telegraph to Constan¬ 
 tinople.” This had the desired effect. “ What,” they asked, “ would 
 you have us to do?” He said, “I want you to post a guard of 
 soldiers in every street; order a patrol all night I will go the rounds 
 
31 3 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 with Holo Pasha. Let the soldiers be harangued in the barracks, 
 and told that on the slightest sign of mutiny the offenders will be 
 sent to the Danube (their Cayenne). Issue an order that no Jew or 
 Christian shall leave the house till all is quiet.” All these measures 
 were taken by ten o’clock a.m., and continued for three days. Not 
 a drop of blood was shed, and the frightened Christians who had 
 fled to the mountains began to come back. There is no doubt that 
 my husband saved Damascus from a very unpleasant episode. Mr. L. 
 Wright, Mr. Scott, and the other missionaries, his own dragomans, and 
 a few staunch souls who remained quietly with him, appreciated his 
 conduct, and he received many thanks from those on the spot. The 
 diligence was so much in request (nearly all the Christians and 
 Europeans had tried to leave) that a friend of mine could not get 
 a seat for three weeks; yet these people, so soon as they sighted the 
 Mediterranean, were brave and blatant. “ Oh! we were not at all 
 frightened; there was no danger whatever ! ” Mr. Eldridge, who 
 had lived for ten years safely on the coast, and had never ventured 
 up to Damascus in his life, a civilian whose dislike to the smell of 
 powder was notorious, wrote me a pleasantly chaffing letter, hoping 
 I had recovered my fever and fright, and giving Richard instructions 
 how to behave in time of danger. When Richard had gone I climbed 
 back to our eyrie, which commanded the country, and collected 
 every available weapon and all the ammunition. The house was 
 square, looking every way. I put a certain number of men on each 
 side with a gun each, a revolver, and bowie-knife. I put two on 
 the roof with a pair of elephant guns carrying four-ounce balls, and 
 took the terrace myself. I planted the Union Jack on the flag-staff 
 at the top of the house, turned our bull-terriers into the garden, 
 locked up a little Syrian maid, Khamoor (the Moon), who was very 
 pretty (Richard used to say her eyes were of the owlified largeness of 
 the book of beauty), in the safest room, and my English maid, who was 
 as brave as a man, was to supply us with provisions. I knew that 
 I could rely upon our own men, so I filled all the empty soda-water 
 bottles full of gunpowder, and laid fusees ready to stick in and light, 
 and throw amongst the crowd. I then rode down to the American 
 mission—the only other people near—to tell them if there was the 
 slightest movement to come up and shelter with me; and then into 
 the village of Blud^n, to tell the Christians there to come and camp in 
 our garden; and lastly to Zebedani, where there were a few Christians 
 living amongst the thirty-five thousand Moslems, and I sent them up at 
 once, because there would be no time for them to reach me if danger 
 came suddenly. The others were close by. I then rode down to the 
 Moslem Shaykhs, and asked them what they thought. They told me 
 
Damascus — His Tim'd Consulate. 
 
 3 T 9 
 
 there would be a fight. “ One half of our village will fight with you 
 and yours, the other half will destroy the Christians here and at 
 Bludan. They will hesitate to attack yow house, but if matters are 
 so bad as that, they shall pass over our dead bodies, and those of 
 all our house, before they reach you.” And every night they came up 
 and picketed round the garden till my husband came back. 
 
 This lasted three days, and all subsided without accident. At this 
 time also there was a tremendous row between a Moslem and a 
 Christian woman ; he tore the woman’s ear down, smashed her black 
 and blue, bruised her, and took all her gold ornaments from her. The 
 case of Hassan Beg, on whose account my husband was reported, by 
 the British Syrian School missionaries, to be recalled on account 
 of my co?iduct , happened a whole year before my husband’s recall. 
 After this, when we rode desert-wards, the tribes used in the evening 
 to dance especially for Richard. The men formed a squad like 
 soldiers; they plant the right foot in time to tom-tom music, with 
 a heavy tread, and an exclamation like that used by our street- 
 menders when the crowbar comes down with a thud upon the 
 stones. When they are numerous it sounds like the advance of an 
 army, and they would burst out into song, of which the literal trans¬ 
 lation would be— 
 
 “ Mashallah ! Mashallah ! At last we have seen a man ! 
 
 Behold our Consul in our Shaykh ! 
 
 Who dare to say ‘ Good morning ’ to us (save Allah) when he rules ? 
 
 Look at him, look at the Sitt ! 
 
 They ride the Arab horses ! 
 
 They fly before the wind ! 
 
 They fire the big guns ! 
 
 They fight with the sword ! 
 
 Let us follow them all over the earth ! ” 
 
 (Chorus) “ Let us follow, let us follow,” etc., etc. 
 
 We were very fond of animals, and especially of wild ones. 
 Holo Pasha had given us a panther cub trapped in the desert to 
 show his appreciation of what Richard had done. We brought him 
 up like a cat. He grew to be a splendid beast, and never did any of 
 us harm, but he frightened the other animals a little sometimes. 
 We kept him very well fed, in order that he might never attack them. 
 Our cat was very frightened of him, and the only animals that he was 
 frightened of were the bull-dogs. He used to sleep by our bedside. 
 He had bold bad black eyes, that seemed to say, “ Be afraid of me.” 
 He used to hunt me round the garden, playing hide-and-seek with 
 me as a cat does a mouse. When he bit too hard, I used to box 
 his ears, when he was instantly good. But he grew up and was 
 large. There was a certain baker that the bull-terriers used to bite, 
 and the panther, who also saw in him what we did not, worried 
 
320 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 him. At last the peasantry, who were frightened of him, gave him 
 poison in meat. He withered away, and nothing we could do did 
 him any good, and one day, when I went to look round the stables, 
 he put his paw up to me. I sat down on the ground, and took him 
 in my arms like a child. He put his head on my shoulder, and his 
 paws round my waist, and he died in about half an hour. Richard 
 and I were terribly grieved. 
 
 There are charming rides across the Anti-Lebanon through a moun¬ 
 tain defile to Ain el Bardi, where we found black tents and flocks 
 feeding by the water. There is very much to be seen in the plain of 
 El Buka’a, beginning at Mejdel. Anjar is a little village on a hillock 
 standing alone; on its top is a small gem of a temple built by Herod 
 Agrippa in honour of Augustus, with a very graceful broken column ; 
 below it are the ruins of Herod’s Palace, and a twenty minutes’ 
 further ride in the plain lie the ruins of Chalcis. From the temple 
 above named we could see the greater part of the Bukd’a, walled 
 in at either side by the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, and dotted 
 with seventy-two villages. Anjar is bisected by the Litani river, 
 falsely called the Leontes. Having feasted our eyes, we rode on to 
 the square ruins of Chalcis in the plain, and to Neby Za’ur to see 
 the tomb, and we carried off skulls and bones. We crossed the 
 plain, ascended the Lebanon, and when near its summit turned to 
 our left across a mountain called Jebel Bariik, in the territory of El 
 Akkiib. 
 
 A favourite ride was into the Druze country, beginning at Bariik, 
 a stronghold in a wild glen. They are a fine, tall, strong, and manly 
 race, who can ride and fight and shoot, and are fit to be our allies. 
 There is no cant about them; they are honest and plain-spoken, and 
 do not know intriguing, lying, stealing, or spying. A Druze house has 
 huge black rafters in the ceiling, and straight tall columns down the 
 middle; there is a private room for council. The women have one 
 blue garment, and one white veil showing one eye. They are chaste, 
 and good wives and mothers. They have clean, comfortable homes, 
 and give a warm welcome, and we rested here for some time. People 
 often say, “ What is the real religion of the Druzes? ” No one ever 
 knew who was not a Druze ; they conform to the national religion, 
 the Moslem. In speaking to you or me, they would appear to have 
 a particular leaning to our respective faiths. They have a secret 
 creed of their own, which, although women are admitted to the 
 council chamber, is as mysterious as Freemasonry. Some Modems 
 pretend that they worship Eblis, and some Christians say the bull- 
 calf El Ijl. 
 
 On our road we came to another stronghold, like an ancient 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 
 
 321 
 
 convent, where lives Melhem Beg Ahmad, a Druze chief, a dare¬ 
 devil-fine-old-man, who, when he mounts, takes his bridle in his 
 teeth, puts his musket to his shoulder, and charges down a mountain 
 that an English horse would have to be led down. He lives in great 
 style; he threw his cap in the air, drank to our health a thousand 
 times, and his sons waited on us at dinner. Muktara hangs on a 
 declivity in a splendid ravine in wild mountains in the territory of 
 Esh Shuf. The house we were going to is like a large Italian 
 cascine, nestled amidst olive groves, that are, so to speak, the 
 plumage of the heights. It is the Syrian palace of the Jumblatts, 
 the focus and centre of the Lebanon Druzes. Here reside this 
 princely family, headed then by a Chieftainess, the “ Sitt Jumblatt.” 
 
 Long before we sighted Muktara, wild horsemen, in the rich Druze 
 dress, came careering down, jeriding on beautiful horses, with guns 
 and lances, the sons and retainers of the house heading them. They 
 were splendidly mounted, and one of the sons had a black mare, so 
 simply perfect I infringed the tenth commandment. We descended 
 into a deep defile, and rose up again on the opposite side, the whole 
 of which was lined with horsemen and footmen to salute us, and 
 the women trilled out their joy-cry. Ascending the other side was 
 literally like going up stairs cut in the rock ; it was a regular fastness. 
 We rode our horses up the flight of stairs into the court. We re¬ 
 ceived the most cordial and gracious hospitality from the Sift, who 
 had all the well-bred ease of a European grande dame. Water and 
 scented soap was brought in carved brass ewers and basins to wash 
 our hands, incense was waved before us, we were sprinkled with rose¬ 
 water, whilst an embroidered gold canopy was held over us. Coffee, 
 sherbet, and sweets were served. The next morning the palace was 
 filled with grey-bearded and turbaned scribes, with their long brass 
 inkstands, and the Sitt explained to Richard that her affairs were 
 entirely neglected at Beyrout, and asked him to do something for 
 her. He explained that it was a great embarrassment to him, as he 
 was subordinate to Mr. Eldridge, but that, whatever she chose to 
 write, he would make a point of going himself to present her wishes 
 to Mr. Eldridge. Richard notes in his journal that day among 
 others, “ Eldridge does nothing, and is very proud of what he does. 
 Consular office awfully careless; sick of dyspepsia; nothing to do 
 body and mind.” 
 
 We sat down to a midday meal equivalent to a dinner, and 
 then went to the Jerid ground, where the sons and their fighting 
 men displayed their grace and skill. The stables are solid, and 
 like tunnels with light let in, containing sixty horses, all showing 
 blood, and some quite thoroughbred. At nightfall there was a big 
 
 x 
 
322 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 dinner, to which all the retainers flocked in ; there was dancing and 
 war-songs between the Druzes of the Lebanon and the Druzes of the 
 Haurdn, ranged on either side of the banqueting hall; they performed 
 a pantomime, they sang, and recited tales of love and war far into 
 the night. 
 
 An amusing thing was, that after the Siit had dined with us, I 
 found her shortly after sitting cross-legged on the floor of the kitchen, 
 devouring a second dinner. I said, “ Ya Sitti, I thought you had 
 eaten your dinner with us ; what are you doing ? ” She laughed, 
 and said, “ My dear child, you don’t suppose for an instant that I 
 got a bit into my mouth with those knives and forks ; I was only 
 doing pantomime for the honour of the house. Now I am getting my 
 real dinner with my fingers ! ” We were accompanied out with the 
 same honours as those with which we were ushered in. How sorry we 
 were to leave ! Our friendship always lasted. We used to begin, “ My 
 dearest sister,” and she used to say all those sweet things which only 
 Easterns can say, such as—“ My eyes sought for you many days till 
 my head ached; when will you come to repose them, that I may not 
 see your empty place ? ” 
 
 We went on to Deir el Khammar to the palace of Bayt el Din 
 (B’teddin), where Franco Pasha (the best governor the Lebanon has 
 ever known) lived, and was restoring this ruined castle of the late 
 terrible Amir Beshir ShelHb, from whence the view is splendid. He 
 had about five hundred soldiers, and was doing enormous good. He 
 had a band, a school, was planting pine trees and wheat, teaching 
 carpet-making, tailoring, shoemaking, making roads, teaching religion 
 and loyalty to God, to the Sultan, with liberality and civilization. He 
 produced an electric shock upon us by the invisible band playing 
 “ God save the Queen.” We sprang to our feet, and in that wild 
 place it made me cry. In this region we met the only real prince in 
 Syria, the Emir Mulhem Rustam. We had an immense quantity of 
 deputations of Druze Shaykhs ; those of the Hauran were something 
 like bears, with huge white turbans, green coat, massive swords, 
 some in red, and all exceedingly wild-looking. We then went to 
 Ali Beg of Jumblatt, at Baderhan. We passed innumerable Druze 
 villages, until we came to Jezzm, one of the three manly Christian 
 villages. Usuf Beg, their Chief, was a delightful Shaykh. 
 
 Sometimes these breakfasts on the march were very amusing, where 
 there were a mixture of races and religion. You would see forty 
 intrigues round a dish of rice. At Rasheya there was no water ; here 
 we were on Druze ground again. From this we went to the top 
 of Mount Hermon, i.e. it has three tops, and we put a kaku of stones 
 on the highest for a remembrance. The view is immense. We 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 323 
 
 found a cave and saw a hare. When we got to the bottom, there 
 was hardly a shoe or a rag left amongst us. Here we met some very 
 charming Druze chiefs, and went with them to Hasbeya, because 
 Richard was convinced that the sources of the Jordan were not as 
 they are given in books; and he was perfectly right. There is a 
 slanting rock with some figs growing out of it, and oleanders growing 
 in luxurious clumps in the sand all around, and out of this rock 
 rushes a stream, which we traced to the Jordan. Near is a mine of 
 bitumen. 
 
 From thence to Kefayr, another Druze village, after which we 
 rode to Banias. Of course, there are loads of things to see all 
 the way—caves or temples, or what not; but, then, all those can 
 be got in books. The sources are supposed to be here, at Banias, 
 and are made much of; and all visitors go to the fountain of 
 Jordan, the cave of Pan, the temple of Herod and Augustus, 
 with the three niches. The water trickles from beneath under 
 the stones, separating into eight or nine streams, but they are 
 not the real source. 
 
 We had a large escort to-day. Ali Beg Ahmadi and his cavalry, 
 Shaykh Ahmad, and many others, came to escort us, and we had 
 a delicious gallop over the plain of Ghyam, which is part of the Ard 
 el Huleh, through which runs the Jordan, and another portion of 
 the same is called the Abbs. We came to Arab tents, and drank 
 milk with the Bedawi; we found many of them down with fever, 
 and stopped to doctor them with Warburg’s drops. We had to ride 
 all day, and at last through marshy, rushy places under a burning 
 sun, without a breath of air. 
 
 This valley of the Jordan, if drained and planted, would be 
 immensely rich, but it teemed now with luxurious rankness, fever, 
 and death. We pitched our tents under a large tree, divided from 
 the lake by papyrus swamps; a most unwholesome spot, where we 
 were punished by every sort of insect and crawling thing in creation; 
 and we all got headache and sore throat at once. 
 
 The Bahret el Huleh, or the Waters of Merom in Josh. xi. 5-7, 
 anciently called Lake Semachonitis, is a small blue triangular lake, 
 the first and highest of the three basins of the Jordan. We had all 
 our escort with us; we had scarcely any food; there was none for 
 the horses. We had to turn them all loose to forage for themselves, 
 except the stallions, and they had to be led. It was a hideous 
 expanse of foetid mire and putrefying papyrus. We had a frightful 
 night, a stifling heat, a very blizzard of wind, rain, thunder, and 
 lightning, and we were camped under the only tree in the plain. 
 It was black dark; the ground was bad-smelling black mud; we 
 
324 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 passed the dark hours in holding our tent-pole against the wind, and 
 digging trenches outside to let the water off. There were no dry 
 clothes to be had, and the various vermin would not let one rest 
 We were like that for three days; so we piled up the trunks and 
 sat at the top of them, and read “Lothair,” by Disraeli, which 
 we had brought with us. The description of the great houses of 
 England read so funnily sitting in this black mud in the centre of 
 desolation, surrounded by feverish swamps. 
 
 In spite of the difficulties of moving in such weather, Richard 
 and I were agreed that if we stayed there any longer, we should 
 all perhaps get in such a state as not to be able to move at all; 
 so we saddled our horses, and ordering our followers and escort 
 to strike tents, pack, load, and follow, we mounted and waded our 
 horses through the water, scrambled over stones and slippery rocks, 
 and in and out mud and slush for two hours, often sinking deep, till 
 we reached the mountain roots and began to ascend 
 
 After some hours' climbing we arrived at the seventy-two tents of 
 the Shaykh Hadi Abd Allah; he instantly gave us hospitality, barley 
 for our horses and food for ourselves. They were all yellow and sickly, 
 and, even at this height, dying like sheep of fever from the miasma 
 arising out of the plain that we had been in for three days. They 
 had lost many children, and double sorrow when sons. One boy was 
 dying as we entered. Our tents came up to us late that day with 
 all our belongings. Our animals and people were fed. We stayed 
 with the tribe long enough to doctor them all round, and to leave 
 remedies and directions; and I baptized the incurables and the 
 dying children. 
 
 Then came down the Amir Hasan el Fd’ur of the Benu Fadl, 
 or Fazli tribe. He heard of our being in the neighbourhood, 
 and took us off to his camp on the summit of a mountain called 
 Jebel Haush, a day’s ride away, where we found his three hundred 
 tents. The whole tribe turned out to meet us, mounted and 
 couching their lances, and jerfded the whole way back. The recep¬ 
 tion tent was fifty feet long, and each divan was twenty-five feet 
 long. The retainers cleared a space for our camp, corn was 
 brought, horses picketed; an excellent dinner on a large scale in 
 the big tent was cooked, lambs and kids roasted whole, stuffed with 
 pistachios and rice, bowls of leban , unleavened bread, honey, and 
 camels’-milk butter, bowls of clear sparkling water. I love to think 
 now of those dark, fierce men, in their gaudy flowing costumes, 
 lying about in different attitudes, the moon lighting up the scene; 
 the lurid glare of the fire on their faces, the divans and pipes, 
 narghilehs and coffee, their wild and mournful songs, their war- 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate, 325 
 
 dances, their story-telling; and on that particular night, and on all 
 these sort of nights, my husband would recite to them one or another 
 tale out of the “ Arabian Nights ”—those tales which he has now 
 translated literally for the London world; and I have seen the 
 gravest and most reverend Shaykhs rolling on the ground and scream¬ 
 ing with delight, in spite of their Oriental gravity, and they seemed 
 as if they could never let my husband go again. 
 
 I can remember that night, when he and I went to our tent and 
 lay down on our respective rugs, he called me over, for he was 
 stung by a scorpion, but when I struck a match there was nothing 
 but a speck of blood, as though from a black ant; so we lay down 
 again, and he called out, ‘‘Quick, quick! I know it is a scorpion.” 
 I ran over and struck another light, and plunged my hand into the 
 shirt by the throat, and the scorpion caught my finger. I drew it out 
 and shook it off, and killed it; but it did not sting me, being, I 
 supposed, exhausted. I rubbed some strong smelling-salts into the 
 wounds, and, seeing he was pale, ran off to the provision-basket and 
 got a bottle of raki , and made him drink it, to keep the poison 
 from the heart, and he woke in the morning quite well. 
 
 I now discovered that though they were treating us with this 
 splendid hospitality, that behind the scenes they were also dying 
 in their tents of fever, although they were in the purest air; so here 
 we again stayed to doctor, and nurse, and baptize, and leave direc¬ 
 tions and remedies. 
 
 We then went on to most of the romantic and hospitable Druze 
 villages which cling to the southern and eastern folds of Hermon— 
 Mejdel Esh Shems to Birket er Ram, or Lake Phiala,* a little round 
 lake which we found interesting enough to come back to afterwards. 
 Mejdel is on a declivity of a mountain defile—their favourite posi¬ 
 tion—a Druze stronghold, very fighting and turbulent, where we were 
 received and treated like relations. Then we got to Beyt-Jenn, where 
 we had a mixed Druze and Christian place. We came in for a very 
 interesting Druze wedding at Arneh, at the foot of Hermon, just 
 above which rise the sources of the Awaj, which waters El Kunay- 
 terah. We then went to a Druze village called Rimeh, to look for 
 a stone with an inscription, which we found in a stable, and then 
 to the Bukk£sim, which is the Druze frontier. Here our Druze 
 cavalcade took an affecting leave of us. As we rode away I could 
 see them for three-quarters of an hour standing on a high rock to 
 watch us out of sight, one or two of them with their faces buried 
 in their mares’ necks. 
 
 * The cave near Affka forms the Orontes, the Jura sends forth the Barada of 
 Damascus, and Lake Phiala Josephus makes the highest water of the Jordan. 
 
326 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 The Wuld Ali. 
 
 Our escort of free-lances one day, as we were riding to some of 
 our usual environs, soon perceived that we were making for the 
 desert, towards the direction where the dreaded Mohammed Dukhi 
 was known to camp, and they began the well-known dodges of 
 making their horses curvet and prance and wheel in circles as if they 
 had become unmanageable, and every round became so much larger 
 that they gradually dropped out of sight. Presently some cast a 
 shoe, or another had broken a girth, and stopped to rectify it. The 
 fact is, Richard had been determined to make friends with the Wuld 
 Ali tribe, of which Mohammed Dukhi is the Chief, and rules five 
 thousand lances. At last we found ourselves alone, so we rode on 
 all that day, slept by our horses at night in a ruined khan , and got in 
 sight of the Wuld Ali encampment late next day. Richard said to 
 me, “Now mind, when they see us two horsemen, they will come 
 galloping across the sand in a body with their lances couched ; if 
 we were to turn and run, they would spear us; but if we sit our 
 horses, facing them like statues on parade, just as the Life Guards 
 sit in their sentry-boxes at the Horse Guards at home, they will take 
 us in with great applause, and our horses will stand it, because they 
 are used to desert manners.” 
 
 I said “ All right,” as I always did when he gave me an order, 
 and I was glad he put me up to it, for, sure enough, when they saw 
 our two dusky figures galloping from a distance across the sand 
 towards them, the whole tribe charged with their lances couched, 
 and we reined in and stood stock still, facing the charge ; but as 
 soon as they got within a few yards, they seemed by instinct to 
 recognize the man they were charging. They lowered their lances, 
 opened their ranks to enclose us, and with one cry of “Ak-hu 
 Sebbah!” (Brother of the Lion), jumped off their horses, kissed our 
 hands, galloped in with us jeriding, and held our stirrups to alight. 
 I need not say that we were treated with all the true hospitality 
 of real Bedawi life, and we remained several days with them. My 
 husband’s object was to make peace between the Wuld Ali and the 
 Mezrabs. We visited the lakes which are near them, and they were 
 all dried up except a bit of water in the sand about the size of a 
 small duck-pond. “What, then,” said Richard, “becomes of the 
 Bdrada and the Awaj, the so-called ancient Abana and Pharphar?” 
 They have been partly drawn off, and partly evaporated before 
 reaching their basements at ’Utaybah and Hijdnah, where we then 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 327 
 
 The Arabic of Damascus, especially the Christian Arabic, Richard 
 found so grating to the ears after the pure speech of the Bedawi— 
 and that of the Nejd and El Hejaz. 
 
 Richard writes an account of a trip— 
 
 “ A little later on Charley Drake and I again started to revisit the 
 Tulul el Safa, and our first eight days was over the old ground. 
 This trip added considerably to our scanty geographical knowledge 
 of these regions off the tracks. In one week we collected some 
 hundred and twenty inscriptions, and three lengthy copies of Greek 
 hexameters and pentameters from the Burj, a mortuary tower at 
 Shakkah, a ruin long since identified as the Saccsea of Ptolemy. 
 We went to the top of Tell Shayhdn, whose height is 3750 feet, 
 which showed us that the Lejd, the Argob of the Hebrews and 
 the western Trachon of the Greeks and Romans, is the gift of 
 Tell Shayhan. It is a lava bed, a stone torrent poured out by 
 the lateral crater over the ruddy yellow clay and the limestone 
 floor of the Hauran valley, high raised by the ruins of repeated 
 eruptions, broken up by the action of blow-holes, and cracked and 
 crevassed by contraction when cooling, by earthquakes, and the 
 weathering of ages. * The features are remarkable. It is composed 
 of black basalt, which must have issued from the pores of the earth 
 in a liquid state, and flowed out until the plain was almost covered. 
 Before cooling its surface was agitated by some powerful agency, and 
 it was afterwards shattered and rent by internal convulsions and 
 vibrations’ (Porter). Two whole days were spent at Kanawdt, the 
 ancient Canatha, a city of Og. 
 
 “ There are now hundreds of Druzes, and we may remark for the 
 first time ‘ the beauty of Bashan,’ the well-wooded and watered 
 country. We then went along the Jebel Kulayb and visited the 
 noble remains of Sfa, where we met with three Palmyrene in¬ 
 scriptions, showing that the Palmyra of Ptolemy extended to the 
 south-west far beyond the limits assigned to it. We then got 
 to Sahwat el Balat, where lives my influential friend, Shaykh Ali 
 el Plindwf, a Druze Akkdl of the highest rank; and here they 
 gathered to meet me and palaver. We crossed the immense rough 
 and rugged lava beds which gloom the land. Jebel el Kulayb was 
 bright with vetch, red poppy, yellow poppy, mistletoe with ruddy 
 berries, hawthorn boughs, and the vivid green of the maple and the 
 sumach, the dark foliage of the ilex oak scrub, and the wild white 
 honeysuckle. There was cultivation ; the busy Druze peasantry at 
 work, the women in white and blue. The aneroid showed 5785 feet, 
 the hygrometer stood at o°, the air was colder than on the heights 
 of Hermon in June, and the western horizon was obscured by the 
 thickest of wool packs. Here we made two important observations. 
 The apparently confused scatter of volcanic cratered hill and 
 
328 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 hillock fell into an organized trend of 356° to 176°, or nearly north- 
 south. The same will be noticed in the Safe, and in its out-layers 
 the Tulul el Safe, which lie hard upon a meridian; thus the third or 
 easternmost great range, separating the Mediterranean from the 
 Euphrates desert, does not run parallel with its neighbours, the 
 Anti-Libanus and Libanus, which are disposed, roughly speaking, 
 north-east 38°, and south-west 218°. 
 
 “ The second point of importance is that El Kulayb is not the apex 
 of the Jebel Duriiz Haurdn, though it appears to be so. To the 
 east appeared a broken range, whose several heights, beginning from 
 the north, were named to us. Tell Ijaynah, bearing 38°, back by the 
 Umm Hauran hill, bearing 94 0 ; the Tell of Akriba (Wetz Stein), 
 bearing 112 0 30'; Tell Rubdh, bearing 119 0 ; and Tell Jafnah, 
 bearing 127 0 30'. We believed that Tell Ijaynah was 6080 English 
 feet high, and we thought that Jebel Duruz must be greatly changed 
 since it was described by travellers and tourists. 
 
 “ Here the land, until the last hundred and fifty years, was wholly 
 in the hands of the Bedawi, especially of the Wuld Ali, and the nine 
 hill tribes already named. At last the Druzes, whom poverty and 
 oppression drove away from their original home, the Wady Taym 
 and the slopes of Libanus and Hermon, settled here. In Rashid 
 Pasha’s reign seventeen mountain villages have been repeopled, and 
 in 1886 some eight hundred families fled to this safe retreat; nor can 
 we wonder at the exodus, because of half the settlements of the Jaydur 
 district, the ancient Ituraea, eleven out of twenty-four have been 
 within twelve months ruined by the usurer and the tax-gatherer, and 
 at one time a hundred and twenty Druze families went in one 
 flight from their native mountains to the Hauran. 
 
 “ They found here a cool, healthy, but harsh climate, a sufficiency 
 of water, ready-made houses, ruins of cut stone, land awaiting culti¬ 
 vation, pasture for their flocks and herds, and, above all things, a 
 rude independence under the patriarchal rule of their own chiefs. In 
 short, the only peaceful, prosperous districts of Syria are those where 
 home rule exists, and there is scarcely any interference by the 
 authorities. It is a short-sighted and miserable management which 
 drives an industrious peasantry from its hearths and homes to 
 distant settlements where defence is more easy than offence. 
 
 “ This system keeps the population of the whole province to a 
 million and a half, which in the days of Strabo and Josephus 
 supported its ten millions and more. The European politician is 
 not sorry to see the brave and sturdy Druze thrown out as a line 
 of forts to keep the Arab wolf from the doors of the Damascene, 
 but the antiquary sighs for the statues and architectural ornaments 
 broken up, the inscribed stones used for building rude domiciles, 
 the most valuable remnants of antiquity white-washed as lintels, 
 or plastered over in the unclean interiors. The next generation 
 of travellers will see no more ‘mansions of Basham’ 
 
 “ At Shakkah (Saccsea) there are still extensive ruins and 
 fine specimens of Haufenic architecture, especially the house ot 
 Shaykh Hasan Brahfm with its coped windows and its sunken court 
 
Damascus — His Third Consulate. 329 
 
 Here we were received by the Druze Chief, Kabaldn el Kala’^ni, who 
 behaved very badly to us, and when we tried to go, refused to let us 
 unless we paid him forty napoleons for ten horsemen. We laughed 
 in his face, told him to stop us if he dared, and sent for our horses. 
 However, as we were going into a fighting country, I sent back all 
 the people who would have been in the way. 
 
 “ The Druzes had been quarrelling amongst themselves; fifteen 
 men had been killed, and many wounded. We had to doctor three; 
 one had a shoulder-blade pierced clean through. We were joined 
 nolens volens by ten free-lances, and escorted as far as Bir Kasam, 
 their particular boundary. Finally, it appears that our visit to the 
 ’AHh district, lying east of Hamah, has brought to light the existence 
 of an architecture which, though identical with that of the Hauran, 
 cannot in any way be connected with that of Og. Although only 
 separated by seventy miles from the southern basaltic region, the 
 northern has also its true Bashan architecture, its Cyclopean walls, 
 its private houses, low, massive, and simple in style, with stone roofs 
 and doors, and huge gates, conspicuous for simplicity, massiveness, 
 and rude strength. Moab has the same, only limestone is used 
 instead of basalt. 
 
 “ Duma Ruzaymah is occupied by three great houses, and the 
 Junaynah hamlet is the last inhabited village of this side towards 
 the desert. We now got to the Wady Jahjah, thence to El Harrah, 
 ‘the Hot or Burnt Land,’ and to the Kr£’a, which we crossed in 
 fifty-five minutes, and got into or entered the Naka, a?id were 
 surprised to see a messenger mounted on a dromedary, going at a great 
 pace , and evidently shunning us. We had descended 3780 feet; the 
 passage occupied two hours. 
 
 “We then ascended into the Hazir, and from the top we had our 
 first fair view of the Safd,* a volcanic block, with its seven main 
 summits. They stood conspicuously out of the Harrah, or ‘ Hot 
 Country.’ In the far distance glittered the sunlit horizon of the 
 Euphrates Desert, a mysterious tract, never yet crossed by European 
 foot. We eventually arrived at the stony, black Wa’ar, a distorted 
 and devilish land, and we then got to a waterless part, where our 
 horses were already thirsty, and into the Ghadir, where we had been 
 promised water, and it was bone dry. After long riding, we came 
 to a ruined village, El Hubbayri'yyah, where we found yellow water 
 forming a green slime. It was again the kattas which led me to the 
 water, as in Somali-land. Here we spent an enjoyable fifty minutes 
 at the water, refreshing ourselves and beasts; it lies 3290 feet above 
 sea-level. We presently fell into the Saut on return; it was good 
 travelling, and we saw old footmarks of sheep, goats, and shod 
 horses. 
 
 “ The only sign, as we turned out of the Saut and swept down from 
 the Lohf, that human foot had ever trod this inhospitable wild, was 
 here and there a goat-fold, with a place for the shepherd on a corn- 
 
 • “ This is a term used at Damascus to the northern offsets; these are the 
 southern.” 
 
330 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 manding spot, or more probably a Bedawin sentinel or scout (you 
 often see a solitary tribesman perched on a hilltop). The road was 
 simply a goat-track, over the domes of cast-iron ovens, in endless 
 succession. It was a truly maniac ride. At the Rajm el Shalshal 
 we again saw traces of our friend on the dromedary. That day at 
 4.20 p.m. we were surprised by our advanced party springing 
 suddenly from the mares, and hearing the welcome words, ‘Umm 
 Nirin !’ (the mother of fire). Late as it was, we rejoiced, because a 
 night march over such a country would have been awful. The cave 
 is as dry as the land of Scinde, and in the summer sunshine the 
 hand could not rest upon the heated surface, but after rain there is 
 a drainage from the fronting basin into the cave. We crawled into 
 it and entered a second tunnel, and after two hundred feet we came 
 to the water, a ditch-like channel, four feet wide. The line then bent 
 to the right from north-north-east to the north-east. Here, by plunging 
 our heads below water and raising them further on, we found an oval¬ 
 shaped chamber, still traversed by the water. We could not, however, 
 reach the end, as shortly the rock ceiling and the water met. The 
 supply was sweet, the atmosphere close and damp, the roof an arid 
 fiery waste of blackest lava. The basalt ceiling of the cave sweated 
 and dripped, which could not have been caused only by simple 
 evaporation. The water began by a few inches till it reached mid¬ 
 thigh. The length was a total of three hundred and forty feet; the 
 altitude was 2745 feet. 
 
 “ A water scorpion was the only living thing in the cave. 
 This curious tunnel reservoir is evidently natural. There are 
 legends about a clansman going in with black hair, and coming 
 out after the third day with white hair, and one of our lads declared 
 he had taken an hour to reach the water; but we, on all fours, 
 took three minutes. We set out again next day for the great 
 red cinder-heap, known as Umm el Ma’azah, where we halted for 
 observation, and then fell into the trodden way which leads from the 
 Ghutah section of the Damascus plain to the Rubbah valley. 
 
 “ We had long and weary desert rides, seeing everything to the 
 Bir Kasam. Bedawi never commit the imprudence of lingering 
 near the well after they have watered their beasts, because that is 
 the way to draw a ghazt't, or raid, down upon you. 
 
 “Now I have every reason to be thankful that I did not bring my 
 wife on this journey, as she was not very well. In this country fever 
 and dysentery seize upon you with short notice, and pass away again, 
 and she, though in no danger, was not in a state for hard riding at the 
 time. At Bir Kasam, a Druze greybeard, on a rahwan , rode up to the 
 well, and took the opportunity of making me a sign : pretending to 
 question him, as to the name of a mountain on the horizon, I led 
 him away, and he cautiously pulled out of his pocket a medicine 
 bottle, which he handed to me, from my wife. I then knew there 
 was something up, and I thanked him, giving him some money, and 
 asked him if he had anything to say. He said, 1 If I may advise 
 you, get rid of all your party. They want to go to Damascus or 
 Dhumayr; announce that you are going to neither, and they will 
 
Damascus — His Third Consulate. 331 
 
 probably forsake you, as this is not a safe spot. I shall ride on, till 
 out of sight, and then turn round and ride back to Damascus, 
 by slow degrees, sleeping and eating on the road. You and your 
 friend ride into Jebel Ddkwah; but first read the directions about 
 the medicine.’ 
 
 “ I uncorked the bottle, saw my wife’s warning in writing, 
 and carefully put them in my pocket not to leave a ‘ spoor.’ I 
 then paid him still more handsomely, and told him to go back to 
 my wife, and tell her it was ‘ all right,’ and not to fear. As evening 
 fell, they asked us what our intentions were. We said we were not 
 going either to Damascus or Dhumayr, and, as our messenger had 
 prophesied, they all disappeared in the night, to our great relief. 
 As soon as the last man had disappeared, we went into the 
 Dakwah Mountain (hid our horses in a cave), from the cone of which 
 you command a view of the whole country, and after a few hours 
 we saw a hundred horsemen and two hundred dromedary riders 
 beating the country, looking for some one in the plains. At last 
 they turned in another direction, towards some distant villages, and 
 when we were consoled by not seeing a living thing, we descended 
 from our perch, galloped twenty miles to Dhumayr, where we were well 
 received by faithful Druzes, whose Chief was Rashid el Bostajf. We 
 were just in time. The Governor-General had mustered his bravos ; 
 they missed us at Umm Niran, at the Bir Kasam, and again upon 
 the direct road to Dhumayr, having been put out by our detour to 
 Dakwah. They were just a few hours too late everywhere; so, to 
 revenge themselves, they plundered, in the sight of six hundred 
 Turkish soldiers, the village of Suwdydah, belonging to my dragoman 
 Azar, whose life they threatened, and also Abbadah and Haradn el 
 Awanfd. So we rode into Damascus, escaping by peculiar good 
 fortune a hundred horsemen and two hundred dromedary riders, 
 sent on purpose to murder me. I was never more flattered in my 
 life, than to think that it would take three hundred men to kill me. 
 The felon act, however, failed.” 
 
 Rashid Pasha’s Intrigue with the Druzes—My Account from 
 
 Damascus. 
 
 “ I wish each man’s forehead were a magic lantern of his inner self.” 
 
 About this time the Druzes wrote and asked Richard to come to 
 the Hauran. He wished to copy Greek inscriptions and explore 
 volcanoes. He was not aware that the Wall had a political move 
 in the Hauran, which he did not wish him to see. Mr. Eldridge 
 knew it, and encouraged him to go, as his leave would be short. 
 Richard knew that if he went to one man’s house, he must go to 
 everybody, therefore he asked them all to meet him at the house of the 
 principal Shaykh. When the Walt was told by Richard that he was 
 going, his face fell, but he suddenly changed, and said, “ Go soon, 
 
332 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 or there will be no water.” Mr. Eldridge, who never left Beyrout, 
 and had at that time never seen Damascus, had talked a great deal 
 about going there ; so Richard wrote and asked him to go with him, 
 but to that there was no answer. It was providential that I was 
 weak with fever and dysentery, and could not ride, so that I was left 
 at home. As soon as he was gone the Walt wrote to me, and 
 accused my husband “ of having made a political meeting with the 
 Druze Chiefs in the Haurdn, thereby doing great harm to the 
 Turkish Government.” Knowing that Richard had done nothing of 
 the kind, I told him so, but I saw there was a new intrigue on. The 
 Walt had only let my husband go in order to be able to accuse him 
 of meddling, and by Mr. Eldridge’s not answering I suspected he 
 knew it too. An old Druze from the Hauran came to our house, 
 said he had seen my husband, and began to praise him. I said, 
 “Why, what is he doing? ” He replied, “ Mdshallah ! we never saw a 
 Consul like him. He can do in one day what the Wali~Pasha could 
 not do in five years. We had a quarrel with the Bedawi, and we 
 carried off all their goats and sheep, and the Government was going 
 to attack us. Our Chiefs, when they saw the Consul (Allah be 
 praised !), told him the difficulty, and asked him what we ought to do. 
 He told us we ought to give back the goats and sheep to the Bedawi, 
 and to make up our quarrel, and submit to the Government, for 
 that the war will do us great harm. The Shaykhs have consented, 
 and now we shall be at peace. Mashallah! there is nobody like 
 him! ” I now began to wonder if the Wall had intended a little 
 campaign against the Druzes, and if my husband had spoilt it by 
 counselling submission. If he had intended to reduce the Druzes 
 of the Eastern Mountains, and if a campaign took place in Jebel 
 Durtiz Haurdn, the inhabitants would have been joined by the 
 fighting men of the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, and Hermon. The 
 country is eminently fitted for defence, and the Druzes, though 
 badly armed, are brave, and animated by the memories of past 
 victories. In short, the same disgraceful defeat of the Turkish 
 Government would have taken place as that which occurred in 1874, 
 and which caused the Wali, Mustafa Beg, and nine high officials to 
 be dismissed. 
 
 The Wali then employed somebody—who I need not name—to 
 inform him what day my husband was coming back. On being 
 questioned about it, my suspicions were aroused; I immediately gave 
 the wrong date (it was God’s own blessing that I had for once been 
 unable to go with him). I got the faithful old Druze to start at once, 
 with a pretended bottle of medicine. I wrote, in a cipher that my 
 husband and I composed and understood together, the whole history 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 333 
 
 of the case, and I tied it round the cork of the bottle, covering it with 
 leather and a bit of oil-skin, and sent my messenger straight out to 
 meet him. It was just in time. He noticed with his keen desert 
 instincts the fresh spoor of one solitary dromedary; the rider was 
 bound like them from Shakkah to the north-east (where the Bedawi 
 encamped), not for exploration, but with a message. He divined the 
 ill-omened foot-prints which he saw twice in different localities, and 
 so soon as the medicine bottle reached him, with what Ouida would 
 call “ a quiet low laugh under his moustache/’ he altered his course, 
 and from a concealed shelter in the rocks was able to watch the pro¬ 
 gress of a hundred horsemen and two hundred Redifs —dromedary 
 riders, two in each saddle—beating the country and looking for some 
 one. Now, these were not real Bedawi, but the jackals who call them¬ 
 selves Bedawi, who surround the Cities, and are to be hired like bravos 
 for any dirty work. They went off on a false scent, and he arrived 
 home all right. Now, the day of his arrival I had been obliged, more 
 or less officially, to attend a ceremony, where the Wall and Authorities 
 and the Consuls would be present with their wives. I was deter¬ 
 mined to go, and to put on a perfectly calm exterior, though I felt 
 very heart-sick, and a well-known Greek in the Walt's pay said to 
 me, with a meaning, unpleasant smile, “ I fancy there will be 
 important news for you in a short while.” I felt very faint inside, 
 but I said coolly, “Oh, will there? Well, I suppose I shall get it 
 when it comes.” Almost immediately afterwards, Richard’s Afghan 
 walked in, and saluting said, “ The Consul has returned and wants 
 you.” The faces of the Wall and his Greek were a study. I saluted 
 them all, went out, jumped on my horse, and rode back. Had the 
 Redifs fallen in with Richard, the verdict would have been, “ Fallen 
 a prey to his wild and wandering habits in the desert.” The Wall 
 then forged a letter from Richard to the Druzes, and forwarded it 
 through Mr. Eldridge to the Foreign Office. Here it is:— 
 
 Real Copy (translated) to the 
 Shaykhs of the renowned 
 Druze Mountain. 
 
 “After the usual compliments we want 
 to inform you that this time the wish to 
 visit you has moved us, and to take 
 the direction of your country. 
 
 “For which reason we will leave 
 Damascus on the Wednesday, and 
 sleep at Hijaneh ; the second day at 
 Lahtah, and the third at Kanawat. 
 
 We therefore hope that you will 
 meet us in the above-mentioned place, 
 that we may see you.” 
 
 False Copy (translated) and sent 
 to England. 
 
 “Traduction d’une lettre addressee 
 par le Consul Britannique, en date du 
 22 Mai, 1871 (3 Jui),aux Cheikhs Druzes 
 Hauran. 
 
 “ * Apres les compliments d’usage,^ 
 ndempresse de vous informer que, anime 
 du desir de m' entretenir avec vojis, je 
 quitterai Damas mercredi pour vous 
 rejoindre , et que j’arriverai ce jour 
 meme a Hedjan, et le lendemain k 
 Lahita, et le troisi&me k Finvate. Je 
 nourris l’espoir que vous ne manquerez 
 
334 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 This is a simple general return visit 
 to the visits of the Druzes, not to waste 
 time in going to each man’s house, nor 
 to make jealousies by singling out some 
 and neglecting others. 
 
 pas tous de venir me recontrer, au dit 
 village de Finvate, afin de prendre part 
 a cette ent revue' ” 
 
 This adds all the words that are 
 dashed, to give it a semblance of a 
 secret political meaning. 
 
 Richard and I and Charley Drake made another pleasant journey 
 exploring the Anti-Libanus. Everybody thinks, even professional 
 geographers, if you speak of the Anti-Libanus, that you are going 
 over trodden ground, filling up details upon the broad outlines 
 traced by other people; but it is very far from being the case. Now 
 the best maps only show a long conventional caterpillar, flanked by 
 acidulated drops, and seamed with a cobweb of drainage. They 
 never name a valley north-east of Zebedini, nor a summit, except 
 Jebel el Halfmah, which is not its name. The northern half of the 
 Anti-Lebanon is arid and barren, the southern is very fertile, and it 
 is far superior to the Lebanon. Weird, savage, like parts of Moab, 
 the colouring is richer, forms more picturesque, contrasts of shape 
 and hue are sharper, and the growth is more like thin forest. 
 “ That ravines of singular wildness and grandeur furrow the whole 
 mountain side, looking in many places like huge rents,” is true of 
 Anti-Lebanon, but not of Lebanon. The views are superior; it is 
 richer and more remarkable. 
 
 Some of our followers will not forget some of our day’s work, for 
 we ascend successively every height, taking angles, laying down 
 altitudes, and building up kakus to serve for a theodolite survey. 
 Charley Drake mapped and sketched whilst we wrote. 
 
 The Convent of Nabi Baruh is ruinous in the extreme, but it gave 
 us the idea of being the most ancient which we had seen throughout 
 Syria and Palestine. The reception in these wild places is always 
 the same, if they are not Christians, who—why, it is impossible to 
 say—generally receive one badly, except of course the Maronites 
 in their stronghold, and more especially the splendid Christians of 
 Jezzfn, Sadad, and B’sherri, who are marked exceptions to the 
 generality of Christians, and who are equal, if not better than 
 the rest. 
 
 All the Chiefs and notables meet the stranger at a distance beyond 
 the houses. As the two parties meet, he reins in his horse and touches 
 hands, snatching away his with a jerk if they attempt to kiss it, 
 reproachfully ejaculating “ Astaghfir ’Ullah ! ” (I beg pardon of Allah, 
 i.e. God forbid that such a thing should happen). If you permit it 
 they kiss your hand, and ridicule you in their minds as a fool, who 
 delights in such homage as a priest, whose right it is. Guided by 
 the Shaykhs, each in a strict precedence as at a London dinner-party. 
 
Damascus—-His Third Consulate. 
 
 335 
 
 he rides leisurely, not hastening the pace, lest he cause his host to 
 run; he dismounts at the door, and the Chiefs and notables rush to 
 hold his horse, his stirrup, and his back under the shoulders. He 
 must be sure to ride into the courtyard, no matter how broken be 
 the gate threshold, nor how slippery the pavement, or up the steps, or 
 they will suspect him of not knowing how to ride. He is led to the 
 salamlik , but he will not enter till the women who have been sprinkling 
 the floor have made themselves scarce. He sits down, doubling his 
 legs a little if he cannot cross them, whilst the others form a semi¬ 
 circle upon humbler rugs before him. Each salaams, and is salaamed 
 to, as he takes his place, squatting ceremoniously on his shins, till 
 his visitor says, “ Khuz r^hatak ” (Take your ease), suggesting a more 
 pleasant posture. If he fails to do this they will watch an oppor¬ 
 tunity to change seat, but if disposed to be impertinent they will 
 stretch out their shanks and require a reproof. Water pipes, sherbet, 
 lemonade, and coffee are brought, after which the Shaykh will retire 
 and beg you to repose. 
 
 A breakfast is served about noon of cheese, soured milk, grape 
 syrup, raw green onions, boiled rice, wheaten scones, and eggs 
 fried in clarified butter. It is vulgar for the stranger to produce 
 his own wine and cold meat from the saddle-bags. At sunset meat 
 is served. A whole kid is a prime sign of honour. During 
 meals one of the family stands up, holding a metal pot full of drink¬ 
 ing water. Pipes and coffee conclude. The correct thing is to 
 compel the Shaykh and the Chiefs to eat with you; the followers 
 and retainers will eat afterwards, the trays being removed to another 
 part. At night there will be a samrah , or palaver, in which the 
 state of the country in general, and the village in particular, is 
 discussed, grievances are quoted, the usurer and creditor complained 
 of, the Government and Governor abused. Local legends are 
 told, and the traveller can gain any amount of information if he can 
 speak the language. They press him to stay next day, and his 
 excuses are received with a respectful and regretful unwillingness. 
 
 Before leaving next morning he will find out privately what he has 
 cost them, he will find out that his animals have been well fed, and 
 he will manage to slip it and something more into the hands of one 
 of the women or children. Before the departure the women of the 
 family will offer excuses for their poor fare, saying, “ La tawik- 
 hiznd” (Don’t be offended with us), and he will hasten with many 
 “ Astaghftr ’Ullahs” to express his supreme satisfaction. He mounts 
 as ceremoniously as he dismounted, preceded by his escort, but 
 every now and then he reins in, dismissing them—“ Arja’u ya 
 Mashiikh ” (Return, O Shaykhs). They persist in walking to the 
 
336 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 last house, and often much farther; they again try to kiss his hand, 
 which he pulls away as before, and the visit ends. The visited then 
 retire and debate what has caused the visit, and what will be the 
 best way to utilize it. 
 
 We divided and visited every section of the northernmost line of 
 Anti-Libanus from the Halfmat el Kabfi, 8257 feet above sea-level. 
 We enjoyed an extensive and picturesque view far superior to any¬ 
 thing seen in the Libanus, especially southwards. From here we 
 might write a chapter on what we could see. The weather being clear, 
 we could even see the long-balled chine of the Cedar Block of the 
 Libanus, and its large spots of snow, which glowed like amethysts 
 in evening light. We could see the apex of the Libanus, which 
 falls into the Jurd of Tripoli. We could see the Jebel el Huleh, 
 which defines the haunts of the mysterious Nusayri; the glance 
 falls upon the Orontes Lake, upon the rich cultivation of Hums and 
 Hamdh, one of the gardens of Syria upon the ridge of SaHmiyyah, 
 that outpost of ancient Tadmor, and upon the unknown Steppe el 
 Huleh, and the Bedawi-haunted tracts which sweep up to the 
 Jebel el Abyaz, whilst the castle of Aleppo bounds the septentrional 
 horizon. The end of this day was a remarkable one. “ It was the 
 only occasion,” said Richard, “ during my travels in Syria and Pales¬ 
 tine that I felt thoroughly tired. My rahwdn ,, though a Kurd nag, 
 trembled with weakness, and my wife jogged along sobbing in her 
 saddle, and if it had not been for the advice of Charley Drake we 
 should have spent the night on the mountain-side; but we did arrive. 
 Habib had built a glowing fire, beds were spread, tea was brewed, 
 and presently a whole roast kid appeared, and restored us all in the 
 best of humours ; and our horses, after plenty to eat and drink, and 
 being well rubbed down, lay down. We had had fifteen hours very 
 hard work, not counting the before and after the march.” 
 
 We next determined to prospect the third part of the east- 
 west section of Anti-Libanus, including the Ba’albak crest, and 
 then to ride up the Coele-Syrian valley so as to fill in the bear¬ 
 ings of the western wady mouths. We had forage for our beasts, 
 water the whole way, and we were excited by the account of in¬ 
 scriptions and ruins. The Wady el Biydras was splendid in 
 scenery, and though our road was horrible, we congratulated 
 each other in not missing it, and we descended into the Wady 
 Atnayn. 
 
 We carried out all our prospected journey, gathering infor¬ 
 mation, inscriptions, and ruins everywhere, till we reached 
 Yabrud, where the Shaykhs gave us a picnic, to show us the 
 Arz el Jauzah. 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 
 
 337 
 
 There is a temple known as Kasr Namrud; the water flows through 
 a conduit of masonry, and is said to pass into a large underground 
 cistern below, round the ample stone troughs and scattered frag¬ 
 ments of columns. All through Syria Nimrod represents the Devil, 
 and ’Antar the Julius Caesar of Western Europe. The picnic, under 
 the shade of this venerable building, passed off happily enough. 
 The kababs of kid, secured instantly after sudden death, were 
 excellent; the sour milk and the goat’s cheese were perfection; and 
 the Zahlah wine had only one fault—there was only half a bottle, 
 and we could have drank a demijohn. We were very much struck 
 by the similarity of plan which connects the heathen temple with 
 the Christian church. It was late in the afternoon when we shook 
 hands with our good host. It is pleasant to think upon happy 
 partings—we never saw them again. 
 
 On our way home we passed ruins, arched caves, and sarcophagi, 
 whilst a wall displays a large rude crucifix. We were received later 
 at Talffta with all honours by the Shaykh el Balad Mahfiiz, whose 
 pauper homes had been destroyed and the rest threatened by the 
 villainous usurers under British protection, and next day we rode into 
 Damascus. During this excursion, we had seen in a range of moun¬ 
 tains, supposed to be impracticable, four temples, of which three had 
 been hitherto unvisited; we had prepared for the map of Syria the 
 names of five great mountains ; we had traced out the principal 
 gorges, all before absolutely unknown to geography; we had deter¬ 
 mined the disputed altitudes of the Anti-Libanus, and we proved 
 that it is much more worthy of inspection than the much-vaunted 
 Libanus. 
 
 Unofficially speaking of official things, we had rather a lively 
 time, in an unpleasant sense, during these summer months. I 
 always say “ we,” because I enter so much into my husband’s pur¬ 
 suits, and am so very proud of being allowed to help him, that 
 I sometimes forget that I am only as the bellows-blower to the 
 organist. However, I do not think that anybody will owe me a 
 grudge for it. 
 
 No. i. 
 
 The first shadow upon our happy life was in 1870-71. An 
 amateur missionary, residing at Beyrout, came up to Damascus, 
 visited the prisons, and distruted tracts to the Mohammedans. 
 It was the intention of the Governor to collect these prints, and 
 
 Y 
 
338 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 to make a bonfire of them in the market-place. Damascus was 
 in a bad temper for such proselytizing. It was an excitable year, 
 and it was necessary to put a stop to proceedings which, though 
 well meant, could not fail to endanger the safety of the Christian 
 population. The tract-distributor was a kind, humane, sincere, 
 and charitable man, and we were both very sorry that he had to 
 be cautioned. He had an enthusiasm in his religious views which 
 made him dangerous outside a Christian town. At Beyrout he 
 was well known, but at Damascus he was not, and the people 
 would have resented his standing on bales in the street haranguing 
 the Turks against Mohammed. I believe this gentleman would 
 have gloried in martyrdom; but some of us, not so good as he is, 
 did not aspire to it. His entourage , also, was not so humble or so 
 kind as himself. 
 
 Richard was obliged to give the caution, to do his duty to his 
 large district, thereby incurring at Beyrout most un-Christian 
 hatreds, unscrupulously gratified. Richard, with the high, chivalrous 
 sense of honour which guided all his actions, redoubled his un¬ 
 ceasing endeavours to promote the interest and business of these 
 persons, amidst the hailstorm of petty spites and insults—which 
 justice and greatness of mind on his part they themselves were 
 obliged eventually to acknowledge, however reluctantly. We were 
 decidedly destined to stumble upon unfortunate circumstances. 
 Since that, a gentleman told off to convert the Jews in one of 
 Richard’s jurisdictions, insisted on getting a ladder and a hammer, 
 and demolishing a large statue of St. Joseph in a public place of 
 a Catholic country, because he said it was “ a graven image.” Why 
 are the English so careless in their choice? and why have other 
 foreign Consuls no desagremens on this head ? 
 
 Richard writes— 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 “The Druzes applied early in 1870 for an English school. They 
 are our allies, and we were on friendly terms with them. As two 
 missionaries wished to travel amongst them, I gave them the 
 necessary introductions. They were cordially received and hospitably 
 entertained by the Shaykhs, but on their road home they were 
 treacherously followed by two mauvais sujets and attacked; they 
 were thrown off their horses, their lives were threatened, and their 
 property was plundered. 
 
 “ Such a breach of hospitality and violation of good faith required 
 prompt notice : firstly, to secure safety to future travellers; and, 
 secondly, to maintain the good feelings which have ever subsisted 
 between the Druzes and the English. To pass over such an act 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 
 
 339 
 
 of treachery would be courting their contempt. I at once 
 demanded that the offenders might be punished by the Druze chiefs 
 themselves, and twenty napoleons, the worth of the stolen goods, 
 were claimed by me for the missionaries. The Druzes went down 
 to Beyrout to try to pit Consulate-General against Consulate, and 
 refused to pay the claim. I then applied for their punishment 
 to the Turkish authorities, knowing that the Druzes would at once 
 accede to my first demand—a proceeding approved of by her 
 Majesty’s Ambassador at Constantinople. After three months the 
 Shaykh el Akkal, head religious chief, brought down the offenders, 
 who were recognized by the missionaries. They confessed their 
 guilt, and the Shaykh, who was staying as a guest in our house, 
 assured me [Richard] that I was perfectly right in acting as I had 
 done, and that every Druze was heartily ashamed of the conduct of 
 these two men.” 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 “In June, 1870, I prepared a despatch for our Ambassador at 
 Constantinople, on the system of defrauding the poor and of 
 ‘running’ villages by the Damascus Jewish money-lenders. 
 
 “ I will now try to explain how these matters stood. 
 
 “ In former days, when not a few Europeans were open to certain 
 arrangements which made them take the highest interest in the 
 business transactions of their clients, a radically bad system, happily 
 now almost extinct, was introduced into Syria. The European 
 subject, or protege , instead of engaging in honest commerce, was 
 thus encouraged to seek inordinate and usurious profits by sales 
 of the Government and by loans to the villagers. In such cases 
 he, of course, relied entirely upon the protection of a foreign Power, 
 on account of the sums to be expended in feeing native functionaries 
 before repayment could be expected. Thus the Consuls became, 
 as it were, huissiers , or bailiffs, whose principal duties were to collect 
 the bad debts of those who had foreign passports. 
 
 “ Damascus contained a total of forty-eight adult males protected 
 by H.B.M.’s Consulate, and of these there were a triumvirate of 
 Shylocks. Most of them are Jews who were admitted to, or whose 
 fathers acquired, a foreign nationality, given with the benevolent 
 object of saving them from Moslem cruelty and oppression in days 
 gone by. These proteges have extended what was granted for the 
 preservation of their lives, liberties, and property, to transactions 
 which rest entirely for success upon British protection. The case 
 of No. 1, whom we will call Judas, is a fair example. He has few 
 dealings in the city, the licit field of action. But since the death 
 of his highly respectable father, in 1854, he had been allowing bills 
 signed by the ignorant peasantry of the province to accumulate at 
 simple and compound interest, till the liabilities of the villagers have 
 
 become greater than the value of the whole village. A-, for 
 
 instance, on the eastern skirt of Mount Hermon, owed him 106,000 
 
340 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 piastres, which were originally 42,000. He claims 5000 purses 
 
 from the B-family, upon a total debt of 242,000^ piastres, in 
 
 1857. We have not yet passed through a single settlement where 
 his debtors did not complain loudly of his proceedings; and to 
 A-may be added C-,-, and D-el X-, a strong¬ 
 
 hold of the Druzes. Some villages have been partly depopulated 
 by his vexations, and the injury done to the Druzes by thus driving 
 them from the Anti-Lebanon to the Hauran, may presently be 
 severely visited upon the Ottoman authorities. 
 
 “ The British protege is compelled every year, in his quality of shitbasi 
 (farmer of revenue), to summon the village Shaykhs and peasantry, 
 to imprison them, and to leave them lying in jail till he can squeeze 
 from them as much as possible, and to injure them by quartering 
 hawali , or policemen, who plunder whatever they can. He long occu¬ 
 pied the whole attention, though it had other and more important 
 duties, of the Village Commission ( Kumision Mahasibat el Kura ), 
 established in a.h. 1280(1863). For about a year a special com¬ 
 mission ( Kumision Makhsus ) had at that time, 1870, been sitting 
 on his case, whose intricacies, complicated by his unwillingness to 
 settle anything, wearied out all the members. At different times 
 he quarrelled with every person in the Court—from the defterdar , 
 who is its President, to the Consular Dragomans, who composed it. 
 Even felony was freely imputed to him by various persons. He 
 was accused of bribing the Government khatibs (secretaries) to 
 introduce into documents sentences of doubtful import, upon which 
 he can found claims for increased and exorbitant interest, of adding 
 lines to receipts and other instruments after they have been signed, 
 and of using false seals, made at home by his own servants. One 
 of the latter publicly denounced him, but was, as usual, paid to 
 keep silence. He is reported again and again to have refused, in 
 order that the peasants might remain upon his books, the ready 
 moneys offered to him for the final settlement of village liabilities. 
 His good management had baffled all efforts at detection, whilst 
 every one was morally certain that the charges were founded on 
 fact. He corrupts, or attempts to corrupt, all those with whom he 
 has dealings. 
 
 “ I wanted to inform them that British protection extends to pre¬ 
 serving their persons and property from all injustice and violence, 
 but that it would not assist them to recover debts from the Ottoman 
 Government, or from the villages of the province, and that it would 
 not abet them in imprisoning or in distraining the latter. To such 
 general rule, of course, exceptions would be admissible, at the dis¬ 
 cretion of the officer in charge of H.B.M.’s Consulate ; in cases, for 
 instance, when just and honest claims might be rejected, or their 
 payment unduly delayed. The sole inconvenience which would 
 arise to such creditors from their altered positions would be the 
 necessity of feeing the Serai more heavily; and even they openly 
 communicated with the local authorities, reserving the Consulate 
 as a forlorn hope. The change might possibly have directed their 
 attention to a more legitimate commercial career. Such a measure 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 341 
 
 would have been exceedingly popular throughout the country, and 
 would have relieved us from the suspicion of interested motives—a 
 suspicion which must exist where honesty and honour, in an English 
 understanding of these words, are almost unknown; and from the 
 odium which attaches to the official instruments of oppression. 
 Finally, the corruption of Damascus rendered me the more jealous 
 of the good name of the Consulate, and the more desirous of personal 
 immunity from certain reports which, at different times, have been 
 spread about othe?‘s in office. I therefore posted on the door of 
 H.M.’s Consulate, Damascus, the following notice : — 
 
 “ ‘ Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul hereby warns British subjects 
 and proteges that he will not assist them to recover debts from the 
 Government or from the people of Syria, unless the debts are such 
 as between British subjects could be recovered through H.M.’s Con¬ 
 sular Courts. Before purchasing the claims, public or private, of 
 an Ottoman subject—and especially where Government paper is in 
 question—the protege should, if official interference be likely to be 
 required, at once report the whole transaction to this Consulate. 
 British subjects and protected persons are hereby duly warned that 
 protection extends to life, liberty, and property, in cases where these 
 are threatened by violence or by injustice; but that it will not 
 interfere in speculations which, if undertaken by Syrian subjects of 
 the Porte, could not be expected to prove remunerative. British 
 subjects and protected persons must not expect the official inter¬ 
 ference of the Consulate in cases where they prefer (as of late has 
 often happened at Damascus) to urge their claims upon the local 
 authorities without referring to this Consulate, and altogether ignor¬ 
 ing the jurisdiction of H.B.M.’s Consul. Finally, H.B.M.’s Consul 
 feels himself bound to protest strongly against the system adopted 
 by British subjects and protected persons at Damascus, who 
 habitually induce the Ottoman authorities to imprison peasants 
 and pauper debtors, either for simple debt, or upon charges which 
 have not been previously produced for examination at this Consu¬ 
 late. The prisons will be visited once a week. An official applica¬ 
 tion will be made for the delivery of all such persons. 
 
 (Signed) “ ‘ R. F. Burton, 
 
 “ ‘ H.B.M.’s Consul, Damascus. 
 
 Damascus, June 20th, 1870.”* 
 
 I have already related how, on August 26th, Richard received a 
 letter from the Rev. W. Wright, and likewise one from the Chief 
 Consular Dragoman, Mr. Nasif Meshaka, which induced him to 
 ride at once to Damascus (from Bludan, the summer quarter); how 
 he found that half the Christians had fled, and everything was ripe 
 for a new massacre; how he sought the authorities, and informed 
 them of their danger; induced them to have night patrols, to put 
 guards in the streets, to prevent Jews or Christians leaving their 
 houses, and to take all measures needful to convince the conspirators 
 
342 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 that they would not find every one sleeping as they did in i860. 
 The Wali and all the Chief responsible Authorities were absent. The 
 excitement subsided under the measures recommended by him, and 
 in three days all was quiet, and the Christians returned to their homes. 
 
 I affirm that, living in safety upon the sea-coast, no man can 
 be a judge of the other side of the Lebanon, nor, if he does not 
 know some Eastern language, can he be a judge of Orientals and 
 their proceedings. Certain Jewish usurers had been accused of 
 exciting these massacres, because their lives were perfectly safe, and 
 they profited of the horrors to buy up property at a nominal price. 
 It was brought to Richard’s notice that two Jewish boys, servants to 
 British-protected subjects, were giving the well-understood signal by 
 drawing crosses on the walls. Its meaning to him was clear. He 
 promptly investigated it, and took away the British protection of 
 the masters temporarily, merely reproving the boys, who had acted 
 under orders. He did not take upon himself to punish them. 
 Certain ill-advised Israelitish money-lenders fancied it was a good 
 opportunity to overthrow him, and with him his plan of seeing fair 
 proceedings on the part of the British proteges; so they reported to 
 Sir Moses Montefiore and Sir Francis Goldsmid that he had tortured 
 the boys. His proceedings were once more proved just. The 
 correspondence on the subject was marvellously interesting, but 
 being official I cannot use it. 
 
 “The Jews,” he writes, “from all times held a certain position in 
 Syria, on account of their being the financiers of the country; and 
 even in pre-Egyptian days Haim Farhi was able to degrade and ruin 
 Abdullah Pasha, of St Jean d’Acre. In the time of Ibrahim Pasha, 
 about forty-four years ago,* when the first Consuls went there, a few 
 were taken under British protection, and this increased their influence. 
 Then came the well-known history of the murder of Padre Tomaso. 
 After this had blown over, all the richest people of the community 
 tried to become British-protected subjects, or proteges of some 
 foreign Consulate. In the time of Mr. Consul (Richard) Wood, 
 (1840), they were humble enough. In the massacre of i860 they 
 enriched themselves greatly, and men possessing ^3000 rose 
 suddenly to ^30,000. Then they had at their backs in England 
 Sir Moses Montefiore, Sir F. Goldsmid, and the Rothschilds f and 
 others, who doubtlessT do not know the true state of the Jewish 
 usurers in this part of the world. The British Consul became the 
 Jews’ bailiff, and when we went to Syria we found them rough-riding 
 all the land. I speak only of the few money-lenders. When I 
 arrived in 1869, Shylock No. 1 came to me, and patting me 
 
 * Now sixty-four years in 1893. 
 
 t Now, in 1893, the Sassoons, the Oppenheims, and Bischofheims. 
 
Damascus—His Third Co?isulate. 
 
 343 
 
 patronizingly on the back, told me he had three hundred cases 
 for me, relative to collecting ^60,000 of debts. I replied, ‘ I 
 think, sir, you had better hire and pay a Consul for yourself alone; 
 I was not sent here as a bailiff, to tap the peasant on the shoulder 
 in such cases as yours.’ He then threatened me with the British 
 Government. I replied, 1 It is by far the best thing you can do ; 
 I have no power to alter a plain line of duty.’ Shylock then tried 
 my wife’s influence, but she replied that she was never allowed to 
 interfere in business matters. Then Sir Francis Goldsmid, to our 
 great surprise, wrote to Head-quarters—a rather unusual measure—- 
 as follows: ‘ I hear that the lady to whom Captain Burton is 
 married is believed to be a bigoted Roman Catholic, and to be 
 likely to influence him against the Jews.’ In spite of ‘ woman’s 
 rights ’ she was not allowed the privilege of answering Sir Francis 
 Goldsmid officially; but I hope to convince him, even after years, 
 that he was misinformed.” 
 
 “ One man alone had ruined and sucked dry forty-one villages. 
 He used to go to a distressed village and offer them money, keep 
 all the papers, and allow 7 them nothing to show; adding interest 
 and compound interest, which the poor wretches could not under¬ 
 stand. Then he gave them no receipts for money received, so as 
 to be paid over and over again. The uneducated peasants had 
 nothing to show against the clever Jew 7 at the Diwan, till body 
 and soul, wives and children, village, flocks, and land, became 
 his property and slaves for the sake of the small sum originally 
 borrowed. These men, who a few years ago were not worth much, 
 are now rolling in wealth. We found villages in ruins, and houses 
 empty, because the men were cast into jail, the children starving, 
 and women weeping at our feet; because these things were done in 
 the name of England, by the powerful arm of the British Consulate.” 
 
 My husband once actually found an old man of ninety, who had 
 endured all the horrors of the Damascus jail during the whole of 
 a biting winter, for owing one of these men a napoleon (sixteen 
 shillings). He set him free, and ever after visited the prisons once 
 a week, to see whether the British-protected subjects had immured 
 pauper Christians and Moslems on their ow r n responsibility. One of 
 the usurers told him to beware, for that he knew a Royal Highness 
 of England, and that he could have any Consular officer recalled at 
 his pleasure ; and my husband replied that he and his clique could 
 know very little of English Royalty if they thought that it would 
 protect such traffic as theirs. The result of this was that they put 
 their heads together, and certain letters were sent to the Chief 
 Rabbi of London, Sir Francis Goldsmid, and Sir Moses Montefiore. 
 
344 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 They sent telegrams and petitions, purporting to be from “ all the 
 Jews in Damascus.” We believe, however, that “ all the Jews in 
 Damascus ” knew nothing whatever about the step. Richard said, 
 “ They are mostly a body of respectable men—hard-working, in¬ 
 offensive, and of commercial integrity, with a fair sprinkling of pious, 
 charitable, and innocent people.” These despatches, backed by 
 letters from the influential persons who received them, were duly 
 forwarded to the Foreign Office. The correspondence was sent in 
 full to Richard to answer, which he did at great length, and to the 
 satisfaction of his Chiefs, who found that he could not have acted 
 otherwise. 
 
