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Title: The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 2 (of 2)

Author: Lady Isabel Burton

Release date: June 5, 2017 [eBook #54846]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD F. BURTON, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) ***




Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature
(online soon in an extended version, also linking to free
sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational
materials,...) Images generously made available by the
Internet Archive.





THE LIFE OF
CAPTAIN
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON,
K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S.

BY HIS WIFE,
ISABEL BURTON.

WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIONS,
AND MAPS.

_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. II.

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.
1893.




CONTENTS.



CHAPTER I.

TRIESTE--HIS FOURTH AND LAST CONSULATE.

We meet by accident in Venice and go to Trieste--Richard
as a "Celebrity at Home"--Articles by Alfred Bates
Richards--Cicci--A wild race--Opçina--Trieste life--And
environs--Rome and the Tiber--Vienna--The Imperial
family--Fiume--_Castellieri_--Duino--Venice--Good-bye
to Charley Drake--Excursions--Proselytizing--Richard is
very ill--Charley Drake's death--Travelling for his
health--The Nile on the _tapis_ again--My Arab girl goes
home to be married--Gordon--Winwood Reade's
death--K.C.B.--Meeting Mr. Gladstone--Incidents of London
life--Excursions--More London life--Leave England.


CHAPTER II.

INDIA.

Jeddah--Bazars of Jeddah--Experiences on a crowded
pilgrim-ship--Bombay--Sind--Travelling in Sind--Richard's
remarks on changes in Indian army--The Indian army--And
Sind--The Muhárram--Richard's old Persian
_moonshee_--Mátherán--Karla Caves.


CHAPTER III.

THE DECCAN.

Hyderabad in the Deccan--Elephant riding--Ostrich
race--Hospitality--Eastern hospitality at
Hyderabad--Golconda--The famous Koh-i-noor--Regret
at leaving the Deccan--Towers of Silence--Sects--The
Hindu _Smáshán_--The Pinjrapole--Bhendi
Bazar--Máhábáleshwar--Goa and West India--Life
there--What to see--The Inquisition--Xavier's
death--The Inquisition perishes--Sea journey to
Suez--After a stay in Egypt, to Trieste.


CHAPTER IV.

A QUIET TIME AT TRIESTE.

Delightful Trieste life--Henri V. of
France--Bertoldstein--Midian--Akkas--Waiting and
working--I go out to join him--Richard's triumphant
return--We go home--The British Association for
Science--Society and amusement.


CHAPTER V.

SPIRITUALISM.

Spiritualism--A memorable meeting on the subject--Richard's
lecture--Some very amusing and instructive
speeches--Interesting discussions--And letters.


CHAPTER VI.

ON LEAVE IN LONDON.

A remarkable visit--On leave in London--We leave
London--I get a bad fall--The Austrian Scientific
Congress--A ghost story--Excursions--Richard sends
me home to a bone-setter--Richard meets with foul
play--Camoens--A little anecdote about a Capuchin--The
Passion Play--Ober-Ammergau--Celebrating a
Vice-Consul's jubilee--Monfalcone--Richard's metal and
colour.


CHAPTER VII.

ON SLAVERY.

Richard's three letters to Lord Granville--His
application to be made Slave-Commissioner--How to
deal with the slave scandal in Egypt.


CHAPTER VIII.

TRIESTE LIFE AGAIN.

Duino--Our Squadron--Our Squadron leaves--We go to
Veldes--We part company--I am sent to Maríenbad--The
Scientific Congress at Venice--Life and incidents of
Trieste--Gold in West Africa--Mining--African mines.


CHAPTER IX.

ANOTHER SHORT LEAVE TO LONDON.

London and back--The Great Trieste
Exhibition--_Émeute_ at Trieste--We lose an old
Vice-Consul--Lord Wolseley--Richard is sent to find
Palmer--Trieste life--Count Mattei's cure--Count
Mattei--We get the house we wanted--Scorpions--"Gup".


CHAPTER X.

MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS OF CHARACTER AND OPINIONS.

Miscellaneous traits of character and
opinions--Descriptions from other sources.


CHAPTER XI.

DECLINE IN OUR WELL-BEING.

Richard's first bad attack of gout--His leave of
absence--We return to Trieste--Streams of
visitors--Richard's second attack of gout--Gordon's
death--Colonel Primrose's death--Leave to
England--"Arabian Nights"--London again--Richard's
programme for Egypt--He asks for Tangier--Parts
with my father--Goes to Marocco--What the world
said--He waits for me at Tangier.


CHAPTER XII.

RICHARD ON HOME RULE AND THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION.

Diet for Ireland--Another postscript--Treatment of
Catholics and loyalty--We winter in Marocco--Richard
made a K.C.M.G.--A bad hurricane at sea--I have
another fall--Naples--The great Chinese move--We get
leave again to England--Oxford--His last appeal to
Government--What the world thought about
it--Chow-chow--His third bad attack of gout without
danger.


CHAPTER XIII.

WE LEAVE ENGLAND.

Cannes and Society--The earthquakes--Riviera--Richard
becomes an invalid--His own account of it--Our journey
with Dr. Leslie--Drains--The Queen's Jubilee--Richard's
speech--_Ally Sloper_--We think of a caravan--He gets much
better--We go for our summer trip--Some of our Royalties
come to Trieste--We lose Dr. Leslie, and Dr. Baker comes
to us.


CHAPTER XIV.

CHANGES.

Programme of our day--Abbazia--We return to Trieste--His
notes on his Swiss summer--Aigle--Our last visit to
England--Richard leaves it for ever--His advice about
Suákin--Discussing about Ludlow--Richard's remarks on
Lausanne.


CHAPTER XV.

AT MONTREUX.

M. Elisée Réclus--Our Swiss outing--Trieste
again--Maria-Zell--Austrian Lourdes--Semmering--Home
again--Malta--Tunis--Carthage--Constantine--Sétif--
Bouira--Algiers--Hammam R'irha--Things one would rather have
left unsaid--Marseilles--Hyères--Nice--Home--Our last
trip--Switzerland--Davos-Platz--Ragatz--St.
Moritz--Maloja--We descend into Italy homewards.


CHAPTER XVI.

WE RETURN HOME FOR THE LAST TIME.

Our last happy day--The sword falls--He is called
away--The sixty hours between death and funeral--The
funeral at Trieste--The dreadful time that
followed--Colonel Grant attacks Richard after his
death--I answer directly to the _Graphic_ in two
parts--My answer--The beloved remains are removed to
England--I leave Trieste and go to Liverpool--I fall
ill--The mausoleum tent complete--The funeral in
England at Mortlake--"It" confesses: too late.


CHAPTER XVII.

THE TWO CONTESTED POINTS BETWEEN A SMALL
SECTION OF ANTAGONISTS AND MYSELF.

My defence about the burnt MS.--To the _Echo_--And
to the _New Review_--Religion--I
take my leave--Good-bye.


APPENDICES.

A.--LIST OF CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD F. BURTON'S WORKS.

B.--NOTES ON "THE KASÎDAH."

C--BHUJANG AND THE COCK-FIGHT.

D.--VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF MEER IBRAHIM
KHAN TALPUR, A BELOCH CHIEF.

E.--POLITICS.

F.--LETTERS BEARING ON THE JEDDAH MASSACRE,
AND CHOLERA--HIS WARNING TO THE GOVERNMENT,
WHICH CALLED DOWN A REPRIMAND ON HIM.

G.--DESCRIPTION OF AFRICAN CHARACTER--THE
RAW MATERIAL IN 1856-59.

H.--REPORT AFTER GOING TO SEARCH FOR PALMER.

I.--OPINIONS OF THE PRESS AND OF SCHOLARS ON THE "ARABIAN
NIGHTS."




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


DANEU'S INN, OPÇINA, IN THE KARSO.

AKKAS.

SIR RICHARD BURTON, 1879.
_By Madame Gutmansthal de Benvenuti, Trieste._

STAVE OF MUSIC.

SIR RICHARD BURTON IN 1880.

HOUSE AT TRIESTE, WHERE BURTON DIED.

A CORNER OF THE BURTONS' DRAWING-ROOM AT TRIESTE.

RICHARD BURTON IN HIS BEDROOM AT TRIESTE.

THE BURTONS' SMOKING DIVAN, TRIESTE.

THE VIEW FROM THE BURTONS' BEDROOM AND STUDY OVER THE SEA AT TRIESTE.

ARAB TENTS (TUNIS).

THE MAUSOLEUM AT MORTLAKE, WHERE SIR RICHARD BURTON IS LAID AT REST.

LADY BURTON.





THE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD BURTON.


CHAPTER I.

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.[1]

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, Jülichs 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. I enjoyed
the Rhine very much, but my perception for scenery had been a little
blunted by the magnificence of South America, and for antiquities
by ancient Syria. I thought the finest things in Frankfort were
Dannecker's Ariadne, belonging to Mr. Bethmann, a private collection
of pictures; and Huss before the Council of Constance, by Lessing; and
another of four priests at the throne of the Virgin, by Moretto; and I
thought how pretty the place must be in summer.

From here I went quietly on to Würzburg, and thence to Munich, where
I was enchanted with the Hôtel des Quatres Saisons. I enjoyed the
winding river, and the Forest of Spessart (the remnant of the great
primeval Hercynian Forest described by Cæsar and Tacitus), the Spessart
range of hills wooded to the top, the wild country with a few villages.
I thought the rail along the river-side ascending amongst the wooded
hills, crossing the stream of the Laufach, very beautiful, and the
entrance to Würzburg reminded me of Damascus and its minarets. Here
I called on the famous Dr. Döllinger. I went to see Steigenwald's
Bavarian glass, and the porcelain with the Old Masters painted on it,
ascended to the top of the Cathedral tower to see the view, and went
to every museum and picture-gallery in the place, and thought, as most
people do, I imagine, that the City was very pretty, but the Art was
very new.

I then went on quietly to Innsbrück. The scenery is magnificent along
the banks of the river Inn, through the Tyrolese mountains, capped
with snow, wooded, dotted with villages, and with cattle on the
mounds, and churches and chapels with delicate spires. I liked the
exhilarating air, and especially the valley of Zillerthal, and seeing
the fine Tyrolean peasants. The best thing to see at Innsbrück is
the Hof-Kirche, or Court Church. There are statues in bronze of all
the great Emperors of Austria, and one or two Empresses; they stand
in two lines down the church, all in armour and coats of mail. The
moment I went into the centre, between these imperial lines, I singled
out one of them, exclaiming, "There is a gentleman and a knight,
from the top of his head to the sole of his foot;" and I ran up to
see who he was. He was labelled, "King Arthur of England." All that
day we were crossing the Brenner Pass. The scenery is splendid, with
snowy peaks, wooded mountains, waterfalls, and rivers (the Eisach and
Adige), torrents and boulders, porphyry rocks, villages, fortresses,
convents and castles, churches and chapels with slender red or green
steeples. I arrived at Trent, where I found nothing to stay for; so
went on to Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Venice, and landed at the Hôtel
Europa--which I had inhabited long ago, in 1858, when I was a girl,--in
time for _table d'hôte_. 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'hôte_ table. It was just the same, only less gay and brilliant--it
had lost the Austrians and Henri V.'s Court; and I was older, and all
the friends I knew were dispersed.

[Sidenote: _We meet by accident in Venice and go to Trieste_.]

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, 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._ Burton (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 _you_ 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 receiving 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 Hôtel 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'hôte_, 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 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.

[Sidenote: _Richard as a "Celebrity at Home."_]

As I said, we stayed the first six months at the hotel, and we disliked
the place very much, until we got thoroughly used to it; and, _when_ we
got used to it, I cannot give a better description of our lives than to
cut out from the _World_ the "Celebrity at Home, Captain R. F. Burton
at Trieste," 1877, with Alfred Bates Richards's comments on the same;
and that was the life we led from 1872 to 1882-83.

 "CAPTAIN RICHARD F. BURTON AT TRIESTE.

 "It is not given to every man to go to Trieste. The fact need not
 cause universal regret, inasmuch as the chief Austrian port on the
 Adriatic shares with Oriental towns the disagreeable character of
 presenting a fair appearance from a distance, and afflicting the
 traveller who has become for the time a denizen, with a painful
 sense of disenchantment. Perhaps the first glimpse of Trieste owes
 something to contrast, as it is obtained after passing through a
 desolate stony wilderness called the Karso. As the train glides from
 these inhospitable heights towards Trieste, the head of the Adriatic
 presents a scene of unrivalled beauty. On the one side rise high,
 rugged, wooded mountains, on a ledge of which the rails are laid;
 on the other is a deep precipice, at whose base rolls the blue sea,
 dotted with lateen sails, painted in every shade of colour, and
 adorned with figures of saints and other popular devices. The white
 town staring out of the corner covers a considerable space, and places
 its villa-outposts high up the neighbouring hills, covered with
 verdure to the water's edge.

 "Trieste is a polyglot settlement of Austrians, Italians, Slavs, Jews,
 and Greeks, of whom the two latter monopolize the commerce. It is a
 City dear and unhealthy to live in, over-ventilated and ill-drained.
 It might advantageously be called the City of Three Winds. One of
 these, the _Bora_, blows the people almost into the sea with its fury,
 rising suddenly, like a cyclone, and sweeping all before it; the
 second is named the _Scirocco_, which blows the drainage back into the
 town; and the third is the _Contraste_, formed by the two first-named
 winds blowing at once against each other. Alternating atmospherically
 between extremes of heat and cold, Trieste is, from a political point
 of view, perpetually pushing the principles of independence to the
 verge of disorder.

 "Arrived at the railway station, there is no need to call a cab
 and ask to be driven to the British Consul's, since, just opposite
 the station and close to the sea, rises the tall block of building
 in which the Consulate is situated. Somewhat puzzled to choose
 between three entrances, the stranger proceeds to mount the long
 series of steps lying beyond the particular portal to which he is
 directed. There is a superstition, prevalent in the building and
 in the neighbourhood, that there are but four stories, including
 but one hundred and twenty steps. Whoso, after a protracted climb,
 finally succeeds in reaching Captain Burton's landing, will entertain
 considerable doubts as to the correctness of the estimate. A German
 damsel opens the door, and inquires whether the visitor wants to see
 the Gräfin or the Herr Consul.

 "Captain and Mrs. Burton are well, if airily, lodged on a flat
 composed of ten rooms, separated by a corridor adorned with a
 picture of our Saviour, a statuette of St. Joseph with a lamp, and
 a Madonna with another lamp burning before it.[2] Thus far the
 belongings are all of the Cross; but no sooner are we landed in
 the little drawing-rooms than signs of the Crescent appear. Small
 but artistically arranged, the rooms, opening into one another,
 are bright with Oriental hangings, with trays and dishes of gold
 and silver, brass trays and goblets, chibouques with great amber
 mouthpieces, and all kinds of Eastern treasures mingled with family
 souvenirs. There is no carpet, but a Bedouin rug occupies the middle
 of the floor, and vies in brilliancy of colour with Persian enamels
 and bits of good old china. There are no sofas, but plenty of divans
 covered with Damascus stuffs. Thus far the interior is as Mussulman
 as the exterior is Christian; but a curious effect is produced among
 the Oriental _mise en scène_ by the presence of a pianoforte and a
 compact library of well-chosen books. There is, too, another library
 here, greatly treasured by Mrs. Burton, to wit, a collection of
 her husband's works in about fifty volumes. On the walls are many
 interesting relics, models, and diplomas of honour, one of which is
 especially prized by Captain Burton. It is the _brevet de pointe_
 earned in France for swordsmanship. Near this hangs a picture of the
 Damascus home of the Burtons, by Frederick Leighton.

 "As the guest is inspecting this bright bit of colour, he will
 be roused by the full strident tones of a voice skilled in many
 languages, but never so full and hearty as when bidding a friend
 welcome. The speaker, Richard Burton, is a living proof that intense
 work, mental and physical, sojourn in torrid and frozen climes,
 danger from dagger and from pestilence, 'age' a person of good sound
 constitution far less than may be supposed. A Hertfordshire man, a
 soldier and the son of a soldier, of mingled Scotch, Irish, and French
 descent, his iron frame shows in its twelfth lustre no sign of decay.
 _Arme blanche_ and more insidious fever have neither dimmed his eye
 nor wasted his sinews.

 "Standing about five feet eleven, his broad deep chest and square
 shoulders reduce his apparent height very considerably, and the
 illusion is intensified by hands and feet of Oriental smallness. The
 Eastern, and indeed distinctly Arab, look of the man is made more
 pronounced by prominent cheek-bones (across one of which is the scar
 of a sabre-cut), by closely cropped black hair just tinged with grey,
 and a pair of piercing black, gipsy-looking eyes. A short straight
 nose, a determined mouth partly hidden by a black moustache, and a
 deeply bronzed complexion, complete the remarkable physiognomy so
 wonderfully rendered on canvas by Leighton only a couple of seasons
 ago. It is not to be wondered at that this stern Arab face, and a
 tongue marvellously rich in Oriental idiom and Mohammedan lore, should
 have deceived the doctors learned in the Korán, among whom Richard
 Burton risked his life during that memorable pilgrimage to Mecca and
 Medinah, on which the slightest gesture or accent betraying the Frank
 would have unsheathed a hundred _khanjars_.

 "This celebrated journey, the result of an adventurous spirit worthy
 of a descendant of Rob Roy Macgregor, has never been surpassed in
 audacity or in perfect execution, and would suffice to immortalize
 its hero if he had not, in addition, explored Harar and Somali-land,
 organized a body of irregular cavalry in the Crimea, pushed
 (accompanied by Speke) into Eastern Africa from Zanzibar, visited
 the Mormons, explored the Cameroon Mountains, visited the King of
 Dahomey, traversed the interior of Brazil, made a voyage to Iceland,
 and last but not least, discovered and described the Land of Midian.

 "Leading the way from the drawing-rooms or divans, he takes us
 through bedrooms and dressing-rooms, furnished in Spartan simplicity
 with little iron bedsteads covered with bearskins, and supplied
 with reading-tables and lamps, beside which repose the Bible, the
 Shakespeare, the Euclid and the Breviary, which go with Captain and
 Mrs. Burton on all their wanderings. His gifted wife, one of the
 Arundells of Wardour, is, as becomes a scion of an ancient Anglo-Saxon
 and Norman Catholic house, strongly attached to the Church of Rome;
 but religious opinion is never allowed to disturb the peace of
 the Burton household, the head of which is laughingly accused of
 Mohammedanism by his friends. The little rooms are completely lined
 with rough deal shelves, containing, perhaps, eight thousand or more
 volumes in every Western language, as well as in Arabic, Persian, and
 Hindustani. Every odd corner is piled with weapons, guns, pistols,
 boar-spears, swords of every shape and make, foils and masks,
 chronometers, barometers, and all kinds of scientific instruments. One
 cupboard is full of medicines necessary for Oriental expeditions or
 for Mrs. Burton's Trieste poor, and on it is written, 'The Pharmacy.'
 Idols are not wanting, for elephant-nosed Gunpati is there cheek by
 jowl with Vishnu.

 "The most remarkable objects in the rooms just alluded to are the
 rough deal tables, which occupy most of the floor-space. They are
 almost like kitchen or ironing tables. There may be eleven of them,
 each covered with writing materials. At one of them sits Mrs.
 Burton, in morning _négligé_, a grey _choga_--the long loose Indian
 dressing-gown of soft camel's hair--topped by a smoking-cap of the
 same material. She rises and greets her husband's old friend with the
 cheeriest voice in the world. 'I see you are looking at our tables.
 Every one does. Dick likes a separate table for every book, and when
 he is tired of one he goes to another. There are no tables of any
 size in Trieste, so I had these made as soon as I came. They are so
 nice. We may upset the ink-bottle as often as we like without anybody
 being put out of the way. These three little rooms are our "den,"
 where we live, work, and receive our _intimes_, and we leave the doors
 open that we may consult over our work. Look at our view!' From the
 windows, looking landward, one may see an expanse of country extending
 for thirty or forty miles, the hills covered with foliage, through
 which peep trim villas, and beyond the hills higher mountains dotted
 with villages, a bit of the wild Karso peering from above. On the
 other side lies spread the Adriatic, with Miramar, poor Maximilian's
 home and hobby, lying on a rock projecting into the blue water, and on
 the opposite coast are the Carnian Alps capped with snow.

 "'Why we live so high up,' explains Captain Burton, 'is easily
 explained. To begin with, we are in good condition, and run up and
 down the stairs like squirrels. We live on the fourth story because
 there is no fifth. If I had a _campagna_ and gardens and servants,
 horses and carriages, I should feel tied, weighted down, in fact.
 With a flat, and two or three maidservants, one has only to lock the
 door and go. It feels like "light marching order," as if we were
 always ready for an expedition; and it is a comfortable place to
 come back to. Look at our land-and-sea-scape: we have air, light,
 and tranquillity; no dust, no noise, no street smells. Here my wife
 receives something like seventy very intimate friends every Friday--an
 exercise of hospitality to which I have no objection, save one, and
 that is met by the height we live at. There is in every town a lot of
 old women of both sexes, who sit for hours talking about the weather
 and the _cancans_ of the place, and this contingent cannot face the
 stairs.'

 "In spite of all this, and perhaps because of it--for the famous
 Oriental traveller, whose quarter of a hundred languages are hardly
 needed for the entry of cargoes at a third-rate seaport, seems to
 protest too much--one is impelled to ask what anybody can find to do
 at Trieste, an inquiry simply answered by a 'Stay and see,' with a
 slap on the shoulder to enforce the invitation. The _ménage Burton_
 is conducted on the early-rising principle. About four or five
 o'clock our hosts are astir, and already in their 'den,' drinking
 tea made over a spirit-lamp, and eating bread and fruit, reading and
 studying languages. By noon the morning's work is got over, including
 the consumption of a cup of soup, the ablution without which no
 true believer is happy, and the obligations of Frankish toilette.
 Then comes a stroll to the fencing-school, kept by an excellent
 broadswordsman, an old German trooper. For an hour Captain and Mrs.
 Burton fence in the school, if the weather be cold; if it is warm,
 they make for the water, and often swim for a couple of hours.

 "Then comes a spell of work at the Consulate. 'I have my Consulate,'
 the Chief explains, 'in the heart of the town. I don't want my
 Jack-tar in my sanctum; and when he wants _me_, he has usually been
 on the spree and got into trouble.' While the husband is engaged
 in his official duties, the wife is abroad promoting a Society for
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a necessary institution in
 Southern countries, where--on the purely gratuitous hypothesis that
 the so-called lower animals have no souls--the uttermost brutality is
 shown in the treatment of them. 'You see,' remarks our host, 'that my
 wife and I are like an elder and younger brother living _en garçon_.
 We divide the work. I take all the hard and scientific part, and make
 her do all the rest. When we have worked all day, and said all we have
 to say to each other, we want relaxation. To that end we have formed a
 little "Mess," with fifteen friends at the _table d'hôte_ of the Hôtel
 de la Ville, where we get a good dinner and a pint of the country
 wine made on the hillside for a florin and a half. By this plan we
 escape the bore of housekeeping, and are relieved from the curse of
 domesticity, which we both hate. At dinner we hear the news, if any,
 take our coffee, cigarettes, and _kirsch_ outside the hotel, then go
 homewards to read ourselves to sleep; and to-morrow _da capo_.'

 "To the remark that this existence, unless varied by journeys to
 Midian and elsewhere, would be apt to kindle desires for fresher
 woods and newer pastures, Captain Burton replies, 'The existence
 you deprecate is varied by excursions. We know every stick and
 stone for a hundred miles round, and all the pre-historic remains
 of the country-side. Our Austrian Governor-General, Baron Pino de
 Friedenthal, is a first-rate man, and often gives us a cruise in the
 Government yacht. It is, as you say, an odd place for me to be in; but
 recollect, it is not every place that would suit _me_' (1877).

       *       *       *       *       *

 "The man, who, with his wife, has made _this pied à terre_ in Trieste
 is a man unlike anybody else--a very extraordinary man, who has toiled
 every hour and minute for forty-four and a half years, distinguishing
 himself in every possible way. He has done more than any other six
 men in her Majesty's dominions, and is one of the best, noblest, and
 truest that breathes.

 "While not on active service or on sick leave, he has been serving his
 country, humanity, science, and civilization in other ways, by opening
 up lands hitherto unknown, and trying to do good wherever he went.
 He was the pioneer for all other living African travellers. He first
 attempted to open up the Sources of the Nile. He 'opened the oyster
 for the rest to take the pearl'--his Lake Tanganyika is the head basin
 of the Nile.

 "He has made several great expeditions under the Royal Geographical
 Society and the Foreign Office, most of them at the risk of his life.
 His languages, knowledge, and experience upon every subject, or any
 single act of his life, of which he has concentrated so many into
 forty-four and a half years, would have raised any other man to the
 top of the ladder of honour and fortune.

 "We may sum up his career by their principal heads.

 "Nineteen years in the Bombay Army, the first ten in active service,
 principally in the Sindh Survey on Sir Charles Napier's staff. In the
 Crimea, Chief of the Staff to General Beatson, and the chief organizer
 of the Irregular Cavalry.

 "Several remarkable and dangerous expeditions in unknown lands. He is
 the discoverer and opener of the Lake Regions of Central Africa, and
 perhaps the Senior Explorer of England.

 "He has been nearly twenty-six years in the Consular service in the
 four quarters of the globe (always in bad climates--Africa, Asia,
 South America, and Europe), doing good service everywhere. It would be
 impossible to enumerate _all_ that Captain Burton has done in the last
 forty-four years; but we cannot pass over his knowledge of twenty-nine
 languages, European and Oriental--not counting dialects--and now that
 Mezzofante is dead, we may call him the Senior Linguist. Nor can we
 omit the fact that he has written about fifty standard works, a list
 of which will appear at the end of this Memoir. (See Appendix A.)

 "He is a man incapable of an untruth or of truckling to what finds
 favour. His wife tells us in her 'Inner Life of Syria' that 'humbug
 stands abashed before him,' that he lives sixty years before his
 time, and that, 'born of Low Church and bigoted parents, as soon as
 he could reason he began to cast off prejudice and follow a natural
 law.' Grace aiding the reason of man--upright, honourable, manly, and
 gentlemanly, but _professing_ no direct form of belief, except in one
 Almighty Being, God--the belief that says, 'I do that because it is
 _right_--not for hell nor heaven, nor for religion, but because it is
 right--a natural law of Divine grace, which such men unconsciously
 ignore as Divine intelligence: yet such it is.'