 Richard wrote: “I am ready to defend their lives, liberty, and 
 property, but I will not assist them in ruining villages, and in im¬ 
 prisoning destitute debtors upon trumped-up charges. I would 
 willingly deserve the praise of every section of the Jewish community 
 of Damascus, but in certain cases it is incompatible with my sense 
 of justice and my conscience.” They bragged so much in the 
 bazars about getting Richard recalled, that a number of sympathizing 
 letters were showered upon us. 
 
 I quote the following verbatim 
 
 “ Dear Mrs. Burton, 
 
 “We desire to express to you the great satisfaction which 
 Captain Burton’s presence as British Consul in Damascus has 
 given us, both in our individual capacities and in our character of 
 missionaries to Syria. 
 
 “ Since his arrival here we have had every opportunity of judging 
 of Captain Burton’s official conduct, and we beg to express our 
 approval of it. 
 
 “ The first public act that came under our notice was the removing 
 of dishonest officials, and the replacing them by honest ones. This 
 proceeding gave unmixed pleasure to every one to whom the 
 credit of the English name was a matter of concern. His subsequent 
 conduct has restored the prestige of the English Consulate, and we 
 no longer hear it said that English officials, removed from the 
 checks of English public opinion, are as corrupt in Turkey as 
 the Turks themselves. As missionaries we frankly admit that we 
 had been led to view Captain Burton’s appointment with alarm ; but 
 we now congratulate ourselves on having abstained, either directly or 
 indirectly, endeavouring to oppose his coming. 
 
 “ Carefully following our own habitual policy of asking no consular 
 interference between the Turkish Government and its subjects, we 
 stand upon our right as Englishmen to preach and teach so long 
 as we violate no law of the land, and we claim for our converts the 
 liberty of conscience secured to them by treaty. In the main¬ 
 tenance of this one right we have been firmly upheld by Captain 
 Burton. 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate . 
 
 345 
 
 “ A few months ago, when our schools were illegally and arbitrarily 
 closed by the Turkish officials, he came to our aid, and the injustice 
 was at once put a stop to. His visit to the several village schools 
 under our charge proved to the native mind the Consul's interest 
 in the moral education of the country, which it is the object of 
 those schools to promote, and impressed upon the minds of local 
 magistrates the propriety of letting them alone. 
 
 “ Within the last few days we had occasion to apply to Captain 
 Burton regarding our cemetery, which had been broken open, and 
 it was an agreeable surprise to us when, after two days, a police-officer 
 came to assure us that the damage had been repaid by the Pasha’s 
 orders, and search was being made for the depredator. 
 
 “ Above all, in view of any possible massacre of Christians in this 
 city—the all but inevitable consequence of a war between Turkey 
 and any Christian Power—we regard as an element of safety the 
 presence among us of a firm, strong man like Captain Burton, as 
 representing the English interests. 
 
 “When, not long ago, a panic seized the city, and a massacre 
 seemed imminent, Captain Burton immediately came down from his 
 summer quarters, and by his presence largely contributed to restore 
 tranquillity. All the other important Consuls fled from Damascus, 
 and thus increased the panic. 
 
 “ We earnestly hope that Captain Burton will not suffer himself 
 to be annoyed by the enmity he is sure to provoke for all who wish 
 to make the English name a cover for wrongs and injustice, or 
 think that a British subject or pi'oteg'e should be supported, whatever 
 be the nature of his case. 
 
 With kindest respects, we are, dear Mrs. Burton, yours very truly, 
 “(Signed) James Orr Scott, M.A., Irish Pres¬ 
 byterian Mission. 
 
 “Wm. Wright, B.A., Missionary of the 
 Irish Presbyterian Church. 
 
 " P.S.—By-the-by, on one occasion one of the most important Jews 
 of Damascus, when conversing with me [Wm. Wright] and the Rev. 
 John Crawford, American missionary, said that Captain Burton was 
 unfit for the British Consulate in Damascus; and the reason he 
 gave was that, being an upright man, he transacted his business by 
 fair means instead of by foul. 
 
 “Damascus, November 28th, 1870.” 
 
 To conclude: the effect of their conduct in Damascus will fall 
 upon their own heads, and upon their children. Do not purposely 
 misunderstand me, O Israel! Remember, I do not speak of you 
 disparagingly as a nation, or as a faith. As such I love and admire 
 you; but I pick out your usurers from among you, as the goats 
 
346 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 from the sheep. You are ancient in birth and religion ; you are 
 sometimes handsome, always clever, and in many things you far 
 outstrip us Christians in the race of life. Your sins and your 
 faults are, and have been, equally remarkable from all time. Many 
 of you, in Damascus especially, are as foolish and stiff-necked as 
 in the days of old. When the time comes, and it will come, the 
 trampled worm will turn. The Moslem will rise not really against 
 the Christian—he will only be the excuse—but against you. Your 
 quarter will be the one to be burnt down; your people to be exter¬ 
 minated, and all your innocent tribe will suffer for the few guilty. 
 
 We at last determined to thoroughly do Palestine and the Holy 
 Land, and we went down in an awfully rough sea, in a very tiny and 
 dirty little Egyptian steamer, as far as Jaffa. There were great doubts 
 as to whether we could land, but at last boats were put out, and we 
 got in on the top of a truly alarming surf, shooting through a narrow 
 hole in the rocks just wide enough to admit the boat. The plain 
 of Sharon was looking beautiful—meadows of grass land, wild flowers, 
 cultivation, and orange groves all along our forty-mile ride. 
 
 With Richard it was a constant matter for thought whether the sites 
 and the tombs were the correct ones; and the sword of Godfrey de 
 Bouillon and the Crusaders’ arms, also those of the Knight Templars, 
 were always of immense interest to him. We visited all the Patriarchs, 
 and principally Monseigneur Valerga, a man of brilliant education, with 
 the savoir faire of the diplomat or courtier, blended with religion. 
 We went through all the ceremonies of all the numerous religions 
 during the Holy Week, the Mohammedan as well as the fourteen 
 Christian sects, and Jewish, of which not the least touching thing is 
 the wailing of the Jews outside the wall of the Temple on Fridays, 
 and the Greek fire on Holy Saturday. A Jewish friend took us in 
 for the Passover. We visited all the country of St. John, Bethlehem, 
 Hebron, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah 
 are buried; to Mar Saba, where is the Convent of Penitent 
 Monks, in a most wonderful ravine. From there we got down to the 
 Dead Sea, and swam in it, and saw fish. It receives daily seven 
 million tons of water, and has no outlet; but its evaporation forms the 
 desert of salt, called the Ghor, all round its southern shore, which 
 fact Richard compares with Tanganyika. From there we went into 
 Moab ; we visited Moses’ Tomb on the return journey. At Bethdbara 
 we bathed, and brought home bottles of the water of the Jordan; 
 thence we went to Jericho, but we took care to visit every spot 
 where tradition and folklore says our Saviour touched at, off the 
 tracks besides. We encamped on the supposed sites of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and so on to Bethel, and Hai, the most ancient site in 
 
Damascus—His Third Consulate. 34 7 
 
 Palestine, the camping-ground of Abraham, where he and Lot parted 
 and divided their flocks ; and we gradually made our way to Nablus, 
 which is the boundary between the Damascus and Jerusalem Consular 
 jurisdictions. We ascended Mount Ebal and Mount Gerfzim, and 
 stayed with the Samaritans, who then numbered a hundred and 
 thirty-five. We then went to Samaria, and through the plain of 
 Esdraelon; and we camped at ancient Engannin, where Christ cured 
 the ten lepers. From thence to Scythopolis into the Ghor, and to 
 as many sites of the towns of the Decapolis as we could realize. We 
 went to Naim, and Endor, and Tabor, and Nazareth—at Nazareth 
 we were stoned (a little political manoeuvre); thence to Cana. About 
 Nazareth Richard wrote in his private journal— 
 
 “ I rode down the country by the vile Kunayterah road to Tiberias, 
 where the Jews protected by our Government were complaining that 
 the Walt had taken from them and had sold to the Greek Bishop 
 Nifon, at Nazareth, a cemetery and synagogue, which for the last 
 four hundred years had belonged to their faith, and to visit a few 
 men who held British passports, which ought to have been annually 
 changed, but had through carelessness not been renewed since 1850. 
 For these acts, I was destined to the same honour as my Master, 
 namely, being stoned out of Nazareth; and because I did good to 
 the Jews, they also betrayed me to the Authorities, and asked for 
 my recall. ,, 
 
 We went up the Mountain of Precipitation to Hattin, and ascended 
 to Tiberias, the second and the middle sea which feeds the Jordan, 
 and we visited the site of the eight towns so much frequented by 
 our Saviour. From thence we went to Safed, which is a very 
 fanatical Jewish Holy City, from which we could see the Jauten 
 and the Haur&n stretching right away into the Arabian desert of the 
 ancient kingdom of Bdshan; and from here we again made our way 
 to the plain of Huleh, which we remember of old, and the Waters of 
 Merom, where we camped before under difficulties, and so nearly 
 got a bad fever. This time it was black from a recent prairie fire. 
 The best amusement on these occasions is to laugh at one another’s 
 miserable, unrecognizable faces, all swollen with bites and stings, like 
 the face one sees in a spoon. After a lot of other places, we got 
 back to Birket er Ram or Lake Phiala, which I remember saying a 
 while ago we determined to revisit. Richard found something that 
 excited his attention about it, so we emptied the water out of all 
 our goat-skins, blew them up with air, strapped them to our camp 
 table, made a raft, and used the tent-poles for oars. It is supposed 
 to have no bottom, is six hundred yards broad, and about nine 
 hundred wide. We sounded with the lead, and the deepest part 
 
34-8 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 proved to be seventeen feet and a half. It has a weed bottom and 
 leeches below, no shells; but the air began to whistle out of the skins, 
 and Richard and Charley Drake only just got back in time to save 
 themselves a swim. 
 
 Whilst at Jerusalem and its environs Richard did two very graceful 
 things. He saw a monk conducting a party of Catholics, who wanted 
 to say prayers in the Sepulchre itself at three o’clock on Good 
 Friday. It was invaded by the usual class of tourists. The 
 monk shrunk back with his people, and the particular time for 
 these prayers was slipping away. Richard stepped forward, and, 
 touching his cap, said, “What is the matter, Father?” He said, 
 “ The Sepulchre is full of tourists, who are not Catholics. We have 
 no right to turn them out, and we don’t like to push in and begin 
 our devotions.” Richard said, “ Leave that to me.” He went in 
 and explained to them, and they came out. Richard then passed 
 the monk and his party in, and he stood guard himself outside the 
 whole time they performed their devotion, and would not let any 
 one pass. These little acts used to win him the heart of everybody. 
 
 Another day we were riding in rather a desert place about a mile 
 from a small village; we met a solitary priest and his acolyte. I was 
 about to ride up to speak to him, when he gave me the sign—I mean 
 the sign the priest gives you when he is secretly carrying the Blessed 
 Sacrament. I told it to Richard, who ordered his men to draw up 
 in two lines for the priest to pass through and salute. He jumped 
 down from his own horse, and offered it to the priest, asking to 
 accompany him. The priest declined it, but he blessed him as he 
 passed. I always thought of this afterwards in Austria, when I saw 
 the large picture in the Palace at Innsbruck, of Rudolph the Second 
 of Hapsburg doing the same thing. 
 
 At Jerusalem we explored the Mdgharat el Kotn; these are 
 enormous quarries, also called the Royal Caverns. The entrance 
 looks like a hole in the wall outside the town, not far from the Gate 
 of Damascus. Creeping in, you find yourself in endless caves and 
 galleries unexplored. We used to use magnesium fusees, and take 
 plenty of ropes to have a clue. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 “ Men don’t believe in a devil now, as their fathers used to do ; 
 
 They’ve forced the door of the broadest creed to let his Majesty through. 
 There isn’t a print of his cloven foot, or a fiery dart from his bow, 
 
 To be found in earth or air to-day, for the world has voted it so. 
 
 “ But who is mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain, 
 
 And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain ? 
 Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery breath of hell ? 
 
 If the devil isn’t, and never was, won’t somebody rise and tell? 
 
 “ Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint, and digs the pits for his feet? 
 
 Who sows the tares on the fields of time, wherever God sows His wheat ? 
 The devil is voted not to be, and of course the thing is true ; 
 
 But who is doing the kind of work that the devil alone should do? 
 
 “ We are told that he does not go about as a roaring lion now; 
 
 But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row 
 
 To be heard in home, in Church and State, to the earth’s remotest bound, 
 
 If the devil, by a unanimous vote, is nowhere to be found? 
 
 “ Won’t somebody step to the front forthwith, and make his bow and show 
 How the frauds and crimes of a single day spring up ? We want to know. 
 The devil was fairly voted out, and of course the devil’s gone ; 
 
 But simple people would like to ktiow who carries his business on.” 
 
 Alfred J. Hough, in the Jamestown (Ah. Y.) Journal 1 
 
 It must not be supposed that Richard was the least insincere, 
 because he tried religions all round. He wanted to get at the 
 highest, the nearest to God, the nearest to other worlds, and in that 
 respect he was like Cardinal Newman. He always spoke the truth, 
 and if he changed every other day, he would have said so. Every 
 time he was disappointed with a religion he fell back on mysticism. 
 It was the soul wandering through space, like the dove out of the ark, 
 and seeking a place whereupon to rest. In each religion he found 
 something good, and much that disappointed him; then he took the 
 good out of that religion, and went away. He was sincere with the 
 
 345 
 
350 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Mohammedans, and found more in that religion than in most. He 
 hoped much from spiritualism, and studied it well; but he could 
 make nothing of it as a religion. It never seemed to bring him 
 any nearer; but he believed in it as in the light of a future 
 frontier of science. His Agnosticism, which in his case is a mis¬ 
 applied word, was of a much higher cast; it was the mysticism 
 of the East. It was the tired soul or brain that said, “ Oh, my 
 God, I have studied all things, and I am still no nearer the point 
 of closer connection with Thee, whom my soul longs for and aims 
 at I know nothing; I can touch nothing. Faith is a gift from 
 Thee; give it to me! ” He became impressed with one fact 
 here in Syria, as he had done at Baroda in his youth, and that 
 is that Catholicism is the highest order of Spiritualism, having no 
 connection with jugglery, or table-turning, or spirit-rapping; that 
 we cannot call it up at our pleasure, nor pay for it; but that, 
 when something does happen, it is absolutely real , only we are not 
 allowed to speak of it, except amongst ourselves, and then with 
 bated breath. Richard, however, had opportunity enough of seeing 
 all this for himself in Syria, in Damascus, where some very ex¬ 
 traordinary things were going on, that were, without a doubt, 
 genuine. 
 
 ** Demand of lilies wherefore they are white, 
 
 Extort her crimson secret from the rose.” 
 
 William Watson. 
 
 Brave as a lion, gentle as a maid, 
 
 He never evil word to any said ; 
 
 Never for self, but always strong for right, 
 
 He was a very perfect gentle knight.” 
 
 During the time we were at Damascus, there was a “ mystery ” 
 going on in the lower quarter, called the Mayddn—the tail of 
 Damascus, which runs out towards the desert—amongst a certain sect 
 of the Mohammedans, called the Shadilis, or Shazlis. They used to 
 assemble at nights together at the house of one of them for Moslem 
 prayer and reading and discussion, when they became conscious of 
 a presence amongst them that was not theirs. They used to hear 
 things and see things which they did not understand, and this went 
 on for two or three months before they came to an understanding. 
 I let my husband tell the story in his own words, and you will all 
 understand later on how it found its way into my “ Inner Life of 
 Syria.” 
 
 Fray Emanuel Forner, who figures largely in this history, was 
 a friend Richard used to study with. He confided his troubles 
 relative to these people to us. He asked us whether, as Richard 
 
35 1 
 
 Religion. 
 
 had more influence with the Moslems than any one else, he could 
 be induced to protect them. Richard felt that it was going beyond 
 the boundary of his Consular prerogative to interfere in a matter 
 which concerned the national religion; he therefore answered him 
 that his position obliged him to abstain from interfering in so 
 interesting a matter, although he could do so in cases where the 
 Protestant schools or missions formally claimed protection against 
 the violation of the treaties and concessions of the Hatti-Sherif. 
 He added that the Spanish Consul was the proper person for him 
 to apply to, being his Consul, and that it was his duty likewise 
 to restrict me from any active part which might compromise the 
 Consulate. 
 
 But this interested him enormously. He thought he saw his way 
 in it to the highest kind of religion, and he followed it up unofficially. 
 Disguised as a Shdzli, and unknown to any mortal except me, he 
 used to mix with them, and pass much of his time in the Mayddn 
 of Damascus with them ; and he saw what he saw ; and when, as in 
 reading this account you will see, Fray Forner was the guide who 
 was pointed out to them by that spiritual Presence, Richard stuck 
 to him, and with him used to study the Shdzlis and their history. 
 This gave him an enormous interest in Damascus, but it was his 
 ruin ; and the curious Spiritualism, if you like to term it so, that 
 was developing there was almost like a “ new advent,” and though 
 he did not then mean it, he ended by sacrificing his worldly career 
 entirely to it. 
 
 It was not for a whole year after the event of my disagreement 
 with the Shaykh’s son at Zebeddni (which missionaries of the British 
 Syrian schools have since reported as the cause of my husband’s 
 recall, after which the same Shaykh had become one of my most 
 faithful followers, but which had nothing to do with my husband’s 
 misfortunes), that twelve of the most favoured of these Shdzlis had 
 been seized, transported in chains, and partially martyred. Fray 
 Forner died curiously, and Richard came and told me all this, with 
 a great deal more than I had known, or than has, or ever will be 
 published, about the Shdzlis, and he was filled with remorse that 
 he had not taken up their case and protected them. 
 
 He had written up their case. He said, “ If I should write to 
 Lord Granville, and tell him that there are at least twenty-five 
 thousand of secret Christians longing for baptism, and if I were 
 to say, as I know I can, that I can arrange it with the Moslems to 
 give them to nie, and not to touch them because they are mine; 
 supposing I were to buy a tract of land and give it to them, and 
 build a village, and that I took no taxes from them in repay- 
 
352 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 ment, they could settle there unmolested, and supposing that 1 
 should request the Patriarch Valerga of Jerusalem to come and 
 baptize them, would you be afraid to stand godmother for them with 
 me on guard ? ” and I replied that “ I would be only too proud to 
 do it.” It was then settled that these letters should be written 
 and sent. 
 
 Lord Granville communicated with the Patriarch Valerga, 
 who at once sent openly and clumsily to the Turkish Authorities 
 at Damascus to know the truth, thereby starting an evil; and, 
 even so, four hundred were found who were willing for martyr¬ 
 dom, but the Patriarch was evidently in no hurry for martyr¬ 
 dom. The affair, instead of being confided to Richard, was 
 hopelessly mismanaged, and his recall followed within the 
 month; and Richard said, “ This is suffering persecution for 
 justice’ sake; no more of this , till I am clear of a just and 
 enlightened Governmeiit.” It broke his career, it shattered his 
 life, it embittered him on religion; he got neither Teheran, 
 nor Marocco, nor Constantinople. I may be wrong, but I 
 have always imagined that he thought that Christ would stand by 
 him, and see him through his troubles, but he did not like to speak 
 of it. 
 
 Richard never asked a single word at the Foreign Office— 
 he was too proud; and he let me do it in a Blue Book of 
 our own. My friends in the Foreign Office, of whom I had 
 about thirteen, gave me each a different reason for the recall; 
 but when I got an audience with Lord Granville, I got the 
 true one. Syria and Christianity lost one of England’s greatest 
 men, who was ruined, and her descent in prosperity and happi¬ 
 ness commenced; and I never heard that the Government, 
 or the Foreign Office, or the Service, or the British name in the 
 East, was any better for it. I humbly venture to think the 
 contrary. 
 
 Lord Granville, like many another easy-going, pleasant diplomat 
 (to please God knows who), ruined the life of the best man under 
 his rule with the stroke of his pen. That did put the whole of 
 Syria in a blaze of revolt and indignation, and it required the 
 utmost prudence not to put a match to it. It is a pitiful tale, and 
 was a revolting sight to see seven jackals trying to rend an insulted 
 and martyred lion. 
 
 One fine day a bombshell fell in the midst of our happy life. It 
 was not only the insult of the whole thing, it was the ungentlemanly 
 
Religion. 353 
 
 way in which it was carried out from Beyrout. This was our position 
 and the way it was done:— 
 
 We were surrounded by hundreds who seemed to be dependent 
 upon us ; by villages which, under our care, consular or maternal, 
 seemed to be thriving, prosperous, peaceful, and secure; by friends 
 we had made everywhere. Our lives, plans, and interests were 
 arranged for years; we were settled down and established as securely, 
 we thought, as any of you in your own houses at home. Our 
 entourage was a large one—dragomans, kawwdses , servants; our stud, 
 various pets, and flowers; our home, and our “ household gods; ” our 
 poor for thirty miles around us. And so surrounded, our only wish was 
 to stay, perhaps for life, and do our duty both to God and our neigh¬ 
 bour; and we were succeeding, as I mean to prove. You, through 
 whose evil working the blow struck us on this day, examine your 
 hearts, and ask yourselves why you did this thing, because God, who 
 protects those who serve Him, will allow this cruel deed to follow 
 you, and recoil upon you some day, when you least expect it. It 
 was useless to mislead the Authorities and the public at home, by 
 laying the blame upon the Moslems. Richard always has been a 
 very good friend to the Moslems, and the Moslems have always liked 
 him; but in this instance, local and individual weakness, spite and 
 jealousy, overthrew him. 
 
 The horses were saddled at the door, in the Anti-Lebanon, and we 
 were going for a ride, when a ragged messenger on foot stopped to 
 drink at the spring, and advanced towards me with a note. I saw it 
 was for Richard, and took it into the house for him. It was from 
 the Vice-Consul of Beyrout, informing him that, by the orders of his 
 Consul-General, he had arrived the previous day (15th of August), 
 and had taken charge of the Damascus Consulate. The Vice- 
 Consul was in no way to blame.* 
 
 Richard’s journal says— 
 
 “August 16th. —All ready to start—rode in. 
 
 “August 18 th. —Left Damascus for ever; started at three a.m. in 
 the dark, with a big lantern ; all my men crying; alone in coupe of 
 diligence, thanks to the pigs. Excitement of seeing all for the last 
 time. All seemed sorry; a few groans. The sight of Bludan moun¬ 
 tains in the distance at sunrise, where I have left my wife. Ever 
 agai?i ? Felt soft. Dismissal ignominious, at the age of fifty, with¬ 
 out a month’s notice, or wages, or character. 
 
 * Lord Granville, complaisant to the great and unmindful of the little officials, 
 soon found an excuse to recall him. When he did recall him, he did so without 
 the trial usually allowed to accused people to prove their guilt or innocence, or to 
 defend themselves, and from that date began the ruin of Damascus and the visible 
 and speedy decline of Syria.—I. B. 
 
 z 
 
354 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 “The Turkish Government has boasted that it would choose its 
 own time, when Moslems may become Christians if they wish. The 
 time has now come.” 
 
 Richard and Charley Tyrwhitt-Drake were in the saddle in five 
 minutes, and galloped into town without drawing rein. He would 
 not let me accompany him. A mounted messenger returned on the 
 19th with these few written words, “Don’t be frightened; I am 
 recalled. Pay, pack, and follow at convenience.” I was not 
 frightened, but I do not like to remember what I thought or felt. 
 
 I could not rest on the night of the 19th; I thought I heard some 
 one call me three successive times. I jumped up in the middle of a 
 dark night, saddled my horse, and, though everybody said I was mad, 
 and wanted to put me to bed, I rode a journey of nine hours across 
 country, by the compass, as if I were riding for a doctor, over rocks and 
 through swamps, making for the diligence halfway house. Three or 
 four of my people were frightened, and followed me. At last I came 
 in sight of Shtora, the diligence-station. The half-hour had expired; 
 the travellers had eaten and taken their places, and it was just about 
 to start; but God was good to me. Just as the coachman was about 
 to raise his whip, he turned his head to the part of the country from 
 whence I was coming, hot, torn, and covered with dust and mud 
 from head to foot; but he knew me. I held up both my arms, as 
 they do to stop a train. He saw the signal, waited, and took me 
 in, and told the ostler to lead my dead-beat horse to the stables.* 
 
 I reached Beyrout twenty-four hours before the steamer sailed. 
 When Richard had once received his recall, he never looked behind 
 him, nor packed up anything, but went straight away. It is his rule 
 to be ready in ten minutes to go anywhere. He was now a private 
 individual in misfortune. I passed him in the diligence, walking 
 alone in the town, and looking so sad and serious. Not even a 
 kawwds was sent to attend on him, to see him out with a show of 
 honour and respect. It was a real emblem of the sick lion. But 
 / was there (thank God) in my place, and he was so surprised and 
 glad when he saw me! I was well rewarded for my hard ride, for 
 when he saw me his whole face was illuminated, and he said, “Thank 
 you, bon sang ne peut mentirP We had twenty-four hours to take 
 counsel and comfort together. 
 
 Everybody called upon us, and everybody regretted. The French 
 Consul-General made us almost take up our abode with him for 
 those twenty-four hours—our own Consul-General cut us. At four 
 o’clock I went on board with my husband, and on return I found his 
 
 * Men who know the ground will know what that ride means over slippery 
 boulders and black swamps in the dai'k.—I. B. 
 
355 
 
 Religion. 
 
 faithful servant Habib, who had also followed him, and arrived just 
 ten minutes too late—only in time to see him steam out; he had 
 flung himself down on the quay in a passionate flood of tears. 
 
 Any Consul, in any part of the Eastern world, with one drop of 
 gentlemanly feeling, would have gone to meet his comrade in dis¬ 
 tress, and sent a couple of kawwdses to walk before and behind 
 him. Mr. Eldridge’s action was as big a thing as if he had posted 
 handbills all over Beyrout to announce to the world that no notice 
 was to be taken of him. The disgrace was to himself, not to Richard. 
 
 The only notice Richard took of this tragedy in his life is one 
 sentence in his journal: “After all my service, ignominiously dis¬ 
 missed, at fifty years of age ”—and at whose instance, do you think ? 
 (i) A Pasha so corrupt that his own Government was obliged to 
 recall him a month later, threaten him with chains, and throw him 
 into a fortress, and his brains were blown out a short while after 
 by a man he had oppressed. (2) His own Consul-General, whose 
 memory is only known to his once immediate acquaintances by the 
 careful registering of his barometers, and the amount of beer which 
 helped that arduous task, and who exactly suited the Foreign Office 
 by confining himself to so narrow a circle. He was fearfully jealous 
 of his superioi subordinate, and asked for his removal through Mr. 
 Kennedy, who was not commissioned for that business. Mr. Eldridge 
 said afterwards, “ If Burton had only have walked in my way, he 
 would have lived and died here.” Thirdly, an aggressive school¬ 
 mistress, who altered, or allowed to be altered, some words in a letter 
 he wrote her, changing “ mining ” into “missionary/’ to be shown 
 at Exeter Hall. Fourthly, fifthly, and sixthly, three unscrupulous 
 Jewish usurers. Seventhly, an elastic Greek Bishop, who began a 
 crusade against the Protestants of Nazareth, and prevented them 
 from cultivating their land, and who had snatched away a synagogue 
 and cemetery from British-protected Jews. 
 
 When we were in camp there, he caused his people, who were 
 about a hundred and fifty a gainst six, to pick a quarrel with our 
 people, and they stoned us. “Stoning” in the East means a hail¬ 
 storm the size of melons, which positively seems to darken the air. 
 As an old soldier accustomed to fire, Richard stood perfectly calm, 
 collected, and self-contained, though the stones hit him right and left, 
 and almost broke his sword-arm ; he never lost his temper, and never 
 fired, but was simply marking the ringleaders to take them. I ran out 
 to give him his two six-shot revolvers, but when I got within stones’ 
 reach, he made a sign to me not to embarrass his movements; so I 
 kept near enough to drag him out if he were wounded, putting his 
 
356 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 revolvers in my belt. When three of his servants were badly hurt, and 
 one lay for dead on the ground, he drew a pistol from a man’s belt, 
 and fired a shot in the air. That was my signal. I flew round to the 
 other camps, and called all the English and Americans with their 
 guns. When they saw a reinforcement of ten armed English and 
 Americans running down upon them, the cowardly crew turned 
 and fled. This was followed by a proch-vcrbal between Richard and 
 the Bishop, which Richard won. 
 
 I was left to pack, pay, and follow; so I took the night diligence 
 back, and had, in spite of the August weather, a cold, hard seven 
 hours over the Lebanon, for I had brought nothing with me; my 
 clothes were dry and stiff, and I was very tired. On the road I 
 passed our honorary dragoman, Hanna Misk. I called out to him, 
 but I had no official position now, so he turned his head the other 
 way, and passed me by. I sent a peasant after him, but he shook 
 his head and rode on. “There,” I said, “goes the man who has 
 lived with us, travelled with us, and shared everything we had, and 
 for whose rights concerning a village my husband has always con¬ 
 tended, because his claims were just.” The law of “Le Roi est 
 mort, vive le Roi!” extends, I suppose, everywhere; but probably 
 the king’s widow always feels it. I wonder how old one has to 
 grow before learning the common rules of life, instead of allowing 
 every shock the world gives one to disturb one, as if one were newly 
 born ? It is innate in cool natures, and never learnt by the others, 
 who take useless “ headers ” against the dead wall of circumstances, 
 until they grow old and cold and selfish. Disraeli told us that “ no 
 affections and a great brain form the men that command the world ; 
 that no affections and a little brain make petty villains; ” but a great 
 brain and a great heart he has no description for. Here he stops 
 short; but I can tell him those are the men for whom there is no 
 place. The nineteenth century will have none of them. 
 
 Richard was a general favourite, but he was too powerful to suit 
 the Turkish Wali, or Governor-General, who for once found a man 
 he could not corrupt. To give some idea of how incorruptible, he 
 was once offered ^10,000 on the table, which the man in question 
 brought with him, to give an opinion which would have swayed a 
 public transaction, which would have been no very great harm, but 
 yet it would not have been quite “ square ” for such a man as 
 Richard, and a promise of ^10,000 when the thing was done— 
 u for,” said the man, “ I can get plenty of money when I like, and 
 this will pay me well.” My husband let him finish, and then he 
 said, “ If you were a gentleman of my own standing, and an. 
 
Religion. 357 
 
 Englishman, I would just pitch you out of the window; but as 
 you are not, you may pick up your £ 10,000 and you may walk 
 down the stairs. But don’t come here again, because if the thing is 
 right, I shall do it without your paying me; and if it is not, there is 
 not enough money in the world to buy me.’’ He then called me, 
 and he told me about it, and said, “This man’s harem will be offer¬ 
 ing you diamonds; mind you don’t take them.” “There is not the 
 slightest chance,” I said; “I don’t want them.” Now, it is a perfect 
 fact that, although I am a woman, jewellery is no temptation to me; 
 I therefore take no credit to myself that I have refused enough to 
 enable me to wear as many as any woman in London; but when 
 they brought me horses, it was quite another sensation, and I had 
 to screw up my courage hard—and bolt. 
 
 It is perfectly true that Richard is the only man not born a Moslem 
 and an Oriental who, having performed the Hajj to Mecca and 
 Medinah, could live with the Moslems in perfect friendship after. 
 They considered him a persona grata —something more civilized 
 than the common run of Franks; they called him Haji Abdullah, 
 and treated him as one of themselves. During Richard’s time in 
 Syria he raised the English name, which was going down rapidly, 
 to its old prestige in the time of Sir Richard Wood and Lord Strath- 
 nairn, and the old days of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. He explored 
 all the unknown parts of Syria, Palestine, Holy Land, Hauran, the 
 ’Alah and Nejd; he stood between the poor peasantry and the 
 usurers; he advanced and protected the just claims of British sub¬ 
 jects. When a massacre appeared imminent he kept the peace. 
 The fanatical persecution of the Christians was stopped; he stood 
 between them and his friends the Mohammedans; he said, “ They 
 are mine, and you must not touch them; ” he saved innumerable 
 villages from slavery. In fact, he was just the man whom Rashid 
 Pasha, the corrupt Turkish Governor-General, could not stand; he 
 was an avenging angel in his way. His own Consul-General was 
 jealous of him. The Beyrout missionaries, or rather the British Syrian 
 schools missionaries—for we were friends with several Beyrout 
 missionaries, notably Dr. Thomson and Dr. Bliss—poisoned Exeter 
 Hall against him, although they got more help from him than from 
 any one, simply because neither he nor I were, what I believe the tech¬ 
 nical term is, “practical Protestants.” The three foremost Jews set 
 Sir Moses Montefiore and the illustrious Jewish families of London 
 against him, because he could not stand by and see the poor plun¬ 
 dered twice and thrice over, never getting a receipt for their money, 
 never being allowed a paper to show what they had paid, till (when 
 England is paying millions to suppress Slave-trade in various parts 
 
358 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 of the world) she was unconsciously abetting it, and aiding it, and 
 protecting it, all over the Syrian villages, by the power of com¬ 
 plaisant Consuls. The Greek Bishop abetted our being stoned at 
 Nazareth, because he had advanced and protected the Protestant 
 missionaries’ just claim in his jurisdiction. These seven hornets were 
 sufficient to kill and break the heart of St. Michael the archangel. 
 They say three hornets kill a man, and six will kill a horse. 
 
 I must now return, and finish my own Eastern career, more for 
 the sake of showing the goodness of the Syrian heart, than for any 
 other interest. I am bound, though late, to bear testimony to them. 
 
 After seeing Richard off, I had a cold eight hours’ drive over 
 the Lebanon, arrived at the khan at Shtora, found my horse in 
 excellent condition, and slept for a few hours. Early in the morning 
 I rode to see Miss Wilson, who kindly insisted on my remain¬ 
 ing a day with her. Mr. Tyrwhitt-Drake, a kaww&s , and servants 
 and horses, met me here, and escorted me back to Blud£n; 
 but we lost our way in the mountains, and had an eleven hours’ 
 hard scramble. I was ill, tired, and harassed, and was thankful to 
 find my friend Mrs. Rattray, who came over to keep me company. 
 She was as much troubled as I was myself. I do not care who 
 says to the contrary, but the world in general is a good place; for, 
 although a few bad people make everything and everybody as 
 miserable as they can—permitted, I infer, by an all-wise Providence, 
 like mosquitoes, snakes, and scorpions, to prevent our becoming too 
 attached to this life, and ceasing to work for the other, where they 
 cannot enter—the general rule is good, and whoever is in trouble, 
 as I have said, will always meet with kindness, comfort, and sympathy, 
 from some quarter or other. 
 
 I had every right to expect, in a land where official position is 
 everything, where love and respect accompanies power and Govern¬ 
 ment influence, where women are of but small account, that I should 
 be, morally speaking, trampled underfoot. I do not know how to 
 describe with sufficient gratitude, affection, and pleasure the treat¬ 
 ment I met with throughout Syria. The news spread like wild-fire. 
 All the surrounding villages poured in. The house and the garden 
 were always full of people—my poor, of course, but others too. 
 Moslems flung themselves on the ground, shedding bitter tears, and 
 tearing their beards, with a passionate grief for the man “ whose 
 life ” they were reported to wish to take. The incessant demon¬ 
 strations of sorrow were most harassing, the poor crying out, “ Who 
 will take care of us now ? ” The Moslems : “ What have we done 
 
359 
 
 Religion . 
 
 that your Diwan (Government) has done this thing to us ? They 
 sent us a man who made us so happy and prosperous, and protected 
 us, and we were so thankful; and why now have they taken him 
 from us ? What have we done ? Were we not good and thankful, 
 and quiet ? What can we do ? Send some of us to go over to your 
 land, and kneel at the feet of your Queen.” This went on for days, 
 and I received, from nearly all the country round, little deputations 
 of Shaykhs, bearing letters of affection, or condolence, or grief, or 
 praise. These sad days filled me with one gnawing thought —“ How 
 shall I tear the East out of my heart by the roots, and adapt myself 
 to the bustling, struggling, everyday life of Europe ? ” 
 
 I broke up our establishment, packed up my husband’s books, 
 and sent them to England, settled all our affairs, had all that was 
 to accompany me transferred to Damascus, and parted with the 
 mountain servants. Two pets—the donkey that had lost a foot, 
 and a dog that was too ill to recover—had to be shot and buried in 
 the garden. 
 
 When all these sad preparations were finished, I bade adieu to 
 the Anti-Lebanon with a heavy heart, and for the last time, choking 
 with emotion, I rode down the mountain, and through the plain of 
 Zebed^ni, with a very large train of followers. I found it hard to 
 leave the spot where I had hoped to leave my mortal coil. 
 
 I had a sorrowful ride into Damascus, and I met the Wall driving 
 in State, with all his suite. He looked radiant, and saluted me. I 
 did not return his salute, and he told his Staff that he was afraid I 
 would shoot him. Somebody did that a little later on. He looked 
 less radiant when the news of his own recall reached him a few days 
 later, with a special telegram, that if he delayed more than twenty- 
 four hours, he was to be sent in chains. He fought hard to stay, 
 and I do not wonder, for he had a splendid position, and had bought 
 lands and built a palace, which he never lived in; and he had to 
 give up all his ill-gotten goods, lands, and palace, squeezed out of 
 the peasantry. 
 
 At Damascus I had to go through the same sad scenes, upon a 
 much larger scale than I had gone through at Bludan. All our kind 
 friends, native and European, came to stay about me to the last 
 
 I saw that Richard’s few enemies were very anxious for me to go, 
 and that all the rest were equally anxious to detain me as a kind of 
 pledge for his return. I reflected that it would be right that I should 
 coolly and quietly perform every single work I had to undertake—to 
 sell everything, to pay all debts, and arrange every liability of any 
 kind incurred by my husband, to pack and despatch to England our 
 personal effects, to make innumerable friendly adieux, to make a 
 
360 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 provision or find a happy home for every single being—man or beast 
 —that had been dependent upon us. This was rendered slow and 
 difficult, as the Government left us pro tem . without a farthing. 
 A servant generally gets a month’s notice with wages and a character, 
 but without any defence we were annihilated as if by dynamite. At 
 last I made our case known to Uncle Gerard, who telegraphed 
 to the Imperial Ottoman Bank, “ to let his niece have any money that 
 she wanted.” Before I left I went and dressed our little chapel with 
 all the pious things in my possession. 
 
 On the day of the sale I could not bear to stay near the house, so 
 I went up to Arba’in, or “the Forty Martyrs,” above our house, on 
 Jebel Kaysun, about fifteen hundred feet high, and I gazed on my 
 dear Salahfyyeh below, in its sea of green, and my pearl-like 
 Damascus, and the desert sand, and watched the sunset on the 
 mountains for the last time. I also met some Mogharibehs, who 
 came up to pray there, and who prognosticated all sorts of good 
 fortune to me. 
 
 In one sense I was glad, because I was a kind of hostage, giving 
 the lie to his enemies. If there had been anything wrong, I should 
 assuredly have paid the forfeit. I had no anxiety, for though I 
 had magnificent offers—two from Moslems to shoot certain official 
 enemies, as they passed in their carriage, from behind a rock, and 
 another from a Jew to put some poison in their coffee—I slept in 
 perfect security, amongst my Moslem and Kurdish friends, with my 
 windows and doors open, in that Kurdish village, Salahfyyeh. 
 Between us and the City was a quarter of an hour’s ride through 
 orchards that were wild and lawless—at least, in my time, no one 
 would come there from sunset to sunrise, and timid people, not even 
 in the day, without a guard. We had the house on a three years 
 lease, and my bedroom window and the Muezzi?is Minaret were 
 on a level, and almost joined, so that we could talk to each other. 
 I used to join him in the “call to prayer,” and he used to try not 
 to laugh. I never missed a pin ; I never had anything but blessings. 
 All my work took me some time, but I resolved, whatever the 
 wrench would cost me, I would set out the moment it was finished. 
 My husband being gone, I had no business, no place there; I knew 
 it would be better taste to leave. 
 
 We all began to perceive that the demonstrations were begin 
 ning to be of an excitable nature • the Moslems assembling in 
 cliques at night, a hundred here and a hundred there, to discuss 
 the strange matter. They were having prayers in the mosques for 
 Richard, and making promises of each giving so much to the poor 
 if they obtained their wish. They continually poured up to 
 
Religion . 361 
 
 Salahiyyeh with tears and letters, begging him to return, and I felt 
 that my presence and distress only excited them the more. I left 
 more quickly because I was informed that my presence was exciting 
 the people, who lived in hopes of his return, and his non-appearance 
 was causing an irritability that might break out into open mutiny 
 and cause another massacre. They were beginning with the usual 
 signs of meeting in clusters in the streets, in discussing the affair in 
 the mosques, in the bazaars, in the cafes , and putting up public 
 prayers for his return. 
 
 As half the City wanted to accompany me on the road, and I was 
 afraid that a demonstration might result, I thought I should be wise 
 to slip away quietly. My two best friends, Abd el Kadir and the 
 Hon. Jane Digby el Mezrab (Lady Ellenborough), were with me 
 till the last, and, accompanied by Charley Drake and our two most 
 faithful dragomans, who had never deserted me and put themselves 
 and all they possessed at my disposal, Hanna Asar and Mr. Awadys, 
 I left Damascus an hour before dawn, sending word to all my friends 
 that parting was too painful to me. 
 
 “ Linger not out the hours of separation’s clay 
 Till for sheer grief my soul to ruin fall a prey.” * 
 
 I felt life’s interest die out of me as I jogged along for weary miles, 
 wishing mental good-byes to every stick and stone. I had been 
 sickening for some days with fever. I had determined not to be ill 
 at Damascus, and so detained. Pluck kept me up, but having 
 braved the fatal 13 th, and set out upon it, I was not destined to 
 reach Beyrout. 
 
 When I reached that part of the Lebanon looking down upon the 
 sea, near Khan el Karayyeh, my fever had increased to such an 
 extent that I became delirious, and had to be set down on the road¬ 
 side, where I moaned with pain and could not proceed. Half an 
 hour from the road was the village of my little Syrian maid. I was 
 carried to her father’s house, and lay there for ten days very ill, and 
 was nursed by her and by my English maid. Many kind friends, 
 English and native, came to see me from Beyrout and from the 
 villages round about. 
 
 Mr. Tyrwhitt-Drake took our house, part of the furniture, the 
 faithful Habfb, and the sais, my two horses, which I could not bear 
 to sell into stranger hands, the dogs, and the Persian cat, “Tuss,” 
 who, however, ran away the day after I left, and has never been seen 
 or heard of since. All the other servants and animals were well 
 provided for in other ways. I was offered £15 for my white donkey, 
 
 • Charles T, Pickering, “ The Last Singers of Bukhara.” 
 
362 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 but I could not bear to sell him, so I left him also with Mr. 
 Tyrwhitt-Drake, and he eventually found a good home with our 
 successor, Mr. Green (afterwards Sir W. Kirby Green), and died. 
 The bull-terriers also died natural deaths with Mr. Drake. It was a 
 great relief to know that the former would never become a market 
 donkey, nor the latter pariahs, nor be beaten, stoned, and ill-used. I 
 was obliged to sell Richard’s rahw&n, and I sent it to the purchaser, 
 the Vice-Consul who succeeded, from the village where I was ill. He 
 came to pay me a visit. Although the poor horse had only been 
 there one night, this gentleman told me he had no trouble in finding 
 the house, for as soon as the rahw&n got near the turn leading off 
 the diligence road, he started off at full gallop, and never stopped 
 till he reached the door, nor would he go anywhere else. 
 
 I went down to Beyrout as soon as I was well enough to move, 
 and, assisted by Mr. Watkins of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, Mr. 
 Drake, and Mr. Zal Zal, embarked in the Russian ship Ceres , the 
 same that had brought me formerly from Alexandria to Beyrout. 
 As we were about to steam out, an English Vice-Consul in the 
 Levant gaily waved his hand to me, and said laughingly, “ Good-bye, 
 Mrs. Barton. I have been sixteen years in the service, and I know 
 twenty scoundrels in it who are never molested; but I never saw a 
 Consul ‘ recalled ’ except for something disgraceful, and certainly 
 never for an Eastern Pasha. You’ll find it’s all right; they would 
 hardly do such a thing to such a man as Burton.” We were a 
 fortnight at sea, detained by fogs and two collisions. 
 
 On reaching London I found Richard in one room in a very small 
 hotel. He had made no defence—had treated the whole thing de 
 haut en has, so I applied myself for three months to putting his case 
 clearly before the Foreign Office in his own name. I went to the 
 Foreign Office, where I had thirteen friends, and knew most of its 
 Masters, and I asked them to tell me frankly what was the reason of 
 his recall. 
 
 Firstly, I was told it had been represented that he was in danger 
 from~~ffie Mohammedans. That was too easily disproved by fifty- 
 eight lexers from every creed, nation, and tongue of the thirty-six 
 in Syria, from Bedawi tribes, Druzes, Moslems of all categories, 
 from the Ulemd, from Abd el Kadir; and, like proverbs, this homely 
 correspondence sprung from the heart illustrated the native character 
 better than books, and was a fair specimen of local Oriental scholar¬ 
 ship. What the Press and the Public thought about it in various 
 nations was the same—in forty-eight articles chiefly from the English 
 Press and the Levant, and five leaders. All that England has ever done 
 to him of neglect and slight has never touched him in any man’s 
 
Religion . 363 
 
 mind. He was the brightest gem in his country’s crown, and his 
 country did not deserve him. I went the rounds of my friends 
 repeatedly in the Foreign Office, and insisted on having a reason 
 for the recall. 
 
 When the Mohammedan question was disposed of, it was found 
 that it was because “ Burton had written a letter to convoke 
 the Druzes to a political meeting in the Hauran.” I asked if I 
 might have a copy of that letter, and, having kept the original 
 copy, I was able to put them side by side in the report, showing it 
 was forged by Rashid Pasha. He was then accused of opposing 
 missionary work, because he had written advising a schoolmistress, 
 in the kindest spirit, to try and prevent her husband entering into 
 mining speculations : as there was so much cheating going on, he was 
 afraid he would drop several thousand pounds. “ Mining ” was so?ne- 
 how changed to “ missionary ; ” but that fact was disposed of by the 
 regretful and indignant letters at his recall from all the other 
 missionaries. He was accused of being influenced against the Jews 
 because he protected the poor villagers from paying their debts twice 
 and thrice over to the usurers, who took their money and refused 
 receipts, leaving nothing to show. Amongst the letters one Jew wrote 
 home that Captain Burton “was influenced by his Catholic wife against 
 the Jews.” I am proud to say that I have never in my life tried to 
 influence my husband to do anything wrong, and I am prouder 
 still to say that if I had tried I should not have succeeded, and 
 should have only lost his respect. The Jews have never had a 
 better friend than me. I distinctly divide the usurers from the Jews, 
 just as I divide the good, honest, loyal half of the Irish Catholic 
 nation from the Fenians and the moonlighters, who are mostly 
 Irish living in England and America, and who go over for the 
 purpose of fomenting disturbance. I have suppressed many a thing 
 that civilized and idealized Jews would be ashamed to have known 
 of their lower and fanatical brethren in the East and elsewhere. 
 He was accused by the Greek bishop of firing into “harmless 
 Greeks at play,” because he fired a shot in the air to call assistance 
 when we were being stoned to death. 
 
 Mr. Eldridge, who was quite a Russian at heart, went on the 
 plan of never compromising himself by writing an official order to 
 Richard; he never wrote him anything but private notes. Richard 
 said he could not use private notes in official life as proofs. I 
 thought this very wrong. I saw a plan in this mode of action, 
 so I used to keep them in a portfolio till wanted, so that when I 
 put the case together I was able to state the facts very correctly. 
 I have got several packets of that Blue Book now, if anybody 
 
364 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 wants to see one. It ended by Richard getting the nearest thing 
 to an apology that one could expect out of a Government office, 
 and an offer of several small posts, which he indignantly refused. 
 In his journal I find he was offered Par£, but would not take it— 
 “ Too small a berth for me after Damascus.” 
 
 Shortly after, Mr. L- offered him, that if he would go to 
 
 Iceland to inspect some sulphur mines, he would pay his passage 
 there and back, and his expenses, and if he found he could con¬ 
 scientiously give a good report of the sulphur mines, that he would 
 give him ^2000. He went, and as we were at a very low ebb, and 
 
 as Mr. L- did not pay for me, I was left with my father and 
 
 mother, which was a very fortunate circumstance, because my 
 mother died shortly after. I may put in a parenthesis that, though 
 Richard was able conscientiously to give a splendid report of the 
 
 mines, Mr. L-did not pay him the ^2000. The trip resulted 
 
 in a book called “ Ultima Thule : a Summer in Iceland” * (2 vols.), 
 which was not published till 1875, and his “Zanzibar City, Island, 
 and Coast” (2 vols., 1872); and he wrote a lecture for the Society 
 of Antiquaries, a “ History of Stones and Bones from the Haur£n,” 
 and “ Human Remains and other Articles from Iceland.” We had 
 ten months of great poverty and official neglect (but great kindness 
 from Society), during which we were reduced to our last ^15, and after 
 that we had nothing to do but to sit on our boxes in the street, for 
 we had nothing, not a prospect of anything; but we let nobody 
 know that. He remarked one day when we were out on business— 
 
 “ Lunch, one shilling, 
 
 Soup not filling.” 
 
 And I noticed afterwards, in his journal, that he had longed for some 
 oysters, and looked at them long; but he says, “They were three 
 shillings a dozen—awful, forbidden luxury ! ” 
 
 At last my uncle, Lord Gerard, asked us up to Garswood, and we 
 debated if we had a right to accept it or not. I begged him to do 
 so, as I thought it might bring us good luck. We were alone in a 
 railway compartment, when one of the ^15 rolled out of my 
 purse, and slid between the boards of the carriage and the door, 
 reducing us to ^14. I sat on the floor and cried, and he sat down 
 by me with his arm round my waist, trying to comfort me. Uncle 
 Gerard kept us one month, paid our fare up and down, and, without 
 knowing that we wanted anything, gave me ^25, and from that 
 
 * It Is a valuable book, chiefly for its philosophical transactions, antiquarian 
 proceedings, and philological miscellanies, and the mineral resources of the island. 
 —I. B. 
 
Religion. 365 
 
 time one little help or another came to keep us alive without our 
 asking for anything. We sold some of our writings, and it was 
 discovered that some back pay was due to Richard. 
 
 During this ten months at home, we saw a great deal of Win- 
 wood Reade, whom all know by his travels in Africa, his many 
 literary works, of which the cleverest, but the most harmful, was 
 the “ Martyrdom of Man,” of which he presented Richard with a 
 copy, which was carefully treasured till about six months before 
 Richard’s death. He told us the following account of a ghost 
 story :— 
 
 There was a place in Africa or in India (I forget at this distance 
 of time), where there was a haunted bungalow, and Winwood 
 Reade was longing to see a ghost, as he was very sceptical about 
 the existence of such things. In this particular bungalow there was 
 a room on the ground floor, with folding doors of glass that opened 
 to the ground, leading out into the compound. Every night at 
 twelve o’clock these glass doors (being locked) slowly opened 
 outwards, and the ghosts of three surgeons who had died of cholera 
 appeared in their winding-sheets. Winwood Reade engaged the 
 bungalow for the night, it being quite empty, but he could not 
 induce anybody, for love or money, to go with him. At last he 
 tempted a black boy, by large promises of money, to pass one night 
 there, and the boy said if he might sleep on the roof he would, but 
 nothing would induce him to go inside the house. So they started 
 forth, and Winwood took with him a good novel, his gun, his 
 watch, and plenty of brandy and water, and towards eleven o’clock 
 made himself very comfortable on some cushions in a corner of the 
 room in full view of the window. As his watch pointed to twelve, 
 the doors slowly opened, he seized his gun, and in a moment the 
 three white figures appeared. I said, breathless with excitement, 
 “ And what did you do, Winwood ? ” He smiled and hesitated, 
 and said, “To tell the honest truth, I dropped my gun and fainted, 
 and when I came to I got out of the house as quick as I could, 
 called the boy, went away, and never went back.” He was such a 
 brave man he could afford to own this. 
 
 Richard writes at this time in his journal, “ I called on some old 
 friends, and as I came out of the house I heard the servants whisper, 
 * Why, Captain Burton looks like an old gypsy.” This was after his 
 recall. 
 
 We had one very pleasant evening at Lady Marian Alford’s. She 
 had been building her house at Prince’s Gate, and Miss Hosmer 
 had • sculptured her fountain; it was the opening night. Lady 
 Marian wanted to prepare a little surprise for her friends, so she 
 
366 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 made Richard dress as a Bedawin Shaykh, and Khamoor (my Arab 
 girl) and me as Moslem women of Damascus. I was supposed to 
 have brought this Shaykh over to introduce him into a little English 
 society. He spoke Arabic to Khamoor and me, and broken English 
 with a few words of French to the rest of the party. It was a 
 delightful little party, and we enjoyed it very much, and—though 
 they all knew him—nobody recognized Richard, which was very 
 amusing; but presently the Prince of Wales and the Duke of 
 Edinburgh were announced, and Lady Marian had to go out to 
 prepare them for this little joke, which amused them immensely, and 
 so it gradually had to ooze out. There was a delightful supper, 
 three tables each of eight. Khamoor in her Eastern dress came in 
 with coffee on a tray on her head, and presented it kneeling to the 
 Prince and the Duke, and to the others standing. Everything that 
 Lady Marian Alford did was so graceful. 
 
 I see that Richard notices in his journal a correspondence between 
 himself and the Rev. Herbert Vaughan, D.D. (our present Cardinal), 
 which I imagine was about the Shazlis. And he also notices that 
 his name is again left out of Sir Roderick Murchison’s address, and 
 asks, “ Why ? Old Murchison hates me.” 
 
 Again speaking of Sir R. Murchison, Richard writes, “He was 
 anxious to pay due honour to our modern travellers, to Livingstone 
 and Gordon, Speke and Grant. He has done me the honour of 
 not honouring me.” Later on : “ Received a card from him to go 
 and see him.” 
 
 We also went to Ashridge, Lord Brownlow’s, on a visit to Lady 
 Marian Alford, which visit we enjoyed immensely, where we met 
 Lord Beaconsfield and numbers of other delightful people. 
 
 He also notices in his journal: “Had the satisfaction of hearing 
 of Rashid Pasha’s disgrace and removal. Wonder if he wishes he 
 had not crossed swords with me.” 
 
 This year was the Tichborne trial, and Richard was subpoenaed 
 by him, but his evidence did more good to the family. Amongst 
 other things the Claimant said to Richard, “ That he had met me in 
 Rio de Janeiro, and that I had recognized him as a long-lost cousin; 
 but, on fixing the dates, it was proved that I had sailed from Rio for 
 London a week before the Claimant arrived there.” We had one 
 very lively meeting at the Royal Geographical Society. He 
 writes— 
 
 “ Rassam stood up about a native message to Livingstone. Colonel 
 Rigby contradicted, and said there were no Abyssinians in Zan¬ 
 zibar. They began to contradict me, so I made it very lively, for 
 
Religion . 367 
 
 I was angry, and proved my point, showing that my opponents 
 had spoken falsely. My wife laughed, because I moved from 
 one side of the table to the other unconsciously, with the stick 
 that points to the maps in my hand, and she said that the audience 
 on the benches looked as if a tiger was going to spring in amongst 
 them, or that I was going to use the stick like a spear upon my 
 adversary, who stood up from the benches.* To make the scene 
 more lively, my wife’s brothers and sisters were struggling in the 
 corner to hold down their father, an old man, who had never been 
 used to public speaking, and who slowly rose up in speechless 
 indignation at hearing me accused of making a misstatement, and 
 was going to address a long oration to the public about his son-in-law 
 Richard Burton. As he was slow and very prolix he would never 
 have sat down again, and God only knows what he would have said ; 
 they held on to his coat-tails, and were preparing, in event of failure, 
 some to dive under the benches, and some to bolt out of the nearest 
 door.” 
 
 We went a great deal into Society those ten montns, and we saw 
 much of the two best literary houses of the day, where one always 
 met la haute Boheme , the most interesting Society in London, mixed 
 with the best of everything, and those were Lord Houghton’s and 
 Lord Strangford’s. 
 
 About this time we went to visit Mr.-, our then publisher, at 
 
 his country-house, where he showed us all that was comfortable and 
 luxurious, with ten horses in the stable—everything else to match. 
 He gave us a large literary dinner, at which Lord Houghton, with his 
 quiet chuckle, called out across the table, “ I say, Burton, don’t you 
 feel as if we were drinking out of poor authors’ skulls ? ” Upon which 
 Richard laughed, and tapped his own head for an answer. 
 
 Richard was very anxious that Alexandretta should be the chief 
 port in Syria, into whose lap the railway would pour the wealth of 
 the province, for it is the only good port the country possesses on 
 the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Alexandretta, if freed from 
 its stagnant marshes, would be magnificent; the railway should go to 
 Damascus, Jerusalem, and Aleppo. 
 
 With regard to Sir Roderick Murchison, his journal again con¬ 
 tained the following, speaking of one of his books :— 
 
 “ Since these pages went to print Sir R. I. Murchison has passed 
 away, full of years and of honours. I had not the melancholy satis¬ 
 faction of seeing for the last time our revered Chief, one of whose 
 latest actions was to oppose my reading a paper about the so-called 
 Victoria Nyanza before the Royal Geographical Society ; whilst 
 
 * I never saw Richard so angry in my life; his lips puffed out with rage.—I. B. 
 
368 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 another was to erase my name from the list of the Nile explorers 
 when revising his own biography. But peace be to his manes ! I 
 respect the silence of a newly made grave.” 
 
 We went, for the first time in our lives, and the last, to a great 
 banquet at the Mansion House, which amused us very much. When¬ 
 ever we wanted to make any remarks at dinner-time we made them 
 in Arabic, thinking that probably no one would understand us. 
 Curiously, the people who sat next to us turned round, and said in 
 Arabic, “Yes, you are perfectly right; we were just thinking the 
 same thing; ” and Richard said, “ We spoke Arabic thinking nobody 
 would understand us; ” and they said, “ It is most probable that out 
 of all this huge crowd we are the only four people who happen to 
 speak Arabic, and happen to sit together.” 
 
 Another very interesting visit we paid was to the Surrey County 
 Lunatic Asylum, Wandsworth Common, where the doctor, who was 
 a friend of my husband’s, invited us to spend the day and dine with 
 him, and he showed us over everything; but I know that I, for 
 one, felt awfully glad when we left it; some of the faces that I saw 
 there I can see now if I shut my eyes and think. 
 
 In 1872, we were on a visit at Knowsley, the Earl of Derby’s, 
 and we planted there a cedar of Lebanon, which we had brought; 
 and we went over the alkali works at St. Helen’s, very interesting 
 to Richard, who did not know so much of the “ Black Country ” 
 as we did. We then went to Uncle Gerard’s, where we met the 
 Muriettas (now Marchesa de Santurce), and many other pleasant 
 people. Here we went down some coal-pits (265 fathoms) for further 
 information, and we planted more cedars of Lebanon and a bit of 
 Abraham’s oak, which we brought from Mamre, some distance from 
 Hebron. 
 
 That year my mother got very ill, and we all assembled in town 
 to be with her. She had been paralyzed for nine years, and, never¬ 
 theless, had been strong, active, and cheerful, and enabled in some 
 fashion to enjoy life. Her strong brain kept her alive. 
 
 At this time the public, answering an appeal of mine in the Tablet , 
 describing the poverty and destitution of the Syrian Inland Churches, 
 sent me wherewith to furnish six of them, which has never been 
 forgotten out there. 
 
 In 1872, poor General Beatson died at New Swindon. Richard 
 sent thirty-two species of plants from the summit of the Libanus 
 to the British Museum ; and this year he got the news from Syria 
 that he had gained his cause about the stoning at Nazareth. The 
 
Religion. 369 
 
 Greek Bishop had brought an action against him before the Tribunal, 
 and Richard won it with honour. 
 
 He wrote and lectured on the “Stones and Bones of the Haurin,” 
 March, 1872, and “Human Remains in Iceland” in late 1872. 
 
 I attended the Tichborne trial, and saw Sir John Coleridge 
 examine my cousin, Katty Radcliffe. Richard whispered to me, 
 “ The next thing plaintiff will do, will be to call himself Lord 
 Aberdeen.” I came home from there, and found the other brother, 
 Father Coleridge, S.J., giving my mother Communion. At this 
 time, too, we attended all the learned societies, where Richard 
 generally made speeches. We also went down to the Duke and 
 Duchess of Somerset’s, where we met Lady Ulrica Thynne, the 
 Brinsley Sheridans, and afterwards, at their house, brilliant and 
 fascinating Mrs. Norton. 
 
 Charles Reade, the well-known author, who was a great friend of 
 ours, gave us a delightful dinner and pleasant evening, asking a 
 great many actors and actresses to meet us. Sir Frederick Leighton 
 began to paint Richard on the 26th of April, and it was very 
 amusing. Richard was so anxious that he should paint his necktie 
 and his pin, and kept saying to him every now and then, “ Don't 
 make me ugly, don’t, there’s a good fellow ; ” and Sir Frederick kept 
 chaffing him about his vanity, and appealing to me to know if he 
 was not making him pretty enough. That is the picture that Sir 
 Frederick has now, and is going to leave to the nation ; and both 
 Richard and I always retained the pleasantest memory of the 
 many happy hours we passed in his studio. Richard was examined 
 on the Consular Committee, and made them all laugh. He com¬ 
 plained that the salary of Santos had been very inadequate to his 
 position ; he had been obliged to use his own little capital to supple¬ 
 ment. He was asked how his predecessor (a baronet) had managed, 
 and he answered, “ By living in one room over a shop, and washing 
 his own stockings.” Richard attended the Levde on May 13th. 
 
 We went to a Foreign Office party, where Musurus Pasha ex¬ 
 plained to Richard why he was obliged to go against him, by the 
 order of the Turkish Government about Syria, and Richard said to 
 him, “Well, Pasha, I did not know that you had; but I can tell 
 you that, though I never practically wish evil to my enemies, they all 
 come to grief, and you are bound to have a bit of bad luck on my 
 account.” The next day Musurus Pasha fell down and broke his 
 arm. It is an absolute fact that everybody who did my husband an 
 injury had some bad luck. 
 
 Richard tried to get Teheran, which was one of the places that 
 
370 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 he longed for and was vacant, and we knew that three names were 
 sent up to her Majesty for approval; but we also knew, sub rosa , 
 that Mr. (afterwards Sir Ronald) Thompson, a personal friend in their 
 youth of Mr. and Mrs. (afterwards Lord and Lady) Hammond, of the 
 Foreign Office, was to get it. 
 
 I brought out “Unexplored Syria” (2 vols.), in which Richard 
 and I and Charley Drake collaborated, on the 21st of June, 1872, 
 while Richard was in Iceland. 
 
 Richard sailed on the 4th of June from Leith for Iceland. The 
 5th of June was one of my most unhappy days. I got up early, and 
 passed the day with my mother. She received Communion at a quarter 
 to one ; at 9.30 p.m. she asked to see everybody. We said prayers 
 
 to her, but did not think her in any danger. At eleven some 
 
 instinct made me refuse to go home to my lodging. We were 
 summoned suddenly. I ran in and took her in my arms ; she turned 
 her head round upon my shoulder, looked at me, breathed a little 
 sigh, and died like a child at a quarter to twelve p.m. All the week 
 she lay in state, the room dressed like a chapel, with flowers and 
 
 candles, and we, her children, passed all day by her, and had all 
 
 our religious services in her room. (Richard notes in his journal, 
 “ Poor mother died about midnight, June 5th.”) 
 
 On the 12th of June, attended by all the people she liked best, 
 we buried her at Mortlake. 
 
 At last, Lord Granville wrote to me, and asked me if I thought 
 Richard would accept Trieste, Charles Lever having died; and he 
 also advised me to urge him to take it, because they were not likely 
 to have anything better vacant for some time. And I was able to 
 send Richard’s acceptance of Trieste to Lord Granville on July 15th. 
 We knew that after a post of ^1000 a year, with work that was 
 really diplomatic, and with a promise ahead of Marocco, Teheran, 
 and Constantinople before him, that a commercial town on £600 a 
 year, and office allowance, meant that his career was practically 
 
 broken ; but Richard and I could not afford to starve, and he said he 
 would stick on as long as there was ever a hope of getting Marocco. 
 
 Finally we were taken into some sort of favour again. Lord Gran¬ 
 ville had not understood Richard’s letter about wanting to have the 
 Shazlis baptized, and feared that it might result in a Jehad, or 
 religious war, if the baptisms had taken place. Richard told him 
 “ he knew it would not .” He knew he could carry it through ; he was 
 not a man to risk such a matter. His plan was to buy a tract of 
 land, to give these people the means of building themselves cottages, 
 choose their own Shaykh, their own Priest, and make for themselves 
 
37i 
 
 Religion. 
 
 a little Church. The village was to belong to him , and he would have 
 put it under the protection of his friends amongst the Moham¬ 
 medans. He would have taken no taxes from them, and no 
 presents or provisions, as other people do, and the consequence is 
 they would have been now a flourishing colony. That was the real 
 cause of the recall; and, as I have said before, Richard said, “ That 
 is suffering persecution for justice’ sake with a vengeance; but we 
 won’t have anything more to do with this subject until I am free 
 from an enlightened and just-minded Government in March, 1891.” 
 
 On the 26th of August I was going a round of country-house visits 
 in Richard’s absence, and arriving at ten o’clock at night at Uncle 
 Gerard’s, met the sad news that our youngest and favourite brother, 
 the flower of our flock, Jack Arundell, commanding the Bittern , had 
 died of rheumatic fever between the West Coast of Africa and Ascen¬ 
 sion, where he is buried—that is to say, he did not die of rheumatic 
 fever, but it was a question of sleep saving him. A very slight dose 
 of opiate had been administered to him to ensure this boon. He had 
 never mentioned the peculiarity in our family of being very sensitive 
 to opiates ; he went to sleep and never woke again, to the grief and 
 distress of all on board. He was only thirty-one years of age, was 
 bright and good-looking ; he was a dashing officer, with his heart in 
 his profession, and a fine career was before him. He had not had 
 time to hear of our mother’s death before he joined her. It was a 
 terrible blow to us. 
 
 Richard arrived on the 8th of June in Iceland, embarked for 
 return on 1st of August, and arrived in England from Iceland at 
 eleven at night on the 14th of September. 
 
 On the 5th of October, 1872, the day was fixed for Richard to 
 have a tumour cut out of his shoulder or back. He had got it from a 
 blow from a single-stick, when he was off guard and his back was 
 turned. It was an unfair blow, only the man did it in fun; anyway, 
 he said so. He had had it for a long time, and it had frequently 
 opened and discharged of itself, but now it was getting troublesome. 
 Dr. Bird, of 49, Welbeck Street, performed the operation. It was two 
 inches in diameter, and from first to last occupied about twelve 
 minutes. I assisted Dr. Bird. He sat astride on a chair, smoking a 
 cigar and talking all the time, and in the afternoon he insisted on 
 going down to Brighton. He did not wish me to go with him, but 
 I accompanied him to the station. I always liked to wait on him, so 
 I got him his ticket, had his baggage put in, and took him a place in 
 a coupe whilst he went off to buy his book and paper, and then I 
 called the guard. I said, “ Guard, my husband is going down to 
 
372 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Brighton. I wish you would just look after him, he is not very well; ” 
 and I gave him half a crown. Presently an old man of eighty hobbled 
 by on crutches, “ Is that him, ma’am?” “No,” I said. Next a consump¬ 
 tive boy came by, “ Is this him, ma’am ? ” “No,” I said ; “ not yet.” 
 Many passed, and of all those who he thought looked as though 
 they wanted taking care of, he asked the same question, and he got 
 the same answer. Presently Richard came swaggering along, as if 
 the whole station belonged to him—all fencers know the peculiar 
 walk a soldier has who is given much to fencing and broadsword 
 —and I whispered to the guard, “ There he is,” and I stood by the 
 carriage till the train went, and I heard him whisper to a comrade, 
 “ She would never ask me to take care of such a chap as that, unless 
 he was a raving lunatic. I’ll take devilish good care I don’t go near 
 him ; he would probably pitch me out of the carriage.” 
 
 After this we had a large family party at Wardour Castle, which 
 we enjoyed immensely. 
 
 A Greek priest from Syria came to see us, and we took him to a 
 spiritualistic seance. He was dreadfully frightened, and said his 
 prayers out loud all the time. 
 
 On his way up to Iceland he went to see Holyrood in Edinburgh, 
 and, visiting Queen Mary’s room, exclaimed, “No wonder she 
 sighed for France.” He went to the Levee held there by Lord 
 Airlie (the present Earl’s father). 
 
 ***** Hr * 
 
 Whilst here, we saw the Oriental papers every fortnight, and all 
 the accounts we read of our old home were of “ Arab raids, of insults 
 to Europeans, of miserable, starving people, of sects killing one 
 another in open day, of policemen firing recklessly into a crowd to 
 wing a flying prisoner, and a general fusilade in the streets; of sacked 
 villages, and plundered travellers.” We read of Salahfyyeh spoken 
 of as a “suburb of Damascus, which enjoys an unenviable repu¬ 
 tation ; ” of innocent Salahfyyeh men being shot down by mistake 
 for criminals, “ because the people of Salahfyyeh are such confirmed 
 ruffians, that they are sure to be either just going to do mischief or 
 just returning from it.” That is the place where for two or more years 
 we slept with open doors and windows, and I freely walked about 
 alone throughout the twenty-four hours, even when my husband was 
 absent, and left with Moslem servants. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Having lifted any possible cloud which may have hung over the 
 real history of Richard’s removal from his Eastern post—the only 
 suitable one he ever held—it is unnecessary for me to enter into 
 any further explanation of the causes of the base detractions from 
 
373 
 
 Religion. 
 
 which he has suffered. His case is not altogether a new one in the 
 human history, and the true explanation—the only real explanation— 
 of it, which can face the light of day, has been admirably expressed 
 in the lines written by the most brilliant statesman the Foreign Office 
 ever sent to the East—the “great Eltchi,” whom I and all lovers of 
 the Orient speak of with admiration, respect, and pride—Lord Strat¬ 
 ford de Redcliffe—and which are applicable to Richard in every 
 sense, except that, so far from ever “spurning the gaping crowd,” 
 he always sacrificed himself for the poor, the ignorant, and the 
 oppressed. 
 