 "Perhaps this is the secret of our finding so distinguished a soldier,
 Government envoy, Foreign Office commissioner, author, linguist,
 benefactor to science, explorer, discoverer, and organizer of benefits
 to his country and mankind at large, standing before the world on a
 pedestal as a plain unadorned hero, sitting by his distant fireside
 in a strange land, bearing England's neglect, and seeing men who
 have not done a tithe of his service reaping the credit and reward
 of his deeds--nay, of the very ideas and words that he has spoken
 and written. For years he has thought, studied, and written, and in
 all the four quarters of the globe has been a credit to his country.
 For years he has braved hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, wild beasts,
 savage tribes; has fought and suffered, carrying his life in his
 hand, for England's honour and credit, and his country's praise and
 approbation, and done it nobly and successfully. But, like many of the
 greatest heroes that have ever lived, his country will deny him the
 meed of success whilst he lives, and erect marble statues and write
 odes to his memory when he can no longer see and hear them--when God,
 who knows all, will be his reward."

       *       *       *       *       *

 [Sidenote: _Articles by Alfred Bates Richards_.]

 "Burton's lamented college friend, Alfred Bates Richards, the author
 of this biography, also wrote two leading articles expressing his
 opinions in the following outspoken and manly words, and, if I quote
 them here, it is not by way of advertising any claim Burton may have,
 or of intoning any grumble against any Government, for to the best of
 my belief the Burtons have taken up a line of their own. I quote them
 merely to show the estimation in which I believe him to be held by the
 whole Press of England, since every article is more or less written in
 the same tone, with scarcely a dissentient pen, and I have selected
 these as two of the best specimens:--

 "'The best men in this world, in point of those qualities which are of
 service to mankind, are seldom gifted with powers of self-assertion
 in regard to personal claims, rewards, and emoluments. Pioneers,
 originators, and inventors are frequently shunted and pushed aside by
 those who manage, by means of arts and subtleties (utterly unknown
 to men of true genius and greatness of character), to reap benefits
 and honours to which they are not in the slightest degree entitled.
 Sometimes a reaction sets in and the truth is discovered--when it is
 too late. There is no country which neglects real merit so frequently
 and so absolutely as England--none which so liberally bestows its
 bounties upon second and third rate men, and sometimes absolute
 pretenders. The most daring explorer cannot find his way up official
 back-stairs; the most heroic soldier cannot take a _salon_ or a
 _bureau_ by storm. There are lucky as well as persevering individuals
 who succeed in the most marvellous way in obtaining far more than
 their deserts. We have heard of a certain foreigner, now dead, who
 held a lucrative position for many years in this country, that he
 so pestered and followed up the late Lord Brougham that he at last
 obtained the post he sought by simple force of boredom and annoyance.
 Some men think they ought not to be put in the position of postulants;
 but that recognition of their services should be spontaneous on the
 part of the authorities. They are too proud to ask for that which
 they consider it is patent they have so eminently deserved, that it
 is a violation of common decency to withhold it; and so they 'eat
 their hearts' in silence, and accept neglect with dignity, if not
 indifference.

 "'We do not intend to apply these remarks strictly to the occasion
 which has suggested them. If we did not state this, we should possibly
 injure the cause which we are anxious to maintain. We have watched the
 career of an individual for some thirty-five years with interest and
 admiration, and we frankly own that we now think it time to express
 our opinion upon the neglect with which the object of that interest
 and admiration has been treated. We alone are responsible for the
 manner in which we record our sentiments. Captain Richard Burton, now
 her Majesty's Consul at Trieste, is, in our judgment, the foremost
 traveller of the age. We shall not compare his services or exploits
 with those of any of the distinguished men who have occupied a more or
 less prominent position, and whose services have been recognized by
 the nation.

 "'He has been upwards of thirty years actively engaged in enterprises,
 many of them of the most hazardous description. We pass over his
 career in the Bombay army for nearly twenty years, during which time
 he acquired that wonderful knowledge of Eastern languages, which is
 probably unequalled by any living linguist. We shall not give even
 the catalogue of his varied and interesting works, which have been
 of equal service to philology and geography. His system of Bayonet
 Exercise, published in 1855, is, we may observe, _en passant_, the
 one now in use in the British army. He suffered the fate of too many
 of his brother officers of the Indian army when it was reduced, on
 changing hands, and when he was left without pension or pay.

 "'He was emphatically the first great African pioneer of recent
 times. It is not our intention to speak disparagingly of the late
 Captain Speke--far from it; but it should be remembered that Speke
 was Burton's lieutenant, chosen by him to accompany him in his Nile
 researches, and that when Burton was stricken down by illness that
 threatened to prove fatal, Speke pushed on a little way ahead, and
 reaped nearly the whole credit of the discovery. Lake Tanganyika was
 Burton's discovery, and it was his original theory that it contained
 the Sources of the Nile. Never was man more cruelly robbed by fate of
 his just reward. Could Speke have arrived where he did without even
 the requisite knowledge of languages, manners of the people, etc.,
 save under Burton's guidance? Burton's pilgrimage to Mecca and Medinah
 was one of the most extraordinary on record.

 "'In the expedition to Somali-land, as well as that to the Lake
 regions of Central Africa, Speke was second in command. In the former,
 both were severely wounded, and cut their way out of surrounding
 numbers of natives with singular dash and gallantry, one of the
 party--Lieutenant Stroyan--being killed. Nor should the wonderful
 expedition, undertaken alone, to the walled town of Harar, where no
 European had even been known to penetrate before, be forgotten. On
 this occasion Captain Burton actually added a grammar and vocabulary
 of a language to the stores of the philologists. His journey and work
 on California and the Mormon country preceded that of Mr. Hepworth
 Dixon. He explored the West Coast of Africa from Bathurst, on the
 Gambia, to St. Paulo de Loanda in Angola, and the Congo River,
 visiting the Fans. But his visit to Dahomey was still more important,
 as he exposed the customs of that blood-stained kingdom, and gave
 information valuable to humanity as well as to civilization and
 science. This alone ought to have obtained for him some high honorary
 distinction; but he got nothing beyond a private expression of
 satisfaction from the Government then in power. During his four years'
 Consulship in Brazil his work was simply Herculean. He navigated the
 river San Francisco fifteen hundred miles in a canoe, visited the
 gold and diamond mines, crossed the Andes, and explored the Pacific
 Coast, affording a vast fund of information, political, geographical,
 and scientific, to the Foreign Office. Next we find him Consul at
 Damascus, where he did good work in raising English influence and
 credit. Here he narrowly escaped assassination, receiving a severe
 wound. He explored Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land, protected
 the Christian population from a massacre, and was recalled by the
 effete Liberal Government because he was too good a man, Damascus
 being reduced to a Vice-Consulate in accordance with their policy of
 effacement. He is now shelved at Trieste, but has still managed to
 embellish his stay here by some valuable antiquarian discoveries.

 "'If a Consulate is thought a sufficient reward for such a man and
 such services, we have no more to say. If he has been fairly treated
 in reference to his Nile explorations, we have no knowledge of the
 affair--which we narrowly watched at the time--no discernment, and
 no true sense of justice. When the war with Ashanti broke out, we
 expressed our opinion that Captain Burton should have been attached
 to the expedition. During the Crimean War he showed his powers of
 organization under General Beatson, whose Chief of the Staff he was,
 in training four thousand irregular cavalry, fit, when he left them,
 to do anything and go anywhere. In short, he has done enough for
 half a dozen men, and to merit half a dozen K.C.B.'s. We sincerely
 trust that the present Government will not fail, amidst other acts of
 justice and good works, to bestow some signal mark of her Majesty's
 favour upon Captain Richard Burton, one of the most remarkable men
 of the age, who has displayed an intellectual power and a bodily
 endurance through a series of adventures, explorations, and daring
 feats of travel, which have never been surpassed in variety and
 interest by any one man, and whose further neglectful treatment,
 should it take place, will be a future source of indignant regret to
 the people of England.'

       *       *       *       *       *

 "The following article appeared when Burton wrote his 'Nile Basin.' I
 quote that part of it which refers to Burton, and expunge that which
 does not regard my immediate subject:--

 "'About a quarter of a century ago Richard Burton, who had gained
 only a reputation for eccentricity at Oxford, left that University
 for India and entered the Bombay army. There he devoted his spare
 time to the acquisition of Oriental languages, science, and falconry,
 in company with the Chiefs of Sind, and, amongst other things, wrote
 works on the language, manners, and sports of that country. We cannot
 trace his career, but it is well known that he has become one of the
 greatest linguists of the age, gifted with the rare if not unique
 capacity of passing for a native in various Oriental countries. In
 addition to this, he is a good classical scholar, an accomplished
 swordsman, and a crack shot. His "Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina" was
 a wonderful record of successful daring and wonderful impersonation of
 Oriental character.

 "'As an Afghan, and under the name of Mirza Abdullah, he left
 Southampton on his mission, after undergoing circumcision, and during
 the voyage on board the P. and O. steamer was only known to be a
 European to the captain and attaché of the Turkish Embassy returning
 to Constantinople. His pilgrimage was successful, and he is the only
 European ever known to have performed it. Perhaps, however, the story
 of the most remarkable of his performances is contained in his 'First
 Footsteps in Eastern Africa,' telling how, alone and unaccompanied,
 during the latter stages, even by his attendants, he penetrated the
 hitherto almost fabulous walled city of Harar, hobnobbed with its
 ferocious and exclusive Sultan, and bestowed on philologists a grammar
 of a new language. The description of his lying down to sleep the
 first night in that walled city of barbaric strangers, ignorant of the
 reception he might receive at the Sultan's levée in the morning, is
 well worth perusal.

 "'Then came the episode which first gave the name of Speke to the
 world--the expedition in the country of the Somali, on the coast of
 the Red Sea, when the cords of the tent of Burton, Speke, Herne,
 and the hapless Stroyan were cut by a band of a hundred and fifty
 armed Somali during the night, after the desertion of their Eastern
 followers. The escape of Burton was characteristic of the man.
 Snatching up an Eastern sabre, the first weapon he could grasp, he
 cut his way by sheer swordsmanship through the crowd, escaping with a
 javelin thrust through both cheeks. Speke, after receiving seventeen
 wounds, was captured, and also subsequently escaped, and Stroyan
 was killed. At this time Burton had taken Speke under his especial
 patronage, and made him lieutenant of his expeditions. Subsequently
 came the search after the Sources of the Nile, in which both Burton
 and Speke figured; next, Burton's expedition to Utah; his Consulship
 at Fernando Po, and the exploration of the Cameroon Mountains;
 and, finally, his world-famed mission to the blood-stained Court of
 Dahomey. Such is Captain Richard Burton, and such his work, briefly
 and imperfectly described.

 "'It is known, at least to the geographical world, that between
 Burton and his _quondam_ lieutenant, Speke, a feud existed after the
 latter had proclaimed himself the discoverer of the Sources of the
 Nile. The outline of the story is this. On the exploring expedition
 under Burton's command he was seized with a violent and apparently
 fatal illness which compelled him to pause on the path of discovery
 at an advanced point. Speke went on, and, returning first to England,
 succeeded in getting the ear of the Geographical Society and the
 Foreign Office, and organized another expedition independently of
 Burton. On his return from this he proclaimed at once to the world
 that he had solved the great mystery, and the news was received with
 universal congratulation and belief. In the race for fame--if '_honor
 est à Nilo_' be deemed, as it must be, the common motto of our daring
 travellers--Burton, shaken to the backbone by fever, disgusted,
 desponding, and left behind, both in the spirit and the flesh, was,
 in racing parlance, 'nowhere.' He had the sense to retire from the
 contest during the first burst of excitement, and let judgment go by
 default. He went to visit the Mormons, and thence, by an ascending
 scale in respect to the objects of his search, to leave a card or
 two in the forest residences of the Gorillas. In the mean time Speke
 became one of the lions of the day, and ignored the services of his
 able Chief and Pioneer. To him the good fortune, the honour, the
 success--to Burton, nothing. The very name and existence of the
 latter were, as far as possible, ignored. Yet he had commenced all,
 organized all, arranged all, and discovered Tanganyika. His Oriental
 acquirements and experiences had paved the way to at least within
 the last few stages of the discovery of the Nyanza. This is a matter
 to be regretted. Much more to be regretted was the sad and singular
 catastrophe of Captain Speke's untimely death. On that very day a
 great passage, not of Arms, but of intellect and knowledge, was fixed
 to take place. Burton had challenged Speke to a discussion before a
 select public tribunal. The subject was the Nile, its sources, and
 Speke's claim to their discovery.

 "'On the fatal afternoon of the 16th of September, 1864, when Speke
 perished, Burton had met him at 1.30 p.m. in the rooms of Section
 E of the Bath Association. Their meeting was silent and ominous.
 Speke, who, as we are informed, had been suffering for some time
 from nervousness and depression of spirits, probably arising from
 the trials to his health in an Eastern climate, left the room to
 go out shooting, and never returned alive! Much cause had Richard
 Burton to lament that untimely end. His lips were, to a great extent,
 immediately sealed. Humanity, feeling, and decency--nay, imperious
 necessity--demanded this. What he has written is argumentative and
 moderate. He speaks of his deceased rival with commendation for those
 good qualities which he allows him to have possessed. Burton is as
 dignified in his style as if he were a true Oriental. Unhappily,
 Speke is now no more, but Burton has maintained throughout a
 chivalrous tone towards his deceased adversary.'"


CICCI.


[Sidenote: _Cicci--A Wild Race_.]

There is a very peculiar and wild race of men who in Trieste are called
Cicci; they are Wallachians of the old Danube, and they dress in the
Danubian dress, and live in Inner Istria. They are wild people, and
have their own breed of wild dogs, which are of a very savage nature.
A real Cicci dog costs what is for Trieste a good sum of money, if he
is of pure breed; he is secured as a house-guard, and has to be tied
up except at night, and, in a general way, only the person who feeds
him is able to go near him. These Cicci do not live in Trieste; they
live up in the Karso, or Karst, in a remote spot, in their own separate
wild villages, where they have the bare necessities of life, and their
occupation is charcoal-burning. Richard determined he would become
acquainted with this unruly and isolated race, and he made his way
to their villages alone, and stayed with them for five days, leading
naturally a perfectly comfortless life, sleeping on the floor, and
eating their black bread and olives. They were very pleased with him,
and very civil to him; but when he came back no man in Trieste would
believe that he had done it, till accidentally they saw a party of
Cicci coming down to sell their charcoal, and rushing up and claiming
him as an old friend. He never could resist seeing a curious and, so
to speak, Ishmaelitic race, _i.e._ severed away from the whole world,
without going to live with it, and learn it.


OPÇINA.


The first thing Richard always did when he arrived in a new place,
was to look for a sanitarium to which he might go for change in case
of being seedy. There is a Slav village, one hour from and twelve
hundred feet above Trieste, called Opçina. You can drive up on a good
road by zigzag wooded ways in an hour, or you may climb also in an
hour by five other different rugged paths up the cliff. Once arrived
at the top, Trieste, the Adriatic, and all the separate points of
land, with their villages, churches, towers, villas, and objects of
interest, lies before you like a raised map. There are ranges of wooded
hills, cliffs dotted with churches and villages, which seem to cling
to them. Sometimes banks of clouds cover the whole scene, and you can
imagine yourself isolated at the north pole, the white, woolly clouds
representing the snow and ice. You see nothing below you, but in the
distance you see the Carnian Alps topped with snow. The house you
inhabit is Daneu's old-fashioned rural country inn, on the edge of the
declivity, and is a sort of outpost to the village of Opçina; and its
terrace commands all this lovely view--the finest in the world. The
back of the inn has shrubberies and fields, and a view of the Karso,
backed by mountains. The air is splendid. We used to take the most
delightful walks when up here, or make excursions in little country
carts called _gripizzas_.

It is exceedingly pretty on festival days. Every house in the village,
from the big house, the school, and Daneu's inn, to the smallest shed,
hangs out its gayest drapery from the windows, and is decorated with
flowers and flags. The poorest have at least a jug of large white
lilies. All the villages around pour in--the Slav peasant men, in their
big boots and knickerbocker-trousers, slouch hat, brown velveteen
jacket, one ear-ring, and one flower jauntily cocked behind the ear.

Women with straight features, tow-coloured hair, and blue eyes, dress
very like a glorified Sister of Charity, only of all the colours of the
rainbow, and a white head-dress deep with lace. In short, fine linen,
fine lace, white head-dress, embroidered bodice, stout shoes, and
ribbons round waist and down the petticoat of all different colours,
one shorter than the other, and the last a big sash, over a final
petticoat, opening behind like an all-round apron, a kerchief over the
shoulders, real massive gold ornaments, and flowers form the costume.
The dresses are most expensive, of all colours, but nothing in bad
taste.

On procession days the whole village would turn out, perhaps six
priests holding a canopy over the Blessed Sacrament, the villagers with
banners, flambeaux, and bells, and every one a lighted candle and a
bunch of flowers; they would walk through the village and fields and
lanes. There were three altars erected out of doors, before which they
would stop and recite the Gospels, and then to the church for High
Mass and solemn benediction; fine voices rose in hymns, taking first,
second, third, and fourths, nature taught, far better than many an
oratorio. On one occasion I remember a little ragged urchin, two feet
high, with bare feet, one little white garment, a straw hat with a
hundred holes and rents in it, and his little bit of flower, kneeling
near the altar. Educated visitors from Trieste would come in, but not
even salute or kneel, _to show their superiority_; and this is the way
that Faith gets stamped out of the world. The peasants, when the _fête_
is over, steal the flowers to dry, and they burn them in a storm for
protection, which is rather a pretty, though superstitious, idea.

Here we took rooms, and put in them all in which they were deficient;
and our delight was to come up alone, without servants, from Saturday
to Monday, and get away from everything, wait upon ourselves more or
less, and keep some literary work here. We sometimes stayed a fortnight
or six weeks if we had a great work on hand.

[Illustration: DANEU'S INN, OPÇINA, IN THE KARSO.]

[Sidenote: _Trieste Life_.]

The Trieste life was, of course, varied by many journeys and
excursions; 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. The thing that astonished us most at first was
the _Bora_, the north-easterly wind, which sweeps down the mountains,
at a moment's notice. There are only two places in the world that have
it--Trieste and the Caucasus. Its force is so great, that it blows
people into the sea; it occasionally blows over a train; or a cab and
horse into the sea. When there is a bad _Bora_, ropes are put up; if
any house is exposed to the full fury of it, a new-comer would suppose
that the house would also be carried away. It makes all new buildings
tremble and rock; in fact, I have been told that if one tried to
describe it in England, one would not be understood.

A blizzard is the nearest thing to it, but that is short and sharp,
whereas the _Bora_ always lasts three days, and I have known it, in
1890, to last forty days, more or less severe. The _Borino_ is the
little _Bora;_ the white _Bora_ is still bearable, but the black _Bora_
is frightening, especially when it has "_ciappá_," as the dialect goes,
_i.e._ "gripped," or "taken hold." At first Richard got thrown down by
it, and was badly cut. In my strongest days, I could never breast a
hill with the _Bora_ facing me. I used to have to turn round, sit down,
and be blown back again. Shocks of earthquake were very common affairs.
They made one feel sick and uncomfortable; but they did not shake the
houses down, only made the pictures dangle towards the middle of the
room, and the cupboards nod and move. They were always the tag-end of
the great earthquakes at Agram, in Croatia, which is a hundred miles
away on a direct line.

The chief thing that spoils Trieste is politics. The City is composed
of Italians, Austrians, and Slavs, which three languages are spoken.
Greeks and Jews monopolize the trade. The few foreigners are the
Consular corps; the English are the engineers of Austrian-Lloyd
steamers, with a very small sprinkling of merchants, and might number
three hundred all told, including British protections. When we went
there, an Austrian would hardly give his hand to an Italian in a dance.
An Italian would not sing in the concert where an Austrian sang. If
an Austrian gave a ball, the Italian threw a bomb into it; and the
Imperial family were always received with a chorus of bombs--bombs on
the railway, bombs in the gardens, bombs in the sausages; in fact, it
was not at such times pleasant. The Slavs also form a decided party.
With Richard's usual good sense, he at once desired me to form a
neutral house--a neutral _salon_--where politics and religion should
never be mentioned, and where all would meet on neutral ground; and
this was done the whole time of our Triestine career.

Here we made the acquaintance of the Count and Countess di
Ferraris-Occhieppo, their son and two daughters. They were at this time
charming children. He was in the Austrian service. They were of noble
family, but not rich, and she had the romantic idea of bringing her
daughters up to a musical profession, of travelling all over the world
for the purpose of seeing and studying, and leading an interesting
life, paying their way with concerts and entertainments as they went.
She nobly succeeded in her mission, and must be rewarded by looking
down upon her two clever daughters carrying out her idea in perfection.
The little boy--he must be a man, and possibly an officer now--used to
rebel against the constant drill; but I dare say, though I have lost
sight of him for the present, that he is very glad of it now.

[Sidenote: _Trieste Environs_.]

Venice was our happy hunting-ground. Whenever we were a little bit
tired of Trieste, we had only to run over there, and I know nothing so
resting. If you have been living at too high pressure, you order your
gondola, closing the door, lie down in the middle of it, put your head
on a cushion, tell them to row you anywhere, and doze and dream until
you come round.

Miramar, the sea-palace of poor Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, was a
great resource to Trieste people, being an hour's drive from Trieste,
built on a rock-promontory out to sea, and backed by beautiful grounds
and woods of his own designs. Most people know--but some may not--the
touching little history of the Emperor of Austria's brother, married to
Princess Charlotte of Belgium, who lived in this palace. They built and
made this home themselves, and they lived in a little cottage close by
whilst they were so engaged. The lower rooms, occupied by the Archduke
himself, were built and arranged exactly like the Admiral's quarters of
his ship. The grounds are most romantic and fanciful, full of covered
terraces, shady walks, secluded places for reading, the ruins of a very
old chapel, Italian gardens, and so on.

They were perfectly adored in Trieste, and he was worshipped by the
Navy. Nothing could be happier than their lives. In an evil hour the
Imperial Crown of Mexico was offered to him under the protection of
Louis Napoleon. The Emperor of Austria approved of it, but Maximilian
long hung back. Finally Princess Charlotte, who was ambitious, urged
him to accept; he did so, and they departed. There is a picture in
Miramar showing their departure in the ship's gig, and crowds from
Trieste to see them off, of which most are real portraits. That was
their last happy day. Everybody knows how ill that Imperial Mexican
crown succeeded, Maximilian's unhappy death, Empress Charlotte's
coming over to claim the promised protection of Napoleon, and how the
not getting it affected her brain. At one time they took her to Miramar
to see if it would cure her, but it only made her worse. The Emperor
keeps up his brother's place exactly as if he was living there, and,
with exquisite taste and benevolence, throws it open to the people who
loved him so much.

Monsieur and Madame Léon Favre, brother to Jules Favre, were our French
Consul and Consuless General, and their house was the rendezvous for
Spiritualism, where we had frequent _séances_.

One of their guests at these _séances_ had a very curious faculty.
He would sit opposite you, his eyes would glaze, and your face and
features changed in his sight, and he saw all the evil in you and all
the good, just as if you were a pane of glass. When this fit passed
off, his face, and yours also, resumed its natural expression, but he
knew you perfectly well, better than if you had told him all your life.
I was fortunate enough to please him. He sent for me on his death-bed,
but I was away, and did not know it till after; but a year or two after
his death, one of his disciples swam up to me in the sea and said that
the deceased wanted me to translate and bring out his writings on
religion, which were inspired. I have, however, up to the present never
had the time nor the money to do so.

Richard sent the following, thinking it might be useful:--


 "To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.

 "PRECAUTION IN FIGHTING THE ASHANTEES.


 "Sir,--During the last Franco-Prussian War several of my friends
 escaped severe wounds by wearing in action a strip of hard leather
 with a rib or angle to the fore. It must be large enough to cover
 heart, lungs, and stomach-pit, and it should be sewn inside the blouse
 or tunic; of course the looser the better. Such a defence will be
 especially valuable for those who must often expose themselves in
 'the bush' to Anglo-Ashanti trade-guns, loaded with pebbles and bits
 of iron. The sabre is hardly likely to play any part in the present
 campaign, or I should recommend my system of curb-chains worn across
 the cap, along the shoulders, and down the arms and legs.

 "I am, sir, your obedient,

 "RICHARD F. BURTON.

 "November 25th, 1873."

[Sidenote: _Rome and the Tiber_.]

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 deal 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.
Religiously speaking, what I enjoyed most was the Ara Cœli, 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. We also much enjoyed the Catacombs
and the Baths of Caracalla; but it was a wet and miserable day that we
went to the Baths, and the smells in this last place from the little
interstices of the pavement were awful. We dined at some cousins' who
had gone with us, and their little bulldog, which had had its nose
close to the ground all day, went mad, and died that night, and we
found them next day in shocking grief. I got Roman fever. Richard had
written the following letter to the _Tablet_ in October, 1872:--


 "THE OVERFLOW OF THE TIBER.

 "To the Editor of the _Tablet_.


 "Sir,--The very able review in the _Times_ supplement (Oct. 21) of
 Signor Raffaelle Pareto's report to the Minister of Agriculture,
 encourages me to address you upon a subject so deeply interesting to
 the Catholic world, indeed to the whole world, as Rome is.

 "That eminent engineer, Mr. Thomas Page (acting engineer of the Thames
 Tunnel, under Brunel, and the engineer of Westminster Bridge), whose
 works in England are known to all, has been for some time engaged
 in a plan for preventing the inundations of the Tiber, and for the
 _assainissement_ of the Campagna di Roma, undertakings more urgently
 required every year. He purposes gigantic measures, but measures of no
 difficulty, and the sooner they are begun and the more promptly they
 are erected, the more satisfactory will be their results and the more
 economical their execution.