 £< Nay, shines there one with brilliant parts endowed, 
 
 Whose inborn vigour spurns the gaping crowd ? 
 
 For him the trench is dug, the toils are laid, 
 
 For him dull malice whets the secret blade. 
 
 One fears a master fatal to his ease, 
 
 Or worse, a rival born his age to please ; 
 
 This dreads a champion for the cause he hates, 
 
 That fain would crush what shames his broad estates. 
 
 Leagued by their instincts, each to each is sworn ; 
 
 High on their shields the simpering fool is borne.” * 
 
 * From Lord Stratford de Redclifife’s “ Shadows of the Past.” 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 TRIESTE— HIS FOURTH AND LAST CONSULATE. 
 
 On the 24th of October, 1872, Richard left England for Trieste, to 
 pass, though we little thought it then, the last eighteen years of his 
 life. He was recommended to go to Trieste by sea, which always 
 did him so much good. He was to go on and look for a house, 
 hire servants, etc.; and I was to lay in the usual stock of everything 
 a Consul could want, and follow as soon as might be by land. We 
 all went down to Southampton to see him off, but, as the gale and 
 fog were awful, they were only able to steam out and anchor in the 
 Yarmouth Roads. 
 
 On the 18th of November I went down to Folkestone to cross, en 
 route to Trieste, and ran through straight to Brussels, where I slept, 
 and next day got to Cologne. 
 
 Of course, I stopped and looked at the Cathedral, and went to 
 Johann M. Farina’s (4, Jiilichs Platz), and the Museum, top of Cathedral 
 for view, stained glass, and all that; and then I sauntered on to Bonn, 
 Coblenz, Bingen, Castel, Mayence, until I got to Frankfort. 
 
 From here I went quietly on to Wurzburg, and thence to Munich, 
 where I was enchanted with the Hotel des Quatres Saisons. I 
 enjoyed the winding river, and the Forest of Spessart (the remnant 
 of the great primeval Hercynian Forest described by Caesar and 
 Tacitus), the Spessart range of hills wooded to the top, the wild 
 country with a few villages. 
 
 I arrived at Trent, where I found nothing to stay for; so went on 
 to Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Venice, and landed at the Hotel 
 Europa—which I had inhabited long ago, in 1858, when I was a 
 girl,—in time for table d’hdte. It was fourteen years since I had 
 seen Venice, and it was like a dream to come back again. It was 
 all to a hair as I left it, even, I believe, to the artificial flowers on 
 the table d’hote table. It was just the same, only less gay and 
 brilliant—it had lost the Austrians and Flenri V.’s Court; and I 
 was older, and all the friends I knew were dispersed. 
 
 My first action was to send telegram and letter to Trieste (which 
 was only six hours away), to announce my arrival, then the next day 
 to gondola all over Venice, and to visit all old haunts. Towards 
 late afternoon I thought it would be only civil to call on my Consul, 
 374 
 
Trieste — His Fourth and Last Consulate. 37 5 
 
 Sir William Perry. Lucky that I did so. After greeting me kindly, 
 he said something about “ Captain Burton.” I said, “Oh, he is at 
 Trieste; I am just going to join him.” “ No; he has just left me.” 
 Seeing that he was rather old, and seemed a little deaf and short¬ 
 sighted, I thought he did not understand, so I explained for the 
 third time that “I was Mrs. Barton (not Captain Burton), just 
 arrived from London, on my way to join my husband at Trieste.” 
 “ I know all that,” he said, rather impatiently; “ you had better 
 come with me in my gondola. I am going to the ‘ Morocco ’ now—the 
 ship that will sail for Trieste.” I said, “ Certainly ; ” and, very much 
 puzzled, got into the gondola, chatted gaily, and went on board. 
 As soon as I got down into the saloon, lo, and behold, there was 
 my husband, quietly seated at the table, writing. “ Hallo ! ” he said, 
 “ what the devil are doing here ? ” So I said, “ Ditto ; ” and we sat 
 down and began to explain, Sir William looking intensely amused. 
 
 I had thought when Richard left me on the 24th October, 
 that he had sailed straight for Trieste, and he thought I had also 
 started by land straight for Trieste; so we had gone on writing 
 and telegraphing to each other at Trieste, neither of us ever receiv¬ 
 ing anything, and Mr. Brock, our dear old Vice-Consul, who had 
 been there for about forty years, thought what a funny couple he 
 was going to have to deal with, who kept writing and telegraphing 
 to each other, evidently knowing nothing of each other’s movements. 
 Stories never lose anything in the recital, and consequently this one 
 grew thusly : “ That the Burtons had been wandering separately 
 all over Europe, amusing themselves, without knowing where each 
 other were; that they had met quite by accident in the Piazza at 
 Venice, shaking hands with each other like a pair of brothers who 
 had met but yesterday, and then walked off to their hotel, sat down 
 to their writing, as if nothing was the matter.” 
 
 The ship was detained for cargo and enabled us to stay several 
 days in Venice, amusing ourselves, and on the 6th of December, 
 1872, we crossed over to Trieste in the Cunard s.s. Morocco , Captain 
 Ferguson, steaming out at 8 a.m., and getting to Trieste at 5.15 
 p.m. There came on board Mr. Brock, our Vice-Consul, and Mr. 
 O’Callaghan, our Consular Chaplain. It was remarked “ that Captain 
 and Mrs. Burton (the new Consul) took up their quarters at the Hotel 
 de la Ville, he walking along with his game-cock under his arm, and 
 she with her bull-terrier,” and it was thought that we must be very 
 funny. We dined at table d'hote , and we did not like the place at all. 
 
 When Richard left England I had entrusted him with the care 
 of two boxes containing all my best clothes, and part of my jewellery, 
 wherewith to open my Trieste campaign. He contrived to lose them 
 
376 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 on the road (value about ^130), so when I arrived I had nothing 
 to wear. We wrote and complained, but the Peninsular and Oriental 
 would give us no redress; and when the boxes-did arrive they were 
 empty, but had been so cleverly robbed that we had to get the 
 canvas covers off, before we perceived that they had been opened 
 by running the pin out of the hinges at the back. I never recovered 
 anything. The Peninsular laid the blame on Lloyd’s, and Lloyd’s on 
 the Peninsular, and Richard said, “ Of course I believe them both.” 
 
 We stayed for the first six months in the hotel. The chief 
 Israelitish family, our local Rothschilds, Chief Banker, and afterwards 
 Director of Austrian-Lloyd’s, Baron Morpurgo, called upon us, and 
 opened their house to us; and this introduced us to all that was the 
 best of Trieste, and everybody called. This family have always 
 deserved to be placed on a pedestal for their princely hospitality, 
 their enormous charities, and their innate nobleness of nature. They 
 made Trieste what it was, and every one was glad to be asked to 
 their house. We made our debut at the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Arthur Sassoon. She was the belle of our little society; he was a 
 British subject; and Richard, being his Consul, had to be sort of 
 “ best man.” It was very interesting. I had not got used at that 
 time to telegraphs, and when I saw innumerable telegrams flying 
 about at the breakfast, I innocently asked if there was any great 
 political crisis. They laughed, and they said, “Oh no; we only 
 telegraphed to Madame Froufrou, to tell her how much Louise’s 
 dress was admired, and she telegraphs back her pleasure at hearing 
 it,” and so forth. I think in those days telegrams caused more 
 surprise in England than they did abroad. I shall never forget 
 the rage of my family the first time I came home from Trieste, who 
 were thrown into violent palpitations at a telegram from me, which 
 was only to ask them to send me a big goose for Michaelmas. 
 
 The Trieste life was, of course, varied by many journeys and ex¬ 
 cursions ; but we lived absolutely the jolly life of two bachelors, as it 
 might be an elder and a younger brother. When we wanted to go, we 
 just turned the key and left. We began our house with six rooms, and 
 were intensely happy; but after some years I became ambitious, and 
 I stupidly went on spreading our domain until I ran round the large 
 block of building, and had got twenty-seven rooms. The joke in 
 Trieste was that I should eventually build a bridge across to the next 
 house, and run round that; but as soon as I had just got everything to 
 perfection, in 1883, Richard took a dislike to it, and we went off to 
 the most beautiful house in Trieste, where he eventually died, 1890. 
 
 Our first thought as soon as we were settled in Trieste was to 
 scour every part of the country on foot, and we often used to lose 
 our way, and on the 1st of January, 1873, we were out from 10 a.m. 
 till 7.50 p.m. in this manner. 
 
Trieste — His Fourth and Last Consulate. 377 
 
 When we had been there a little while, Richard took it into 
 his head to make a pilgrimage to Loretto, and from there we 
 went on to Rome, seeing twenty-six towns on our way. Here we 
 made acquaintance with our Ambassador, Sir Augustus, and 
 clever, beautiful, charming Lady Paget; also we saw much of 
 Cardinal Howard (who was a connection of mine, and was one of 
 my favourite dancing partners when he was in the Life Guards, 
 and I was a girl), and Mgr. Stonor, Archbishop of Trebizond, 
 between whom and Lady Ashburton we had a delightful time in 
 Rome. 
 
 Richard, who had passed a good de-al of time here in his 
 boyhood, liked visiting the old places and showing them to me. 
 It would take three months of high pressure and six quiet 
 months to see everything in Rome; but during our short stay, 
 under his guidance, I saw and enjoyed all the principal and best 
 things, and he amused himself with writing long articles on 
 Rome, which came out in Macmillan's Magazine , 1874-5. Re¬ 
 ligiously speaking, what I enjoyed most was the Ara Coeli, the 
 church built on the site of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus 
 (I wish I knew all the things that have taken place on that 
 site). The other place was the Scala Santa. His Holiness 
 Pius IX., unfortunately for me, went to bed ill the day before I 
 arrived, and got up well the day after I left, so that I did not see 
 him. 
 
 I got Roman fever and took it on to Assisi, Perugia, Cortona, and 
 to Lake Thrasimene, which is lovely, and to Florence. How flat 
 and ugly is Roman country, the valley of the Tiber, and the Sabine 
 Hills, but after an hour and a half express it becomes beautiful. In 
 Florence we had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of “ Ouida ” 
 and Lady Orford, who was the Queen of Florence. Thence we 
 went on to Pistojia and Bologna, thence to Venice, and, after a 
 while, back to Trieste in a night of terrible gales. 
 
 We only stayed here just to change baggage, as Richard was 
 engaged as reporter to a newspaper for the Great Exhibition of 
 Vienna. I will only say en passant that the journey from Trieste 
 to Vienna by express (fifteen hours) is stupendously lovely for 
 the first six hours, and likewise all round Graz, halfway to Vienna; 
 and the passage over the Semmering is a dream, at any rate for 
 the first and second time. We were three weeks at Vienna. 
 The Exhibition was very fine; the buildings were beautiful; there 
 were royalties from every Court in the world, so that the mob 
 could feast their eyes on them thirty at a time—not that a foreign 
 mob ever stares rudely at royalties. 
 
378 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 We had a very gay time. Whilst we were there we went to the 
 Viennese Court. There was a great difficulty about Richard, be¬ 
 cause Consuls are not admissible at the Vienna Court; but upon the 
 Emperor being told this, he said, “ Fancy being obliged to exclude such 
 a man as Burton because he is a Consul! Has he no other profession?” 
 And they said, “Yes, your Majesty; he has been in the Army.” So 
 he said, “Oh, tell him to come as a military man, and not as a Consul.” 
 
 In May, 1874, Richard and others made an expedition up the 
 Schneeberg Mountain, which is always covered with snow. Fie 
 used to amuse himself by buying any amount of clothes and great¬ 
 coats, which were hanging up in rows, and he always went out 
 lightly clad to harden himself, so he started off with a little thin 
 coat and thin shoes, and he did the expedition; and when the 
 others were housed and warm, he would do more than anybody 
 else, and sleep out in the snow. We had done that when we were 
 obliged (as, for instance, in Teneriffe), but this was not obligatory; 
 it was a very different climate. When he arrived back home it 
 was a dreadful day, and six o’clock in the morning, and three days 
 afterwards he was taken very ill quite suddenly; inflammation settled 
 in the groin, a tumour formed, and he suffered tortures. 
 
 The doctor told me that it was going to be a long illness, so I 
 telegraphed home for good port wine and all sorts of luxuries, and 
 put two beds on rollers, so as to be able easily to change him from 
 one to the other, and a couch for myself, so that I might sleep when 
 he slept. We had seventy-eight days and nights of it. The tumour 
 had to be cut out, and afterwards it was discovered that the surgeon 
 had not gone deep enough, and it had to be done again. The 
 doctor and the surgeon came twice a day, and they taught me to 
 dress the wound. I was afraid his life would ebb away, but I kept 
 up his strength with good port wine, egg-flips with brandy, cream 
 and fresh eggs, Brand’s essences, and something every hour. His 
 brain was so strong that the doctors had very hard work to get him 
 under chloroform—it took forty minutes, and two bottles of chloro¬ 
 form ; but when he did go off it was perfect, and on coming to, he 
 said, “Well, when is it going to begin?” “ It is all over long ago, 
 Captain Burton,” said the doctor; but in point of fact I had to 
 keep his attention engaged, as they were just clearing away the 
 blood and all traces of the operation. 
 
 Richard began (though he progressed favourably) to get exceed¬ 
 ingly nervous; he thought he could never live to leave his room, and 
 to fancy that he could not swallow. I proposed to take him away, 
 and the doctors told me they would be only too glad if it were 
 possible to move him. It was the end of July, so I went up to the 
 
Trieste—His Fourth and Last Consulate. 379 
 
 rural inn, Op^ina, before mentioned, took a ground-floor suite of 
 rooms, ordered a carriage with a bed in it, and an invalid chair for 
 carrying up and down stairs; so when he told me that he thought he 
 should never get away, I told him that he certainly would, for that I 
 meant him to go on the morrow. He said it was impossible , that he 
 never could be conveyed below. However, next morning the men 
 came with the chair, the carriage was at the door, and he said smiling, 
 “ Do you know, I am absolutely sweating with funk.” Fancy how 
 ill that man of iron must have been, who could travel where and as 
 he had travelled, and yet dreaded going down the stairs for an hour's 
 journey in a carriage ; but it was the seventy-ninth day of endurance. 
 I made the men put him gently in the chair, and gave him a glass of 
 port wine. We had a hundred and twenty steps to go down, and I 
 made them pause on every landing while I gave him a stimulant, 
 and then we put him gently in the carriage in a recumbent position 
 on a bed, and telling the man to walk his horses, I sat by him and 
 held his hand. After about a quarter of an hour he said, “ I am all 
 right; tell him to drive on.” We then drove on, and in an hour 
 reached the inn, where I had men waiting to lift him gently into 
 bed. He said, “ I feel as if I had made a journey into Central 
 Africa; but I shall get well now.” 
 
 In a couple of days he was breakfasting and basking out in 
 the garden, and in twelve days I took him on to Padua, where 
 there was a celebrated old doctor (Pinalli), whom I called in. He 
 stayed an hour and a half, and overhauled Richard thoroughly. 
 He said he should go for five days to Battaglia, and that nature and 
 bicarbonate of soda would do the rest. Then he looked round at 
 me, who had been on duty night and day two months and a half. 
 He said, “As for you, you've got gastric fever, and you will go to 
 Recoaro for four weeks; and you will drink the waters, which are 
 purgative and iron, take the baths, and have complete rest.” We 
 drove to Battaglia, which is about seven and a half miles away; 
 our traces broke, and we spent some time mending them with bits 
 of string; but I got him there and conveyed him to bed, and here 
 he bathed and took the waters, which are especially for gout. 
 
 We stopped at Padua to see the doctor again, who found us both 
 perfectly well; got on to Venice and back to Trieste in a shocking 
 bad steamer. 
 
 We now took very much to our life up in the Karso, walking up 
 without servants, and staying part of the week, and taking immense 
 long drives or immense long walks over the country, searching 
 for inscriptions and castellieri\ and of the former we generally took 
 squeezes. When we first began this we were occasionally invited out 
 
The Life of Sir Rickard Burton. 
 
 380 
 
 shooting by the family proprietors of the inn ; but we never saw any¬ 
 thing, after miles of walking over stony country, but an occasional 
 hare, and for our parts, as we were not hungry, we used to fire every¬ 
 where excepting at them, and they generally got off. But one day as 
 we were going along we asked, “What are we going to shoot to-day ? ” 
 and so they said, “ Foxes.” So we looked very grave, and we said, 
 “ But don’t you know that it is against the English religion to shoot 
 a fox?” And they said, “No, is it?” and we said, “Yes, we must 
 turn back; ” and so they agreed to sacrifice the day’s shooting if we 
 would go out with them, and Richard chaffed them, pretending that 
 he thought that Adam and Eve had been turned out of Paradise for 
 shooting a fox. (We had just seen it in Punch , where two little 
 children had just been wondering why Adam and Eve were turned 
 out of Paradise, and the boy, the son of a sporting parson, said, 
 “ Perhaps he shot a fox ! ”) 
 
 On Sunday, the 15th of November, we lost some friends. Captain 
 Nevill and his wife, nee Lever, sailed for India, having had an offer 
 to command the Nizam’s troops in Hyderabad (Deccan), where they 
 have now been eighteen years, and have risen to a great position 
 there. I had now (November 20th) finished writing my “ Inner 
 Life of Syria,” 2 vols., which occupied me sixteen months, and on 
 Christmas Eve handed my manuscripts over to the publisher. It 
 came round to end of 1874. 
 
 This month Richard went to have some teeth out by gas, but the 
 gas did not have any effect on him at all. Believing that they were 
 playing a trick, and that there was no gas in it, it was tried on me, 
 and I went off directly. 
 
 Richard now proposed a thing which disconcerted me consider¬ 
 ably, and that was to send me to England to transact some business 
 for him, and to bring out books, and I was to start with several 
 pages of directions, and he would join me later on. I had only been 
 two years in Trieste, and it made me exceedingly miserable; but 
 whenever he put his foot down, I had to do it, whether I would 
 or no. 
 
 I left on the 8th, and never stopped till I reached Paris, and next 
 day went on to Boulogne, arriving in London on the 12th. 
 
 In England I was to study up the Iceland sulphur mine affair 
 
 with Mr. L-, and then to see an immense lot of publishers for 
 
 Richard. 
 
 During the two years we had been at Trieste Richard had 
 occupied himself with writing the “ Lands of the Cazembe,” * and 
 
 * “ Lacerda’s Journey to Cazembe in 1798,” Richard translated and annotated, 
 and “ The Journey of the Pombeiros,” by P. J. Baptista and Amaro Jaso, “ Across 
 
Trieste—His Fourth and Last Consulate . 381 
 
 a small pamphlet of supplementary papers for the Royal Geographical 
 Society, 1873; the “ Captivity of Hans Stadt,” for the Hakluyt, 
 1874; articles on “Rome” (two papers, Macmillaris Magazine , 
 1874-5); the poem of “ Uruguay,” which has never been published ; 
 and “ Volcanic Eruptions of Iceland ” for the Royal Society of 
 Edinburgh; the “ Castellieri of Istria,” Anthropological Society, 
 1874; a “ New System of Sword Exercise,” a manual, 1875 ; “ Ultima 
 Thule;” “A Summer in Iceland” (2 vols., 1875), which though 
 written had not appeared; “ Gorilla Land; or, the Cataracts of the 
 Congo ” (2 vols., 1875). Also we had been to Bologna for the express 
 purpose of exploring all the Etruscan remains, and he had produced 
 two volumes of “ Etruscan Bologna;” “ The Long Wall of Salona, 
 and the Ruined Cities of Pharia and Gelsa di Lesina,” a pamphlet, 
 Anthropological Society, 1875; “The Port of Trieste, Ancient and 
 Modern ” ( Journal of the Society of Arts, October 29th and November 
 5th, 1875); and Gerber’s “ Province of Minas Geraes,” translated and 
 annotated by him for the Royal Geographical Society; and a fresh 
 paper for the Anthropological on “ Human Remains and other 
 Articles from Iceland.” So that my charge was the bringing out of 
 three books, and the “ Manual of Sword Exercise.” This last, when 
 he arrived, he took himself to his Royal Highness the Duke of 
 Cambridge, who desired him to show him several of the positions of 
 defence he most liked, and a system of vianchette , with which he 
 appeared particularly pleased, and Richard returned enchanted with 
 his interview. Richard criticizes the English system of broadsword, 
 which, he says, is the worst in the world. With this pamphlet he 
 has done, for broadsword exercise, what a score of years ago he did 
 for bayonet exercise, and he was confident that the Horse Guards will 
 eventually adopt it. The last revised English edition, by MacLaren, 
 at that time dated half a century before. A thousand writers have 
 been at this subject for three hundred and fifty years, and yet Richard 
 found lots of new things to say about it. 
 
 One of our most intimate friends was General Charles Gordon— 
 “ Chinese Gordon ” of Khartoum sad memory. The likeness between 
 these two men, Richard Burton and Charles Gordon, was immense. 
 The tw'o men stood out in this nineteenth century as a sort of pendant, 
 and the sad fate of both is equal, as far as Government goes. 
 One abandoned and forgotten in the desert, the other in a small 
 foreign seaport; both men equally honoured by their country, and 
 standing on pedestals that will never be thrown down—uncrowned 
 
 Africa from Angola to Tette on the Zambesi,” translated by B. A. Beadle, and 
 a resume of the “Journey of MM. Monteiro and Gamitto,” by Dr. C. T. Beke, 
 published by the R.G.S. (London, John Murray, 1873). 
 
382 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 kings both. This difference there was between them—Charles 
 Gordon spoke out all that Richard laboured to conceal. He used to 
 come and sit on our hearthrug before the fire in the long winter even¬ 
 ings, and it was very pleasant to hear them talk. Gordon had the 
 habit of saying, “ There are only two men in the world who could do 
 such or such a thing; I am one, and you are the other.” After he 
 became Governor of the Soudan, he wrote to my husband as follows:— 
 
 “ You and I are the only two men fit to govern the Soudan ; if one 
 dies, the other will be left. I will keep the Soudan, you take Darfur; 
 and I will give you ^5000 a year if you will throw up Trieste.” 
 
 Richard wrote back :— 
 
 “ My Dear Gordon, 
 
 “ You and I are too much alike. I could not serve under 
 you, nor you under me. I do not look upon the Soudan as a lasting 
 thing. I have nothing to depend upon but my salary, and I have a 
 wife, and you have not.” 
 
 On the 1 st of March, 1875, there was a paragraph in the Scotsman , 
 speaking of Richard’s death, and of me as a widow, which gave me 
 a few very unhappy hours. I telegraphed to Trieste at once, packed 
 and prepared money to start; but I got a telegram as soon as a return 
 could be, saying, “ I am eating a very good dinner at table d'hote .” 
 
 On the 5th of May I went to the Drawing-room, and on the 12th 
 of May Richard arrived himself, and we did a great deal of visiting 
 and a great deal of Society in the evening. 
 
 This year Richard established his “ Divans.” They were to be 
 every other Sunday—only men. They were to drop in after dinner, 
 or opera, or club. We were ready at half-past nine. We had mild 
 refreshments, brandies and sodas, various drinks, smoking and talk, 
 and he made me preside, but he would not allow me to invite other 
 women ; he said it would spoil the Divan character of the thing. 
 Our first was on the 23rd of May. 
 
 Backed by about thirty of his most influential friends and names 
 that carry weight, I did all I could to get Richard made a K.C.B., but 
 it fell through. Lord Clarendon had told me in 1869 that he thought 
 me very unreasonable, and that if he had one to give away, there 
 were many people that he would rather give it to than Richard. I 
 told him I thought that no one had earned it half so well, and that it 
 was awfully unkind; but this is the paper that I circulated through Sir 
 Roderick Murchison in 1869, now in 1875, and again through 
 another source in 1878. I was backed by any amount of influence 
 each time. Also I got them to ask that he should either return to 
 Damascus or be moved to Marocco or Cairo, Tunis or Teheran. 
 
Trieste—His Fourth and Last Consulate. 383 
 
 When the press unanimously took up the cause of his K.C.B.- 
 ship, and complained that the Government did not give him his 
 proper place in official life, he wrote the following :— 
 
 “The Press are calling me ‘the neglected Englishman,’ and I 
 want to express to them the feelings of pride and gratitude with 
 which I have seen the exertions of my brethren of the Press to 
 procure for me a tardy justice. The public is a fountain of honour 
 which amply suffices all my aspirations; it is the more honourable as 
 it will not allow a long career to be ignored for reasons of catechism 
 or creed. With a general voice so loud and so unanimous in my 
 favour, I can amply console myself for the absence of what the 
 world calls ‘ honours,’ which I have long done passing well without; 
 nor should I repine at a fate which I share with England’s most 
 memorable men, and most honourable, to go no further than 
 Gordon and Thackeray. It certainly is a sad sight to see perfectly 
 private considerations and petty bias prevail against the claims 
 of public service, and let us only hope for better things in future 
 days.” 
 
 It has been an oft-told tale, but it is a true one, that Richard 
 went to the Zoological Gardens one Sunday, and he asked for 
 a glass of beer. The girl was going to give it him, when she 
 changed her mind, and then she said, “ Now, are you really a 
 bona-fide traveller?” “Well,” he said, “I think I am.” Then she 
 thought he was taking her in, and she would not give it him. 
 The others laughed and told her who he was; still she would not 
 let him have it. 
 
 Richard lectured at the Numismatic, the Royal Geographical, the 
 Anthropological, and several other societies, and we were invited 
 to attend on the Sultan of Zanzibar at the Duchess of Sutherland’s, 
 mother of the present Duke, and his Crystal Palace party. The 
 members of the Urban Club gave Richard a dinner and welcome 
 on the 15th of June at St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell. We also had 
 a very pleasant dinner at Mr. Edmund Yates’, where we met Wilkie 
 Collins and others, and had some very pleasant literary parties at 
 the Brinsley Sheridans’, and Mr Dicey’s. At Lady Derby’s we 
 were presented to the Queen of Holland. Her Majesty took a 
 great deal of notice of Richard and me at Lady Salisbury’s, and at 
 Lady Egerton of Tatton’s, and also at Lady Holland’s, and ex¬ 
 pressed a wish to have his last book, which I had the pleasure of 
 leaving with her secretary. 
 
384 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 On the 4th of December Richard notes a never-to-be-forgotten day 
 —so dark, foggy, deep snow, and a red, lurid light. All the gas and 
 candles had to be lit at nine o’clock in the morning. London was 
 like a Dante’s snow hell; the squares were like a Christmas tree. It 
 was as dark as if some great national crime was being committed. 
 A large family party accompanied us to the Pavilion at Folkestone 
 to see us off, and there Carlo Pellegrini joined us. He was staying 
 there for his health, and painting a little. Andrew Wilson, of the 
 “ Abode of Snow,” also joined us, and travelled with us for a week. 
 The snow was eight feet deep. We were joined by several surround¬ 
 ing relations, living at short distances from there. The Dover train 
 stuck in the snow from six till twelve at night. The boat did not 
 cross; the night train did not come in. It was blowing great guns 
 at sea. On the 7th it was something better, and two sledges took us 
 to the station. We landed with great difficulty on the French side. 
 We always lingered at Boulogne whenever we got there. We used 
 to go and see Constantin (Richard’s old fencing-master), all the old 
 haunts, the Ramparts where we first met. Caroline, the Queen of 
 the Poissardes, who received us cl bras ouverts , talked of old times 
 when we were young people, and reminded me of a promise which 
 was then very unlikely, that if ever I should go to Jerusalem I should 
 bring her a rosary, and I was now able to fulfil it. We went on to 
 Paris. We did not care for Rossi’s Hainlet, after Mr. Henry Irving’s 
 in London and Salvini’s in Italy. I never can see any smartness 
 in a Paris theatre; the scenery is so bad, the dresses so flashy 
 and tinsel, no appliances for effect. I suppose in old days it was 
 different, as so many people raved about it. The acting and the 
 wit I can appreciate. We left Paris on the 16th, to my great delight 
 —I believe I am the only woman who hates Paris—and dined next 
 night at Turin with Cristoforo Negri and family, the head of the 
 Geographical Society of Italy, and Signor Cora and wife, the editor 
 of the most influential paper; and then we went on to Milan, where 
 we always begin to consider ourselves at home on our own ground. 
 
 We arrived in Venice on a dark, sad, silent night, when the plash 
 of the gondola has a sad music of its own. We got to our home 
 at Trieste on Christmas eve, and having accepted a Christmas 
 dinner, gave all the servants leave to go out and see their friends; 
 but Richard got seedy on Christmas Day and he went to bed. 
 I had nothing in the house but bread and olives, and ate my 
 Christmas dinner by his bed. How happy we were ! What would 
 I give for bread and olives now, and to sit by him again! 
 
 V 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 We embarked at once for India. Baron D’Alber, my husband’s 
 best friend, the local Minister of Finance in Trieste, and the Captain 
 of the Port, came in the Government boat to take us to the Austrian- 
 Lloyd’s Calypso , Captain Bogojevich. H.R.H. the Duke of Wurtem- 
 burg, who was our Commander-in-Chief, so distinguished in the 
 Bosnian campaign ; Baron Pascotini, a kind, clever, philanthropic old 
 gentleman of eighty-four, and all the great people, came to see us off, 
 to do honour to Richard. How touched we were at so much kindness! 
 We steamed down the Adriatic with a fresh breeze. The day after, 
 Richard began to dictate to me the biography which forms the 
 beginning of this book. We read the life of Moore and the “ Veiled 
 Prophet of Khorass^n,” called by Moore Mokanna, whose real name 
 was Hassan-Sabah, or Hassan es Sayyah. When we got to Zante it 
 blew very hard. Our chairs were lashed on deck, and we read daily 
 “ Lalla Rookh,” the “ Light of the Haram,” and Smollett’s “ Adven¬ 
 tures of Roderick Random ” and “ Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.” 
 At Port Sdid, which is a sort of an Egyptian Wapping, we ran over 
 the sands to see an Arab village. We met a lot of old friends, 
 Consul and Mrs. Perceval, Mr. Buckley, F.O., Colonel Stoker, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Cave, and the grand old Baron de Lesseps, 
 and Salih Beg, Mr. Royal, Mr. Webster, Mr. Fowler, and other 
 gentlemen at dinner at the Consulate. We much enjoyed the Canal, 
 seeing once more an Eastern sunrise over the desert, but it made 
 us sad contrasting our old days with our present. We had a glorious 
 moonlight, blue sky, clear green water, cool balmy air, golden sands 
 to the very horizon, troops of Bedawi camels and goats. It is a 
 wild and dangerous track. 
 
 We had the north-east monsoon dead against us the whole way 
 after going out of the Canal, which made the ship pretty lively. In 
 the Red Sea there is much to be seen for those who know the coasts, 
 and my husband pointed out the far-off sites of his old Meccan 
 
386 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 journey, and the land of Midian and Akabeh, which would be a future 
 journey. On the thirteenth day we serpentined through twenty miles 
 of mostly hidden reefs and slabs to Jeddah, the Port of Mecca, 
 which can only be done in broad daylight, one ship at a time, and 
 no lighthouses. We collided with an English ironclad ship, which 
 did us considerable damage, so we had to remain some time, before 
 we were repaired, and our pilgrims continued to arrive from Mecca, 
 as we were a pilgrim-ship about to carry eight or nine hundred to 
 Bombay. 
 
 To the far east we had a gladdening glimpse of the desert, the wild 
 waterless wilderness of Sur on the Asiatic side, which looks like snow 
 under the moonlight. I have not enjoyed myself so much with 
 Nature for four and a half years as now, once more smelling the 
 desert air and the usual Eastern scenes. 
 
 Richard and I went to the khan, where he lived as one of these 
 very pilgrims in 1853, and stood under the Minaret he sketched in 
 his book, to hear the “ call to prayer.” 
 
 I was very pleased to see that all regarded him with great favour, 
 and though the whole story was known, the Governor and every¬ 
 body else called upon him and were extremely civil. Nearly every 
 day we rode out Meccawards; it had a great attraction for Richard. 
 The great hospitality shown us, the unbounded kindness of our own 
 countrymen, the courteousness of the Turkish Authorities, and the 
 civility of the fanatical Jeddawis will never be forgotten. We left 
 in a Sambuk in furious southerly squalls to join our ship, anchored 
 at least six miles away. This is the large, flat native boat, with big 
 sail that can go close to the wind without upsetting. We found eight 
 hundred pilgrims on board, packed like herrings. 
 
 Arrived in Bombay, Richard took me to see all the scenes described 
 in the beginning of this book in the early part of his life, and he 
 said, “ It is a curious thing, that although I hated them when I was 
 obliged to live here, now that I am not obliged I can look back 
 upon these scenes with a certain amount of affection and interest, 
 although I would not live here again for anything. The old recol¬ 
 lection makes me sad and melancholy.” We were under very 
 happy auspices there, because Mr. Frederick Foster Arbuthnot, who 
 now lives at 18, Park Lane, had been a friend of Richard’s for 
 many, many years, and mine too; he was " Collector ” at Bombay, 
 and occupied a great position, so that he used to take us out every¬ 
 where in his four-in-hand or in his boats, and we saw everything 
 all over Bombay and its environs, which, though familiar to Richard, 
 was entirely new to me, and we were also introduced to all the 
 Society. 
 
India . 
 
 o 
 
 Sind. 
 
 Now the Sind expedition came off. First, Bassein Ddmdn, Surat, 
 the first English factory in India, with the tombs of Vaux and Tom 
 Coryat; then Diu, a Head and Fort, Ja’afardbid, the ruins of Soma- 
 n£th, the home of the famous Gates; the Dwirika Pagoda, Kachh 
 (Cutch), Mandavi, and the Indus mouths. We called upon the 
 village Chiefs ; we chatted with the villagers ; we learnt much about 
 the country, and we taught the country something about ourselves. 
 Gujarat was the next place—Kdthiaw^r and Junagarh, better known 
 as Gfrnar. And then to Manhora, where the British arms first showed 
 the vaunting Sindi and the blustering Beloch what the British lion 
 can do when disposed to be carnivorous, and thence to Karachi 
 town. There we visited every part of the Unhappy Valley, and 
 particularly the Belochis of the hills (with whom Richard had so 
 much to do when under Sir Walter Scott). He writes indignantly 
 about the way Mirza Ali Akbar Kahn Bahadur was treated by the 
 Government, being removed from the service, and his pension 
 refused in 1847—it is said to annoy Sir Charles Napier, Richard’s 
 Chief. 
 
 Everywhere he goes (as he recounts in “Sind Revisited,” which he 
 wrote from our journal on return) he visits the old scenes of his former 
 life, saluting them, letting the changes sink into his mind, and taking 
 an everlasting farewell of them. He was very apt to do this in places 
 where he had lived. He notices the ruin of the Indian army—the 
 great difference between his time and now. He said, “ Were I a 
 woman, I would have sat down and had a good cry.” There was only 
 one of his joyous crew still breathing. The buildings had grown magni¬ 
 ficent, but everything else had changed for the worse; the old hospi¬ 
 tality was gone; there was no more jollity, no more larking boys; 
 everything so painfully respectable, and so degenerated. He went to 
 visit the old alligator tanks, where they used to go and worry them with 
 their bull-terriers, and the boys used to jump on them and ride them. 
 “No such skylarking now,” he remarked. Then he waxes sentimental 
 at the place where he had a serious flirtation with a Persian girl. 
 There is the shop where he used to write with phosphorus on the 
 wall. He had three shops in Karachi, where he appeared in different 
 disguises, and was considered a saint when he was so disguised and 
 appeared in such or such a character. Then we went back to Baroda, 
 where he was quartered so long, and to see the Goanese church, 
 to which he transferred himself in 1843, an d t0 Gharra, where he 
 had to live so miserably. 
 
3 88 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 We go to Sundan, to Jarak, to the Phuleli river, where he 
 spent some time in his early days with a moonshee , and make a 
 pilgrimage to the Indus river, and eventually to Hyderabad (Sind) 
 and to Kotri the Fort, where, as he says, for the sake of “auld 
 lang syne,” he visits every place to right and left on his way, even 
 the Agency and the old road. He says the changes take away his 
 breath. 
 
 We go on from Hyderabad to Sakhar and Shikarpur, but 
 first he recognizes the old artillery lines, the billiard-room, and 
 John Jacob’s house built on a graveyard, and then goes to the 
 Tombs of the Kings at Kalhora and Talpur, which are very 
 like those of Golconda (Jaypur marble, which the Rajput artists 
 seem to handle like wax). The flutings of the open work 
 are delicate in the extreme, and the general effect is a lacery 
 of stone. We then visit New Hyderabad, and he is surprised 
 at all the new buildings. He is very much distressed at the 
 state of the Army; the Beloch element has gone out, and the 
 Pathan, or Afghan, is taking its place. The men are no longer 
 what they were, and the military authorities have only to thank 
 their own folly. 
 
 He dives into the Eastern mind, and shows you that the 
 moment you begin to intrigue with an Oriental, he has you on 
 his own ground, he beats you with your own weapons, and that 
 the only way that you have the Oriental at your mercy is by 
 being perfectly straightforward and honest. He shows you what 
 value they set on good manners. Then we visit the field of 
 Meanee. He describes the brisk way that Sir Charles Napier 
 fought—a fierce me lie, no quarter asked or given. He said 
 the way to fight an Indian battle is to shake the enemy’s 
 line with a hot fire of artillery, charge home with infantry, and 
 when a slight hesitation begins, to throw all your cavalry at the 
 opposing ranks, and the battle is ended. Such was the battle 
 of Meanee, when our 2800 thrashed 22,000 men. He greatly 
 blames the yielding up of Afghanistan. Then we go to Husri, 
 where, in old days, he surveyed and amused himself with cock- 
 fighting—the scene of the death of “ Bhujang,” his favourite cock 
 —and from thence to Sudderan Column, from whence he visited 
 Mir Ibrahim Khan Talpur’s village; and then he goes on to the 
 “ Jats” country (the Gypsies), with whom he affiliated himself, and 
 where he worked with the camel-men, levelling canals in the old 
 days. Then we go on to Badha and Unarpur, Lakffi, and Sibt, 
 wells in the desert, and here he translated the tale of Biri and 
 Isa (Jesus). 
 
India . 
 
 3 8 9 
 
 Leaving Unarpur, we pass out of the Unhappy Valley into 
 Sindia Felix, beginning at Gopang, Majhand, Sann, and Amiri, and 
 here in 1876 rails have been laid and trollies were working. Thence 
 we go to Lakkf, where he composed the poem on the “ Legends of 
 the Lakkf Hills,” and then to Sehwan. The road was a precipitous 
 corniche , very narrow, with camels marching in Indian file. Sehwan 
 is an important military and religious place, commanding the passage 
 of the Indus, but intensely hot, with deleterious and deadly climate. 
 This was the place where Richard in old days buried an old 
 Athenaeum sauce-pot, which he had painted like an Etruscan vase. 
 He treated it with fire and acid, smashed it, and buried it in the 
 ground, and took in a lot of antiquaries, who never forgave him; 
 and when he was travelling in the land of the Turanian Brahuis, he 
 drew up a grammar and a vocabulary, with barbaric terminations, 
 and the Presidency rang for nine days with the wondrous discovery. 
 That was in his boyhood, and he writes, “ I now repent me in sack¬ 
 cloth and ashes, and my trembling hand indites ‘ Mea culpa , mea 
 maxima culpal ” 
 
 We then go along the Aral stream for two days to Lake Man- 
 char, and visit the Kirthar Mountains, with their two sanitaria, 
 Char Yarn and the Danna Towers. Then to Larkana, an Eastern 
 influent of the Indus—eight stages. Larkana is the centre of 
 Sindia Felix. We go to Sakhar, to Bakar, and lastly to Rohri, and 
 then make our way to Shikarpur across a kind of desert, south of 
 the Bolan Pass, and which is the main entrepot of the Khorasan and 
 Central Asian caravan trade with Sind and Western India, where, as 
 usual, he visited everything and found the usual changes. 
 
 Then we came to Hyderabad, and he discusses the Indus Valley 
 Railway. He finds it silly that the Government continued to march 
 its troops between Karachi and Kotri in ten days, including a single 
 halt, rather than take the rail for four or five hours; expensive 
 economy, he remarks, as the baggage camels cost far more than a 
 few additional cars. 
 
 He says that we have improved the climate of the Indus Valley; 
 we have learned to subdue its wildness by the increased comforts 
 of a more civilized life. Many abuses of the olden time have 
 disappeared; formerly, it was a feat to live five years in Indus-land, 
 but now you find men who have weathered their twenty years. 
 
 We then went up to Matheran, the most easily got at hill- 
 station, or sanitarium, passing through the villages Byculla, Chin- 
 choogly, Parell, Dadur, Sion, Coorla, Bhandoop, Tannah, and 
 Derwa. Tannah is a big village, an unhealthy-looking place, with 
 two crumbling forts in the river. Long, long ago there were five 
 
390 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 thousand velvet weavers here. They also used to cure large quantities 
 of bacon. In the thirteenth century four friars went to dispute with 
 the Moslem Kadi, and told him Mohammed was in hell with his 
 father the Devil, on which he executed them with such tortures that 
 his own King banished him, and the Portuguese took signal revenge. 
 Our third halt was Kalyan junction. This poor village port was, in 
 a . d . 200, the far-famed Kallienapolis, which shipped dry goods and 
 precious woods to the outer west. We are also now on classic 
 ground, near the northern extremity of the Shurparaka, or winnow¬ 
 shaped region, the Greek Limyrica, where some have placed Ophir 
 of Solomon. The Konkan lowland is like the Arabian desert, tawny, 
 not with sand, but black patched with fire. Here we turn down 
 towards Madras, joining the Calcutta Railway, and pass Budapoor. 
 We catch the Deccan hot winds, and alight at Narel, a little Maharatta 
 village at the eastern base of Matheran, which will be noted after¬ 
 wards as the birthplace of the infamous Nana Sahib. 
 
 Here we mount ponies. We had to climb up four plateaux, and 
 we arrived at the Alexandra Hotel, Mdtherdn, a very comfortable 
 bungalow. 
 
 I think I said to leave Mitherdn one has to get back to Narel. The 
 railway makes a tour like a V. We came down one side, and we go 
 up the other to Lanauli. On our road down from Mdtheran we 
 passed a procession of Bnnjaris for about two miles. This wild tribe 
 intermarry only amongst themselves, and have their own laws. They 
 are a strong race ; men, women, and children are good looking. They 
 grow their own corn, have their own bullocks, spin their own sacks, 
 and have huge dogs for guard. They dress picturesquely, and are 
 very defiant. The women carry the babies in a basket on their heads. 
 They have been described, as have also the Nats, as being one with 
 the Gypsies, to whom they bear some resemblance; but it is a mistake. 
 My husband made up his mind on this point whilst he was working 
 with the camel-men, and lived with the “ Jats ” in India, in his early 
 days. He said the Romany are an Indine people from the great 
 valley of the Indus. 
 
 We passed another overhanging rock covered with monkeys, some 
 as big as a man, and some of a small species; they do not associate 
 or intermarry. There are two Maharatta forts in this part of the 
 world, on the way to Lanauli, called Rao Machi, the scene of one 
 of our great fights in 1846. The conductor on our brake had been a 
 soldier fighting in it, and gave my husband, who was at that time on 
 Sir Charles Napier’s staff in Sind, a spirited account of it. 
 
 With the English mistaken notion of clemency, that always scotches 
 its snake, but is too generous or holds it too much in contempt to 
 
India. 
 
 391 
 
 kill it, and lets it run about to sting ad libitum, instead of being hanged 
 Bajee Rao was pensioned with 80,000 rupees a year, and retired to 
 Bithoor on the Ganges, where he rewarded British clemency by 
 adopting a child born in the village of Narel, at the foot of Matheran, 
 who lived to be the infamous Nana Sahib, the same that afterwards 
 tortured and killed so many of our people. 
 
 To get to Poonah the way is through the Indrauni River valley, 
 through the station of Kurkulla, Tulligaum, Chinchwud, and Kirkee, 
 a large European military station and very pretty. We eventually 
 reached Poonah, the scene of all the Peshwa intrigues against the 
 English, and our great battles with the Maharattas. Their dynasty 
 lasted over seventy years, but Bajee Rio and his successors might 
 always have been there, if they had not quarrelled with the English. 
 This was in Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone’s time, with whom at that 
 time was Grant Duff, the historian. The great names connected with 
 that period and business were Sir Arthur Wellesley (Wellington),General 
 Sir Harry Smith, Lieut.-Colonel Burr, Captains Ford and Staunton, 
 General Pritzler, Sir Thomas Munro, and Colonel Prother. We went 
 to Parbati, the Maharattas’ chief palace and stronghold, from which 
 the last Peshwa, Bajee Rao, who sat on the rocky brow, saw his troops 
 defeated by the English on the plain, fled on horseback down the 
 other side, and was hunted about the country for months, till he gave 
 himself up to Sir John Malcolm. 
 
 There are three pagodas in Bajee Rdo’s palace, dedicated to 
 Vishnu, Shiva, and Wittoba, and one small temple particularly to 
 Kalee or Bhowanee, wife of Shiva, and patroness of the Thugs. 
 Being sunset, the wild, mournful, bizarre sound of tomtom, kettle, 
 cymbal, and reed suddenly struck up. We shut our eyes, and fancied 
 ourselves in camp again in the desert, wild sword-dances being per¬ 
 formed by the Arabs. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE DECCAN. 
 
 “ His fine wit' 
 
 Makes such a wound the knife is lost in it; 
 
 A strain too learned for a shallow age, 
 
 Too wise for selfish bigots. Let his page, 
 
 Which charms the chosen spirits of the time, 
 
 Fold itself up for a serener clime 
 Of years to come, and find its recompense 
 In that just expectation.” 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Now came the journey that pleased us most of all; it was as new to 
 Richard as it was to me—to Hyderabad in the Deccan. We passed 
 Soonee, Oroolee, Kheirgaum, Patus, Dhond, Deeksal, Bheegwan, 
 Poomulwaree, Schwoor, Keim, Barsee - Road, Marheh, Unger, 
 Mohol, Packney, Sholapoor, Haodgee, Kurrubgaum, Doodneh, 
 Goodoor, Goolburga, and then Shdhabdd. I give the names of the 
 stations because it shows a reader on the map, or reminds one who 
 knows India, what country we passed through. 
 
 Here we changed the Great Indian Peninsular for the Nizam’s 
 State Railway. After this we passed through Wadi Junction, and seven 
 stations more—Chitapore, Seram, Hepore, Tandur, Dharur, Illam- 
 pallee, Pattapore, Singampallee, into Hyderabad. Shdhabdd, a large 
 and very pretty station, was our last before entering the Nizam’s 
 territory and railway. The change impressed us in favour of the 
 Nizam’s government Ours looked so poor and taxed, the Nizam’s 
 comfortable and prosperous, and so we thought throughout all the 
 parts of India we visited. In English Society people say, “ Nonsense ! 
 India poor? Why, it was never richer ! ” 
 
 The cream of all was going to Golconda—a most interesting place, 
 which in 1876 no European had ever been permitted to enter, and 
 as Sir Salar Jung and the Nizam himself had never done so, we 
 could not ask or hope for such a favour. We supposed that this 
 great event happened when the Nizam came of age. 
 
 We dismounted and remained there for a long time, inspecting 
 everything outside the walls. The prevailing style of the Golconda 
 tomb is a dome standing upon a square; the cupola of a steeple is 
 of the orange shape, and is arabesqued. The finials are of silver; 
 
 39 a 
 
The Deccan . 
 
 393 
 
 they are single-storied and double-storied; some have floriated 
 crenelles like spear-heads, and balustraded balconies. The lower 
 portions are arcades of pointed arches, resting on a terrace of cut 
 stone, ascended by four flights of steps. The colours are white, 
 picked out with green ; each has its little mosque flanked by minarets. 
 We were very sorry when it was time to leave the Tombs of the 
 Kings. It is a high and healthy site ; the wind is strong and cold. 
 A sanitarium would do well there, and we wished that picnickers from 
 the European services would have the grace to erect a travellers’ 
 bungalow, and cease to desecrate poor Thana Shah’s tomb. 
 
 The tombs are the prettiest toys in the world; the material is the 
 waxlike Jaypur marble. They look as if carved in ivory, some 
 Giant’s Dieppe, ready to be placed under a glass case; the fretted 
 and open work is lovely lacery in stone, and the sharp shadows of 
 the dark green trees set off their snowy whiteness. 
 
 Golconda is the first and the most famous of the six independent 
 Moslem kingdoms, which, in a.d. 1399, rose on the extinction of the 
 Toghlak Delhi dynasty, and it survived till 1688, when Aurungzeb 
 brought all India under one sceptre. In it is the state prison in 
 which the sons of the Nizam used to be confined. We found all 
 the works which we had read upon it very unsatisfying, but we read 
 the “French in India” (London, Longmans, 1868) with pleasure 
 and profit. The four white domes denote the Tombs of the Kings, 
 are visible from most parts of Hyderabad, and form the main body 
 of a line here scattered, there grouped, which begins immediately 
 beyond the faubourgs, and runs up the left side of the river valley. 
 
 Our last recollections of Hyderabad are brilliant. Sir Salar Jung 
 gave a magnificent evening fete , which was like a scene in the 
 “ Arabian Nights.” One of the large courts of the palace is a quad¬ 
 rangle, the centre of which is occupied by a huge basin of water as 
 big as a small lake full of fountains. The salhmliks all open out 
 into it with flights of marble stairs. The starlight was above us, 
 and a blaze of wax lights and chandeliers lit up every hall, and 
 coloured lamps and flowers spangled the whole centre. The 
 company consisted of the Nizam’s Court and Ministers, and about 
 thirty-six picked Europeans. It began by a Nach ; then a beautiful 
 dinner of about fifty-six covers was served in the principal salamlik 
 by retainers in wild picturesque costumes. The band played; we 
 afterwards walked about and conversed, and were presented with 
 attar of roses. We were very sorry to be obliged to leave before 
 we could accept an invitation from the Nizam’s 3rd Lancers to 
 witness their Holee Tamasha in their lines at Assuf Nagur, which 
 
394 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 answers very much to our Carnival, but the day after this we were 
 bound to go to Secunderabad, a prosperous European station with 
 three regiments, which, however, is not the least interesting. 
 
 Goa. 
 
 As soon as we arrived in Bombay we caught the “ British Indian 
 steamer” going down south, coasting along. They are middle- 
 sized steamers, beautifully clean, good table, excellent wine, airy 
 cabins, great civility, and fairly steady ships—which they have need 
 to be in such a sea as is often on. The fares are extravagantly 
 dear—^£io for a thirty-six hours’ passage; but there is no oppo¬ 
 sition. 
 
 Richard had always such ready, sparkling wit, and it was never 
 offensive nor hurtful. One day, as we were on board a ship, going 
 to a rather uncivilized place, a Catholic Archbishop, and a Bishop 
 with a Catholic party, stepped on board. My husband whispered, 
 “ Introduce me.” I did so, and they became very friendly, and 
 sat down to chat. The Archbishop was a very clever man, but 
 no match for Richard. My husband began to chaff, and said, 
 “My wife is the Jesuit of the family.” “What a capital thing 
 for you! ” answered the Archbishop. Presently some apes were 
 jumping about the rigging, so the Archbishop looked up and said 
 playfully, “ Well, Captain Burton, there are some of your ancestors.” 
 Richard was delighted; he pulled his moustache quietly, looking 
 very amused and a little shy and apologetic, and said with that cool 
 drawl of his, “ Well, my lord, I at least have made a little progress, 
 but—what about your lordship, who is descended from the angels?” 
 The Archbishop roared; he was delighted with the retort, and 
 treasures it up as a good story till this day. 
 
 Arrived opposite Goa, we were cast adrift in the open sea, as is 
 usual, on account of an unbuoyed and doubtful shoal, and we had 
 eight miles to row before we could reach Goa. You may imagine 
 what that means in a storm. The mail agents must do this, mon¬ 
 soon weather as well, once a fortnight all the year through, and the 
 return ships are in the dead of the night, besides living in a foetid 
 hole, where they get none of the comforts of life, and never see a soul. 
 
 The Portuguese manage to make every place look like Lisbon; 
 actually the features of the country grow the same. There is the 
 same abrupt entrance to the sea between mountainous cliffs, up a 
 broad winding river or sea arm, with wooded rising banks, with the 
 same white town perched on its banks, a perfect Santos in Brazil, 
 which is 24 0 south of the Equator. We rowed a mile and a half of 
 open sea, five miles of bay, and one and a half of winding river,, 
 to a little stone pier landing at Panjim (New Goa). 
 
The Deccan. 
 
 395 
 
 In Panjim are the barest necessaries of life ; there is no inn, 
 no travellers 7 bungalow, no tents, and you must sleep in your 
 filthy open boat and have fever. Kind-hearted Samaritans (Mr. 
 and Mrs. Major) gave us their only small spare room and spare 
 single bed. I had, luckily, one of those large straw Pondicherry 
 reclining chairs and a rug, so we took the bed in turns, night 
 about, the other in the chair. It is the worst climate we were 
 ever in, and we know pretty bad ones. 
 
 Richard had to revisit old scenes, and I had my work to do 
 amongst the old Portuguese manuscripts at Old Goa. This must 
 have been once a very extensive City, and you are deluded by its 
 magnificent appearance, until you find yourself wandering in utter 
 desolation in a City of the Dead, amongst Churches and old 
 Monasteries; the very rustling of the trees, the murmur of the waves, 
 sounded like a dirge for the departed grandeur of the City. The 
 Church and House of the Bom Jesus belonged to the Society of 
 Jesus, was dedicated to Xavier, and given to the Jesuits in 1584, 
 till they were expelled in 1761, when it was given to the Lazarists. 
 The Jesuits were the first to pioneer civilization to all lands, to choose 
 healthy sites, to build tanks, to teach the people, and how badly 
 they have been rewarded! Here the new Governors are invested, 
 and here they are buried if they die during the term of office. 
 
 The body of St. Francis Xavier is in a magnificently carved silver 
 sarcophagus placed on a splendid base of black marble. On the 
 sarcophagus are beautifully cast alto-relievi, representing the various 
 acts of his life and death, all surmounted by a gold and silver top. 
 The actual body of the saint is inside, in a gold shell, and is shown 
 to the people once in a century on the 3rd of December. The last 
 time was in 1878; the body was found in its normal state of fresh¬ 
 ness. There is a real old portrait of him in oils outside his chapel, 
 done in 1552. A print found in rags in a convent dusthole is 
 so like it, that I put it together, brought it home, and had it 
 copied. 
 
 We used always to leave our vehicle here, and have the pony 
 taken out and fed, watered, and rested, whilst we scrambled all the 
 day over the hills, looking at the different remnants of Churches and 
 Monasteries. 
 
 At last the time came round for us to leave Goa. The steamers 
 are due once a fortnight, but this one was long past her time. At 
 last we had a telegram to say, “ The steamer would pass Goa at 
 midnight.” We started in a large open boat in the evening with 
 Mr. Major, his secretary, four men to row and one to steer. We 
 rowed down the river in the evening, and then across the bay for 
 
396 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 three hours against wind and tide to open sea, bow on to heavy 
 rollers, and at last reached the mouth of the bay, where is the fort. 
 We remained bobbing about in the sea, in the trough of the big 
 waves, for a considerable time. A violent storm of rain, thunder, 
 and lightning came on, and Mr. Major proposed we should put 
 back to the fort, at the entrance of the bay, and take shelter under 
 some arches, which we did. Then we went to sleep, leaving the 
 secretary and the boatwala to watch for the steamer. 
 
 At 1.30 I was awoke by the sound of a gun booming across the water. 
 I sprang up and roused the others; but the storm was so heavy we 
 could see no lights, and returned to sleep. We ought to have gone 
 off when the gun fired; the ship had been laying to for us for three- 
 quarters of an hour. If the ship went without us, we should have 
 lost our passage to Europe, we should have been caught in the 
 monsoon, we should have had to return another fortnight to Goa, of 
 which we were heartily tired, and knew by heart, only to renew the 
 same a fortnight hence. We were soon under way again, and by- 
 and-by saw the lights of the steamer about three miles off. Know¬ 
 ing the independence of these captains, the monopoly, and the 
 futility of complaints, and seeing that my husband and Mr. Major 
 slept, I began to be very disagreeable with the boat-hook. I got the 
 secretary to stand in the bows and wave a lamp on a pole. I urged 
 the boatwdlas with perpetual promises of bakshish. Everybody else 
 was leaving it to Kismet. Our kind host had been holloaing at the 
 boativalas the whole evening because the boat was dirty, and making 
 them bale out the horrid-smelling bilge water, and now we wanted 
 him, he was sound asleep and as good as gold. “ Can’t you shout ? ** 
 I cried to him; “ they might hear you. You can shout loud enough 
 when nobody wants you to.” At last, after an hour’s anxiety, we 
 reached the ship, and heavy seas kept washing us away from the ladder. 
 No one had the energy to hold on to the rope, or to take the boat¬ 
 hook to keep us to her, so at last I did it myself; my husband roar¬ 
 ing with laughter at their supineness, and at me making myself so 
 disagreeably officious and energetic. An English sailor threw me a 
 rope. “ Thanks,” I said, as I took advantage of an enormous wave 
 to spring on to the ladder. “ I am the only man in the boat 
 to-night.” All came on board with us, and we had a parting 
 stirrup-cup, and said farewell, and often after, our good host and his 
 wife used to write to me, and call me the “ only man in the boat.” 
 
 We had been six months in India, and had made the most of it, 
 and the day of departure came round. We were glad and sorry— 
 glad to leave the intolerable heat, to escape the coming monsoon; 
 sorry to leave the ever-increasing interest and the daily accumulating 
 friends. 
 
The Deccan. 
 
 397 
 
 After a very pleasant time, albeit very rough weather, Richard 
 and I left the ship at Suez, and were soon surrounded by a little 
 band of Richard’s old friends of Mecca days. 
 
 After stopping some time at Cairo, Alexandria, and Ramleh, we 
 embarked for Trieste on another Lloyd’s, which carried Jamrach and 
 his menagerie. During our stay in Cairo, we saw a great deal of poor 
 Marquis de Compiegne (afterwards shot in a duel), Dr Schweinfiirtb, 
 and Marietta Bey and the Bulak Museum ; poor John Wallis, legal 
 Consul, once editor of the Tablet; Baron de Kremer, our old Austrian 
 colleague at Damascus, afterwards Minister of Finance at Vienna 
 (now dead). We found the voyage very cold, even in July, after 
 India. We first went to Candia, passing Gavdo, Cape Spaltra, the 
 two islands Cerigotto and Cerigo. 
 
 We glide by Cape Matapan on the Greek coast. We passed 
 Cabrera and Sapienza. We leave the lighthouse on Strophades to 
 the left, and reach Zante, which is a lovely island, with a large 
 picturesque town, and where mareschino is made. We run between 
 Cephalonia and Ithaca (of Ulysses); then we change the Greek coast 
 for Acarnania, and pass Santa Maura, or Leucadia, with “ Sappho’s 
 Leap.” We changed then to the Albanian coast, gloriously green to 
 the water’s edge, with cliff and cave, with the Cimariote hills, and 
 its wild people and their lawless legends behind them. We passed 
 two islands, Anti Paxo and Paxo, to Corfu. After we leave Corfu, 
 we coast along Albania, passing Capo Linguetta and Isole Sasseno ; 
 then we changed to the Dalmatian coast, to Bocca di Cattaro and 
 Ragusa, afterwards the islands of Lagosta and Cazza; then Lissa, 
 where two great battles were fought, one 13th of March, 1811, and the 
 other 20th of July, 1866. Then we passed the islands of Spalmadore, 
 Lesina, Incoronati, and Grossa; then Punta Biancha, and the island 
 of Sansego. Here we changed to Istria, and are upon our own 
 ground, beginning with Punta di Promontore and Pola, our great 
 Austrian naval station, with its Coliseum and interesting ruins. 
 Then Rovigno and Parenzo, harbour towns on the coast. At Punto 
 Salvore we enter our own “ Gulf of Trieste,” passing Pirano, which 
 we can see from our own windows, and finally Trieste. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A QUIET TIME AT TRIESTE. 
 
 On our return from India, Richard produced “ Sind Revisited ” 
 (2 vols., 1877) and “Etruscan Bologna” (1 vol.), which had been 
 some time in preparation, but had not found a publisher. 
 
 After this, Richard and I pursued a quiet, literary life, and I 
 studied very hard. We began to translate Ariosto. It was summer, 
 so we swam a great deal, and then we went up to the village inn at 
 Op^na, of which I have already spoken. And we took a great 
 interest in the Slav school-children—about two hundred and twenty 
 boys and girls. We used to amuse ourselves with going in the 
 evening to look at a Sagra (the peasants’ dances at one or other 
 of the villages in the Karso), where they dance, and sing, and drink, 
 and play games. 
 
 An amusing little incident happened in connection with my learn¬ 
 ing Italian. I wanted very much to go through the Italian classics 
 with a professor. My professor was a Tuscan, a gentleman, a 
 Christian, and a celebrated Dantesque scholar, but a priest who had 
 unhappily fallen away from his vocation. He gained great fame and 
 applause amongst litterati for his declamations of Dante. I used to 
 read beforehand the canto for the night, in Bohn’s English translation \ 
 then he would declaim it to me in Italian, acting it unconsciously 
 all the while ; then I used to read it aloud in Italian, to catch his 
 pronunciation, and as I read he stopped me and explained every 
 shade of Dante’s thoughts and meaning. When he came to that 
 part where the souls in hell are crying out and scratching themselves, 
 he also kept crying out and scratching himself. It was evening, as he 
 had only that time to spare. Richard had gone to bed, and I had 
 left the door open between us. All of a sudden he called out loudly, 
 
 “ What the devil is that noise—what is the matter ? ” “ Oh,” I said 
 
 398 
 
A Quiet Time at Trieste . 
 
 399 
 
 in English, “it is only Rossi acting the damned souls in hell 
 for me.” Peals of laughter came from the bed. The master 
 naturally asked what was the matter, and he was so shy after 
 that, that it spoilt my lessons. I could never get him to act any 
 more, as he had been doing it quite unconsciously. Richard was 
 also very fond of a good opera, and we often went if there was 
 a new piece. 
 
 We went a trip to Fiume and Agram, and to Gorizia, two 
 
 hours’ express from Trieste in the Karso, as I wanted to make 
 
 a “spiritual retreat” at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, but under 
 a Dalmatian Jesuit. Gorizia is a pretty, striking, picturesque 
 cathedral town. It covers a hill, some hillocks, and a part of 
 a fertile plateau in the heart of the Carniola Mountains, sur¬ 
 rounded by ranges of wooded Istrian mountains, which are 
 also encircled by a higher snow-capped range (the Carniola 
 range). It is small, cheerful, primitive, with salubrious air, 
 especially good for nerves and chest complaints; it is com¬ 
 posed entirely of Churches, Monasteries, and Convents, church 
 dignitaries, and all sorts of ecclesiastics and nuns—a Prince Arch¬ 
 bishop being the Chief—and a few pious old ladies—a resident 
 local aristocracy. 
 
 The river Isonzo, the boundary between Austria and Italy, 
 glides through the valley, making the sea green with its out¬ 
 flow, sometimes as far as Duino. It is a magnificent scene in 
 
 the sunset, when it lights up the snow, bathing it in purple, 
 red, and gold, till the whole panorama seems on fire. There 
 is a great pilgrimage place called Monte-Santo on a grizly 
 top, with church and monastery, where Richard and I have 
 often been together. This Deaf and Dumb Institution is a 
 large Convent with a garden. It has a little chapel dedi¬ 
 cated to the Sacred Heart, seven sisters of Notre Dame, a 
 padre who is Director, a second priest, and a professor who 
 is an aspirant for the priesthood, a number of servants, and 
 a hundred and fifty children, deaf and dumb boys and girls. 
 Everything is done by signs; the prayers, the studies, the ser¬ 
 mon ; even plays are acted in signs. The education is reading, 
 writing, arithmetic, catechism, plain work, fancy work, draw¬ 
 ing, illustrating church work ; the boys help in the garden, and 
 the padre keeps fish, rabbits, and bees. They call him “ papa.” 
 He is quite devoted to his bees, and being a highly educated 
 man, Richard used to pass a great deal of time with him and 
 the bees. 
 
400 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Midian. 
 
 In his old Arab days, wandering about with his Koran, forty 
 years ago, Richard came upon a gold land in that part of Arabia 
 belonging to Egypt. He was a romantic youth, with a chivalrous 
 contempt for filthy lucre, and only thought of “ winning his spurs;” 
 so, setting a mark upon the place, he turned away and passed on. 
 After twenty-five years, seeing Egypt distressed for gold, he asked 
 for “ leave,” and he went back to Cairo, and imparted his secret to 
 the Khedive. Uncle Gerard furnished him with the means of going. 
 His Highness equipped an Expedition in a few days, and sent him 
 there to rediscover the land (end of 1876). He has given an account 
 of that trip in the “Gold Mines of Midian” and the “Ruined 
 Midianite Cities,” 1878. 
 
 The Khedive engaged him to come back the following winter, 
 1877, with a view to learning every item concerning this rich old 
 country, and applied to the Foreign Office for the loan of him 
 for the winter, which being granted, he set out in October, 1877, 
 in command of a new Expedition, on a much larger scale, and 
 was out seven months in the desert of Arabia, doing hard work. 
 He discovered a region of gold and silver, zinc, antimony, sulphur, 
 tin, copper, porphyry, turquoise, agate, lead, and six or seven com¬ 
 moner metals, extending some hundreds of miles either way, and 
 pearls on the coast, a Roman temple, and thirty-two mining Cities. 
 The Expedition mapped and planned and sketched the whole 
 country, and brought back abundance of the various metals for 
 assay or analysis. The ancients had only worked forty feet, whereas 
 with our appliances we might have gone down twelve hundred. 
 
 The Khedive was charmed; he made splendid contracts with 
 my husband, so that, with the commonest luck, not only Egypt 
 would have become rich, but my husband would have been a 
 millionaire in a very few years, and he used to say jokingly that 
 he would be Duke of Midian , the only title he had ever wished for. 
 To our great misfortune Ismail Khedive abdicated just as the third 
 Expedition was about to come off, in 1878-9. The new Khedive, 
 Tewfik, did not consider himself bound by any act of his father’s; 
 the English Government (it is hardly worth while to remark) was not 
 likely to give Richard a chance of anything good, and instead of 
 being able to carry out the enterprise, he lost all the money which 
 we had advanced and partly borrowed for paying expenses which we 
 were sure would be refunded. His second interesting work on this 
 expedition was the “Land of Midian Revisited” (2 vols., 1879). 
 
401 
 
 A Quiet Time at Trieste. 
 
 Midian means the district which in the Bible covers the peninsula 
 of Sinai, and the country east of the Gulf of Akabah, east of the 
 river Jordan, into which the Midianites fled before the Three 
 Hundred, and comprises that great desert south and east of the 
 Euphrates, through which the modern Midianites, who are the 
 present Bedawi, with their cattle and black tents still wander. 
 Their manners and customs are just the same, only guns have 
 taken the place of the bow, coffee and tobacco have been brought 
 in ; a sort of veneer of Mohammedan doctrine is added to the ancient 
 patriarchal faith, still keeping its own traditions. 
 
 Richard’s Midian was an utterly unknown country along the east 
 coast of the Gulf of Akabah, one of the two narrow inlets in which 
 the Red Sea ends. When I say unknown, it has been practically 
 unvisited and its shores unexplored until now. There is abundant 
 evidence of a former population and a cultivated period; there are 
 ruins of large towns, of solid masonry, roads cut in the rock, aqueducts 
 five miles long ; remains of massive fortresses with artificial reser¬ 
 voirs, all the signs of a busy and a prosperous period, when fleets 
 with richly laden cargoes came to and fro. The rocks are full of 
 mineral wealth—gold, silver, tin, antimony, and many other rich 
 things, just as in the gold districts elsewhere. The sands of the 
 streams yield gold, and the ancient mining works lie destroyed round 
 every town, heaps of ashes close to the mineral furnaces. There 
 are mines of turquoises. This hoard of possible wealth would have 
 set up Ismail Khedive and Egypt for ever, if she could only have 
 worked it. Richard began to be called in fun the “ New Pharoah’s 
 New Joseph.” 
 
 Richard went first to Moilah, thence to Aynunah Bay. Every 
 ruined town had its mining works, dams for washing of sand and 
 crushed rock, and gold-washing vessels. Then they went to Makna, 
 written “ Mugua ” in the maps, the Capital of the land, as far as Jebel 
 Hassani, and he found it much like ancient California. These gold 
 and precious stones producing parts of Arabia were closed up four 
 thousand years ago, and present the appearance of having been 
 suddenly left, in consequence of earthquake or some great volcanic 
 evolution. They found a black sand containing a very clear oxide 
 of tin, and a large stone engraved with antique inscriptions, which 
 they copied. 
 
 On the 19th we went on board the Espero , the Khedive having 
 summoned him to Egypt, where the work of organization went on, 
 and they landed at Tur (where he had landed in 1853), and went 
 to Arafat, and to El Muwaylah and Sherma, to Jebel el Abyaz, and 
 innumerable other places. 
 
402 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 I got very good news shortly about the Expedition, which put me 
 in good spirits. 
 