 "Your space will hardly allow me to enter into details concerning
 his scheme, whose broadest outlines are as follows: Provide a new
 channel for the Tiber, which, during floods, shall conduct all its
 waters in a free and uninterrupted course. For the sake of crossing,
 the line must be governed by the levels of the valley through which it
 runs. It may be constructed at the junction of the Teverone with the
 Tiber, be carried along the line of the Fossa della Maranella, and,
 passing through the higher ground in the line of the second milestone
 on the Via Tusculana da Roma, it would enter the depression of the
 Fiume Alarone, and finally anastomose with the old bed near the Ponto
 della Moletta, about a kilometre and a quarter outside the Porta San
 Paolo. Mr. Page would continue his new channel so as to cut off the
 reach of the Prati di S. Paolo, passing to the west of the celebrated
 Basilica, so called, and, by an embankment with gates and sluices at
 the sharp bend near the Porta della Puzzolana, he would convert the
 old channel into the Port of Rome. At the embouchure of the Teverone
 he would throw a similar embankment; and thus the Tiber, cleansed of
 all mud and deposits, would become an ornamental stream, or rather
 lake whose banks, about three miles long, would be the most pleasant
 of promenades. I need hardly remark that this insulation of Rome, and
 this replacement by drainage and irrigation of the fatal Campagna
 atmosphere, would amazingly increase the value of the land, and make
 the profits of its sale pay for the expenses of the works.

 "The _Times_ review of Signor Pareto's labours has sketched for
 the benefit of the general reader all the interesting features of
 pasturage and tillage in the large towns known as the Agro Romano.
 Mr. Page's plan would give the opportunity and the means of training
 the Campagna into one of the most productive and salubrious districts
 in Italy. With an extent of 311,550 hectares of valuable land, with a
 new channel for drainage, and with improved means of irrigation, the
 suburban district of Rome will soon become worthy of her greatness,
 past and present.

 "I only hope that Mr. Page will soon be permitted to publish in detail
 this sketch, whose outlines you have allowed me to make public. The
 Holy City, I need hardly say, is not so much the capital of Italy as
 the capital of Europe, and consequently the capital of the world.

 "I am, sir, yours truly,

 "RICHARD F. BURTON, F.R.G.S.

 "Southampton, October 24th, 1872."

The Tiber business after this was brought out as a brand-new-idea by
another man in 1874, so I had to write the following:--


 "THE TIBER.

 "To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.


 "Sir,--I venture to draw your attention to the fact that as early
 as October, 1872, my husband, Captain Burton, proposed the very
 same measures for relieving the Tiber and for draining the Campagna
 which are now being taken up by General Garibaldi. Also the paper by
 Captain Burton, 'Notes on Rome,' published by _Macmillan's Magazine_
 in 1873, concluded as follows: 'At the present moment Anglo-Italian
 companies are out of favour in England and in Italy. It would be an
 invidious task to explain the reason and to register the complaints on
 both sides. But there should be no difficulty in raising a "City of
 Rome Improvements Company," directed by a board which would combine
 southern thrift with northern energy and capital, a combination
 hitherto found wanting. Nor do I think that the Municipality of Rome,
 in whose hands lies acceptance or refusal, would object to the influx
 of foreign funds, especially if the management were in part confided
 to their own countrymen--to persons of name and position.'

 "These last sentences were the very gist of the whole of the 'Notes on
 Rome,' but, unhappily, _Macmillan's_, being an uncommercial magazine,
 thought proper to omit them, with that unfortunate instinct which
 taboos one's best bits, and crushes down one's originality until one's
 work is cut out exactly on the regulation pattern of former writers.
 This makes author's work in England rather disheartening; for, as in
 this case, one man sows and another reaps; one invents and originates,
 and another gets the whole benefit and credit of the idea.

 "Captain Burton has had all his plans for the benefit of Rome laid
 down ever since 1872.

 "Yours obediently,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "March 17th, 1874."

We took my fever 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.

[Sidenote: _Vienna_.]

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. But the Exhibition was
spoilt by one or two things. Firstly, the hotels made everything so
dear that few people could afford to go there. It is told of Richard,
that while travelling on a steamboat he seated himself at the table and
called for a beefsteak. The waiter furnished him with a small strip
of that article. Taking it upon his fork, and turning it over and
examining it with one of his peculiar looks, he coolly remarked, "Yes,
that's it. Bring me some."

As a pendant to that, it was during the Viennese Exhibition when
supplies at the hotels were charged enormous prices, and all portions
were most homœopathic. A waiter brought Richard a cup of coffee,
not Turkish coffee, but a doll's cup with the chestnut water which
Europeans presume to _call_ coffee. "What is that?" asked Richard,
looking at it curiously, with his head on one side. "Coffee for one,
sir." "Oh! is it indeed?" inspecting it still more curiously. "H'm!
bring me coffee for ten!" "Yes, sir," said the waiter, looking as if he
thought it a capital joke, and presently returned with a common-sized
cup of coffee.

People waited until the end, hoping things would get cheaper, and by
that time the great "Krach," or money failures, had come, followed
by the cholera, so that Vienna was huge sums to the bad, instead of
gaining. We had a very gay time. Whilst we were there we went to the
Viennese Court. There was a great difficulty about Richard, because
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."

[Sidenote: _The Imperial Family_.]

It was three weeks of incessant Society and gaiety. I do not know
when I have met so many delightful people. I was very much dazzled
by the Court; I thought everything so beautifully done, so arranged
to give every one pleasure, and somehow it was a graciousness that
was in itself a welcome. I shall never forget the first night that I
saw the Empress, a vision of beauty clothed in silver, crowned with
water-lilies, with large roses of diamonds and emeralds round her
small head, in her beautiful hair, and descending all down her dress
in festoons. The throne-room is immense, with marble columns down each
side. All the men are ranged on one side, all the women on the other,
and the new presentations, with their Ambassadors and Ambassadresses,
nearest the throne. When the Empress and Emperor come in they walk
up the middle, the Emperor bowing, and the Empress curtsying most
gracefully and smiling a general gracious greeting. They then ascended
the throne, and presently she turned to our side. The presentations
first took place, and she spoke to each one in their own language and
on their own particular subject. I was quite entranced with her beauty,
her cleverness, and her conversation. She passed down the ladies' side,
and then came up that of the men, the Emperor doing exactly the same as
she had done. He also spoke to us. Then some few of us, whose families
the Empress knew about, were asked to sit down, and refreshments were
handed round, the present Dowager Lady Dudley sitting by her. It is
a thing never to be forgotten to have seen these two beautiful women
sitting side by side. The Empress Frederick of Germany was also there,
and sent for some of us on another day, which was, in many ways,
another memorable event, and the Crown Prince, as he was then, also
came in.

It is not to be wondered at that the Austrians are so loyal and wrapped
up in their Imperial family. Everything they do is so gracious, and the
Emperor enters so keenly into all the events that occur to his people.
He is such a thoroughly good man. If they called him their "father," as
the Russians do their Czar, it would not be wondered at. At the time
that I write of, and for many, many years later, poor Prince Rudolph
was literally adored by the people; he had such a charming way of
speaking to them. I remember when he came to Trieste from Vienna in
early days, an old woman of the people knew he would arrive cold and
uncomfortable after fifteen hours' express, and she prepared a nice
cup of coffee and hot milk, and rolls and butter, and the moment the
train came in she ran up to the carriage with her tray and offered it
him, and he received it with such hearty good will and thanks that she
was quite overcome, and he put forty florins on her tray. He did many
unknown acts of good to the people during his short life, and one could
so well understand the enthusiasm felt by the people--not much danger
of a republic _there_. It does not matter where you go in Austria; you
might be looking at the oldest church, or the most antique ruin, and
your guide will say to you, "On that particular spot stood our Emperor
ten years ago;" "Last August the Empress admired that view;" "Prince
Rudolph went up those stairs when he was a child;" "He sat on that
chair, and we never allow anybody to touch it;" and so on.

To return to the dearness of the hotels which choked strangers off:
our humble bill--and we had had nothing but absolute necessaries--was
£163 for three weeks. The landlord having assured us that it would be
very small, and as the Embassy had taken the rooms for us at fifteen
florins a day, we did not think it was good taste to make a fuss
about it, so we paid it; and on examining it we found the rooms were
charged twenty-five florins a day; single cups of tea in one's bedroom,
ten and sixpence apiece; a carriage to convey and set one down at the
Exhibition, and to pick one up in the evening back to the hotel, £5 a
day for the first few days, and so on. I heard one of the Rothschilds
making an awful to-do about £100 for a month, but I thought we, far
smaller fry, were much worse off. These things were bruited about,
and very few people dared to come. I was taken to one of the great
dressmakers' establishments, and what they showed me for £30 I am sure
my maid would not have worn, and it was only when they began to show me
things from £70 to £90 that they were good enough for me. In England
one would have paid £15 or £20 for these last-named dresses.

Charley Drake now arrived on a visit to us, and we went up to see
the great Government _fête_ at the Adelsberg Caves. On that one day
the Government lights this ninth wonder of the world with a million
candles. The remarkable stalactite caverns and grottoes are of the most
curious and fantastic shapes, and about seven miles of them are open;
then the torrent that rushes into them plunges underground, and comes
up again in another part of the Karso, that wild and desolate stony
tract of land above Trieste, which is about seventy-five miles each
way, and contains some seventy-two Slav villages. It is a mysterious,
unnatural, weird land, full of pot-holes, varying from two hundred
to two thousand feet deep, abounding in _castellieri_--prehistoric
ruins--waters that disappear and reappear, that bound into the earth at
one spot and rush out again some miles distant; and this is supposed to
be the safeguard of Trieste against disastrous earthquakes.

[Sidenote: _Fiume_.]

Books might be written about it; but the passing stranger in a train
would only say, that when God Almighty had finished making the earth,
He had thrown all the superfluous rocks there. Then in these mysterious
and wonderful caverns there is a large hall like a domed ball-room,
formed by nature, and here Austrian bands play at one of the Whitsun
_fêtes_, and the peasants flock down from all parts in their costumes.
It is a thing to be seen once in one's life. Richard nearly lost his
life here (not on this occasion) by insisting on swimming down the
stream, which is ice cold, and wanting to let himself be carried under
the mountains to see where he would come out. It was a foolhardy thing,
and fortunately he was so cramped before he neared the hole where the
water disappears, that he had to be pulled out. I need not say that I
was not there, or he would never have been allowed to go in. However,
he discovered fish without eyes, which he sent to the Zoological
Gardens. From here we drove on to Fiume, about an eight-hour drive--ten
with a rest--where we were kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
_née_ Lever. From their house we visited all the neighbourhood, little
thinking that fifteen years later we should come back to Abbazia for
Richard's health, and we had the pleasure of making acquaintance with
Mr. Whitehead and family of torpedo fame. We then went to Pola, the
great naval station, the Spithead of the Austrians. The general world
may not know that it has a Colosseum almost, if not quite, as good as
that at Rome, with temples, ancient gates, and any amount of ruins.


 "CAPTAIN BURTON'S DISCOVERIES IN ISTRIA.

 "(Anthropological Report.)


 "Tizu, February 18, 1874.

 [Sidenote: _Castellieri_.]

 "The meeting of the London Anthropological Society held last night was
 devoted to the account by Captain Burton of his recent extraordinary
 discoveries in Istria, and was certainly the most interesting and
 crowded meeting which has taken place since the palmy days of Dr. Hunt
 and the great Negro question.

 "Captain Burton, as most of our readers know, was sent last year by
 the late Liberal Government to a Consulate at Trieste, and there were
 many who thought that the lack of interest which the public generally
 feels in this extremely dull town would induce the gallant Captain
 to lead a quieter scientific life than he had hitherto followed at
 Brazil or Damascus. But he has devoted the first holiday he had to
 the excavation of a new series of prehistoric antiquities. The very
 existence of the Istrian _castellieri_ was a secret to England.
 The well-known authority on rude stone monuments, James Fergusson,
 wrote to Captain Burton that nothing was known of the _castellieri_,
 and that a description was interesting and important, as showing
 they are or are not connected with the prehistoric monuments of
 Sardinia, or the Giants' Towers of Malta, or the Balearic Isles.
 The Mediterranean Islands contain many stray antiquities of whose
 origin we know nothing, and we must wait till congeners are found
 for us on the continent of Europe. As all schoolboys know, at the
 northern extremity of the Adriatic Gulf there lies a little triangle
 of land. This is Istria. Its position must have rendered it in
 early times a fit habitation, for uncivilized man would naturally
 prefer it to the cold and sterile Austrian provinces north-east and
 east of it. The neighbourhood of the sea supplies it with abundant
 winter rains. The peninsula was doubtless inhabited in early ages,
 and local students still trace in the modern Veneto-Italian speech
 remnants of the old Illyrian Istri, or Histri, whose dialect has been
 vaguely connected with Etruscan, Nubian, Illyrian, Keltic, Greek,
 and Phœnician. Various barbarous tribes occupied it, and successive
 revolutions and incursions of many ancient populations have left
 their traces on the manners, customs, and language of the people.
 Overrun by the barbarians, subject to a succession of conquerors,
 annexed by Venice, colonized by Slavs, Istria has been copiously
 written about. Captain Burton gave an enormous series of references
 to the past history of the bibliography of Istria, which reflected
 the greatest possible glory on the natives of a small province
 of Austria, who have worked up their own country's history to an
 extent which English antiquaries can scarcely rival. But the pith of
 Captain Burton's paper was, of course, the minute description of the
 _castellieri_ themselves. These were hill forts of which a perfect
 military disposition was effected, so that on all occasions two points
 were always in sight for convenience of signalling. The experienced
 eye can always detect at a distance the traces of an earthen ring or
 ellipse formed by levelling the summit and the gradual rises of the
 roads, or rather camps, which are, as a rule, comparatively free from
 trees and thickets. A nearer inspection shows a scatter of pottery,
 whose rude sandy paste contrasts sharply with the finished produce
 of the Roman kilns, and the more homogeneous materials of modern
 times. The contours of these _castellieri_ are distinguished by a
 definite deposit of black ash from the surface soil of 'red' Istria
 around them. As a rule, the _castellieri_ occupied the summits of the
 detached conical hills and mounds which appear to have been shaped
 and turned by glacial action. Some Istrian towns have been built
 upon these prehistoric sites. Viewed from below, they appear to be
 perched upon the summits of inaccessible stone walls. A crow's nest,
 with a stick driven through it, is the only object they suggest from
 afar, and they wear a peculiarly ghastly look, like the phantom of
 settlements when seen through the mists of a dark evening. They can
 scarcely be called villages, but rather towns in miniature. The whole
 peninsula was at one time studded over with these villages, and Fate
 has treated them with her usual caprice. Some have been carried off
 bodily, especially those lying near the lines of modern road. Others
 are in process of disappearance, being found useful for villages, and
 on the heights for the rude huts of the shepherd and the goatherd.
 But where situation, which determines such 'eternal cities of the
 world' as Damascus, was favourable, the _castellieri_, as at Pisino,
 became successively castles, hamlets, and towns, with the fairest
 prospects of being promoted to the honour of cityhood. On the other
 hand, Muggia-Vecchia, on the Bay of Trieste, has in turn been a castle
 and a church tower, and now it is a ruin. Captain Burton gave a minute
 description of fifteen _castellieri_ in the territory of Albona. The
 Cunzi hillock was the chief of these. It is a dwarf, 'lumpy chine,'
 about a mile long, disposed north-north-east to south-south-west, with
 lowlands on all sides. The crest of the cone has evidently been cut
 away in one or more places, leaving part of the original earth-slope
 to form the parapet base. Upon this foundation were planted large
 blocks of limestone, sometimes of two cubic yards, in tolerably
 regular order, invariably without mortar, and never of cut or worked
 blocks, the _tout_ forming a rough architecture of the style commonly
 called Cyclopean. The inner thickness of the parapet was apparently
 fitted with smaller stones, and the thickness varied from eighteen to
 thirty-one feet. The inner scarp was steep and clear of rubbish. The
 _enceinte_, where probably were kept the cattle and goats belonging to
 the villagers, was mostly grass-grown. In another of the _castellieri_
 were found some interesting specimens of stone weapons. All were of
 the polished category popularly called 'neolithic.' Captain Burton has
 not found, through any of his researches in Istria, any of the ruder
 and older type. Most were composed of stone usual in the country.
 These tools and weapons seem to have travelled as far as Couries.
 Captain Burton gave a minute description of Trieste, in which the
 opera-house is old and unclean, fit only for a pauper country town,
 and the water supply is a disgrace to a civilized community. Here a
 sterile politic occupies the talent and energy which should be devoted
 to progress, and an inveterate party feeling prevails. Upon every
 conceivable proposal there are, and there must be, Vandals of opposite
 opinions, and the unfortunate city does not know which way to turn.
 It is a relief to revert to the _castellieri_. It is not difficult,
 with the aid of old experience and a little imagination, to restore
 the ancient savage condition of the settlement. The traveller, and
 especially the African traveller, has the advantage of having lived
 in prehistoric times. The villages were probably of wood and thatch,
 and the huts were of the conical or beehived shape of the lower races,
 rather than of the squares and parallelograms which mark a step in
 civilization. The walls were from six to seven feet high, allowing
 the war-men to use their stones and arrows, and a clear space, where
 the youths kept guard with axe, spear, and club, separated the huts
 from the _enceinte_. The gateways were closed by fascines. As the
 territory of Albona contains at least twenty _castellieri_, the
 population of the district of Eastern Istria would not number less
 than ten thousand souls. The inhabitants supported themselves by some
 form of agriculture. Deer, bears, and wolves were rare. Hares, foxes,
 badgers, and martens were as common as they continue to be. The live
 stock was penned between the outer and the inner walls. A total want
 of water supply shows that the days of sieges had not dawned, and
 that the simple act of taking refuge within the _enceinte_ determined
 the retreat of the attacking party. The inhabitants were probably
 cannibals, and their morality was like that of all savage races. The
 women were not wholly ignorant of spinning. There was no attempt
 at partitions to the huts, but the polygamist savages turned their
 progeny out of doors as soon as possible. The fish were shot with
 arrows, and the hook and line were unknown.

 "So ended Captain Burton's interesting paper, which, read _in extenso_
 by Dr. Carter Blake, produced an animated discussion. Specimens of the
 tiles from the _castellieri_ were exhibited on the table, and produced
 much examination. The President of the Anthropological Society (Dr.
 R. S. Charnock, F.S.A.) said with regard to the name Istria, it was
 stated that Colchians having sailed up the Ister, or Danube, passed
 from that river to the Adriatic, and that they named Istria from the
 Ister. But, as Spon observes, if the Colchians proceeded from the
 Ister to the Adriatic, they must have carried their vessels on their
 shoulders, inasmuch as there is no water communication between the
 Ister and the Adriatic. Something of this sort is mentioned by Pliny,
 who seems to have led Spon to make this ludicrous observation. Great
 gratification appeared to be felt by the members of the Society, that
 Captain Burton, while he assigned the _castellieri_ to a pre-Roman
 age, did not identify them with any special race or period. In fact,
 the caution with which he described all his facts led observers to
 regard the present as one of the most important contributions to
 prehistoric literature which has been ever published.

 "The meeting passed a hearty vote of thanks to Captain Burton, who is
 now continuing his researches on the _castellieri_. The discussion
 verged on analogous relics. Some remains have been found in Sussex
 which gullible antiquaries might suppose to be analogous to the
 Istrian _castellieri_. But the importance of the 'hill forts,' as some
 ignorant speculators have called them, is about as much as that of the
 mound which Scott's _Antiquary_ identified as a Roman prætorium. No
 educated _savant_ in England believes in the hoax which was played off
 on the Society of Antiquaries (vol. xlii. pt. i. p. 27) with regard
 to the hill forts of Sussex, and the genuineness of the relics from
 Cissbury is not now asserted. We cannot, therefore, in the present
 state of science, say that the remains discovered by Captain Burton
 are analogous with any other remains in any other part of Europe, and
 we must rather look for their representatives in Asia and Africa."

One of our favourite drives was to Lipizza, the Emperor's stud. It
was established three hundred years ago. It is about two hours from
Trieste. You come to a kind of farm, where you may get something to
eat. You are then taken to the stables, where the Emperor keeps about
nine thoroughbred Arab stallions, and afterwards you are taken through
the park, where are herds of thoroughbred mares, chiefly Hungarians and
Croats, most of them with foals, perhaps two hundred including foals.
If anything is not perfect it is sold, and thus you see a very good
breed of horses, in Trieste, often drawing a cart. The pleasantest way
to make this trip for your own comfort is to take a luncheon basket for
yourself and nosebags with corn for your horses, as well as a small
tub or pail to draw water for them, as nothing will induce them--and
rightly--to let your horses come anywhere near the stud, or to drink
out of anything belonging to their horses, and two hours there and
two hours back is a long way for animals to go without drink or any
refreshment.

We had now, after six months, taken our first lodging in Trieste, and
we showed Charley Drake all our wonderful country around. Here we had a
visit from Schapira of famous memory. One of the charms near Trieste is
Aquilea, where there is a museum with all its antiquities; and there
was then, until a year or two ago, Doctor Gregorutti and his charming
wife and family, who had a far more choice collection than that of the
museum, of every sort of thing; but most interesting were his incised
gems. He was very anxious to sell his little collection for £4000,
which was very reasonable considering what he possessed; though we
tried hard we were not successful in obtaining purchasers, and he has
since died. There you could see country Italian life in a country-house.

There was another place, called San Bartolo, where people used to go
to sup by the sea on summer evenings, about half an hour's drive from
Trieste.

[Sidenote: _Duino_.]

Duino is also another romantic place where we frequently went and
passed some weeks. The castle and the village belong to the Princess
von Hohenlöhe, who is the _châtelaine_ of all the country round, and
lives there with her sons and daughters, who were good friends to us
all the time we were there. The castle is a romantic and ancient pile,
built on a rock overhanging the sea. The next promontory to that is
Miramar, and from Trieste we can see both, and especially from our last
home, which was also on a wooded promontory projecting into the sea.
There are beautiful excursions to be taken by steamer all round the Bay
of Trieste.

[Sidenote: _Venice--Good-bye to Charley Drake_.]

We crossed over to Venice to see Charley Drake off, when he was
obliged to leave us. The Governor's (Ceschi's) party took the whole of
the saloon. There were seventy-two first-class passengers, and only
twenty-two beds. We passed a delightful night on deck on the skylights,
and were awfully amused at the Governor and his wife coming up and
envying us, and saying, "You English always know how to get the best
places." "We like that," said Richard, "when you have taken the whole
of the saloon. It might have been blowing great guns, and seas washing
over the deck, and we should have had to sleep here all the same."

In those days, in Venice, a gondolier serenade by moonlight was rather
a romantic thing; you paid a hundred and twenty francs. There were
choice singers in one large gondola full of coloured lamps; the voices
were good. They sang Tasso and Dante, as well as popular songs, and
little by little some two hundred gondolas would follow. It was like
hunting a fox; you pursued the music gondola under the Rialto, and
then came the best singing. Now two gondolas come at once, and try who
can bawl the other down under the hotel windows, and sing all sorts of
things that one is dead tired of. Latterly it used to drive my husband
out of Venice.

Poor Charley Drake left on the 4th of July. We never saw him again; he
was dead the following year.

This summer (1874) we got very bad Asiatic cholera, which lasted some
three or four months. It killed sixteen daily, and many of them (in
fact, I believe most) were ill a very short time; some cases that I
know were dead in about half an hour, turning black. When its virulence
was going off, I was very bad for fifteen hours; but Richard treated
me, and we did not tell anybody what it was, as these things are not
advisable, or, at least, _were not_ in those days. At Venice they used
to put a _gendarme_ at the door, and, by way of stamping it out, nobody
was allowed either to come in or to go out. We had seen so much of it
in other countries that we knew quite well what to do if anything could
save us, and Richard did not then catch it at all.

This is one of the notes in my journal: "We all felt quite poisoned
to-day by a sudden hurricane of wind and dust, which set people howling
and running, blew the sea-baths to pieces, and upset the little
steamer." These are the sort of delightful surprises that the weather
gives one from time to time.

We always had plenty of visitors from England in spring and autumn.
At that time Lord Henry Percy, Lord Antrim, and Lord Lindsay came to
see us, and Mr. Henry Matthews, our late Home Secretary, Sir Charles
Sebright, and Mr. Peyton, popularly known as "Jack Peyton."

[Sidenote: _Excursions_.]

One interesting inland excursion was to Prevald, a day's drive. We
slept at a peasant's house, and supped on bread and butter, olives,
sardines, sausage, and cheese. Next day being Sunday, we went to
the village church; the Slav peasants were there in their costumes;
the sermon was in Slav, the church clean, and the peasants, though
untaught, sang in perfect harmony, with no false notes. Afterwards we
ascended the Nanos, a high mountain with snow on it. Prevald, a bright
little white Slav village, consists of one street, every house of which
is of different shape, with thatched or tiled roofs and wood. It owns
a long three-cornered square, a little white church with its pepperbox
steeple, its shady grassy graveyard, and wooded hills and mountains;
and this description would do for most of the villages. The Nanos
is like a big dome, backing the village, from the top of which is a
wonderful view.

From here we drove on through splendid mountain scenery to Vipach;
there is a village and a castle on a peak, containing a local Marquis
de Carabbas. The river rises from under a rock. We drove through a
wild, desolate part of the Karso; the heat was burning, the drive
jolting, and on the road Richard had a small attack of cholera.

This summer I unearthed my material, and wrote "Inner Life of Syria,"
which occupied me sixteen months; and we made excursions to Pinguete
and San Canziano, where there are also interesting caves on a minor
scale than Adelsberg, and where a river dives into the earth.

On the 21st of September there were public prayers and Communion in the
churches to stay the cholera; about five hundred went to Communion at a
time.

This year also we first had the opera _Aïda_. We always get our operas
in Trieste fresh from La Scala many years before England gets them.

[Sidenote: _Proselytizing_.]

Richard had always one good story to tell that delighted him. The
Consular Chaplain, the Rev. Robert O'Callaghan, and I were very good
friends. When I greeted him I told him I hoped he would not mind my not
belonging to his Church, and he said it need make no difference in our
friendship; and, on the other hand, I took care that the Consul's wife
being a Catholic should be no detriment to the Protestant Church, nor
the cause of the Protestant community lacking any assistance. After we
got intimate Richard declared that with a triumphant wave I said, "I
have got a convert from your Church." Now, proselytizing does not enter
into my occupations, but the fact is that one day my Italian Capuchin
confessor, a most holy man, told me that he had got a Protestant under
instruction, and he desired that I should be godmother at his reception
into the Church. I said, "Certainly, Father; but I think I should
like to have a look at him first." When I did look at him, and he had
retired, I said, "I think, Father, it is just possible that he may be a
convict on leave." "Oh, daughter," he said, with a very shocked look,
"he has a beautiful soul under that very rough exterior!" "Well," I
said, "Father, it is your business; you ought to know." Accordingly
the unprepossessing young man was "received," and I stood godmother.
About a month after he was taken up as being the head of a gang of
house-breakers, when of course I jeered at my horrified _padre_, and
Mr. O'Callaghan had a tremendous crow over me. But shortly after
Richard and I were invited to be present officially at the reception
and baptizing in the Protestant church of two converted Jews, and we
attended, and there were great rejoicings, but it was not long before
they robbed the till and bolted, so I had the laugh back again. Richard
rejoiced very much over our mutual conversions, and used to like to
tell the story.

On the 28th of November there was a general return thanks in the
churches for the cessation of the cholera.

On the 27th of December Richard and I were summoned to visit her
Majesty Maria Theresa, ex-Queen of Spain, widow of old Don Carlos. We
were very graciously received. She gave me two books, a holy picture,
and the photographs of herself and her late husband.

Early in January, 1874, Maria Theresa Contessa de Montelin, ex-Queen
of Spain, again sent for me. She gave me a Prayer-book, and she
bequeathed to me all her pious works, begging of me to keep up and to
promote certain pious societies which she had either started or wished
to start. One was the Apostleship of Prayer, whose members were to
take an active Sister of Charity part, doing good works, corporal and
spiritual, in the town. I accepted the charge, and she died on the 17th
of January. The following day we went to condole with the departed
princess's _entourage_, and to pay our respects to the dead, who lay
in state. I may mention, _en passant_, under my hand, that the members
eventually increased to fifteen thousand, inscribed in a book; they
made me President, and, with the assistance of my Capuchins, we got it
into very good working order, dividing ourselves into bands in various
quarters of the City, and did a great deal of good. After my husband
died (after my sixteen years' work), there was a formal meeting in
their church for me to hand over my Presidency to my successor.

One of our amusements in Trieste was, that whenever a ship came in
with a captain we knew, he would invite us to dine, and we used to
taste English food and see English people, and invite the captain and
officers or any especially nice passengers back again.

Richard writes and foretells in his journal, 1873: "It is noticeable
that even in 1873 Fiume will ruin Trieste. This place has not long to
live."

[Sidenote: _Richard is very Ill_.]

In May, 1874, Richard and others made an expedition up the Schneeberg
Mountain, which is always covered with snow. He used to amuse himself
by buying any amount of clothes and greatcoats, 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 chloroform; 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. He was so brave, he smoked a
cigar and drank a soda-and-brandy an hour after the operation.

[Sidenote: _Charley Drake's Death_.]

It was a curious thing that poor Charley Drake, at the age of
twenty-eight, died in Jerusalem on the very day Richard was operated
upon. He had caught a severe fever in the malarious valley of the
Jordan, living under canvas, in heavy rains. He was only ill three
weeks, and had no idea of dying until seven hours before his death.
For the first two hours he wept bitterly, and, resigning himself,
he constantly said, "Tell my mother I die in the love of Jesus." He
_talked_ quite as agnostically as Richard did; but he was a good
Protestant at heart, and died a holy death. During the time he was
delirious he frequently said to Richard's servant, who remained with
him, "Habíb, pitch the tents on Mount Sion; there is such a beautiful
place." It was where we had often sat, we three together, and he had
said how he should like to be buried there. Richard unfortunately got
hold of the letter before I did, and he fell back in a faint with the
wound reopened. We had lost a true friend, perhaps a better than we
should ever see again, and we felt it bitterly. It was just a year
since he left us at Venice.

[Sidenote: _Travelling for his Health_.]

Richard began (though he progressed favourably) to get exceedingly
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 rural inn, Opçina, 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 used to drive out every day to Monselice, which is a charming place,
or to Arqua, to stay by Petrarch's tomb and see his house. One wonders
how he left Rome and Venice to settle in such a wretched little place.
He died in a very stuck-up wooden chair, in a little hole about the
size of a cupboard. It is frescoed everywhere. The good priest (as his
tomb was being repaired) gave me a nail out of his coffin, and a bit of
its wood, to keep as a treasure. The priest at Monselice has an amateur
collection of curios of every sort; a brave, gentlemanly old man, and
very much taken with Richard. From here we went to Mont' Ortoni and
to Abano, other baths of the same nature. Thence to Monte Rua to see
a monastery of Benedictines, where there is an exquisite view of the
Italian plains; and one can see Padua, Vicenza, Venice, and the sea in
the distance.

We always drove, and where we could not drive I had Richard carried on
a chair on two poles everywhere, and I remember so well his saying,
"I have always been afraid of being paralyzed, but I do not care in
the least now, because I see that I could go about just the same." We
returned to Battaglia, and went to a theatre in the evening that was
just like a hole in some stables, and everything was to match. It was
done, and well done, by the _dilettanti_ of Padua (Torquato Tasso).
We then went on to Vicenza. The hotel was rather like Noah's Ark, but
it was not uncomfortable. It was now much cooler weather. We arrived
at Palezetta, Montecchio, Cornedo with its four churches, and then we
drove up a mountain ascent to Recoaro.

The cure here is chiefly a sitz-bath of Fonte Reggia water once a day,
from one to three litres of Acqua Amára (bitter water) to drink per
diem, a douche for the eyes twice, a douche for the back once, and
cold compress at night. We had a charming drive to Valdagno; there are
caves, mines, and petroleum there. Other excursions are Monte Guiliane,
Fonte Vegri, Fonte Aqua di Capitello, Forano, Rovegliano, where there
is a miraculous Virgin, Val d'Agno, Castagnara, Peserico, Spaccata,
L'Aura, and Nogara; but the grandest of all is to the peak called the
Spitz. We went all these excursions in country carts or on donkeys,
for Richard was getting quite strong, and the country is exceedingly
beautiful and mountainous. From the Spitz there is a magnificent view
of the whole country, but we were eleven hours out.

For those who want to go to Recoaro from the main line between Milan
and Venice, Tavernelle is the proper place. It is three hours' drive
from Tavernelle to Recoaro. On our return to Vicenza we went to see
Monte Berice. At Verona we stayed to see the amphitheatre, the church
of Zanone, the tombs of the Scaligers, the gardens of the Conte
Giusti, the Duomo, the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, the museum, Roland
the Brave's statue, the Palazzo dei Consiglii, the Arco dei Borsari.
We began early to explore Vicenza, the Palazzo della Ragione by
Pallagio, the great architect of Vicenza, the Palazzo Prefettizio, the
Cathedral, and the church of the Corona (where is the best Baptism in
Jordan I have ever seen), by Giovanni Bellini. There are two styles of
architecture--Venetian semi-Gothic, the Pallagio school, classical. We
visited the house of Pigafetta, as well as the house of Pallagio; this
gem, which has been most beautiful, is now neglected and forgotten. He
was a great navigator, and was one of the companions of Magellan. So
much for posthumous fame. The Theatre Olimpico is one of the oldest
and most interesting specimens of Pallagio. Here the Academicians used
to act the old Greek and Latin plays about 1580. 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.

[Sidenote: _The Nile on the Tapis again_.]

Meantime the following letter about the Nile appeared from Mr. Findlay
(_Athenæum_, March 21, 1874, No. 2421):--


 "THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.


 "Dulwich Wood, March 18, 1874.

 "It is somewhat remarkable that each accession to our knowledge of
 Lake Tanganyika has added to the difficulties of the Nile problem; for
 while oral testimony almost universally points towards its connection
 with that great river, yet the two occasions on which its northern end
 was examined would seem, at first sight, to negative such a solution.
 There are many other evidences in favour of its having a northern
 outlet, in addition to those which have been well adduced by Mr. Mott,
 in the _Athenæum_ of March 14th, and those in my letter which you
 inserted in the _Athenæum_ of February 28th.

 "Mr. Stanley's account of the puny and insignificant streamlet which
 he was told was the Rusizi river, shows that it cannot be taken to
 have any weight whatever on the solution of the great enigma. The
 journey he describes has overturned the basis of Captain Speke's
 theory of the existence of lunar mountains. He does not say one
 word about the existence of the eleven _great_ rivers which Captain
 Speke was told fell into the northern head of Tanganyika, therefrom
 inferring that they rose in an extensive and lofty mountain chain
 which entirely separated the Tanganyika lake from the Nile basin.

 "Captain Speke, in his account of the share he took in the
 Burton-Speke expedition,[3] gives a most explicit account of an
 _outward_ flow at the north end of the lake, from the statement of
 Sheikh Hamed, a respectable Arab merchant, one of a class whose
 trustworthy testimony was proved by the way in which Captain Burton
 was enabled to lay down on their map the outlines of rivers and
 countries they could not visit in their expedition of 1856-58. Sheikh
 Hamed, after an accurate description of Lake Tanganyika and the rivers
 which flow into it, says, 'On a visit to the northern end, _I saw
 one_ which was very much larger than either of these (the Marungu and
 the Malagarázi), and which I am certain _flowed out_ of the lake; for
 although I did not venture on it ... I went so near its outlet that I
 could see and feel the _outward drift_ of the water.' This is in exact
 accordance with the observations of Dr. Livingstone and Mr. Stanley,
 quoted heretofore.

 "The late venerable Mr. Macqueen published, in 1845,[4] a very
 circumstantial account of another Arab, Lief ben Saied's visit to the
 great African lake, of course unknown at that time to Europeans. He
 says, 'It is well known by all the people there that the river which
 goes through Egypt takes its origin and source from the lake.'

 "These extracts, with many others, have been frequently quoted before
 in the discussion of the most ancient geographic problem yet left
 to us, and I will not extend them by any reference to many mediæval
 speculations, based on the evidently correct and much misunderstood
 geography of Ptolemy, and but to only one of comparatively modern
 times, the first announcement from authentic information. It is that
 given by Pigafetta, among many wild speculations of his own, from the
 authority of Duarte (or Odoardo) Lopez, in his 'Relatione del Reaine
 di Congo,' published in 1591. He states that 'there are two lakes, ...
 situated north and south of each other, in almost a direct line, and
 about four hundred miles asunder. Some persons in these countries are
 of opinion that the Nile, after leaving the first lake, hides itself
 underground, but afterwards rises again.... The Nile truly has its
 origin in this first lake, which is in 12° south latitude, ... and it
 runs four hundred miles due north, and enters another very large lake,
 which is called by the natives a sea, because it is two hundred and
 twenty miles in extent, and it lies under the equator.'[5] I will not
 now extend these quotations, but the last-named author, as has been
 pointed out by Mr. R. H. Major, has indicated the connection between
 the two lakes on his map as 'Lagoa,' a lagoon or shallow, coinciding
 exactly with Sir Samuel Baker's information.

 "I trust that the expeditions now on foot in Africa will settle this
 great controversy, and secure for England and the Royal Geographical
 Society the honour of finally closing the canon of ancient geography,
 and completing the grand discoveries commenced by Captain Burton
 in 1857, which has been denied to the greatest explorer that ever
 existed, Dr. Livingstone.

 "But there is one aspect of the geographic solution which may be
 thought by many not so desirable as the simple fact of the final
 determination of a grand geographic problem. It may be demonstrated
 that Lake Tanganyika and its southern extension, the beautiful Lake
 Liemba, first seen by Dr. Livingstone, and its tributaries, reaching
 to the cold highlands where that great man's earthly career ended, all
 belong to the basin of the Nile. If it be the determination of the
 Khedive that Egypt and the Nile basin shall be conterminous, there
 may be something to deplore on the missionary object of the great
 traveller's life. The Mohammedan influence, which has been so forcibly
 dwelt on of late by Sir Samuel Baker, may, in these distant regions,
 become paramount, and the telegrams of to-day tell us that by great
 efforts the navigation of the Nile has been opened up to Gondokoro,
 so that it behoves Europe to make strenuous exertions to prevent the
 great efforts she has made to open Africa to Western civilization from
 being turned to her detriment.

 "A. G. FINDLAY."

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 shooting by the
family proprietors of the inn; but we never saw anything, after miles
of walking over stony country, but an occasional hare, and for our
parts, as we were not hungry, we used to fire everywhere 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, _née_ 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.

[Sidenote: _My Arab Girl goes Home to be married_.]

Richard now proposed a thing which disconcerted me considerably, 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 was getting very
unhappy about my poor little Arab maid; she had been very much petted
and spoiled; she was getting quite beyond my orders, and would only do
what she fancied. It was not easy to marry her in Europe, so that I
felt her life would be thrown away. I therefore wrote to her father,
to tell him that we proposed to send her home under the charge of the
captain and the stewardess of the first ship direct to Beyrout, and
that he should meet her, and that he should try and marry her to some
of her own people if possible. I told her she had often reproached me
with not being able to give her a holiday; that England had disagreed
with her so much before, I was afraid to take her back, and that she
had better profit of my visit to England to go and see her parents.
She liked very much the idea of going to show all her fine clothes
and pretty things, and a good sum of money I had saved for her, and
she started off with nine boxes full, and a purse full of gold, and
before long I heard to my great relief that she had married one of her
own people, and was settled down in the Buká'a. It was nevertheless a
great wrench to part with her, and we always keep up our affection and
correspond in broken Arabic and broken English.

On the 4th of December I put her on board, and 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. At Dijon a little Frenchman, hearing
me speak German to my maid, accused me of insulting his sister and
throwing down her shawl, collected a crowd, had my little dog taken
from me and put into the dog-box, although I had taken a ticket to
hold it on my knees. I vainly explained that I had never seen either
the sister or the shawl, so that I could not have insulted them; and
I was very meek, because I was alone. When he found out I was an
Englishwoman, he almost cried with vexation for what he had done. 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. My
work was pretty well cut out for me, and I got so wrapped up in it,
that sometimes I worked for thirteen hours a day, and would forget to
eat. They would come and put a tray by my side with something on it,
and I can remember once, after working for thirteen hours, feeling my
head whirling, and being quite alarmed, and then I suddenly remembered
that I had forgotten to eat anything all day, which I at once did, and
recovered.

During the two years we had been at Trieste Richard had occupied
himself with writing the "Lands of the Cazembe,"[6] and 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, _Macmillan's 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 _manchette_, 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.

[Sidenote: _Gordon_.]

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 two 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 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 evenings, 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."

I have got all Gordon's and his correspondence, and I will give
specimens in the coming work, which I shall call "The Labours and
Wisdom of Richard Burton," as in this book there is no room to dilate
upon his works for his country, nor to quote letters. The subject is so
extensive that it would never be read in one work.

I had the pleasure during this visit to London of making acquaintance
with Miss Emily Faithful, and renewing acquaintance with Mrs. Pender
Cudlip (Annie Thomas). Miss Faithful took me to Middleton Hall,
Islington, where she was going to take the chair on Women's Rights.

I need not say that I did not get much time for amusement, between
Richard's proof-sheets and mine, K.C.B. letters, sulphur and saltpetre
mines--except in the evening, when I went out a great deal.

On the 1st 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'hôte_."

[Sidenote: _Winwood Reade's Death_.]

During all the month of April I was very sad about Winwood Reade, who
was living, or rather dying, alone in a wretched little room at the top
of a house. I used to go and see him every day and try and cheer him,
and take him anything I fancied he could touch. I asked him if money
could be of any use to him, but he told me he had quite enough to last
him for the time he had to live. What distressed me the most of all,
was the state he was dying in, which to me was dreadful, because he
said he had no belief, and it seemed true. Of course it was useless--it
was no business of mine; but I could not help doing my best during the
last fortnight of his life to induce him to believe in God, and to be
sorry before he died. Three or four days before he died, Mr. and Mrs.
Sandwith, who were very old friends of his, removed him to their place,
"The Old House, Wimbledon," where he passed away quietly on the 24th of
April, 1875. He had caught a cold sitting up at night to write his last
book, and had accomplished it in six weeks, but the cold settled on his
chest. R.I.P.

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.

This year, 1875, Richard took it into his head to make his fortune by
producing a Bitter, the secret of which he had learnt in the East; it
was to be put into a pretty bottle, and to have his picture on it. We
took a great deal of trouble about it; it was to be called "Captain
Burton's Tonic Bitters." It was compounded by a Swedish physician in
1565. He had been hospitably received in a Franciscan monastery, and
having nothing to reward them with, before his death, he gave it as a
token of gratitude to the Prior. It was extensively used by the monks
as a restorative and nervous stimulant during three centuries, and
the prescription was given to Richard by his Franciscan friend Padre
Francesco. One tablespoonful was to be given in a glass of water or
sherry, or diluted cognac. I have got the recipe now. Many people
have made a fortune with less, but we were not knowing money-makers.
It was supposed to digest and stimulate, and completely took away the
consequences of drinking overnight. I am now starting it again with the
same chemist with whom we intended to drive it in 1875.

One night in May (my book "Inner Life of Syria" had come out in the
morning, and being my first independent publication I went to bed
quite ill with fright and the agony of a novice, thinking that all the
world now knew what I was thinking about everything)--it so happened
that I had to go to a party that night whether I liked it or not, but
when I saw a famous Editor standing at the top of the stairs I nearly
turned round and bolted out of the house, till I saw a kindly smile
breaking out all over his face, and his two hands extended to me, and
heard warm congratulations on having written "such a book," which made
me as happy as if somebody had just given me a fortune. This month
Richard went to the Levée.

[Sidenote: _K.C.B._]

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.

 "June 24, 1869.

 "DEAR SIR RODERICK MURCHISON,

 "I have already spoken to you and personally petitioned that you
 should ask that my husband, Captain Burton, may be made a K.C.B. You
 desired that I should furnish you with reasons for making such a
 petition. I do this with pleasure, and they are as follows:--

 "He has been in active service of one kind or another--in each
 distinguishing himself--for twenty-seven years. Any one of these
 services would have ensured most men some high reward, but he remains,
 at forty-eight years of age, a simple Consul in her Majesty's service,
 without so much as a decoration or an honour of any kind.

 "It will be objected that a military K.C.B. cannot be made.

 "To this I have to reply, that Captain Burton was nineteen years in
 the Bombay army--the first ten years in active service, serving five
 of those years in the Scinde Survey on Sir Charles Napier's staff.
 He joined his regiment when marching upon Mooltan to attack the
 Sikhs, and only returned home when compelled by a severe attack of
 ophthalmia--the result of mental and physical over-fatigue.

 "In 1853 he published a system of bayonet exercise--which is actually
 the one adopted at present by the Horse Guards--which was acknowledged
 by an order on the Treasury for the sum of one shilling.

 "In the Crimea he was Chief of the Staff to General Beatson, and was
 the chief organizer of the Irregular Cavalry, and at the moment of
 their disbanding had four thousand sabres in perfect training, ready
 to do anything and go anywhere.

 "In 1861 he came under the reduction when the Indian army changed
 hands, and his whole nineteen years were swept out as if they had
 never been, without a vestige of pay or pension. For all this a K.C.B.
 would be a compensation.

 "During the times he was not in active military service he was serving
 his country, humanity, science, and civilization in other ways, by
 opening up lands hitherto unknown, and trying to do good wherever he
 went.

 "Baker and Grant have been rewarded for _one_ expedition; Speke
 _would_ have been had he lived; Livingstone _will be_ when he returns;
 and Captain Burton only is left out in the cold. It is forgotten that
 he was the first to lead the way--that he, so to speak, opened the
 oyster, while Baker, Speke, and Grant appear to have taken the pearl;
 yet every news we get from Livingstone proves that Captain Burton's
 original theory was the right one, and that _his_ Lake Tanganyika is
 the true head source of the Nile, for which all the others have been
 decorated. Again, it must be remembered that each of these men have
 made _one_ expedition, and got a large reward, whilst Captain Burton
 has made several, most of which were at the risk of his life; for
 instance--

 "1. Mecca and Medinah.

 "2. Somali-land, East Africa (badly wounded, and lost all his
 effects). Speke second in command.

 "3. The Lake Regions of Central Africa (Speke again second in
 command). The first attempt to discover the Sources of the Nile.
 Three years absent, twenty-one fevers, temporary paralysis, and total
 blindness.

 "4. California and the Mormon Country.

 "For eight years and a half Captain Burton has been in the Consular
 Service--

 "Firstly.--On the West Coast of Africa, which he thoroughly explored,
 from Bathurst, on the Gambia, down to S. Paulo de Loanda, in Angola,
 and the Congo river, visiting the cannibal Fans, and discovering many
 unknown places.

 "This included a dangerous mission of three months' visit to the King
 of Dahomè, where he was sent by the Foreign Office as Commissioner.

 "Lastly.--Four years in Brazil, where he has been equally active and
 useful, both on the coast and the interior, having thoroughly explored
 his own province, which is larger than France; the Gold and Diamond
 Mines of Minas Geraes; canoed down the great river S. Francisco,
 fifteen hundred miles; visited the Argentine Republic, the river La
 Plata and Paraguay, for the purpose of reporting the state of the war
 to the Foreign Office; crossed the Andes, amongst the bad Indians, and
 visited all the Pacific Coast; and this during sick leave.

 "It would be idle and useless to enumerate all that Captain Burton has
 done in these twenty-seven years, but still there is no need to pass
 over his thorough knowledge of twenty-five languages, and the fact
 that he has written almost thirty standard works.

 "He is now transferred to Damascus, where his friendship with
 Mohammedans and knowledge of Arabic and Turkish will put him in
 intimate relations with Arab tribes.

 "Inasmuch as certain designing persons, who are known to us, covet
 the Consulship to which he is appointed, and are not very scrupulous
 in their means of trying to bring about their wishes by making
 disagreeable complications for him, it would be a great help to
 Captain Burton to leave England with the prestige of having received
 some mark of approval from his country for his past services, and as
 Sir Samuel Baker is already knighted and made a C.B. for his _one_
 expedition, Captain Burton would like to have something higher for his
 _many_ services, and in the shape of a military distinction for his
 past unacknowledged military services, that is, a K.C.B.

 "I am sure you will consider that, having done almost more than any
 other six men living, this distinction is fairly earned, and you will,
 I am certain, as his old friend and one of his earliest patrons,
 endeavour to obtain it for him.

 "I am, dear Sir Roderick, yours most truly,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Hewlett's Hotel, 36, Manchester Street, W., London."

In 1878 I added--

 "He explored all the unknown parts of Syria, Palestine, and the
 Holy Land. He saved the poor peasantry of his jurisdiction from the
 usurers; advanced the just claims of British subjects. He kept the
 peace when a massacre seemed imminent, and opposed the fanatical
 persecution directed against the Christians. Damascus was reduced to
 a Vice-Consulate, and Captain Burton was therefore recalled, and with
 'leave' proceeded to explore Iceland.

 "Fourthly.--On his return he found himself appointed to Trieste, where
 he has explored and described prehistoric ruins unknown to the world,
 and pronounced to be the most interesting on the continent of Europe.
 He has also added several new literary works to his writings, and
 other languages in addition to those before mentioned.

 "Captain Burton deeply feels this want of appreciation of his
 services, for it is not only a neglect, it amounts to an imputation
 upon his career. He is now not only the first opener of the Lake
 Regions of Central Africa, but the senior African traveller in
 England. Most men who have done even average duty, military and civil,
 during thirty-two years, are acknowledged by some form of honour.
 To what, then, can the public at home and abroad attribute the cold
 shade thrown over exploits which are known and appreciated throughout
 Europe? The various geographical societies of the Continent have, it
 is true, made him an honorary Fellow. But the foreign Governments--for
 instance, the Italian, which bestowed gold medals and other honours
 upon Captain Speke and the Rev. Mr. Badger--cannot be expected to
 lead the way in honouring a man whose services are ignored by his
 own rulers. He hopes that he may be recommended to her Majesty and
 her Majesty's Government, for honours no less than those received by
 Sir Samuel Baker, and which would have been conferred upon the other
 heroic travellers had they lived to receive them. In one word, he asks
 to be made a K.C.B."

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 _bonâ-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.

This year we had some expeditions down the Thames. My brothers and
sisters had a boat, and we used to go down to Oxford, sleeping at
little inns on the river-side at night, and cooking our food on the
banks at lunch-time.

Richard and I went down to Oxford to see Professors Vaux, Jowett,
Thomas Short, and McLaren, and, as he was fond of doing, to revisit
the colleges--his own Trinity, and Magdalen and Oriel--and to go
on the river. I note in our journals of this year, 1875, that we
often breakfasted twice and lunched twice, that is to say, to fulfil
invitations, and one night we had thirteen invitations, and made a bet
that we would do them all, beginning by a dinner-party; and we won it
by passing the night in the streets, and only staying a quarter of an
hour everywhere.

Richard was lounging at a supper-room door of a ball one night, when an
impertinent young "masher" walked up to him and said, "Aw--are you one
of the waitahs?" So Richard smiled and pulled his long moustache, and
said with a quiet drawl, "No--are you? For you look a damned sight more
like a waiter than I do, and I was in hopes you were, because I might
have got something to drink."[7]

Richard's picture, by Sir Frederick Leighton, was exhibited in the
Academy of 1875.

[Sidenote: _Meeting Mr. Gladstone--Incidents of London Life_.]

On the 10th of June we had the pleasure of being asked to meet Mr.
Gladstone at Lord Houghton's. Very late in the evening Mrs. Gladstone
said to me, "I don't know what it is, but I can't get Mr. Gladstone
away this evening." And I said to her, "I think I know what it is;
he has got hold of my husband, Richard Burton, and they are both so
interested one with the other, and have so many points of interest to
talk over, that I venture to hope that you will not take him away."

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 expressed a wish to have his last book, which I had the
pleasure of leaving with her secretary.

There was a great Licensed Victuallers' dinner at which two thousand
were present, Alfred Bates Richards, who was editor of their paper, the
_Morning Advertiser_, and Richard's great friend, being the President.
Richard was a guest, and was asked to make a speech.