 On the second Expedition it was arranged that as soon as I 
 had corrected the last proof of his “ Midian,” I should make my 
 way out to Cairo and Suez, and get the Khedive to send me 
 on. I had been restless with impatience to start ever since he 
 had been gone, and I was on board an Austrian-Lloyd’s as soon 
 as the last proof was out of my hand and I was free. About 
 seventy of my friends came to see me off, and as it was heavy 
 weather, the passengers were all very sick, and I had the ship 
 pretty well to myself. At Corfu we had full moon and the water 
 like oil, but on steaming out there was a rough sea, and deluges 
 of rain and darkness all through the Ionian Islands, which did 
 not better itself till we had passed Gozo. Landing at Alex¬ 
 andria, I immediately found my letters and instructions, which 
 did not please me much, as “ I was not to attempt to join unless 
 I could do so in proper order it remained to be seen what 
 “ proper order” meant. I always wonder when people sleep 
 in Alexandria, for the whole night long there is a perfect pan¬ 
 demonium of dogs, carriages, cracking of whips, and pleasure- 
 parties. 
 
 I went off at once to Cairo, and I had the pleasure of seeing 
 a great deal of our Consul-General, Mr. and Mrs. Vivian. I 
 also had the worry of learning that the last Sambuk (or open 
 boat) had gone the day before. Not that I could have gone 
 in her, because that would decidedly not have been “going 
 properly,” but I should have sent loads of things by it. I did 
 not want to stop for the gaieties of Cairo; I wanted to get as 
 near as I could to the opposite side of the water, and watch my 
 chance of gone. So I made my way up to Zagazfg, and visited 
 poor Mrs. Clark, who w r as just as unhappy as myself because 
 her husband was gone with mine as secretary. I do not know 
 that we did each other very much good. At Suez lived the Levick 
 family (he was the Postmaster-General, and did good service to 
 the State for something like forty-seven years, though his widow 
 and children are now left to starve), and they were awfully kind 
 to me. 
 
 At last I was informed that a ship was going to be sent out, 
 and that I was to have the offer of going in her, though it was 
 intimated to me privately that the Khedive and the Governor, 
 Said Bey, were very much in hopes that I should refuse. It 
 was an Egyptian man-of-war, the Senaar , that was to anchor off 
 the coast till the expedition emerged from the desert, and to 
 
A Quiet Time at Trieste. 
 
 403 
 
 bring them back. The Captain received me with all honour. All 
 hands were piped on deck, and a guard and everything provided 
 for me. They were most courteous, said that they would like 
 to take me, and would do everything in their power to make me 
 comfortable, but I saw at once that the accommodation was of 
 too public a nature; in short, that it would be impossible for 
 any woman to embark without her husband on an Egyptian man-of- 
 war. It would lower her in their eyes, and hurt his dignity. Besides 
 turning them out of their only quarters, when my husband came to 
 embark the men of his Staff, I should be excessively in the way; 
 so, thanking them exceedingly for their courteousness, I returned 
 to the town, to the immense relief of all concerned, took some small 
 rooms at the Suez Hotel, and started my literary work. To have 
 crossed the Red Sea in an open Sambuk , with head winds blow¬ 
 ing, and then to fight my way across the desert alone upon a 
 camel, would have been dangerous to me and infra dig. for my 
 husband’s position; and the Khedive was just in that critical state 
 that I could not have asked him to organize a second Expedition, 
 to send me out with no definite object, save my own pleasure, 
 although I am sure that he would have done it in former prosperous 
 years. 
 
 During my stay in Suez a remarkable event occurred, of dumb 
 madness in dogs. It was an epidemic in the air, as dogs 
 separately confined and well cared for died just the same. I 
 lost two of Richard’s. The pariahs had it very bad. I have 
 seen them running into the sea to drown themselves, and out 
 of three thousand, there were only about forty left. At last, on 
 the 20th of April, 1878, whilst I was in the church during the 
 “Office” for Holy Saturday, a messenger from the Governor put 
 a slip of paper into my hand—“ The Senaar is in sight, the Emetic 
 will await you later on to meet the ship.” I found Richard look¬ 
 ing ill and tired. Before the ship had been anchored half an 
 hour, every soul had deserted, and he was left in sole charge, 
 and could not come off till the following morning. The Khedive 
 sent a special train for him and the Expedition, which left at 
 eight in the morning. Halfway, at Zagazfg, a beautiful dinner 
 had been prepared for us by Monsieur Camille Vetter, a French 
 cotton - merchant from Ettlingen, the Grand Duchy of Baden, 
 Germany. We dined in an arbour, and there was a profusion 
 of champagne and delicacies galore. Our train caught fire four 
 times, and we had to get out and pour buckets of sand over it, 
 there being no water. 
 
 An Englishman who happened to be at Suez wrote to the Ho?ne 
 
404 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 News, June ist, 1878 : “ I had occasion to be at Suez on the return 
 of Haji Abdullah (Dick Burton) from Midian last month, and I 
 noted the sensation his arrival created. His name is as well known 
 amongst the natives in Egypt as if he had passed all his days amongst 
 them. Pashas and other great personages from Europe are con¬ 
 tinually passing to and fro almost unheeded. How different was 
 the case when it became known that Haji Abdullah was leaving for 
 Cairo ! The platform was crowded with Europeans and natives. The 
 rumour had got abroad that * that wonderful man ’ was at Suez on 
 his return from the exploring trip to Midian.” 
 
 Richard was received with great distinction by the Khedive; it 
 was a sort of triumphal entry. The Khedive wished for an exhibi¬ 
 tion of the minerals, which he opened in person, Richard and 
 Mr. Frederick Smart attending him, and I attended a good deal upon 
 the harem. We had three weeks of that sort of work, and writing 
 reports in French and English, made excursions to the Pyramids, 
 and received a great deal of hospitality from our friends, Mr. 
 Frederick Smart, the Michells, General Purday, the Romaines, the 
 Bairds, the Barings, Abate Bey, Artin Yakoob Pasha, the Tennants, 
 the Vivians, the Lesseps, Barrot Bey, General and Mrs. Stone, the 
 Kremers, and very pleasant were the dinners by moonlight on the 
 Bairds’ dahabeeyah , enhanced by the stillness, the view, the distant 
 singing. The Khedive made a contract that Richard should have 
 the concession of the discoveries, or to have five per cent, upon the 
 whole gross profits. 
 
 We left on the 10th of May for Alexandria, dined out at Ramleh, 
 and left on the 12th in the “ Austria ” Captain Rossol. We were 
 eighty-five passengers in a small steamer, so we were not very 
 comfortable; but we were very merry, and we had with us Mr. 
 Frederick Smart, Safvet Pasha, Mohammed Bey, Baronne de 
 Saurmk, Jiee Comtesse de Hatzfeldt, Lord Talbot de Malahide and 
 his daughter Frances, and General Stranz. At Corfd we saw Sir 
 Charles Sebright, and dined all together at St. George’s Hotel. 
 We had one man ill with typhus, who was shut away for fear the 
 passengers should know, and I got awfully scolded for going in to 
 nurse him, and as two sharks followed under our bows, they made 
 an unpleasant impression. When we arrived at nine o’clock at 
 night, as we steamed in, our faithful friends, the Governor, Baron 
 Pino, and his wife, rowed up to the side of the vessel, and sent a 
 man to tell Captain and Mrs. Burton to come to their boat directly; 
 and they took us away in less than two minutes, fearing the steamer 
 would be sent in quarantine, and afterwards our belongings followed 
 as. The man died two days after landing in his own home, 
 
A Quiet Time at Trieste . 
 
 405 
 
 but no harm resulted to any one. An untoward and melancholy 
 incident also occurred. A poor lady was coming to Austria to see 
 which of the baths would make her a little more blood, as she was 
 anaemic. The exertion of landing from the ship to the hotel caused 
 her to faint; a young doctor was called in, who, mistaking her case, 
 bled her, taking out the little drop she had, and she died that night. 
 
 We now went up to Op^ina to rest. Richard was detained at his 
 post on account of the then expected war, but was released in a 
 few weeks and allowed to come to London to arrange matters for 
 the further working of Midian. We embarked on the 6th of July 
 in a Cunard steamer which occupies from twenty-one to twenty-six 
 days from Trieste to Liverpool, going first to Venice. On the way 
 we read Dellon’s “ Inquisition ” in Portuguese. We touched at 
 Brindisi; went through the Straits of Messina to Palermo, where we 
 found it very, very hot. We landed, and went to see everything 
 worth seeing, not forgetting the Capuchins, who have large under¬ 
 ground crypts, where the dead monks are not buried, but tied up, 
 as if drying. It is very curious, but rather gruesome. I went to 
 visit a relation there, who had been one of the members. The 
 Capuchins gave me a huge blue pottery jar, with a tap, which the 
 priests used to wash their fingers after Mass, and for which I had 
 taken an immense fancy; it bears the Franciscan arms. Richard 
 had gout very badly a great part of the way, but not gout in the 
 exaggerated sense of later years. We landed again at Gibraltar, 
 and had bad weather across the Bay, and all the way home, reaching 
 London on the 27th of July, 1878. 
 
 On the 12th of August we left by the night mail for Dublin, where 
 we joined the British Association for Science, which opened on 
 the 14th. We were asked to spend the time at Malahide with Lord 
 Talbot and his family, and a delightful time we had, meeting old 
 friends, and making many charming acquaintances—Lord and Lady 
 Gough, and Dr. Lloyd, Provost of Trinity, a charming, venerable, 
 and distinguished man. The Duchess of Marlborough, who was then 
 reigning, was very kind to us. We met again our old friend, the 
 philanthropist Lentaigne, and Mr. Spottiswoode. The excursionists 
 came over to see Malahide Castle, and Lord Talbot and Richard 
 dined at the Lord Mayor’s to meet the Lord Lieutenant. Richard’s 
 lecture (Section E, Geographical) came off on the 19th, and his first 
 lecture at the Anthropological (on Midian) took place next day, 
 the Vice-Regal party being present, and we then went back to make 
 tea for the “ Association.” At his third lecture (on Midian, Anthro¬ 
 pological), the Vice-Royalties were also present, and there was a 
 great party that evening. 
 
406 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 All during our present stay in London we were on a visit to my 
 father. We saw a good deal of Society—luncheon-parties and dinner¬ 
 parties several times a week. We had a great treat in visits to Mr. 
 Frank Dillon’s Damascus room (his studio) at n, Durham Villas, 
 Campden Hill, which we always left with regret. About this time 
 Mr. Alfred Levick, son of the Postmaster-General of Suez, came home 
 dreadfully ill, and went into the University Hospital, and in gratitude 
 for past kindnesses from his father, we were very assiduous in attend¬ 
 ing on him all the time of his illness. We went up to Lancashire in 
 October to stay with Uncle Gerard, and to Knowsley, where Lady 
 Derby had a large house-party. At Garswood, amongst other 
 visitors, came Sir Julius Benedict. From Garswood we went to 
 some more cousins at Carlton Towers, Yorkshire, where Lord 
 Beaumont gave a large house-warming, and thence to Lord 
 Houghton’s at Frystone—all these houses had big parties—and then 
 back to London. We then went to Hatfield to Lady Salisbury’s, 
 where we had the pleasure of being again in the same house with 
 Lord Beaconsfield, and the present Lord Rowton, his secretary. 
 A very nice second cousin of mine (Everard Primrose) was staying 
 there, and an amusing little event occurred. He was (to those who 
 did not know him) a cold, serious, rather prim young man, and 
 very punctilious. He suddenly one evening felt en train , went out 
 of the room, and disordering his tie and pulling one arm out of 
 his coat, and a hat on the back of his head, he came into the room 
 with an assumed stagger, and sang “The Marseillaise” furiously,just 
 like a tipsy Frenchman at the barricades. Lord Beaconsfield was 
 delighted. I think it was the only time I ever saw him laugh down¬ 
 right heartily. When it was over, Colonel Primrose went out 
 of the room and came back quite quiet, and looking as if he had 
 done nothing. He often said afterwards to me at Vienna (and 
 various places abroad), when there was a very stiff party at an 
 Embassy or Foreign party, “I wish to gracious I could do the 
 ‘ Marseillaise ’ now, but those things are obliged to come by inspira¬ 
 tion.” A pity such a man should have perished, in that useless 
 fight in the Soudan, of fever. 
 
 Then I went to Brighton (where we saw a good deal of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Sasson) for the purpose of helping at a bazaar on behalf of 
 humanity to animals. Richard brought out his second Indian book 
 called “ The Land of India Revisited.” 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ON LEAVE IN LONDON. 
 
 All this time—the end of 1878, early 1879—the minerals were being 
 assayed. Richard had not packed his own minerals ; there were cases 
 for France, and cases for England. Frenchmen had the selection 
 of them, and Richard’s cases did not give such good results as were 
 expected. We could not understand it, but he knew that the 
 mineral was in the ground, and he determined on the following 
 Expedition to choose and send his own specimens, and prove a very 
 different tale. 
 
 On the 21st of February my book, “A.E.I.,” came out. My 
 publisher, Mr. Mullan, was so pleased with it that he gave a large 
 party in its honour. We were seventeen invited. Mr. Mullan, 
 being an Irishman, ordered that everything on the table should be 
 an Irish dish. A pyramid of my books was in the middle of the 
 table, one to be given to each guest, which was a very pretty thought. 
 The notables were my husband, Lord Houghton, Mr. Irving, and 
 Arthur Sketchley. There were a great many short, friendly speeches 
 made; the gaieties began at eleven and terminated at five. We had 
 a very pleasant dinner at General and Mrs. Paget’s, and a visit 
 from Mr. Joyner, C.E., our old friend from Poonah, and from the 
 Montalbas, whom we had known in Venice. We came in also for 
 three of Lady Salisbury’s Foreign Office parties, one at Lady Derby’s 
 and several parties at Lady Margaret Beaumont’s. 
 
 On the 27th I went to the Drawing-room. We resumed writing 
 and reading part of Richard’s memoirs. He also commenced writ¬ 
 ing letters to the papers as Mirza Ali of London to his brother, 
 Mirza Hasan of Shiraz, describing what he saw in England; but, 
 to his disappointment, they did not take. He also wrote and pub¬ 
 lished “A Visit to Lissa and Pelagosa;” “Sosivizha, the Bandit of 
 Dalmatia,” translated from the Slav; two papers on Midian, “Stones 
 and Bones from Egypt and Midian ; ” “ Flints from Egypt; ” Reports 
 on two Expeditions to Midian; “ The Itineraries of the Second 
 Khedivial Expedition; ” “ Report upon the Minerals of Midian.” 
 
 407 
 
408 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Richard now, intending to make a little tour, and to meet me 
 at Trieste in two or three weeks, went to Hamburg, to Berlin, 
 and to Leipzig to see Tauchnitz, and to Dresden. I packed up 
 and started on my journey Triestewards. As I was about to get 
 into the cab at my father’s door a beggar woman asked me for 
 charity, and I gave her a shilling, and she said, “God bless you, 
 and may you reach your home without an accident!” These 
 words made an impression on me afterwards. I slept in Boulogne 
 that night, and went on to Paris the following day. The day after, 
 the 30th of April, I ordered a voiture de place , and was going out 
 to do a variety of visits and commissions. They had been waxing 
 the stairs till they were as slippery as ice. I had heels to my boots, 
 and I took one long slide from the top of the stairs to the bottom, 
 with my leg doubled under me, striking my head and my back on 
 every stair. When I arrived at the bottom I was unconscious, 
 picked up, and taken back to bed. When I came to I said, “ I have 
 no time to lose. Don’t send the carriage away; I must get my work 
 done and go on; ” but, when I attempted to get out of bed, I fell on 
 the floor and fainted again. A doctor was fetched, I was undressed, 
 my boot and stocking had to be cut away ; the whole of my leg was 
 as black as ink, and so swollen that at first the doctor thought it 
 was broken. However, it proved to be only a bad sprain and a 
 twisted ankle. 
 
 Instead of stopping there six weeks, as the doctor said I must, 
 I had myself bound up and conveyed to the Gare de Lyons on 
 the fourth day, where, with a wagon-lit , I arrived at Turin in 
 twenty-four hours. There I had to be conveyed to the hotel, 
 being too bad to go on ; but next day I insisted on being packed 
 up again, and having another coupe-lit in the train to Mestre. I 
 suffered immensely from the heat, for the first time since leaving 
 England. At Mestre I had to wait four hours in the wretched 
 station, sitting on a chair with my leg hanging down, which gave me 
 intense pain, and then to embark in the Post-Zug , a slow train, where 
 there were no coup'e-lits to be had, arriving at half-past eight in the 
 morning, where I found Richard waiting to receive me on the plat¬ 
 form, and I was carried home and put into my own bed. In spite 
 of pain I was as charmed as ever with the run down from Nabresina 
 to dear old Trieste. 
 
 I cannot say how thankful I was to be safe and sound in my own 
 home at Trieste with Richard, and how sweet were the welcomes, 
 and the flowers, and the friends’ visits. I was a very long time 
 before I could leave my bed. It was found that I had injured 
 my back and my ankle very badly, and I went through a long 
 
SIR RICHARD BURTON IN 1 879. 
 
 By Madame Gutmansthal de Benvenuti {Trieste). 
 
On Leave in London. 
 
 409 
 
 course of shampooing and soap baths, but I never got permanently 
 quite well. Strong health and nerves I had hitherto looked upon 
 as a sort of right of nature, and supposed everybody had them, 
 and had never felt grateful for them as a blessing; but I began 
 to learn what suffering was from this date. Richard took me up to 
 Op^ina for a great part of the summer, and used to invite large 
 parties of friends up to dinner. We used to dine out in the lit-up 
 gardens in the evening, overlooking the sea, which was very plea¬ 
 sant; and often itinerant Hungarian gypsy bands would come in 
 and play. This summer we had the usual annual fete for the cause 
 of humanity, and speeches and giving of prizes. 
 
 From Opgina we went to Sessana, a village about half an hour’s 
 drive in the interior, which is very good for the nerves, and from 
 there back to Adelsberg, and thence to Laibach. There was a 
 scientific Congress (like our British Association) at the Redouten 
 Sala, and lectures on the Pfalbauten, tumuli, etc., a public dinner, a 
 country excursion, and then a concert and supper, which exhausted 
 me considerably, and these things went on for two or three days. 
 
 We visited the Pfalbauten, the excavated villages built upon piles 
 in a peat country, and all the treasures excavated therefrom. Richard 
 was received with great honour, surrounded by all the Austrian 
 scientists. The Pfalbauten, or Pine villages, yielded excavations, 
 which illustrated the whole age of Horn that preceded the age of 
 Stone, and weapons made of Uchatius metal, which is wrongly called 
 bronze-steel. It is compressed bronze and easily cuts metal. This 
 settles the old dispute of how the Egyptians did such work with 
 copper and bronze. 
 
 Richard then took me on to Graz, where we saw a good deal of 
 Brugsch Bey. Then we went to Baden, near Vienna, where I had 
 twenty-one days’ bathing and drinking, which we varied with excur¬ 
 sions to Vienna, sometimes to breakfast with Colonel Everard 
 Primrose, to see people, and to hunt up swords in the Museum 
 for Richard’s “ Sword ” book. We went to Professor Benedict, 
 nerve specialist, where Richard had his back electrified for lumbago. 
 Mr. Egerton and Everard Primrose accompanied us to a place we 
 were very fond of making an excursion to, Voslau, and then back to 
 Baden with us. 
 
 On the 31st of May I find in Richard’s journal, “ Poor Tommy 
 Short dead, ninety years old; ” he was his master at Oxford. After 
 Richard’s death I found one of the Rev. Thomas Short’s cards kept 
 amongst his treasures. 
 
4io 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 I was very unhappy at Richard's determination to go once more 
 to Egypt to try his luck about the mines; still, as there were such 
 great hopes depending on it, and there was not enough money for 
 both of us, he had to go and I had to stay. There was nothing for 
 it but to go and see him off. 
 
 I began to get ill again (I had never recovered my fall of nine 
 months ago), and the doctors advised me to see a bone-setter. I 
 wrote and told Richard, and he ordered me off by telegram ; so 
 I started on the 17 th of February to meet a woman-friend who re¬ 
 mained in Vienna, of whom more later. At last I went on to Linz 
 to see our old friends Baron and Baroness Pino, where I had a 
 delightful visit, and in a few days had been introduced to all the great 
 Austrian Society there; went on to Paris, and reached London on the 
 1st of March. I was nearly three months under clever Dr. Maclagan, 
 the father of salicin. I went as advised to Hutton, the bone-setter, 
 who found something wrong with my ankle and my back and my 
 arm, in consequence of the fall, and set me straight, and what he did 
 to my back lasted me for a long time in the way of pain. I w r ent 
 through a long course of vapour-baths and shampooing. My chief 
 pleasure was a spontaneous visit from dear old Martin Tupper, since 
 dead, who gave me a copy of his “ Proverbial Philosophy.” 
 
 I also had several interesting visits from Gordon, who happened 
 to be in London at this time. I remember on the 15th of April, 
 1880, he asked me if I knew the origin of the u Union Jack,” and 
 he sat down on my hearth-rug before the fire, cross-legged, with a 
 bit of paper and a pair of scissors, and he made me three or four 
 Union Jacks, of which I pasted one into my journal of that day; and 
 I never saw him again—that is thirteen years ago. The flag founda¬ 
 tion was azure; on the top of that comes St. George’s cross gules , 
 then St. Andrew’s cross saltire blanc , St. Patrick’s cross saltire gules. 
 
 Since Richard’s last visit, great changes had taken place in Egypt, 
 for Ismail Pasha had abdicated, who believed in and needed these 
 mines; and Tewfik Pasha had succeeded, and Tewfik did not 
 consider himself bound by anything his father had done; and if 
 the English Government gave a man a chance, it certainly would 
 not have been given to Richard Burton. Hence he got no further 
 than Egypt, and ate his heart out in impotent rage and disgust at 
 his bad luck. On the 2nd or 3rd of May, as he was returning home 
 from dining rather late in Alexandria, he was attacked by nine men, 
 and hit over the head from behind with some sharp instrument. 
 He fell to the ground, and on coming to, staggered to the hotel, 
 
On Leave in London . 
 
 4 11 
 
 and was all covered with blood. He turned round and struck out 
 at them, as his knuckles were all raw. It was supposed to be foul 
 play with a motive, as the only thing they stole was his “ divining 
 rod 55 for gold which he carried about his person, and the signet 
 ring off his finger, but left his watch and chain and purse. He 
 kept it a profound secret in order that it should be no hindrance 
 to his going back to work the mines in Midian; but he came 
 home in May, and never let me know that he was hurt until 
 I came up to him. I was ill in London; the woman friend 
 whom I had left at Vienna now came over to London to bring 
 me back, but stayed in London, and did not accompany me back 
 at all. 
 
 When Richard was leaving Egypt for good, Mr. Cookson, the 
 brother of our Consul at Alexandria, Sir Charles Cookson, between 
 whom and Richard there existed a great friendship, wrote his 
 “ Good-bye ” in the following terms, which pleased Richard beyond 
 everything:— 
 
 “ Farewell to thee, Richard ; we bid thee adieu. 
 
 May Plutus and Croesus their treasures lay bare; 
 
 May their storehouse on earth be revealed unto you, 
 
 So that wealth may be added to merits so rare ! 
 
 “ May nuggets as big as the hat on your head 
 Be strewn in your path as you journey at will ; 
 
 And veins of rich gold ’neath the ground as you tread 
 Lie hidden perdu, to be won by your skill. 
 
 “ And when thou hast made a fabulous haul, 
 
 And flooded the market with shares, 
 
 On thy virtuous life may a blessing befall, 
 
 To gild thy declining years.” 
 
 Some time after this, some thoughtless youngsters played a 
 practical joke on Mr. Cookson, and pretended to him that it came 
 from Richard, who, on learning it a long time afterwards, felt sorely 
 hurt and mortified that his old friend should have been left in error, 
 and thought him capable of such a thing. 
 
 To my horror, I had found Richard with a secretly broken 
 head, raw knuckles, and gout in his feet, but he soon got 
 round under my care, and then I took him off to Op^ina. 
 He was afraid of meningitis, as they had wounded him just in 
 the nuque. The doctor put him under a course of salicin, and 
 at last he had an attack of healthy gout in the feet, which did 
 him good. 
 
412 The Life of Sir Rickard Burton. 
 
 Richard and I now went to Opgina, a great deal alone, and we were 
 working together at his Camoens, beginning at the two volumes of 
 the “ Lusiads.” 
 
 In early 1880, he brought out a little bit of the first canto of the 
 “ Lusiads,” and the episode of “ Ignez de Castro,” his favourite bit, 
 as samples. 'I can never remember to have had a more peaceful and 
 happy time with Richard than in Opgina, where we led a Darby and 
 Joan life, and principally 1879, 1880, 1881, and part of 1882. We 
 did all the six volumes of Camoens, he translating, I helping him 
 and correcting. 
 
 Camoens is splendidly and literally translated. No one was 
 so well fitted as Richard to bring out this epic and heroic life. 
 He divided his work into six heads : Biographical, Biblio¬ 
 graphical, Historical and Chronological, Geographical, and Anno- 
 tative—it was the result of a daily act of devotion of more than 
 twenty years, from a man of this age, who has taken the hero of a 
 former age for his model, his master, as Dante did Virgil ; and 
 between those two fates—master and disciple—exists a strange 
 similarity. 
 
 I prefer the “ Lusiads,” but the Portuguese think that if Camoens 
 had never written the “Lusiads,” his sonnets would have immor¬ 
 talized him, and prefer his to Petrarch’s. 
 
 Besides this, we used to fence a great deal during those years. 
 We set up a Hr au pistolet, and used to practise every morning 
 after breakfast. When snow was deep we drove in a sledge. We 
 attended the school feast annually, and sometimes we had village 
 serenades. At Opgina, on the Eve of St. John’s, the peasants 
 light fires all over the country, and the superstition is that 
 you must see eleven fires burning at the same time in order to 
 have a lucky year. When we went up there, we lived absolutely 
 alone, without any servants, and we used to take long walks and 
 drives. 
 
 One day, as we sat at our twelve o’clock breakfast at 
 Opgina, on a very hot day, a poor barefooted Capuchin came 
 in, looking hot, jaded, dusty, and travel-stained. He sat down 
 in another part of the restaurant at a table, and humbly 
 asked for a glass of water. We were waiting for our break¬ 
 fast, and I slipped out of the room and said to the land¬ 
 lord, “ Every time you bring us up a dish, put a third portion, 
 with bread and vegetables, and in due course sweets and cheese, 
 before the poor Capuchin who has just come in, and a bottle 
 of the same wine you give us, and tell him to pray for the 
 donors.” I slipped back into my place, and I saw Richard kept 
 

 in 1880 
 

 1 ■ I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On Leave in London. 
 
 4i3 
 
 staring at him, when he was not looking, with an amused smile, and 
 finally he turned round to me and whispered, “There, just look! 
 You say that those fellows starve, and I declare to you that he has 
 eaten, mouthful for mouthful, everything we have eaten, and a good 
 bottle of wine like ours.” So I laughed and I said, “Yes; but with 
 your money ! ” “ Oh, you blackguard ! am I paying for his dinner ? ” 
 “ Yes,” I said, “you are; and he is going to pray for us.” He was 
 far from being vexed; he was too kind, and he enjoyed the joke very 
 much. I said to him, “That man has been catering all over Istria 
 for provisions for the convent, and the rule at table is that they eat 
 whatever you put on their plates, but they must not ask. Seeing the 
 state he is in, you would not like to have seen him go away with a 
 glass of water.” “ No,” he said, “ that I should not; I am glad you 
 did it.” 
 
 We now determined, and fortunately, to see the Passion Play at 
 Ober-Ammergau. I say fortunately, because we could scarcely have 
 done it in 1890, just before his death; the fatigue would have 
 been too great for him. We had a delightful trip from Venice to 
 Padua, to Vicenza, and thence to Verona. There the country is 
 simply lovely, and the train begins to mount to Ala, which is the 
 frontier of Italy and the Austrian Tyrol. It seems like getting out 
 of a picturesque desert—so far are the Italians behind Austrian 
 civilization. You pass Trento, and reach Botzen, which is really 
 only nine hours and fifty-eight minutes’ actual train from Venice 
 if you do not stop on the road. From Botzen to Munich is 
 nine hours and twenty-three minutes’ delightful journey, breakfast¬ 
 ing at Franzensfeste. You are examined at Kufstein, the frontier be¬ 
 tween the Austrian Tyrol and Bavaria. The scenery of the Brenner 
 is simply glorious, and Brenner-Bad is a delightful little place 
 to stay at. Munich is certainly a lovely city; its buildings are 
 magnificent, but its art is very, very new. We saw everything in the 
 City inside and out, and enjoyed the society of General and Mrs. 
 Staunton, our Consul, and certainly we must own that the Hotel des 
 Quatres Saisons is the most delightful and comfortable in the world. 
 
 The next station for Ober-Ammergau is two hours and a half to 
 Miirnau, where you go to the Pantelbraii Hotel. There is beautiful 
 mountain scenery, and the hurry-scurry to get to Ober-Ammergau is 
 quite like the Derby Day, with every sort of vehicle and horses. The 
 village is otherwise peaceful, a rural inn, with a nice family contain¬ 
 ing at least one pretty girl, and the wine is very good, especially 
 Zeller I. and Schwarzer Herr-Gott; the beds and the food are 
 excellent. Being Sunday we went to Mass, and noticed a very 
 curious picture in the church. A head was peeping out of the 
 
414 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 ground as if the body were buried in it; near it was a book with 
 “ Lehren ” inscribed upon it; also near were dice, a money-bag, a 
 serpent, and smoke. A new-comer advances towards the head; but 
 his guardian angel is remonstrating with him, as if he were saying 
 to him, “ Let him be—it is none of your business,” and a Madonna 
 appears in the skies. After breakfast we started for Ober-Ammergau. 
 The scenery was magnificent, the Ettalberg very steep, and two 
 extra horses were obliged to be put on. Richard liked walking, and 
 with only me in the carriage, they appeared to be almost crawling 
 on their stomachs. Halfway was a rural inn, where the peasants 
 were playing, dancing, and drinking beer. In four hours from 
 leaving Miirnau we were deposited at a pretty cottage, where rooms 
 were let by a Frau Hauser. 
 
 I understand that a great many improvements exist now; but at 
 that time we had two whitewashed little rooms, no sheets, one spoon, 
 one glass, no table, and a pint of water in a pie-dish ; but our 
 windows looked out on the church, which is surmounted by a spire 
 and a plain iron cross, and the Kofel, a sugar-loaf peak, which 
 seems to guard the mountain gorge. 
 
 We wandered about the village, and picked up some food as we 
 could at a small eating-house called the “ Stern,” for Frau Hauser 
 did not undertake to board us. We were up at dawn. At Ober- 
 Ammergau the day begins with Mass and Communion. The play 
 begins at eight in the morning, and lasts eight hours (eighteen acts), 
 with an hour and a half interval for food and rest. The play over, 
 Richard and I both sat down at once, and described minutely Ober- 
 Ammergau, the Play, and our impressions. I think, perhaps, that 
 there have been so many descriptions, that it would be a pity to load 
 this book with them. We both sent them to the same man, and 
 Richard was anxious that they should be produced together, under 
 the heading, “ Ober-Ammergau, as seen by Four Eyes.” He wrote 
 the cynical and I the religious side, but as the man who printed 
 them was too poor to produce the two, he published Richard’s; 
 but I will now bring them out together in the “ Uniform Library ” 
 of my husband’s works, just as he wished it. 
 
 Suffice it to say, that the simplicity of a theatre in the open air 
 was most realistic, and made one think of the old early Latin and 
 Greek plays, and the miracle-plays of early Christianity. The men 
 acted beautifully; the women were cold or shy, and therefore unin¬ 
 teresting. I can only say that I thanked God for having been allowed 
 to see it, and as we sat together Richard watched me closely to see 
 what affected me, and I did the same with him. What affected him 
 immensely—and he owned it—was Christ on the Cross. He said, 
 
On Leave in London . 
 
 4i5 
 
 “ I never could have imagined Christ on the Cross without seeing it; 
 it made me feel very queer.” Now, as to me, what broke my heart 
 was the repentances of the sinners, and I am not ashamed to say that 
 I sobbed bitterly—not Magdalen’s, for she was too cold, but Peter’s, 
 when Christ came forth with the Cross, after he had denied Him and 
 Christ looked at him. The penitent thief on the Cross, and Judas’s 
 despair, I shall never forget all my life. With all Richard’s cynicism, 
 he was right glad to have seen it. 
 
 We went to visit the Pfarrer , or priest, the only really paramount 
 influence in Ober-Ammergau. We saw Josef Maier, who acted the 
 Christ, and with his permission went to inspect the scenes behind 
 the theatre, where they were practising fastening to the Cross, and, 
 under strict secrecy, we saw how it was done. 
 
 On the 25th was the fete of St. Louis, when they celebrate the 
 foundation of Bavaria, then seven hundred years before. On return 
 to Munich we dined at the Embassy. We met in Munich the 
 Dowager Lady Stanley and Mrs. John Stanley (now Lady Jeune), 
 and found to our great annoyance that we had just missed Lord 
 Houghton, who had been staying in the same hotel with us and we 
 had never known it. We then went to Innsbruck, where we saw 
 everything in and about, and on to Toblach, from whence three hours’ 
 drive takes you into the Dolomites into lovely scenery, beginning 
 at Cortina di Ampezzo. Here we found actual winter weather, 
 though it was only the 30th of August. From this we went on 
 to Villach, a delightful place, where it was very difficult to get 
 rooms; but we got some beds at a Braiierei, Here we saw, as 
 usual, everything in and about, and then we went by the glorious 
 new road Tarvis and Pont’ Ebba (not so very long open), with 
 scenery unrivalled, and reached Udine, where we were on the main 
 line for our own home. Here we stayed to visit the tomb of Fra 
 Oderico, a Franciscan monk, who went to China and wrote a book 
 three centuries ago—a very holy man—and then we went home to 
 Trieste to receive our old friends Mr. Aubertin, Sir Charles Sebright, 
 the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, with Mrs. John Stanley, who 
 stayed a couple of days en route for Corfu. The Dowager Lady 
 Stanley was one of Richard’s oldest and best friends, and she has 
 proved herself one to me since his death. I cannot say how much 
 we enjoyed their visit. 
 
 On the 15th of September the Pandora came in with Mr. W. H. 
 Smith and his family, and we took excursions together, showed 
 them all the lions in a couple of days, and dined on board with 
 them. We had visits also from Abbate Bey and Brugsch Bey 
 from Egypt. Baron Marco Morpurgo, the director of Lloyd’s, used 
 
416 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 sometimes to give us a charming supper-party on board one of the 
 Lloyd’s vessels anchored in the harbour. A great friend and 
 admirer of Richard’s, and my now true friend, Miss E. H. Bishop, 
 who resides, like myself, in a little cottage near Redbridge, Hants, 
 came to stay with us. 
 
 On the 9th of November, 1880, we had an earthquake at 7.30 in 
 the evening, which demolished half Agram, injured Graz, and shook 
 us terribly. Richard and I were writing, and our table ran away, and 
 it made us feel very uncomfortable. Graeffe saw three earthquake 
 waves come in and out. 
 
 Richard had quite a grande passion for silver. He declared that 
 everybody had some particular metal which influenced them, and also 
 colour. His metal was silver, and silver applied to his pains cured 
 him ; he would put florins on his eyes if they ached from over reading 
 or study; he would apply them to his pains where he had gout; and 
 after he got the “ Arabian Nights ” earnings, everything he bought was 
 silver. A heavy six-guinea knob of silver to a huge stick, his toilette 
 box, his pencil-case, his snuff-box, his roll to put his pens and 
 pencils in, everything was silver. His theory was that every man 
 has some metal which affects his illness, and, after frequent trials, 
 found his. So we used to bind silver florins round his feet and 
 legs when he had gout, and though it did not cure him, it always 
 relieved him. He had the same theory about colours, and his was 
 the royal cramoisie, or blood-red, which soothed him. We continued 
 our work, and we used to take drives, such as to Villa Vicentina, 
 and to Aquileja, ancient Aquila, to the museum and church, and 
 up the Campanile Tower. 
 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 TRIESTE LIFE AGAIN. 
 
 1881. 
 
 Early this year two sad things happened, which interested Richard 
 very much—the death of Carlyle, 5th of February, with all the 
 different opinions expressed at the time; the disappearance of the 
 Rev. Benjamin Speke; and a third was the annexation of Tunis 
 through the medium of our former colleague at Damascus, Monsieur 
 Roustan. 
 
 On the 19th of April Lord Beaconsfield died, and our journals 
 were full of him for several pages. Richard wrote a “ Sketch,” 
 which made twelve pages of print, which will appear in “Labours 
 and Wisdom.” My journal is four pages of lament. As a girl 
 of fifteen, his “ Tancred ” formed all my ardent desires of an 
 Eastern career, and was my first gate to Eastern knowledge and 
 occult science. As a Statesman I put him on a pedestal as my 
 political Chief and model. He had that peculiar prescience and 
 foresight belonging to his Semitic blood. I think a certain period 
 of things passed away with him. He was one of the last relics of 
 England’s greatness. Just as the Duke of Wellington died before 
 the Crimean War, so Lord Beaconsfield foreshadowed England’s 
 temporary decline, or fusion into another state of things, and this 
 feeling helped his decay. Anyway, one great man is gone. 
 
 We were very fond of going to the fairs, especially where the 
 Hungarian Gypsies congregated. They used to sing, dance, tell 
 fortunes, and Richard talked Romany with them. 
 
 We determined this year to take our gout baths from Duino, and 
 not from Monfalcone; it is a forty minutes’ drive from Duino to 
 Monfalcone, and the baths are exactly halfway between. 
 
418 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 We went for a day or two to Trieste to meet Lord Bath, and we 
 came in for a scientific excursion by ship, with two hundred people, 
 to Sipar, to Salona, and Pirano, where there was a band and dancing 
 and lunch. 
 
 About this time, on April 30th, died Gessi Pasha at Suez; he 
 was Gordon’s right-hand man. 
 
 We had charming walks to hunt for castellieri We walked 
 to Slivno, to Ronchi; drove to Atila’s Palace, and got some 
 curios from the ruins. We drove out also to see some new caves, 
 and once we all drove together to see a Sagra, or village dance, at 
 Monfalcone, and going in we sat in the carriage to hear the band. 
 
 We then went on to Gorizia—already described—where we dined 
 with Mr. Frederick Smart and his mother, a most beautiful, sweet, 
 and venerable Italian lady, his sister, Mrs. Fehr, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Baird. Richard afterwards went to study bees with Father Pauletic, 
 of the Deaf and Dumb Institute. 
 
 We were very sorry to leave Duino and our friends ; but all 
 pleasant things come to an end, and we had to go down to Trieste 
 to prepare to receive our own Squadron. 
 
 On the 1st of July H.M.S. Iris, the civant courier of the Squadron, 
 arrived. The Squadron itself arrived on the 7 th. Richard and 
 I went on board an hour later, to every ship—there were eleven all 
 told—to invite the Captains and officers to a night fete-champetre 
 and ball at Opgina, as we wanted, as early as possible in the begin¬ 
 ning of their visit, to put them on cordial terms with our friends in 
 the City. 
 
 We issued eight hundred invitations to the Captains and officers 
 of our Squadron, the Captains and officers of the Austrian Navy and 
 other Men-of-war anchored there, the Colonels and officers of the 
 Austrian regiments stationed there, the Governor and family and 
 Staff, all the Austrian authorities, the Consular corps, the chief 
 English and Americans, the private friends, who numbered about 
 a hundred and fifty of the cream of Trieste, the Press, Austrian- 
 Lloyd’s, and the Police. 
 
 We created a kind of Vauxhall in the grounds surrounding the 
 Inn at Opgina. In a large field at the back of the Inn we had eight 
 tables fifty feet long; a hut for tea, coffee, and refreshments, one of 
 barrels of wine and beer, to be drawn off and served at the tables, 
 a large wooden ball-room, three tents for toilettes, or for resting, 
 and seats and benches all round, raised like an amphitheatre, for 
 those who wanted to watch. These were adorned with five hundred 
 
419 
 
 Trieste Life Again . 
 
 and fifty large bouquets of flowers, several thousand coloured lamps, 
 and two hundred flags of all nations. There were four entrances, 
 each with transparencies exhibiting illuminated sentences, such as 
 “ Welcome ! ” “ Ave ! ” “ Austria and England ” crossed. The Eng¬ 
 lish Admiral and the Austrian Commander-in-Chief each lent us their 
 bands. We had no end of fireworks,, and Catherine wheels, and 
 Bengal lights. Austrian-Lloyd’s lent us forty stewards; the Chief of 
 Police lent us a cordon of police to keep the ground. Every omni¬ 
 bus and carriage in the place was engaged to bring up such guests 
 as had not their own private carriages, and I chose twelve aide-de¬ 
 camps to help me to make the affair go off; in short, we looked 
 forward to having a regular good time. 
 
 Everything was in high gala, and the first waltz had begun, when 
 the weather, which had been as dry as a bone all the summer till 
 that moment, suddenly opened out; and it did not rain, but it 
 poured in buckets, with tremendous thunder and lightning. It just 
 lasted two hours, putting out all our lamps, damping our fireworks, 
 reducing our transparencies to pulp; there was a regular sauve qui 
 peut to the inn. The police went for the drinking-booth, and were 
 soon incapable; the mob broke in ; they seized all the best things to 
 eat and drink, they jumped on the plates and dishes and broke 
 them. Richard looked up to the sky and ejaculated, “ So like 
 Provy! ” I cried with rage and mortification for a few minutes, 
 and then, rallying round, Richard and I got a party of young men 
 to the rescue, who went and cleared the grounds, already over ankle- 
 deep in mud; they rescued all that was left of food and drink. I 
 got another party to clear away the furniture of the lower part of 
 the Inn, set the two bands to work in different parts, and my 
 friends to dancing, whilst my aide-de-camps and I rigged up several 
 supper-rooms. I had forty waiters from Lloyd’s, but half of them 
 had followed the example of the police. Our friends, quite uncon¬ 
 scious of the havoc behind the scenes, danced right merrily the 
 whole night, and supped, and were good-natured enough to enjoy 
 themselves thoroughly with the greatest good humour; and the 
 party did not break up until five. 
 
 I went out into the back scenes, where I found that my own 
 things were being sold at the bar of the inn, to our own Squadron’s 
 bandsmen, at a big price. I soon put a stop to that, and obliged 
 the vendors to restore them their money, and gave them their 
 suppers and wine. It was a pandemonium. The natives were all 
 too far gone to know me, so that I could hardly get any order 
 obeyed; they were breaking bottles of wine, two together, like 
 •clashing cymbals. The tipsy coachmen were dancing with the 
 
420 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 tipsy villagers, and every now and then they jumped on a dish, 
 or destroyed property in other ways. It was not encouraging, but 
 it was useless to struggle against the inevitable, so I only saw that 
 the Squadron bandsmen got all they wanted without paying for it. 
 (Such is the wild animal when it can do what it likes without 
 restraint.) 
 
 Meanwhile we managed to do a lot of fireworks, and everything 
 went off beautifully. After all our guests were departed, Everard 
 Primrose and Mr. Welby, the well-known popular attache , finding 
 their coachman helplessly drunk, put him inside the carriage, and 
 got on the box and drove themselves down; and the very last thing 
 of all was seeing our staggering, hiccoughing policemen into omni¬ 
 buses to go down to Trieste. Thus ended our first fete for the 
 Squadron. The damage the natives did us was immense, as we 
 borrowed all our plates and dishes from a Company, and any one 
 can imagine what that would be, to give a sit-down supper to eight 
 hundred people. 
 
 The Emperor, who always honours the English fleet—the only 
 one he notices—ordered entertainments to be given, one at the 
 castle at Miramar, and the other by the Austrian Admiral; so 
 on the nth came off the dinner at Miramar, and on the 13th 
 the Austrian Admiral’s dinner. Then the English Admiral gave us 
 a dinner, and then a ball was given by H.M.S. Alexandra , where 
 the officers kindly asked me to help them to receive the Trieste 
 guests. On the 14th we had “ teas ” on board the Invincible and the 
 Alexandra , and Admiral Beauchamp Seymour’s (now Lord Alcester) 
 dinner; the 15th, a tea-party on board the Falcon , and a ball on the 
 Superb. On the 16th we organized a monster picnic to the Caves of 
 Adelsberg, which were illuminated expressly. On the 17th Baron Mor- 
 purgo gave a banquet with music, and then followed our dinner to the 
 Captains of the Men-of-war. The fleet departed on the 18th, and we 
 went round to say good-bye. Baron Marco Morpurgo kindly gave us a 
 steamer to see the fleet off; he provided refreshments and music, and 
 we asked our best friends to join. The flagship Alexandra moved 
 first, the ships forming two lines behind her. We steamed in our 
 little vessel alongside the flagship, at a proper distance, till we 
 escorted them out of our Gulf for about a couple of hours; then, 
 shooting ahead, we stopped our engines, dipped our flag thrice, 
 cheered, and turned back, cheering every ship as we passed. They 
 all played “ Auld Lang Syne ” and “ Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good¬ 
 bye.” It was the prettiest sight in the world on a summer evening 
 in the Gulf of Trieste, to see that “going out,” and we were awfully 
 sorry to lose them. 
 
421 
 
 Trieste Life Again. 
 
 On the 8th of August we started for a new trip, and went 
 vid Laibach to Veldes, via Radmannsdorf. Veldes consists of 
 a lake, with a few houses around, chiefly people’s villas, and a 
 very comfortable inn (Mallner’s). It is a lovely spot, but rather 
 shut in. This place has its little romance. We rowed about two 
 hours in a boat to a small island in the middle of the lake. 
 
 We then went on to Tarvis and St. Michele, and from thence to 
 Salzburg; it was a seventeen hours’ journey with many changes of 
 train. Salzburg is a beautiful place, and its Hotel Europa one of 
 the dearest and best I ever was in. We had come up to a Scientific 
 Congress, and passed our time with Count Wiirmbrandt, the Gover¬ 
 nor of Istria, Count Bombelles, in attendance on Prince Rudolf, 
 Prince Windisgratz, Professor Milliner, Abbate Gliibich, the African 
 travellers Holub and Nachtigall, all scientific men. We had an 
 expedition to the salt mines, and went to the bottom of the mines, 
 and the museum, which is lovely and of great interest. Then we 
 went to Lend, where we took a four-horse carriage, and had a mag¬ 
 nificent three-hours’ drive up the Salz Kammergut, reaching Gastein 
 at five o’clock, one of the most beautiful places in Austria, and were 
 enchanted with the scenery, the air, and the waterfall. Richard and 
 I used to sit out and read and look at the view all day. Then we 
 took train to Steinach-Irding, to visit Mr. Zech, the proprietor of 
 Shepherd’s Hotel, Cairo. He was a good and jolly old man, with a 
 nice gentlemanly son, a Parisian wife, and some married daughters. 
 Other members of the family also arrived, and presently came a little 
 officer who had lost his way. We were heartily welcomed ; it was a 
 Liberty Hall, comfortable, hospitable, and you were expected to ask 
 for everything you wanted. We then started for Ischl. The whole 
 Court was here; it was a very pretty place, situated between two 
 rivers, with beautiful air and a very fashionable promenade, and we 
 were very gay. There were illuminations and fireworks for Prince 
 Rudolf’s birthday, and a very amusing little German theatre. 
 
 Here, at Ischl, Richard and I parted company. I was ordered to 
 go to Marfenbad; Richard returned to Steinach-Irding, to Steyr, 
 and back to Steinach, and from there to Vienna. 
 
 I here made acquaintance with Madame Olga di Novikoff, who 
 certainly kept me from feeling dull, for she was capital company— 
 most amusing, and was to me a new and interesting study of the 
 sort of life that one reads so much of, but in England rarely meets. 
 
 On the 7th of September I was so ill that I did not know how to 
 get tQ Vienna, but I had myself put into a coupe to myself, with 
 room to lie down, and I never stirred off it during the eleven hours 
 and forty minutes vid Pilsen and Budweis to Vienna, when at the 
 
422 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 station Richard awaited me with the information that he had got a 
 dinner-party to meet me, and so I had to dress and receive. We 
 had after this one delightful dinner and evening with Baron Pino 
 and his wife at Hietzing, and next day we went down to Trieste. 
 We just changed baggage and went to Venice for the great Geo¬ 
 graphical Congress, which was opened on the 15th. The illumina¬ 
 tions at Venice were something to remember all one’s life, every 
 bit of tracery of the buildings, and especially that of St. Marco, 
 being picked out with little lamps, and the artistic part of it was to 
 throw the electric light only on the Basilica. I never in my life saw, 
 and never shall again see, anything to equal it. Lady Layard gave 
 a party to all the English and Americans, and the chief of the 
 Venetian Society. Captain Vernon Lovett-Cameron, R.N., V.C., 
 was staying with us, and we collected around us all the pleasantest 
 people there at our breakfasts and dinners. The regatta was also a 
 never-to-be-forgotten sight. The King and Queen were there. All 
 the gondolas represented some country; there were the old Venetian 
 gondoliers, there were Esquimaux, there were troubadours—you 
 could not imagine a country or character that was not represented; 
 and every gondola that assumed no character was dressed in gala 
 array, and their men in gondolier uniform and sash. Ours was 
 covered with pale blue velvet. Another day was the opening of the 
 gardens of St. Giobbe by the Royalties. Here, amongst other friends, 
 we met Mr. Labouchere, General de Horsey, who was a very dear 
 friend of Richard’s, General Fielding, and many others. There was 
 a night serenade on the water with every boat illuminated, which 
 was also a grand sight. 
 
 Captain Cameron was wild with spirits, and we had many amusing 
 episodes and one especial sort of picnic day at the Lido, where, 
 just as Lord Aberdare and some of the primmest people of the 
 Congress were coming, Richard and he insisted on taking off their 
 shoes and stockings and digging mud-pies, like two naughty little 
 boys, and they kept calling out to me, “ Look, nurse, we have 
 made such a beautiful pie,” and “ Please tell Dick not to touch 
 my spade.” I could not speak to the people for laughing, especially 
 as some of them looked so grave. However, Richard was exceed¬ 
 ingly angry, as he had a good right to be. Here was a Geographical 
 Congress just outside the City of which he was Consul, and, as if 
 it had been done on purpose to let him down before foreigners, 
 he was not only not asked to be the representative from Austria, 
 but not even asked to meet his fellow-geographers, not even asked 
 to take any part in it, not even asked to speak at it; so he held 
 himself entirely aloof from them, as far as Congress was concerned, 
 
423 
 
 Trieste Life Again. 
 
 and he left his card in the Congress-room with the following squib, 
 as spoken by the British representatives from London to Venice:— 
 
 “ We’re Saville Row’s selected few, 
 
 Let all the rest be damned ; 
 
 The pit is good enough for you, 
 
 We won’t have boxes crammed.” 
 
 On the 24th we all broke up and went back to Trieste. Captain 
 Cameron then came to us at Trieste, and Colonel Gould, and 
 Abbate Gliibich. 
 
 On the 18th of November Richard, who had all this while been 
 arranging the journey with Captain Cameron, had been employed 
 by a private speculator to go out to the West Coast of Africa, 
 especially to the Guinea Coast, and to report on certain mines 
 there, which Richard had discovered in 1861-64 (when he was 
 Consul for that coast, and was wandering about, discovering and 
 publishing his discoveries), if he could conscientiously give a good 
 one. He was to have all his expenses paid, a large sum for his 
 report, and shares in the mines; so on the 18th of November we 
 embarked at two o’clock in the day. 
 
 We left the quay at four, hung on to a buoy outside the breakwater 
 till midnight, and then left by the Demerara steamship (Cunard), 
 Captain Jones, from Trieste to Venice. At six a.m. we anchored 
 in a rolling sea, with a heavy fog a couple of miles outside the Lido, 
 but at twelve it lifted sufficiently to let us see the entrance to Mala- 
 mocco, and we got in. It was so raw, damp, and thick, and cold to 
 the bones, that everybody was ill, and we took rooms at the 
 Britannia so long as the ship should stay. We then had a splendid 
 passage to Fiume, where we had a very pleasant time with old 
 friends for nearly a week. On the 25th we had just finished writing 
 up the biography, when they came to tell me that the ship had to 
 sail that day, which caused me a good deal of sorrow, as I was to be 
 left at Fiume; my expenses were not paid, and we personally had not 
 enough money for two, so Richard was to go on to the Guinea Coast 
 alone. I watched the ship till it was out of sight, and felt very 
 lonely. 
 
 1882. 
 
 This year I fretted dreadfully at Richard’s absence, and not being 
 allowed to join him, and made myself quite ill. I worked at my 
 usual occupations for the poor, and preventing cruelty to animals, 
 studying and writing, and carrying out all the numerous directions 
 contained in his letters. 
 
424 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 It was now discovered by Professor Liebman that I had the germs 
 of an internal complaint of which I am suffering at present, possibly 
 resulting from my fall downstairs in Paris in 1879. I had noticed 
 all this year that I had been getting weaker and weaker in the 
 fencing-school, and sometimes used to turn faint, and Reich (my 
 fencing-master) used to say, " Why, what is the matter with you ? 
 Your arms are getting so limp in using the broadsword.” I did not 
 know, but I could not keep up for long at a time. I think I went 
 no more after that. 
 
 Nigh six months had passed, and it was now time for me to go 
 and meet Richard at Liverpool, so I left the 18th of April, spending 
 a few happy days in Vienna, thence to Paris and Boulogne, where I 
 found a howling tempest. Two houses had been destroyed, a steamer 
 was signalling distress, and the Hotel Imperial Pavilion had to open 
 its back door to let me in, the gale being too strong in front. I had 
 brought a Trieste girl with me as maid, whose class or race did not 
 admit of the wearing of hat or bonnet. They wanted to turn me 
 out of the church at Boulogne, because the girl was bareheaded, and 
 I had to explain that nothing would induce her to wear one for fear 
 of losing caste. I got off in a very bad sea two days later, and to 
 London on the 3rd of May. 
 
 On the 15 th I went up to Liverpool. Richard and Captain 
 Cameron arrived in the African mail Loanda on the 20th, and 
 there was a great dinner that night, given by the Liverpudlians to 
 welcome them back. It was a great success, and they were all very 
 merry. On the 22nd we came up to London, but no sooner did we 
 arrive there, than Richard was taken quite ill and had to go to 
 bed. He was to have lectured at the Society of Arts, but he could 
 not, which was an awful disappointment to them and to us; but he 
 soon got well under home care, and he lectured on the 31st at the 
 Anthropological. 
 
 He notices in his journal the death of the poet and artist, Gabriel 
 Rossetti, on the 10th of April, and Darwin’s death on the 19th. We 
 were immediately occupied in bringing out “ To the Gold Coast for 
 Gold” (2 vols.), where he gives an account of the different places 
 to which he and Captain Cameron went, the chief place being 
 Axim, on the Guinea coast. There were two obstacles which 
 were deemed fatal to success. One was Ashantee obstruction, 
 and the other was the expense of transporting machinery and 
 working still labour in a wild country, a lack of hands, and the 
 climate ; but they were only bugbears. “ He knew nothing to equal 
 
425 
 
 Trieste Life Again. 
 
 it as to wealth, either in California or in Brazil. Gold dust was 
 panned by native women from the sands of the seashore, gold 
 spangles glittered after showers in the streets of Axim; their wash¬ 
 ings weighed from half an ounce to four ounces per ton. The gold 
 is there, and it is our fault if it stays there. We have in our hands 
 the best of workmen—the tireless machine, the steam navvy, and 
 the quartz stamp; and those called ‘ Long Tom ’ and i Broad 
 Tom * would do more work in a day than a whole gang of negroes.” 
 
 He says that in the last century the Gold Coast exported to Europe 
 three and a half millions of sterling gold, but the abolition of slavery 
 and manumissions brought it down to ^126,000 value. A few years 
 ago England’s annual supply was ^25,000,000, and was then (1882) 
 ^18,000,000. England wants gold, and he says that the Gold Coast 
 can supply it to any amount that England may want. There was 
 a threatened action a while ago about the way the moneys were 
 supplied for the carrying out of these mines, called the Guinea 
 Coast Trial. My husband was not employed to take charge, or to 
 work there, and nearly all who were sent out (with one or two 
 notable exceptions) thought more of feathering their own nests, 
 even for a couple of years, than of the public good; hence the thing 
 failed, but will live again. 
 
 My husband was passionately fond of mining for the sake of 
 developing the resources of any country in which he travelled and 
 made discoveries. I was always sorry when he got on the mine 
 track, because he always ended in one way. Shady people, partially 
 or wholly dishonest, would praise up his knowledge to the skies. 
 They would sometimes go so far as to send him to the spot, to 
 draw up a report of such or such a mine; with written (legal) 
 agreements contracting to pay him perhaps ^2000 or more for his 
 report, his expenses paid, and shares in the mine. As soon as they 
 got his report, they would ask him to come home, and send some 
 one else to run the mine down. Nevertheless they made their own 
 money out of it I always trembled, but I always helped him all I 
 could whenever any of these grand money plans were on hand, 
 because it interested him ; and I keep and leave to my heirs all the 
 correspondence and agreements concerning them, as well as other 
 matters of business. 
 
 He did his work in his simple, gentlemanly, scientific way, fully 
 knowing the worth of the mine, but nothing about business. Then, 
 as soon as they had got all his secrets and information from him, 
 they would send their own agent, who in one case pretended that 
 he could not find the spot, purposely avoiding to take the guide 
 Richard had commissioned for the purpose. But the chief speculator 
 
426 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 did find them, and sell them too, although Richard never got a penny 
 for his trouble. He never knew how to get himself paid without 
 going to law, which they knew was undesirable for a Consul, and, so 
 far from getting anything, very often he was largely out of pocket. 
 He was very much out of pocket about the Guinea Coast Mines, and, 
 had the trial threatened by Mr. Johns come off, I should have asked 
 to have been subpoenaed, as my husband was dead, and I should 
 have produced all the papers and his depositions written before 
 his death, and asked to be refunded his losses. In the Khedivial 
 Mines of Midian he dropped much money in expenses, which 
 Ismail Khedive was to have paid him back, but never did. How¬ 
 ever, this last only resulted from the accident of abdication, and 
 not with intent to hurt him. The others were men that he ought 
 never to have pitted himself against; that is, pitted the straight¬ 
 forward, unsuspecting ignorance of a gentleman against men who 
 have been bred for generations to know how much percentage they 
 can get out of the fraction of a farthing. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ANOTHER SHORT LEAVE TO LONDON. 
 
 1882. 
 
 Richard went to Paris on the 15th of July, 1882, and I followed him 
 on the 22nd, taking my niece Blanche Pigott with me, and joined 
 Richard and Captain Cameron. We saw a great deal of the traveller 
 De Brazza and his brother, and on the 26th we bid good-bye to 
 Cameron, and we three left for Turin, where our niece, who was for 
 the first time in Italy, enjoyed the scene of the Piazza and Castle by 
 moonlight, and a drive up to the Superga. The next day we arrived 
 in Venice. There is always something amusing to people who have 
 seen everything themselves, in taking a fresh young girl about, as 
 long as she is fresh. She was just out of her convent, and Richard 
 and I, having no children, thought it rather fun having a daughter. 
 We arrived on the last day of July. 
 
 Next day, on the 1st of August, there was the opening of a Grand 
 International Exhibition at Trieste. The City was illuminated at 
 night almost as brilliantly as Venice had been for the Congress, and 
 Trieste illuminated makes a grand effect with its rising mountain 
 background. The Archduke Charles Louis was there to open it, 
 and the Emperor and Empress, Prince Rudolf, and Princess 
 Stephanie came later on. This had been a hobby of our (then) 
 Governor’s (Baron de Pretis) for a very long time, and for months 
 and months endless workmen had been erecting magnificent build¬ 
 ings at the edge of the sea—I should say for a mile in length—all 
 along the fashionable drive called St. Andrea. This great day was 
 devoted to officialdom, and receptions, and bands, and at night 
 Baron Morpurgo had one of his boats out, and supper on board, 
 for his friends to see the illuminations. 
 
 On the 18th of September, Richard began his Great book on 
 the Sword. It is a very large work, entitled the “Book of the 
 Sword”—the first part of three by R. F. Burton, maitre d'armes , 
 which appeared in 1884. The first part brought the sword, the 
 prehistoric weapon, up to the Middle Ages. The second would 
 have been the mediaeval sword, and the third would have brought 
 all the modern schools up to date, with illustrations. 
 
 437 
 
428 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 On the 27 th of October, I got a regular blow through a telegram 
 ordering Richard off to look after Palmer, who was missing at 
 Ghazzeh. 
 
 The telegram ran as follows :— 
 
 “October 27th, 1882, 4.40 p.m. 
 
 “ H.M.’s Government wish to avail themselves of your knowledge 
 of Bedouins and the Sinai country, to assist in search for Professor 
 Palmer. There is a chance of his being still alive, though bodies 
 of his companions, Charrington and Gill, have been found Proceed 
 at once to Ghazzeh; place yourself in communication with Consul 
 Moore, who has gone from Jerusalem to institute inquiry.” 
 
 Richard answered— 
 
 “ Ready to start by first steamer. Will draw ^100. Want gun¬ 
 boat from Alexandria to Ghazzeh or Sinai. Letter follows.” 
 
 As all the world knows, Palmer, Charrington, and Gill went into 
 the desert to buy camels for the English army and to bribe the 
 Bedawi. Palmer had other secret service besides; that was, to cut 
 the telegraph wire between Kantara and El Arish, and it was through 
 the telegraph wire not being cut that foul play was suspected. 
 Palmer was such a good Arabist, and was in such friendly relations 
 with all the people, that there seemed not the slightest danger. He 
 had brotherhood with all the Bedawi, like Richard, but they carried 
 ^3000 (some say ^20,000) with them; the Bedawi surrounded them, 
 and they were, the newspapers said, given a choice of being shot or 
 jumping over a precipice. It is said Charrington and Gill elected 
 to be shot, and Palmer, covering his eyes, jumped over the precipice. 
 The men (with whom both Richard and Palmer had brotherhood) 
 who did this, belonged to the Huwaytat and Dubur, Terabin and 
 Hasabli. There was Salem el Sheikh ibn Salameh and twenty- 
 three other men implicated in it, besides the Shaykh. To Richard, 
 who knew the Bedawi, it was a puzzle; certainly they were slain, 
 but he felt there was always something we shall never know : it was 
 not Bedawi ways. 
 
 Richard started by the first steamer, and proceeded according to 
 orders. I remember the last thing I said to him was, “ Mind, if 
 they are really dead, don’t be put like a ferret into a hole to bring 
 out the dead bodies ” (for I remembered how economical England 
 is, and that, whatever other men have had, Richard had never been 
 given either money or men for any exploit); “ that won’t be worth 
 while.” He said, “ If they are dead, no ; but if there is a chance of 
 saving dear old Palmer, I will go anywhere and do anything.” On 
 the road he met Gordon. Meantime Sir Charles Warren was scour- 
 
Another Short Leave to Lo 7 idon. 429 
 
 ing the country, well supported with money, and with two hundred 
 picked men, and by the time Richard got there, he may be said to 
 have nearly completed the task. 
 
 He describes Ghazzeh as a miserable, God-forgotten hole. 
 
 The trial of Arabi was going on, and Egypt was in great excite¬ 
 ment in consequence. Richard was only absent six weeks and a half, 
 returning in December. He wrote an account of all he had seen 
 there, and the story of Palmer, and the state of Egypt, and he sent 
 it to a magazine at once, which sent it back. He sent it round to 
 many places, and I cannot remember now whether he ever got it 
 printed, but certainly too late to have the fresh interest it ought to 
 have had. 
 
 It is curious to remember now , how frequently he used to send 
 the most important articles, of vital use to the World, to the Press, 
 and get them sent back with compliments and thanks, to say they 
 would not suit such a paper or such a magazine, and how he 
 frequently went from one publisher to another with his most in¬ 
 valuable books. It was one of the things that used to make us both 
 boil with rage, and noiv there has been a storm throughout the whole 
 Press Universe for twenty-two months because I burnt a book which 
 was the least valuable, nay, the only book he ever wrote that was not 
 valuable to the world. Such are the waves and whims of public 
 opinion. 
 
 It was the last journey he ever took that might be called an 
 Expedition, and even that was not what it was meant to be, since he 
 found another man (Sir Charles Warren) in the field, who did not 
 want to be much interfered with. I was awfully glad to get him 
 back again so soon, I need not say. 
 
 On the 6th of December we had an earthquake in the night and a 
 tremulousness all day, and earthquakes all the month. We were 
 walking on the Karso above ; the sky was clear, and all of a sudden 
 my niece said to me, “Oh, look up, there is a star walking into the 
 moon ! ” “ Glorious ! ” I answered. “We are looking at the Transit 
 of Venus, which crowds of scientists have gone to the end of the 
 world to see.” We then went down to meet Richard, who returned 
 at seven o’clock in the morning of the 10th, and all went happily 
 up to Op^ina. This day we had dreadful storms ; the lightning 
 fell in the town three times, and the telegraphs could not work. 
 
 1883. 
 
 Early in the year Richard had a slight attack of gout, and a 
 visit from Professor Leitner King’s College, London. He worked 
 now at his Sword book, and, as well as I can remember, his book 
 on the Jews. 
 
430 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Richard now took an immense dislike to our house in Trieste, 
 where we had been over ten years. The fact is, I had increased it 
 in my ambition to twenty-seven rooms, and just as I had made it 
 perfection, he wanted to leave it. Certainly Providence directed, 
 for shortly after that, the drainage got so very bad there as to be 
 incurable, and after he got really ill, and his heart weak, it would 
 have been impossible for him to mount the hundred and twenty 
 steps, four stories high, to go in and out. We ransacked the whole 
 of Trieste, but there was only one house that suited us in any way, 
 and there was not the least likelihood of our being able to get it, as 
 it was occupied; but, curiously to say, six months later we did get 
 it, and got housed in it the following July. 
 
 We then had a trip down the Dalmatian coast in an Austrian- 
 Lloyd’s, to Sebenico, Zara, and Spalato. On this day five of Palmer’s 
 murderers were hanged in the presence of thirty-five Bedawi chiefs. 
 Richard could never understand why they only hanged five in¬ 
 stead of twenty-four, the number of those concerned, and why the 
 Governor of El Arish was not hanged too. We went on to Castel- 
 nuovo, and to Cattaro, and then back. It was only for a few days, 
 but it did Richard a world of good. We then had a visit from 
 Major Borrowes, and Richard went for a trip to San Daniele, to 
 Wippacn, to Heidenschaft, and Plani, and came back. We spent 
 our birthdays, 19th and 20th of March, in Op^ina, and received a 
 telegram with twelve friends’ names attached to it. 
 
 On the 23rd of May, Richard went off to Krapina-Teplitz alone, 
 and would not take me, as we had a chance of getting the house we 
 wanted, and, in point of fact, I made the contract almost immediately, 
 and gave notice to quit the old one. There is a curious law in 
 Trieste that you must give notice, if you wish to quit a house, on the 
 24th of May, and on the 24th of August you must leave; so any 
 stranger coming into Trieste on the last day mentioned, would see 
 nothing but processions of carts and waggons covered with furniture 
 and boxes, and it looks exactly as if a town was being deserted for 
 a bombardment, or the moving of an army. The people, of course, 
 who remain in their houses do not do this; it is the ones who 
 change. I was resolved, for convenience’ sake, to come to an 
 agreement with my outgoing people to change at least a month 
 before the time, to avoid the general confusion. 
 
 Krapina-Teplitz did Richard no good—the waters were too strong 
 —and he came back on the 1 ith of June. Mr. Aubertin arrived on a 
 visit at the same time, and they had a great deal to discuss, both 
 being students and translators of Camoens. The Squadron was 
 reported the same afternoon, saluted at four p.m., and we went on 
 board an hour after. It was two years since their last visit. It was 
 
Another Short Leave to London . 431 
 
 very much a repetition of that of 1881; there were eleven or twelve 
 ships, and they stayed thirteen days. 
 
 First came off the Austrian Admiral’s ball—a magnificent affair in 
 the illuminated garden, with singers from Vienna; then an equally 
 fine ball on board the Monarch, my brother Jack ArundelPs old ship. 
 Our ball on the same plan as last year, but—once bit, twice shy—at 
 the Jager. 
 
 It is a palatial sort of residence, on the summit of a glo ious wood, 
 commanding a view of sea, town, mountains, and woods, and when 
 illuminated with coloured lamps, Bengal lights, and electric light, 
 was like the last scene of a pantomime. It contains a ball-room that 
 would easily hold a thousand people, refreshment-room, large supper- 
 rooms, a gallery for orchestra, and several cloak-rooms. There is 
 a terrace all round it, and gardens. So we were not dependent 
 on the weather, nor the police, nor the peasants, and the grounds 
 were illuminated just the same for people to walk in, fireworks, etc. 
 Our cordon of police this year behaved very well, and were under 
 an Inspector. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, and the cotillon was a 
 splendid fantasia, as it generally is in Austria. The next day, was 
 my last fete for the animals, and at night the opera. The Captains 
 of the ships gave a dinner to Richard and me at Opgina. 
 
 Then came the Emperor’s dinner at Miramar, a dance on board 
 the Inflexible . We had a splendid ball on board the Temeraire 
 (Captain, now Admiral, Nicholson, who was an immense favourite 
 with everybody), and on the 23rd they all left, to our great regret. 
 Mr. Aubertin and Richard went to Zara, to Salona, and Spalato, 
 and came back on the 4th of July, and then we went up to stay at 
 the Jager instead of Opgina, when, having deposited them there, I 
 went back to change house. 
 