Richard had, amongst others, a very remarkable friend; his popular
name was "Bob Campbell;" numbers of men knew him well. He was very
gentlemanly, very clever, poor, proud, eccentric. He knew Paris as
well as London. Richard and he had a very sincere friendship for each
other. He lived in an attic, and the second room was a kitchen. He
once took it into his head that it was very silly to have to go to the
expense of a coffin and not to utilize it during his life, so he went
and had himself measured for one, and ordered quite a nice oak and
brass, and a plate with his name and everything usual on it, leaving
a space for the date, only he had it fitted up inside with crossway
shelves, so as to utilize it for keeping cold meat, or bottles, or
any other sort of thing. He then told the undertaker to send it on a
hearse covered up in the usual way, mutes and all. When it arrived, the
landlord ran up in a dreadful state and said, "Sir, what is to be done?
there are two mutes at the door with handkerchiefs up to their eyes,
and they say the coffin is for one Mr. Robert Campbell. I told them you
were not dead, but they say there is no mistake; it is for here, and
they won't go away." So Bob Campbell, who had previously arranged the
whole scene with the men, went down and told them to bring the coffin
up, and put his own handkerchief up to his eyes, saying, "This is a
very melancholy occasion indeed; pray bring the coffin upstairs." So it
was brought up and set like a little cupboard against the wall, and he
gave the mutes something to drink and paid them, and they went away,
but the landlord could not get over it at all.

This same Bob Campbell gave delightful little literary suppers, to
which we used to go. He used to put on a white-paper cap and white
apron, and disappear to do the cooking himself. He used to make a most
beautiful _bouille-a-baisse_, which he would bring in, in a valuable
large china bowl, and ladle it out to us, and it was so good we wanted
nothing else for supper. Then he would mix his "cup" or his punch (in
another exquisite china bowl), and ladle it out with china cups. He
used to say, "Now, you must fancy yourself in the Quartier Latin in
Paris;" and they tell me it was just like the description. We went
twice that summer to him, and the company was so amusing that we stayed
till six, and came in with the milk. One morning we had breakfast with
Sir Frederick Leighton, and we had our last Sunday's Divan. We went
to the Princess of Wales's Chiswick party, and the same night Richard
started off for another trip to Iceland.

[Sidenote: _Excursions_.]

I was now left alone for a few weeks, and as I had twenty-two
country-house invitations, I made a sort of flying rush around, staying
about twenty-four hours at each. Amongst others, I went to see the Duke
and Duchess of Somerset at Bulstrode, Lady Tichborne, now Mrs. Wickham,
and Madame von Bülow at Reigate, then wife, now widow of the then
Danish Minister, with whom I formed a friendship which lasts till now,
and I hope will always last.

Richard was not gone more than six weeks, and then he returned with an
attack of lumbago, followed by gout.

He went off again as soon as he got better. He went by ship to Rouen.
He wished to go to Tours to revisit the old home of his childhood, and
from thence to Vichy to do some good to the gout, and from there to
make a pilgrimage, all by himself, to Paray le Monial, from whence he
brought me beads and medals, and arrived in London on October 6th.

[Sidenote: _More London Life_.]

This autumn we had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr. Henry
Irving, and we saw a great deal of him, and were very constant visitors
at _Macbeth_, which was just out.

I notice some of the most pleasant dinners at the latter part of our
stay in England were one at Mr. Dicey's, at George Augustus Sala's, Mr.
Whyte-Cooper's, in Berkeley Square, where we met Professor (the late
Sir Richard) Owen, and Mr. Frank Buckland, and other delightful people.
There was a meeting at the Geographical, where also were Sir Samuel
Baker and Colonel Grant. Richard and I gave a little supper afterwards,
at which I remember, amongst others, were Mr. Henry Irving, Mr. Val
Bromley the handsome artist, the before-named Bob Campbell, Swinburne,
Mr. Theodore Watts, and Sir Frederick Leighton. Early in this year I
had a visit from Laurence Oliphant, and we had a long conversation
about his spiritual views and the part he had taken in Richard's
affairs, for which he was sorry.

[Sidenote: _Leave England_.]

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 surrounding 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 _à 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 _Hamlet_, 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.

Mr. Kelly, who was then Consul, always made our stay pleasant as
long as he was there, and we had delightful purely Milanese dinners
together at the Rebecchino. I never pass Milan, and for those who do
not know Milan well, I may say that I advise them never to go through
without seeing Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in the refectory of
Nostra Signora delle Grazie; then in the Brera, Raphael's "Marriage
of the Virgin," with the rejected suitor breaking his rod; the tower
of Azoni Visconti, where Jain Maria Visconti was murdered; Saint
Gothardo, beautiful Lombard architecture, the façade of the Hospital
in terra cotta, so beautifully carved, and the cloistered court; then
San Bernardino dei Morti, a curious little church whose whole interior
is made of bones and skulls. Every one should go up to the top of
Milan Cathedral, which is a garden of spires and pinnacles and statues
like lace-work, and of faces of which no two are alike. The view is
glorious, and the mountains of Lecco are capped with snow and rosy in
the sun.

We arrived in Venice on a dark, sad, silent night, when the plash of
the gondola has a sad music of its own. At this time the Montalbas--the
whole family are clever, and Clara, whose Venetian paintings are so
celebrated, is the best known--were in Venice. These two girls hired
a kitchen in their early days, turned it into a studio, and thus gave
birth to their now famous works. 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!

[1] To go by sea from England to Trieste occupies from twenty-one to
twenty-six days. To go by rail, if you never stop, was in those days a
matter of sixty-three hours.

[2] N.B.--This was changed in 1883. They lived for the last eight years
in a _palazzonè_ in a large garden, on a wooded eminence standing out
to sea, and had four such splendid views on each side, that they said
that "if they were in England there would be express trains to see
them."--I. B.

[3] _Blackwood's Magazine_, September, 1859, p. 352.

[4] "See _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, vol. xv. pp.
361-374."

[5] "Pigafetta, edition 1591, p. 80."

[6] "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 Africa from Angola to Tette on the Zambesi,"
translated by B. A. Beadle, and a _résumé_ of the "Journey of MM.
Monteiro and Gamitto," by Dr. C. T. Beke, published by the R.G.S.
(London, John Murray, 1873).

[7] A good pendant to this is Mr. Gilbert, to whom an aggressive masher
said, "Aw--call me a four--wheelah." "Call you a four-wheelah? Of
course, I will call you a 'four-wheelah' if you wish. I would call you
'a hansom' if _I could_."




CHAPTER II.

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 Bogójevich. H.R.H. the Duke of Wurtemburg, 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 Khorassán," 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
"Adventures of Roderick Random" and "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality."
At Port Sáid, 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 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. The Nizam (regular soldiers), negroes, Bedawi
draped in usual cloak and _kuffíyeh_, and women in blue garments, not
changed a hair since the days of Abraham, except that they now carry
matchlocks instead of spears; the tawny camels squat upon the ground;
the black sheep and goats huddle in knots, vainly attempting to shade
their heads from the sun; the seedy _dahabíyyeh_ rolls past, and is
hustled aside by the fussy high-pressure _mouche_, which carries the
mails daily to Ismailiyyah, a pretty mushroom town with palaces,
Consulates and gardens, with telegraph and railway. It contained then
two thousand souls, and hoisted nine various national flags. The land
of Goshen is immediately north-west. There are plenty of foxes on the
Asiatic side, and one sat like a dog on the sandbank and stared at us.
We passed the village called Serapeum, which communicates with a Bedawi
village in Asia. To the south and westward rise the sandy cliffs of
Jebel Jeneffeh, and towering above all, Jebel Atakeh. As we got near
Suez, the children run along, crying, "Bakshish!" The soldiers threw
them a bit of bread, but as we threw them nothing the petition changed
to the curses with which the Orientals are so familiar, "Na'al Abukum
ya Kilab!" ("Drat your fathers, O ye dogs!")

At Suez, if you leave your ship--and it is only going to anchor for
a few hours in the bay, an hour's steam from the town, and much more
by sail--there is a great danger, if a contrary wind springs up, that
you are not able to join it. From being a town of importance, Suez
was ruined by the opening of the Canal. She has become a big village
of three thousand natives, and about seventy-five Europeans, employed
in telegraph, post-office, steamers, and railways. She sits solitary
under the sky in the sand on the borders of the sea, far from all
civilization or progress. She has had a past, and Richard says she
_will have a future_. The troops were then collecting at Masáwwah;
three thousand camels were being shipped. One would think that this
regular wall of Asiatic mountain, now painted pink and plum blue by
the last flood of sunlight, which begins far north of the Lebanon,
and which extends southwards to Aden, a counterpart of the Moab
range, would have served Holman Hunt for a background to his famous
"Scape-goat." Richard knew all this ground twenty-five years before,
and he showed me where the Israelites are supposed to have crossed the
Red Sea, and where they did cross. Christians have three places, and
the Arabs two.

The Red Sea to starboard, where Africa rises wild and grim, is a
dangerous shore, requiring lighthouses, which it has not. The morning
after, we could see Mount Sinai lone in the Tih Desert. In my husband's
Arab days, he landed at Tur, and bathed at Hammam Musa on his way to
Mecca. On the other side is the Gulf of Akabah the stormy, and Richard
at this time (1876) was brewing his project of the Midian mines, whose
gold he had discovered twenty-five years before. He then pointed out
to me Yambu, the Port of Medinah, where he was in his pilgrimage, and
the winding valleys that lead to it, and Richard asked the pilot about
Sa'ad, the Shaykh of the Harb Bedawi, the robber-chief of the Jebel el
Fikrah, who attacked Richard's caravan going to Mecca, and he replied
that "that dog has since gone to Jehannum."

[Sidenote: _Jeddah_.]

Jeddah is the most lovely town I have ever seen, and by moonlight quite
ghostly. It looks like an ancient model carved in old ivory. It was
here my husband came by land _from_ Mecca, after the pilgrimage, and
embarked in 1853. Mecca lies in a valley between those high mountains
at the back. Mr. Gustavus Wylde, the Vice-Consul, the son of our old
friend Mr. Henry Wylde, of the F.O., sent a boat and a _kawwás_ to
bring us off, and insisted on our remaining, the eight days that we
were to anchor there, at the Consulate, which we gladly accepted, and
I think it was the pleasantest eight days I ever remember. It was a
bachelor house, consisting of five men. The Consulate was made of
white coralline, with brown wood shutters; jalousies and balconies of
fanciful shape, mostly all crooked, but as finely carved as delicate
lace. There was a room at the top, a sort of belvedere with windows
opening to all sides with delicious views, which I called "The Eagle's
Nest," and everything was a combination of Eastern and European
comfort. They always mounted us, and we used to ride out into the
desert by the Hajj way. It was very tantalizing to find one's self so
near Mecca--on one occasion about twenty-five miles--and to have to
turn round and come back; but two Americans and two English had gone up
for a lark, and had got into trouble. Richard could have gone, but it
was not exactly the time to show my blue eyes and broken Arabic upon
holy ground, so we returned through the Meccan Gate and the bazars,
which are half-dark and half-lit.

[Sidenote: _Bazars of Jeddah_.]

The population, except at the Hajj time, including the eleven villages
in the plain, is estimated at eighteen, at twenty, at forty thousand.
There were only ten resident Christians--European officials or
merchants--no ladies. Three of these are Consuls--France, England, and
Netherlands. I need not say that we saw everything in Jeddah, and all
around it, except Mecca. To have taken these rides, to have walked
through the Mecca Gate, to have wandered about the bazars in 1853, when
my husband went to Mecca, would have cost us our lives. I cannot tell
how I enjoyed the bazars; they are larger and cleaner than Damascus,
but I think less rich, and even less picturesque, and my description of
the Hajj of Damascus in my "Inner Life of Syria" would do equally well
for both. They swarm with a picturesque and variegated mob from all
parts of the world; every Eastern Moslem under the sun is represented.
There are camels, donkeys, _takhtarawán_ (litters), pilgrims, and
Bedawi in quantities, but very few horses. We felt happy in this
atmosphere, and the Arabic sounds so musical and so familiar. Here is
the open-air mosque where the prayers of the Ramazan are recited. Here
the pariah dogs are fiercer than in all other quarters. Here are the
pits where the lime is burnt, the fuel and charcoal brought in by the
Bedawi, the street of wattled matted booths, where meat and provisions
are sold; this, side by side with the great bazar, showing the
splendour and misery of the East. Tall-capped, long-bearded Persians
are selling fine carpets, cutlery, precious stones--chiefly turquoises
and gulf-pearls--and choice water-pipes. Those from Yemen are offering
weapons studded with the gold coins of the Venetian Republic, Yemen
guns, perfumed coffee, delicate filagree work, and chiselled silver.
The pale-faced Turk, in his tarbush and furs in spite of the heat,
contemptuously offers arms, jewellery, rugs, and perfumes. Short, thin,
dark Indians in white cotton offer silks, dried goods, spices, drugs,
tea, rice, and building timber. The Nizam officer talks in a dark
corner to the sooty-faced Zanzibari slave-dealer, to settle the terms
of some fair purchase. The vulturine Takruri from Western Inner Africa
and the Bengali beggar scowl at each other, and the dervishes are
singing to the tambourine, and offering a brass pot for contributions.

Turcomans wearing huge mushroom-like caps of Astrachan wool,
Caucasians, Central Asians with wadded skull caps, retail to
crabbed-faced and spectacled scribes. The tall sinewy Kurd, with
gold-threaded _kuffíyyeh_ veiling his dark face, shaven chin, and
up-twisted moustachio, is a sheep-dealer and wrangling with the
lamb-sellers. The tall, lanky Sawakin Moslem, with sphinx-like curls
hanging to his shoulders and over his brow, the upper hair forming a
mighty tuft, is selling the mother-o'-pearl fished on the coast. An
Egyptian Fellah urges a small, neat horse through the crowd, crying his
price--twelve napoleons. The savage Somali offers little parcels of
gums, incense, and myrrh, the produce of the wild hills.

Strings of camels, from the high-bred _delúl_ to the diminutive
charity-made beast laden with grain and led by an equally miserable
Bedawin, who dresses in a long blouse stained yellow with saffron or
acacia bark, and kerchief bound to the head with ropes. They all wear
the _jambíyeh_ (dagger), either long and straight or short and curved.
They carry the crooked stick of the wilderness and the dwarf spear with
tapering head. Skeleton donkeys, holed with many a raw, and laden with
water-skins, are cruelly driven along by a peasant lad in blue rags;
but through the whole crowd we can detect our Shámis, or Damascenes, by
the animal of better breed, ridden well by a huge Haji, whose peculiar
_aba_, or cloak, proclaims him to be an Abu Shám, or father of Syria.

There is the surly, rough Slav Turk from Europe, in the Slav garb,
swaggering, with his belt full of weapons, past the natty sneering
Hejazi, who testily mutters "_Ghásim_" (Johnny Raw). This dandy affects
tender colours--a white turban bound round an embroidered _surah_
cap, a cashmere shawl, a _caftan_ of fine pink cloth, a green worked
waistcoat of silk and cotton, a silver-hilted dagger, and elaborately
embroidered slippers. There is the pauper Javanese with his pock-marked
face, Chinese features, and crooked-bladed Malay dagger; the Jedáwi,
selling at auction white soft coral, the produce of the Red Sea, bought
by pilgrims _in memoriam_ of their pilgrimage, and black coral-like bog
oak, found in thirteen fathoms of water some way down the coast. And
lastly brushed by us four brawny Hayramis, the _hammals_, or porters,
of these regions--men even stouter and stronger than the far-famed
Armenian porters of Constantinople, who carry a lean corpse, whose
toes are tied together; and close by us are seven little negroes with
oil-black skins, dressed in snowy sheets, who cast yearning looks at
us, for they are for sale.

The bazar at this moment is a panorama of Eastern life, whose
costumes, various types, difference of language, manners, and customs
form a veritable kaleidoscope. The dry heat of the tropical sun
darting through the plank joints, makes the pleasant "coolth" of the
coffee-houses and the bubble of the water-pipes refreshing. Every rug
and perfume of the Orient, of pipe and kitchen, assail the nose; the
sounds of the grunt of the camel, the howl of the trampled dog, the
chaff of the boys, the chant of the fakir, the blare of the trumpets,
the roll of the drum, the blessing, the curse, the shrill cry, the
hoarse expostulation, the babel of tongues, distant voices like the hum
of insects on a drowsy summer noon. Every one is armed to the teeth,
but no one ever draws a weapon.

At sunset the crowd melts away. The bazar when they light up at dusk
is wonderfully picturesque; then the wealthy pilgrim retires to his
caravansarai, the middle class to their tents, the majority to their
carpets and rugs and coffers, spread in the open street. By eight
o'clock the bazar is as silent as the desert, the moon rises, and the
prayer cry of the _Muezzin_ charms the ear (this one is peculiar to
Jeddah). 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."

[Sidenote: _Experiences on a Crowded Pilgrim-ship_.]

I was very pleased to see that all regarded him with great favour,
and though the whole story was known, the Governor and everybody 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 Jeddáwis will never be forgotten. We left in a _Sambúk_ 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.

There is a long reef near Jeddah, which we just shaved, but another
ship that went out at the same time (I will not name it) had taken
three hundred pilgrims, and she dashed on to it; the ship foundered,
and all hands were lost, except one or two who clung to the spars and
were picked up. They affirm that the English captain and officers were
drunk, that the fanaticism of the pilgrims was aroused, that they
combined and lashed them to the masts, and took charge of the ship
themselves. We saw her, and we wondered to see her apparently managing
herself, but there were no distress signals up. She ran on to this long
bank of rock, upon which breakers foamed higher than a ship. I do not
like to cumber my book with an account of the cause or source of the
cholera, nor the Jeddah massacre (the same that my husband foretold,
was officially snubbed for, which impolite letter he received in the
depths of Africa in early 1859, and by the same post the account of the
massacre); but I will do so either in the Appendix or in a future
book--"Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton."

It is a great experience to have been in a pilgrim-ship, but I am quite
content with _one_ experience--they suffered horribly, especially in
very wild weather.

On the twenty-seventh day the north-east monsoon _actually_ set in,
and destroyed all our peace. The pilgrims howled with fright, and many
died; they called "Allahu Akbar" day and night. The ship danced like
a cricket-ball. When the storm was at its height Richard was smoking
behind a shelter in the bow of the vessel, in the quarters where the
sturdiest of our pilgrims had established themselves--Afghans, and
all tribes from the north of India, men from Bokhara--when he saw
coming amongst them one of two Russian spies we had taken on board at
Suez. We had Somalis, Hindis, Arabs from Bokhara, Kokand, Kashgar,
Turcomans, Persians, Tashgand (these last Russian subjects), and to
those he addressed himself. Richard heard him telling them, in broken
Hindustani, that if any accident happened to the ship, that they should
aid him to overpower the Austrian captain and officers, and that they
and he would cut away the boats and escape, then batten down the
remainder of the pilgrims under the hatches, and escape.

As soon as he was gone away, Richard came out to them, and he spoke
to each set of men in their own dialect, and he told them that he was
an Englishman, and an officer of the Bombay army, and that that man
was a Russian spy; and he told them that the Russian had only told
them that, in order to get them into trouble when the ship got into
Bombay, that they might be looked upon as traitors in the sight of the
British Government, and on no account to follow him or his councils.
"If anything happened," he said, "everybody will be safely provided
for; but I shall follow that man about, and never leave him until the
Authorities in Bombay know all about him." The men quieted down at
once, and it made the Russian very uneasy to find that they would not
listen to him any more. And on arriving at Bombay Richard was as good
as his word.

I spent a great deal of my time amongst them, because their misery made
me suffer horribly. We lost twenty-three in twenty-three days, not of
disease, but of privation, fatigue, hunger, thirst, opium, vermin, and
misery. No one would believe it unless they saw the dirt and smelt the
horrible effluvia. They have two insatiable wants, and no ship ought to
be permitted to carry them unless they will give them a copious supply
of fresh good drinking water, and wood to cook with. Many a dying
pilgrim embarks without a penny, relying on charity; if there _is_ no
charity--which sometimes occurs--the wretch dies. They only want rice,
but the ship does not give it, and I have seen a man with three hundred
rupees in his belt die of starvation sooner than spend it. They never
move out of the small space or position assumed at the beginning of the
voyage. The richer ones are all right; the poor are skin and bone, half
naked, with a rag round the loins at most. They won't ask, but if they
see a kind face they speak with the eyes, as an animal does.

From light till dark, unless writing the biography, we were staggering
about our rolling ship with sherbet and food and medicines--we carried
no doctor--treating dysentery, fever, diarrhœa; but if I had the
misfortune to touch anything, they would not eat it, dying as they
were, because they would lose caste. But I made more progress with them
than most Europeans, because I could recite the Bismillah in giving it
to them. The first funerals made one very serious. I have alluded to
them in my "Arabia, Egypt, and India." What struck me was the jolliness
with which they were executed--it seemed no more than heaving the lead;
but I had never seen a funeral at sea, and I kept saying to myself,
"That poor Indian and I might both be lying dead to-day; there would
be a little more ceremony for me, and, excepting for my husband, it
would cast a gloom over the dinner-table for _one_ day only. The sharks
would eat us both, and perhaps like me a little the best, because I am
fat and well fed, and do not smell of cocoanut oil. Then we both stand
before the throne of God to be judged, he with his poverty, hardships,
privations, sufferings, pilgrimage, and harmless life, and I with all
my sins, my happy life, my luxuries, and the little wee bit of good I
have done, or ever thought to obtain mercy with--only equalled that our
Saviour died for both." All are laughing because it is only a poor,
ugly old skeleton of a "nigger;" not one of them thinking, "Supposing
that were _me!_ My turn _will_ come, and then the rest will think it
jolly fun to see _me_ thrown over the side."

Richard at Aden inquired after all his old party in his exploration to
Harar. Mohammed el Hammál died only a year ago. Long Guled and the two
women, Shehrazade and Deenarzade, are still alive; the former in camp,
the latter in Somali-land. Abdo (the End of Time) died a natural death;
Yusuf, the monocular one, was murdered by the Isá tribe; Hasan Hammad,
the boy, is now sergeant to the water-police. The Egyptians, who took
possession of Berberah and Zayla, entered Harar without fighting, and
the Amir died under suspicious circumstances. Rauf Pasha is invested on
all sides by Gallas and Somali, and is in considerable danger. Hasan
procured for us the coins of Harar, which Richard brought to England in
1878.

Aden is a wild and desolate spot, made of fiery rocks. One cannot
imagine any one living here; but Richard's old friend, Dr.
Steinhaüser, so often mentioned in these pages, lived here for
twenty-five years, and dropped down dead in Switzerland. On the
thirty-first day I have the following entry:--"A charming day, and
no one died. Have seen the prettiest sight possible, late afternoon.
Thousands of dolphins playing leap-frog under our bows, and keeping up
with the ship." If it had not been for Richard we should have been put
into quarantine, through the captain not knowing English, and not being
able to explain why he had had twenty-three deaths on board. The yellow
flag was already hoisted up; the pilgrims were in despair; but on
Richard explaining to the pilot, he pushed off to fetch the doctor, and
we were allowed to land, running into Bombay. The last we saw of the
holy mob was as a stream of black ants trickling down the ladders and
the ropes, hardly able to wait for the boats, and giving us something
like a cheer.

[Sidenote: _Bombay_.]

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 recollection 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 everywhere 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. The things that I found most interesting were a
certain Ali Abdullah, the son of a Syrian Bedawin, of the tribe of
Anazeh, who married a Christian, Europeanized himself, settled here,
and keeps stables of four or five hundred horses, imports from Persia
and elsewhere. We saw some perfect colts, one for £200, and some two
hundred _kadishi_, about fourteen hands high, useful, but not pretty,
worth about £12 or £14 in Syria. To the Garapooree Island we went to
see the wonderful Hindoo caves, called the Elephant Caves, covered with
carvings, cut out of solid blocks, of their Trinity--Shiva, Krishna,
and Vishnu. There is something to see all round the Bay.

The Bhendi Bazar is the best sight of all. In its way, it is almost as
striking and various as the bazars at Jeddah, so picturesque with its
coloured temples, irregular coloured houses, and its wares to sell.
There one sees something of native life in its native town. Malabar
Hill is very pretty, with its picturesque bungalows and vegetation.
Mr. Arbuthnot took us to Bandora, which was to him what Bludán was to
us in Syria, or Opçina at Trieste. He had there a charming bungalow
and stables by the sea, on Salsette Island, a cool, refreshing, rural,
and solitary place. The drive there took us through the bazar, and the
beautiful Máhim woods, a cocoa-palm forest, and across an inlet of the
sea, which looks like a lake, and divides Bombay from Salsette. On a
rising country, with wooded hills and the Ghauts for a background,
there is a romantic church, built by the old Portuguese two hundred and
fifty years ago, called Nossa Senhora do Monte. It commands a beautiful
view, and the water (like a lake in the depression) surrounds it. We
always went to Bandora every Saturday to Monday during our stay in
Bombay, and always met charming people--the late Duke of Sutherland,
Admiral Reginald Macdonald, Admiral Lambert; and Mr. Albert Grey
arrived.


SIND.


Now the Sind expedition came off. First, Bassein Dámán, Surat, the
first English factory in India, with the tombs of Vaux and Tom Coryat;
then Diu, a Head and Fort, Ja'afarábád, the ruins of Somanáth,
the home of the famous Gates; the Dwáriká 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--Káthiawár and Junágarh, better known as Gírnár. And then to
Manhóra, 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 Karáchi 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 Bahadúr 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 magnificent, but
everything else had changed for the worse; the old hospitality 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 Karáchi, 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, and to Gharra, where he had to live so miserably. He traces
the foundation of the lines of his old regiment, where he says, "None
of us died, because we were young and strong; but we led the life of
salamanders." He says, "There lies the old village, which saw so many
of our 'little games;' a cluster of clay hovels, with its garnishing of
dry thorns, as artlessly disposed as the home of the nest-building ape.
How little it has changed; how much have we!" He next goes to Nagar
(everywhere pronounced Nangar), and to Thathá, and Kalyan Kot, and the
Mekli Hills (holy places), where he composed the following poem:--

        "LEGEND OF THE LAKKÍ HILLS.


            "In awful majesty they stand,
            Yon ancient of an earlier earth,
            High towering o'er the lowly land
            That in their memories had birth;
            And spurning from their stony feet
            The rebel tides, that rush to beat
            And break where rock and water meet.
            Hoar their heads and black their brows,
            And scarred their ribbèd sides, where ploughs
            Old Age his own peculiar mark
            Of uneffaceable decay;
            And high and haughty, stern and stark,
            As monarchs to whose mighty sway,
            A hundred nations bow--stand they.

        "Within the deep dark cleft of rock dividing,
        Two giants taller than their kin,
        Whence the sharp blade of piercing torrent gliding,
        Here flashes sudden on the sight, there hiding
        'Mid stones all voice with crashing din;
        Where earthborn shade with skylight blends,
        A grot of grisly gloom impends
        The source from which the wave descends.

        "Upon its horrid mouth, I ween,
        The foot of man hath never been;
        The foulest bird of prey would shrink
        To nestle on that noisome brink.
    Now the warm cauldron's sulphury fumes upseething,
        As sighs that Stygian pit exhales,
        The cavern's pitchy entrance veils,
    Then in the wind's cold breath the vapours wreathing,
        Dissolve--again the eye defines
        The dripping portals' jagged lines.

        "A glorious vision from that cave
        Glittered before my gazing eye;
        A seraph-face, like one that beams
        Upon his sight, when blissful dreams
        Round holy hermit's pillow fly.
        A form of light, as souls that cleave
        The darksome dungeon of the grave,
        When awful judgment hour is nigh.
        And oh, that voice! Can words express
        The fulness of its loveliness,
        Its rare and wondrous melody?
        Ah, no! no mortal tongue may be
        So powerful in poesy!

        "Might I but gaze upon that brow,
            Might I but hear that witching strain,
        The joys that all the Seven Climes[1] know,
            The charms that all the heavens show,
        Were mine--but mine in vain.

        "A moment pass'd the sound away,
        Faded the vision from my sight;
        And all was as it was before--
        Vapour and gloom and deaf'ning roar.
        Then soft arose that sound again--
        Again appeared that form of light
        Athwart the blue mist, purely white;
        As from the main, at break of day,
        Springs high to heaven the silvery spray.

        "She beckoneth to me,
        And in that smile there is
        Promise of love and bliss,
        Enduring endlessly.

        "Whirled my brain, my heedless foot
            Already left the verge
        Where the water-spirit pours
            His bolts of feathery surge,
        Where iron rocks around, beneath,
        Stand quick to do the work of death.
        When, swift as thought, an icy arm
            Against my falling bosom prest;
        Its mighty touch dissolved the charm,
           As suns disperse the mists that rest
           On heathery mountains' dewy crest.

     "I heard the angry waters rave,
     I saw the horrors of the grave
         That yawned to gulf its prey;
     And started back in such dismay,
     As wretch that, waked from midnight sleep,
     Descries through shadows, glooming deep,
     The ghost of murdered victim glide,
     In gory robes, his couch beside.
     I looked towards the darkling cave;
     No more the vision glittered there,
     No music charmed the echoing air--
     That strain so sweet! that face so fair!--
     And, but for one shrilly shriek
     Of fiendish rage that smote mine ear,
     And, but for one horrent thrill
     That seemed with ice my veins to thrill;
     Well had I deem'd 'twas Fancy's freak,
     That scene, whose vivid features lie
     On Memory's page typed durably."

[Sidenote: _Travelling in Sind_.]

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.

 "I was last at Kotri in 1849. All that once _was_, is a dismal ruin,
 even the outer wall, which, loopholed and banquettéd, had driven off
 a host of Beloch swordsmen, headed by Mír Sháhdád. Who would fancy
 that the defence of that wall by the Light Company of H.M.'s 22nd
 Regiment, under Captain Conway, directed by Major Outram, had ever
 given rise to a treatise on the defence of field fortifications?
 Surely it would have been well, at the expense of a few rupees, to
 have kept up a place to which such mighty memories cling. The trees
 had grown, but everything else seems changed. I am now bound for my
 old home. Novelties meet my eye at every turn. In some places I find
 improvements."

On arriving he says--

 "What a change! Some twenty-five natives, mostly negresses, haunt
 the houses which lodged our corps. The Mess-house, to which many
 recollections attach, still stands, thanks to its foundation of baked
 brick, but the front is converted into an open stable for human
 beings. There lived the actors in the famous Phuleli Regatta; there
 W---- hatched all the troubles which prevented us from feeling too
 happy. There is the house which fell down, nearly crushing me and my
 _moonshee_; the fireplaces are half filled up; the floor is grown
 with camel thorn. How small and mean are the dimensions, which loom
 so large in the picture stored within the brain! There I temporarily
 buried the 'young person'[2] when the police-master gave orders to
 search the house. There T---- played peeping Tom upon his father and
 mother-in-law. How strange are the tricks of memory, which, often
 hazy as a dream about the most important events of a man's life,
 religiously preserves the merest trifles! And how very unpleasant to
 meet one's self, one's 'dead self thirty years younger'! Adieu, old
 home! I shall not perhaps see you again, but it is not in my power
 ever to forget you."

We go on from Hyderabad to Sakhar and Shikárpúr, 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 Kalhóra and Talpúr, 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 Pathán, 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 says--

 "There is a medium between the over-long and over-short service.
 A term of three years may make an intelligent and well-educated
 _Prussian_ soldier, but the system has become a caricature as adopted
 by other nations. Before 1848 the Austrian army was the finest in
 Europe; see what the three years' service has done for it."

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 _mêlée_, 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;[3] 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 Badhá and Unarpúr, Lakrá, and Sibt, wells in the desert, and
here he translated the tale of Bári and Isa (Jesus). Whilst among the
Belochs he wrote--

    "THE TALE OF BÁRI AND ISA.


    "Give ear, O ye sons of the Beloch,
    Whilst I recount to you a true tale!
    As Isa, the prophet of Allah,
    Was travelling, Fakir-like, over the earth,
    Seeing its wonders and its wastes,
    He came into a desert land
    Where no river nor Káríz was,
    Nor green fields, nor waving crops.
    Dreadful mountains rose on all four sides
    Round a plain of sand and flint,
    On which stood a stump (of tree) one cubit high,
    And propped against it sat Bári, the hermit,
    Meditating, with his shroud[4] over his head,
    Upon the might of Rabb Ta'álá.[5]
    Isa considered him awhile,
    Then, advancing, he touched his shoulder,
    Saying, 'Tell me truly, how dost thou live?
    What eatest thou in this grainless place,
    And what drinkest thou where no water is?'
    Bári raised his head from his breast;
    He was old and stone blind,
    His knees were sore by continued kneeling.
    And his bones, through fasting, pierced his skin.
    Yet his heart was as the life of the seed
    That dwells in a withered home.[6]
    He comprehended the question, and thus replied,
    Weeping and exclaiming, 'Wá wailá![7]
    How can man doubt the Creator's might?
    Sit down by me for awhile,
    I show thee the power of Allah.'
    Then the stump shot up till it became
    A noble towering tree;
    At morning prayers it began to grow,
    And (presently) shadowed the ground beneath.
    At midday berries appeared upon it,
    Hanging in festoons like the young brab's fruit.
    In the afternoon they became brightly red,
    As the date when it falls from the tree;
    Before the sun set they were ripe.
    From each bough the bunches hung
    Cool as water in a cavern,
    Sweet as the sugar[8] in Paradise,
    Fit for prophets and martyrs to eat.
    Then said Bári, 'Thou seest Allah's might,
    How he can feed His children in the waste!
    Fruits grow upon the (withered) stump,
    Waters flow from the rugged rock,
    All things obey the Lord of all;
    It is (only) man that doubts and disbelieves.'
          As it happened unto him,
    So, by my head! may it happen to me.
          Such is the tale of the Dervish;[9]
          Gentles, my song is done."

Leaving Unarpúr, we pass out of the Unhappy Valley into Sindia Felix,
beginning at Gopang, Májhand, Sann, and Amiri, and here in 1876 rails
have been laid and trollies were working. Thence we go to Lakkí,
where he composed the poem on the "Legends of the Lakkí Hills," given
above, and then to Séhwan. The road was a precipitous _corniche_, very
narrow, with camels marching in Indian file. Séhwan 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 Athenæum 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 Brahúis, 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 sackcloth and ashes, and my trembling hand indites
'_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_.'"

We then go along the Aral stream for two days to Lake Manchar, and
visit the Kirthár Mountains, with their two sanitaria, Char Yaru
and the Danna Towers. Then to Lárkána, an Eastern influent of the
Indus--eight stages. Lárkána is the centre of Sindia Felix. We go
to Sakhar, to Bakar, and lastly to Rohri, and then make our way to
Shikárpúr across a kind of desert, south of the Bolan Pass, and which
is the main _entrepôt_ of the Khorasán and Central Asian caravan trade
with Sind and Western India, where, as usual, he visited everything and
found the usual changes.

The _bonne bouche_ of Shikárpúr is the Great Bazar, about eight
hundred yards long and branching out. It was as striking in its way
as the Bhendi Bazar. The women and the men are superb animals, a
perfect combination of strength and symmetry and absolute grace, and
they outstrip in intellect as in physical development all the other
inhabitants of the plain. They are respected, and are called the sons
of the Aughán. We enjoyed the hospitality of Dr. Salaman, whom he told
that in _his_ day the cantonment contained two regiments, whereas
in 1876 it looked as if it had suffered from siege, pestilence, and
famine. The railway, Richard said, will retrieve its fortunes, the
banking business will revive, with increased facilities for transit
and traffic. It will be wealth to the Great Bazar, and the position of
the town will make it supply the railway. It will recover its garrison
as soon as "Common Sense" takes courage to withdraw its troops from
pestilent Jacobábád, twenty-six miles north-north-west of Shikárpúr.
When the choice of a frontier post rested upon General John Jacob, he
pitched upon the best he could; now it is the very worst.


 THE INDIAN ARMY.


 [Sidenote: _Richard's Remarks on Changes in Indian Army_.]

 "Karáchi is still the capital village of the local Government, and the
 head-quarters of the European regiment. Under the _Conquistador_ the
 camp usually numbered about five to eight thousand men, both colours
 and all arms included. This strong force has been greatly reduced.
 The 'boss' is now a brigadier-general, commanding the station (where
 he resides) and the Sind district, no longer a division; it may,
 however, recover its honours when annexed to the Panjáb. He has no
 adjutant-general; only a brigade-major and a quartermaster-general.
 The single white corps is the 56th, and the 'Pompadours' detach two
 companies to Haydarábád. Here we have no cavalry. Three corps of the
 Sind Horse (about 1480 sabres) are stationed at Jacobábád, their
 head-quarters; they also man all the adjoining outposts. The arms
 are carbine and sword; the uniform is almost that of the Cossack,
 the old Crimean Bashi-Bazouks, and the irregular cavalry in general:
 green tunics and overalls; turban, riding-boots, and black belts.
 The native infantry at Karáchi is now the 2nd Beloch Regiment (29th
 Bombay Native Infantry). They wear light serge blouses in working
 costume, and green tunics with red facings for full dress; loose blue
 '_pagris_;' madder-stained knickerbockers--'cherubim shorts' are
 excellent for wear--and white, which should be brown, gaiters covering
 blucher boots. Their weapons are those of the Sepoy line generally.
 At Jacobábád, on the north-western frontier, are also Jacob's Rifles
 (30th Regiment Bombay Native Infantry), averaging some seven hundred
 men armed with sniders, and habited in _khâkí_, or drab-coloured
 drill. Haydarábád, besides its two white companies, is garrisoned by
 the 1st Beloch Regiment (27th Bombay Native Infantry), known by its
 looser turbans.

 "The artillery of the Sind district is now commanded by a
 lieutenant-colonel, residing at head-quarters. Under him are two
 field batteries of white troops; one stationed here, the other at
 Haydarábád. Finally, at Jacobábád there is a mountain train, about
 a hundred and fifty men, with two mortars and as many howitzers
 (all 4½-inch), which are to be exchanged for steel breech-loaders
 weighing two hundred pounds, and drawn by the sure-footed mule. A
 move has lately been made in the right direction as regards the
 'gunners,' and presidential jealousies have been abated by appointing
 a Director-General of Ordnance for all India. Still, the mountain
 train is left almost inefficient, _the_ complaint of universal India;
 fourteen mules are short, and the commanding officer, Captain Young,
 an officer of twelve years' experience in Sind, 'passed' also in the
 native languages, could hardly take the field in full force without
 great delay.

 "Thus, you see, Mr. Bull, Sind has utterly 'eliminated' the Sepoy,
 whilst India has reduced her Sepoy army to a mere absurdity. The
 claims of economy, the delusive prospect of peace, and last, not
 least, the loud persistent voice of Prophet and Acting-Commissioner,
 General John Jacob, and his '_silahdar_ system,' prevailed against the
 old organization and common sense. He was in many ways a remarkable
 man, endowed with that calm and perfect confidence in himself which
 founds 'schools,' and which propagates faiths. Accustomed to base
 the strongest views, the headstrongest opinions, upon a limited
 experience of facts, he was an imposing figure as long as he remained
 in obscurity. But, unfortunately, one of his disciples and most ardent
 admirers, Captain (now Sir Lewis) Pelly, published, shortly after his
 death, an octavo containing the 'Views and Opinions of General John
 Jacob,'[10] and enables the world to take the measure of the man.

 "General John Jacob's devotion to his own idea has left a fatal
 legacy, not only to Sind, but to the whole of India. Sir Charles
 Napier, a soldier worth a hundred of him, had steadily advocated
 increasing, with regiments on service, the number of 'Sepoy officers,'
 then six captains, twelve lieutenants, and four ensigns. The Conqueror
 of Sind protested that the 'regulars' were not regular enough, the
 best men being picked out for staff and detached appointments. The
 'butcher's bill' of every battle, I may tell you, gives nearly
 double the number of casualties among the 'black officers,' as we
 were called, and at Miyáni (Meanee) we were six deaths to one 'white
 officer.' The reason is obvious; the 'pale faces' must lead their
 companies, wings, and corps, otherwise the natives, commissioned,
 non-commissioned, and privates, will not advance in the teeth of too
 hot a fire. We are already made sufficiently conspicuous by the colour
 of our skins and by the cut of our uniforms, while the enemy is
 always sharp enough to aim at 'picking' us 'off.'

 "General John Jacob proposed, in opposition to the Conqueror of
 Sind, to supplant the Regular system by the Irregulars, which means
 diminishing the number of Englishmen. Having the pick and choice of
 the Indian army at his disposal, he succeeded in fairly drilling and
 disciplining his Sind Horse; _argal_, as the grave-digger said, he
 resolved that the Sind Horse should become a model and a pattern to
 the whole world. He honestly puffed his progeny on all occasions,
 even when it least deserved praise. During our four months' raid on
 Southern Persia, the Sind Horse was pronounced by all the cavalrymen
 present to be the last in point of merit; the same was the case in
 Abyssinia; and during the Mutiny many of his men were found among the
 'Pándís.' Yet he puffed and preached and wrote with such vigour that
 the military authorities, worn out by his persistency, and finding
 that the fatal measure would save money, gave ear to the loud, harsh
 voice. In an inauspicious hour the whole regular Sepoy force of India
 was not only irregularized: it was, moreover, made a bastard mixture
 of the Regular and the Irregular.

 [Sidenote: _The Indian Army_.]

 "The result is the ruin of the Indian army. The system itself is
 simply a marvel. The corps have either too many officers or too few.
 For drilling purposes you want only a commandant, an adjutant (who
 should also be musketry instructor), and a surgeon; or at most the
 three combatants who led the old Irregular corps. For fighting, you
 require, besides the field officers, at least two Englishmen, or
 better still, three per company. It is, I own, possible to increase
 the normal complement by free borrowing from the staff corps, and
 from the rest of the army, but every soldier will tell you that this
 is a mere shift; the officers must know their men, and the men their
 officers.

 "Again, under the present system, which effectually combines the
 faults of both the older, and the merits of neither, your infantry
 corps with its full _cadre_, of which half is usually absent,
 theoretically numbers nine European officers. One, the surgeon, is a
 non-combatant, and two, the adjutant and quartermaster, are usually
 represented by the wing subalterns. An English regiment, with its
 _cadre_ of thirty, mounts only its field-officers and adjutant. An
 Indian corps--would you believe it?--mounts the lieutenant-colonel
 commanding; the major, second in command; the two wing officers, the
 two wing subalterns, the adjutant, and the quartermaster. The result
 is to incur the moral certainty of their all being swept away by
 the first few volleys. True, you have sixteen native commissioned
 officers, forty _havildárs_ (sergeants), and the same number of
 _náiks_ (corporals)--a total of ninety-six. But the belief that Sepoys
 will fight without Englishmen to lead them, is a snare, a sham, and a
 delusion.

 "A host of other evils besets the present state of things. Your
 cavalry corps are so weak in officers, rank and file, that a six
 months' campaign would reduce them each to a single troop. Your
 infantry regiments, eight companies of seventy-five bayonets each,
 or a total of six hundred and forty, have not been reduced to the
 form now recognized as the best tactical unit. Again, officers are
 still transferred, after six and even seven years' service, from the
 white to the black line, thus bringing them upon the Indian pension
 list without having served the full time. They also want _esprit de
 corps_; they dislike and despise 'Jack Sepoy,' and their chief object
 in life is to regain something more congenial than the out-station and
 the dull, half-deserted Mess. Again, at the other end of the scale,
 field officers of twenty-five to thirty years' Indian service are
 made to do subalterns' work. Regimental zeal is being annihilated;
 and the evil of senility is yearly increasing. Let me relate a case,
 which you shall presently see for yourself. Major A----, who has
 served in a corps for nine years, who has seen three campaigns, and
 who for three years has acted second in command, lately finds himself
 superseded by a lieutenant-colonel, when he himself expects to become
 lieutenant-colonel within six months. What is the result? He is
 utterly weary of the service, he has lost all heart for its monotonous
 duties. 'An old subaltern,' says one of your favourites, 'is a
 military vegetable, without zeal as without hope.'

 "Again, the new furlough regulations, after abundant considerings,
 have turned out so badly, that all who can cleave to the old.
 Why grant leave, with full pay and allowances for six months, to
 Kashmir and to the depths of the Himálayas, and yet refuse it to the
 home-goer, under pain of English pay? Why should the Civil Service
 have, and the military lack, 'privilege leave'? Why thus adhere to old
 and obsolete tradition, so as to make the soldier's life as unpleasant
 as possible? Why----But at this rate, sir, 'Whys' will never end.

 "Sir Henry Havelock's truthful statement in the House of Commons, that
 the Anglo-Indian army is 'rotten from head to foot,' has surprised the
 public mass which puts trust in Pickwickian and official declarations.
 We, who know the subject, declare that the Indian is, perhaps, in a
 worse condition than the home force; and we assert that the idea of
 opposing regiments, so officered and so manned, to the Russians, or
 even to the Afghans, is simply insane.

 "Do not disbelieve me, Mr. John Bull, because my language is not
 rose-watered. The Old Maids' Journal (_Spectator_)--ancient, but
 not very pretty, virginity--has lately been berating me for seeking
 'cheap credit' by 'pointing out how much better duties might be done
 by persons whose business it is to do them.' But officials are ever
 in trammels, whilst we critics, who look only to results, are not;
 moreover, a man is hardly omniscient because his work is in this or
 that department, or even because he holds high rank in this or that
 service. And did not Voltaire think and declare that, 'of all the ways
 of Providence, nothing is so inscrutable as the littleness of the
 minds that control the destinies of great nations'?

 "Some have distinction, you know, forced upon them; others win it by
 means which honest men despise. They never report the truth unless
 pleasant to the ear; they calculate that, possibly, the disagreement
 will not occur; and that, if it does, their neglect will be slurred
 over and forgotten. Plausible and specious, 'they can preach and
 they can lecture; they can talk "soft sawder," and they can quote
 platitudes _ad infinitum_. These superficial specimens of humanity,
 who know which side their bread is buttered, owe their rise, their
 stars and ribbons, their K.C.B.'s and pensions, not to the sterling
 merits of courage and ability, of talents and manliness, but to the
 oily tongue that knows so well how to work the oracle, and to a
 readiness of changing tactics as the chameleon changes colour.' In
 short, these gentlemen have mastered the 'gospel of getting on;' the
 species, 'neglected Englishmen,' has not.

 "Thus you have no right to be surprised, as you often are, when
 some notorious incapable, entrusted with an office of the highest
 responsibility, comes to grief. His 'Kismet,' his 'Nasib,' his star,
 have been in the ascendant, and he has done nothing to obscure them by
 personal merit, by originality, by candour, or by over-veracity. These
 qualities are sure to make enemies, and the millenium must dawn before
 your friends--private, public, or political--will look after you with
 the vigour and the tenacity of your foes.

 "But so rotten is the state, so glaring is the inefficiency, of the
 Indian army, that you will not be astonished to hear reports of
 'organic changes' and fundamental reforms, or even to see a return to
 the old system. Strange to say, Lord Northbrook, the civilian, saw the
 necessity of reorganization. Lord Napier, the soldier, who, during the
 Abyssinian campaign, sent for officers to every Presidency, ignored
 it. Perhaps the Napierian clique took the opportunity to oppose, tooth
 and nail, the efforts of another service. The Shí'ahs, who, you know,
 abhor the Sunnis bitterly, as Roman Catholics hate Protestants, when
 any mode of action left to private judgment is proposed, always choose
 the line opposed to that taken by their heretic enemies--_raghman
 li-'l-Tasannun_, 'in adverse bearing to Sunniship,' as the religious
 formula runs.

 "Briefly, the sooner we convert Jacobábád into an outpost, connect it
 by a decent road with Shikárpúr, and station the troops at Sakhar, the
 better. No man in his sane senses would station his whole force upon
 the skirts of a province, where a troop or two suffices, without a
 single soldier, for support or reserve, nearer than some three hundred
 miles.

 "The defective dyke has depopulated a fine tract of country; it
 threatened old Sakhar, and it may even cause a complete shifting
 of the irrepressible river. Any exceptional freshet may burst the
 'Band' and insulate Sakhar Camp, below which the inundation used to
 discharge; and seriously damage the working of the railway, upon which
 all the prosperity of the Upper Province now depends.

 "But dull, desolate, decayed, miserable-looking Sakhar has a future.
 Bad as the climate is, men live longer in it than at Shikárpúr or
 Jacobábád. The railway, which the engineers seem trying their hardest
 _not_ to make, must some day be finished; it will not only connect
 Sind with India, but it must also attract to itself all the outlying
 settlements. 'Common Sense,' again, will presently withdraw the Sind
 Horse from wretched malarious Jacobábád, a prison with the chance
 of being drowned. The occupation of Kelat will give poor old Sakhar
 an excellent sanitarium, and the annexation of the Unhappy Valley to
 the broad and fertile plains of the Panjáb will make it, I venture to
 predict, one of the principal stations upon the highway of commerce.

 "The present antiquated arrangements date from the days of General and
 Acting-Commissioner John Jacob, who, after eighteen years' service
 in Sind, died on October 5, 1858; and his rules endure, I have told
 you, whilst all the conditions that favoured them have changed. They
 were originally intended for the benefit of the Jekránis, the Domkís,
 and the Bugtís; but these robber tribes have long ago become peaceful
 cultivators. They are perpetuated by the old school of Sind soldier,
 that sat at the feet of his Gamaliel, John Jacob, and that ever held
 and still hold him a manner of Minor Prophet. He was, I have told you,
 a remarkable man, and so you may judge by the entire devotion of his
 followers and successors. He used to base the most decided views upon
 the shallowest study of the 'Eternal Laws of Nature,' of 'Principles,'
 and so forth.

 "General Jacob could not play whist; ergo, whist was banished from
 the Mess of the Sind Horse, and even now, nearly a score of years
 after his death, it is still, I believe, under interdict. A 'practical
 mechanic,' that is to say, a mere amateur, he tried to force upon the
 army a rapier-bayonet and a double-barrelled, four-grooved rifle,
 which reached the climax of impracticability. Incapable of mastering
 native languages, he hated linguists, and never lost an opportunity of
 ridiculing and reviling them. Moreover, he dignified his deficiency
 by erecting it into a principle--namely, that all English subjects
 should learn English; and here, for once, his prejudice ran in the
 right line. He knew nothing of the sword beyond handling it like a
 broomstick; therefore he would not allow it to be taught to his men,
 many of whose lives were thus sacrificed to his fatal obstinacy. He
 utterly condemned the use of the point, which is invaluable throughout
 India, because the natives neither make it nor learn to guard it. His
 only reason for this dogmatism was the danger of the thrust by his
 own inexperienced hand. In a few single combats, after running his
 man through the body, he had risked being disarmed or dragged from
 his horse. He probably never knew, and, with characteristic tenacity,
 he would not have changed his opinion had he known, that Lamoricière
 proposed to take away the edge from the French trooper's blade; that
 the French heavies still use the straight sword, best fitted for
 the point; and that the superiority of the latter to the cut is a
 settled question throughout the civilized world. His prejudices were
 inveterate, and they were most easily roused. He hated through life
 a native of Persia, who, not understanding his stutter, a defect
 imitated by his admirers, wrote his name J-J-J-J-J-Jacob, thus:--

 [Illustration]

 At last his obstinacy killed him. When advised by the surgeon not
 to ride his final ride home, he asked, with a sneer, if the young
 man knew his constitution better than he did himself, and he died
 examining a new rifle."

He continues--


 [Sidenote: _And Sind_.]