 For several days, long processions of carts were going up to the 
 new house, and Blanche and 1 and the servants worked for a month, 
 but on the 8th of July we were able to sleep in our new place, and it 
 was fit for Richard to come into on the 16th of July, 1883. Our new 
 residence was one of those old Palazzone which the Italians used 
 to build in the good old time ; but it so happens it was built by an 
 English merchant, as in old days there were English merchant- 
 princes here, but they have long since died out. It had a good 
 entrance, so that you could drive your carriage into the hall; and 
 a marble staircase took you into the interior, then a very mean 
 staircase of stone took you up to the rooms; the large ones were 
 magnificent in size, and there were twenty of all sorts. The air, the 
 light, was delicious, and the views, had they been in England, would 
 have had express trains to see them. One showed you the City 
 
43 2 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 and Adriatic at your feet; one looked out on the open sea, this 
 being a wooded promontory ; one on an arm of the sea, a little gulf 
 that looked like a lake surrounded by mountains, dotted with 
 churches, spires, and little villages; and the other looked into 
 gardens and orchards, dotted with villas. A peasant’s house close 
 to ours (about which there had been some litigation) bore a squib 
 painted on the lintel by a wag of that time—“ Carta, canta, villan 
 dorme” (“ Sing, paper; the peasant sleeps”). We also had a very large 
 garden, and campagna (orchard) below it, wherein one could take a very 
 tidy walk, and it overlooked the gulf in which the Austrian fleet always 
 anchors. This was a far better home for Richard (ailing), for getting 
 up and down stairs, for sitting in the garden, and for air, being in 
 the hot summers eight degrees cooler than the City. He unfortu¬ 
 nately, however, would have no bedroom, except the biggest room 
 
 in the house—so large that he could divide it into four parts, sleep¬ 
 ing in one, dressing in another, writing in another, and breakfasting 
 in another; but it looked direct to the north, it received the full 
 force of the Bora , it never saw the sun, and though in winter it was 
 thoroughly well warmed, everything got damp there, arms rusted, 
 and so forth, and it was not until we had been there for four years 
 that I was able to persuade him to change his abode to the best 
 room in the house, the second largest on the other side of the house, 
 which looked to the south and the west. I always feel that his 
 malady would not have made such rapid progress if he would have 
 listened to that arrangement at first. 
 
 We swam and bathed all the summer; but Richard and I found 
 for the first time that it did not agree with us, and that our long 
 swimming days were over. I was playing with a little puppy in 
 early August which bit me in play, and drew blood, but in a couple 
 of days I woke with headache and very sick, and shooting pains all 
 
Another Short Leave to London . 
 
 433 
 
 up the arm, and we thought I had got hydrophobia. The arm was 
 swelled, scarlet, very painful, and I felt light-headed. I sent for 
 a doctor, who examined the bite, and found I had been bitten by a 
 scorpion, of which our new house was full, just in the same place 
 that the tooth of the dog had broken the skin. He rubbed in 
 laudanum. I had several doses of bromide of potassium, and got all 
 right. I was stung three times after that, which produced the same 
 effect; but we soon exterminated the scorpions. 
 
 We used to read and write a great deal in the garden, and very 
 often used to spend the greater part of the day there. 
 
 We went over to Monfalcone to get rid of Richard’s flying gout, 
 and Miss H. E. Bishop again came to stay with us, and we had a 
 charming time at Dr. Gregorutti’s villa and museum, and afterwards 
 at Aquileja close by. Miss Bishop and I were delighted ; but we 
 had to hang back a little, because there was an old gentleman 
 staying at Aquileja who did not know Richard, and he was teaching 
 him very elementary science and ancient history in the museum, as 
 if he were a little boy of five; and Richard was such an awfully kind 
 man, and had such a respect for age, that he listened with as much 
 gravity and respect as if he really were five ; but he did not dare to 
 turn round and look at us. We then had a visit from Mrs. Moore, 
 the Consul’s wife from Jerusalem. We went in to Trieste to receive 
 Sir E. Malet; and then we made a little pilgrimage to Henri V.’s 
 tomb at Gorizia, and the monks gave me a bit of wood off the coffin 
 of Charles V. Richard got much better, we returned home, and 
 Lord Campbell arrived. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS OF CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 
 
 I am afraid all this “gup,” as Richard would call it, will be con¬ 
 sidered rather light and frivolous about places so well known, but I 
 want to give every word my husband has said about his life, and 
 where I think he has forgotten anything, I like to put it in after¬ 
 wards. I am afraid of its reading in a jerky style, for a friend, who 
 one day sat in a corner when we were collaborating on one of his 
 big tables, wrote the following specimen of us as we were beginning 
 our work ;— 
 
 “Burtons—Husband and Wife. 
 
 “He. Bless (sic) you, I say hold your tongue! Who w r ants your 
 opinion ? 
 
 “ She (in a smaller voice). Oh, it is all very well, but you know 
 you are like an iron machine, and I do all the wit and sparkle.* 
 
 “ He. Oh, I dare say—the sparkle of a superannuated glow-worm. 
 (Then both roared with laughter, and writing is suspended for several 
 minutes.) 
 
 “ She. Now then, go on, old iron-works, and have the first say.” 
 
 (This is really the way most of our works, when collaborating, have 
 been written.) 
 
 But I have a greater object than this. I want to prove to the world, 
 that, though he was far from the sphere suited to his immense talent 
 and services, which he had richly earned from the Governments that 
 threw him away, his life was as happy as it could be made under the 
 circumstances. It was not the being chained to a hard barren rock, 
 as is generally represented. If the Governments had shown their 
 appreciation of his services, had placed him where he ought to have 
 
 * This was a little bit of “ chaff,” because he was so afraid of saying too much 
 about himself, that he often made it heavy with knowledge and science, and 
 suppressed what was interesting as to his own share in the matter quoted.—I. B. 
 434 
 
435 
 
 Traits of Character and Opinions . 
 
 been placed, I believe I may say he would not have had a sorrow in 
 the world. It is true that the climate was bad—all our climates 
 were—but once gout had laid hold of him, it pursued him in every 
 climate, good and bad, and he suffered much. Indeed, it was one of 
 our pet jokes that we were so inured to bad climates that we were 
 generally ill in good ones. 
 
 I do not forgive the Governments for this, and less the Conservative, 
 for which he worked so hard; but they were merciful about “ leaved 
 He did not owe to them a penny of the money that enabled him to 
 do what he liked, go where he would, have what he liked, and have 
 the best of loving care, both wifely and medical, all his last years 
 He had to give half his pay to his Vice-Consul when absent, and so 
 it suited all round, but it galled him to have to ask for leave, and if 
 they could make no better use of him, they should at least have let 
 him go on full pay in 1886, when he had served them forty-four years, 
 and felt his breaking-up coming on. The only comfort I find in the 
 blow dealt him, about not getting Marocco, is, that I fear shortly 
 after he would have become unequal for the post, and I know that 
 quite latterly he was not able for more than he did. 
 
 He only made four attempts to better his official life after his 
 career was broken by recall from Damascus, and they were at the 
 latter end of his life. One was to be made a K.C.B., in 1878 ; 
 the second in 1880, to be appointed Commissioner for the Slave- 
 trade in the Red Sea—that was ten years before his death ; one 
 to succeed Sir John Drummond-Hay in Marocco, 1885—when that 
 was refused him, in his heart he threw up the Service, though 
 necessity kept him on; and in 1886 his last appeal was to be allowed 
 to retire on his full pension. 
 
 There seems to have been all along, during my husband’s life, an 
 impression that he was always craving for Government honours, and 
 complaining of neglect. This is absolutely untrue. He was too 
 proud, too manly, too philosophic. He was profoundly silent on the 
 subject. It was I who did it, I who asked, I who made interest, 
 and left no stone unturned to get him advanced to his proper deserts, 
 not from a mean vanity, nor selfish ambition, but because I saw 
 all these long years, with deep pain, what all the world knows and 
 acknowledges now , his true merits and great work; the true hero, 
 abandoned and forgotten, so surely as Gordon was, silently eating 
 his heart out by a foreign fireside, with a craving for England and 
 his fellow-men as strong as Byron’s. I alone am to blame, if blame 
 there is; and in those days the Press backed me. What harm would 
 it have done the Service, or the Foreign Office, to have given him 
 his last four crippled years, with his pension ? This reproach has 
 
436 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 been thrown in our teeth by successful people who ought to have 
 had better taste. 
 
 As I said before, a man presents different characters to his wife, 
 to his family, to her family, to his lover, to his men-friends, to 
 his boon-companions, to the public. Now I have often, in the early 
 days of my married life, watched with great interest and astonishment 
 things that in after life I became quite used to. My husband, whose 
 character naturally quite expanded with me in the privacy of our 
 domestic life, became quite another man the moment anybody else 
 entered the room. He was very natural with my immediate family, 
 my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and one or two of 
 my uncles, so that they would describe him very much in the same 
 terms that I do. With his own family he was, again, quite a different 
 man, so that they saw him in another light. With the few friends— 
 and you could count them on the fingers of one hand—with whom 
 he chose to be really intimate, he expanded to a certain amount; 
 to all those he really liked he was a first-rate and staunch friend. 
 With his boon-companions he was the centre of attraction. He 
 would sit in the middle of them, and by his gaiety, brilliant con¬ 
 versation, and sound knowledge, fascinate the whole room, but to 
 the world in general he seemed to wear a mask. He would throw 
 out his quills like a porcupine, and somebody remarked they 
 seemed to become harder every year. 
 
 When we were staying with my father, of whom he was particu¬ 
 larly fond, he would always sit by him at meals. My father kept 
 very open house, and intimates used to flock in at meal-times. 
 Sometimes, when he would be in a full flow of spirits and gaiety, 
 some outsider would walk in. He would stop suddenly, and his face 
 become like a mask, and my father at first used to ask me, “ What 
 is the matter ? Is Dick offended ? Doesn’t he like So-and-so ? ” 
 and I said, u Oh no ; that is his usual habit when a stranger comes 
 in, and he will be like that until he knows him; and if he does not 
 like him he will be always like that to him, and if he is nice he 
 will thaw.” He seemed to have a horror of any one seeing the 
 inside of him, and if he was caught saying or doing anything good, 
 he would actually blush, and hide it as if he had been caught com¬ 
 mitting a crime. 
 
 In married life we quite agreed about most things, and one was 
 that complete liberty took off all the galling chain, popularly 
 attributed by men to the monotony, dreary respectability, and con¬ 
 ventionality of the usual British home circle, which frightens so 
 many men from entering into matrimony, and which forms the anti¬ 
 dote to the cosiness, companionship, and security of home, to two 
 
437 
 
 Traits of Character and Opinions. 
 
 people who understand each other; consequently, whenever he 
 showed a tendency to wander, and to go without me, though I was 
 overjoyed when I was told I might go, I never restricted him. I 
 provided every imaginable comfort for him; I transacted all his 
 business at home, so that he might feel that he had left his second 
 self, that nothing would go amiss when he was away. When he 
 returned, he got a warm and joyous welcome, and was asked no 
 questions. He told me w T hat he liked, at his own sweet will, and I 
 knew that he always returned to me with pleasure. He smoked 
 where he liked, he brought whoever he liked into the house, his 
 friends were always welcome, and he knew he need never be ashamed 
 or afraid to ask anybody in to lunch or dinner; in short, his home was 
 his ow r n, and it was comfortable. On my part, I never wanted to go 
 away from him for an hour; but when he sent me, as he often did, 
 on various business for him, I went. But I am glad to think, now 
 that he has gone, that after my business was terminated, no amount 
 of pleasure or engagements, or a need to rest, ever held me back 
 one hour when I might have been with him. I was always on 
 board, or in the train, two hours after the work, whatever it was, 
 was done, but I am equally sure that if I had said to him, “Jemmy, 
 I am hipped, or I am bored, or I want a change,” he would have told 
 me to pack up my things and to go off for a week or a fortnight to 
 Paris or London, or anywhere else I liked. 
 
 Richard was a most moral and refined man at home in his 
 domestic life. He was not only the best husband that ever lived, 
 but the pleasantest man to live with, and the easiest. He was too 
 large-minded for all the usual small worries and Grundified con¬ 
 ventions that form the cab-shafts of domestic life in civilization. He 
 was a man with whom it was possible to combine, to keep up all the 
 little refinements of the honeymoon, which tends to preserve affec¬ 
 tion and respect, and a halo of romance, which we kept up for thirty 
 years, which is to civilized European life, just what putting one’s self 
 on a lower rank than one’s husband in Moslem life is in the East 
 —it preserves respect to both man and woman; whilst anything 
 immoral, or cruel, or dishonest called forth his anger and severity. 
 
 He was a man who, if he had not practised great self-control, 
 could have had a very violent temper; but he had it so completely 
 under him, that I have very seldom seen him in a rage, except, as I say, 
 at anything cruel or unjust, ungentlemanly or immoral. With regard 
 to domestic temper, it is a consolation to me to say that we never 
 had a quarrel in our lives, nor even cross words, although occasion¬ 
 ally women-friends worked hard to that effect. I always hold it as a 
 rule that it is the most ungenerous thing a woman can be guilty of 
 
438 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 to “ nag ” a man, because, if he is a gentleman, he is at an utter dis¬ 
 advantage—he can’t strike her. I have often seen women nagging at 
 their husbands till I have wondered why they did not knock them 
 down and jump upon them. When we married, I made a promise to 
 myself that I would never do this, and if I ever saw him a little put 
 out about anything, and felt myself getting irritable, I used to go out 
 of the room on some excuse till it had passed, and then come back, 
 and by that time we would begin to chaff about it, and it was all 
 gone. I remember once slamming the door when I went out, and I 
 heard him roaring with laughter. 
 
 He never had any mean jealousy, as a little man would have had. 
 If I got any praise he was glad, and when he knew that I had 
 striven my heart out in somebody’s service, or for some good, and 
 that I got slighted, as I often did, or a still worse return, he used to 
 be furious, and I always used to have to pretend that I liked it to 
 keep him quiet. In some few cases, let us say in the service of the 
 poor, or in the protection of animals, I was more frequently seen 
 than he was, and some ignorant person would say, “ Look, my dear, 
 that is the kind lady’s husband ; ” and he used to roar with laughing, 
 and say, “ What a capital joke for me to be known only as ‘ Lady 
 B.’s husband ’! ” Then we used to laugh, and I used to pretend to 
 be delighted with my importance. 
 
 I am glad to say there was only one will in the house, and that was 
 his. He was master and mistress both, but, like all great men, he 
 gave carte blanche for all little things; but if he once put his foot 
 down, and had he chosen to say black was white, white I knew it had 
 to be. I like that. I was only too lucky to have met my master; I 
 hate a house where the woman is at the helm. Then, like all great 
 men, he was open to reason, and if, after having agreed to his views, 
 I said later on, “I am going to do what you wish, but, before it is too 
 late, what would you think of such a plan ? ” he would reflect a 
 moment, and if my idea was really good, he would at once say. 
 “Why, of course, I never thought of it; do what you say.” But if 
 his way was best, he would say, “No, I have decided.” 
 
 His kindness of heart, and consideration for other people’s 
 feelings, nobody will ever know. In public life, and with his 
 dependents, he was severe, but very just. He was always touched 
 by any show of confidence and trust, and I must say he met it 
 everywhere. He was adored by servants, by children, by animals, 
 and by all people under him—soldiers, sailors, and tribes. When 
 any British subjects were put into prison, and he ascertained that 
 it was unjust or harsh (for instance, as the old man of ninety 
 imprisoned a whole winter at Damascus, deep snow on the 
 
Traits of Character and Opinions. 439 
 
 ground, in a narrow cell with scarce bread and water enough to 
 keep him alive, for owing a Jew sixteen shillings which he could 
 not pay, and these things are numerous), he used to go down once 
 a week to the prisons, and let them out on his own responsibility, 
 and let their accusers fight him instead of them. Hence, often 
 complaints to the Home Government against him from the rich and 
 powerful. Once a British sailor in Trieste was put in prison for 
 some drunken lark; he had good-naturedly treated a native soldier 
 to a drink, and when Jack had had enough, the native stole his 
 watch. Jack, naturally, immediately knocked him down and took it 
 from him, so he was locked up. The next day Richard got a very 
 dirty-looking note, on which was written outside, “The Council.” 
 The seal was Jack’s dirty thumb. Inside was— 
 
 “ Burtin, 
 
 “ i ham hin trobel, kum and let me haout. 
 
 “Tim Trouncer.” 
 
 Richard was delighted, and immediately went off and got the sailor 
 out, and got the authorities to put the native soldier in his place. I 
 simply give this as an illustration of the manner in which he was 
 trusted and loved. 
 
 His mode of study was as follows :— 
 
 In early life he studied everything till he had passed in it, 
 whether it was medicine, law, theology, or any other branch. In after 
 life he kept his knowledge on a steady platform, studying up all 
 things together to a certain point at so much a day, “ raising the 
 platform ” (as he called it) equally. He never passed a day without 
 reading up something in one of his twenty-nine languages; hence he 
 spoke them all without difficulty, never mixing them. He then read 
 a good deal, and took notes, and cut any useful and interesting 
 paragraphs from about ten English and four local papers. He used 
 to examine into the meaning and the etymology of words as he 
 went on, with all their bearings and different spellings; he never read 
 hurriedly, passing anything over. He wrote for a certain time in the 
 day at several different tables—-a table to each work. He kept him¬ 
 self up in all the passing events of the day, wrote his journal, copied 
 anything that struck him, and at night he always “ cooled his head ” 
 with a novel. If he were sick he would go to bed for several days 
 —went on the starvation system, banished all business from his mind, 
 and had piles of novels on chairs by his bed. One day he would get 
 up quite well and go to work again. The most remarkable thing 
 about him was, that every man who spoke to him found, that his 
 one specialty was Richard’s specialty. It seemed as if there was 
 
44 ° The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 nothing that he did not know; and as for hidden things, he seemed 
 to guess them by intuition as if he were a magician. 
 
 People will wonder if I tell them of a quality quite unsuspected 
 on the exterior. The older he grew, the greater dislike he had for 
 women who went wrong. He was always civil to them, especially 
 in his own house, but there was a coldness in his manner to 
 them, in contrast to people who were innocent, and he seemed to 
 detect them by instinct. He used to tell me that he inherited 
 this from his father, who in his old age was exactly the same, and 
 if any lady known to have affaires gallantes was coming, that he 
 used to turn round to his mother and say, “ Mind, Martha! I 
 won’t have that adulteress put by me.” He was also very indignant 
 if any lady was insulted. He especially disliked a man who boasted 
 of favours received, or let one know in any way about it—he 
 always said such a one was no Englishman; and when he heard 
 that any woman had lost her reputation through being simply kind 
 to anybody, he took her part. He said, “Those are not even the 
 men who ‘ kiss and tell,’ but the men who ‘ tell and have noi 
 kissed.’ A man when he really has any affair with a woman, if he is 
 a man, is deadly silent about it.” In his journals he has mapped 
 and classified his men into three sorts as regarding their conduct 
 with women:— 
 
 “ i. The English gentleman who kisses and does not tell. 
 
 “ 2. The snob who kisses and tells, or if he does not actually tell, 
 he insinuates with a smile and a gesture. 
 
 “ 3. Is the lying coward who tells and does not kiss, has never 
 been allowed the chance of kissing, who has a snub to avenge, or 
 who blackmails for money; who forge their own love-letters, and 
 read them not only to their friends, but at cafds and clubs. 
 
 “ The two last classes were more or less unknown in England till 
 the introduction of so much foreign blood and foreign contact. It 
 never would have occurred to the pure-blooded Englishman. Un¬ 
 fortunately, when men debase themselves by asking ladies for money 
 (there is always something generous in a woman to a man—not to 
 her own sex), they pity them, and are kind to them, and give it to 
 them, instead of doing what they ought to do—ringing the bell 
 and having the man turned out of the house. I have seen more 
 innocent women lose a spotless reputation by those acts of kind¬ 
 ness, than others by an illicit love with an English gentleman. 
 When I see a man trying to prove that a woman drinks, or that 
 she is out of her mind, or hysterical, or a liar, if he tells it to 
 me once I may forget it, but if he tells it to me twice I know 
 that that man has got something serious to hide, and that that 
 woman knows his secret. If the man is effeminate, or deformed, 
 or vain, morbid, or craving for notice and sympathy, be sure it is 
 
Traits of Character and Opinions. 441 
 
 his own state he describes, and not the woman he runs down, who 
 has snubbed him and know r s what he wants to hide.” 
 
 Of critics and reviewers he wrote as follows :— 
 
 “ They no longer review books; when they are incompetent 
 they review the author, and if the author’s politics and religion 
 do not happen to agree with the office of that paper, it admits 
 scurrilous and personal paragraphs on the authors themselves, 
 bringing up a sort of dossier of the author, which would be con¬ 
 sidered even disgraceful in a trial in a criminal court. Thirty years 
 ago this would never have been allowed. This may amuse the writer, 
 it may excite the reader, but I protest against it. Nothing can be 
 less profitable to an author or a reader than a long tirade of peevish, 
 petulant, personal comment, and unanswerable sneer. This is only 
 used by people who can shelter themselves under an anonymous 
 signature, or a Critique manque , and is quite the mark of a pretender 
 in literature and critical art, and which seldom disfigures the style 
 of a true or able critic.” 
 
 Much as he disliked unjust or coarse criticism, he delighted in 
 playful bits of chaff like the following from the writer of the 
 feuilleton in the Queen, the lady’s newspaper and Court chronicle. 
 He had simply written to the Morning Post a little chaff, telling 
 truly what he had seen at a private Davenport seance . 
 
 “ Oh, R. F. B. ! Oh, R. F. B. ! 
 
 How can you such a ninny be ? 
 
 Why peril a good name and fame 
 By playing into tricksters’ game ? 
 
 Why, when all other dodges fail, 
 
 Apply your aid to prop a tale 
 
 Not half so true as ‘ Gammer Gurton,’ 
 
 With such a name as R. F. Burton t ” 
 
 “ Gaiety,” in speaking of Echo , said— 
 
 “ The Echo is just a bit wild, 
 
 Its par is indeed a hard hitter; 
 
 In fact, it is not drawn mild, 
 
 It is a matter of Burton and bitter.” 
 
 Anent the “ Arabian Nights,” a young girl says— 
 
 “ What did he say to you, dear aunt ? 
 
 That’s what I want to know. 
 
 What did he say to you, dear aunt ? 
 
 That man at Waterloo ! 
 
 “ An Arabian old man, a Nights old man, 
 
 As Burton, as Burton can be; 
 
 Will you ask my papa to tell my mamma 
 The exact words and tell them to me ? ” 
 
44 2 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 There was another capital chaff on his “ Lusiads,” but I cannot 
 find it. 
 
 With regard to flowers, he would go out and bring one little wild 
 flower and put it in a glass of water on his table—sometimes a single 
 leaf. If anybody gave him a bouquet, or brought hothouse or garden 
 flowers and put them under his nose, he would turn away with 
 disgust; and people will no doubt laugh when I tell them that it 
 was a peculiar form of asceticism which ran like a thread (one 
 amongst many) through his life. He learnt singing, but he found his 
 own voice so disagreeable in song he would not go on with it, whilst 
 his speaking voice never had its equal—so soft and deep and 
 attractive, that every one would stop to listen as if it were a sweet- 
 toned bell. 
 
 In music he had the finest ear, so that a false note was an 
 agony to him; and he could fully appreciate all Eastern music and 
 gypsy music that would sound tuneless to an English ear, and only 
 loved the minor key. He would go to an opera to hear a new 
 prima donna, but he could not abide amateur music, and at evenings 
 at home, if anybody proposed a little music, and a girl got up and 
 nervously warbled a ballad about banks and butterflies, he used to 
 put his hand to his stomach and walk out of the room. He did not 
 allow me to cultivate much music, but if I sang melancholy music in 
 a minor key, in a soft low voice, he would throw open the door even 
 while he was at work. 
 
 He was intensely simple in his tastes. I used to busy myseit 
 greatly, Martha-like, about making his room extremely comfortable; 
 but the moment I put anything pretty in it, it used to be put in the 
 passage. He liked large plain deal tables, about six feet long and 
 three or four feet broad, with no table-cloth. He would tie a red 
 bandanna on the leg for a penwiper. He liked hard wooden 
 writing-chairs, and to have a great many of these tables—one for 
 each separate work; a small iron bedstead, with iron wove mattress, 
 no sheets, but plenty of English white soft warm blankets. He 
 would have no night-light; but would never have blinds nor shutters 
 drawn, that he might see daylight as soon as possible, and the last 
 of the twilight. His bookshelves were all of plain deal, and each 
 category upon which he was working, was kept separate. He would 
 not have his books and papers touched, and preferred dust and 
 cobwebs to their being moved. His three private rooms contained 
 only books, swords, pistols, and guns, scientific instruments, a 
 few medicines, and plenty of clothes. He loved his old clothes. 
 He would order rows of greatcoats and ulsters, and then go out in 
 a little thin coat to keep himself hardy. 
 
443 
 
 Traits of Character and Opinions. 
 
 He had a great love for boots, and sometimes had as many as 
 a hundred pairs in the house. I used to implore to be allowed to 
 give his old hats away to the cabmen, and he only laughed im¬ 
 mensely at my getting so ashamed of them; but he always had loads 
 of new clothes, and wore the old ones for preference. There was 
 one rather amusing story about a fencing-shoe. He lost one, and 
 he went and asked his bootmaker if he would make him another. 
 He said, “ No ; he would make him a pair.” He took this shoe all 
 over the world, and every bootmaker he saw he asked him to make 
 the odd shoe; but nobody ever would. At last we found out that 
 there is a superstition amongst bootmakers that if they make one 
 boot they die. He tried it for eighteen years and never succeeded, 
 and I have the odd shoe now in remembrance. 
 
 He never would keep two of anything. If he had two things of 
 a sort he gave one away, and if he became attached to any particular 
 thing he would give it away—another asceticism—nor would he 
 indulge in any perfume except good eau de Cologne. 
 
 With regard to food, he was very fond of what some people would 
 call common things ; but no man understood better how to order a 
 dinner, or what to order, and how to enjoy it, especially in Paris. 
 He used to say that French cooking and English materials and a 
 good cellar ought to keep any man alive for a hundred years; but 
 when he could not get these luxuries he preferred, not the demi- 
 semi sort of table with sham entrees , but whatever food of the 
 country the natives ate. For instance, in West Africa on the 
 coast, everything was turtle, which abounds. In Brazil it was 
 fejao and far inha, which fejoada was brown beans, covered with 
 a very savoury sauce, and coarse flour (the two mixed up together 
 are delicious); and also a kind of hot-pot, which was kept 
 continually going. In Damascus and all Eastern places it would 
 be kous-kous, of which he never tired, and kabdbs; and in Trieste, 
 risotto (a savoury rice dish with lumps of meat thrown about in 
 it), polenta (yellow meal made something like a pudding with 
 little birds in it), ravioli (Genoese paste), and so on. 
 
 But, in fact, in each place that we went to, he used native dishes, 
 native wine, and native smoke, cigars or otherwise, because, as he 
 argued, they were adapted to the climate. So when we came to a 
 pretentious hotel, and he asked for common things—let us say the 
 little black olives—the proprietor would say, “ Oh dear, no, Sir; we 
 don’t keep such common things as that; ” and he used to say, 
 “ Then send out sharp and get them.” He loved bdcald (dried 
 codfish) and saiierkraut , but they have both such a horrid smell 
 that I bargained to have them on Saturday, the day after my 
 
444 Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 reception day (Friday). One thing he could not bear, and that 
 was honey. As some people know that there is a cat in a room, 
 he also could not sit in the room with honey, and knew even if it 
 was kept in the most secret drawer or cupboard. Sometimes after 
 a dinner or lunch I have said to him, u What made you look so 
 uncomfortable ? ” And he would say, “ There was honey in the 
 room, and I thought they would think I was mad if I asked to have 
 it removed ; but I felt quite faint.” 
 
 His great treat of all was a sucking-pig, three weeks old, roasted 
 well with the crackle, stuffing, and apple-sauce; and this was always 
 ordered on our wedding-day and on his birthday. 
 
 With regard to what he drank, from the time of Richard’s attacks 
 of gout, he stuck steadily to three ounces a day of whisky-and-water 
 during the twenty-four hours. His favourite wine was port—he 
 used to call it the “ prince of wines ; ” but he was not allowed it 
 during the last three years and a half. Champagne he cared but 
 little for. I was so sorry that he could not add, being no longei 
 living, his testimony to Dr. Broadbent, when the discussion was on 
 in the papers about drink in 1891; but I can do it for him now, and 
 confirm it too. In all bad climates—West Africa, India, and else¬ 
 where—when an epidemic such as cholera or yellow fever comes 
 on, the first men to die are the water-drinkers, and when the first 
 virulence has polished them off, it clears off the drunkards, and the 
 only persons left living are the moderate drinkers. This is a positive 
 fact, and anybody who gainsays it, has had no practical experience 
 in very bad climates. 
 
 Our days used to be passed as follows :— 
 
 Of course, I am not speaking now of the last three and a half 
 years that he was sick and I broken down. In his days of health 
 and strength he suffered from insomnia, and he could not get more 
 than two or three hours’ sleep. For the first twenty-two years of my 
 married life, I made our early tea at any time from three to half-past 
 five, according to the seasons (and if I happened to go to a ball I 
 did not find it worth while to go to bed); we had tea, bread and butter, 
 and fruit. Now, if it was a home day, we would set to work first on our 
 journals, then on the correspondence, and then to our literature. I 
 did the greater part of his correspondence by dictation or directions, 
 and then copied for him or wrote with him and for him. At eleven 
 or twelve, according to the seasons, we had a regular dejeuner (lunch), 
 answering to the continental fashion. He would then go to the 
 Consulate or we went for a long walk, or I would do visits or 
 shopping, or look after the Societies of which I was President—it 
 might be for the poor or the animals. If it were summer, we would 
 
445 
 
 Traits of Character and Opinions. 
 
 take an hour’s swim; if it were winter, an hour at the fencing school. 
 In our declining days, in the summer time, we had an hour’s siesta 
 before beginning new work. At four o’clock a sit-down tea of bread 
 and butter and fruit and jam, at which most of our intimates and 
 our Staff would flock in; and then we would return to our literature 
 till evening dinner, either in garden or house. After dinner we 
 smoked and read, went to bed about ten, and read ourselves to 
 sleep. 
 
 Sometimes we were invited out, or invited friends, and this was 
 varied by long excursions, riding, driving, walking, or boating. We 
 generally knew every stick and stone for fifty miles round the place 
 we lived in, and, of course, larger travels or camp life varied again 
 from this. Camp life for me would begin two hours before dawn, 
 when I would see the horses watered, fed, groomed, and saddled, 
 and somebody else the striking of the tents, the packing and loading 
 of the baggage animals. At dawn we started, and we rode until the 
 sun was impossibly hot. We then called a halt, got shade if we could, 
 loosened the girths, watered our beasts and ourselves if possible, 
 fed them and ourselves if we could, and in all cases rested. After 
 about a couple of hours we went on again till sunset. We then 
 bivouacked for the night. If we were amongst any tribes, his diwan 
 was spread, chibouks and lemonade were prepared, and he sat in state 
 and received chiefs or notables. I used to walk off with the horses, 
 and went through the whole detail again of changing saddle and 
 bridle for clothing and halter, cooling, watering, feeding, clothing, 
 picketing, and then back to the tent to join the party in a humble 
 and unostentatious manner as would become a young man, if I were 
 posing as suck —say a son or a dependant. 
 
 Once the visits were over we had supper, and to bed, and to¬ 
 morrow da capo. 
 
 During our last three and a half years we were both broken down, 
 though I am still alive to tell the tale, and we had to forget what we 
 used to do, and train down to what we could do; but I look back 
 with comfort and pride on the reflection that during our thirty years 
 of married life we never lost a minute, and that it was all occupied 
 in trying to “soar,” and not to “drop.” The word always in his 
 mouth was “ work, work, work,” and his motto always, “ Excelsior ! ” 
 
 He had another peculiarity on which he rather prided himself. 
 In his latter years about most things he was excessively open—in 
 fact, I used to be rather surprised and sometimes worried at the way 
 in which he talked quite openly of his plans before utter strangers, 
 and corresponded freely about literature with people he had never 
 seen, and I often think that he came to a great deal of harm that 
 
446 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 way, that untrue people were apt to trade upon it; and, on the other 
 hand, on the things he really felt most, he prided himself on his 
 secrecy, and was very fond of hiding things. I used to tell him he 
 was a regular magpie, because in the end he hid them so well that 
 he used to have to come and call me to try and find them. 
 
 He used to trust me with the whole of the money, and I rendered 
 him a monthly account, and it amused him immensely to pretend 
 to people that I never allowed him any money, but sent him out 
 with half a crown. Sometimes, when he made a small literary 
 profit, he would hide it away, and it used invariably to get stolen. 
 Once he put away ;£i8 after this fashion, and our cook in our 
 absence let some boy-friend of hers come in to play with the 
 weapons; the boy poked his nose into all the drawers and found it, 
 and stole it, and after that he did not hide any more. 
 
 He never knew how much he had, if he had debts or anything. 
 I managed all that, and used to show him once a month a total of 
 what was spent and what there was to go on with. He liked money 
 for what it would bring, but he was very generous; he never gave it 
 a thought, and he spent it as fast as he got it. He gave freely. 
 He was born to be rich, and he liked to be thought rich. His 
 own motto which he composed for himself was, “ Honour, not 
 Honours;” and his chaff motto for young ladies’ albums, and which 
 he would never explain to them, was as follows:— 
 
 “ Shdwir hunna wa Khdlif hunna.” 
 
 “ Consult them ( fern .) and (do contrary) to them.” 
 
 It is very curious the ignorance with which he was occasionally 
 met. An educated man from Vienna asked him one day if he had 
 ever been to Africa, and an educated Englishwoman, after living 
 nearly eighteen years with him in Trieste, asked him the same 
 question, and was not aware that he had ever written a book. I 
 think that gives people some idea of his modesty. 
 
 He had a great objection personally to cremation, although he 
 thought it a clean and healthy thing; but he said with his usual joke 
 at a serious thing, “ I do not want to burn before I have got to; ” 
 and secondly, “ When a fellow has been quartered for seven years 
 or more close to a Hindu s?ndshan , or burning-ground, it reminds 
 him so painfully of the unpleasant smell of roast Hindi!” (which 
 pervaded his quarters when he was a struggling ensign or lieutenant). 
 He used to carry a stick, which it was a pain to lift, to exercise the 
 muscles of his arms; his Damascus pipe held a quarter of a pound 
 of tobacco; his elephant-guns, with which he used to trot about 
 Africa, of twenty-four pounds, which carried a four-ounce ball, I can 
 only just lift; and, on the other hand, and later on in life, he would 
 
Traits of Character and Opinions . 447 
 
 buy such diminutive things that they were almost more fit for a 
 doll’s house than for a man. 
 
 His handwriting, as everybody knows, was so small as to be 
 almost invisible, and he used jokingly to say that the printers struck 
 work when one of his manuscripts went in. They used to make 
 hideous mistakes, and he used to abuse them in what he jokingly 
 called “ langwidge ” all down the margins, and one day a firm sent 
 up a foreman to say that the men declined to go on if they were 
 abused in that manner. I was sent to interview the man, and we 
 both laughed so much we could hardly speak, but he said he would 
 go back and try to pacify them. Richard used always to say that 
 a wee writing, as if done with a pin, betokened a big, strong man ; a 
 bold, dashing hand, as if written with the poker, was always a tiny, 
 golden-haired, baby-faced woman. 
 
 Sometimes, when people annoyed Richard in little ways, I would 
 say, “ Never mind; why do you take notice of such little things ? ” 
 and he invariably answered, “ I am like an elephant’s trunk; I can 
 pick up a needle and root up a tree.” 
 
 In his latter days, though his eyes were as soft and as brilliant 
 and youthful as they could be, he only required spectacles just at 
 the very end to read his own writing or small print, and the oculist 
 found that he had two quite different eyes, which had been com¬ 
 plained of in Madame Gutmansthal’s picture, showing what a true 
 artist she was. The right required No. 50 convex, and the left eye 
 14 convex. He turned to me and said, “ I always told you that 
 I was a dual man, and I believe that that particular mania when 
 I am delirious is perfectly correct.” 
 
 He was a man dearly loved by all Eastern races, by children and 
 servants, and animals; he never made a mistake about character, 
 and often when I have been quite delighted with people he has 
 warned me against them, and forbidden me to have anything to do 
 with them. I have never known him wrong in his estimate. 
 
 He had a wonderful prescience of things and events, even of those 
 things of which he knew the least. I might quote a little common 
 instance of so trite a thing as the “Argentines.” I had some money 
 in Argentines—not much, only a few hundreds—and one day without 
 any rhyme or reason he ordered me to take them out. I thought to 
 myself that if a first-rate lawyer and a first-rate broker put them in, 
 that it must be right, and that Richard, being anything but a business 
 man, could not possibly know anything about it, so I did not write 
 the letter. Six months later he gave me a call; I went into his 
 room.. “ Did you ever write that letter that I desired you to write, 
 taking your money out of the Argentines?” “No, Jemmy,” I said; 
 
448 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “you know you know nothing about business, and it is a good 
 percentage.” He said very sternly, “Go and bring your pen and 
 paper directly, and sit down here, and write it before me, and I will 
 post it myself.” He dictated to me a most imperative letter to my 
 lawyer, desiring him to withdraw the money the moment he received 
 the letter, without stopping to write back any questions. It was 
 done, and my lawyer wrote me back a very aggrieved letter at my 
 want of confidence in the judgment of his broker, and bitterly com¬ 
 plained that I had lost ^14. I gave it to Richard, who was delighted. 
 A fortnight later the smash came. To show how kind-hearted he is, 
 he called me and said laughingly, “I forbid you to write and taunt 
 your lawyer; I know it is an awful temptation.” He was so ex¬ 
 tremely punctiliously conscientious in his conduct to other people, 
 so full of kindnesses and consideration for the feelings and 
 peculiarities of other people. 
 
 I know that he is appreciated already, but not yet understood. 
 His nobility of nature and chivalry belonged to the Knights of the 
 Middle Ages. His science, erudition, and broad views belong to 
 sixty years hence; his misfortune was not belonging to his Time, 
 and hence the many failures during his life. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 DECLINE IN OUR WELL-BEING. 
 
 END OF 1883. 
 
 A change now came over our circumstances for the worse, and 
 here we begin the last seven years of his life, three and a half years 
 of long gout sicknesses, on and off, without any suspicion of danger, 
 though much suffering, and three and a half years after that, when 
 every moment was a fear. He began now to notice in his journals 
 when he heard the first nightingale, when the first cuckoo note in 
 spring, and for some time past he had noticed the first swallow, and 
 the first flight of swallows, and then their departure, with increasing 
 sadness. For these twenty-two years of our married life I had made, 
 as I said, our morning tea at any time from three o’clock in the 
 morning up to half-past five, and if I came home late from any 
 party, I found it was not worth while to go to bed ; but now he began 
 to have it at six and 6.30. On the 16th Miss Bishop had to go. 
 
 We went up very much to Op^ina, where Richard got better and 
 could walk. Mrs. Learmouth and family came to Trieste for a 
 while, and then Mr. Steigand came to stay with us, and our old 
 friend and Governor, Baron Pino. 
 
 He notices the death of Captain Mayne Reid on the 31st of 
 October. 
 
 On the 31st of November Richard really got so bad he alarmed 
 me, for he nearly fainted, and I got the master of the Opgina Inn 
 (Daneu) to help me to bring him down to Trieste, and had rooms 
 prepared on the other side of our house; and about four hours after, 
 in his new warm room, he got perfectly well. It was a curious kind 
 of gout, because he would seem to be in agonies of pain, and after 
 trying no end of things, one would suddenly hit upon something 
 quite simple that took it all away. He was well enough in a day or 
 two to lunch on board the Bokhara , and also the P. and O. Gwalior. 
 We got tired of consulting doctors, and we sent for the wife of tne 
 
 2 F 449 
 
450 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Schinder (the dog-slaughterer), who lived up in the forest of Prevald, 
 and was reported to be a wise woman. She said that Richard had 
 mandrone , or flying pains. The worst was, that as soon as he was a 
 little bit better he would forget what he had suffered, and commit 
 some little imprudence, like going out in the Bora ; it was so hard 
 for him to believe he ever could be an invalid. 
 
 We went out a great many drives, which did him more good than 
 anything. Sometimes he would pay visits. We used to go to 
 Miramar and sit out in the gardens. 
 
 I found the best way was to take him about a great deal to different 
 places. I always contrived that he saw plenty of people, asking 
 amusing people to dine or breakfast. I got then an attack of peri¬ 
 tonitis that kept me in bed for a week; fortunately Richard and I 
 were never ill at the same time, and I was up and able to attend 
 him when he got his gout back again. 
 
 In the night of the 19th, the Admiralty (situated below our house) 
 took fire, and the roof was burnt out. 
 
 We were able also to keep our St Silvester with the Gutmansthals, 
 but so many people had gone away, that it was not the same as 
 the year before. 
 
 On the 6th of December, 1883, he puts the following notice in 
 his journal in red ink :— 
 
 “ To-day, eleven years ago, I came here; what a shame ! ! 1 ” 
 
 He notices the death of Richard Doyle the nth of December. 
 
 1884. 
 
 At this time we were far from being well off, and we were obliged 
 to incur many expenses for Richard’s illness; besides which, I 
 hoped he would get change of air. It may be imagined, therefore, 
 that when the news of the death of an aunt by marriage who did 
 not care very much for me, and whom I very seldom saw, reached 
 me that I received the intelligence that she had left me a legacy of 
 ^500 with pleasure. All the early part of the year we had a bad 
 time of it. Richard had insisted on going back to the big room, 
 and once he had put on a damp coat I always think that foreign 
 doctors do not understand English constitutions, which can never 
 stand starving, and they do always starve you. He went on alter¬ 
 nately better and worse. 
 
 In all these attacks I never left his room, day or night, and I 
 frequently used to disobey orders as to diet. When he was free 
 from pain he was immensely cheerful, and used to laugh like a 
 schoolboy at his doctor, who would speak English for the sake of 
 
45i 
 
 Decline in our Well-being. 
 
 learning and practising it. “What him eat to-day?” “Pheasant, 
 doctor ! ” He plunged his hands into his hair as if he were going 
 to tear it all out. “ What for you give him the wild ? ” (German, 
 das wild , meaning game). One day after about six months he said, 
 “You sail give him ten drops of rum in a tumbler of water for his 
 dinner ! ” Peals of laughter came from the sick-bed. “ Ach ! das 
 ist gut to hear him laugh like dat? Vat for he laugh ?” I answered, 
 “ Because he gets a brandy-grog fit for a sailor every night, or he 
 would have been a dead man long ago.” More tearing of the hair 
 and real displeasure. When he got over that illness he was a 
 veritable skeleton; his legs were like two sticks of sealing-wax. 
 
 On the 4th of February Richard lost the use of his legs. After 
 this he got better and better, and we were quite cheerful till the 
 14th of March. He had been moved on to a divan in the drawing¬ 
 room, upon which we had made a bed, for change of air. He was 
 so well that I thought I might take a walk in the garden, when a 
 servant came flying after me to tell me that he was faint. I rushed 
 up again, and found him very bad, and sent off for two doctors. 
 They gave him twenty-five drops of digitalis three times at 
 intervals of fifty minutes, and for two days and nights I never left 
 his side. What the doctors had feared was a clot of blood arising 
 to the heart, and I shall never forget the anguish of that time. 
 What it really was, though we did not know it then, was flatulence 
 round the heart, which would have been brought away by drinking 
 boiling water; but after two days he was so well that we could 
 wheel him about the house in a chair. The following day he had 
 very bad attacks of the same, and then he seemed to get quite well. 
 He again had one bad attack, and then all was well. From that 
 he rallied wonderfully, and he began to walk. 
 
 On the 27th of March he was allowed to go out for a drive, but 
 -even that gave him a little fresh cold. He was allowed then to sit 
 in the garden. I had a machine constructed to carry him up and 
 down stairs, and a wheel-chair in the garden, so that he could drive 
 about and get out and walk a few steps with the help of my arm 
 and a stick, if he liked. 
 
 We had a present from home of good claret and good port. He 
 was awfully fond of port, and when he got his first glass he said, 
 “ Ah ! that puts life into a man.” Mr. George Paget came, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Phipps from the Embassy in Vienna, and Mr. Fahie 
 from Persia, and we took drives. Richard was able to tidy his 
 books again. The doctor came for the last time (regularly) on the 
 8th of April. He then went through a course of sulphur baths in 
 the house. 
 
452 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 During this eight months’ illness he had had a bad attack of pain, 
 and I had a mattress by his bed, and if he slept, I slept; if he was 
 awake, I was by him; but I had been thirty-six hours on duty, with¬ 
 out taking my clothes off, trying to alleviate the pain by various things 
 until he slept. I then threw myself on the mattress and slept a 
 dead sleep, and, as he told me afterwards, he woke up with the pain 
 and groaned, and heard a sleepy voice issuing from my mattress, 
 saying, “ Oh, offer it up, dear; offer it up.” I was unconscious of 
 all this, but when after some hours I really woke, I thought he was 
 swearing very hard, but at last I distinguished him saying exactly 
 in the same tones as if he were swearing, “ Offer it up, dear; offer it 
 up.” I asked him what he meant, and then he told me, and he said 
 that he had laughed so much that it had quite done him good, and 
 he often afterwards used this expression instead of rapping out an 
 oath when the pain came. 
 
 All this time until the 4th of June, Richard was able to be wheeled 
 out, and to walk and sit in the garden, and to take drives with me. 
 He was very patient, very gentle, and very cheerful too, except when 
 he was actually suffering, and we observed rigidly all the doctor’s 
 daily orders, whether sulphur baths or medicines, only reserving the 
 right of plenty of plain wholesome food, and some claret, a very 
 occasional glass of port, a nightly glass of grog, and the very 
 essence of beef by simmering the meat in a jar put into a saucepan 
 of boiling water, or squeezing the meat in a lemon squeezer, and 
 plenty of Brand’s strengthening things for invalids. I began to per¬ 
 ceive that the drainage left much to be desired, and I was very 
 troublesome to my poor dear landlord, who was a personal friend; 
 but he always stoutly maintained that the smells were in my nose, 
 and that he could not pull down the house to please me, and it 
 was three years before I got what I wanted. 
 
 Richard notes with sorrow the death of Admiral Glyn on 
 February 16th. 
 
 On the 1st of April, 1884, he began his “Arabian Nights” (Cal¬ 
 cutta edition), taking it up from the material already collected with 
 Dr. Steinhaiiser thirty years before, and I volunteered to work the 
 financial part of it. His journal shows him to be very sorry for the 
 death of Triibner, of the great publishing house in Ludgate Hill, 
 and also for Charles Reade, the novelist and dramatist, who was a 
 good friend of ours, and who died on April 10th. 
 
 On the 15th of April, 1884, we had to call in an amanuensis to 
 begin to copy the “ Arabian Nights,” as, what with attending Richard 
 night and day, and doing all his correspondence and business, I got 
 no time to copy. 
 
RICHARD BURTON IN IIIS BEDROOM AT TRIESTE. 
 
 Here he began his “ si rat/an Nightsist April 1884. In this room he died on 20 th October 1890. 
 
 By A Ibert Letchford. 
 
Decline in our Well-being . 453 
 
 In May he obtained leave of absence, but was too weak to leave 
 for a little while after its arrival An incident happened which it 
 is perhaps silly to relate, but which is uncomfortable when you have 
 sick and dying people in the house. One girl in the house had 
 died of consumption, and my husband was lying ill The day 
 the girl died, all the bells in the house kept ringing without hands, 
 and continued for about ten days, to our great discomfort, and there 
 were blows on the doors, as if somebody was going round with a 
 stick. We could see the bell-pulls moving, but no hands touching 
 them. It caused the deceased girl’s family great fear, and was very 
 uncanny. 
 
 We were able to start on the 4th of June. We had a very trying 
 journey to Graz, which is halfway to Vienna; the train was a regular 
 buck-jumper. Richard was quite done up three or four hours before 
 arriving. On getting out he could hardly stand, and his head was 
 whirling. The Hotel Daniele was only just across the road, and lean¬ 
 ing on me he managed to get there; I left the baggage at the station 
 till afterwards. We stayed the whole of the next day to rest him, 
 but had a very miserable time of it, and then went on to Vienna, 
 which he bore very well, for it was a quiet, agreeable journey, but he 
 had had quite enough of it when we arrived at the Erzherzog Karl 
 Hotel. 
 
 Colonel Primrose came, and we saw Sir Augustus and Lady Paget, 
 and our friends the Pinos. Two days afterwards Richard began to 
 feel quite different, and he enjoyed so much seeing Sir Augustus 
 and Lady Paget. She is one of the most charming, the cleverest, 
 and most sympathetic of women. We left Vienna on Tuesday, the 
 10th, by an early train, and he was able to bear a pleasant journey 
 of nine hours to Marienbad, although I must say that the only two 
 objects of interest between Vienna and Marienbad are Prince Schwar- 
 zenberg’s castle and the storks sitting on their nests on the cottage 
 roof-tops. We went to Klinger’s Hotel, and here he rapidly pro¬ 
 gressed, and went through the cure. We found Miss Bishop here, 
 which was a great pleasure. She took us in hand, and literally drove 
 us out for long walks. Richard was delighted with the wild straw¬ 
 berries, myosotis, buttercups, and daisies, and enjoyed Marienbad 
 very much. I found the Society for Protection of Animals, founded 
 in 1882, very flourishing, and gave the dog-prizes. When we went for 
 the first time on the promenade to hear the band, he looked round 
 for a minute, and said, “ My God, what a lot of Jews ! Why, the whole 
 of Noah’s Ark is turned out here! ” And they really did look just like 
 the little figures out of Noah’s Ark. Mr. J. J. Aubertin now arrived, 
 so that we were four in party. From here we visited Konigswort, 
 
454 Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Prince Metternich’s place. It was a very pleasant life, strolling 
 about in the forests, reading together, and occasionally having a 
 professor to read German to us, making occasional expeditions, such 
 as to Podhorn and Tepl. We made one excursion to Eger to see 
 the Schloss, and the small interesting collection, which details the 
 whole tragedy of Wallenstein at the Rathhaus. 
 
 A very interesting and peculiar person we used always to meet 
 every year, was a second Cuthbert Bede from Oxford, whose real 
 name was Mr. Robert Laing. 
 
 On return after the cure, we went back for a few days to Vienna, 
 and then left as if we were returning to Trieste, but descending at 
 Poltschach, from which is a pleasant drive to Roitsch-Sauerbrunn 
 in Steiermark, where we did a nach-kur. This place is not at all 
 well known. There is no town, but there are rows of houses for 
 patients, bathing and drinking places, a good Kur-saal, a Catholic 
 chapel, a good restaurant, a large garden and shady walks 
 running between the two rows of buildings, where the band plays 
 twice a day. It is surrounded by lovely woods and mountains, and a 
 large level country to drive upon. It is very pleasant in summer. 
 You never see any English there, but plenty of Austrians, Italians, 
 Hungarians, Slavs, and Jews. We there had the pleasure of con¬ 
 stantly seeing Monsignor Strossmayer, who is an ultra-Slav and a sort 
 of Prince Archbishop, almost a small Pope in his own country. We 
 saw a great deal also of the Baroness von Vay Wurmbrandt, the 
 great spiritualist. Here we stayed till the 3rd of September, leading 
 the pleasant idle life usual at that kind of bath. We found a bath- 
 chair which accompanied us on all our walks; we drove out, made 
 excursions, and read and wrote under the trees. 
 
 There were earthquakes all this month. The next sad thing was 
 that Everard Primrose wrote to ask us to take his passage for Egypt, 
 that he wanted to go to the Soudan; and he came down with 
 Colonel Gerard, stayed a day and a night at Trieste, and we saw 
 them off to join the Camel-corps in the Soudan on the 3rd of October. 
 He promised on his return to stay a fortnight with us, as we had so 
 often stayed with him. We never saw him again. He ought never 
 to have gone; but his high spirit and breeding would not let him 
 be a drawing-room soldier when there was service going on. A 
 delicate man, and accustomed to luxury (especially such a life as 
 that of military attache at Vienna), left him no strength to throw off 
 fever, under such hardships and disadvantages as were his lot, when 
 it took hold of him. Again we went for a short visit to Monfalcone, 
 Duino, and Aquilea. 
 
455 
 
 Decline in our Well-being. 
 
 After having seen all our friends off, we went up to Opgina, where 
 I sent out thirty-four thousand circulars for the “ Arabian Nights.” 
 
 Towards the end of December, Richard had a fresh breaking out 
 of the gout; we found that rubbing him with cod-liver oil did him 
 a lot of good. 
 
 1885. 
 
 All this January and part of February Richard was ill, and I began 
 to implore him to throw up the Service, and to live where best suited 
 him, even in a small way, as of course we should have been very, 
 very poor, and at any rate, I said, “ One winter may be an acci¬ 
 dent, but two winters is a caution; and you must never winter here 
 again.” He said, “No; I quite agree with you there; we will 
 never winter here again; but I won’t throw up the Service until I 
 either get Marocco, or they let me retire on full pension.” And 
 I then said, “ When we go home that is what we will try for, that 
 you may retire now on full pension, which will only be six years 
 before your time.” 
 
 We were now writing the index of the “ Arabian Nights,” I at 
 dictation. 
 
 On Thursday, the 12th, I said to him, “Now mind, to-morrow is 
 Friday , the i$th ; it is our unlucky day, and we have got to be very 
 careful.” 
 
 But when Friday, the 13th, came, we heard of poor Gordon’s death, 
 which had taken place Monday, January the 26th, and they had 
 been keeping it from us. We both collapsed altogether, were ill all 
 day, and profoundly melancholy. I remembered, too, that at the 
 time that Gordon had been sent out, it was a toss up whether 
 Richard or Gordon should go. Richard had just begun to break 
 up (he was fifty-five), and I knew that if he was sent he would get 
 up out of his sick bed to go, and think himself perfectly capable 
 of undertaking the expedition; and I remember writing privately to 
 the Foreign Office, to let them know how ill he was. Richard 
 at that time expressed a hope that they would not send Gordon 
 without five hundred soldiers to back him, and the neglect of this, 
 whether from economy, or whether Gordon refused it, was the 
 sole cause of the failure. Richard could talk of nothing else, 
 and he fretted a great deal about it. In one of the illustrated 
 papers there was a picture of Gordon lying deserted in the desert, 
 his Bible in one hand, his revolver in the other, and the vultures 
 sitting around. When Richard saw it he said with great emotion, 
 “ Take it away! I can’t bear to look at it. I have had to feel 
 that myself; I know what it is.” But the more the news came 
 in, the less he believed in Gordon’s death, and he died believing 
 
456 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 that Gordon (disgusted at the cruel treatment of being abandoned 
 to his fate) had escaped by the missing boat, and would come out 
 Congo-wards, but that he would never let himself be redis¬ 
 covered, nor reappear in England—and Gordon was quite the man 
 to do it. 
 
 Spring comes very soon in Trieste, and we were able to sit and 
 walk out a great deal in the garden. We now had a very nice 
 telephone, which put us in comfortable communication with the 
 whole of the City, and it was very useful, as we lived out of and 
 above it. 
 
 One morning in April I had a letter, a very cheerful one, from 
 Everard Primrose, to say that he expected to be back in April, as he 
 was very seedy, and that he would come and stay with us for a 
 fortnight en route home. I was just preparing his room, and looking 
 round to see if I could do anything to make it prettier, when 
 a telegram was put into my hand announcing his death. Richard 
 and I were both terribly cut up, and we did not go for a very long 
 time to Vienna, for we had lost our best friend there, and it would 
 have made it too melancholy. On the 9th of May he rejoices 
 that Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald, Director of Public Accounts in Egypt, is 
 made a K.C.M.G., as “he married the elder daughter of our dear 
 friend Lord Houghton,” adding, “ Dear old fellow, how pleased he 
 will be! ” 
 
 Richard having obtained “ leave” (after a second attack of gout), 
 and as I was the proud possessor of ^500, we started gaily for 
 London on the 19th of May, and went on board the Tarifa for 
 Venice; it was a Cunarder. Here we saw a great number of 
 friends, and met Lord Lytton at Lady Layard’s. We were neither 
 of us well, in different ways, and Richard was ordered to go by 
 sea, and I by land; so, after a couple of days at Venice, I saw 
 Richard off in the Tarifa for Liverpool, and I prepared to come 
 over the Mont Cenis to London. 
 
 Now, we had come to London partly for Richard’s health, and partly 
 to bring out the “ Arabian Nights.” The translating, writing, and 
 correcting devolved upon him ; the copying fell to a lady amanuensis; 
 the financial part devolved upon me. It was said that there was no 
 room for a new edition, but every previous edition was imperfect, and 
 mostly taken from Professor Galland’s French version, made a hun¬ 
 dred and eighty years ago, and adapted for civilization. This in itself 
 was an abridgment, and turns a most valuable ethnographical work 
 into a collection of fairy tales. Mr. Torrens was the nearest to the 
 original, but he only got as far as fifty tales. Mr. Lane, whose works 
 are so popular, has only given us half the tales, and he substituted 
 
Dcrime in our Well-being. 457 
 
 popular fairy tales. Mr. John Payne was excessively good, but he 
 was limited to five hundred copies, and his profession forbade his 
 being quite so daring as Richard. 
 
 Richard’s object was not only to produce an absolutely literal 
 translation, but to reproduce it in an absolutely Arabian manner. 
 He preserved the strict divisions of the Nights, he kept to the long 
 unbroken sentences in which the composer indulged. Being perfect 
 master of both languages, he could imitate the rhythmic prose which 
 is a characteristic of the Arabic. He furnished it only to scholars, 
 and at a prohibitive price. He gave a most literal rendering of the 
 Oriental phrases and figures. Richard called it the “ Walling of the 
 Horizon,” the orientation being strictly preserved, instead of being 
 Anglicized. The choicest phrases, the sacred preservation of them, 
 speaks for itself. He kept the swing, the wave of Arab poetry, which 
 one can only liken in its melancholy to the sound of an FEolian harp 
 balanced on a tree-branch. He loved his work, and he was sorry 
 when it was finished. 
 
 In many of the stories of other translators, he used to say, “ the 
 very point which enables you to understand the action is left 
 out, because the translator was afraid of Mrs. Grundy. Arab ideas 
 of morality are different from European, and if we are to under¬ 
 stand the Arabs, and if the 1 Nights ’ are to be of any value from 
 an anthropological point of view, it can only be written as I have 
 written it. I think it is such a disgrace that our Rulers should rule 
 so many million Easterns, and be as ignorant of them as if they 
 lived in a far-away planet; and it is to give them a chance of knowing 
 what they are about, that I leave this legacy to the Government. I 
 have not only preserved the spirit of the original, but the mccha?iique. 
 The metrical portion has been very difficult, because Arab poetry 
 is quite different to English. An Arab will turn out sentence after 
 sentence before he comes to his rhyme. 
 
 “ I don’t care a button about being prosecuted, and if the matter 
 comes to a fight, I will walk into court with my Bible and my 
 Shakespeare and my Rabelais under my arm, and prove to them 
 that, before they condemn me, they must cut half of them out, and 
 not allow them to be circulated to the public.” 
 
 Richard then found that it was a popular idea that “Ali Baba 
 and the Forty Thieves” and “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” 
 belonged to the “ Arabian Nights,” whereas they do not, and he 
 found a collection of similar tales sufficient to produce six Supple¬ 
 mental volumes. At first I rather objected to his risking the 
 “Arabian Nights,” from a passage written by himself in his “First 
 Footsteps in East Airica,” page 36— 
 
458 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 “ When Arabs are present, I usually recite or read a tale from 
 ‘ The Thousand and One Nights/ that wonderful work so often 
 translated, so much turned over, and so little understood at home. 
 The most familiar book in England, next to the Bible, it is one 
 of the least known, the reason being that about one-fifth is utterly 
 unfit for translation ; and the most sanguine Orientalist would not 
 dare to render literally more than three-quarters of the remainder, 
 consequently the reader loses the contrast—the very essence of the 
 book—between its brilliancy and dulness, its moral putrefaction and 
 such pearls as— 
 
 ‘ Cast the seed of good works on the least fit soil ; 
 
 Good is never wasted, however it may be laid out,’ 
 
 And in a page or two after such divine sentiment, the ladies of 
 Baghdad sit in the porter’s lap, and indulge in a facetiousness which 
 would have killed Pietro Aretino before his time.” (This was written 
 jn 1855, thirty years before.) 
 
 But, on his explaining to me his new idea about its usefulness, its 
 being so good for the Government, I was glad, and I helped him in 
 every way I possibly could. It was also agreed, in order to secure 
 him against piracy, and in order not to limit to a thousand people 
 what the many should enjoy, that they should not lose this deep 
 well of reading and knowledge, beside which the flood of modern 
 fiction flows thin and shallow, that I should reproduce all my 
 husband’s original text, excluding only such words as were not 
 possible to put on the drawing-room table. Mr. Justin Huntly 
 McCarthy, jun., helped me a little, so that out of the 3215 
 original pages, I was able to copyright three thousand pages of my 
 husband’s original text, and only exclude two hundred and fifteen. 
 Richard forbade me to read them till he blotted out with ink the 
 worst words, and desired me to substitute, not English, but Arab 
 Society words, which I did to his complete satisfaction. The lan¬ 
 guage is so wonderful, the expression so graceful, the rendering of 
 thought as well as words so accurate, the poetry so fresh and charm¬ 
 ing. Orientalists tell me that they learnt more Orientalism by these 
 volumes than by years of hard study, and that it greatly facilitated 
 their study of Arabic. He translated from the Calcutta edition, 
 the Boulak, the Hindostani, and the Breslau. The Wortley Montagu 
 manuscript was refused him by the Bodleian Library, even under the 
 charge of Dr. Rost, but he got one in Paris. 
 
 Richard said that “ a student of Arabic, who reads the ‘ Nights ’ 
 with his version, will not only be competent to join in any conversa¬ 
 tion in Arabic, but to read the popular books and newspapers, and 
 to write letters to his friends; he will also possess a repertoire of 
 Arab manners and customs, beliefs and practices, which are not 
 
459 
 
 Decline in our Well-being. 
 
 found in books. My endeavour was to give them the original text 
 without detracting from its merits.” This grand Arabian work I 
 consider my husband’s “ Magnum Opus; ” it is a masterpiece ; it is 
 the real thing, not the drawing-room tales which have been called the 
 “ Arabian Nights ” for so long. The home student can realize what 
 the Arab is, and understand those people, Egyptians, Syrians, and 
 others, of whose “life behind the scenes” Britons know so very little. 
 
 We had no reason, in a financial point of view, to regret our 
 venture. A publisher offered Richard ^500 for it, but I said, “No, 
 let me do it.” It was seventeen months’ hard work, but we found (no 
 matter how) the means of printing and binding and circulating. 
 We were our own printers and our own publishers, and we made 
 between September, 1885, and November, 1888, sixteen thousand 
 guineas, six thousand of which went towards publishing, and ten 
 thousand into our own pockets; and it came just in time to give my 
 husband the comforts and luxuries and freedom that gilded the five 
 last years of his life. When he died there were four florins left, 
 which I put in the poor-box. 
 
 What all the World said. 
 
 Athenaeum , February 6th, 1886. 
 
 “TO RICHARD F. BURTON. 
 
 “ On his Translation of the ‘ Arabian Nights .* 
 
 “ Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad ; but far 
 Eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears, 
 
 Cloud, rain, and splendour as of Orient spears, 
 
 Keen as the sea’s thrill toward a kindling star 
 The sundawn breaks the barren twilight’s bar 
 And fires the mist and slays it. Years on years 
 Vanish, but he that hearkens eastward hears 
 Bright music from the world where shadows are. 
 
 “ Where shadows are not shadows. Hand-in-hand 
 A man’s word bids them rise and smile and stand 
 And triumph. All that glorious Orient glows 
 Defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land 
 
 Trembles ; but all the heaven is all one rose, 
 
 Whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows. 
 
 “Algernon Charles Swinburne.” 
 
 As soon as Richard arrived, in June 1885, he put himself under 
 Dr Foakes, in South Street, for gout. On the 29th of June there was 
 a meeting at the University of London. Richard and Mr. James, the 
 African traveller, spoke. 
 
 The first volume of the “ Arabian Nights ” came out on the 12th 
 of September, 1885, and the sixteenth volume, the last of the 
 supplemental, on the 13th of November, 1887; thus in a period 
 of three years we had produced twenty-two volumes — the ten 
 originals, the six supplemental, and my six volumes, i.e. so-called 
 mine. 
 
460 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 On the 21 st of October, 1885, he applied for Marocco, hearing that 
 Sir John Drummond-Hay was about to retire, and it was the one 
 thing he had stayed on in the service, in the hopes of getting. His 
 letter was as follows :— 
 
 “My Lord, 
 
 “ Having been informed that Sir John Drummond-Hay 
 proposes retiring from Marocco, I venture to think that your Lord- 
 ship will consider that my knowledge of Arabic, and of the East, 
 perhaps would make me a suitable successor to him. I need hardly 
 remind you that, during a term of twenty-five years in the Consular 
 Service, I have never received a single step of promotion, nor, 
 indeed, have I ever applied for it. 
 
 “ I am, etc., 
 
 “ Richard F. Burton.” 
 
 This was backed up by about fifty of the best names in England, 
 and it seemed as if it was as good as promised to him. 
 
 On the 21st of November Richard started for Marocco in For- 
 wood’s steamer Mequinez , from St. Katherine’s Wharf. I accom¬ 
 panied him on board. He was advised to go, and to leave me to 
 bring out some volumes of the “Arabian Nights.” I brought out 
 up to No. 7, which were corrected ready for press, and joined 
 him in January. He had for fellow - passengers the Perdicaris 
 family of Tangier, and Mrs. Leared, wife of a former friend, Dr. 
 Leared, Fakhri Bey, and others. It seems to have been squally. 
 They were eight days getting to Gibraltar. At Gibraltar he saw Mr. 
 Melford Campbell, who was full of the lost treasure in Vigo Bay. 
 He thought he alone knew the secret of where the lost treasure was, 
 and he was too jealous to combine with Richard in raising the 
 means of finding it. Seeing that, Richard drew back, and whatever 
 secret there was on his side, perished with him, as he died some 
 time after. On the 30th Richard arrived at Tangier. 
 
 His journals do not show him to have been very taken with 
 Marocco. Before he had been there two days, everybody ran to 
 him with all their little political intrigues and private spites. There 
 did not seem to be two people in the place who really liked or 
 trusted one another. The principal house to go to for grandeur was, 
 of course, Sir John Drummond-Hay’s; but the only really enjoyable 
 house was Perdicaris’, who had a semi-European, semi-Oriental 
 establishment, and the Oriental part was a dream. He painted very 
 beautifully, was very talented, and his devotion to his wife was 
 ideal. In December Richard found the air simply splendid. How¬ 
 ever, he was not long in Tangier before he began to feel gouty again. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OUR LAST APPEAL. 
 
 1886. 
 
 I was to have started, by Richard’s orders, soon, but I got a 
 telegram from him saying there was cholera, and that I could get no 
 quarantine at Gibraltar, and should not be allowed to land. But I 
 at once telegraphed to Sir John Adye, who was then commanding at 
 Gibraltar, and asked if he would allow a Government boat to take 
 me off the P. and O. and put me straight on the Marocco boat; 
 and received a favourable answer, to my great relief. I wanted to 
 get to Richard for our silver wedding. 
 
 At last the business for which I was left behind permitted me to 
 start, and I wished my dear father good-bye, as my husband had 
 done; but, though I left with a great misgiving, I entertained a 
 strong hope that I should see him again—as the doctors assured me 
 I should. I went down to Gravesend, and embarked on one of the 
 floating palaces, the P. and O. Ballarat. The Bay was bad, and I 
 was delighted with the pluck of my Italian maid Lisa, who had never 
 been at sea before. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as she looked 
 through the closed porthole, and she kept saying, “ There is such a 
 big one (wave); we must go down this time.” She would hardly 
 believe my laughing and saying, “ Oh no, you won’t! You will float 
 like a duck over it in a minute—we always do that here.” The 
 amusing part was her scorn of the Triestines when she got back, 
 when she used to say, “ Sea! do you call that a sea ? Why, the waves 
 are no bigger than the river in England.” 
 
 About four days from England the weather was delightful. We 
 steamed into “Gib.” at seven a.m. Richard came off in a boat, 
 wearing a fez, and Captain Baker kindly came for me also with a 
 Government launch, into which Richard changed. We called on 
 Sir John Adye to thank him, and on a great many other friends, 
 and we went to S. Rocca. We had a delightful dinner at Sir John 
 Adye’s, and met everybody. 
 
 I was very glad to arrive at Gibraltar, and to be with Richard, for 
 in my opinion he did not look at all well, being very puffy in the 
 
 < 461 
 
462 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 face, and exceedingly low-spirited; but he got better and better, as 
 he always did as soon as he was with me.* 
 
 On the 5th of February, 1886, a very extraordinary thing happened 
 —it was a telegram addressed “Sir Richard Burton.” He tossed it 
 over to me and said, “ Some fellow is playing me a practical joke, or 
 else it is not for me. I shall not open it, so you may as well ring 
 the bell and give it back again.” “ Oh no ! ” I said; “ I shall open 
 it if you don’t.” So it was opened. It was from Lord Salisbury, con¬ 
 veying in the kindest terms that the Queen, at his recommendation, 
 had made him K.C.M.G. in reward for his services. He looked very 
 serious and quite uncomfortable, and said, “ Oh ! I shall not accept 
 it.” I said, “You had better accept it, Jemmy, because it is a certain 
 sign that they are going to give you the place ” (Tangier, Marocco). 
 
 On the 28th of January, having been co-founder and President of 
 the Anthropological Institute, he was now made Vice-president, in 
 consequence of being always absent abroad. 
 