 "Kasmor is our northernmost village, but it is one hundred miles of
 winding road, a deadly uninteresting series of seven marches, and is
 of no interest; but we will, on returning to Sakhar again, visit the
 ruins of Aror. Issuing from Rohri by the Multán road, we shall pass on
 the left the Aroráwáh, and east of it the new Nárá supply canal, and
 then we will drop down the Indus to Kotri. We have now inspected and
 studied Sind and its river Indus, and you must marvel at the complete
 physical resemblance, and the absolute intellectual difference between
 this and Egypt--there Meroe, Philæ, Thebes, the Pyramids; here
 nothing. Yet this is one of the nurseries of the Indo-Aryan race,
 whose occupation of the Panjáb learned Pandits placed before the sixth
 century before Christ; this is the home of the Vedas, the scene of
 the Puránas; the traditions of Ráma and Sitá's travel in Lower Sind.
 Why is this mighty contrast in the works of Art, where the gifts of
 Nature are so similar? My theory is that Old Egypt has always been the
 meeting-place of nations, the common ground upon which the Orient and
 the Occident stood front to front, where Eastern man compared himself
 with Western man, where mind struck mind, where the Promethean spark
 resulted from the impact of Northern or Southern thought. Indus-land
 stood in a corner far from the outer worlds of the North and the
 far West; she led to nothing, she was of scant service to racial
 development. Indus-land was compelled to work out her own destinies in
 a mean and humble way, while the monuments of Nile-land still instruct
 and astonish humanity."

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 Karáchi 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.

 "There is an imperative demand for a sanitarium, and the nearest and
 best is Kelat. Kelat requires protection, and would be an admirable
 outpost in case of hostile movements from Merv upon Herat (1876).
 A couple of troops would amply suffice that abominable Jacobábád.
 A single corps of Sind Horse should support them from Shikárpúr,
 and the reserves, or body of the force, should occupy Sakhar, where
 the climate is supportable and locomotion easy. Sind is virtually
 unconnected with North-Western India, whose prolongation she is.
 From Kotri-Hyderabad to Multán (570 miles) is a long steamer voyage
 of twenty days, which should be covered by twenty-four hours of
 rail-travel.

 "The military political has had his day, and Sind, after a fair trial
 of seventy-five years, has shown herself impotent to hold the position
 of an independent province. She should be annexed to the Panjáb, and
 then, as in the ancient days of the Hindú Rajahs, her frontiers will
 extend to Kashmír. Already the papers tell us that the Trans-Indine
 districts, from Pesháwar to near Karáchi, will be formed into a
 Frontier Government, or an agency purely political, and will be placed
 directly under the Viceroy; while Cis-Indine Sind, including also
 Karáchi, is to be transferred from Bombay to the Panjáb, in exchange
 for the Central Provinces. These sensible measures will be, to use
 a popular phrase, the making of Young Egypt or Indus-land. She will
 become the export-line of the rich Upper Valley, and the broad plains
 of the Land of the Five Rivers, and increased wealth will enable her
 to supply many a local want; for instance, water and gas to Karáchi, a
 branch railway to Thathá, and so forth. Finally, when Karáchi becomes
 the terminus of the Euphrates or Overland Railway, so much wanted at
 this moment (February, 1877), then 'The Unhappy' will change her name,
 and in the evening of her days shall become 'The Happy Valley.'"

[Sidenote: _The Muhárram_.]

We were fortunate enough to be in time for the Feast of the Muhárram,
with the procession for Hossein's death. This is a Moslem miracle
play, answering to our Passion play at Ober Ammergau, and represents
the martyrdom and death of Hassan and Hossein, sons of Ali and Fatima,
son-in-law and daughter of Mohammed. No European seemed to care about
it, but in any other land there would be crowded express trains and
excursion steamers to catch a glimpse of it. Richard took me to the
Imám Bárrá, to his friends the Shí'ahs (Persians), to his Highness Agha
Khan, chief of the Khojahs, who took me to the Jumat Khana, the place
of assembly of the Khojah caste--an immense building, enclosing in a
large space of ground. They let us in, and the Hindús, but not the
Sunnis, who, though Moslems, are their religious enemies. The whole
place was a blaze of lamps, mirrors, a brazier of wood flaring up, and
a large white tank of water (Hossein died fighting his way to the Great
River). Men form themselves into a ring, moving from right to left with
a curious step, beating their naked breasts with their hands. It makes
a noise like the thud of a crowbar, but in musical time; the Arabs
dance that way, but do not beat their breasts. The blows are given
with such violence that they sometimes die of them, and often faint,
and think themselves happy to suffer for the cause. They become more
and more fanatical, working themselves up to frenzy, crying, "Hossein!
Hossein Ah-ha!" and with this wail the blows are dealt with noise and
regularity like a huge sledge-hammer, till it becomes a maddening
shriek. They become raw as beef, and bleed, and are distorted. To see
those hundreds of men, in the prime of life, brawny and muscular as
they are, carried away by religious fanaticism, awes you; and you know
what a terrible thing it is, and what a tremendous force it is, when
roused, to twist the world in and out of shape with.

Then comes a procession of horses bearing little boys of six or eight,
the children and nephews of Hossein, carried off prisoners; their
white clothes and the horse's trappings stream with blood (painted
wonderfully well). A group of mourners hang round each horse, crying
real tears, and shrieking, "Hossein!" which thrills our nerves, and
all the spectators sob. Then comes the bier with Hossein's corpse, and
his son sitting upon it sorrowing and embracing him, and a beautiful
white dove in the corner, whose wings are dabbled with blood. The
effect upon the excited crowd is awful. Then follows a litter with the
sister and widow of Hossein, throwing dust and straw upon their heads.
One horse has a score of arrows stuck in its housings. We must here
call to mind that Fatima was the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed,
was married to Ali, the Prophet's favourite companion, and was mother
of Hassan and Hossein. Fatima expected Ali to succeed her father;
but Ayesha, the last and youngest wife of Mohammed, managed that her
own father, Abubekr, should become the Caliph. Then came Omar, then
Osman. When Osman died, Ali, who was still alive, became Caliph, and
was assassinated A.D. 660, leaving his two sons, Hassan and Hossein,
blessed by their grandfather, Mohammed, as the foremost youths of
Paradise. Hassan renounced his rights to save civil war, and was
poisoned at Medina by his wife, at the instigation of Muawíyah. Hossein
went to Medina, invited to return by the subjects of the treacherous
Yezíd, was caught in the snare, and slain in battle at Kerbála (Arabia).

This was the tragedy represented there:--

First came Hossein, six feet high, with fair complexion, and black
beard cut close. He walks with dignity, as becomes so great a
personage. His green and gold turban is like a crown, and shows his
relationship to the Prophet. He is draped in a black cloak. Then
the wife and sister came, veiled; then four little children; then
attendants. Hossein seats himself in a large armchair on one of three
dais; his family on a similar one opposite; and a sick youth, the son
of Hossein, lies on a mattress on a third. His son was ill when Hossein
died, but lived to become the progenitor of all the Sherífs of the
East. Then the villain Shimr, inviting Hossein to return, was hooted,
and a noble reply from Hossein was received with murmurs of applause.
Then rises up Hossein's sister, imploring him not to go to destruction.
The wife dare not speak; she may feel the most, but in the East she
dares not show it, even by a murmur. Hossein says that he is called
to be the Imám of the Faithful. If slain, he will die for the people
of the true Faith; if he lives, he will do Allah's will. The sister
cries aloud, and casting dust on her head, flings herself on his neck.
He embraces her tenderly, but will go and die for the sins of all.
Sobs burst from all sides--and real sobs. Everything is so earnest, so
simple, so distinct, and expressive. Then the little daughter comes
forth and caresses him; the child really weeps. He takes it in his
arms, soothes, and puts it back to its mother's lap. He then goes over
to his son's sick bed and bids him a tender adieu. A splendid horse
then comes in, and the sister brings him a white linen shroud, and puts
it on him. When about to mount, the child rushes from her mother's arms
and catches his cloak. He sinks on the ground, and wraps the child in
his arms. As he rises, the child pulls off the shroud, covers herself
with it, and stretches herself on the earth. He takes it from her, and
mounts his horse. The child flings herself in front of the horse's
hoofs, and the animal stands still. A servant picks the child up, but
she breaks away, and clings to the horse's legs; her little hands
clutch its hoofs.

The audience have been sobbing the whole time, but now there is a
perfect spasm of grief. An angel then comes, and offers to slay
Hossein's enemies; but he refuses, and the angel throws dust over his
head. Then he draws his scimitar. The villain Shimr appears, and they
ride off. The battle, the treachery, want of water, and the slaying,
are left to the imagination; and we next see the procession of the
Imám's captive children, widow, and sister, and the headless corpse
upon a bier. The procession of last night follows again, shrieking, "Ya
Ali! Ya Hossein!" with beating of breasts. The _tabuts_ are set up in
every nook and corner, and are fanciful representations of the tombs
of Hassan and Hossein--gay, glittering gimcracks and tinsel. They are
carried through the streets by men and boys as merry as grigs, dancing
and shouting, to fling them into the sea. The explanation is that the
Shí'ahs mourn for Hossein with despair, but the Sunnis consider him not
a martyr to be mourned for, and turn the occasion into ridicule; and
these _tabut_ processions are conducted by the Sunnis as a caricature,
which sometimes ends in a serious fight.

We also came in for a regatta, and we received great hospitality on
board the Squadron.

[Sidenote: _Richard's old Persian Moonshee_.]

During this journey we saw a great deal of Mirza Ali Akbar, who was
Richard's old _moonshee_ when he was a boy. We had a delightful Persian
breakfast with him, of fruit, vegetables, every kind of sweets, and
rice highly seasoned, rice with caraway seeds, _pilao_ with saffron
savoury and aromatic, prawn curry with plain rice, sweet rice with
rose-water, spices, and sweet paste from Muscat. He had been very much
wronged in some matter, and Richard was helping and instructing him how
to put his case clearly before the public, he being quite an innocent
man, of whatever charge was brought against him, though I forget what
it was; but he died--like many others--before he was righted--as
justice was slow. When he called upon Richard, his card was brought in,
in large letters looking like the visiting-card of some middle-class
respectable Englishman, with "Mirza _Ally_ Akbar" upon it. "Hullo,
Mirza," Richard said, after they had salaamed. "Are you any relation to
Ally Sloper?" The Mirza laughed--that is, as nearly as an Eastern does
laugh--and said, "No! but the English always call me _Ally_ Akbar, so I
found it was the shortest way to call myself so." It is surprising how
often we have gone to places, and found the natives had changed their
names to whatever the English chose to call them; for instance, a Señor
Machado had become a Mr. Much-harder.

We saw a great deal also of Mr. and Mrs. MacLean, and Mr. Gratton
Geary, editors of the papers. We visited the schools of the native
girls; it was an English institution called the Alexandra, where they
went through a good many performances, sang and recited in English and
Guzeratee, and one girl, D. A. H. Wadia, illustrated well enough for a
professional.

The beautiful moonlight nights are here spoilt by the air being
redolent of burnt flesh (roast Hindú) and sandal-wood. Richard took
me over to inspect the cotton-mills. There were some grand races,
and the Nawáb and all the Eastern "big-wigs" were there; distance
a mile and a half, and, as usual, whatever Hackney rode won. Long,
lanky weedy whalers ran better than the Arabs _bred there_. We dined
with the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Charles and Lady Staveley, in tent
quarters. We used to frequent the burial-ground very often in search of
a tomb we could not find, and at last we found it in the old Girgaum
burial-grounds in the Sonápur quarter, which had long been closed as
full. It was one of the characteristics of my husband that he could
never bear to pass a countryman's grave, or a celebrated person's
grave, without honouring it. This was a once celebrated man, yet,
except Richard, no one of the present day knew anything about him, or
his nameless grave--such is glory!

After many hot hours and days, and vain searching in parties amongst
the twenty thousand tombs, we found a plain space containing a very
old tombstone, with letters that required one to kneel down and trace
with the finger. No "Sacred to," but only "Victor Jacquemont, born in
Paris 28th August, 1801; arrived at Calcutta in May, 1829; and after
travelling three and a half years in India, expired at Bombay on 7th
December, 1832." He was a man of letters, a botanist, and naturalist,
who is supposed to have pioneered the French to India, and had the
Legion of Honour ("Correspondance de Victor Jacquemont," 2 vols.,
Paris, 1833, published a year after his death). He was a French
Catholic and fellow-Bohemian, so we paid a tribute to his memory. I
recited a "De profundis," and my husband gave directions to have the
letters picked out and painted afresh, and the grave replanted to mark
where he was buried. Jacquemont died in the house of one Nico, who
wrote to his brother, M. Porphyre; he had three doctors, MacLellan,
Kembell, and Henderson; treatment was 60 by 60 leeches, salivated,
blistered, etc.; got worse after a quarrel with his black servants,
and died of abscess on the liver, which burst internally. He had black
vomit "c'était un baquet de macération," and was kept alive by animal
soup and wine. He had a public funeral. These were all the details we
were able to collect; but it was a great deal, after forty-six years of
such utter forgetfulness that nobody knew where he was buried. We also
saw a great deal of the philanthropist, Miss Mary Carpenter, and her
work.

We went to the wedding feast of the daughter of Venayek Ramchunder
Luxumonjee, at Bhau, Russell House, Girgaum Road. It was a magnificent
entertainment, a long saloon brilliantly lit, every sort of luxurious
carpet, crossed one upon another, hundreds of Easterns in gorgeous
dresses. They say "we are just, but not kind," and it is true. There
is no mixing of Society. There are few Burtons, and Stricklands of the
Rudyard Kipling type. I regret to say that I was the only European
lady. There was a _Nach_ (Nautch). The host had natural dignified
manners. He was gentlemanly, manly, courteous without servility,
spoke excellent English, and was in nothing inferior, except in
colour, to the most polished English gentleman. The little bride
and bridegroom were aged nine and ten. The marriage feasts last for
days, after which they each stay with their parents till they are
ready for practical marriage. There are no more ceremonies; they
are actually _theoretically_ married to-day. The house was lit up
like a transformation scene in a pantomime. Then we had to go and be
vaccinated, for small-pox was raging; so we made a large party, and
were about four hundred clustering round a cow at the hospital. Then
Mr. Ormiston and his brother took us in a steam launch to see his
work--the revolving light at the Prongs, the handsomest thing we had
ever seen. The lighthouse is eight stories high, 169 feet. We then went
to a Garden-party at Parell, Government House--something like a mild
Chiswick party. There is so much hospitality that we dined out every
night, and the drives out to dinner and back were delicious, on the
balmy Indian nights. We saw Indian jugglery, such as the mango planted
and growing before one's sight, the child being killed in the basket,
and many other things which I, being a new-comer, was delighted with,
and it amused Richard to see my astonishment.

[Sidenote: _Mátherán_.]

We then went up to Mátherán, the most easily got at hill-station, or
sanitarium, passing through the villages Byculla, Chinchoogly, 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 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 Kalliénapolis,
which shipped dry goods and precious woods to the outer west. We
are also now on classic ground, near the northern extremity of the
Shurpáraka, 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 Mátherán, which will be noted afterwards
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, Mátherán, a very comfortable bungalow. The
wooded lanes, the wild flowers, the pure atmosphere, the light and
shadows playing on the big foliage, and the birds rustling and singing
in it, were delightful to us. We were standing on a table-land of
eight square miles covered with bungalows in lovely woods, seamed
with riding-paths--regular leafy screens, whose ends lead to famous
points, each one showing a magnificent view. We looked down splendid
ravines amongst buttress-shaped mountains, light and shade sharply
defined, burnt yellow grass, green trees and black basalt. The fresh
vivid verdure of the woods is a repose to the eyes, weary by tawny
lowlands and fœtid jungly undergrowth. We enjoy bright green grove,
black rock, red-yellow laterite, a luxuriance of fernery, after so much
palm and bamboo, aloe and cactus. We have got a patch of virgin forest
and plenty of the gigantic anjun, whose pink-and-lilac bloom look like
patches of morning sky through the foliage, and you hear everywhere the
bark of the Wánúrú monkey, which is something like that of the wolf.

The officers' sanitarium is a horridly smelling, melancholy, deserted
almshouse-looking row, painted black, with black mat screens; it looks
like a stationary hearse, and would make one sick even if the air were
not redolent of small-pox. The rooms looked evidently fresh from some
horrid disease, and unclean. We shuddered, and passed away from the
tainted atmosphere. Mátherán is not fashionable; it is affected by the
commercial classes from Saturday till Monday. It is Margate, whilst
Máhábáleshwar and the Neilgherries are Brighton and Biarritz, and are
patronized by the "Services." But we did meet with some nice people
there--a charming Mrs. Douglas, and Dr. and Mrs. Nevin.

I think I said to leave Mátherán 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 Mátherán we passed a procession
of Brínjaris 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 kill it,
and lets it run about to sting _ad libitum_, instead of being hanged,
Bajee Ráo 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 Mátherán, who lived
to be the infamous Nana Sahib, the same that afterwards tortured and
killed so many of our people.

[Sidenote: _Karla Caves_.]

We visited the Karla Caves, climbing a goat-like path to a gash in the
mountain side, with a belt of trees, and sat on the stones facing one
of the most wonderful Buddhist temples in India, constructed more than
two thousand years ago. It was shaped just like our cathedrals, body
and aisle, with a horseshoe roof of teakwood. The nave is separated
from the aisles by fifteen columns on each side, whose capitals are two
couchant elephants, with a man and woman upon each. A dome surmounted
by a coloured ornament at the top takes the place of high altar, the
ornament being like the pedestal for the Blessed Sacrament, and the
umbrella for canopy or tabernacle; and the space behind the high altar
in continuation of the horseshoe shape is separated by four plain
columns. The light comes from an open space where a large window should
be, artistically shining only on the high altar and dome, like ancient
Spanish and Portuguese churches. This is cut out of the solid rock,
pillars, capitals, façade, and all: the Kanheri Caves are the same.
On either side of the entrance are carved three splendid elephants
larger than life, and covered with niches and figures of Buddhist men
and women. Four enormous columns front it, with a gigantic slab of
stone across the entry, to prevent curious gazings from outside. A huge
column with three lions for its capital is a further outpost. A little
temple far outside is consecrated by the Brahúis to Devi. We were only
allowed to peep into this last. The "Monkery" was most curious. Cells
scooped all round opened into the large round centre room. Besides a
ground-floor cave, there were three stories. They say the Jesuits pick
and choose the best situations, but I am sure the Buddhists did the
same thing. This place commands the whole country. The more I travel,
see, and learn, the more I perceive that all the ancient religions,
show that but one has existed from the Creation, for every faith tells
the same tale as ours, with different actors under different names, but
all the facts are the same.

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 Ráo 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 Párbati, the Maharattas'
chief palace and stronghold, from which the last Peshwa, Bajee Ráo, 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 Ráo'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 performed by the Arabs.
We had a remarkable dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Petersen's, meeting Captain
Yates and Dr. Machonochie. Next morning we visited the Kharekwasla
tanks or lakes, laid out by Mr. Joyner, C.E.--a wonderfully clever
work--and he made a water-party for us.

[1] "Moslems, I have said, count seven heavens; they also reckon, after
the fashion of the Greeks and classical geographers, seven climates
on earth. Their 'Haft-Iklim,' therefore, means this sublunary world.
This is blending together two superstitions, Hindú and Mussulman--but
_n'importe_."--R. F. B.

[2] This was a very romantic affair.--I. B.

[3] I give a short account of these two in the appendixes (C, D).

[4] "A _memento mori_, fashionable amongst Eastern devotees. So the
Icelanders provide their coffins in middle age."

[5] "The Creator."

[6] "Meaning that his heart in his withered bosom was as the germ of
life in the dry seed--a true Pythagorean, Oriental idea."

[7] "_Wá wailá_--'Alas! and alas!' The Arabic explanation is put
into Bári's mouth on account of the sacredness of his character.
Saints, prophets, and sages are always made to speak as Semitically as
possible."

[8] "In the days when sugar of any kind was a rarity, and consequently
a delicacy, our English poets used the word with a certain appetite in
their comparisons. Now, the metaphor is apt to offend the sensitive
ear, long accustomed to associate the word with nursery discussions, or
tiresome colonial grievances. But in Persian, _shakkar_ (sugar) still
holds its ground as a fit simile for choice things; for instance, a
'sugar-candy-chewing parrot' is a compliment which may be offered to
the daintiest damsel in the land."

[9] "The songs always conclude with some such formula as this."

[10] Smith, Taylor, and Co., Bombay, 1858.




CHAPTER III.

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 Sháhabád. 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, Illampallee,
Pattapore, Singampallee, into Hyderabad. Sháhabád, 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!"

[Sidenote: _Hyderabad in the Deccan_.]

An hour before reaching Hyderabad (Deccan) all nature changes to a
strange formation which reminded us of the Karso at Trieste, only on an
exaggerated scale. An outcrop of huge granite boulders, which is wild
nature, but looks as if arranged by art, forms shapes like an ancient
town with battlements and castles, and covers a radius of thirty miles
round that city like natural defences. Hyderabad is the largest and
most important native State in India, ruled by our faithful ally,
the Nizam. The area is almost ninety-six thousand square miles; the
population, eleven millions. The army in 1876 numbered about thirty
thousand men, chiefly cavalry, of whom six hundred are Arabs. Our kind
hosts, Colonel and Mrs. Nevill, met us cordially at the station. She is
the eldest daughter of the late talented and lamented Charles Lever,
our predecessor at Trieste, so famous as a novelist, and Colonel Nevill
is practically Commander-in-Chief of the Nizam's army, then under Sir
Salar Jung.

[Sidenote: _Elephant Riding_.]

There was no losing time in Hyderabad, we had too much to see. No
sooner did we get into our pleasant quarters at the Nevills' than we
had to dress sharp, as there was a dinner-party given to the 16th
Lancers, and a ball at Sir Richard and Lady Meade's--the Governor
and his wife--charming people. Early next morning we were out on
elephants to see the town. These animals look awfully imposing in large
numbers with gaudy trappings. I had never been on one before; the
first mounting and the curious motion are decidedly new sensations.
We went all through the City unarmed and without guards, and met with
nothing but greetings and blessings. I mention this because every one
knows what a bad name Hyderabad had. The horses show blood; they are
frightened of elephants, and try to avoid them. You see everywhere
wild-looking men in gaudy dresses and unveiled women. The very great
"swells" have troops of men before and behind them with drawn swords.
Everything is on the feudal system. You meet brown "Nobles" riding with
troops of retainers in white burnous, carrying the arms and wearing the
uniform of their Chiefs. The houses are flat like those of Damascus;
the town is clean; the streets are broad, and spanned by high arches
whose bold simplicity is very striking. The Nizam's palace, at least
a mile long, is carved with delicate tracery, and many a mosque,
like lacework, rises here and there, but the cachet of all is size,
boldness, and simplicity.

There are three great men in Hyderabad who jointly manage the Nizam's
affairs, and are related to him. In 1876 Sir Salar Jung was Regent
and Prime Minister. The Amir el Kebír was co-Regent and Minister of
Justice; the Wikar ool Umárá is his brother. After going over the town
we proceeded to the palace of his Excellency Mookhtar ool Moolk Sir
Salar Jung, G.C.S.I., then called "the wily Minister" by our Press.
He is a noble, chivalrous, single-hearted Arab gentleman of the very
best stamp. His palace contained about seven courts with fountains,
and various suites of large halls opening on to them. It was perfectly
magnificent. One room had its ceilings and walls thickly studded with
china cups, saucers, and plates, which would have been envied by many
collectors in London. After a luxuriant breakfast of European and
Eastern dishes, and wine for us, but water for himself, he showed us
his weapons, swords and daggers, and many arms I had never seen before,
with beautiful blades, inlaid sheaths, and some covered with gorgeous
jewels. Richard was in his glory amongst them. The party consisted of
the great Minister and his two sons, ourselves, and the Ministers. He
had a little son aged ten, whom he called "Fox," who took my fancy
exceedingly; he was very serious, sharp as a needle, and full of
courage and spirit. I wonder how he has grown up.

We were then taken to the stables, a place like the Burlington Arcade,
open at both ends, loose boxes where the shops would be, each opening
into the passage running down the centre. There were about a hundred
horses, nearly all thoroughbred Arabs and Persians, grey and light bay
being the favourite colour. Every horse had his own groom. That night
we were invited to the Residency. Sir Richard and Lady Meade gave a
dinner-party to Sir Salar Jung and the Ministers. Cholera was very bad
at this time; there were about thirty cases a day. Sir Salar Jung lent
me a beautiful grey Arab, large, powerful, and showy. Mrs. Nevill was
a perfect horsewoman; she had broken in four thoroughbreds for her
husband and herself during the short time she had been there. That
night there was another dinner-party at Colonel Nevill's; next morning
a breakfast with Sir Salar Jung and the officers of the 44th, who
arrived on troops of elephants with scarlet trappings.

Afterwards we made a pilgrimage to the tomb of General Raymond, who
once commanded the Nizam's forces. He is now called Shah Rahman, and
is made a saint of, as Colonel Nevill probably will be, and future
generations will make a pilgrimage to his tomb as Shah bin Rahman,
Anglicized "_little_ Johnny Shaw," as there is a fakir's tomb near it
with a hard name which the English have shortened to "Johnny Shaw," and
a group of lovely little temples that you would like to put under a
glass case on the drawing-room table. A dinner-party and a little music
at Lady Meade's finished the evening.

Early next morning was first a water-party to the tank, and then to
the palace of the Wikar Shums ool Umárá, K.C.S.I., one of the three
great dignitaries of the Nizam's country. We were received by a guard
of soldiers and a band of music, and ushered up into a splendid palace.
The gardens and courts could easily lodge a small army. A band,
directed by an English bandmaster, played "God save the Queen." Our
host, whose gold-fringed turban denotes his connection with Royalty,
received us like old friends. We had a capital breakfast with the
Chief and his relatives; the cooking was delicious. The hall was full
of retainers and servants, who pressed us to eat as they served the
dishes. "Take mutton cutlet; 'im very good," was whispered close to my
ear with an excellent English accent. After breakfast we were shown the
jewellery; then, far more interesting, the weapons--shields inlaid with
gold. His grandfather in his day wielded a ponderous _gurz_ (mace), and
wore a small Hyderabad turban of steel bands with bar nose-piece, and
a coat of mail, every link and every ring containing an engraved verse
of the Koran. This was sacred armour, and a warrior was supposed to be
invincible in it. There was a beautiful lance, well balanced, whose
point was shaped like a flame. There was every sort of gun, sword, and
dagger, with jewelled inlaid hilts, and sometimes dangling pearls and
emeralds attached to them. At the top of the palace is a huge room with
windows to the four quarters, and the eye commands the country for
forty miles round,--and then we saw something we had never seen before.