 This is the account he gives of Tangier in his journal:— 
 
 “ It is by no means a satisfactory place for an Englishman. The 
 harbour town was in the same condition as Suez was during the first 
 quarter of the nineteenth century ; and it was ruled by seven diplo¬ 
 matic kinglets, whose main, if not sole, work or duty was for each 
 and every one to frustrate any scheme of improvement, or proposal 
 made by any colleague or rival ruler. The capabilities of the place 
 were enormous, the country around was a luxuriant waste awaiting 
 cultivation, and all manner of metals, noble and ignoble, abounded in 
 the adjacent mountains—the maritime Atlas. The first necessity 
 was a railroad connecting the seaboard with Fez, the capital; but 
 even a telegraph wire to Gibraltar, although a concession was known 
 to have been issued, had not been laid, apparently because the rate 
 of progress would have been too rapid. The French were intriguing 
 for a prolongation of the Algerine railways; the Spanish sought 
 possession of one or two more ports, as a basis of operations. The 
 Italians kept their keen eyes ever open for every chance. Even 
 Portugal remembered his Camoens, and his predictions about this 
 part of the world. The Germans were setting all by the ears, and 
 we English confined ourselves to making the place a market for sup¬ 
 plying Tommy Atkins with beef. The climate in winter is atrocious 
 for one seeking dry desert air. More than once it has rained three 
 days without intermission; once it has snowed. Tangier is but the 
 root of a land-tongue projecting north between the Atlantic and the 
 Mediterranean, hence both east wind and west wind are equally 
 disagreeable. It is a Sommer-Frisch for Gibraltar; briefly, it is a 
 Desert within cannon-shot of Civilization.” 
 
 * It might be remarked, “ Why did he ever leave me behind ? ” Sometimes it 
 was a press of double business, requiring two people in different places, but 
 mostly it was lack of money. If there was enough for one, he went; when there 
 was enough for two, we both went.—I. B. 
 
Our Last Appeal. 463 
 
 We crossed over to Marocco in the Jebel Tarik, and a very curious 
 journey it was. It was a flat-bottomed cattle tug, only fit for a river. 
 The sea was exceedingly heavy. The machinery stopped, they said, 
 for want of oil; seas washed right over, and she rolled right round in 
 the water, so that it was a passage of five hours instead of two. It 
 actually snowed—a thing that the natives had never seen within 
 the memory of man, and quite alarmed them. The Sharifah called 
 on me; she was the Englishwoman who married the Sherif some 
 years ago. 
 
 We made delightful excursions both in Marocco and about 
 Gibraltar. We saw a great deal of Sir John and Lady Drummond- 
 Hay, who was a very sweet woman, and their charming daughter, 
 Miss Alice Drummond-Hay. We thought the Embassy a miserable 
 little house, after the Palazzone at Trieste. The streets were muddy 
 and dirty, all uphill, all horribly stony, like Khaifa. I thought the 
 people in Tangier itself, looked poor, miserable, dirty, diseased, and 
 trodden down, and you must go out very far to find anything like a 
 fine race. After Damascus, and all the other Eastern places I had 
 seen, I thought it horrid, and was sorely disappointed—I had heard 
 it so raved about; but I would willingly have lived there, and put 
 out all my best capabilities, if my husband could have got the place 
 that he wanted, and for which I had employed every bit of interest 
 we had on his side or mine to obtain, but in vain. I sometimes 
 now think that it was better so, and that he would not have lived so 
 long, had he had it, for he was decidedly breaking up. The climate 
 did not appear to be the one that suited him, and the anxiety and 
 responsibilities of the post might have hurried on the catastrophe 
 that happened in the following year, 1887. It was for the honour 
 of the thing, and we saw for ourselves how uneasy a crown it would be. 
 
 He remarks in his journal— 
 
 “ My wife and I left the foul harbour-town, the ‘ Home of Dul- 
 ness/ and passed a pleasant week at the 4 Rock/ enjoying the 
 hospitable society of our fellow-countrymen. I failed in certain 
 pour-parlers concerning the treasure-ship sunk in Vigo Bay. The 
 officer who claimed to know the true position was unduly cautious, 
 and the right was his, more than mine. I endeavoured, but again 
 in vain, to excite some local interest in the ruins of Karteia, the 
 Biblical Tarshish, famed for ships. A local antiquary had made 
 a charming collection of statuettes, and other works of Greek 
 art, by scraping the tumuli which line the two banks of the 
 Guadarrangua, alias First River, and which now represent the 
 magnificent docks described by Strabo. He could not but remark 
 the utter inadequacy of the defences, so famed throughout the 
 civilized world. Fifty years ago they might have been sufficient, but 
 
464 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 now they have fallen long behind the age, and could not defend 
 themselves against a single ironclad. The fact is now generally 
 recognized. 
 
 “We embarked in ugly weather on board the Cunarder s.s. Sara¬ 
 gossa ; she was a staunch old craft, but heavily top-laden with 
 timber and iron works for a dock at Puzzuoli : the beams lashed 
 and clamped to the bulwarks, and the metal loosely stowed away 
 below. A rapidly falling barometer, a wind changing to every quarter, 
 and a fearfully stormy sky, warned us that a full gale was raging 
 in the Gulf of Lyons; it should be called the 1 Lion’s Gulf.’ The 
 sailors explain this in their own way. As in the Suez sea-jinns 
 have been jailed, so here evil spirits have been laid by the priests, 
 who, however, cannot boast of success in preventing their doing 
 terrible damage. Huge seas washed over the deck, the galley was 
 swamped, and there was a whisper that the boats were being pre¬ 
 pared. However, in thirty hours the squall blew itself out, and the 
 Saragossa, with a nasty cant to starboard, steamed into the fine new 
 port of Genoa, self-styled the Serpent. After two days’ rest, the 
 cargo being reorganized, the good ship resumed her way, and pass¬ 
 ing by Ischia, where the ruins of the earthquake were dreadful to 
 look upon, landed us at Naples. 
 
 “The old saying, ‘Vedi Napoli e poi morir,’ has now assumed 
 a new and fatal significance; bad drainage has bred typhus fever, 
 which has made the Grand Hotels along the shore the homes of 
 death. We had time to pay a visit to Pompeii, which since my 
 time is utterly cockneyfied. In olden days you engaged a carriage 
 and a guide, and passed in and out of the ruins just as you pleased. 
 Now there are barriers and tolls, and taxes, licenced ciceroni , and 
 Cockney inn crowded with ruffianly drivers. Inside the encemte , 
 prudishness reigned supreme, and wooden doors are closed in the 
 face of all feminines, before certain frescoes. My wife found an 
 object in a church in which she had for many years interested 
 self, Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, a rich basilica erected on 
 the site of a pagan temple. 
 
 “ At Naples, my wife, having had a bad fall through the washing 
 away of the ladder between the upper and lower decks, had hurt 
 herself terribly. She was already not well enough to risk any 
 shaking, when, to my horror, I saw something which I took to be a 
 large feather pillow roll lightly into the timbers below. I saw several 
 people rush to pick it up, and, to my horror, found it was my wife. 
 She seemed stunned for a minute, and then she was so frightened 
 that I should be uneasy, that she just shook herself and said she 
 was all right; but at Naples it was evident that she had damaged 
 herself, so that when our time was up I made her continue her 
 journey by land, whilst I, who thoroughly enjoyed the sea, rejoined 
 the ship.” 
 
 Whilst we were there, the Italian Minister came in in proper style 
 in an Italian frigate, with eighteen guns salute from the ship, and 
 
Our Last Appeal . 465 
 
 the fortress answering. We received a great deal of hospitality in 
 Tangier, which we enjoyed very much. The Grappler, Captain 
 Cochrane, came over, and Colonel (now General) Buckle, command¬ 
 ing the Royal Artillery at Gibraltar. All good things come to an 
 end, and the day came round to recross to Gib., but this time 
 in a Trans-atlantique, and Captain Baker again kindly sent a 
 Government launch to meet us, as it was very rough. We im¬ 
 mediately called on Sir John and Lady Adye, Lord and Lady 
 Gifford, and Colonel Buckle. We made acquaintance with a quantity 
 of nice people, found Sir Allen Young there, and enjoyed a very 
 charming week. On departure, Captain Baker kindly took us in 
 his launch to our ship, the Cunard (for Mediterranean) Saragossa, 
 Captain Tutt. 
 
 We did not like the cabin, nor the ship, nor the food; it was 
 regularly roughing it for invalids. There was no doctor, a dis¬ 
 obliging stewardess, no baths, very little water to wash with, one 
 towel. No resort for bad weather; you had either to lie in your berth, 
 or sit bolt upright in the saloon. No room to walk because of the 
 cargo, as we were laden with iron and wood for a pier at Puzzuoli, 
 near Naples ; and besides the hold being full, the deck was also full, 
 and it was even lashed to the sides. There was no ventilation 
 below, because it was bad weather. 
 
 We had a first-rate captain and nice officers, and they and the boy- 
 stewards did all they could to make us comfortable. As our cabin 
 was over the screw, three gentlemen good-naturedly changed with 
 us. Now, there was a new moon and an eclipse, and bad weather 
 sprung up in the night. There was a tremendous nor’-wester in the 
 Gulf of Lyons; the galley was swamped, heavy seas swept over us 
 every minute, the iron cargo got loose in the hold and was rolling 
 about, and we had an ugly slant to starboard—in fact, one’s cabin 
 was all uphill. 
 
 Richard was knocked down twice, and had a very heavy fall on 
 head and forehead and shins. The coal-bunks caught fire, we shipped 
 seas into the saloon, and it seemed at one time as if the boat on the 
 port side would come into the saloon skylight. I shall never forget 
 his kindness and tenderness to me in that gale. 
 
 If the cargo of timber lashed to the sides had behaved ill, it would 
 have tom away the bulwarks, and bumped a hole in the ship. The 
 captain was thirty hours on the bridge, and I never saw a man look 
 so used-up as he did next day; and how relieved he was—and we 
 all were—when we came into Genoa, looking in an awful plight ! 
 We knew that they would stay there a bit, and we bolted at once for 
 the hotel. One never forgets the good bath and bed and the clean 
 
466 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 food that greets one on these occasions. Sailors always say that 
 some priest, in exorcising a devil, has laid him in the Gulf of Lyons, 
 and from that time forth I have believed it. 
 
 We had a delightful forty-eight hours at Genoa, excepting that I 
 went to call on a very dear old friend, and found that she had died, 
 and that I had never heard of it; and, to my great surprise, who should 
 I see mooning about but Miss Alice Bird (Dr. Bird’s sister, of 49, 
 Welbeck Street, our great friends), and I carried her off at once to 
 the hotel, and thence to the ship to see us depart, as we had to 
 continue our journey. It was blowing very hard when we arrived 
 at Leghorn. Richard had caught cold, so we did not go ashore, but 
 amused ourselves with buying the pretty alabaster rubbish that 
 peddlers bring on board. Half of the companion ladder between the 
 upper and lower deck had been washed away, and I, being unaware 
 of it, got a heavy fall amongst the timber and hurt myself. 
 
 It was fearfully cold, blowing off bleak snow mountains. We were 
 delighted with Vesuvius, throwing up flames, and streams of red lava 
 pouring down her sides. We went at once to a hotel, and went over 
 to Pompeii, which we enjoyed immensely. We found Lady Otway 
 there, made acquaintance with all the Society, and saw everything in 
 and about Naples. My fall had hurt me so much that Richard 
 would not let me go on in the ship from Naples to Trieste. 
 
 A great part of the summer we used to sit under one par¬ 
 ticular shady lime tree, whose branches almost form a tent, and 
 there were benches and tables arranged under it. We used to 
 call it “ our tree.” Frequently, when we were in all the bustle 
 of London, perhaps driving in the City to publishers, he would 
 say, “ Our tree is out beautifully now. Are you regretting it ? ” 
 I would answer him, “ No ; my tree is wherever you are.” And 
 he would add, “ That is awfully sweet of you.” We were not 
 always paying each other compliments. He used to pay them 
 to some women, but I hardly ever got any, so that I treasured 
 up the few; but what he did say, meant a great deal. When 
 he used to go out to convivial parties of men, where the 
 generality of ladies were not asked, and he would come back 
 late in the small hours, he would tell me all about it, and then 
 he would say, “ But what a horrible desert it would be, if I had 
 not got you to come back to! ” 
 
 “ On the 5th of June we left again for England, as I was obliged 
 to consult a particular manuscript, which would supply two volumes 
 of my supplemental ‘ Arabian Nights.’ ” 
 
467 
 
 Our Last Appeal. 
 
 I have already said that Richard, after his recall from Damascus, 
 never tried but for four things. He wanted to be made a K.C.B. 
 in 1875, and I exerted myself very much, in writing to all the 
 Ministers and getting it backed up by all our big friends (some 
 fifty), and again in 1878 ; but it was refused. He wanted to be Com¬ 
 missioner for the Slave Trade in 1880. He then asked for Marocco 
 in 1885, which we considered was as good as promised; and on the 
 2nd of July, 1886, we had the mortification of finding that Lord Rose¬ 
 bery had given it away to Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Kirby-Green. 
 Richard said on hearing it, in his usual generous way, “Next to 
 getting it one’s self, the best thing is to know that a friend and a good 
 man has got it; ” but when he came home and told me, he said, 
 “ There is no rise for me now, and I don’t want anything; but I 
 have worked forty-four years for nothing. I am breaking up, and I 
 want to go free.” So this year (1886) we occupied ourselves in 
 entreating the Ministry to allow him to retire on his pension four 
 years before his time. It was backed up by the usual forty-seven or 
 fifty big names, and it was not pretence in any of the three cases ; they 
 did write , but it was refused. One Minister, in friendly chaff, wrote 
 and said, “ We don’t want to annex Marocco, and we know that 
 you two would be Emperor and Empress in about six months.” 
 
 The Last Appeal. 
 
 “ 23, Dorset Street, Portman Square, London, W., 
 
 “ October, 1886. 
 
 “ I have represented to Lord Salisbury and to the Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, Lord Iddesleigh, that after passing fourteen years 
 and a half in an unwholesome post, I find that the climate of Trieste, 
 as a constant residence, undermines my health, and incapacitates 
 me from work; also that I have not had the promotion which would 
 encourage me to hope, nor do I see a prospect of any post which 
 I could accept with profit to the public and pleasure to myself. 
 I have therefore come to the determination, after forty-four years 
 and a half in the public service (nineteen years in the Indian Army, 
 and in the Consular Service twenty-five years and a half, which 
 counts as thirty years, on account of eight to nine years in officially 
 dangerous climates), to request that I may retire, at the age of sixty- 
 five, on full pension, but to retain my post until such arrangement 
 be made. I represented that if there were a difficulty from the 
 Treasury, to make up full Consular pension, perhaps their lordships 
 might recommend my services to the Civil List, on the ground of 
 literary and linguistic labours and services. I do not wish to be 
 so tedious as to quote all my services, but I venture to note a few 
 of the facts which would seem to suggest my claims to some unusual 
 consideration on the part of her Majesty’s Government, and which 
 
468 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 I venture to say will obtain the approval of the public at large. 
 I am about to ask you whether you will give me the great benefit of 
 your support and good word on this occasion with Lord Salisbury, and 
 my Chief, Lord Iddesleigh, who will have the decision of my case. 
 
 “ I am, 
 
 “Richard F. Burton.” 
 
 Here is the modest list, which does not contain half of what he 
 did during his life of seventy years— 
 
 “Services. 
 
 “ (1) Served nineteen years in the Bombay Army, nearly ten years 
 on active service, chiefly on the staff of Sir Charles Napier, on the 
 Sind Survey, at the close of the Afghan War, 1842-49. In 1861 
 was compelled to leave, without pay or pension, by Sir Charles Wood, 
 for accepting the Consulship of Fernando Po. 
 
 “ (2) Served in the Crimea as Chief of the Staff of Bashi-Bazouk 
 (Irregular Cavalry), and was chiefly instrumental in organizing it. 
 
 “ (3) Was the author of the Bayonet exercise now used at the 
 Horseguards. 
 
 “ (4) Have made several difficult and dangerous expeditions or 
 explorations in unknown parts; notably, the pilgrimage to Mecca 
 and Medinah, and afterwards to Harar, now opened up to Euro¬ 
 peans, and the discovery and opening up of the Lake Regions of 
 Central Africa, and the sources of the Nile, a country now well 
 known to trade, to missionaries, and schoolmasters. 
 
 “ (5) Have been twenty-five years and a half in the Consular 
 Service, eight to nine years in official bad climates. 
 
 “ (6) Was sent in 1864, as H.M.’s Commissioner, to the King of 
 Dahonffi, and resided with him for three months. 
 
 “ (7) Was recalled at a moment’s notice from Damascus, under a 
 misrepresentation, and suffered heavy pecuniary losses thereby. My 
 conduct was at last formally approved by the Government, but no 
 compensation was given. 
 
 “ (8) Was sent in 1882 in quest of the unfortunate Professor Palmer 
 and his companions, who were murdered by the Bedawi. 
 
 “(9) Have learnt twenty-nine languages, passed official examina¬ 
 tions in eight Eastern languages, notably Arabic, Persian, and 
 Hindostani. 
 
 “(10) Have published over forty-six works, several of which, like 
 ‘ Mecca,’ and the ‘ Exploration of Harar,’ are now standard.” 
 
 “23, Dorset Street, Portman Square, London, W., 
 
 “October, 1886. 
 
 “ I have now written to Lord Salisbury, that since the Treasury 
 declines to concede to me full pay before full time of service, and that 
 the L 3 °° a Y ear t0 which I think I am entitled by regulation, were 
 I to resign the service, is hardly an equivalent of forty-five years’ 
 hard work in anything but wholesome climates, to beg of him to 
 
Our Last Appeal . 469 
 
 favour me by placing my name upon the Civil List for a pension 
 of £300 a year. 
 
 “ There are precedents for such a privilege, but I would not quote 
 names unless called upon to do so. I have told his Lordship that 
 I have had several kind letters from all quarters, expressing their 
 conviction of the reasonable nature of my request, and professing 
 themselves willing to strengthen his hands by their support, in the 
 hopes that such a favour may be conceded, the general idea being 
 that mine is an exceptional case. I have ventured to assure his 
 Lordship that I have every reason to hope that (this being no politi¬ 
 cal question) the Press on both sides will be in favour of this act of 
 grace, should it meet with his approval. 
 
 “ I suggested that if there be any difficulty about my drawing 
 Consular pension and Literary pension, that the Literary pension 
 might be put in my wife’s name, she being also an authoress and my 
 coadjutor. 
 
 “ 1 now beg to thank you for your kind expressions on my behalf, 
 and to ask you whether you will crown them by writing to Lord 
 Salisbury in such terms as will win this petition for me. 
 
 “ I am, 
 
 “ Richard F. Burton.” 
 
 Richard had been having little attacks of gout off and on—bad 
 one day, and better and well within two days—and had been plying 
 up and down between Oxford and London. On the 19th of October 
 I had a cab at the door to take me to Liverpool Street to go on a 
 visit to my convent in Essex, but most fortunately, before I stepped 
 into it, a telegram was put into my hands, saying, “ Gout in both 
 feet; come directly; ” so I started for Oxford there and then, 
 arriving in one hour and a half after I received the telegram. I 
 found him quite helpless, not being able to put either foot to the 
 ground, and very feverish and restless. It was a misty, muggy day, 
 and there was thunder and lightning, and buckets of rain all that 
 day and night till twelve o’clock the following day. The morning 
 after my arrival I ambulanced him up to town, everything being 
 prearranged by telegraph, and Dr. Foakes, his gout doctor, to meet 
 us at our lodgings. 
 
 This was his third bad attack of gout since 1883—eight months, 
 three months—and this time he was in bed several weeks. All his 
 friends used to come and sit with him. 
 
 The day before we left London for good (January 4th, 1887), we 
 saw and said good-bye to “ Ouida” for the last time, and on the 5th 
 he notices the death of Sir Francis Bolton. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 WE LEAVE ENGLAND. 
 
 1887. 
 
 1887 opened with fearful weather, fog and snow. On the 5th of 
 January we left London for good, and went to the Pavilion Hotel, 
 Folkestone, where Richard could see his own relations, who had 
 several large receptions for us, and were glad to leave the fog behind 
 us about twelve miles away from London. 
 
 On the 12th we were very shocked and sad at getting a telegram 
 announcing Lord Iddesleigh’s death. The last thing this kind and 
 noble-hearted man did, was to send down a basket of game, because 
 Richard was not well. The following day, on a foggy, rainy, raw, 
 and breezy day, we crossed for Paris, where we generally lodged at 
 Meurice’s. Here Richard enjoyed the society of our friend Pro¬ 
 fessor Zotenberg, and was delighted with the library, the Bibliotheque 
 Nationale, where he found the Arabic original of “Aladdin and the 
 Wonderful Lamp; ” and we saw a great deal of Mr. Zotenberg. He is 
 a friend I hope I shall keep all my life. Here I found dear Anna 
 Kingsford exceedingly ill; she had been in bed ten weeks with 
 inflammation of the lungs. She cheered up a little at seeing Richard 
 and me, but we never saw her after, for she shortly died. 
 
 On the 20th of January Richard was not very well, and Dr. George 
 Bird appeared opportunely. He was not at all pleased with the 
 health of either of us, and especially of Richard, and he prescribed. 
 We left the next day for Cannes, which we reached in eighteen and 
 a half hours, greeting each other on the morning of our twenty-sixth 
 wedding-day in the train. Here we had to drive about and look for 
 rooms, and were at last glad to get into the Hotel Windsor, as we 
 were rather done up. 
 
 We thought Cannes very pretty, and so is most of the Riviera, and 
 we could understand English people, who leave their truly abominable 
 climate with never a bit of sun, rejoicing in it; but to people like 
 us, who lived in every kind of climate, its faults were more apparent 
 
We leave England. 471 
 
 than its virtues. You have sun and blue sea and sky, cactus, small 
 palms, oranges and figs, magnolias and olives, spring flowers and 
 balmy air, but this is on the agreeable days. English people, we 
 remarked, go and sit with beaming faces on benches fronting the sea, 
 with the warm sun right in their faces, and a bitter biting wind driving 
 against their backs and injuring their lungs, just as much as if the 
 sun was not there, while the smells of drains, especially in the 
 principal street, were something atrocious. 
 
 His journal goes as follows :— 
 
 “We had now nothing more to do in England. The weather had 
 been frightful for three weeks, so we took rail to Folkestone, and 
 left fog and rain behind us twelve miles from London. After a 
 short visit to my sister, we crossed the Channel and arrived in 
 Paris, where I wanted to translate the tales * Zayn al Asnkn,’ and 
 ‘ Aladdin,’ lately discovered in the original Arabic by my kind 
 and obliging friend, Hermann Zotenberg, Keeper of the Oriental 
 Manuscripts. The artificial heating of the fine reading-saloon was 
 too much for my heavy cold, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with 
 having the MSS. copied and sent after me. My condition became 
 worse at Paris, and Dr. Bird said we should go south without further 
 delay. Here we parted with my wife’s friend and colleague in 
 philanthropy, Dr. Anna Kingsford, M.D. She was in the last stage 
 of consumption, suffering from mind and soul, distressed at the 
 signs and sounds connected with vivisection. Her sensitive organi¬ 
 zation braved these horrors in order to serve and succour, but both 
 she and my wife could not help feeling that their efforts were in 
 vain. We took the so-called train de luxe, which proved terrible 
 for shakiness. We arrived at Cannes on the morning of our twenty- 
 sixth wedding-day, and after weary searching for lodgings, were glad 
 to find comfortable rooms at the Hotel Windsor. The Riviera 
 was beautiful with the bluest skies and sea, sunshine, crisp breeze, 
 and flowers; the greenest vegetation, always excepting the hideous 
 eucalyptus, everywhere clad in rags and tatters like the savages in 
 their native land. The settlement contains, in round numbers, six 
 hundred and fifty villas, large and small. The Society was the gayest 
 of the gay, ranging from Crown Princes of the oldest, to American 
 millionaries of the newest. Cannes is a syren that lures to destruc¬ 
 tion, especially to the unseasoned patient from the north; the bar- 
 pressure is enormous; the gneiss and schiste and porphyry rocks 
 suggest subterranean heat, and nerves suffer accordingly. Behind 
 the warm sunshine is a raw breeze, and many of the visitors show 
 that look of mislre physiologique , reminding one of Madeira. One 
 meets with friends without number,* and what with breakfasts, 
 
 * I notice he was introduced to one lady whom he describes in his journal as “ a 
 charming kangaroo j ” and it was so apt, so clever, as his comparisons always 
 were.—I. B. 
 
472 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 lunches, five-o’clock teas, dinners, balls, and suppers, not to speak of 
 picnics and excursions, time is thoroughly taken up, but, as a place 
 for invalids, it appeared to us one of the most dangerous. The Rue 
 d’Antibes, or High Street, is at once a sewer and a bath of biting 
 cold air; the strong sea-breeze setting in on the fair esplanade before 
 noon chills to the bone, and a walk in the shade from the burning 
 sun is too severe a change for most constitutions. A great drawback 
 is the vile drainage, and also the want of a large pump-room or 
 salon—not a cafe or a club—where the World can meet There, 
 during the few rainy weeks, when the south-eastern or the south¬ 
 western winds blow, the absence of promenoirs in the hotels is a 
 serious inconvenience.” 
 
 We called immediately upon our old friend Dr. Frank, and he and 
 Lady Agnes Frank introduced us to all the Society there, and we 
 were very gay indeed. Richard had the honour of dining twice with 
 the Prince of Wales. We went to Lady Murray’s fancy dress ball 
 given in honour of the Prince, where Richard appeared for the last 
 time as a Bedawin Arab, and I as Marie Stuart; and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Walker also invited us to a garden-party to meet their Royal High¬ 
 nesses. We had the honour of being invited to breakfast by their 
 Imperial Highnesses the Prince Leopold and Princess of Hohen- 
 zollern-Sigmaringen. She was the Infanta of Portugal. We were 
 presented to the Archduke Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Richard was 
 invited to dine with him; and we were sent for by the Grand Duke 
 and Duchess of Baden; and of literary people we met Sir Theodore 
 and Lady Martin, and Miss Dempster, the author of “ Blue Roses,” 
 and an immense quantity of charming people. We had a delightful 
 breakfast with Monsieur and Madame Outrey, and with Mrs. Ince- 
 Anderton, at the Californie, and met M. Lematte, a great painter 
 from Algeria. On the 12th of February the Albany Memorial at 
 Cannes was consecrated in the presence of the Prince of Wales. It 
 seemed to be nothing but an incessant round of gaiety. I mention 
 these things because it was our last little gleam of the gay world. 
 We took an immense quantity of walks and drives, made excursions, 
 but unfortunately Richard found one of Dr. Kellgren’s men, Mr. 
 Mohlin, and he would go on working at the savage treatment with 
 him, which I am almost convinced he had not the strength to bear. 
 My belief is, though we did not know it, that he had a bad cold 
 brought on by the awful weather in England, which had given him 
 a chill on the liver, whereas he was being treated for suppressed 
 gout. 
 
 He began now to think about translating literally the “ Pentame- 
 rone of Basili.” He spoke the Neapolitan dialect very fluently as 
 a boy. 
 
We leave England . 473 
 
 On the 23rd of February, 1887 (Ash Wednesday), he writes— 
 
 “ Was a black-letter day for Europe in general, and for the Riviera 
 in particular. A little before six a.m. on the finest of mornings, 
 with the smoothest of seas, the still sleeping world was aroused by 
 what seemed to be the rumbling and shaking of a thousand express 
 trains hissing and rolling along, and in a few moments followed the 
 shock, making the hotel reel and wave. The duration was about one 
 minute. My wife said to me, ‘ Why, what sort of express train have 
 they got on to-day ? ’ It broke on us, upheaving, and making the 
 floor undulate, and as it came I said, ‘ By Jove ! that’s a good earth¬ 
 quake.’ She called out, ‘ All the people are rushing out in the 
 garden undressed; shall we go too?’ I said, ‘No, my girl; you 
 and I have been in too many earthquakes to show the white feather 
 at our age.’ ‘ All right,’ she answered; and I turned round and went 
 to sleep again. She did her toilette as she had intended, and went 
 off to Mass and Communion for Ash Wednesday, as she was obliged 
 to do. It did less harm at Cannes than at Nice or Mentone. It 
 split a few walls, shook the soul out of one’s body, and terrified 
 strangers out of their wits. One side of Cannes felt very little, and 
 the other side, upon which we were, caught the rebound from the 
 mountains, and we felt it very much, but neighbouring towns, espe¬ 
 cially Nice, Mentone, and chief of all Diana Marino, suffered terribly. 
 Mentone seemed as if freshly bombarded, and Diana, where the 
 locus was supposed to be, showed a total wreck, with much loss of 
 life. Savona was much shaken, and the quake frightened Genoa 
 and Rome, Avignon and Marseilles. (Even in 1890 many ruins had 
 not been repaired.) Seven minutes after the first shock came 
 another and a heavier shake, which increased the panic, and a third 
 explosion, between half-past eight and nine, cleared out all the hotels. 
 
 Scenes ludicrous and tragical were the rule. At first the hotel lolks 
 began a mob’s rush for the gardens, habited no matter how, into the 
 streets. An Italian count threw his clothes out of the window, flew 
 downstairs, and dressed under a tree. Ancient fashionable dames 
 forgot their wigs, and sat in night-gowns and shawls under the trees. 
 An Englishman ran out of his tub with his two sponges in either hand, 
 but all the rest of his belongings were forgotten. The pathetic side 
 was the women and children shrieking for their families, and fainting 
 and fits and arrested action of the heart caused some deaths. A 
 host of terror-stricken visitors crowded the railway stations, and, to 
 the great praise of the authorities, were sent away as fast as they 
 could fill the trains—hotel-keepers and railway authorities trusting— 
 and it is said they carried off thirty thousand visitors in one day. 
 A well-known capitalist hired a railway carriage at five hundred 
 francs a night to sleep in. Many of those departing in the trains 
 were absolutely in their night-gowns, and abandoned their baggage. 
 It was the beginning of several lasting illnesses. When my wife 
 came in, she went to take her coffee, during which there was another 
 great shock. She came in at once to me and begged me to get 
 up, but I would not. About nine o’clock there was another bad 
 
474 77 ^ Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 shock, and she again begged me to get up. I thought I would by 
 this time, for it was getting too shaky, and if the house did come 
 down I did not want to be buried in the ruins, and to cause her to 
 be so too; so I slowly got up and dressed, during which operation she 
 gave me the religious side of the question. The priests had flocked 
 to one church, and there were seventeen hundred scared people, who 
 had neglected their religion, fighting to get into the confessionals. 
 There was one (French) woman who had flown into an Abbe’s room, 
 and flung herself upon his bed, shrieking, ‘ Get up ! get up, Father! 
 I have not confessed for twenty years.’ The poor Abb£ did get up, 
 but a shock flung him against the wall, and he fainted; but when he 
 came to, he heard the woman’s confession. Now, if people know 
 that it is necessary to go, what fools they are to put it off till they are 
 utterly irresponsible ! ” 
 
 Here are some rather incoherent lines on the margin of his 
 journal— 
 
 i. 
 
 “ Seven thousand years have fled, the primal day 
 Since, Lufifi, thou wast evangelized. 
 
 How didst thou fall? say, mooncalf, say. 
 
 Seven thousand years ! and yet hast not had time 
 To think the thoughts that take an hour to rhyme ? 
 
 2 . 
 
 “Was it ambition lost thee Heaven? all 
 That makes an angel worse than human fool ? 
 
 Or was it pride ? But pride must have a fall, 
 
 Learns every schoolboy in each Sunday school. 
 
 Can such base passion rule abstract minds ? ” 
 
 “ This influx continued for several days. My wife and I went about 
 our usual business, writing, calling, driving, and the principal amuse¬ 
 ment was watching the trains fill up with terrified people, some of 
 them very scantily dressed, wrapped in a bed-curtain tied up with 
 a bell-rope. I enjoyed it as much as a schoolboy, for I took notes 
 and caricatured them in their light costumes. Although there were 
 only three severe shocks, the ground seemed to suffer from a chronic 
 trembling, that kept people in a continuous state of nervous agita¬ 
 tion, and a few sensitives declared they could perceive distinct 
 exhalations which made them sea-sick. We perceived it till we got 
 to Milan, which was off the line of earthquake—that was not till 
 twenty-five days after; and it was noticeable there that on the 20th 
 of March all the clocks stopped at 12.40 owing to excess of 
 electricity. 
 
 “ His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales showed his accustomed- 
 coolness in time of danger; he dressed leisurely before leaving his 
 apartment. As I said, my wife and I had had ample experience of 
 earthquakes in various quarters of the globe, and remained quiet 
 till the upheavals were over, and afterwards went to call upon our 
 friends.” 
 
475 
 
 We leave England. 
 
 On the 24th I got very uneasy about Richard. I saw him dipping 
 his pen anywhere except into the ink. When he tried to say some¬ 
 thing, he did not find his words; when he walked, he knocked up 
 against furniture. He would not take any medicine, because we 
 were to leave next day to go over to Nice to inspect the ruins, from 
 thence to Mentone ditto, and then make our way straight back to 
 Trieste; but I took him to Dr. Frank, who was a very old friend of 
 ours, and whose wife, Lady Agnes, had made our visit to Cannes 
 thoroughly happy. Dr. Frank examined him, found him as sound 
 as a bell, prescribed rest, and thought I was nervous. On the 25th 
 the same symptoms returned, and on the 26th, though we had packed 
 up, I absolutely refused to move; and Richard said, “ Do you know, 
 
 I think that that earthquake must have shaken me more than I was 
 aware of.” Now, it was not only the shocks of earthquake, but that the 
 earth for several weeks kept palpitating in a manner very nauseating 
 to sensitive people, and he was intensely so. He forbade me to send 
 for Dr. Frank, saying it would pass; but I disobeyed. 
 
 Dr. Frank, thinking I had got a “fad,” did not hurry, but, passing 
 by on his rounds, thought he would look in and say good-bye. He 
 stayed with us half an hour, assured us that Richard was all right and 
 as sound as a bell, and was just feeling his pulse once more prepara¬ 
 tory to saying good-bye. While his pulse was being held, poor 
 Richard had one of the most awful fits of epileptiform convulsions (the 
 only one he ever had in all his life), an explosion of gout. It lasted 
 about half an hour, and I never saw anything so dreadful, though 
 Dr. Frank assured me he did not suffer, but seemed doubtful as to 
 whether he would recover. When Dr. Frank told me that he thought 
 it doubtful he might not recover, I was seized with a panic lest he 
 might not have been properly baptized, and asking Dr. Frank if I might 
 do so, he said, “You may do anything you like.” I got some water, 
 and knelt down and saying some prayers, I baptized him. Soon the 
 blackness disappeared, the limbs relaxed, he opened his eyes, and 
 said, “Hallo ! there’s the luncheon bell 3 I want my luncheon.” Dr. 
 Frank said, “ No, Burton, not to-day ; you have been a little faint.” 
 “ Have I ? ” he said. “ How funny ! I never felt anything.” To make 
 a long story short, that was the beginning of his being a real invalid. 
 As soon as he was well enough to be spoken to about his condition, I 
 told him what I had done, and he looked up with an amused smile, and 
 he said, “ Now that was very superfluous, if you only knew; ” and after 
 a pause he said, “ The world will be very much surprised when I come 
 to die,” but he did not explain his meaning. I did not know the full 
 significance of it; I could only guess. There were attending upon 
 him, Dr. Frank who managed his case ; Dr. Legg came once, but Dr. 
 
476 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Brandt and Dr. Grenfell-Baker (who was there for his health) came 
 every day and relieved guard, Dr. Brandt sleeping there at night. I 
 had a trained nurse, Sister Aur&ie of the Bon Secours, Lisa my maid, 
 and myself always, so that he was well looked after. 
 
 Dr. Frank found that it was impossible for me to move without 
 a travelling doctor. Richard strenuously resisted it for several days, 
 saying “ he should hate to have a stranger in the house; that we 
 should never be by ourselves ; that we should have an outsider 
 always spying upon us, who would probably quarrel with us, or hate 
 one or both of us, and make mischief, and confide all our little 
 domestic affairs to the world in general; that a third was always in a 
 nondescript position.” Now, this was a risk we had to run; but I 
 argued that if we put by ^2000 of our “ Arabian Nights” money and 
 gave ourselves four years of doctor (till 1891, unless he previously got 
 quite strong), that it would tide him over the worst crisis of his life 
 into a strong old age, and that as soon as he was free from Govern¬ 
 ment, and we settled down at home, we should be in the land of 
 doctors, and free to live by ourselves again, and to do what he liked, 
 which had already been arranged for 1891. He then consented. I 
 telegraphed to England, and Dr. Ralph Leslie was sent to us. As 
 soon as the case was handed over to him, we commenced our Via 
 Crucis to Trieste. 
 
 It was astonishing, in spite of malady, what wonderful cool nerve 
 Richard had in any accident or emergency. 
 
 This is his own account:— 
 
 “ I was not fated to escape so easily. Just as we were packed up 
 and on the point of starting for Nice to see the ruins, and we were 
 in the act of saying good-bye to our old friend of twenty-four years, 
 Dr. Frank, I was suddenly struck down by an acute attack of cerebral 
 congestion, the result of suppressed gout. For a time I was ordered 
 to be kept absolutely quiet, confined to bed and sofa with a diet 
 of broth and bromide, milk and soda-water, and was carefully 
 nursed. My wife felt that though she had successfully nursed me 
 through seven long illnesses since our marriage, that this was a case 
 beyond her ken. Dr. Frank also explained to me that circum¬ 
 stances might arise which would require an educated finger to feel 
 the pulse, and to give instant remedies, where all the tenderness and 
 care of my wife’s nursing would be without avail. So, after strenu¬ 
 ously opposing a course which I felt would be a grievous burthen 
 to our lives, and be a most unpleasant change, I saw reason in it, 
 and I allowed her to telegraph to London for a physician who was 
 on the look-out for a travelling appointment, and was skilled in 
 such matters, to take temporary charge of my case. In contending 
 on this subject, she said, 4 How many valuable lives are lost by 
 
477 
 
 We Leave England. 
 
 friends saying, “If you are not better by to-morrow, we must send 
 for the doctor; ” or in the night, “ When it is light we will send for the 
 doctor ” ! Remember poor H-.’ She was obstinate in her deter¬ 
 
 mination not to risk these things, and resolved to lose no chance of 
 passing me through my three or four years’ crisis into a sound old 
 age. A man living in London, surrounded by the ablest doctors in 
 the world, may dispense with this disagreeable luxury; not so, however, 
 an exile in a foreign port town. A foreign doctor, however clever, 
 finds it difficult to treat an Englishman, only because he has never 
 understood or never studied a Britisher. I think, if it had not been 
 for my wife, I should have died of inanition in my first two long 
 attacks of gout, eight months in the winter 1883 and 1884, and 
 three months of 1885. From the two first in Trieste I rose a perfect 
 skeleton, which made me determine never to spend another winter 
 there, even if I had to leave the Service. However, the Foreign 
 Office, which has ignored me in every way else, has been merciful 
 about ‘ leave,’ and I hope to be a free man in March, and a Londoner 
 in September, 1891. 
 
 “ The Trieste apothecary can seldom make up English recipes. 
 Either he has not the needful drugs, or he needs four or five days 
 to get them, and he sells the worst quality at the highest prices. 
 English drugs are considered strong enough to kill. 
 
 “ On the eleventh day from the attack, Dr. Ralph Leslie, of Toronto, 
 arrived. He visited all the doctors, took over the case, and stocked 
 his medicine chest. We were able to leave Cannes on the 9th of 
 March. We went to the Hotel Victoria, Monte Carlo, because it was 
 quieter than those near the gaming-tables. Here we took drives, and 
 I became much better. We drove to Mentone to see the ruins, but 
 we both got seedy going along—a sort of stifling—and just as we 
 drove into the town there was another earthquake. Poor people 
 were rushing into the streets bringing out their mattresses, carriages 
 flying in all directions. We drove over the town and inspected 
 everything, but did not put up for fear of a repetition of Cannes, 
 so we drove back to Monte Carlo. Clouds gathered over Mentone. 
 At midnight there was another shock. We were both seedy about 
 eighteen hours, and my wife could feel the gases, I only the palpi¬ 
 tation of the earth. 
 
 “ On the 14th of March we drove over to Nice, and I was able 
 to stand an excursion of six hours, and felt almost perfectly well. I 
 had loads of visitors—Mr. Wickham, Mr. Myers (Professor Sayce’s 
 friend), and Father Wolfe, S.J. We only went once to the gaming¬ 
 tables, and thought it very slow. My better half lost eighty-five francs 
 in ten minutes. We determined after several days to start from Monte 
 Carlo to Genoa. It was a big business for me, and we started by 
 a 5.20 p.m. train. The trains had to crawl past the towns for fear 
 of shaking down the buildings that remained, so that I was nine 
 hours out, and as I had to be carried from the train to my carriage, 
 which had been telegraphed for, another English family did me, and 
 had got into it, and thereby also got our rooms and our supper; 
 and when we arrived, they had to get us other rooms, and a bouillon 
 
478 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 A 
 
 for me, and we did not get to bed till two, but next day we got very 
 good rooms. 
 
 “ On the 18th of March we saw the death in the papers (as no 
 one knew our whereabouts) of our poor uncle, Lord Gerard, and 
 we were both very sad and agitated. 
 
 “ Our next great move was to Milan, where everything was ready 
 for us. At Milan there was still a great deal of electricity in the 
 air, but thank God we were off the line of earthquakes. 
 
 “ After staying some time at Milan, we moved on to Venice, and 
 the air there, being of such a mild nature, immediately began to do 
 me good. I could go out in gondolas, and took a little walk in the 
 Piazzetta, and enjoyed it, and received visits from my friends, and 
 on the 31st of March I passed a nice day without pain; on that 
 day I bought a little Knight in armour. From Venice my wife 
 telegraphed to our Vice-Consul, Mr. P. P. Cautley, to change the 
 whole of the house, putting me in the rooms with the best climate, 
 and reserving for ourselves a private apartment of six rooms, divided 
 from the rest of the house and in the balmy comer. 
 
 “ On the 5th of April I was able to write a little, and that day 
 we went on to Trieste. 
 
 “ The details of our melancholy journey will, I fear, scarcely interest 
 any one but ourselves. It was a real Via Crucis, as I had to be 
 ambulanced the whole way, and, being very weak, we were twenty- 
 eight days accomplishing the twenty-eight hours of express train 
 which lie between Cannes and Trieste, which was only varied by 
 minor earthquakes till we reached Milan ; at Genoa by the agitation 
 of seeing Lord Gerard’s death in the newspaper, and my wife 
 having a large blood-cyst on her lip, which appeared soon after my 
 fit, and which Dr. Leslie had to cut out at Milan. It was indeed 
 a road of anguish and labour, and right thankful were we to find 
 ourselves once more in our own home on the 5th of April, after 
 being out ten months. 
 
 “Our climate is one sui generis; it is a perpetual alternative of 
 the raw north-easter, called the Bora, and the muggy south-western, 
 called Scirocco . The former often causes the quays to be roped, 
 in order to prevent pedestrians being raised in the air and thrown 
 into the sea, and within the last eighteen years it has upset two 
 mail trains. Then there is the Contraste , when the two blow together, 
 one against another, making a buffer of the human body. The 
 Scirocco is a dry wind from the North African desert, and arrives 
 at Trieste saturated with water, but still containing the muggy 
 oppressing sensation so well known to travellers in Algiers, Tunis, 
 and Marocco. Moreover, the old town is undrained, the quay is 
 built over nine several sewers, some of large size, and it is said that 
 the new town of Trieste is built upon ninety-two feet of old sewage, 
 consequently the normal death-rate is at the lowest, thirty-five per 
 thousand per annum, nearly double the amount of London, and in 
 more than one winter it has ranged from seventy-five to eighty-five. 
 Foreign residents here remark that a process of acclimatization must 
 take place whenever they leave Trieste or return to it However, 
 
479 
 
 We leave England. 
 
 % 
 
 on this occasion it did not maltreat me ; indeed, an improvement in 
 my case began at Venice, and continued when I reached my post.” 
 
 We had some visits, and amongst other literary celebrities, Dr. Mac- 
 Dowall, and Madame Emily de Laszouska, nee Gerard, Dr. Bohndorf, 
 and Dr. Oscar Lenz and wife, African travellers ; General Buckle, 
 Madame Nubar, and Madame Artin Pasha. We used to sit a great 
 deal in our garden, or in the gardens of Miramar, where he wrote 
 on the margin of his tablets— 
 
 “ F. G. HACKE’S NEW IDEA IN WORDS. 
 
 “ ‘ And is the sea alone? Even now 
 I hear faint mutterings.’ 
 
 * ’Tis the waves’ mysterious distant whisper, 
 
 Response of words like voice of the sea, 
 
 Communing with its kind.’ 
 
 ‘ It seems a murmur sweeping low, 
 
 And hurrying through the distant caves ; 
 
 I hear again that smothered tone, 
 
 As if the sea were not alone.’ ” 
 
 We went as usual to Opqina, the Slav village of the Karso, to 
 the Jager, to Duino to visit the Princesses Hohenlohe, and received 
 many visitors of all nations, many of them exceedingly interesting. 
 
 Almost the day after we arrived, Dr. Leslie inquired what smell 
 it was that pervaded the house. We told him we did not know; we 
 had often complained, but that we had never been able to have 
 redress. So now he insisted on our having something done, or else 
 our giving up the house, and that at once. The house suited us 
 exactly, and we felt it would be dreadful to have to leave it, as we 
 had an accumulation of fifteen years’ household gods. But on our 
 telling our resolution to our proprietors, they allowed a thorough inves¬ 
 tigation to be made, and we discovered two very serious drains, with 
 old flues communicating with them directly to our apartment, and 
 these were at once cleared out and built up, so that there were 
 no more smells, and the house was comfortable after ; but I often 
 thought since, that we owed our escape from typhoid to our frequent 
 travels. 
 
 On the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd of June we made grand gala 
 for the Jubilee. An address was drawn up and sent to her Majesty. 
 The first day was devoted to service in the Protestant Church, which 
 vie attended officially; on the second we had a banquet and ball at 
 the Jager. Richard took the chair at dinner. He was brought down 
 to dinner by his doctor, where he made a most loyal and original 
 speech; immediately after dinner he was taken upstairs again. It 
 
480 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 was the only occasion on which he would ever consent to wear his 
 order of St. Michael and St. George. 
 
 Richard loved our house, and was always lamenting that we 
 could not put it on wheels, and take it about with us wherever 
 
 we went, because for Richard there were really a great many 
 
 drawbacks in Trieste. 
 
 One of our amusements was to buy a lot of caged birds 
 in the market, and taking them up to our rooms and let¬ 
 ting them fly. It was such a pleasure to see them darting 
 into the air with a thrill of joy ; and if they were in any ways 
 maimed, there was an almond tree just outside our window, and 
 touching it, on which they used to hop until they recovered 
 themselves. 
 
 He used now to take long walks with the doctor, and when 
 he was tired he used to get a lift in a passing cart. Once, 
 when we were up at Op9ina, Daneu’s poor little boy, only six 
 
 years of age, broke his leg, which upset us all the more 
 
 because he was so brave. He never cried, even during the 
 setting. 
 
 Finding Richard of such a restless disposition since his gouty 
 attack, and that he only seemed to be well when moving, I 
 wanted to substitute a kind of wandering about, as if in tents ; 
 and I thought that I might manage this by having a caravan 
 built like the gypsy caravans — a larger for us, and a smaller 
 for our suite, which would have been Lisa, a cook, a general 
 servant, and a man to look after the eight white bullocks that I 
 proposed to buy in the Roman Campagna. I thought that all 
 the fine weather we could be perpetually on the move through 
 the lovely scenery of Istria and Steiermark. The life would have 
 suited us. Dr. Leslie heartily entered into my plan, but somehow 
 it fell through. 
 
 A little incident happened (summer, 1887), trifling of its kind, 
 but it made us sorry, as we were both fond of animals. A 
 swallow built its nest in my study, and I had a pane of glass cut 
 out of the window to enable it to come in and out. The five eggs 
 were already laid and in process of hatching, when one of the birds 
 died. It fell down dead, and the other bird kept trying to lift 
 the dead body from the ground to the nest, but it was too 
 heavy. 
 
We Leave England\ 481 
 
 We buried the dead swallow in our garden, and put up a little wooden 
 epitaph ; but the poor bereaved surviving swallow sat on the edge 
 of the nest all the summer, looking at the eggs, until it flew away 
 with the general departure of the swallows. When it had gone, we 
 blew and strung the eggs, and hung them in the chapel. We pre¬ 
 served this nest sacredly, in the hopes others would come, and I hope 
 it is there still. It made Richard a little superstitious, which super¬ 
 stition was verified. 
 
 We now prepared for our summer holiday. It began to be most 
 dreadfully hot, and there were two cases of suspected cholera. One 
 day arrived the two Princesses Hohenlohe, Princess Taxis, and 
 Prince Palavacini, and the Comte de Brazza to tea. These im¬ 
 promptu visits did Richard a great deal of good. 
 
 All this time we were treating him with electricity, and sponging 
 in the morning and evening, and he seemed to get on wonderfully. 
 
 In June, Richard had two slight attacks—one a shaking of the legs, 
 and one a staggering in the garden. These would have been, pro¬ 
 bably, fits if he had not been taken suck immense care of. The chief 
 thing he suffered from (it had been coming on for four years, had 
 now declared itself in an aggravated form, and which there is no 
 doubt finally killed him) was flatulent gases round the heart, which it 
 was very difficult to get rid of, which assumed all the appearance of 
 heart-complaint, and which caused the last struggle with life. I see so 
 many people suffering from this nowadays, who do not know what it 
 is, that it is good to mention it. He had one little room close to his 
 bedroom, whose only light came from stained-glass doors. This was 
 fitted up as an Oriental smoking-room, with divans, and well lit up 
 with many Oriental lamps, was exceedingly pretty, and safe from 
 draughts. Here every morning was put his full-length bath, 
 which he could take, aided by the doctor and me, without fear of 
 catching cold ; and when he was dried and wrapped up, he would 
 lie on the divan, and smoke and think out his day’s manuscript, or 
 receive a friend. 
 
 On the 26th of June we lost Madame Luisa Serravallo-Minelli 
 the nice girl who used to study the Akkas with him, and who had 
 long since married Mr. Minelli. 
 
 During the whole of his illness, one of the kindest visitors to us 
 was the Archduke Ludwig Salvator, who lived opposite us at the 
 other side of Muggia Bay, constantly paid him a visit, and always 
 sent his magnificent publications to him; for the Archduke is not 
 only an author, but a first-rate artist, and illustrates his own 
 books. 
 
482 The Life of Sir Richard Burton, 
 
 Richard writes— 
 
 “ As a rule, the climate of Trieste has no spring ; winter modified 
 continues till the summer suddenly sets in; and in this July, 1887, 
 the heat was abnormal. So on the 15 th we set off to find summer 
 quarters. ‘ We } meant my wife and I, Dr. Leslie, and Lisa, my 
 wife’s maid, who occupied a very peculiar position. The father 
 was an Italian of Verona, had seceded to Austria, and when Austria 
 left that part of Italy he came to live near Trieste. He had house 
 and servants, carriages and horses, but he sacrificed everything for 
 the ‘ cause.’ The Italians would have none of him, the Austrians did 
 not want him, and between two stools he came to the ground. He 
 was either a baron in Verona, or Austria made him a baron for 
 services. This title, of course, extended to the whole family ; but the 
 pension was only fbo a year, and they lived an hour from Trieste 
 like peasants, and in a peasant’s cottage. The sons found employ¬ 
 ment, and the daughters remained at home, but Lisa, being a girl of 
 spirit, wanted to see something of the world, and she attached herself 
 to my wife, retaining her title as Baroness. 
 
 “We stayed a day or two at Adelsberg. It is a delightful place, 
 but there is something so peculiarly electrical about it, it never 
 agreed with either of us. We also found the world-famous caves were 
 spoiled by the electric light, and we who had known the weird and 
 subterranean state, deeply regretted the old wax candles. We again 
 left for Laibach, the capital of Carniola, in whose lowlands once a 
 large lake (already mentioned) was full of pfahlbauten (pile villages), 
 and where the enormous number of prehistoric relics were lately 
 found. 
 
 “The next stage was by the Great Southern Railway to Poltschach, 
 and thence a beautiful drive to Rohitsch-Sauerbrunn, an hour and a 
 half in the interior; but the great heat thoroughly tired me out, and 
 I had a fortnight of bad health. A little sketch of Sauerbrunn may 
 not be unacceptable, as an Englishman rarely finds his way to the 
 place.* A small bad-ort , or bathing-place, has been laid out in the 
 valley of the little stream, surrounded on all sides by densely wooded 
 hills. On one side is the long line of buildings containing the 
 Kursaal, the restaurant, and the baths where red-hot masses of iron 
 are cooled in water by way of forming a chalybeate. Opposite 
 is a row of buildings to contain visitors, and between the two, 
 headed by a little Catholic church, are flower-gardens, with a band¬ 
 stand, where lawn-tennis is not yet known. Two little temples 
 covered the sources. A long prot?ie?ioir contains shops, prolonging 
 the public buildings to the east, and a scatter of village finishes the 
 sketch. The visitors who fill the place during June, July, and August 
 are from all the provinces of Austria, principally Hungarians, Croats, 
 and Bohemians, with a few Triestines, some from Fiume, a few 
 Roumanians, Turks, Greeks, and many Jews. The life, as may be 
 
 * Sauerbrunn has been already mentioned, but I want to give his descrip¬ 
 tion of it. 
 
We leave England. 483 
 
 imagined, is simple enough. They rise before the sun, walk about 
 drinking the waters, and flock to the restaurant for rolls and cafe au 
 lait. ^ Then comes the bath, after which they sit under the trees, 
 reading, writing, working, talking, smoking, and playing cards and 
 dominoes until twelve. Then back to the restaurant for a dejeuner 
 d la fourchette , which is really a dinner. The cooking was tolerable, 
 the wines too, and the price half that of Marfenbad. After dinner 
 comes siesta, in the afternoon strolling, more water-drinking, and 
 listening to the band, the more active taking a walk to the top of 
 the hills, or a drive up the carriageable roads. Then more water¬ 
 drinking, and, lastly, a light supper between six and eight; and, 
 unless there was a dance or a concert or a conjurer in the Kursaal, 
 all were in bed soon after nine. At ten the place was as silent as 
 the grave. The morrow was da capo. 
 
 “ If not gay, it was peaceful and exceedingly restful to the tired 
 brains, especially to the Herr Professor, who could only afford one 
 month of utter dolce far nietite after eleven of hard drudgery. The 
 visitors vary from six to twelve thousand. The nicest drives are 
 Pvohitsch, to Poltschach, and Marein, Graf Atems Schloss, Kos- 
 tranitz, and Marfen Kirche. At Stoinschegg, a short walk, is a 
 distiller of sligovic , which is the spirit-drink of the country, and he 
 produces all sorts of liqueurs, of which prunes are the basis. Here 
 we met our old friend Mr. Thayer, of Trieste. We hired a bath- 
 chair and two men, so that we could walk, and when I was tired 
 I could get in and rest and be drawn about, and so could my wife 
 alternately. 
 
 “The peacefulness of this sort of life was broken by only four 
 occurrences worth noticing. One was two violent thunderstorms, 
 preceded by a sudden fall of hail as large as eggs. My wife and 
 I, though four yards from shelter, were hard hit before reaching it. 
 It broke all the tiled roofs like an earthquake or a bombardment. 
 You could see into the interiors through the rags and tatters. It 
 destroyed the crops, and the roads were strewed with large branches 
 of trees. People came from all parts with broken heads; and the 
 peasants brought in lumps of jagged ice that had fallen on the 
 mountains, which, even after they had been melted by their hands 
 and pockets for an hour, weighed ten deccas, or five ounces. The 
 smooth ones were like goose’s eggs, and the children played at ball 
 with them for several hours. The first was on the 23rd of July, and 
 after the people had rebuilt their roofs and premises it occurred 
 again on the 14th of August, and did the same amount of damage. 
 We had never seen anything like it, and when my wife, by my 
 directions, wrote it to the English papers, the public disbelieved 
 it, and said ‘that the Burtons had been seeing wonderful things 
 and telling wonderful tales.’ It is a very curious, and not altogether 
 unpleasant sensation, that of not being believed when you are 
 speaking the truth. I have had great difficulty in training my wife 
 to enjoy it, and frequently, for her instruction, have told a true story 
 to a party of people and have been jeered at, or people have looked 
 .askance at me; and immediately after I have told them a most fan- 
 
484 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 tastic lie to punish them, they have gaped, and said, * How wonder¬ 
 ful ! how interesting ! ’ 
 
 “The second event was meeting with Monseigneur Strossmayer, the 
 great Slav Archbishop, whose head-quarters are at Diakovar, where 
 he has erected a palace and a guest-house. He is a little king in 
 his own country, but is sometimes looked coldly upon by Austria, 
 on account of his leaning towards Russia and Panslavism. He is 
 a man of simple, affectionate, and patriarchal manners, and out of 
 his Cabinet shows nothing of the politician or diplomatist; there is 
 no doubt that he is one of the leading men of that part of the world 
 in the present century. He was very kind to us. He took an 
 especial affection for me, and visited me every day, when I was unable 
 to leave my room. 
 
 “The third event was the reading of Dr. Salusbury’s treatment by 
 drinking nearly boiling water, which seemed to act like magic. I 
 had been suffering from frequent pain and faintness, and I feared 
 that I had something the matter with my heart. 
 
 “ On August 29th, I saw my wife drinking some hot water, and 
 asked her to give me some of it. No sooner had I got the cup 
 than I exclaimed almost involuntarily, * Oh, what a comfort! ’ I 
 continued that treatment, and from that day faintness and trouble 
 of the heart changed their character, and were no longer a terror 
 to me. My strength increased, so that I could soon comfortably 
 take long walks. Would that we had thought of it and tried it in 
 1884, in my first attack of gout! 
 
 “ The fourth event was the arrival of the English Squadron, on Sep¬ 
 tember 9th, at Trieste, with the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, 
 Prince George of Wales, the Marquis of Lome, and Prince Louis of 
 Battenberg. We wanted to return to Trieste and do more than our 
 usual duty on the occasion, and contribute to the festivities in honour 
 of the Royalties bringing the town of Trieste and the fleet into har¬ 
 monious relation. This had been our pleasant duty for many years 
 past, and now, on this, the grandest occasion of all, we were con¬ 
 demned to be absent. The doctor sternly forbade anything of the 
 kind; he would not guarantee my life for half a day if I had to put 
 on uniform, go on board, and be present at official receptions. The 
 authorities kept telegraphing for my wife, but she would not leave 
 me for an hour, so we both wrote our explanations and excuses to 
 the royal secretaries, and through them offered our house to her 
 Imperial Highness, who graciously accepted it, if need arose. I 
 ordered our home to be put in suitable order, a major domo to be 
 sent for from Vienna, the flag to be hoisted, a cold buffet always to be 
 laid, the house to be illuminated every night, and was only disap¬ 
 pointed on return to find that no Royalty, not even any of the officers, 
 had honoured us by using the house. 
 
 “ The Governor of Steiermark, Graf Gundaker Wiirmbrandt and 
 the Grafin, came over to see us, and also the Fabers.” 
 
 On the 5th of September occurred the first of a series of a stopping 
 of our horses, which happened three times during these years. We 
 
We leave England. 485 
 
 drove to look for the Chapel of Loretto. On the way back it was quite 
 light in the afternoon ; the horses, which were going a good pace, 
 suddenly stopped still, backed, trembled, and sweated all over, and 
 snorted and sobbed from their hearts. Nothing would induce them 
 to go on, though the coachman flogged them. We all had to get out, 
 and there was nothing to be seen to frighten them. I went to their 
 heads, and patted and soothed them, while Dr. Leslie took care of 
 Richard. They then bounded on for thirty yards or so, and we 
 followed on foot and got in, and they went quite well. The coach¬ 
 man said he had driven for twenty years, and he had often read of 
 these things, but he had never seen them. 
 
 We were now reading Mr. Stanley's book on Africa under the trees 
 at Sauerbrunn. 
 
 On the 25th Richard bewails the death of Gozzadini, archaeologist 
 of Bologna. 
 
 “I strongly advise future visitors,” he writes, “to leave Sauerbrunn 
 the first week in September, as the rain and cold sets in, and the 
 place becomes as deserted and melancholy as a ball-room after a 
 ball. We did not want to return home, in spite of the Triestine 
 proverb— 
 
 ‘ Prima pioggia d’Agosto 
 Rinfresca mar e bosco.’ 
 
 We left Sauerbrunn on September 18th, and we broke our journey 
 by a three days’ visit to Abbazia, near Fiume, called in the high¬ 
 falutin style, the ‘Austrian Riviera.’ We went with the object of 
 choosing our rooms for the winter, and we one and all fell ill in 
 consequence of the horrible drains in the main courtyard of the 
 Stephanie Hotel; but we decided, and decided wrongly, that the evil 
 would be abated during the winter season. 
 
 “We had now a visit at Trieste from Mr. Gibbs, of Egypt and 
 Vienna, Mr. Ellis and Mr. Krause from Vienna. 
 
 “On our return home Dr. Leslie had an offer of what seemed a 
 very good post, a yachting tour to India and China with a great 
 man, and he wanted very much to accept it, for our present way 
 of life was necessarily rather tame to a strong young man, accustomed 
 to expeditions, who would have been just the thing for us in our 
 old travelling days, but he must have found it hard to subdue himself 
 to our changed conditions.” 
 
 Richard clamoured hard not to have any more doctors ; he felt 
 that we might do without, but I was now thoroughly broken down 
 myself. I was unable to take anything that might be called a walk. 
 Driving was sometimes very painful to me, and it would not have 
 been .safe to let him go alone. I could not be the same use that 
 I had always hitherto been, though I could keep him company 
 
486 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 in the house, and be his secretary and nurse him, but I frequently 
 turned faint and required assistance. I could not stoop to give 
 him his bath, or shampoo him, and we were too far from the town 
 to get an immediate doctor in emergency, so I begged him to bear 
 with it a little bit longer, as he had done for the past seven months. 
 I heard that Dr. Grenfell-Baker, who had been so kind to us at 
 Cannes, was in bad health, that his health had driven him from 
 London practice, and that he was looking for a travelling appoint¬ 
 ment, and I begged to be allowed to write and ask him to accept 
 ours. I obtained permission, and he relieved Dr. Leslie on October 
 15 th, 1887. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CHANGES. 
 
 Dr. Baker had a most unpleasant journey. Not having done it 
 before, he came with full confidence, without a greatcoat, without 
 a brandy flask, without food, and as soon as he arrived on the 
 Karso, he found a Bora that nearly upset his train. After fifteen 
 hours of this, though the house was well built with immensely thick 
 walls, the Bora sounded as if it too was just going to be carried away, 
 and two earthquakes were not a pleasant greeting; but a warm wel¬ 
 come, a comfortable room, a good supper and hot grog, soon restored 
 him. It was quite winter, and there was snow on the Risano. A 
 number of friends and acquaintances, old and new, flocked through 
 Trieste, which somewhat enlivened the dull season. Amongst others, 
 Sir Cecil Domville, naval attach'e; and an epoch was made by a visit 
 likewise from Dr. and Mrs. Schlieman, of Troy. Princess Wrede also 
 arrived at nine a.m. to take her coffee in a rush from Graz to Trieste. 
 
 We were very sorry to lose Dr. Leslie, he was so genial and 
 good-humoured—one of the best-hearted men that ever lived. I 
 may say a man who would go twenty miles out of his way to do 
 you a service, and—great praise—he never said a word against 
 anybody ; above all, he had a true reverence for Richard. 
 
 Our days at Trieste, after Richard got ill, were passed in the 
 following way :—Instead of getting up, as we used to do, at any 
 time from three to half-past five, we rose at seven, had a breakfast 
 of tea, bread and butter, and fruit on a little table near a window, 
 where he used to feed the sparrows and other garden-birds on the 
 window-sill, so that an almond tree which brushed up to the window 
 was covered with them waiting, and, as he remarked, “ they were 
 quite imperious in their manners if he did not attend to them at 
 once.” He then wrote his journals—two sets, one private, which 
 was kept in a drawer in my room, and one public ephemeris of 
 
 notes, quotations, remarks, news, and weather memoranda; then 
 
 487 
 
488 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 he would fall to to his literature. At nine o’clock the doctor would 
 come in, and as I, being ill, could no longer stoop to help with his 
 bath and toilette, Dr. Leslie, and afterwards Dr. Baker, superintended 
 the bath and the electric foot-bath; but he shaved himself and 
 dressed himself. During the bath he would frequently read out 
 to them passages from what he was writing. The toilette finished, 
 he resumed his literature till half-past ten, when, if the weather 
 permitted, he would go out for a good walk with the doctor. 
 
 At twelve o’clock we had breakfast, which was really luncheon, after 
 which he smoked (always the tobacco of the country—those long, 
 thin, black cigars with a straw down the middle), and played with 
 the kitten, and talked. He was very cheerful and enjoyed his meals. 
 He would then lie on his bed with a book, and sleep perhaps for 
 an hour, and then get up and do more literature. A little after 
 three, if it was winter, he would go for another walk in the garden, 
 or, if bad weather, into the hall, or in the summer-time, at about 
 five o’clock, for a good long drive, or very often an excursion in 
 the neighbourhood, and was always accompanied by the doctor or 
 me, or both of us. Tea was at four, a sit-down tea, which was 
 purposely made into a meal of all sorts of fruits, cake, sweets, and 
 jam, because it was the hour for our intimates to pour in, and he 
 enjoyed it. If any friends, English or other, were passing through 
 Trieste, they lunched and dined with us. He liked company, and 
 it did him a great deal of good; and he always used to say “ that 
 he liked to see his fellow-creatures, at hotels and public places, for 
 instance, even if he did not want to mix with them ; ” but generally 
 all the nice men in the hotel collected round him, smoking and 
 listening to his conversation. After tea and talk and walk were 
 over, he went to his room and worked steadily till seven, or half¬ 
 past, when we had dinner. 
 
 He enjoyed his dinner, after which he sat in an armchair and 
 smoked and talked. Glorious talk and sweet musical voice that 
 we shall never hear again on earth—a perfect education to those 
 who had the boon of hearing him ! Sometimes, if the nights 
 were fine, we used to sit on our verandah overlooking the sea and 
 mountains, and watch the moon and stars through a telescope 
 planted there for the purpose. At nine o’clock at night he retired, 
 the doctor again helped him to undress, and then left for the night; 
 and I said night prayers with him, and we talked awhile. He 
 would ask me for a novel—he always said " he cooled his head 
 with a novel when the day’s work was done ”—and we went to bed, 
 he reading himself to sleep. Sometimes he did not sleep well and 
 was restless, and sometimes very well; but in all cases far better 
 
Changes . 489 
 
 than he had ever done before he was an invalid. We had an 
 electric bell between our beds, so that if he was restless it woke me. 
 
 On the 30th of October he mourns the death of Mr. Henry 
 Levick, the first European to take up his abode at Suez, where 
 he lived forty-one years. He pioneered the Mail Service through 
 Egypt, assisted in arranging the Overland route, often accompanying 
 the mails across the desert. He was the first English Consul at 
 Suez, was packet-agent and postmaster to her Majesty, and agent 
 for the late Government of India. The widow and numerous 
 children have been left to starve for the last six years. She is now 
 head of the English Hospital for Trained Nurses in Paris, 34, Rue 
 de Prony Parc Monceau, and sadly in need of kindness and 
 patronage. 
 
 On the 31st of October we were inundated with anonymous 
 letters, which made us angry (I thought then that it was only a 
 Triestine amusement, but I found out, twenty-three months ago, that 
 it was equally common in England, and twice as coarse); the 
 object then being to make us clear out our house of everybody in 
 it that we wanted. 
 
 On November 17th he deplores the death of Colonel Valentine 
 Baker. 
 
 The Empress now arrived at Miramar for a little rest and seclusion 
 
 His journal continues :— 
 
 “ On the 1 st of December my wife and I, accompanied by Dr. 
 Grenfell Baker, returned to Abbazia to avoid the fearful Boras of 
 Trieste, and to shelter in the supposed mild climate of the Austrian 
 Riviera. It is only a few hours’ rail distant, but you must rise at 
 four a.m., though with a decent train it could be done in two hours. 
 We were, however, doomed to disappointment. On December 7th 
 the snow began and lasted two months; the earth was covered, and 
 the pine and bay trees, the local boast of the place, were so broken 
 and bent under its weight, that many of the undergrowths did not 
 recover. There are two sorts of cur-orts (health resorts); the first is 
 when everything is planned out for the comfort and cheeriness of 
 the invalid, as in Switzerland and the Riviera, and the second one 
 is when ambition upstarts barely out of its swaddling clothes, un¬ 
 formed and without a prospect of ever becoming better. Then they 
 are expensive, uncomfortable, and are merely traps laid by money- 
 grubbers for unhappy invalids, who ought never to go where they 
 cannot rough it, but where healthy people may manage to live in 
 dullness and discomfort, and of this category are Abbazia and 
 Hammam R’irha in N. W. Africa. 
 
 “ At Abbazia you rise early, drink coffee, walk, breakfast at twelve 
 in the restaurant, siesta, walk or drive, dine at 7.30, and retire to 
 your bedroom. There is no public room or meeting-place, no news- 
 
490 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 papers, except in a tiny room. There is charming society, the 
 Austrian and Hungarian cousinhood, some of which we enjoyed very 
 much; but it is a clique. The Jews and Americans dore theirs. The 
 harmless and inoffensive people who go there for imaginary baths 
 and waters creep in to meals and out again and disappear. Hence 
 a serious occupation or a study is a necessity. I got Father Josef 
 Jane, the Catholic priest, to come and read German with me in the 
 evenings, and I had my literature—my two last volumes of supple¬ 
 mental ‘ Arabian Nights ; ’ my wife the same. We varied our time 
 by driving to Castua, Moschenizza, Ika, Sovrana, and to Fiume to 
 see the Count and Countess Hoyos and family and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Whitehead (whose father gave us an occasional field-day with the 
 torpedos), and our colleague, the English Consul Mr. Faber and 
 his family. We walked, drove, lounged about smoking in the 
 grounds. The views are beautiful. The winds are not boisterous, 
 as at Trieste. Fiume is an hour away, and the boundary between 
 my jurisdiction and Faber’s lies halfway—Abbazia being in my juris¬ 
 diction. Fiume is as dull as ditchwater, with one fifth-class hotel. 
 Your room in the hotel at Abbazia may be comfortable, but the food 
 becomes worse and worse as the visitors increase, and the sanitary 
 arrangements, the bread and water, are fearfully bad. 
 
 “To give some idea of its primitive state in 1887-88, although 
 I had been Consul here for fifteen years, they refused to take my 
 cheque, because ‘ they did not know who “ Coutts ” was.’ There 
 is no p?'omenoir , no wandelbahn , no kur-salon , in fact no public 
 rooms. There is a fine large dining-room, where, unless you are an 
 archduke, you may not smoke for fear of spoiling the gilding; conse¬ 
 quently you are driven into a kind of estciminet , where at 8.30 you 
 can cut the reek of tobacco and food with a knife. A head director 
 often visits Abbazia, but he is never at home to strangers, knowing 
 that they only seek him to make complaints. The management is 
 under an Austrian, not a Swiss. The appointment is always given 
 to an employe of the Siidbahn , which owns the place, and not to 
 a hotelier , therefore he naturally does not know his work. And 
 Austria in such matters is fifty years behind Switzerland. The 
 British grumbler (who has made Switzerland) is still more almost 
 unknown in the dual kingdom. The dullness of life is almost 
 incredible, and what gaieties there are—the Christmas tree, the New 
 Year’s Day ball, the concert of Tyrolians, and the gypsy band—as 
 in all irregulated establishments, turned everything topsy-turvy, and 
 converted stagnation into utter misery.” 
 
 We had a visit at Abbazia from the Dowager Lady Galway, and 
 Richard had an attack of gout when the snow came on, and on the 
 19th we had an earthquake. 
 
 On the 14th he got another slight attack of gout in both feet. 
 Gout now became a trimestral attack, which the doctor considered 
 to be a safety-valve for the head and general health, provided it was 
 
Changes. 491 
 
 a healthy gout m the feet. Richard was gouty off and on all this 
 snow-time. On the 18th the Crown Prince, poor Prince Rudolph, 
 came to the hotel and stayed forty-eight hours ; on the 21st we were 
 further put in sorrow by the news of the death, at the early age of 
 forty-one, of dear Anna Kingsford. 
 
 On the 5th of March we bade adieu to all the charming friends 
 we had made there, and at four o’clock in the afternoon we drove to 
 Mattuglie to take the train for Trieste. The superintendent of the 
 railway, our friend Mr. Thomas, made a charming arrangement for 
 us. From Mattuglie to St. Peter’s is only two or three hours, but St. 
 Peter’s, on an elevation, is an ice-bound place in winter; there you 
 have to stand about for an hour or more in a miserable little station, 
 waiting for the night-mail for Trieste. I coaxed him into giving us 
 a large saloon with tables and beds most luxuriously fitted up, a 
 carriage behind for the servants, and a compartment behind for the 
 baggage, so that when we got into the train, Dr. Baker and I had 
 nothing to do but to put Richard to bed, and we congratulated 
 ourselves warmly on the arrangement, because, as we neared St. 
 Peter’s, the train passed through walls of snow much higher than 
 itself, down which a howling wind came as through a funnel, whilst 
 our saloon was perfectly warm. When we got to St. Peter’s we were 
 detached and shunted, a nice hot dinner was served to us in the 
 carriage, and we got Richard into Trieste without the slightest hurt. 
 
 On the 19th of March, 1888, his sixty-seventh birthday, Richard 
 finished his last volume of the supplemental “Nights” (the sixteenth 
 volume), but it did not come out till the 13th of November, 1888, 
 and during the intervening months he corrected proofs, and began 
 writing what he called “ chow-chow ”—odds and ends that he had 
 been waiting to finish up. We were exceedingly relieved, because he 
 had always had such a fear of not living to keep his engagements, 
 and we had received money for it. 
 
 On the 2nd of April we began a second “reviewers reviewed” on 
 the “Arabian Nights” critics (the first one was on the “Lusiads;” 
 Richard having been roughly handled, had raised our ire). 
 
 On the 7 th of April we had to deplore the loss of our good kind 
 friend, R. Mackay Smith, of Edinburgh, and on the same date of 
 Lady Margaret Beaumont, another of our kindest friends. 
 
 On the 9th of April he was rather agitated about some lost papers. 
 I have spoken at length of a peculiarity he had of hiding things, and 
 latterly especially he could not remember where he put them. Then 
 he had to call me, and I was frequently several hours hunting for 
 them. I have a particular prayer that I always say when I cannot 
 find anything, and it has occasionally happened that the lost thing 
 
49 2 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 was found immediately, so he used to call me in an agitated way, 
 saying, “ Come here, I want that prayer directly; I have lost such 
 and such.” On the nth of May we had the pleasure of a visit from 
 our old friend, Frederick Foster Arbuthnot, of 18, Park Lane, who 
 stayed with us some days. 
 
 Richard’s journal runs as follows :— 
 
 “ After four months of snow, alternating with the Scirocco, the 
 damp, depressing, and ozone-wanting gift of Northern Africa, we 
 left Abbazia on the 5th of March, 1888, disappointed in the hope 
 of staying there till the end of the month. The train which con¬ 
 veyed us passed through walls of snow ten or twelve feet high on 
 either side. Passing friends made the stay in Trieste in spring very 
 delightful, but unusual heat set in on the 9th of May, and gave the 
 signal for departure. In consideration of the state of my health, the 
 Foreign Office, though it would not release me, was kind enough to 
 let me judge of when I could or could not stay at Trieste; in fact, an 
 informal sick certificate. As the summer was premature and I could 
 not stay, I thought I might as well go back to England and see my 
 supplemental ‘Nights’ brought out, so on May 16th we went to 
 Venice, Milan—where we called, on the 20th, on the Emperor and 
 Empress of Brazil (who had been most truly kind to us during our 
 four years’ stay in their country; the Emperor was then thought to 
 be dying, so we did not see them, nor did we ever see them again), 
 and we arrived at Varese. Under Signor Marini and his English 
 wife this was an exceptional place, the centre of a charming country, 
 geographically a neutral ground between the uplands of Swiss Ticino, 
 pretty, pleasant, and picturesque, and the lowlands of the Italian 
 Milanese flats, which are flat and admirably fertile. 
 
 “ Varese is a charming place; a beautiful hotel with lovely grounds, 
 scenery, and splendid spring and autumn climate, and easily got at, 
 where we met many friends. Hence during the spring and autumn 
 it attracted a host of English, who all, save a very few, took flight 
 in summer and winter; but the management soon changed, and 
 what became of the Hotel Excelsior under the Italian committee 
 I could not say. I only know that the Marinis have opened an hotel, 
 and are doing very well, in Via Tritone, Rome. The interests of the 
 place were private theatricals in the evening, and the procession of 
 Corpus Christi in the picturesque little town. There was also much 
 interest in prehistoric villages and collections. The departure was 
 not comfortable to Lucerne. Most travellers would have returned 
 to Milan, and started direct by the St. Gothard Railway. We, wanting 
 to see the country, determined to drive to Chiasso, a horrid little 
 frontier town where we were to pick up the train, and where one 
 wishes a glad adieu to Italy. 
 
 “The drive from Varese to Chiasso on the 1st of June was 
 delightful. A beautiful country of deep-wooded hill and vale, abound¬ 
 ing with acacia and yellow broom, and peopled with cuckoos and 
 hoopoes. We dined at the buffet in the open. We were directed 
 
493 
 
 Changes . 
 
 not to the buffet at Chiasso, which is excellent in food and wine, 
 and can supply bedrooms, but to a wretched soi-disant hotel, St. 
 Michele, fit only for the roughest of peasants, with the prices ol 
 milords. The wonderful mountain scenery at St. Gothard, with its 
 rich valley and snow peaks, its long tunnel under the venerable well- 
 known hospice, Mont St. Bernard, and its marvellously engineered 
 line, whose windings look on paper like sundry pairs of spectacles, 
 with its green hills, glaciers, rockery, and waterfalls, and rushing 
 river below in the depths, is too familiar to the general public to 
 bear description, but the glorious mountain air, the kindly ways of 
 the people, and the contrast of the Swiss frontier custom-house 
 with the horrors of Italy, left a most grateful impression. 
 
 “ On the evening of the 2nd of June we found rooms at the 
 Schweizer-hof, Herren Hauser, who have made this the model estab¬ 
 lishment of Switzerland, and one may say of the world. I had not 
 seen Lucerne since 1840—when I was a boy, and my tutor took me 
 to drink the waters of Schinznach, en route to Oxford—so to me it 
 was quite a new world. Herr Hauser could, however, show me the 
 remains of the three humble inns, belonging to that proto-historic 
 period since the Lake country has become the playground of Europe, 
 and art has assisted nature in making it like the transformation 
 scene of an opera —un dlcor de theatre. Here everything is done 
 for the comfort and delectation of the travelling idler. Under the 
 crispy air and bluest of skies grand piles of hotel rise from the 
 margin of the blue lake, looking upon semicircles of forest and 
 mountain crowned by snow peaks, nestling villages and villas in 
 groves of pink chestnut blossom, steamers flying gaudy flags, which 
 are illuminated at night with coloured lamps. On the left a dwarf 
 eminence is crowned by the Cathedral, which contains a remarkable 
 life-size crucifix and an alto relievo of the death of the Blessed 
 Virgin. 
 
 “On the right towers the naked and jagged cone of the cloud- 
 capped mountain Piliatus, which has become Pilatus, has bred a 
 host of grisly legends which the gaunt rock and its lakelet on the 
 summit have suggested. Behind the town still runs the enceinte of 
 mediaeval wall, with its picturesque towers surmounted here and 
 there by grotesque figures. Lucerne is essentially a three-days’ place. 
 Next day there was a procession of virgins in white and soldiers 
 saluting, etc. The first things you visit are the two quaint wooden 
 bridges and paintings of Holbein’s ‘ Dance of Death.’ Then you 
 climb the Drei Linden hill for a panorama of the place; you must 
 ascend in the funicular railway the Gat hill, and wander through the 
 pine forests. You perhaps visit the public library, which contains 
 not books but musty fusty documents, and you walk through the 
 absurd museum, which does not even boast of a catalogue. On the 
 second day you take the steamer to Vitznau, and ascend the Rigi by 
 the far-famed railway. We always compare the engines of these lift- 
 railways to a huge praying mantis. The panorama is worth 
 seeing; the land lies below your feet in the shape of an embossed 
 map. Rigi Staffel has the best climate. 
 
494 Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 “ On the third day you are in local honour bound to hire a two-horse 
 carriage, and to drive about the environs to see the scenery; and 
 then you must railway up to Pilatus. We all differed in our estimate 
 of the lake. I could not admire it. As a piece of water, it is cut 
 into various sections by projecting points, and reminded me of some 
 large river of the upper Mississippi. My wife, on the contrary, was 
 enchanted with the Lucerne end of it, and found a great delight in 
 lazing up and down in the steamers. With Dr. Baker everything 
 Swiss is sacred; it is his Eden, and must not be touched by hand 
 profane. Lucerne must, however, be seen during the season; at 
 other times it is like the inside of a theatre at early morning. We 
 went back to it in March, 1889, and saw it at its worst, when deep 
 snow covered the ground, and the roads were slushy and uncared for, 
 when the streets were deserted, when the people showed homely faces, 
 and their ugly German did not sound so unmusical. The local 
 aristocracy of hotel-keepers and shop-keepers seemed hurt by the 
 presence of strangers, and applying for entrance to a public building 
 was looked upon almost as a grievance. The moral was, avoid 
 Lucerne when not in gala dress. 
 
 “ We left on the 9th of June, and remarked the meanness of the 
 station; and at the first sight, which subsequent experience con¬ 
 firmed, the Swiss railways generally, for accommodation and con¬ 
 venience, have not kept pace with the hotels and all their other 
 luxuries. The Anglo-Americans especially are full of gibes at the 
 crawling trains. Arrived at Berne, we found the Berne station 
 (Swiss capital) the worst of any metropolis in Europe, an Inferno 
 in the hot, and a well in the cold season; a cave of the winds, at 
 all times damp, draughty, and dangerous. It reminded us of York a 
 quarter of a century ago. We returned from Berne to Ouchy through 
 a charming country of vineyards, orchards, and smiling fields. Thirty 
 years ago my wife was here as a girl with a married brother and 
 sister, when it was the smallest of places, and a little inn, which then 
 stood on the borders of the lake, was the best accommodation. Now 
 the large Beau Rivage, with its fine grounds, ought to attract many 
 travellers, but it is said not to pay its expenses, the reason probably 
 being that it is managed by a company. 
 
 “ Reserving Lausanne for future inspection, we went on to Aigle, 
 passing through mountains, and skirting the south-east horn of the 
 lake. This favourite summering-place showed itself at its worst, 
 The rains were unceasing, and the muddiness of the roads made 
 driving and walking equally unpleasant. Despite the weather, we 
 managed, however, a few of the nearest trips. We drove up the 
 valley of the Rhone, went to Bex, Trocadero, Villar, Bouvret, 
 Diableret, and by rail to Montreux. We walked up to the Roman 
 tower, at the St Triphon-Ollon quarries, famed for its black marble, 
 and inspected the Gorge de Trient, which twenty years ago was not 
 a show place, and has now become a wonder, and yet no wonder; 
 for it is a most impressive sight, with narrow-planked bridges, lining 
 the steep sides of a perpendicular cliff six hundred feet high, with 
 two hundred and forty feet of boiling, swirling torrent rushing 
 
Changes . 495 
 
 beneath you, and it is a fifteen minutes’ walk through this more 
 or less dark place to the roaring waterfalls. My wife thought 
 it a grand sight, and was very much impressed, and said she felt 
 so small, and that she would not go in there by herself for anything. 
 I must say I thought but little of it, but it is a dreadful place for 
 nervous people, and a dizzy one for the bilious. There were 
 Americans photographing, and guides firing pistols to show the echo. 
 The annual receipts from visitors is eight thousand francs. 
 
 “ We visited the Augustinian monastery of St. Maurice, which will be 
 alluded to later on. The weather, instead of behaving better, became 
 worse, and as the house suddenly filled with people, it by no means 
 improved the service or the cuisme. After a month’s stay, we deter¬ 
 mined to take sudden leave, and on the 12th of July departed to 
 Geneva. A delightful change of climate—for here summer had set 
 in. We put up at the Continental, and I enjoyed breakfasting with 
 Professor Karl Vogt. But I could not stand a fearful automatic grind- 
 organ, the size of an average clothes-press, which raised its abominable 
 voice immediately after dinner, and never ceased till it had run down. 
 This was explained by the Continental being an American institution, 
 and after all the grind-organ, like the street band, is kept up by the 
 suffrages of the majority. We will speak again of Geneva on our 
 return.” 
 
 I must remark about Aigle that there is besides the village a large 
 hotel situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, and where the 
 Dent du Midi was so clear that it seems as if you could touch it. 
 It was a very amusing place, and we met a number of very nice 
 people; w 7 e stayed a month because Dr. Baker’s mother and very 
 charming sister came there to meet him. Here we were reading 
 “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” and Richard was perfectly delighted with 
 it, and afterwards we had a contrast in Renan’s “ Apotres.” 
 
 I need not say that wherever w T e were, and Switzerland was no 
 exception to the rule, that every excursion that was possible to make 
 was made, and everything that could be seen was seen—it did not 
 matter if it was mushroom-growing, cigarette-making, or Swiss milk 
 condensed. We not only stayed at our head-quarters, but we knew 
 the country pretty well all round. 
 
 One of the most delightful excursions was driving up the Valley of 
 the Rhone to St. Maurice. We used to get a capital little breakfast 
 and a good bottle of Dole du Valais at a hotel pension, kept by a 
 Dalmatian at Aigle. We had a very nice Cure at Aigle, the Abbe 
 Stercky, who became a friend of Richard’s. 
 
 Richard enjoyed all these things very much. Part of the time, 
 however, it rained, and then he used to get melancholy and ill. On 
 the 12th of July w r e had had enough of it, and went to Geneva, 
 where his delight was to go and take a huge middle-day dinner with 
 
496 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 the old Professor Karl Vogt and his numerous family, without 
 either the doctor or me. The Professor was a very jovial person, 
 and his jolly fat laugh used to sound all over house and garden, 
 and the dinner lasted from at least twelve till four. They were 
 simple and kind-hearted people, and they thoroughly appreciated 
 Richard. 
 
 On the 15th we left for Paris, and had a very shaky journey, but 
 it did not hurt him. Our great friend Professor Zotenberg met 
 him, and dined with us. On the 18th we left Paris for Folkestone, 
 where we stopped one day to see his sister Lady Stisted and her 
 daughter, and the following day, the 19th of July, 1888, we arrived 
 at the St. James’s Hotel in London. We had not been in London 
 for two years, and we had naturally an immense quantity of people 
 to see and business to transact. About ten days after, Richard got 
 very ill, and kept us in a great fright; but it lasted a very short 
 time, as he was at his club next day. 
 
 One could imagine what a delight it was to him to return to the 
 club. He used to like to be dropped there at about half-past eleven 
 or twelve. He would lunch there, take a siesta after, and read 
 and write and see his men-friends, and then either Dr. Baker or I 
 used to call for him at six. It was the only free time he had from 
 our surveillance, the whole three years and a half of his illness, and 
 it was an immense relief to him. I do not mean to say that he 
 could not be alone in his room as much as ever he liked, but we 
 never let him walk or drive out by himself, lest a return of the 
 attack should occur, and he would have no assistance, and we always 
 carried restoratives in our pockets. 
 
 Here we had the pleasure of seeing our friend H. H. Johnston, 
 Consul in West Africa and artist, one of the most charming and 
 sympathetic of men. St. James’s was too noisy, although Richard 
 thought the situation quite perfect. His central point of the world 
 was Apsley House, and he despised everything between that and 
 the desert. Dr. Baker now went for a holiday, and Dr. Leslie came 
 back to us. 
 
 However, Richard took it into his head that as Ramsgate has 
 such a reputation for air, we would go and try it; so on the 3rd 
 of August we went to the Granville, where we stopped for a week, 
 taking drives to Margate, to St. Peter’s, and Westgate, to see 
 Admiral Beamish, or to Deal, Sandgate, where we tried to see Mr. 
 Clarke Russell, and Broadstairs, in each of which we found friends 
 or cousins. We did not think much of the Granville Hotel, having 
 been thoroughly spoiled by the best hotels abroad; but our great 
 amusement was that, having lived so much away from home, we 
 
Changes. 497 
 
 knew nothing about Bank Holiday, and found ourselves landed in a 
 hundred and fifty thousand of the people for four days, and Richard’s 
 delight was to go and sit on the sands and watch them—the Salva¬ 
 tion Army, the niggers, the performers with ventriloquist-heads 
 stuck on poles ; but we were immensely edified, for although here 
 and there there was a little rough play, there was not a single case 
 of drunkenness. After a week the air proved too strong for Richard, 
 and we went back, this time to the Langham Hotel. 
 
 Here we had a most pleasant time, for, in spite of its being August, 
 old friends and relatives came and lunched and dined with us every 
 day, which cheered Richard up immensely; and our friend F. F. 
 Arbuthnot joined us, and passed a week in the hotel, and amongst 
 others were Mr. John Payne, Du Chaillu, Mr. Henry Irving, 
 Swinburne, Mr. Theodore Watts, and others. Dr. Baker came back 
 eventually, and we went off to Oxford, where Richard delighted 
 in driving round to all the Colleges, and where we met numbers of 
 old friends—Mr. Arthur Evans and his wife, Mr. Chandler, Professor 
 Sayce, etc. From there we went to the Queen’s Hotel, Norwood, 
 to be near Richard’s sister and niece for a fortnight, and enjoy the 
 Crystal Palace. 
 
 A Norwood treat was having a clairvoyante down from London, 
 who pronounced on our health. She told Richard that he was 
 bad in the head, eyes, down the back of neck, stomach, feet, and 
 legs; that I had cancer; that I had healing powers, powerful 
 light from heaven, a red cross above me, a large protection and 
 light from above, with troops of friends and patrons. The cancer 
 prophecy made Richard unhappy, till he saw how little I believed 
 in it. The drives were to Dulwich and to Croydon, to see Com¬ 
 mander Cameron and his wife. One particular treat we had was 
 going to Colonel Goureaud’s, who gave us a field-day with the 
 Eddison phonograph, which we had seen in its infancy in 1878 in 
 Dublin. Richard thought that it opened a wonderful future in 
 science. He offered to do the muezzirts call to prayer, “ Allahu 
 Akbar,” into a phonograph ; somehow it was not done. What a 
 treasure it would be now ! 
 
 After a fortnight we went back to the Langham, which we liked 
 thoroughly. We saw our last of Lawrence Oliphant about the 1st 
 of September. In London Dr. Baker had several consultations for 
 Richard with Dr. Mortimer Granville, who took infinite pains with 
 him, and gave him a long and careful examination. Dr. Mortimer 
 Granville said he was as sound as a bell, barring the gout. And 
 that day, the 23rd of September, he insisted on going to the club by 
 himself, and he did so several times whilst he remained in London. 
 
498 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 It was a relief to him to feel that he could do something of former 
 times. 
 
 It would seem as if we were always changing our abode ; and 
 so it was. His magnetism was so immense, his brain travelled so 
 fast, absorbed so quickly, that he sucked dry all his surroundings, 
 whether place, scenery, people, or facts, before the rest of us had 
 settled down to realize whether we liked a place or not. When 
 he arrived at this stage everything was flat to him, and he would 
 anxiously say, “ Do you think I shall live to get out of this, and to 
 see another place ? ” And I used regularly to say, “ Of course you 
 will. Let us go to-day, if you feel like that; ” and that would quiet 
 him so far that he would say, “ Oh no ; say next Monday or Tuesday; ” 
 and then we went. During the latter days of his life, this restless¬ 
 ness became absolutely part of his complaint, and we used to seem 
 to be moving on every week. One of his peculiarities was that he 
 never would remain one moment in the hotel behind me. W e used 
 to plan to divide our work. I did all the courier’s work, and the 
 doctor took care of my husband. I used to go down to the stations 
 or the steamers, with Lisa, a full hour before time, to take the tickets, 
 weigh the baggage, procure a compartment for our party alone, 
 telegraph forward for carriage, for rooms, and meals, so that his 
 journey might go on oiled wheels, and Dr. Baker was to follow with 
 him to save fatigue, getting him in five minutes before the start. 
 We never could manage this; he would not let me go away one 
 single instant before him, but used to jump into the same carriage. 
 
 The chief things Richard notes on this visit were as follows 
 
 “But on the 15th we left Geneva for Paris—when Zotenberg 
 dined with us (at Folkestone I saw my sister)—and London, which 
 we reached on the 20th of July, after nearly two years’ absence, 
 and lodged at the St. James’s Hotel, Piccadilly. Literary work 
 awaited us both, and I was again obliged to run the risk and dangers 
 of the Bodleian at Oxford; but this time I had my wife and Dr. 
 Baker with me, and I escaped all the evil results. 
 
 “ During the time we were in London we had luncheons and 
 dinners every day for our friends. It is no use giving a long list of 
 names, but most of them were the most interesting people in London. 
 We were also asked out immensely into Society, and in the daytime 
 we accepted; but we made a rule now, on account of my health, 
 never to accept a dinner or evening invitation, because I was obliged 
 to dine at 7.30 and go to bed at 9.30, and my wife would not leave 
 me. Amongst others, we had the pleasure at Lady Henry Gordon 
 Lennox’s of meeting Mr. Villiers, a brilliant relic of the old school, 
 and my wife was fortunate enough to be taken in to lunch by him. 
 
 “ On the 21 st of August we went down to Bromley Holwood to 
 see Lord and Lady Derby; they showed us Pitt’s old house, the oak 
 
499 
 
 Changes . 
 
 under which Pitt organized the abolition of slavery, Pitt’s writing- 
 table, and a doll which the Queen gave to Lady Derby when she was 
 Lady Mary West.” 
 
 He writes on the 22nd of September :— 
 
 “ To-day my wife was sent for to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy 
 to receive from Count Liitzow a very beautiful portrait of the 
 Empress of Austria, in approval of her life and works. This has 
 made me very proud and her very happy.” 
 
 In October we went down to Newmarket, to see my cousins Lord 
 and Lady Gerard, where we met some very pleasant people, and 
 where Richard was very much interested going to the training ground, 
 and saw hundreds of racehorses taking their gallops, and Captain 
 Machell and Colonel Oliver Montagu explained everything to us. 
 
 On the 15th of October, 1888, Richard left London. Little did we 
 think he would never return to it more alive. We stayed at Folke¬ 
 stone ten days to be near his sister and niece, and had some charming 
 country drives. We crossed on the 26th of October—his last sight 
 of Old England. Two years later he was gone. 
 
 We stayed at Boulogne. He was very fond of it; it agreed with him, 
 and he liked to go over all the old haunts where we had met as young 
 people, and his old fencing school too. He writes : “ My old fencing- 
 master Constantin is eighty, with a young bright eye.” On the 29th 
 of October, 1888, we went to Paris, also for the last time, and here 
 at breakfast and dinner we generally had Professor Zotenberg (who 
 gave us an always-remembered breakfast at the Lion d’Or), or Pro¬ 
 fessor Houdas, or Mr. Barnard of the New York Herald —all who 
 knew things that were interesting to him. We went on from there 
 to Geneva by the train de luxe to the Hotel Nationale, which was 
 as nice as could be. On the 19th of November, after dinner, the 
 chandelier fell on the dinner-table, the gas rushed out, and waiters 
 went to fetch a lamp. This happened to us two winters running. 
 Geneva is a charming place in winter, and agreed well with Richard, 
 who was again enabled to enjoy his days with Karl Vogt. We got 
 to know very pleasant society and had delightful drives—one to 
 Ferney (chateau of Voltaire) and the Voirons. After he left England 
 in 1888, his health got ever so much better, and I had confident 
 hopes that he would last for many years. Here Richard made his 
 last public lecture. The Geneva Geographical Society asked him to 
 speak, and he had a regular ovation. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 AT MONTREUX. 
 
 On the 2nd of January, 1889, we moved ourselves to the Hotel 
 des Alpes at Montreux. The journey is only an hour. It was 
 bitterly cold, but the temperature rose fourteen degrees on the way. 
 Here we had a delightful time, excursioning to the Chateau de 
 Chillon, to Hotel Biron, to Villeneuve, les Avants, three thousand 
 feet high, Mont-Fleurie, Glion, etc. But our favourite place seemed 
 to be St. Maurice, where we had several delightful days in the 
 valley of the Rhone, but one particularly to be remembered. Abbe 
 Stercky went with us. He is one of the monks, was Curd of Aigle, 
 and Richard liked him. The little inn is cosy, with its good Dalma¬ 
 tian proprietor, who kept a cheerful room, a blazing wood fire, a 
 capital good breakfast, and a good bottle of Dole de Valais. We 
 passed a good deal of time in the monastery. 
 
 It is the oldest Augustinian monastery in the world, and having 
 Abbd Stercky with us, we saw all the treasures-—gold, silver, gems, 
 and onyx treasures from Charlemagne and St. Louis of France • 
 they, and also manuscripts and old books, were shown to us by a 
 gentlemanly and polished monk, Pere Bourbord, otherwise they are 
 generally shown by a surly monk, who does not let you see anything. 
 There were a number of very charming people stopping at the hotel, 
 which was crowded for the winter. We all fraternized, and we had 
 extensive afternoon receptions and tea-fights, and in the evenings we 
 all used to contribute something to the amusements—who could sing, 
 sang; who could recite, recited ; who could tell stories of foreign lands, 
 did so, and also ghost-stories; and there was music and dancing 
 and acting galore, also theatricals and a musical drill beautifully 
 performed. It was a charming hotel, with every accommodation, 
 plenty of places for smoking, and Richard used to enjoy it thoroughly, 
 parties of men flocking around him. 
 
 On the 22nd, our wedding-day, everybody was so good to us; 
 
 500 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 501 
 
 there were presents and flowers, and little speeches. I got quite 
 choky, and Richard ran away and locked himself up. 
 
 When Richard had had enough of Montreux, we moved on to 
 Lausanne. We drove about immensely, sometimes to Ouchy, and 
 a very interesting excursion was going to see Voltaire’s house, Mont 
 Morion, occupied by Dr. and Mrs. Niven, whom we knew at 
 Matharan, in India. 
 
 On the 25th we went off to Berne to see Mr. and Mrs. Scott, our 
 Minister. It was looking very picturesque and beautiful; the Hotel 
 Belle Vue comfortable, with lovely views. It was very cold, covered 
 with snow, and the air dry and crisp; in fact, everything was a “ Snow 
 Hell.” The weather did not hurt Richard ; he completely changed. 
 Since Richard had been ill, he was quite a different man to what he 
 had been previously in tastes and feelings. Whereas before he was 
 always cold, and would have fires in the height of summer, now in 
 the bitterest weather a fire in his room made him sick. He would 
 now eat sweet things and drink milk, which in his stronger days he 
 could not look at. He slept, instead of whole nights of insomnia, 
 though often not as well as one could wish. He liked the world and 
 company, whereas before he had shunned the general run of society, 
 and in many other ways was quite different. 
 
 At Berne he saw a unique Swiss sword. Swords were looked for 
 at every place, so we went straight to an antiquarian, who showed 
 us some iron blades, metal scabbards, and arabesque spear-heads. 
 
 It was now that we returned, 1st of March, 1889, to Lucerne, 
 which was another “ Snow Hell.” We went to the Hotel Nationale, 
 the only place open, had lovely rooms and good fires, but the rest of 
 it deserved all Richard said of it a while ago. 
 
 On the 4th we rose early, quite well, and made all ready to go, and 
 having an hour to wait, sat down to enjoy the fire, when all of a 
 sudden I got an aching in every bone, a bad rash came out, and 
 faint, cold down the spine, hot and cold, nausea; could do nothing 
 but rock and groan, and groaned and rocked the whole eight hours 
 to Milan. 
 
 On the 10th we went down to Venice, to the Hotel Victoria, 
 where we were put in big, damp, dark rooms like catacombs; and 
 on the 12th arrived at Trieste, where I was very weak for a long 
 time. 
 
 Though I little contemplated the great catastrophe and break-up 
 of my life in 1890, but with a view to leaving Trieste in July, 
 1891, I began to wish to collect all possible reminiscences of the 
 home I loved so well. One of the visitors to our Trieste home 
 wrote me: “ I think of you so very often, and your lovely home on 
 
502 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 the shores of the Adriatic, with its rich treasures of mind and heart. 
 It stands out before me like a lighthouse on the sea of life, pointing 
 onwards, upwards, to a higher, nobler state of existence, to which 
 I shall try to reach.” These words, which have been differently 
 expressed to me in many different languages, and in this particular 
 case coming from one “who had almost,” she says, “lost faith m 
 God,” inspire me with great gratitude to God, and make me wish to 
 perpetuate it in oil-painting reminiscences, that it may become part 
 of our lives in our future more prosaic London home. 
 
 I now selected from among other artists Mr. Albert Letchford, 
 a young painter of great talent, who had studied in Paris and 
 painted in Egypt, and who began to paint for me, on the ioth of 
 May, the four views from our windows, nine of our favourite 
 “ interiors ” of rooms, including Richard studying in his bedroom. 
 After that he painted my husband for the Stanley Exhibition, and 
 one life-size, fencing, which I now exhibit in the Grosvenor Gallery. 
 
 At this time there occurred the strikes in Austrian-Lloyd’s which 
 agitated the country very much, and we expected a revolution, which 
 did not happen. We had also a visit from Count T^leki, who had 
 made his splendid African journey, which was most interesting. On 
 the 12th of May we had a delightful sea-trip to Parenzo with friends 
 (Baron Marco Morpurgo, the then great banker and Director of 
 Lloyd’s, and his wife, the best friends Richard and I ever had in 
 Trieste). The object was to visit the old Cathedral of Parenzo, a 
 complicated mixture of most ancient Byzantine, Roman, Grecian, 
 and Venetian. It has three depths of old floors quite distinct. We 
 went over to Duino to stay with the Princess Hohenlohe and 
 Princess Taxis, a two hours’ drive from Trieste, which was our 
 favourite visit in the neighbourhood. We had the pleasure of 
 receiving Count von Wiirmbrandt, the Governor of Styria, Baron 
 Spaun, and Admiral Sterneck; this was followed by festivities for the 
 Archduke Otto and the Archduchess, and Archduke Leopold. On 
 that occasion Richard was allowed to go out in the evening to the 
 Morpurgos’ fete. 
 
 Sometimes our drives were varied by delightful little sea-trips. 
 
 On the 13th of June, going up to Opgina, our horses enacted the 
 same scene as that which happened at Sauerbrunn in 1887. On the 
 29th of June we were very sorry to lose our nicest English neigh¬ 
 bours and friends, Mr. and Mrs. Craig. In June also Richard felt 
 sadly the death of Professor Chandler. 
 
 On the 1 st of July, 1889, we went back to Adelsburg, where the 
 air was cold, and it was delightful to have no mosquitoes. General 
 Buckle accompanied us on this excursion. On the 2nd we had 
 
At Montreux . 
 
 503 
 
 frightful storms, the lightning striking seven or eight times just 
 about the house. The Caves by this time were quite spoiled by 
 the electric light. We were able to save a poor dog that had 
 been shot into an abyss by some cruel people, and Richard moralizes 
 in his journal, “ What had that dog done to be saved ? It was ten 
 thousand chances to one, against any one caring for his cries, and 
 getting him out of that abyss by lowering men with ropes, which 
 seemed impossible.” * 
 
 We had a delightful drive to Planina. As usual, in spite of all 
 evidences of a most healthy place, we got very sick, and so we went 
 on, on the 8th to Graz, a delightful central place in Austria, the 
 paradise of poor aristocracy, and retired military and naval “swells.” 
 From here we went over to Tobelbad, where we found some very 
 dear Austrian friends; but Tobelbad is in a hole, and we found it 
 so unhealthy, that we were glad to get to the top of a hill to breathe, 
 and drove back to Graz. A Baron von Ponte Reno, one of our 
 young friends, just about to be married, died a few days later. Here 
 we had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of Professor Schuhardt; 
 it was so hot we could not breathe. After a great many excursions 
 we went on to Miirziischlag, which is the station at the bottom of the 
 Semmering, on the Siidbahn line in Austria. It was a curious season. 
 The heat, or reports of cholera, had driven every soul out of the 
 towns to the mountains, and one could not get a bed for love nor 
 money, and so the Erzherzog Johann Hotel was what the Austrians, 
 with their delicacy and kindness, called Sehr Primitif, which meant 
 “devoid of all the necessaries of life;” but the air was delicious. 
 We looked everywhere, at Spital two hours away, and up and down 
 the Semmering, at all the hotels, first the station, then Stephanie 
 Gast-Haus, then Johann, and Panhaus the highest, then the Siidbahn’s 
 Semmering, and two dependencies, one of which we liked the best. 
 We reposed on a turf full of ants, and got back to the station to 
 Miirziischlag. 
 
 I immediately took a carriage, and drove up to Lambach Hotel, on 
 an eminence above the town. It was delightfully situated, only it was 
 full. Splendid air, beautiful views, only all the rooms were occupied 
 except one; so I put Richard and Dr. Baker into that, and Lisa and 
 I went down to a sort of outhouse, where we had a little room 
 leading out of the carriage stable, which was bounded on one side by 
 
 * In the same way, a house near us had a large monkey in a little room with 
 bars just above ground, and the boys used to poke at him with sticks, and shy 
 pebbles at him. I would go over to him with fruit and cake, and Richard used to 
 say to him, “ What crime did you commit in some other world, Jocko, that you 
 are caged for now, and tormented, and going through your purgatory ? ” And he 
 would walk off muttering, “ I wonder what he did—I wonder what he did?” 
 
504 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 the pigs, another side by the wash-house, and so on; but even these 
 discomforts, and some of them were very ludicrous, had their com¬ 
 pensations. Baron Kremer (and his wife), one time Finance 
 Minister at Vienna and homme de lettres , and Sir Arthur and 
 Lady Nicholson were in the hotel. From here we made an excur¬ 
 sion to Reichenau. On the 31st we went to Neuberg, and visited 
 the old Cistercian Monastery and Cathedral, and the Emperor’s shoot¬ 
 ing-box. It is a romantic little wayside inn, with a running stream 
 and a mill-wheel. On the 2nd we had a delightful journey from 
 Neuberg, past Frein and Fohenwerk, to Maria-Zell, which is the 
 Lourdes of Austria. 
 
 Maria-Zell is placed on a mountain-side—not in a valley, as 
 Murray has it—and the Church and Monastery are on an elevated 
 plateau in its midst. It is 2900 feet high by the aneroid. The air 
 is delicious, the climate is dry; there is a feeling of elevation, of 
 being able to breathe, and of looking on an equality with the moun¬ 
 tain-tops on all sides—where the clouds, storms, and winds would 
 meet in bad weather. It is an eight hours’ drive—and even a difficult 
 and dangerous drive—from any town. You must not want society ; 
 you must not fret your heart out after your letters, nor expect to 
 find books or papers; your resources must be within yourself, and 
 whatever you want you may bring with you. You may even bring 
 your tub. There are no doctors; but there is an apothecary’s shop, 
 which I suspect must be a gift of the Emperor to the pilgrims, as 
 it is a miniature copy of the Hof-Apotheke at Vienna. The town 
 itself is not a town, and not a village ; but, if I may say so, a religious 
 market town. Here we found the sword of Ludwig the Great, first 
 King of Hungary. This is the Lourdes of Austria, and the Cathedral 
 and Monastery are everything. The shops and the houses and the 
 forty-six inns of various degrees are to serve it. 
 
 We lodged in the best, close to the church, the Goldenen Lowen, 
 kept by a very dear old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman, of 
 seventy and seventy-five years of age, who have known much better 
 days, and are patronized by the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy, as 
 they once owned the Erzherzog Karl Hotel in Vienna ; but they lost 
 ^40,000 in the krach at the Vienna Exhibition, and came here. 
 They are most attentive and kind, and treated us with the old 
 chivalrous politeness of bygone days. Everything was the pink of 
 cleanliness ; she knew so well what one wanted, and how to make 
 one comfortable. The holy shops run in a horseshoe circle round 
 the Cathedral, where you buy all kinds of religious bric-a-brac, and 
 get it blessed. The Church is very large, and would take too long 
 to describe; there is a special inner sanctuary for the celebrated 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 505 
 
 Madonna and Child, whose history is long. Our great amusement 
 was watching the processions of pilgrims, which interests you very 
 much for a time; there were endless streams flowing from every 
 part of Austria, and many of them would begin at the bottom 
 step, and go all round the church on their knees—a most exhausting 
 process. 
 
 It is a charming place, and we stayed here a fortnight It seemed 
 to be the only place where one could get beds. We had delightful 
 drives to Erlach, Grimau, and Sigismund’s Chapel. At first Richard 
 was not very well, which made one anxious, but afterwards it 
 passed off. There is a Calvary to ascend, and a spring for sore eyes. 
 But I do not describe Maria-Zell at length, because the descriptions 
 at Lourdes must fully explain it; only that, ours being in the wilds, 
 the processions and the people were of a far more picturesque 
 nature, and that of Lourdes is well regulated, everything being cut 
 and dried for the pilgrims. 
 
 At last we heard there was room on the Semmering, so we left 
 Maria-Zell at eight a.m. There are no trains; the roads are like 
 footpaths over rugged mountains, with precipices here and there. 
 In four hours we reached Frein, where we found food, and Richard 
 slept for two hours; then we had two hours’ more driving, and 
 reached Neuberg. But our former picturesque little post-hotel was 
 full, Lady Nicholson and her children occupying a great part of it, 
 so we got primitive accommodation at a little public-house, where, 
 however, we were consoled by Lady Nicholson’s coming over to 
 dine with us ; and of the beds, the less I say the better. To get at 
 the promised accommodation at the Semmering, we had to pass two 
 pleasant hours at Miirziischlag station, where we had a capital 
 breakfast, and again met the Baron von Kremer, who accompanied 
 us to the Semmering on his way to Vienna. We never saw him again. 
 He died shortly after, and left a desolate wife. 
 
 We found this place delightful, a dependance of the Siidbahn Hotel, 
 Semmering, with glorious views, delicious air, very fair food, and, 
 above all, quiet; full of Austrians, Hungarians, and Jews. Here we 
 got a startling letter from the Foreign Office to Richard, wanting to 
 know why he had had so much leave, although they had told him 
 to take it. It agitated him, and hurt him. Our delightful drives 
 here were to Maria-Schiitze, another smaller pilgrimage place, like 
 Maria-Zell, but with only a small village, one shop and one inn. 
 Snow fell upon the Schneeberg — this was always a signal for 
 Richard not being very well; but these little attacks of gout came 
 and passed quickly. He did not get on well here, so we made up 
 our minds to leave on the twelfth day. The fact is, the Foreign 
 
506 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 Office letter had worried him, and made him anxious to get back to 
 Trieste; so we went up to Vienna. 
 
 Sir Augustus and Lady Paget were absent, but the secretaries, 
 Mr. Phipps, Lord Royston, and Mr. Maude, dined with us, where 
 we soon had a nice little society round us, and of literary people, 
 Dr. and Madame de Griez, Mr. Brinsley Richards and his wife, 
 Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Lavino of the Daily Telegraph , and, last but not 
 least, Major and Mrs. Keith Fraser. We drove to Karlenberg, and 
 that evening Richard broke out with gout. Dr. Baker telegraphed 
 to England for some particular medicines, and they arrived by 
 immediate post; but we were not allowed by law T to have them, for 
 the protection of the native chemist, so we had them sent back to 
 Trieste. Disheartened, we determined to leave; but first we visited 
 the tomb of Prince Rudolf. Many were passing down into the 
 vaulted chamber where the sarcophagus lies. It was very, very 
 cold and dark, and it made us so melancholy to think what he had 
 thrown away in one moment. 
 
 The next evening we left by the night express, and arrived at 
 Trieste at ten next morning. How nice it is to arrive at home ! 
 
 On the 8th of September he deplores the death of Wilkie Collins; 
 and on Friday, the 13th, the death of George Elliott Ranken, and 
 Lady Holland, at seventy-eight. 
 
 Here Richard got well very quick. Mr. Joyner, C.E., from 
 Poonah, India, paid us a visit, whom we had not seen for thirteen 
 years. He was not in the least changed. We had a fearful storm, 
 of rain, hail, thunder, lightning, and wind, which smashed twelve 
 of our windows. H.M.S. Scout came in, Captain Conybeare, Lieu¬ 
 tenants Torlesse and Carr ; and we had the pleasure of receiving 
 some of the officers for a few days. It always did Richard so much 
 good seeing his countrymen from home. He had to have a small 
 operation performed on the 7 th of October, after which we went up 
 to the mountains for quiet and rest. The Scout steamed out on the 
 10th, and we waved a flag from the roof, which they could see with 
 glasses. We all got rheumatism, and went down again shortly. On 
 the 22nd of October Richard had to be worried with another 
 second small operation. I told the operator to be as gentle as 
 he could, as Richard was in a very nervous state, and he would 
 hardly believe me, he looked so well and strong; but he told me 
 afterwards that he found out that it was so. Dr. Baker found him 
 a very clever man, and what he had to do, was done as painlessly 
 and as quickly as possible; and Richard was well enough to enter¬ 
 tain our dear friend Alexander Thayer, ex-Consul-General of the 
 United States (who dined with us regularly once a week), on his 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 507 
 
 seventy-second birthday, which occurred the same evening, a few 
 hours after the operation. We had several friends, who each had 
 their day to either breakfast or dine with us. It was a custom always 
 kept up. 
 
 On the 25th of October he got a second curious official letter from 
 the Foreign Office about not giving his Vice-Consul sufficient money. 
 (He was giving him ^£350 a year, and the Embassy would have sent 
 down anybody for that.) He was very angry, and reduced it in 
 consequence. A third time the Foreign Office worried Richard 
 with writing that he had been in England, which he had not, and 
 was again angry. In fact, there seemed to be a dead set against 
 him during August and October, 1889. 
 
 On the 15 th of November we embarked for Brindisi in the Austrian- 
 Lloyd Ettore . ' Crowds of friends came to see us off, with flowers. 
 She was a long, narrow ship, powerful screw, and very much lumbered 
 up; but there was no Austrian-Lloyd’s on which we should not have 
 found ourselves at home. There was a heavy ground swell later on, 
 and a good wind. A moorhen was blown on board, and I kept her 
 till the ship was close to the marshes. We landed the next night at 
 Brindisi, after thirty-one hours’ passage, and heavy gales came on, 
 and we had to stay there several days for our steamer on to Malta. 
 
 We got off on the 24th in the P. and O. Rosetta , had a beautiful 
 passage, arriving at Malta next day, after a twenty-nine hours’ 
 passage. I was glad to find that Richard was never the worse for 
 the sea. We were afraid lest the shaking might affect his head, but 
 providentially the whole of that winter, unlike the last sea voyage, 
 we were only five hours in heavy weather. 
 
 Richard knew Malta well, but neither Dr. Baker nor I had ever 
 seen it. We went to the Royal Hotel, “ Cini’s,” where we remained 
 twenty-three days. 
 
 We had been intending to go on Thursday, the 12th of 
 December, and I here got a slight return of the sickness that I 
 had in Lucerne last year, but nothing like so heavy, and Richard 
 also had a little gout. There was only a ship once a w r eek to 
 take us to Tunis, so Richard was anxious to go all weathers, 
 the sailing-time eleven o’clock. That morning the gales were 
 dreadful, the sea mountains high; he called out to me, “ It 
 is fine enough to go.” “ Very well,” I said, with an internal 
 quake, feeling so ill. Presently a message was sent up from 
 the office to say that the weather was as bad as could be. There 
 was a little hesitation on his part; still preparations went on. 
 About an hour later came a second message from the agents, “ The 
 steamer had broken her moorings and had gone aground; no 
 
508 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 passengers were going, the hurricane was bad; should we mind 
 transferring our tickets?” Richard looked out, and saw the sea 
 was mountains high, wind howling, the rain like buckets. I shall 
 never forget the joy with which I bolted into bed to nurse my 
 sickness. 
 
 On Friday, the 13th of December, he deplores the death of Robert 
 Browning. 
 
 Having taken leave of all our kind friends, we embarked on the 
 19th of December on the good ship St. Augustine, a French trans- 
 atlantique. The going out was exceedingly interesting, and very 
 rough. Malta seems to collect round it a regular swirl of bad 
 weather, wind, rain, mist, steam, fog-clouds, and heavy swell round 
 her like a mantle, but you have to stand out to sea to perceive 
 it. Richard and I planted ourselves against a mast, to get the last 
 view of Malta, but our feet were so frequently up in the air, and the 
 stern of the boat hiding all view, that after a while we had to give 
 it up. It gives you the impression of a huge sand-coloured rock 
 rising out of the sea, and being covered with houses of the same 
 colour. It might be a huge ivory toy carved for a museum. You 
 are impressed by the immense ramparts, bastions, and guns every¬ 
 where; by the deep moats—one 950 yards long, 55 deep, and 30 
 wide—and its drawbridges. You feel its immense strength, its 
 English solidity, the difficulty an enemy would have to take it. If 
 you are an exile, your heart is cheered by the sight of the dozen 
 men-of-war in harbour, and the five or six regiments, and the heights 
 covered with the red-coats of our own nation. The natives have a 
 superstition that Malta is like a large mushroom in the sea, and the 
 waves perpetually beating against the stem will one day break it, 
 and Malta will sink. We had a nineteen hours’ run to Tunis, and 
 the sea slowed down after five or six hours. 
 
 We had a merry dinner with the French officers, and a quiet night. 
 The cabins were unendurable as to size—beds four feet nothing 
 and very hard, no sitting or lounging places. If we had had very 
 bad weather, I am afraid we should have suffered very much. 
 The next day we were also fortunate, for, arriving at Tunis—land¬ 
 ing at Tunis is not a delight—ships lie out half a mile distant, 
 and in heavy weather I should think it would be very difficult; a 
 steam-launch comes off and takes you and your little traps and puts 
 you down in a shed, then goes off once or twice more for big 
 baggage and goods ; then you go to the custom-house to be examined. 
 Here we hire two carriages and put all our baggage, great and 
 small, in it, and tell them to drive it into Tunis. Then proceed 
 ourselves to the little station, and wait one hour for a train, and 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 509 
 
 a half-hour does the eight miles into Tunis station; then you 
 go in a ’bus to the Grand Hotel. Never go to the Grand Hotel, 
 only fit for commercial travellers, but go to the Grand Hotel de 
 Paris—nice rooms, quiet, civil people, reasonable prices. Thus it 
 took five hours from the time of casting anchor to getting housed. 
 I think we enjoyed Tunis the most of all, as it was decidedly the most 
 Oriental. 
 
 On December 27th Richard deplores the death of our friend Baron 
 Von Kremer, one of Austria’s best Oriental scholars, which reached 
 him on the 1st of January. 
 
 ARAB TENTS (TUNIS). 
 
 Richard got another slight attack of gout, and was a little shaky 
 about the legs, but it soon passed. As soon as Richard improved, 
 we saw everything that was to be seen, made excursions, and passed 
 much time in the bazars. We did not think, however, that Tunis 
 was either as grand or as wild as Damascus, although the French 
 having possessed it for so short a time, it is not quite spoiled as is 
 Algiers. 
 
 There are some little Sisters of the Poor, who have a large house a 
 mile out of town over dreadful roads. They are of all nations; there 
 was one American and one English nun. There is the best view 
 
5 io The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 of the town and surrounding country, which pleased Richard very 
 much. They keep sixty-five old men and women, mostly incurables. 
 We often went there. 
 
 One of our most favourite excursions was to Marsa, to our Consul- 
 General and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Drummond-Hay, son of old Sir 
 John Hay of Marocco. You drive through Napoleonic endless straight 
 roads, through brackish swamps for miles and miles, till you come 
 to the aqueduct and ruins of old Carthage. Large masonry works 
 are still standing; the stones and mortar are very poor. The villa 
 where they live was Sir Richard Wood’s; it is semi-Moorish, semi- 
 European, and stands just beyond the ruins. They were just be¬ 
 ginning it, and have now made it perfectly beautiful. They are 
 charming people; he quiet and reserved, she affectionate, clever, and 
 lively. 
 
 We found here some genial people—Commandant Coyne, a 
 French Arabist; Mr. Seton-Karr, author and traveller; Mr. and Mrs. 
 Pitner, the Austrian Consul-General; and Count Bathyani. We had 
 delightful drives, and Dr. Baker photographed Bedawi in their tents. 
 We often went to Dar el Bey; and the Kasbah, the former palace, has 
 beautiful Moorish rooms, but they are dark and melancholy. The 
 bazars are very nice, but, excepting one or two shops, are not a 
 patch upon Damascus. Our favourite drives were generally round 
 the Arab and the Jewish quarters. We had drives also to Belvedere, 
 where is the military hospital, Ariana, Bardo, and Mamlff. 
 
 Here we were reading “Salammbo,” and Mr. Broadiey’s two 
 excellent volumes on “Tunis and its Conquest.” 
 
 The most interesting thing was to pass through the Jewish and 
 Mohammedan quarters, so narrow, such types, such smells and 
 sights. Lisa and I used to go to the harems and learn to make 
 Arab dishes. We were also cheered by the arrival of Mr. Terence 
 Bourke, brother of Lord Mayo, who has a delightful Moorish 
 house in the Mohammedan quarter, where he gave us much hospi¬ 
 tality. We had charming Arab breakfasts with him. Poor Lisa got 
 the influenza. Influenza was not so much known then—it was only 
 talked of at a distance. 
 
 Carthage. 
 
 Carthage must be divided into two parts—i. Commercial; 2. 
 Military. The cisterns are Roman, not Punic. There are two 
 roads from Marsa to Carthage. The upper, which we went, a mere 
 track and dangerous, leads to Sidi bin Sa’id, an old church exca¬ 
 vated, and the chapel of St. Louis; the lower road is the highway 
 to Goletta. On a bit of ascent to the left, on the Goletta coast, is 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 5 11 
 
 the palace of Cardinal Lavigdrie. Cardinal Lavigerie was trying to 
 make a small Rome at old Carthage; his new Cathedral was of Maltese 
 build—another al Mellahah, surrounded by gardens, with inscriptions 
 on the walls: some five hundred are not yet published. Statues 
 and fragments and everything were plastered on or about the walls, 
 the columns below; a large building underground, temple of Ashman, 
 has very fine masonry. The chapel of St. Louis is small and cir¬ 
 cular, stands alone, and has one high altar. It contains the tomb 
 of Count de Lesseps, Baron Ferdinand de Lesseps’ father, with a 
 big inscription. In the great hall, where you are received, there 
 are numbers of modern pictures; there is a splendid view of the 
 sea, and Cape Bon and Tunis. 
 
 The flat below is a mine of antiquities. Old Carthage port, 
 now the quarantine, is much like a natural dock, the entrance silted 
 up. Indeed, it is a beautiful panorama. The museum begins 
 with Italian art, with Bible subjects on one side. On the opposite 
 wall—Pagan subjects—there is a fine collection. Three skeletons 
 are disposed as if in the tomb, and six or seven pots at the head 
 —fatucz on the light side—and pots at feet sometimes. There 
 are Pagan and Christian mosaics. All the land belongs to the 
 Cardinal, who was the Pope of Carthage. No foreigner could ex¬ 
 cavate anywhere. There is a huge convent. The monks are all 
 in white, with a big rosary and fez, and are called “Les Peres 
 blancs de la Mission Africaine.” There is a convent of Carmelite 
 nuns close by. Carthage runs all along Tania, where mosaics 
 are found. The old sea-walls of the port are behind the present 
 Goletta. 
 
 The Fathers were delightful, and showed us everything. The 
 Cardinal, who we were dying to see, was absent. The Cathedral 
 will be very nice when it has toned down; it was at present too 
 gaudy. 
 
 There is a big stone near Tunis, very long and slanting; ladies 
 who wish to be pregnant slide down it, so it is worn quite smooth. 
 We made as many excursions into the interior as it was possible, 
 considering the state of Richard’s health, but the most difficult thing 
 was how to get from Tunis to Algiers, which, considering the accom¬ 
 modation, was a frightful dilemma. The little coast-steamers are 
 wretched; the weather was very cold, the sea was exceedingly rough, 
 and the possibility of landing, when you do arrive at a port, 
 is always extremely uncertain, on account of the heavy rollers. 
 Hence, should the heavy sea have affected Richard’s head by the 
 shaking, we should have had no redress. There was no possible 
 stopping-place for any one by train, who from health motives ought 
 
512 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 not to rough it. There is, indeed, Souk el Arba, after six hours’ 
 train, where there is a tramps’ hut (but nothing to eat), at about half¬ 
 past ten in the day—twenty-four hours to wait for next day’s train. 
 There is Ghardimau at 11.45 (the frontier where they visit baggage). 
 There is Souk-Ahras at 2.13, where the country becomes wild and 
 bold. People in health may stop here for the next day’s train, but 
 we determined that none of this would do, especially as the carriages 
 are made for hardy Arabs, and not for luxury. 
 
 Now, through the immense kindness of the railway director, M. Koely, 
 I was fortunate enough to secure a saloon, with two benches mattressed 
 and cushioned, where, with railway rugs, four could lie feet to feet, 
 a small but clean toilette, and a curtained terrace, where we put all 
 our little baggage, and Africano, our good dragoman. We left our 
 hotel, and conveyed Richard to the train at 8.30 p.m. overnight, 
 and established ourselves on board our train, because it started at 
 5.15 in the morning (and a cold January morning), and our hot 
 coffee was brought to us inside by the kindness of the same director. 
 We had all our meals in the train, as we were provided with an 
 ample basket of food, drink, smoke, and books. Richard enjoyed 
 the terrace and watching the country; the air was most exhilarating, 
 and he felt quite well. We should not perhaps have thought so 
 much of the scenery in Austria, but still it was very beautiful. Then 
 it must be remembered that Tunis has only had the advantage, or 
 disadvantage, of eight years of civilization. The difficulties of 
 engineering must have been great, but the train was very well 
 driven, prudently on bad places, and always true to time. 
 
 At Duvivier we were shunted from the Bona to the Kroubs 
 train. It began to get dark. We dined on board, and had a 
 bottle of champagne we had brought with us, and got fearfully 
 tired about eight o’clock in the evening, and lay down. At 8.20 
 we were shifted from the Kroubs train to the Constantine train, 
 where we arrived at 12.15 the niglat, having been out twenty- 
 eight hours and running nineteen; but Richard was the strongest 
 of us all, and none the worse. We drove to the Hotel du Louvre, 
 and were glad to tumble into bed. We would willingly have 
 stayed here a long time; the hotel was not so bad as its entrance 
 makes you think. It was the healthiest and the most interesting 
 town we had seen. We had to celebrate here our twenty-ninth, 
 and, alas! our last, wedding-day. We passed it in inspecting 
 our surroundings. It is of a peculiar gorgy character, and must 
 have been impregnable in old days. The Devil’s Bridge and hot 
 springs are most picturesque. The Arab tents are made of straw, 
 thatch, and dirty rags, and look as if all the rubbish of the world 
 
At Montreux . 
 
 513 
 
 were heaped upon them. The Arabs in this part of the world are 
 big, magnificent-looking men, who make everybody else look small, 
 with white burnous, and have beautiful white teeth. The French 
 very sensibly swagger about, and the troops make a great fanfare of 
 trumpets. The people here are cruel to their donkeys, who seem 
 born to carry loads of stone upon their backs. 
 
 The difficulty now was how to get on from Constantine, which was 
 only halfway to Algiers ; for though I did all my best, there were races 
 going on at Biskrah. There was but one saloon, and it was taking the 
 directors down ; so as we could only go by the common train, we knew 
 that Richard could not bear anything but a short journey, which 
 would be at first about an eight hours’ run to Setif. The country was 
 a large continuous undulation, and although quite flat in appearance , 
 we rose gradually from 2000 to 3500 feet above sea-level, with distant 
 mountains. There were plenty of Bedawi tents and flocks, and two 
 or three buildings shortly after leaving Constantine that looked like 
 a palace in a plain, on a little eminence bare of trees or garden, and 
 two square, large, ugly houses. The Spahis are very picturesque 
 with their many-coloured garments and red cloaks, and have, as well 
 as the Kabyles, beautiful teeth. At Setif we found the Hotel de la 
 France comfortable, with fair food. The town is not much to look at, 
 the usual undulating country with good soil, and we passed an agree¬ 
 able day, chiefly in the market, which was full of picturesque Berbers, 
 who had also some curious things to buy. 
 
 The next day (after forty-eight hours’ rest) we did another six 
 hours to Bouira, which is a very picturesque part of the country, 
 especially going thrcugh the Gates or Gorges. The little Hotel de la 
 Poste is no better than a small public-house, but the food was fit for 
 Paris; we always said that that cook must have committed some 
 crime, to go and hide himself in such an awful hole as that. The 
 next day we had a very pleasant journey of eight hours to Algiers. 
 The entry at night reminded us so much of Trieste. From the 
 station to the Hotel St. George’s, Mustafa Superieure, was an immense 
 long way, but delightful when one got there. 
 
 Algiers is an ideal place to look at; at first Richard was delighted 
 with it, and thought he would end his days there, but in about three 
 weeks he began to change his mind, and said nothing would induce 
 him to have “our cottage” there. For myself, I thought it was the 
 dampest, most neuralgic place I ever was in; but it is very beautiful, 
 superior to Trieste in beauty, the town more elevated, and looking 
 like ivory, as Eastern towns do, but yet like Trieste ; and the country 
 green, and picturesque with palms. Here we found delightful 
 society—Sir Lambert and Lady Playfair, Count Bathyani, Mrs. Camp- 
 
514 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 bell Praed, the Marquise de Beaufort, Lady Clementina and Mr. 
 Mitford, Lord Carbery, Mrs. and Miss Newton, the Rev. Colin 
 Campbell, Colonel Preston, and a very nice and clever Miss Florence 
 Shakespeare Owens, and many other charming people. Here for 
 the second time a huge glass chandelier fell, nearly cutting the table 
 in two just as we had left our places. 
 
 On the 16th of February we started for one of the greatest hum¬ 
 bugs in the world, the baths at Hammam R’irha, passing Blidah, 
 where there is a wonderful gorge, and archaeological remains. There 
 is a wretched little station called Bou Medfa, where a tumbledown 
 little ’bus, only good enough for luggage, awaits passengers; but 
 fortunately we got a caliche , two good horses, and a pleasant Jehu, 
 and we had a long drive through cold, raw, snowy air (in February). 
 At first we had a glorious day, splendid weather, and a beautiful 
 view for distance. We stayed here a week, during which it did 
 nothing afterwards but pour with rain, and a walk put you almost 
 knee-deep in thick red clay. We visited the gurbi or hut of Sulei¬ 
 man, the Arab guardian of the hotel, and sat with his wife. We 
 should not call him an Arab or a Bedawin at Damascus, but in all 
 these kind of places they generally have these protectors, even at 
 Alexandria, but not in Syria. It would have puzzled any one to live 
 in that gurbi , except people used to living in very small tents. 
 
 Richard got gouty here, and we were glad to return to Algiers at 
 the end of the week; but we did not go back to the same sort of 
 life, of which there are two. One life is to live up at Mustafa 
 Superieure and take care of your health, and the other is to live in 
 town and see something of native life. You cannot do both, because 
 getting up and down from Mustafa to town occupies all day; so we 
 now went to the Hotel de la Regence, where we stayed a fortnight 
 in order to see something of Algiers. Here we read “Mosallam,” 
 by Laurence Oliphant, which explains so much of his life. 
 
 We went all over the City, seeing the most interesting things 
 —the Cardinal’s Moorish Palace, the Cardinal’s Cathedral, the 
 Museum, where is shown poor Geronimo’s body. He lived in 1540, 
 was taken prisoner and baptized, but his relations caught him again, 
 and kept him as a Mohammedan till he was twenty-five; then 
 he returned to Oran, where he renewed his Christianity, but he was 
 caught again by a Moorish corsair and brought to Algiers, where he 
 was ordered again to become a Mohammedan; and as he would not, 
 he was sentenced to be thrown alive into a mould, with his feet and 
 hands tied with cords, and the block of concrete containing his 
 body was built into an angle of the fort. In 1853 it was destroyed, 
 and on the 27th of December the skeleton was found enclosed in 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 5 J 5 
 
 the block. The bones were carefully removed, and interred with 
 great pomp in the Cathedral, built on the site of the Mosque of 
 Hassan. Liquid plaster of Paris was run into the mould left by his 
 body; they thus obtained a perfect model, even of his features, the 
 cords which bound him, and the texture of his clothing, and this 
 you see in the museum. We wandered about the Mosques and 
 about the bazars to buy curios, and although Algiers is now only a 
 French town on Arab foundations, the Arab part of the town, that 
 remains untouched, was as interesting as anything we had ever seen. 
 Take, for instance, the Mosque or Zaouia of Sidi Abd er Rahman 
 Eth-Thalebi, which contains his tomb and its surroundings; there are 
 numbers of tombs around him, and the usual drapery, lamps, banners, 
 and ostrich eggs. Take the Arab town with its close, dark, steep 
 streets, and its dark holes and shops, the ways of which are like 
 climbing a wall of steps. One is ascended by 497 steps; they are 
 mostly alleys just wide enough to pass through, and is a labyrinth 
 in which you might easily lose yourself. The Kasbah , or Citadel, is 
 also well worth a visit We made as many excursions as was possible 
 in the interior, considering the state of Richard’s health, and when 
 he was not well enough for a walk or a drive, he received African 
 Professors. Some of our party went to see one of the fanatical 
 religious meetings of the Assaouwiyeh, the religious confraternity of 
 Sidi Mohammed bin Aissa, which take place sometimes in the native 
 quarter. I have seen many of these sort of things, but never carried 
 to the extent that I am told they are carried here, where they 
 mutilate themselves, and sometimes a sheep is thrown amongst them 
 which they devour alive. I could not sleep that night for knowing 
 it was going on, but our party comforted me by telling me next 
 day that nothing of the sort had taken place. 
 
 We now took our departure from Algiers. 
 
 Richard said that one of his great pleasures in leaving North 
 Africa, and especially Algiers, was the intense cruelty to animals. 
 It was no pleasure to walk or drive, and some people felt it so much, 
 that they walked by back ways, and only looked forward to giving 
 up their villas altogether, since there was no one to stop it. The 
 Rev. Colin Campbell and I did what we could all the time we were 
 there. 
 
 At last the day came for leaving. The day before the sea had 
 been frightful, and, though it was fine this day, we had the heavy 
 swell of yesterday’s storm. It was a capital boat, the only good 
 steamer on this coast, all new appliances, electric light, corky in the 
 water like our Irish boats (the Due de Braganza). Mrs. Campbell 
 Praed, who had been with us all along, accompanied us to Marseilles, 
 and it was delightful to have her society. 
 
516 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 We enjoyed our passage exceedingly on the 7th of March, the 
 only fine day amongst a series of gales. In the evening Richard 
 and Dr. Baker went into the smoking-cabin, and there a young 
 man, a travelled passenger, was holding forth to the others with 
 regard to African travellers, and Richard Burton in particular, 
 having no idea that the said Richard Burton was part of his 
 audience. It became exceedingly amusing when he began to 
 relate the tale of “how Richard Burton had murdered two men 
 on his Meccan journey, because they had suspected him of being 
 a Frank and a Christian.” Richard then said quietly to him, 
 “What traveller did you say did this deed?” “Oh, Burton, the 
 famous Mecca-man!” “Have you seen him?” “Oh yes, of 
 course I have.” “ Well, then,” said Richard, “ I am that man, and 
 I assure you that I never did this deed; that I had no cause to, for 
 I never was suspected. I have been told that such a tale was rife 
 about me, but I thought it was a joke, and it has never come face 
 to face with me as a serious thing till to-night. There were two 
 Englishmen travelling about the desert at this time; they were put 
 into a great difficulty, and I believe they had to do it in self-defence, 
 and in consequence of this misfortune, their travels never appeared 
 before the public; but it did not happen to me.” This reminds me 
 of dining out one night long before ; it was a very large dinner-party, 
 in London, and the gentleman opposite to me bent forward and said, 
 “I heard you talking a great deal about the East; did you ever 
 chance to meet Burton the traveller ?” I saw his agitated neighbour 
 nudging him, so I laughed, and said, “Rather ! I have the honour 
 of being his wife.” On another occasion—it was at the British 
 Association for Science in 1878—we were stopping with Lord Talbot 
 of Malahide; it was a show place, and the Association came over in 
 the afternoon, and were being lionized about. Richard had given a 
 lecture the day before in Dublin, and a little crowd were collected 
 around us. Suddenly a middle-aged lady, not knowing who I was, 
 walked up to me, by way of saying something pleasant, and said, 
 " I did not think much of the lecture of Burton the traveller, did 
 you ? ” Richard and I were ready to split, but I was so sorry for her, 
 that I said cheerfully, “ Oh yes ! I liked it very much indeed; but, 
 you know, it was a very abstruse subject, and one which people in 
 general are not likely to understand.” (It was on the Ogham-Runes, 
 the tree-language of ancient Ireland, as compared with El Mushajjar, 
 the tree-language of ancient Arabs.) Meantime her friends, who 
 had been tugging at her mantle in agonies, had got her off, and then 
 we had a good laugh. 
 
 The following day it darkened, and looked rainy and cloudy, and 
 
At Montreux. 
 
 5i7 
 
 the sea inkier as we approached the Gulf of Lyons. The approach 
 by sea to Chateau d’lf and the Isle d’Hybres, with their little rocky 
 islands, the solitary lighthouse, and Notre Dame de la Garde tower¬ 
 ing the town on a white rocky eminence, was exceedingly pretty and 
 effective. You cannot have a prettier drive than going by La Plage, 
 and the lovely Corniche road to Notre Dame de la Garde, and 
 returning by the Prado. The City is magnificent; it lies in a basin 
 surrounded by hills, and fringed with pine-woods of every family of 
 the race, stunted and tall, blown into weird shapes by the wind, dotted 
 with country villas and fine buildings, and all this is ring-fenced by 
 immense bare limestone rock. 
 
 The digue , or breakwater, is built in a triangular shape so as to 
 throw off the canalization. You enter a series of new docks, the old 
 port running to the bottom of the finest street, perhaps the finest in 
 the world—Rue Cannebiere and Noailles. 
 
 After staying here one day, we went on to Toulon, and on to the 
 Hotel Continental at Hyhres, which we thought delightful. We had 
 a delicious drive to Carquerain, and down to the sea. Between 
 this and Nice we met Admiral Seymour of the Iris , and travelled in 
 the same train, and went on to the Isles Britanniques at Nice. The 
 French Squadron was in; their manoeuvres were very pretty, and 
 they looked “ fit.” The Bataille des Fleurs was going on. Sir Richard 
 Wood and Mrs. Campbell Praed came to breakfast, and he took us 
 to see all the fun. He was looking very well and fresh. We were 
 exceedingly pleased to meet him, as he was the one Consul held in 
 honour before Richard Burton at Damascus. After one whole day 
 there, we took the train for Genoa, and we had lather an unpleasant 
 journey, as Richard was a little ailing, and could not enjoy the motions 
 of the Italian train curving round the coast. One must admit that 
 the district of the Riviera is beautiful, the English type (after you 
 pass Monte Carlo, Mentone, Bordighera, and San Remo) changing 
 to poor picturesque Italy, when it becomes defiled by its vulgar, 
 petty officialdom. We hated Genoa from our sad remembrance in 
 1887, so, instead of going to our old hotel, we went to the Hotel de 
 !a Ville on the Port, and disliked it very much, and felt that we had 
 left civilization. We wandered about, and went to the beautiful 
 Campo Santo and bought things; and next day went on to Milan, 
 where we also changed our hotel, and went to the Cavour, which we 
 liked exceedingly. Next day we got on to Venice, to the Grand 
 Hotel, but we only stayed one day, as Richard was suffering from 
 hotel food, and so we reached home on his birthday, the 19th of 
 March (his last birthday, sixty-ninth), having been out rather more 
 than four months. 
 
518 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 Our Last Trip. 
 
 On the ist of July we went for our summer trip, as July and 
 August in Trieste are almost insupportable. We went first to 
 Gorizia before described. The next day we made the usual interest¬ 
 ing pilgrimage of Monte-Santo on a peak, which is a small Maria- 
 Zell, the local Lourdss, which occupies about six hours to go and see 
 everything and return. We dined out of doors in the evening at 
 Gorizia, and next morning went on to Tarvis. It was a long day, 
 and Richard was very tired. Tarvis is very beautiful, but we could 
 not enjoy it, because we were none of us well; so we only stopped 
 for a day or two, and then we went on to Villach and to Lienz, 
 where we had always been longing to stay. 
 
 The Post Hotel is a charming, comfortable, old-fashioned inn. 
 There we used to sit out under the eaves, feed the pigeons, make the 
 boys scramble for pennies, and buy things from passing pedlars, and 
 Richard decided, that though it is an old village, it is not “ dry rot,” 
 and that the mountain airwas beautiful. We had an uncomfortable train 
 to Franzensfeste, but there we got a delightful aussichts-wagen to run 
 over the Brenner, which, though it was our fourth time, we enjoyed 
 immensely. The Tyrol Hof in Innsbruck where we stopped was 
 good, but very dear. There we met Mrs. Crawford, the widow of 
 the M.P. who had been kind to us years ago. We were just in time 
 to catch our old friends the Von Puthons, who were transferred to 
 Linz. There was a delightful zither-player in the evening. No one 
 knows what sounds, what soft passionate music, can be got out of 
 those instruments till one hears them in their native land. Here 
 people should buy rough but picturesque parures of black garnets, 
 which is a specialty. 
 
 From Innsbriick we made a four hours’ run to Feldkirch over 
 the Arlberg, which was really dangerous, as Richard had before 
 foretold. There had been landslips, and some places were planked 
 over so that you could see the precipices under the carriage, 
 the train going very slow. There were several bad places, and one 
 unpleasant bridge. The next train to ours could not come over. 
 I heard a gentleman, who I was told was one of the engineers 
 of the line, say in German to some other gentlemen, “We 
 thought it would last for ever when we put it up, but now I would 
 not let my own family cross in spring after the rains.” We stopped 
 to see my nephew Bertie Pigott, who was in college here. The 
 Jesuits have a large college, which is the principal thing in the 
 town, very much on the same principle as that of Sliema Malta, 
 and have their playground, athletic exercises, museum, library, 
 
At Montreux . 
 
 5*9 
 
 good church, etc. In the Cathedral there is an Holbein’s altar 
 to see. 
 
 We left after two days, and arrived at Zurich in time for the great 
 Schiefs-Statte fete , or Federal Rifle Association, which takes place every 
 other year. It dates from the sixteenth century, assumed its present 
 rifle form in 1830, and consequently was the first known to Europe. 
 It used to be the great political event that drew all the Cantons 
 together. It is the focus which cements that simplicity, equality, 
 and independence which go to make up the sturdy Swiss character, 
 and is the secret of the union which makes their strength. It 
 always takes place in a different town, and numbers 220,000 members 
 out of two millions and a quarter—more than the regular army. 
 This year it was at Frauenfeld, and the great people assembled at 
 the Hotel Baur au Lac where we were staying. One hundred and 
 fifty Minnesingers were singing their national songs on the lawn, 
 some hidden in boats on the canal by the side. There was a 
 sort of illumination, and fireworks, not only on shore, but on the 
 lake, which you might have mistaken for Venice. 
 
 The next day we were all away to Frauenfeld. Seven thousand 
 pounds are given in prizes. The number of people on the ground, 
 besides shooters, was 40,000. There was a huge wooden marquee 
 for dining 6000 people, and 3000 sat down at a time. Every Swiss 
 is ambitious to be a good marksman, and it is thought to be a dis¬ 
 grace to be a bad shot. The Roman Catholic priest gave us 
 hospitality. He had passed the last sixteen years of his life in 
 making an exquisite collection of enamels on copper, silver, and 
 gold—religious subjects, selected with great care and judgment. 
 Two-thirds are early seventeenth century, and he wanted to sell them. 
 
 Mr. Angst, the English Consul, is a very great man, and it was 
 a fine thing to be a friend of his in Switzerland. He and his wife 
 showed us a great deal of hospitality, and we passed many pleasant 
 days enjoying his collection of curios, swords, and china, which 
 are all Swiss, for he is a patriot A delightful excursion is by 
 boat to Rapperswyl, calling at fifteen or sixteen stations down the 
 lake on the left. There is a little hotel Der See, one of eight 
 fronting the little quay. We had a delightful breakfast, after which 
 we re-embarked and came up on the other bank. Next day there 
 was a great Consular dinner, which lasted from twelve to six, at which 
 Richard and Dr. Baker attended. Here we met a very nice Mr. 
 and Mrs. Chippendale. We had a charming excursion to Uetliberg, 
 and another to Einsiedeln up in the mountains; it is the Swiss 
 Lourdes. The scenery was lovely, the air beautiful. We had a 
 good dinner of blue mountain trout at the Pfau. We went all over 
 
520 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 the Cathedral, and the circle of pious shops, and drank from the 
 fountain of fourteen spouts. We bought pious things, and the 
 monks came in at three o’clock and sang the “ Ave Maria.” Our 
 return was on a beautiful summer evening; the lake glowed in 
 colours, there was a gentle mist and a full moon, but we arrived 
 very, very tired. 
 
 During this Swiss trip, Richard always brought Catullus to 
 table d'hote, and whenever he was bored he used to pull it out and 
 write his notes upon his Latin copy. 
 
 I did all I could to persuade him to go from Zurich to Bale, from 
 Bale to England, to leave the Service and to stay in England till 
 he was thoroughly rested and well; then we would go back and pick 
 up our things, or let them be sent after us; but he would not hear 
 of it. I tried this twice during this Swiss journey when we were half¬ 
 way, for I saw that the frequent attacks of indigestion and nervous¬ 
 ness and gases round the heart were on the increase, and it did not 
 seem that any climate, or any staying still, nor yet travelling, improved 
 them. Still he persevered in saying that he would keep on till next 
 March, when he would be free, and be home the following September. 
 
 During the last six months of his life (to show how tired he was 
 getting of everything), he used frequently to say to me, “ Do you 
 know, I am in a very bad way; I have got to hate everybody except 
 you and myself, and it frightens me, because I know perfectly well 
 that next year I shall get to hate you, and the year after that I shall 
 get to hate myself, and then I don’t know what will become of me. 
 We are always wandering, and the places that delight you I say to 
 myself, ‘ Dry rot,’ and the next place I say, ‘ Dry rotter,’ and the 
 third place I say, ‘ Dry rottest,’ and then da capo." 
 
 About the 20th of July Richard had a small attack of gout which 
 passed away, and again slightly at Davos. 
 
 We went on to Ragatz, Mr. Angst accompanying us. The Quel- 
 lenhof Hotel is as big as a village, but it was too full to be comfort¬ 
 able. Lady Taunton and Lady Elizabeth Grey were there, and we 
 met them in several places—two interesting sisters with lovely silver 
 hair. Here you drive to the waterfall and Meienfeld, and to Pfafers- 
 bad, where there is a quelle and gorge like that of Trient, the same 
 swirling river under you, darkness, weirdness, the same tiny planks 
 to walk along next to the rocky wall, and the mountains meeting 
 overhead. Another drive is to Wartenstein, and Pfafers village, 
 where an old Convent is turned into a large Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 Wartenstein is a chalet-restaurant which holds about thirty visitors, 
 and there is a lovely view. We left Ragatz when we had seen every¬ 
 thing, and went on a new line of railway only opened a fortnight before, 
 
At Montreux . 
 
 52i 
 
 up to Davos-Platz, six thousand feet high. The scenery is always 
 nice and sometimes grand. We were lodged in a fine large hotel, 
 the Belvedere, which was not finished. The centre of the scene is a 
 plateau swamp in the middle. The roots of the surrounding hills are 
 covered with hotels, villas, and pines, and above them again are high 
 mountains with snowy peaks and fine air. In winter it is dry and 
 covered with snow; it is the great consumption focus, and people say 
 it is full of germs. Here we met five people we knew, amongst them 
 Father Graham, a priest from London. We had come here on pur¬ 
 pose to make acquaintance with Mr. John Addington Symonds, but 
 he was gone away, and he only came back on the evening before our 
 departure, and we saw him for about an hour, which was better than 
 nothing. 
 
 We had a delightful drive from Davos to Maloja, with a comfort¬ 
 able landau, two good steady grey horses, and a nice coachman; it 
 was a truly delicious day, which I shall always remember amongst 
 my mental treasures. We ascended the Fluela Pass through 
 gorgeous scenery, starting at ten o’clock. In an hour and a half we 
 stopped to give bread to the horses, and then in another hour and a 
 half we came to the highest point, 6700 feet, where we were in deep 
 snow; a lake was covered with ice, and two Mount St. Bernard dogs 
 greeted us. Here we baited the horses with bread and wine, and 
 lunched from our basket. The Schwarzhorn, 13,000 feet high, was 
 to our right; there were glaciers and chamois, gorges and grand 
 ravines. When we started again we descended to Siis, a large 
 village, where we rested, had tea, and baited our horses for a couple 
 of hours, and then we drove on two hours more to Quoz. I think 
 Quoz one of the prettiest places I ever saw, and should like to have 
 stayed there longer. It is a beautiful, romantic, Romansch village; 
 the scenery is lovely, the hotel is civilized. We put up there for the 
 night, starting at ten o’clock the next morning, and arrived at 
 Samaden, where we were very badly treated by the landlord, who 
 made us pay sixty-six francs for three-quarters of an hour’s 
 entertainment. 
 
 Three-quarters of an hour further we arrived at St. Moritz- 
 Kulm, stopped our carriage, got out for a moment, and in opening 
 the door ran up against Canon Wenham, of Mortlake, who is our 
 spiritual pastor where I now live, and whom I had known for at 
 least thirty-five years. He was very glad to see Richard, and we 
 frequently met during our stay in Switzerland. Canon Wenham has 
 since told me that when he first saw Richard at St. Moritz, that he 
 kept saying to himself, “ I wonder w r hether you or I will be the first to 
 go ? ” Richard died two months after that, and ten months later he 
 
522 The Life of Sir Richard Burton, 
 
 performed his funeral service at Mortlake. The baths and the village 
 are below in the valley. We soon started again for Maloja, but 
 did not get in till 4.30, owing to an accident For the third time 
 our horses suddenly behaved queerly ; they were steady, plodding 
 brutes, but one sprang over a low stone wall, leaving the carriage on 
 the other side, and the other stood trembling, sweating, and sobbing 
 as if it was going to have a fit. It was a narrow road with a sharp 
 precipice into the lake, and very little would have sent us rolling 
 into it. We were some time extricating ourselves. We all got out, 
 and the horses were unharnessed and taken into a neighbouring 
 field, where they recovered themselves. I was dreadfully frightened, 
 but Richard was quite cool. On all these three occasions the coach¬ 
 man and Lisa and I thought that the horses saw something we did 
 not see, but Richard and the doctor opined that there was some 
 natural cause, such as a snake crossing the path. The gypsies 
 passed, and stopped and helped us. 
 
 Maloja hotel is a luxurious palace at the head of the lake, looking 
 down the lake on one side, and on the other down into Italy. It is 
 the last of the Engadine plateaux, has glorious scenery and air, snow 
 mountains, and blue sky and lake. We found here Mr. and Mrs. 
 Stanley, accompanied by their faithful Captain Jephson, and Mr. 
 Stanley’s black boy Saleh, Dean Carington, Mr. Oscar Browning, and 
 Mr. Welldon (Headmaster of Harrow), Sir John and Lady Hawkins, 
 the Duchess of Leinster, Lady Mabel Fitzgerald, and Lord Elcho, 
 Mrs. Main (lately Mrs. Fred Burnaby), Miss Emily Blair Oliphant, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft and son, Lord Dunraven, and other pleasant 
 people. 
 
 There were all sorts of amusements—a large ball-room, beautiful 
 band, theatricals, concerts, alpining, fishing, and kodaking, picnics, 
 glee-singing by a chorus of workmen, who sang at the church in the 
 morning-—everything that could be desired, but our chief amusement 
 was driving. We used to go over to St. Moritz Kulm, where we met 
 Mr. Strickland, who edited the St. Moritz news, and Father Wenham. 
 
 At Maloja Richard talked to me a great deal about the possibilities 
 of what might happen in case of his death—“ Not,” he said, “ that 
 I am thinking of dying ; ” and I told him that I thought he should 
 leave literary executors. I mentioned four people who I thought 
 would expect to have a “ finger in the pie,” so to speak, in case of 
 his death, but he absolutely declined to let anybody but myself search 
 into his papers, and desired me to see to it if any necessity arose. 
 He said, “No one has helped me but you during thirty—I may say 
 thirty-five—years ; who is likely to know so well now ? Besides, 
 I know that you will do everything for me, body and soul—that 
 
At Montreux . 
 
 523 
 
 you would wish done for yourself.” A little while after this he 
 called me into his room and said, “ I may very likely live for years, 
 but I should like to leave three papers, which I am now going to 
 sign in your presence.” The first concerned religion, the second his 
 private papers and manuscripts, and the third his money and mining 
 affairs, and I have carried them all out to the very letter from the 
 day he died till now. 
 
 The lake was very grand in a storm, black, green, and yellow, 
 with lowering black clouds, enveloping mountain and lake, lit up by 
 dark red lightning. We had great fun in being photographed by the 
 Rev. Mr. Stewart, who was here with two charming sisters, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Stanley, Richard and myself, and Saleh the black boy, and 
 Mrs. Bancroft placed us. Mrs. Bancroft made us all laugh just as 
 we were going to be taken, by seizing up a long broom-handle and 
 poising it as a lance, saying, “ Won’t you have me as Tippoo Tib ? ” 
 Mrs. Stanley did a very amusing thing ; she got a piece of paper, and 
 turning part of it down, said to my husband, “ Will you give me your 
 autograph, Sir Richard?” which he readily did, in English and 
 Arabic. She then turned up the back of the paper, on which she had 
 written, “ I promise to put aside all other literature, and as soon as 
 I return to Trieste, to write my own autobiography.” So we all signed 
 underneath him, and since I have had it framed. 
 
 On the 31st of August he deplores the death of his friend, General 
 Studholm Hodgson. 
 
 The two or three last days of August the snow was so dreadful 
 that we only longed to get down into Italy, and on the 1st of Sep¬ 
 tember, wishing good-bye to our friends, we started at two o’clock, 
 and had a delightful drive of three hours and a quarter through the 
 snow down the mountains. The snow was so bad that it was 
 doubtful whether we could manage it, but we did without accident. 
 We passed several picturesque places, amongst others Castasegna, 
 where I got out of the carriage, while they were refreshing the horses, 
 to look at the tombs in the little church, and walking up to one, I 
 saw on it “Richard Vaughan Simpson, died in 1834, aged 23.” I 
 said a prayer for him—perhaps I was the first countrywoman that 
 had passed and done so. As we passed the frontier we were lightly 
 examined, and we got into Italian picturesqueness, passing one or 
 two fine waterfalls. Chiavenna looked most picturesque in the 
 distance, as we descended to the good little Hotel Conradi. There 
 was a blue shade over the snow mountains as the sun was setting. 
 
 The next day we left Conradi’s to get to Como. The train was 
 an hour late; we had to go in the third-class with forty-eight people, 
 and the boat was late too. The lake was looking lovely, with its 
 
524 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 villages, especially Gravedona, Varenna, and Bellagio, which reminded 
 us of Madeira. We were about seven hours doing twenty miles. 
 We had delightful drives through the trees above the Villa Lervelloni 
 to the ruined castle which overlooks Como with all its three arms of 
 the lake, and listened to the bees and the birds, smelled the forest, 
 and were glad we were alive. We also went to Como itself. In 
 the evening we met Sir Frederick Napier Broome, late Governor of 
 Western Australia. We were now reading Sinnett’s “ Karma.” We 
 left Bellagio early, a couple of days later, and went down the other 
 side of the lake (Lago di Lecco) on a very pleasant morning. 
 You take a branch railway, and join the main line (Milan to Venice) 
 at Rovato for Venice. We went to the Grand Hotel, but soon left, 
 as the gondola music used to drive Richard wild. There is one man, 
 if he still exists, who sings as if he would burst, like the cicala. 
 
 On the 7th of September we left for Trieste, sauntering down the 
 Gran Canale in gondola the last thing. We had a comfortable journey, 
 and were glad to get home that evening after ten weeks out, which 
 we had thoroughly enjoyed, except on the occasions when Richard 
 was suffering. But how sorrowful it would have been, could we 
 but have foreseen that it was the last journey we should ever take 
 together in this life ! If we could but look forward, we should not 
 be able to bear it. 
 
 Home for the Last Few Weeks. 
 
 The few following weeks at Trieste we continued to write together 
 in the evening, he being engaged all day with his “Scented Garden,” 
 his “ Catullus,” “ Ausonius,” “ Apuleius, or the Golden Ass,” and 
 other things, as he had been since his last Supplemental came out 
 (November 13th, 1888) ; and in early morning we used to take a 
 list of all the manuscripts published and unpublished, their destina¬ 
 tions when packed for England, and sorting the correspondence into 
 years ; and Dr. Baker took a great many photographs, as he had 
 done all this year in the garden, of us and the views and friends, 
 which I am having formed into two lamp-shades on gelatine. 
 
 These last few weeks Richard kept saying to me, “When the 
 swallows form a dado round the house, when they are crowding on 
 the windows, in thousands, preparatory to flight, call me; ” and he 
 would watch them long and sadly. Strange to say, after his death 
 seven of them took up their abode at his window, and only departed 
 in December. They are building again at “ our cottage ” at Mortlake. 
 It seems as if he were watching. 
 
 On the nth of September he deplores in his journal the death of 
 Sir William Hardman, of the Moi-ning Post. 
 
At Montreux . 
 
 525 
 
 On the 20th of September, a month before he died, in his diary 
 he writes, “ I feel too well,” and another paragraph, “ The house 
 covered with swallows;” and then he says that night, “ Sat on 
 balcony—perfect evening, perfect day.” He was then taking papaine 
 for his gout. 
 
 On the 27th we had gentle earthquakes late at night, but which 
 were prolonged till dawn. 
 
 In October he complains of liver and biliousness in his journal,, 
 but remarks that his cure was working well. 
 
 On the 15th of October we paid together our official visit to the 
 Governor and his wife, and we had friends to breakfast at the Hotel 
 de la Ville, where he was very gay. He was not very well in the 
 evening, but nothing particular, and a glass of hot brandy and water 
 seemed to set him quite right. I had begun partly to dismantle the 
 house, and to put away things to make it easier for packing on 
 return, in order to hurry matters when we came back, previous to 
 leaving for good. We were going to start on the 15th of November 
 for Greece and Constantinople, and we were already sorting out 
 what we would take, having our saddlery looked to, and writing 
 letters to the Ministers of these countries to ask their advice on 
 certain points, and getting letters of introduction. 
 
 On the 18th of October, Dr. Baker photographed us in the garden. 
 Richard was always better when he first got home, and then got 
 tired of it after. When he first arrived, 8th of September, he only 
 weighed 70 kilos, but by the 2nd of October he had increased to 
 72*5 kilos. 
 
 On the 18th of October he was a little inclined to gout, and com¬ 
 plained that he had no pleasure in walking. 
 
 On the 19th (the day before he died) he complains of a little 
 lumbago. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WE RETURN HOME FOR THE LAST TIME. 
 
 “ Oh, call it by some better name, 
 
 For Friendship is too cold ; 
 
 And Love is now a worldly flame, 
 
 Whose shrine is made of gold ; 
 
 And Passion, like the sun at noon, 
 
 Who burns up all he sees 
 
 Alike, as warm, will set as soon— v 
 
 Oh, call it by none of these. 
 
 “ Imagine something purer far, 
 
 More free from stain of clay, 
 
 Than Friendship, Love, and Passion are, 
 
 Yet human still as they. 
 
 And if thy lips, for love like this, 
 
 No mortal word can frame, 
 
 Go, ask of angels what it is, 
 
 And call it by that name ! ” 
 
 The good air in Switzerland, and especially Maloja, had set Richard 
 up completely. We returned on the 7th of September, little think¬ 
 ing he had but six weeks to live. 
 
 The day before he died, though he was unusually well and cheer¬ 
 ful, he said, “ I am beginning to lose the good I got in Switzerland, 
 and to feel the corroding climate of Trieste again. I count the 
 hours till the 15th of November.” 
 
 This was the day that we were to have sailed for Greece, but, 
 alas ! for human foresight, human misery, it was the day of the third 
 and the last great Church ceremonial or dirge for the repose of his 
 soul. Some circumstances that were unavoidable, not important 
 but irritating, for the past few months had annoyed him, and he was 
 always saying, “ What a blessing it would be, and that he could 
 hardly wait for the moment, when we two would be settled quietly 
 in England together again, and independent of the Government, 
 and of all the world besides ! ” And it will always comfort me to 
 remember that during spring and summer, after our return from 
 Algiers, I begged of him to throw up the Service, and instead of 
 
 526 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time. 527 
 
 going any farther on small travels, to let us at once set to, pack up 
 and return to England for good, and to defer Greece and Constanti¬ 
 nople till we had settled ourselves in England. Also that during 
 our Swiss tour, when we got to Zurich in August, and were so near 
 Bale, I said, “ We are halfway to England ; let us go on, let the 
 things go; we will send back a trusty person to bring them on; ” but 
 he said, “ No, he should like to brave it out till the end.” Little 
 did we think that— 
 
 “ The cast-off shape that, years since, we called ‘ I ’ 
 
 Shall sudden into nothingness 
 Let out that something rare which could conceive 
 A Universe and its God.” * 
 
 We had occasion sometimes to go into the English Protestant 
 burial-ground at Trieste—poor Charles Lever lies buried there, and by 
 him is a cold, melancholy corner which at that particular time seemed 
 to be a sort of rubbish corner of stray papers and old tin pots. He 
 shuddered at it, and said, as he had often said before, “ If I die here, 
 don’t bury me there. They will insist on it; will you be strong and 
 tight against it?” I said, “ Yes ; I think I shall be strong enough 
 to fight against that for your sake ! Where would you like to be 
 buried ? ” He said, “ I think I should like you to take my body 
 out to sea in a boat, and throw me into the water ; I don’t like the 
 ground, nor a vault, nor cremation.” And I said, “ Oh, I could not 
 do that; won’t anything else do? ” “ Yes,” he said; “ I should like 
 
 us both to lie in a tent side by side.” 
 
 He was very fond of kittens, and always had one on his shoulder. 
 When he lay dead, his kitten would not leave him, and fought and 
 spat to be allowed to remain. Three days before he died, he told 
 me that a bird had been tapping at his window all the morning, 
 saying, “ That is a bad omen, you know ? ” I said I could not 
 agree with him, because he had the habit of feeding the birds of the 
 garden on his window-sill at seven every morning. He replied, 
 “ Ah, it was not that window, but another.” And I found afterwards 
 this little verse scribbled on the margin of his journal— 
 
 “ Swallow, pilgrim swallow, 
 
 Beautiful bird with purple plume, 
 
 That, sitting upon my window-sill, 
 
 Repeating each morn at the dawn of day 
 That mournful ditty so wild and shrill,— 
 
 Swallow, lovely swallow, what would’st thou say, 
 
 On my casement-sill at the break of day ? ” 
 
 The day before his death (Sunday afternoon), the 19th of October, 
 the last walk he ever took, he saw a little robin drowning in a tank 
 
 * From “John Halifax.” 
 
528 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 in the garden. Crowds of birds were sitting around it on the trees, 
 watching it drown, and doing nothing for it. He got Dr. Baker 
 to get it out, and warmed it in his own hands, and put it in his fur 
 coat, and made a fuss till it was quite restored, then put it in a cage 
 to be kept and tended till well enough to fly away again. 
 
 The last night, the chief talk at dinner was about General Booth's 
 article—the first that came out in the Pall Mall Budget —of “ How to 
 relieve the Millions.” He took the greatest possible interest in 
 it, because (as he said) they could get at people that no clergy¬ 
 man of any Church could get at, and it sounded such a sensible plan. 
 He said to me, “ When you and I get to London, and are quite free 
 and settled, we will give all our spare time to that.” This is the man 
 who is supposed to have killed and crushed everything as he went 
 about in triumph over the world. 
 
 In point of fact, the “Richard Burton” described by part of the 
 press, notably by the Saturday Review —the Richard Burton quoted 
 by a great portion of the people who professed to know him so well, 
 and really hardly knew him at all, never existed—was a man I never 
 knew and never saw. 
 
 To the last breath, there was never a saner, or a sounder, or a 
 truer judgment in any man who walked this earth. He saw and 
 knew all the recesses of men's minds and actions. 
 
 All those six weeks I was very uneasy to hear him talking more 
 than ever agnostically at the table, and to our surroundings, and to 
 witness the conflict going on within himself in the privacy of our 
 own rooms, because I had been warned by people who have ex¬ 
 perience in these matters, that it would be the case the nearer he was 
 to death; and yet his health seemed so well. It never struck me 
 that death could be so near. He said once to me, after an unusual 
 burst at tea, which had made me sad, “ Do I hurt you when I talk like 
 that? ” And I smiled, and said rather sadly, “ Well, yes ; it always 
 appears to me like speaking against our very best friend.” He got 
 a little pale, and said, “ Well, I promise you that, after I am free 
 from the Government and from our present surroundings, I won’t 
 talk like that any more.” And I said, “ How I long for that time to 
 come ! ” And he answered, “ So do I.” 
 
 I realized the following quotation about prayer :— 
 
 “ The time may be delayed, the manner may be unexpected, but 
 the answer is sure to come. Not- a tear of sacred sorrow, not a 
 breath of holy desire poured out in prayer to God, will ever be lost; 
 but in God’s own time and way it will be wafted back again, in 
 clouds of mercy, and fall in showers of blessings on you, and those 
 for whom you pray.” 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time. 529 
 
 The nightingales were very beautiful in our garden at Trieste, and 
 after dinner, it being unusually fine weather in September and October, 
 we used to sit out on our verandah smoking, taking our coffee, 
 looking at the beautiful moonlit sea and mountains, and the moon 
 and stars through a large telescope that stood there for the purpose. 
 And one day I found the following on the margin of his journal 
 
 “THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 * * * Sweet minstrel of the younger year, 
 
 Small Orpheus of the woody hill, 
 
 Say why far more delight my soul 
 That artless note, that untaught trill, 
 
 Than all that tuneful art can find 
 To charm the senses of mankind ? * 
 
 “ ‘ Listen ! ’ the Nightingale replied. 
 
 * The notes which thus thy feelings move 
 By perfect Nature were supplied, 
 
 To praise the Lord and sing of love. 
 
 Hath Art ne’er taught mankind to sing 
 High praises of a meaner thing ? ’ ” 
 
 The End. 
 
 Let me recall the last happy day of my life. It was Sunday, the 
 19th of October, 1890. I went out to Communion and Mass at 
 eight o’clock, came back and kissed my husband at his writing. He 
 was engaged on the last page of the “ Scented Garden,” which had 
 occupied him seriously only six actual months, not thirty years, as 
 the Press said. He said to me, “ To-morrow I shall have finished 
 this, and I promise you that I will never write another book on this 
 subject. I will take to our biography.” And I said, “ What a happi¬ 
 ness that will be ! ” He took his usual walk of nearly two hours in 
 the morning, breakfasting well. People came to tea; he had another 
 walk in the garden, when the robin incident occurred. 
 
 “ How oft we’ve wandered by the stream, 
 
 Or in the garden’s bound, 
 
 Our hands and hearts together join’d ; 
 
 Pure happiness have found ! 
 
 But now we linger there no more, 
 
 Beside the woods or burn, 
 
 And all that I can utter now 
 Is, ‘ When wilt thou return ? ’ ” 
 
 That afternoon we sat together writing an immense number of letters, 
 which, when we had finished, I put on the hall table to be posted on 
 Monday morning. Each letter breathed of life and hope and happi¬ 
 ness, for we were making our preparations for a delightful voyage 
 to Greece and Constantinople, which was to last from the 15th of 
 
530 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 November to the 15th of March. We were to return to Trieste from 
 the 15th of March till the 1st of July. He would be a free man on the 
 19th of March, and those three months and a half we were to pack 
 up, make our preparations, wind up all our affairs, send our heavy 
 baggage to England, and, bidding adieu to Trieste, we were to pass 
 July and August in Switzerland, arrive in England in September, 
 1891, look for a little flat and a little cottage, unpack and settle our¬ 
 selves to live in England. 
 
 We had now been back in Trieste six weeks from Maloja, in the 
 Engadine, and during those six weeks my husband did several things, 
 with a difference that would have struck me, except for his improved 
 health and spirits. How we should break our hearts could we see 
 ahead, and yet how one regrets not seeing ! 
 
 “ What part has death or has time in him 
 Who rode life’s lists as a God might ride ? n 
 
 Swinburne. 
 
 During this time, in spite of his having his Agnostic-talking 
 tendencies worse upon him than ever, at table and in company, in 
 privacy he used to lock our outer doors for a short while twice daily 
 and pray. Our six rooms ran round in a square, cut off from the rest 
 of the house, and as his bedroom and mine were corner rooms, I 
 had, quite accidentally, a large full-length mirror in my corner, that 
 gave me command of three rooms, including the chapel, so that 
 though he was alone I could see him. And I did not alter it, lest 
 he might have a seizure of any sort. In the chapel was a large 
 crucifix, and he would at times come in, and remain before it for half 
 an hour together, and go away with moist, sad eyes, and sometimes 
 look over the books or papers. 
 
 The only difference remarkable on this particular Sunday, 19th of 
 October, was, that whereas my husband was dreadfully punctual, and 
 with military precision as the clock struck we had to be in our 
 places at the table, at half past seven he seemed to dawdle about 
 the room, putting things away. He said to me, “ You had better go 
 in to table ; ” and I answered, “ No, darling, I will wait for you and 
 we went in together. He dined well, but sparingly ; he laughed, 
 talked, and joked. We discussed our future plans and preparations, 
 and he desired me on the morrow to write to Sir Edmund Monson, 
 and several other letters, to forward the preparations. We talked 
 of our future life in London, and so on. About half-past nine he 
 got up and went to his bedroom, accompanied by the doctor and 
 myself, and we assisted him at his toilette. I then said the night 
 prayers to him, and whilst I was saying them, a dog began that 
 dreadful howl which the superstitious say denotes a death. It 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time. 531 
 
 disturbed me so dreadfully, that I got up from the prayers, went 
 out of the room, and called the porter to go out and see what was 
 the matter with the dog. I then returned, and finished the prayers, 
 after which he asked me for a novel. I gave him Robert Buchanan’s 
 “ Martyrdom of Madeline.” I kissed him, and got into bed, and he 
 was reading in bed. 
 
 “ I hear a voice you cannot hear, 
 
 Which says I must not stay; 
 
 I see a hand you cannot see, 
 
 Which beckons me away.” 
 
 Thos. Tickell. 
 
 “ Sunset and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me ! 
 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar 
 When I put out to sea. 
 
 “ But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 
 Too full for sound and foam, 
 
 When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
 Turns again home. 
 
 44 Twilight and evening bell, 
 
 And after that the dark ! 
 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 When I embark. 
 
 “For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and place 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crossed the bar.” 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 At twelve o’clock midnight he began to grow uneasy. I asked him 
 what ailed him, and he said, “ I have a gouty pain in my foot. 
 When did I have my last attack ? ” I referred to our journals, and 
 found it was three months previously that he had had a real gout, 
 and I said, “ You know that the doctor considers it a safety-valve that 
 you should have a healthy gout in your feet every three months for 
 your head, and your general health. Your last attack was three 
 months ago at Zurich, and your next will be due next January. He 
 was then quite content, and though he moaned and was restless, he 
 tried to sleep, and I sat by him magnetizing the foot locally, as I 
 had the habit of doing to soothe the pain, and it gave him so much 
 relief that he dozed a little, and said, “ I dreamt I saw our little flat 
 in London, and it had quite a nice large room in it.” Betweenwhiles 
 he laughed and talked and spoke of our future plans, and even 
 joked. 
 
 At four o’clock he got more uneasy, and I said I should go for the 
 
53 2 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 doctor. He said, “ Oh no, don’t disturb him; he cannot do anything. 
 And I answered, “What is the use of keeping a doctor if he is not to 
 be called when you are suffering ? ” The doctor was there in a few 
 moments, felt his heart and pulse, found him in perfect order—that 
 the gout was healthy. He gave him some medicine, and went back to 
 bed. About half-past four he complained that there was no air. I 
 flew back for the doctor, who came and found him in danger. I went 
 at once, called up all the servants, sent in five directions for a priest, 
 according to the directions I had received, hoping to get one, and the 
 doctor, and I and Lisa under the doctor’s orders, tried every remedy 
 and restorative, but in vain. 
 
 What harasses my memory, what I cannot bear to think of, what 
 wakes me with horror every morning from four till seven, when 
 I get up, is that for a minute or two he kept on crying, “ Oh, Puss, 
 chloroform—ether—or I am a dead man ! ” My God ! I would 
 have given him the blood out of my veins, if it would have saved 
 him, but I had to answer, “ My darling, the doctor says it will kill 
 you; he is doing all he knows.” I was holding him in my arms, 
 when he got heavier and heavier, and more insensible, and we laid him 
 on the bed. The doctor said he was quite insensible, and assured 
 me he did not suffer. I trust not; I believe it was a clot of blood 
 to the heart. 
 
 My one endeavour was to be useful to the doctor, and not impede 
 his actions by my own feelings. The doctor applied the electric 
 battery to the heart, and kept it there till seven o’clock, and I knelt 
 down at his left side, holding his hand and pulse, and prayed my 
 heart out to God to keep his soul there (though he might be dead 
 in appearance) till the priest arrived. I should say that he was 
 insensible in thirty minutes from the time he said there was 
 no air. 
 
 It was a country Slav priest, lately promoted to be our parish 
 priest, who came. He called me aside, and told me that he could 
 not give Extreme Unction to my husband, because he had not 
 declared himself, but I besought him not to lose a moment in giving 
 the Sacrament, for the soul was passing away, and that I had the 
 means of satisfying him. He looked at us all three, and asked if 
 he was dead, and we all said no. God was good, for had he had to 
 go back for the holy materials it would have been too late, but he 
 had them in his pocket, and he immediately administered Extreme 
 Unction—“Sivivis,”or “Si es capax ”—“If thou art alive”—and 
 said the prayers for the dying and the departing soul. The doctor 
 still kept the battery to the heart all the time, and I still held the left 
 hand with my finger on the pulse. By the clasp of the hand, and a. 
 
533 
 
 We return Home for the last time. 
 
 little trickle of blood running under the finger, I judged there was a 
 little life until seven, and then I knew that, unless that happened 
 which had happened to me,* that I was alone and desolate for 
 ever. 
 
 I sat all day by Richard, watching him, and praying and expecting 
 him also to come to. I thought the mouth and left eye moved, but 
 the doctor told me it was imagination. But what was no imagination, 
 was that the brain lived after the heart and pulse were gone ; f that on 
 lifting up the eyelids, the eyes were as bright and intelligent as in life, 
 with the brilliancy of a man who saw something unexpected and 
 wonderful and happy ; and that light remained in them till near 
 sunset, and I believe that soul went forth with the setting sun, 
 though it had set for me for ever . I was so convinced of his happi¬ 
 ness, that I lifted up my heart to God in a fervent thanksgiving 
 him, and I knelt down with my broken heart and said my “ Fiat 
 voluntas tua,” and when I rose up I said, “ Let the world rain fire 
 and brimstone on me now.” It has ! 
 
 The Protestant clergyman, a most charming gentleman, earnest in 
 his profession, and a staunch friend, soon came in. I asked him if 
 he would like to do anything, but he said, “ No, there was nothing 
 to be done.” But he himself knelt down and said a very beautiful 
 prayer. 
 
 I can never forget what Austria in general, and Trieste in par¬ 
 ticular, did in Richard’s honour, nor could I ever say enough of the 
 kindness, delicacy, courteousness, affection, and esteem shown to me, 
 his desolate widow. I asked for ?iothing, for I felt how difficult was 
 the question. I only asked that he might not be put in the ground, 
 but into some chapelle ardente , from whence I might take him 
 home as soon as I could arrange to leave. To my great content¬ 
 ment and lasting gratitude, I found that the Bishop had conceded 
 to him all the greatest ceremonies of the Church, and the authorities 
 a gorgeous military funeral, such as is only accorded to Royalty— 
 
 * This is what happened to me. In my younger days I had malignant typhus. I 
 appeared to die. I was attended by two very clever doctors, who were with me at 
 my supposed death, which they certified, and I was laid out. My mother’s grief 
 was so violent that my father judged it expedient to send for her confessor to give 
 her some consolation. He happened to be the famous large-minded clever Jesuit 
 and theologian, old Father Randal Lythegoe. He consoled my mother for some 
 time, then he knelt down and prayed for me, and then he got up and put on his 
 stole. “What are you going to do, Father?” said my mother. “I am going to give 
 her Extreme Unction,” he said. “ But you can’t; she has been dead several hours.” 
 “I don’t care about that,” he said. “I am going to risk it.” He did so, and 
 about two hours after he was gone I opened my eyes, and gradually came to. 
 t His journals show that he believed in this too. 
 
534 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 an honour never before accorded to a foreigner. One half-English¬ 
 man came and made some objections on behalf of a small section of 
 English, and claimed him for the much-abhorred place in the little 
 English Protestant cemetery, and said that they would not come 
 to the Funeral or the Church if it was to be Catholic. But Dr. 
 Baker gallantly took our part, and told this person in very plain 
 terms what he thought about it, and that they had better stay away, 
 so that I never even heard of the annoyance till it was over. 
 
 The coffin was covered with the Union Jack and his sword; his 
 insignia and medals were borne on a cushion, and a second hearse 
 was hid in garlands and flowers. The Consular corps for the first 
 time suspended their rule, and in full uniform surrounded and walked 
 on each side of the hearse as pall-bearers. At their own special 
 request, a company representing the crew of a large English ship, 
 which had just arrived in port, made a conspicuous part of the 
 cortege. I came next, but I was too stunned to notice details; but 
 they tell me that no funeral has been equal to it in the memory of 
 any one living, not even Maria Theresa’s, ex-Queen of Spain, in 
 1873. It was not, as in England, a case of six or eight hundred 
 attending; there are one hundred and fifty thousand in Trieste, and 
 every one who could drive or walk, from the highest authorities to 
 the poorest, turned out. The Governor with his Staff, the principal 
 Military and Naval officers, Civil Authorities and Consular corps, 
 were all in uniform, and every flag in the town and harbour was at 
 half-mast. 
 
 If I were to live to be a hundred years old, to my dying day there 
 will be photographed on my mind, the sun setting red in the sea over 
 the burial-ground; the short, beautiful oration of his friend Attilio 
 Hortis, who was commissioned by the local Government to speak, 
 but whose voice was broken. The orphanage children then sang, 
 with sweet tremulous voices, the hymn “ Dies ira, dies ilia,” and sobs 
 were heard all around. I alone was tearless; I felt turned to stone. 
 The coffin was placed in a small chapel in the burial-ground, where 
 I remained behind the rest. 
 
 “Ellati Zaujuha ma’aha b’tadir el Kamar b’asbiha.” 
 
 (“ The woman who has her husband with her {i.e. at her back) can turn the moon 
 with her finger.”) 
 
 “ El Maraa min ghayr Zaujuha mislaha tayaran maksus el Jenahh.” 
 
 (“The woman without her husband is like a bird with one wing.”) 
 
 I can never forget—but all unhappy widows will understand me 
 —my horrible return to my empty shell, the house, leaving him 
 in the burial-ground, which but sixty-three hours before had been 
 a beautiful and much-loved home. Two days later the guardian 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time. 535 
 
 of the cemetery had his own bedroom draped, adorned, and conse¬ 
 crated as a chapelle ardente, and the coffin was conveyed there, the 
 other chapel being too public. It was always decorated with lights 
 and flowers, and I had free access to go and pray by him, and I was 
 allowed to keep him there for the three months I was preparing to 
 leave Trieste. Everything possible was done in consideration of my 
 feelings, everything possible was spared me, and when an Austrian 
 official proceeding was necessary, it was done with the delicacy and 
 nobility which is the stamp of that country. 
 
 On the Thursday after his death, a eulogy of Richard was delivered 
 in the Diet of Trieste by Dr. Cambon, who praised him as “an in¬ 
 trepid explorer, a gallant soldier, an honour to the town of Trieste, 
 which is especially indebted to him for his researches into the history 
 of the province of Istria.” The House adjourned as a mark of respect 
 for the deceased hero. 
 
 I do not like to think of those first three weeks, so full of the 
 depth of woe. It is impossible for me to tell how kind every one 
 was, how all Trieste combined with goodness and tenderness and 
 attention that nothing might hurt. Meanwhile the press was full of 
 him . How I wish he could have known—but he did know and see 
 —all the appreciation and the regret for him, as shown by notices 
 in the press, of which I have books full, the flowers, the telegrams, 
 the cards, the letters, and calls, all showing how truly he really was 
 appreciated, except by the handful who could have made his life 
 happy by Success. The City had three great funeral requiems with 
 Mass sung, and all the obsequies. One took place at the Capuchins, 
 one at the parish church, one at the Orphanage of St. Joseph. 
 
 I now ascertained, through friends who spoke to the Dean, what 
 the intentions were about Westminster Abbey, and the Dean re¬ 
 plied that it would be impossible to bury any more people at the 
 Abbey; nor can I say that I was very sorry. Neither did St. Paul’s 
 offer. I saved our dignity by taking the initiative, following a line 
 of our own, and refused before I was asked. It might have pleased 
 a few people, but I know he would not have cared about it, neither 
 did I. In these churches a showman would have occasionally earned 
 a sixpence by pointing out a cold dark slab to trippers, and saying, 
 “There lies Burton, Speke, Livingstone,” etc., etc., and many others, 
 some of whom were not fit to tie the latchet of his shoe—his name 
 in a common list of theirs. 
 
 He and I had our peculiar ideas, and I was determined, if I could, 
 to carry them out. He hated darkness so much that he never would 
 have the blind down, lest he might lose a glimpse of light from 
 twilight to dawn. He has got the very thing he wanted, only of 
 
536 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 stone and marble instead of canvas—to be buried in a tent above 
 ground; to have sun, and light, and air, trees, birds, and flowers; 
 and he has love, tears, prayers, and companionship even in the 
 grave. His tent is the only one in the world, and it is by far the 
 most beautiful, most romantic, most undeathlike resting-place in 
 the wide world. 
 
 Finding my purse would be too slender to carry it out, and as 
 friends started subscriptions for me,* I secured my ground, made my 
 design, and set sculptors at work in the cemetery in which, for the 
 last forty years, most of my people have been buried, and which he 
 himself had chosen. 
 
 My desire was to embody the beautiful idea found in the tombs 
 of Lydia and Lycia, and which is enshrined in the Taj Mahal at 
 Agra. The early tomb-builders had doubtless some connection with 
 Nomads, and embodied the conception that the home in death should 
 be like that of the home on earth. For this reason I feel, the public 
 have not quite understood the beauty of my mausoleum-tent. I 
 wished to embody the poetry contained in my husband’s “ Kasi'dah,” 
 with the religion he wished to die in. I have sent to the desert for 
 strings of camel-bells, which will hang across the tent, and like an 
 Hiolian harp when the wind blows, the tinkle of the camel-bells may 
 still sound near him. I have asked Major J. B. Keith, in his “ Mono¬ 
 graph on Indian Architecture,” which will include tentage and tombs, 
 to explain my meaning in his “ Great Tents of Antiquity ” better 
 than I have done myself. 
 
 I lost all at once; my beautiful home had been my pride—it 
 had to be given up. The money, except a little patrimony, died 
 with my husband. I had to say good-bye to all the friends I 
 had loved for eighteen years. Lisa, my confidential maid upon 
 whom I entirely depended, to whom I owed all my personal 
 comfort, who managed everything for me, and who alone knew 
 all my belongings, I had to part with, for reasons which I do 
 not wish to mention here. We had always had what was play¬ 
 fully called a very large “staff” in our house in my husband’s 
 life. The Master being dead-—if I had been a sensible woman—I 
 should have cleared my house out directly after the funeral; but I 
 was too absorbed with the horrors of my now desolate position, and 
 I had neither sense nor heart enough to make any changes. From 
 this arose complications, misunderstandings, and heart-burnings 
 enough to make life still more unbearable. We all know what one 
 
 * I received j£688, and I owe this handsome contribution to the exertions of 
 Baroness Paul de Ralli, of Trieste, to Sir Polydore Keyser, and Mrs. Roland 
 Ward, who started and collected it. 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time . 537 
 
 bad bit of yeast does to a loaf of bread. I shut myself up entirely 
 alone in my husband’s rooms for sixteen days, sorting and classify¬ 
 ing his manuscripts, packing and arranging his books, and carrying 
 out all his last wishes and written instructions. What a terrible 
 time it was I passed in the midst of these relics, shutting myself 
 away in solitude, and rejecting all offers of assistance, as I could not 
 bear any one to witness what I had to go through, and also there 
 were many private papers which I knew nobody ought to see but 
 myself, and much that he particularly desired me to burn if anything 
 happened to him. 
 
 There were old servants to be placed out, many people depen¬ 
 dent on us, institutions of which I was President to be wound up, 
 debts to be paid, old friends to say good-bye to. My husband’s and 
 my personal effects, his library and manuscripts, were packed in two 
 hundred and four cases. Having been eighteen years at Trieste, I felt 
 there would be a meanness in selling, so I furnished the orphanage, 
 and a few rooms for Lisa, and gave away everything where I thought 
 it would be most useful or most valued; and this, with constant visits 
 to my beloved in the chapelle ardente , which was half an hour’s 
 drive away, occupied fourteen weeks, though I got up at six and 
 worked till ten p.m. I never rested, and it was a life of torture. 
 I used to wake at four, the hour he was taken ill, and go through 
 all the horrors of his three hours’ illness until seven. I prayed for 
 supernatural strength of soul and body, and it was really given to me. 
 
 On the 20th of January, 1891, I had to go to the Sant’ Anna 
 Cemetery to see the beloved remains prepared, and conveyed on 
 board the Cunard steamer Palmyra at the New Port. The remains 
 had been placed in a leaden shell, with a glass over the face ; this was 
 again closed in a very handsome coffin of steel and gilt. On this 
 day it was put into a plain white deal case, two inches thick, dove¬ 
 tailed, and secured with iron clamps and screws, and painted in 
 black—“ To the Rev. Canon Wenham, Catholic Church, Mortlake, 
 S.W., Surrey, England.” The case was filled with sawdust, in which, 
 according to Austrian law, a bottle of carbolic acid was poured, 
 which has rather stained the coffin. (I cannot think who could have 
 started the irreverent report in the press that it was a piano-case.) 
 Accompanied by the Vice-Consul, Mr. Cautley, I proceeded to the 
 steamer, and saw the precious case lowered, and put into a dry and 
 secured place. Poor good Louis Marcovich, the guardian of the 
 cemetery, would not take one single penny of the present that I had 
 prepared for him, for giving up his bedroom for three months. He 
 only said, clasping my hand, “ Don’t send it me, because I shall only 
 send it back again. I have got a nice consecrated room to die in ; ” 
 
538 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 which he did, poor fellow, about a year later. May God reward 
 him for his good work! 
 
 The last night came, and twenty of my friends came up to spend 
 the last evening with me. My work was only finished about two 
 hours before I had to start, and I walked round and round to every 
 room, recalling all my life in that happy home and all the sad events 
 that had lately taken place. I gazed at all those beautiful views for 
 the last time—at the tablet over the place where my husband’s death¬ 
 bed stood, recalling his death; another tablet in the chapel where 
 the Masses had been said; and I looked around with parting eyes. I 
 went into every nook and cranny of the garden, and under our dear 
 linden tree, where my husband and I had so often sat (a little branch 
 of which I have now framed in my room) ; my servants following 
 me about, crying bitterly, and saying, “ Oh, my dear mistress, we shall 
 never have your husband’s and your like again ; we shall never have 
 such another house as this.” Then came carriages full of our friends 
 to take me away, and the dreadful wrench made me cry all the way 
 down to the station. There I found all that was worth of Society, 
 and Authorities, and the children of our Orphanage, and our Poor, 
 and all our private friends, bearing flowers. It was an awful trial 
 not to make an exhibition of myself, and I was glad when the train 
 steamed out; but for a whole hour ascending the beautiful road close 
 to the sea and Miramar and Trieste, I never took my misty eyes off 
 Trieste, and our home where I had been so happy for eighteen years, 
 and which I shall never see again. 
 
 My first care on arriving in England was to go and see Richard’s 
 sister and niece, and acquaint them with all the circumstances and 
 my intentions. I arrived in London on the 7th of February, 1891, 
 and having no home, went to the Langham for a few days to look 
 about for a lodging. At the Langham my three sisters were 
 waiting for me. 
 
 On the 9th I immediately went to Messrs. Dyke, 49, Highgate 
 Road, to inspect the monument, and to give orders respecting 
 everything, and found, to my great distress, that, owing to the severity 
 of the weather, it would be difficult to say when we could get the 
 remainder of the Forest of Dean stone. On the 10th I went 
 to Mortlake, chose my ground and had it pegged out, made arrange¬ 
 ments with Canon Wenham, and on the nth my sister, Mrs. Gerald 
 Fitzgerald, and I went to Liverpool. I cannot say how ill I felt, 
 and as soon as I arrived at Liverpool I had to go to bed. Friends 
 began to arrive from different parts of England. Lord and Lady 
 Derby, my best and kindest friends, had been so kind as to have 
 everything seen to for me at Liverpool, and the Captain and the 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time. 539 
 
 officers of the ships, the authorities of the dockyard, and the London 
 and North-Western Company outvied each other in civility and 
 courteous attention in the arrangements that were made for us. 
 
 The Palmyra (after a journey as smooth as a lake) arrived on 
 the 12th of February, 1891, at midnight, and we were told to be 
 on board at nine next morning. Carriages for my party, and a 
 small hearse, were ready to convey us to the ship. We went on 
 board, and were courteously received by the Captain, and the case 
 containing the coffin was brought up and placed on a small bridge. 
 I forgot the people when I saw my beloved case, and I ran forward 
 to kiss it Canon Waterton said a few prayers. The Captain, 
 officers, and men knew my husband, and many of the dockyard 
 men were Catholics. They all bowed their heads, the Catholics 
 answered the prayers, and there were audible sobs all round. The 
 case was conveyed to the hearse, and we proceeded to the station, 
 where it was immediately put into a separate compartment next to 
 the two saloons reserved for me and my party. 
 
 When we arrived at Euston we found a duplicate of these con¬ 
 veyances waiting to take us and the body to Mortlake. We un¬ 
 packed the case, but Canon Wenham, who had gone out, kept us 
 an hour and three-quarters. The evening was cold and damp, and 
 by torchlight, with a prayer, we conveyed him to rest in the crypt 
 under the altar of the church. I remained some time praying there, 
 and then we all dispersed, my sister and myself going back to the 
 Langham. The reaction, after all I had gone through, set in ; there 
 was no more call upon my courage. I was safe in England and 
 amongst my own people; there was nothing more to be done for 
 Richard till the funeral. 
 
 “ Poor hacl been my life’s best efforts, 
 
 Now I waste no thought or breath j 
 For the prayer of those who suffer 
 Has the strength of love and death.” 
 
 My courage broke, and I took to my bed that night, the 13th of 
 February, and nolens volens I was obliged to stay at the Langham, 
 being too weak either to find or to be transferred to a lodging. I 
 passed from the 13th of February till the 30th of April between 
 bed and armchair, and latterly was taken down in the lift occa¬ 
 sionally to dinner or lunch. Every one was most kind to me, and 
 my sisters spoilt me, and came daily to lunch or dine. I cannot 
 describe the horror of the seventy-six days, enhanced by the fog, 
 which, after sunlight and air, was like being buried alive. T he sense 
 of desolation and loneliness and the longing for him was cruel, and 
 it became— 
 
 “ The custom of the day, 
 
 And the haunting of the night.” 
 
540 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton . 
 
 My altered circumstances, and the looking into and facing my 
 future, had also to be borne. From my sick bed I dictated answers 
 to some two thousand letters, mostly of sympathy, writing out 
 different business cases, and preparing for the funeral. Meantime 
 the Queen had, in consideration of my husband’s services, to my 
 great gratitude and surprise, allowed me a pension of ^150 a 
 year.* 
 
 I would not have asked for anything for myself, but I thought 
 that the British nation would take a pride in helping me to raise 
 the characteristic monument so long wished for, to a man they so 
 honoured, and who had devoted his life to the nation’s interest in so 
 many ways as he had done; and more so as I had over a thousand 
 cuttings from newspapers and hundreds of letters saying that 
 the nation wished his memory to be honoured by a testimonial. 
 Nor was I disappointed, as, during the eight months, from his 
 death to his final burial at Mortlake, I was helped by f 66 S 
 towards it. f 
 
 On the 30th of April I was well enough to be transferred to a 
 lodging, where my sister and I lived together; for the Langham was 
 getting too gay, too full for me, nor could I afford it. Here I had 
 privacy, quiet, and cheapness. 
 
 The funeral was finally fixed for Monday, the 15th of June, at 
 eleven o’clock, and the final completions were only ended two hours 
 before the ceremony began. 
 
 I had taken lodgings at Mortlake. The tent is sculptured in dark 
 Forest of Dean stone and white Carrara marble. It is an Arab 
 tent, twelve feet by twelve and eighteen feet high, surmounted by a 
 gilt star of nine points. Over the flap door of the tent is a white 
 marble crucifix. The fringe is composed of gilt cressets and stars. 
 The flap door of the tent supports an open book of white marble, on 
 which are inscribed Richard’s name and the dates of his birth and 
 decease. A blank page is left for “ Isabel, his wife.” I Underneath 
 is a ribbon with the words, “This monument is erected to his memory 
 by his loving countrymen.” Below, on a white marble tablet, is 
 a beautiful sonnet written in a passion of grief by Justin Huntley 
 McCarthy:— 
 
 * I owed my pension to several of our old friends ; notably the Dowager Lady 
 Stanley of Alderley, the Royal Geographical and other learned Societies. 
 
 f I mention this because I had an anonymous letter sent me which taunted me 
 with touting for subscriptions for it.—I. B. 
 
 X [This was filled up March 1896.— W. H. W.] 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time . 541 
 
 “RICHARD BURTON. 
 
 “ Farewell, dear friend, dear hero ! The great life 
 Is ended, the great perils, the great joys ; 
 
 And he to whom adventures were as toys, 
 
 Who seemed to bear a charm ’gainst spear or knife 
 Or bullet, now lies silent from all strife 
 Out yonder where the Austrian eagles poise 
 On Istrian hills. But England, at the noise 
 Of that dread fall, weeps with the hero’s wi'e. 
 
 Oh, last and noblest of the Errant Knights, 
 
 The English soldier and the Arab Sheik ! 
 
 Oh, singer of the East who loved so well 
 The deathless wonder of the ‘ Arabian Nights,’ 
 
 Who touched Camoens’ lute and still would seek 
 Ever new deeds until the end ! farewell! ” 
 
 It is planted round with trees and flowers, and has a background 
 of linden trees. It is, I think, the most beautiful little burial-ground 
 in England, especially in summer time. In fact, it is so covered 
 with flowers and embedded in trees as to look almost foreign, by 
 its pretty little church and presbytery. 
 
 The interior is nearly all marble; the floor, of white and black 
 marble, covers a base of Portland cement (concrete), so that no 
 damp can arise from the ground. The coffin of steel and gilt lies 
 above ground on three marble trestles, with three trestles on the 
 opposite side for me. At the foot of the coffin is a marble altar 
 and tabernacle with candles and flowers, a wfindow of coloured glass, 
 with Richard’s monogram, and the whole adorned with seven hang¬ 
 ing and various other Oriental lamps. 
 
 Many people who come into the ground ask “why the canvas 
 cover is not taken off,” and are quite astonished when they touch 
 the stone. People were invited ge?ierally , but special invitations 
 were issued to the senders of wreaths, telegrams, cards, letters, 
 subscriptions, visits, editors of friendly newspapers, applications, 
 private friends, and those who had interested themselves in my 
 future. Eight hundred and fifty-two invitations were issued. Four 
 hundred were down with influenza, but eight hundred people came 
 all the same. 
 
 The ceremony began at eleven, lasting an hour and a half, 
 giving time to a visitor to enter the mausoleum and get back to 
 the station, which was a few yards from the church, for the one 
 o’clock train back to London, the authorities being duly warned 
 of the number of invited. The Church was very simply decorated 
 with a fleur-de-lys carpet, the trestles were covered by a cramoisie 
 velvet pall, being Richard’s favourite colour, and the coffin was 
 laid at the top of it, and covered with wreaths sent by friends, my 
 little bunch of forget-me-nots lying where the face would be. It was 
 surrounded by tall silver candlesticks with wax candles. I occupied 
 
542 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 a prie-dieu by his side; to my right were the women—on the left 
 hand the men—mourners, headed by Captain St. George Burton 
 of the Black Watch, his chief male relation, and both sides were 
 composed of his and my relations, and his oldest friends. The pro¬ 
 cession filed out exactly at ii.io, the acolytes bearing flambeaux. 
 The short requiem Mass of Casciolini was the one sung, by a London 
 professional choir. Monsignor Stanley sang the Mass, assisted by 
 several priests who had been personal friends of my husband. Then 
 followed the Burial Service with its three absolutions, the priest 
 walking round the coffin perfuming it with incense, and sprinkling 
 it with holy water, and Canon Wenham, who performed this service 
 in Latin, said in English, with a smile and a voice full of emotion, 
 “ Enter now into Paradise.” The men then lifted the coffin, and 
 a wreath was given to one of the lady mourners to carry, I taking 
 my own little bunch of forget-me-nots, and following the coffin 
 closely. Flanked a little lower down by the women and men 
 mourners, and followed by all the assembled friends, the procession 
 wound through the small but beautiful cemetery of St. Mary Magda¬ 
 len’s, Mortlake, to what seemed a veritable canvas tent pegged down 
 amongst palm-trees, and he, who died eight months ago, was laid 
 in his final resting-place. I begged that there might be no sermon 
 or oration. When the coffin was deposited, the choir sang the 
 Benedictus, and if there was any choice throughout the touching 
 and impressive ceremony, perhaps this was the most impressive and 
 the softest. 
 
 During the Benedictus the priest made a sign to me to go inside 
 the mausoleum. I knelt and kissed the coffin, and put my forget- 
 me-nots on it, and then I got behind the door. The other chief 
 mourners passed into the tent, knelt, and deposited their wreaths and 
 flowers. After the Benedictus, Canon Wenham, feeling that there 
 were so many Protestants, said some English prayers; but his voice 
 broke with emotion, and he had a difficulty in finishing them. When 
 all was over, St. George Burton gave me his arm and conducted 
 me to Canon Wenham’s house, that I might not embarrass the public, 
 who would like freely to enter the mausoleum and examine it. As 
 I passed through the burial-ground, many friends shook hands with 
 me, but I was so dazed I could not see them. 
 
We Return Home for the Last Time . 543 
 
 SIR RICHARD BURTON, KNIGHT. 
 
 Born 1821. Died 1890. 
 
 “ He resteth now. His noble part is d ne, 
 
 And Britain mourns another true-born son. 
 
 His was the work that crowned with lasting fame 
 The hallowed mem’ry of a gallant name. 
 
 He gave the world the mysteries of men ; 
 
 He travelled lands unknown to history’s pen, 
 
 And braved the savage in his distant den. 
 
 America and Asia’s hills and plains— 
 
 Through Afric’s darkest forest light he gains. 
 
 The tree of knowledge bloomed for.-him its flow’rs 
 Where grandest Nature showed her mighty pow’rs ; 
 
 And Heaven was his in all his lonely hours. 
 
 Oh ! name him as he sleeps through longest night 
 A learned gentleman—a gallant Knight.” 
 
 W. J. Nowers Brett. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE TWO CONTESTED POINTS BETWEEN A SMALL SECTION OF 
 
 ANTAGONISTS AND MYSELF. 
 
 There are three people in the world who might possibly be able 
 to write sections of his life. Most of his intimate friends are dead, 
 but there are still a few left. One would describe him as a Deist, 
 one as an Agnostic, and one as an Atheist and Freethinker, but 
 I can only describe the Richard that I knew, not the Richard that 
 they knew. I, his wife, who lived with him day and night for thirty 
 years, believed him to be half-Sufi, half-Catholic, or I prefer to say 
 (as nearer the truth) alternately Sufi and Catholic, because I did not 
 in the least count all his wild talk at table or in Society, nor what he 
 wrote; I minded only what he thought and what he did, and this is 
 why I cannot truthfully join in the general opinion. He was like 
 the Druzes, who adopt the national religion for peace’ sake ; but they 
 have their own private religion all the same. I can distinctly re¬ 
 member a speech which he made in London—I believe it was in 
 1865, I think at the Anthropological—in which he said, “My reli¬ 
 gious opinions are of no importance to anybody but myself; 710 one 
 knows what my religious views are. I object to confessions, and 
 I will not confess. My standpoint is, and I hope ever will be, * The 
 Truth ’ as far as it is in me, but known only to myself.” This was 
 a public statement, and Tnight silence those who jabber upon things 
 of which they ar_ entirely ignorant. 
 
 How beautiful and how sad a mentor is friendship ! A noble 
 character must contain three qualities to contend with this one great 
 element of our lives—a sincere, staunch, loyal heart, philosophy, and 
 discernment. The World is a kind, pleasant place to live in, what¬ 
 ever cynics may say. Be in trouble, and you must wonder at the 
 innumerable kind hearts who will call and write, and offer every 
 544 
 
The Two Contested Points. 
 
 545 
 
 assistance and consolation in their power. This will not prevent 
 your nearest and dearest relative from snubbing you if you want 
 anything; nor that friend to whom you clung with all your soul, as 
 to a rock, failing you just at the crisis of your life when you most 
 counted upon his support. Then you must call in your philosophy. 
 Again, if a cloud comes over you, how many will disappear, and 
 reappear again as soon as the world has decided in your favour, to 
 join in the applause. Do not blame the weaklings, but your own 
 discernment; they do not want to hurt you, but they hold them¬ 
 selves ready to go on the popular side, whichever way it turns. And 
 why should they not ? It is not because they dislike you, but 
 because they fear others more than they love you. In sensitive 
 youth these facts make our misery; but we should learn to rejoice 
 in our riper years when a weak, uncertain friend falls away. Carry 
 the true gold about your own strong heart, and shake off the dross, 
 which is but the superfluous ballast which clogs and impedes the 
 ship’s free sailing. 
 
 Now, I ask, who is unjust enough, inhuman enough, to grudge me 
 this last consolation? From 1842 to 1890, for forty-eight years, he 
 was before the public; he had a strong band of friends, a strong 
 band of admirers; but the world at large, and notably England, 
 never understood him because he was so above his time, and the 
 arger part did not know how to appr eciate him. Who from 1856 to 
 1859 kept him so supplied with daily written journals of news, of 
 daily cuttings from the newspapers, that when he returned, people 
 said to him, “ How come you so well informed of all that has been 
 passing, just as if you had never been away, and you living beyond 
 the pale of civilization?” “Ah, how?” he said. By many mails 
 he never received a line from any one but me. Who cheered him 
 on in danger, toil, and heart-breaking sickness ? Who, when he came 
 back from Tanganyika (Africa) in 1859, coldly looked upon by the 
 Government, bullied by the India House, rejected by the Geogra¬ 
 phical Society, almost tabooed by Society on account of the machina¬ 
 tions of Captain Speke, so that he scarcely had ten friends to say 
 good-morning to him,—who sought his side to comfort him ? I did ! 
 Then we married. Who for thirty years daily attended to his 
 comforts, watched his going out and coming in, had his slippers, 
 dressing-gown, and pipe ready for him every evening, sat sick at 
 heart if he was an hour late, watched all night and till morning if 
 he did not come back? Who copied and worked for and with him? 
 Who fought for thirty years to raise his official position all she could, 
 and wept bitter tears over his being neglected ? I did. My only 
 complaint is, that I believe he would have got infinitely more, if he 
 
 2 M 
 
546 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 had asked for things himself, and not perpetually stuck me forward; 
 but he was too modest, and I had to obey orders. Who rode or 
 walked at his side through hunger, thirst, cold, and burning heat, 
 with hardships and privations and danger, in all his travels ? Who 
 nursed him through seven long illnesses, before his last illness, some 
 lasting two or three months, and never left his bed-head day or 
 night, and did everything for him ? I did! Why, I was wife, and 
 mother, and comrade, and secretary, and aide-de-camp, and agent to 
 him; and I was proud, happy, and glad to do it all, and never tired 
 day or night for thirty years. I would rather have had a crust and a 
 tent with him, than be a Queen elsewhere. At the moment of his 
 death I had done all I could for the body, and then I tried to 
 follow his soul. I am following the soul, and I shall reach it before 
 long. There we shall nevermore part. Agnostics ! “ Burnt manu¬ 
 script ” readers! where were you all then ? Hail-fellow-well-met, 
 when the world went well; running away when it pursed up its 
 stupid lips. And do any of you pretend or wish to take him 
 away from me in death ? Oh, for shame, for shame ! Let him rest 
 where he wanted to rest, and be silent, or do not boast of your 
 “ free country ” where a man may not even be buried where he will; 
 where he may not speak his mind, and tell the truth. Be ashamed 
 that History may have to say, that the only honour that England 
 accorded to Richard Burton, having failed to do him justice in this 
 life, was to bespatter his wife with mud after he was dead, and could 
 not defend her. 
 
 Do not be so hard and prosaic as to suppose that our Dead 
 cannot, in rare instances, come back and tell us how it is with them. 
 
 “ He lives and moves, he is not dead, 
 
 He does not alter nor grow strange, 
 
 His love is still around me shed, 
 
 Untouched by time, or chance, or change; 
 
 And when he walks beside me, then 
 As shadows seem all living men.” 
 
 Mary Macleod. 
 
 He said always, “ I am gone—pay, pack, and follow.” 
 
 Reader ! I have paid, I have packed, I have suffered. I am 
 waiting to join his Caravan. I am waiting for a welcome sound— 
 
 “The tinkling of his camel-bell.” 
 
 “THE SELF-EXILED.” 
 
 “ * Now, open the gate, and let her in, 
 
 And fling it wide, 
 
 For she hath been cleansed from stain of sin/ 
 
 St. Peter cried. 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
Two Contested Points. 
 
 547 
 
 “ ‘ Though I am cleansed from stain of sin,* 
 She answered low, 
 
 ‘ I came not hither to enter in. 
 
 Nor may I go.’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 “ * But I may not enter there,’ she said, 
 
 ‘ For I must go 
 
 Across the gulf, where the guilty dead 
 Lie in their woe.’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “ ‘ If I enter heaven, I may not speak 
 My soul’s desire, 
 
 For them that are lying distraught and weak 
 In flaming fire.’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “ St. Peter he turned the keys about, 
 
 And answered grim: 
 
 * Can you love the Lord, and abide without 
 Afar from Him ? ’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “ ‘ Should I be nearer Christ,’ she said 
 ‘ By pitying less 
 
 The sinful living, or woeful dead, 
 
 In their helplessness ? ’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “ ‘ Should I be liker Christ, were I 
 To love no more 
 
 The loved, who in their anguish lie 
 Outside the door?’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 * * * # * 
 
 “ ‘ Did He not hang on the cursed tree. 
 
 And bear its shame, 
 
 And clasp to His heart, for love of me, 
 
 My guilt and blame ? ’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “ ‘ Should I be liker, nearer Him, 
 
 Forgetting this, 
 
 Singing all day with the Seraphim, 
 
 In selfish bliss?’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “The Lord Himself stood by the gate 
 And heard her speak 
 Those tender words compassionate. 
 
 Gentle and meek. 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 “ Now, pity is the touch of God 
 In human hearts, 
 
 And from that way He ever trod 
 He ne’er departs. 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
548 
 
 The Life of Sir Richard Burton. 
 
 {i And He said, ‘ Now will I go with you, 
 
 Dear child of Love ; 
 
 I am weary of all this glory, too, 
 
 In heaven above.’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent. 
 
 ** * We will go and seek and save the lost, 
 
 If they will hear. 
 
 They who are worst but need Me most; 
 
 And all are dear.’ 
 
 And the angels were all silent.” 
 
 Walter C. Smith, Hilda among the Broken Gods . 
 
 V 
 
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