[Sidenote: _Ostrich Race_.]

The Chief had an ostrich race for us, which was delightful. The man
mounts, sits back, puts his legs under the wings, locks his feet under
the breast; the birds go at an awful pace, and can kick like a horse.
From this we went to Lady Meade's garden-party, with lawn-tennis,
badminton, and refreshments. In the evening Colonel Nevill gave a
dinner-party to his native officers, which was most interesting,
Sayyid Ahmad and Ahmad Abdullah being the two nicest. They are Arab
descendants of Anazeh (Bedawi) and Sayyids (of the Prophet's race).

There are two parties in India on a certain question, the treatment of
the Native. One is all for keeping him down and treating him harshly;
the other condemns this, and wants to make him on an equality. Neither
party actually mix freely with the native, and the native says, "The
English are just, but they are not kind," and that is about the truth.
Now, Richard was all for firmness, and said, "What has to be done
should be done with a hand that never relaxes; but we should be kind
and courteous too," and he was certain if we were we should never
want force. It is the gulf that hinders all good, and breeds all evil
feeling, and it is the common, uneducated English that do everything to
widen it. As he says, "to the English eye, people are all black, or all
brown like a flock of sheep; they have generally not learning enough,
or education enough, or discrimination enough to make a difference
between the high-caste Indian, or the pure Arab gentleman who is noble
like themselves, and the Sierra Leone Negro, who, if you were to shake
hands with him once, would smack your face the first time he felt
cross, and requires not kicking and beating, but absolutely to be kept,
in a moral sense, to a state of wholesome awe."

[Sidenote: _Hospitality_.]

Our next pleasure was an assault-of-arms; there were about two hundred
performers. There were some very good gymnastics, sword exercise,
single-stick with small shields, which were soft and about the size of
a plate. Their actions were wild and graceful, with something of the
tiger in their defiant gestures. We thanked them all before leaving;
we were afraid that Colonel Nevill's garden was not improved after it.
They also showed some cock-fighting, which Richard liked, but I went
away from that. In the evening there was a dinner-party containing
European ladies. The next morning the third great man, Amir el Kebír,
invited us to breakfast. The place was a succession of beautiful
buildings in gardens full of storks, pigeons, and other birds, flowers,
and all the gardens and terraces covered with a beautiful purple Indian
honeysuckle. We once more mounted our elephants after breakfast,
and visited the Masjid el Mekkah (mosque), the main street, and the
wonderful arches, and kindly words and blessings greeted us everywhere.
We then breakfasted with the Amir. Our host wore a lovely cashmere
robe like a dressing gown, with gorgeous jewels. We had a charming
breakfast, with delicious mangoes.

In early morning, Sundargaj, one of his Excellency Sir Salar Jung's
tallest and bravest elephants, in all the bravery of bells and scarlet
trappings, knelt down to receive us, and with that queer one-sided gait
which makes the cabriolet-_haudah_ pitch like a little boat in a short
chopping sea, began to lumber over the three miles separating us from
the City. Hyderabad can collect nine hundred such in a few hours, which
surpasses the famous exhibition of Tipú Sahib.

The Afzal Ganj (the native bazar of the regular troops) consists of
parallel lines of shops and booths, flat-roofed or tiled, one-storied,
verandahed, and cleaned with whitewash and red paint.

Hyderabad owes its origin to Sultan Mohammed Kuli II., of the Kutub
Shahi or Golconda dynasty, who about A.D. 1520 built a country palace
for one of his mistresses, the lady Baghwati, a Hindú of no particular
caste. He assigned to her a guard of a hundred horsemen, and called the
outpost Bhagnagar.

As a short account of Hyderabad, a literal translation by a native,
from an ancient Hindostani work in that City, was given to us by Sir
Salar Jung, I think it may not be uninteresting:--

 "Up to the reign of three kings of the line of Khootoob Shahs, the
 Fort of Golconda, which was so large as to contain forty thousand
 cavaliers, was the seat of the Capital, but during the rule of
 Mohammed Khoolee II., son of Ibrahim Khootoob Shah, the Capital, being
 crowded by people, and densely populated, created a foul air, from
 which most of the people were subjected to all sorts of illness; and,
 besides, the King, taking consideration of his rank and dignity, found
 that the place was unworthy of his residence, and thereby resolved to
 build another City, which, both in expansion and pleasantness, was to
 be the next to the Paradise of Rest. In this meditation he rode for
 hunting, and went in search of game. Whilst going here and there he
 happened to pass into a forest, which, being put up into a beautiful
 spot of ground, was, in pleasantness and purity of climate, envied
 by the blue sky and the garden of heaven. There the King was pleased
 to build a City, and ordered the astrologers, of great skill and
 discernment, to fix an auspicious moment to lay its foundation. This
 being accordingly done, the cleverest architect laid the design of the
 City, containing four extensive bazars and four elevated arches (Chár
 Kámán), and each of the bazars was equal in size to the other; also
 several other bazars, which are said to have been forty thousand in
 number, were made with streams flowing through, bordered with shadowy
 trees, and each bazar was confronted by a large edifice; and, besides,
 there were planned twelve thousand buildings, of the kind of baths,
 monasteries, schools, mosques, poorhouses, and inns. The residence
 of the King being settled to be in the northern part of the Capital,
 several grand and beautiful palaces were erected. The Capital was at
 first named Bhag Nugger, after the name of a woman, Bhag Mutty, to
 whom the King was attached, and upon her death it was changed into
 Hyderabad, which is bounded on the north by Meduck, on the south by
 the Coelconda Circars, on the east by the Bhonghur Circars, and on the
 west by the Mozuffer Nugger Circars, called also Mohamadabad Beder.
 The year of the commencement of the City can be found out from the
 word 'Ya Hafiz,' said by some poet, which comes to 1000; and of its
 completion from the word 'Furkhonda Boonad,' which is 1006.

 "As the King was very fond of propagating the Mussulman Creed, and
 at the same time mindful of the benefits of the public in general,
 likewise ordered the erection of Mukka Musjid (or mosque), which
 was called by some poet Baitool Ateekh, from an Arabic word meaning
 Caba, which is also expressive of the year of its erection, 1023. Its
 height from the surface of the ground to the roof is calculated at
 about thirty-six yards, and the cost is estimated at eight lakhs of
 rupees. It is said that no other building like it was ever witnessed
 by anybody in all the Mussulman countries. Char Minas (four minarets),
 containing four arches, each facing the broad road of the four bazar
 lines, being firm and lofty, is situated in the centre of the City,
 each of the minarets containing rooms intended for students; and in
 the centre of the building lies a cistern with a fountain. Char Soo Ká
 Howz (water cistern), standing at the junction of the four roads, is
 beautifully situated in the centre of the four arches (Chár Kámán).
 The Daroosh Shiffa (general hospital), and several other works of
 public utility, as baths, etc., etc., were constructed and supplied at
 the expense of Government, with all their requisites."

One great street runs north and south, and nearly bisects the City.
The bazar is something like the Bhendi Bazar of Bombay, without the
Europeans, and with a different set of natives. Here we have dark,
wiry Arabs from Hazramant or the Persian Gulf, sturdy Sulaymanis or
Afghans, and large-limbed Zanzibar Sidis (Wásawáhíli), sometimes
pure blood, oftener mixed with Asiatic blood. The Wáhhabis conceal
their tenets, the Shí'ahs are numerous, and the Bábis are unknown.
Every respectable man is armed with gun, matchlock, pistol, sword,
or dagger. All the women show their faces, proving they are Hindús,
and not high-caste Moslemahs. As in all "native" cities, the fakirs,
dervishes, Sányasis, Jogis, and religious mendicants, Hindí or Hindú,
are many and noisy, but gave us no trouble.

A marked feature here is the pointed arch with horizontal coping and
side windows; they tower above everything, crossing the thoroughfares,
relieving the monotony, and form a resting-place for the eye. The
four main bazars are fronted by as many elevated arches. A ride round
the official, or walled city, occupies two hours of sharp canter on
horses, and the suburbs must have extended several leagues. The Mecca
Mosque, built in A.D. 1600, by Mohammed Kuli, is of noble simplicity;
it cost thirty-three lakhs, and is a hundred and eight feet high.
The City is said to measure fourteen miles in circumference, and to
contain four hundred thousand souls.

[Sidenote: _Eastern Hospitality at Hyderabad_.]

At the proper hour, Sundargaj rolls up to the palace where we are to
breakfast, and deposits us. Forty years ago Hyderabad, may have been a
turbulent city into which Europeans could not enter without insult or
injury, and where lawlessness and recklessness of life were the laws
of the land, but the progressive measures of an enlightened Minister
had completely changed the condition of things; still, popular and
official opinion, whose watch is always an age or two behind the time,
refused to admit the change. "You come from a place where you may
be murdered at any moment," was the address of a late Viceroy to an
Englishman who had taken service under his Highness the Nizam; and
yet, during the last thirty-five years, I am assured that not a single
European has been murdered in the Moslem dominions, and the only one
that _was_ wounded suffered the consequences of his own fault. Nothing
was done here by the enraged peasantry to the gentlemen sportsman,
who took the liberty of shooting the Prince's tame deer; yet when we
returned to Bombay, friends said to us, "Of course you had a large
escort?" We had nothing of the kind, nothing but a single _mahaut_;
but it is not easy to dispose of prejudices. Murray has said that
Hyderabad is one of the filthiest cities in India; I tell you it is
the cleanest. All I can say is that, so far from "insult and personal
injury," we were most pleasantly received by what Bevar quotes as
"the most disorderly, turbulent, and ferocious set of ruffians within
the limits of India." I can only say that of all the visits paid to
various parts of India, it is the one that has left the most lasting,
the most happy, and the most romantic impression upon our memories.

[Sidenote: _Golconda_.]

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; 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.


THE MAIN BUILDING OF GOLCONDA.


Each _burj_ carries from one to three guns. The defences are strong
towards the east, and on the south they are doubled. There is a
glacis, a moat, and a covered way. The mixture of oasis and desert
is truly Arabian; Arab also are the pigeon-holes and dove-cotes of
the walls, while the song of the water-wheel reminded us of Egypt and
Syria. The throne-hall towers over the river valley, and the double
lines of defence show to the best advantage.

We were only allowed to view the town from the outside, but we could
see all this as it is hilly. The throne-hall, with arched windows,
the king's palace and defences, occupy the hill. The town on the flat
ground is surrounded by walls, battlements, curtained bastions, and
towers thrown out, and reminds one of Old Damascus and Jerusalem, and
in it dwells many an old feudal Chief. Past those walls, no European
or Christian has ever been allowed; at least, at the time I wrote.
The Tombs of the Kings are very ancient, are outside the town, and to
those we were admitted, and they reminded us of the tower-tombs of
Palmyra.

They are enormous domes set on square broad bases, the upper part
beautifully carved or covered with Persian tiles or tiles from Sind,
bearing Arabic and Hindostani inscriptions. One is supported by
slender needle-like monolithic columns. There is a beautiful garden
of palm trees, and a labyrinth of arches; and we wandered about
this romantic spot, remembering our nursery tales "of all the mines
and riches of Golconda," by a crescent moon on a balmy night, the
fire-flies spangling the white-domed tombs and the palm gardens. At
such a pleasant hour, surrounded by the romances of which we had so
much read and heard, we talked over and noted down the history of the
far-famed Koh-i-noor, whose birthplace was on this very spot, and
whose history I wrote to the _Morning Post_, September 25th, 1875, for
which I was considerably chaffed by the Press. We must not forget that
this great diamond was first discovered in these mines in A.D. 1650,
and it has cursed the world for two hundred and forty-three years. The
following day we were obliged to return to Bombay. We had a very good
journey, but the heat was so great that the railway officials were
walking up and down, periodically waking up the passengers, as they
have sometimes been found dead, and two or three cases had occurred
about that time.

[Sidenote: _The Famous Koh-i-noor_.]

I would give you my husband's account of the diamond diggings in
India, the Nizam diamond, and the history of the Koh-i-noor; but I
fear it would be too long, too heavy, except the Koh-i-noor, so I will
put them in the Appendix (E).


 "THE KOH-I-NOOR.


 "The Koh-i-noor, or 'Mountain of Light,' is the largest and most
 celebrated diamond in the world, and is famous throughout the East as
 the 'Accursed Stone' that brings misfortune and eventually destruction
 upon the dynasty of every successive possessor. In the East there is
 a belief as to good or evil fortune attending particular precious
 stones. It was the same in England in the reign of Elizabeth and the
 first James, and Shakespeare alludes to this belief in one of his
 minor poems, but the modern Englishman rejects the absurdity, despite
 the fact that evil fortune has actually always followed the owner of
 this particular gem, showing how curiously actual fact co-operates
 with superstitious theory.

 "The Koh-i-noor was first discovered in the mines of Golconda about
 A.D. 1650, and has cursed the world for two hundred and forty-three
 years. The famous Mir Jumla was then farmer of the diamond mines,
 and the King's chief minister, a Persian who had been brought young
 to India, and who rose by rapid gradations to power, was famous for
 the sagacity of his plans and the ruthless cruelty with which he
 carried them out. The poor people, under compulsory labour, had to
 give their services for a bare subsistence to all the farmers of
 the mines, and under Mir Jumla their condition was desperate; this
 tempted them occasionally to elude the vigilance of their taskmasters,
 and secrete a stone if they could. The cruelties that followed the
 smallest suspicion of such a fault rendered the mines a perpetual
 scene of horror, especially under Mir Jumla, and it is supposed that
 some frightful act of fiendish brutality occurred at the finding of
 the Koh-i-noor, which was cursed by the innocent victim--a curse which
 ever since, according to the natives of India, has remained attached
 to it and its possessors.

 "Certain it is that before the King of Golconda had long been
 in possession of it he quarrelled with Mir Jumla, who in return
 treacherously invited the Mogul Emperor of Delhi, Aurungzeb, to invade
 his master's territory, promising to join him with the whole of the
 forces under his command. This he did, and the King of Golconda had to
 sue for peace, which was granted by Aurungzeb only on his giving him
 one of his daughters in marriage; making over to him a large portion
 of his treasures, including the Koh-i-noor, as well as a considerable
 slice of his territories; and consenting to hold the rest as a fief
 of the Great Mogul Empire. Some time after, the King of Golconda
 thought he saw a favourable opportunity to recover his territories,
 rose against his oppressor, and lost all the rest of his kingdom--nay,
 all that he possessed. Mir Jumla died a miserable death of disease in
 exile.

 "Aurungzeb, the second royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was at
 the time of getting it in the zenith of his power; but immediately
 trouble after trouble rained upon him, and accumulated till he died
 in 1707. After his death a war began amongst his progeny. The first
 who succeeded him, the third royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor,
 was Shah Alum, who died in 1712, five years after his succession.
 The next King of Delhi, the fourth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was
 Jehander Shah, who was deposed and strangled at the end of one year
 (1713). Ferok Shah, the next in succession and fifth possessor of the
 Koh-i-noor, met the same fate in 1719, in the course of which year two
 other occupants of the throne (sixth and seventh possessors of the
 Koh-i-noor) passed in the same way thence to the grave.

 "So, in twelve years from the death of Aurungzeb, five princes of
 his line who had ascended the throne and possessed the Koh-i-noor,
 and six others who had been competitors for it, had come to grief.
 Moreover, the degraded state of the royal authority during this
 period had introduced an incurable anarchy, and a disposition in all
 the Governors of Provinces to shake off their dependency on the head
 of the Empire. The next King of Delhi, and eighth possessor of the
 Koh-i-noor, was the Emperor Mahmoud Shah, under whose reign the once
 great empire of Aurungzeb almost fell to pieces. He succeeded in 1719,
 twelve years after the death of Aurungzeb, being the son of Akter, son
 of Shah Alum, the son and immediate successor of Aurungzeb, and it
 was in 1739 that the final blow was given to his authority; his ill
 fortune culminated in the capture of Delhi by the celebrated Nadir
 Shah, who in that year invaded India, and, after defeating the army of
 Shah Mahmoud at Kurnaul, entered as conqueror into the Capital. Then,
 in consequence of the hostile acts of some of the people, he delivered
 over the whole City to massacre and pillage; and from the dawn of
 light till the day was far advanced, without regard for age or sex,
 all were put to the sword by his ferocious soldiery.

 "Fifty-eight days afterwards Nadir Shah commenced his march homewards,
 carrying with him treasure amounting to twenty millions sterling,
 jewels of enormous value, and the Koh-i-noor, which was considered
 by the Persian conqueror to be his greatest prize. Nadir Shah, ninth
 possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was no more fortunate with it than the
 previous owners had been, for shortly after his return to Persia, in
 the height of his glory, he was assassinated, leaving no heir to his
 kingdom; while Ahmed Abdallee, chief assassin, and once his trusted
 officer, went off, carrying with him most of Nadir Shah's treasure,
 and amongst it the Koh-i-noor. He meant to found a kingdom for himself
 out of the territories now known as Afghanistan.

 "The dynasty which Abdallee, this tenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor,
 founded, having been crowned at Kandahar in the year 1747, met with
 the same fate that attended the dynasties of all the possessors of
 this celebrated stone. His son Timour, after a short and inglorious
 reign, left his throne to his eldest son Humayoon, twelfth possessor
 of the Koh-i-noor, who fell into the hands of his next brother, Zemaun
 Shah, by whom he was cruelly blinded, and rendered incapable of
 reigning. The same fate befell Zemaun Shah, the thirteenth possessor
 of the Koh-i-noor; he in turn fell into the hands of another brother,
 Mahmoud, who also put out his eyes and succeeded him, but who was
 in his turn soon conquered by another brother, Shah Shooja, our
 Afghan ally. This last did not long maintain his position, and, after
 various vicissitudes, fled to the Punjaub with his brother Zemaun
 Shah, carrying with them the Koh-i-noor, of which Shah Shooja was the
 fifteenth and last Mohammedan possessor. His fate is known to all
 who have heard or read the story of our fatal expedition to Cabul
 and its consequences, including Shah Shooja's end. Shah Shooja being
 now dependent on Runjeet Sing, the then sovereign of the Punjaub,
 for his very existence, soon found himself compelled to yield to the
 requirements of this powerful and most unscrupulous potentate, who
 insisted upon the Koh-i-noor being given up to him. The captive prince
 had no alternative, and yielded, when the great Sikh potentate became
 the sixteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor.

 "At that time no native sovereign in India was so great as Runjeet,
 and no kingdom seemed more likely to last than the great Sikh monarchy
 he had founded, but by a curious coincidence the same ill fate that
 had always followed the possessor of the Koh-i-noor pursued it into
 this great family. Runjeet himself died, leaving the Koh-i-noor,
 which he valued at £1,000,000 sterling, to the priests of Jagannath
 (Juggernath); but it was preserved in the Lahore Treasury. Runjeet
 was succeeded in 1839 by his son, Kurruck Sing, who was poisoned the
 following year. Before the funeral ceremonies were completed, his
 son was purposely killed by a falling archway. A competition for
 the throne (now vacant) ensued, between the widow of Kurruck Sing
 and a reputed son of Runjeet Sing, named Shere Sing, who, though
 born in wedlock, had been stigmatized by his father as illegitimate.
 Shere Sing, however, succeeded, but his triumph was of a short
 duration. Near the close of 1843 he was assassinated, and this led to
 wide-spreading anarchy, culminating in the two successive wars with
 the British, that of 1846 and 1848-9, ending in the final annexation
 of the Punjaub by the British, and the acquisition by it of the
 celebrated diamond, the Koh-i-noor.

 "The natives, with their belief as to the peculiar properties of
 the stone, prophesied what would happen. The East India Company
 carried off the booty, which should have been sold and converted
 into prize-money. They broke up almost directly after the 'Accursed'
 had entered their hands, when Lord Dalhousie, the Viceroy of
 India, presented it to her Majesty (3rd of July, 1850, forty-three
 years ago). It was considered by loyal natives the most sinister
 circumstance that could have befallen our royal family. Lord Dalhousie
 did not live very long, and died just as he might have expected to be
 raised to the highest honours of the State. The Duke of Wellington,
 who gave the first turn to the cutting, died three months after. We
 then lost Prince Albert, and I do not believe we any of us knew what
 we were losing until he was gone.

 "When my friend, the then Collector of Hyderabad, was sitting with
 the Nawáb Mahmoud Khan, the former Minister of that State, and one of
 the Queen's most loyal subjects after the conquest of the province,
 he informed the Nawáb of the stone's destination. The latter spat
 upon the ground, and with an expression of horror uttered the usual
 Mohammedan exclamation under the circumstances, 'Tobah! repentance in
 the name of God! Are they going to send that accursed thing to the
 Queen? May she refuse it!' All natives spit with an exclamation of
 horror whenever they hear it mentioned. It is impossible for me to go
 into the causes, nor perhaps ought I to say how, according to Eastern
 theory, the curse may be averted. Nevertheless I have done so. May I
 ask if, barring _£ s. d._, our position or _prestige_ has progressed
 or declined since we became the possessor of the 'Accursed Stone'? I
 ask all non-_£ s. d_. Englishmen whether they consider the Koh-i-noor
 a comfortable ornament for the English crown, or a pleasant legacy for
 our most deservedly popular Prince of Wales?"

[Sidenote: _Regret at leaving the Deccan_.]

Our last recollections of Hyderabad are brilliant. Sir Salar Jung gave
a magnificent evening _fête_, which was like a scene in the "Arabian
Nights." One of the large courts of the palace is a quadrangle, the
centre of which is occupied by a huge basin of water as big as a small
lake full of fountains. The _salámliks_ 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 _salámlik_ 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
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.


BACK TO BOMBAY.


[Sidenote: _Towers of Silence_.]

The Towers of Silence, or Parsee charnel-house, the burying-place
of the Fire Worshippers, one should not omit to see. Ascend a giant
staircase overhung by palms and tropical vegetation to a large garden
on a hill summit. On the way you pass a clock, and a hand points to the
following notice: "None but Parsees enter here." This is one of the
four splendid views of Bombay; the other three are from Kumballa Hill,
Mazagon Hill, and Parel Hill. The palms immediately around us are thick
with myriads of large black vultures, gorged with small-pox and cholera
corpses. The air is heavy with their breath; they breathe and exhale
what they feed upon; they fatten upon what bare contact with would kill
us, and they cluster in thousands.

This garden is full of public and private family towers. The great
public tower is divided into three circles, with a well in the middle.
It has an entrance and four outlets for water. First, there is a place
for clothes, and a tank to bathe in. Here the priests (the operators)
leave their garments. The procession of Parsees who accompany the body
here desist, and wait outside. The priests then place the body, if a
man, on the first circle; if a woman, on the second; if a child, on the
third. The centre is a dry well covered with grating. The priests are
obliged to stop and watch. A body is picked clean in an hour by these
vultures, who fly down the moment they see the procession coming, and
have to be kept at bay till the right moment. It is considered very
lucky if they pick the right eye out first instead of the left, and the
fact is recorded to the relatives. When the bones are perfectly clean,
the priest pushes them into the well; when the rain comes, it carries
off the ashes and the bones, and the water runs through these four
outlets, with charcoal at the mouths to purify it before entering and
defiling the earth, which would become putrid, and cause fever. They
will not defile the earth by being buried in it, and it is an honour
to have a living sepulchre. When there is no epidemic, they have about
three bodies a day. The priests then descend, wash, and resume their
garments, when they are reclaimed from being impure, and the procession
returns to the City. Once descended from this melancholy height, there
is no smell.

We saw a great deal here of the Sassoon family, who showed us much
hospitality. Sir Charles Sargent and Mr. Melville gave several
garden-parties, also private theatricals, in a very nice bungalow at
Breach Candy. We also had a delightful bachelor dinner at Mr. Pedder's.

One of the notable things was seeing the departure of Lord Napier of
Magdala. Besides the regular guard of honour, all his old Abyssinian
Wallahs (21st), by force of habit, "off duty" and without arms, formed
themselves into a guard to bid farewell to their cherished Commander.
We all had misty eyes as we saw the splendid old soldier move away from
the crowd of "swells" and go and speak touching words of parting to his
men. It must be a strange moment in a man's life resigning a Command
after a brilliant forty-eight years' career, such as his was, and being
turned out to grass e'er the fire and energy of work has flickered out,
if one may use such an expression regarding the Command of Gibraltar.
We then witnessed the arrival of Lord Lytton. The Chinese bazar was
also a great amusement.

[Sidenote: _Sects_.]

There was a new sect arising among the Maharattas, and we used to go
to their meetings at the Brahm Somaj, a Hindú temple. They believe in
one God, no idol, and no revelation. There was an old lady named Mrs.
Hough, who died three years before we came here, at Kolaba, who used to
relate that in 1803 she danced with Sir Arthur Wellesley at a _fête_.
Mr. MacLean, the editor of the Bombay paper, regretted that before her
death she burnt all her memoirs, extending over three-quarters of a
century, from 1798 to 1873, which would have been invaluable material
for a domestic history of Bombay at that time. I dare say she knew why
she burnt them; I dare say thousands of people's descendants have cause
to bless her for it. A house was now pulled down at Malabar Point,
which was inhabited by the subsequent Duke of Wellington.

There is an old new church in Travancore belonging to the Syrian
Christians, founded personally by St. Thomas the Apostle, in the year
of our Lord 57; anyway, it traces clearly to the second century. Their
leader, Justus Joseph, has a flock of five thousand Syrian Christians
and eighteen priests. I hear their doings are wonderful.

Not the least curious thing near Bombay is Walkeshwar; most visitors
and many residents do not know what it is. Just off the road to Malabar
Point, and close to Frere Town, quite unsuspected, lies concealed a
most interesting remnant of ancient India, pure and undefiled. We
descended several flights of steps, and came in view of a splendid
tank some hundred yards wide and broad, which you reach by other
flights of steps extending the whole length and breadth of the tank.
The water looked nasty and unwholesome, and was covered with insects,
some stinging and venomous. The banks are surrounded by innumerable
Hindú temples, great and small, dedicated to Mahadevi and their other
gods. The village around was inhabited entirely by Hindús. A holy
Brahm Pundit came out of a Hindú convent, or ascetic place. My husband
said something to him, and told him that he had been admitted to the
Brahminical thread, and he took us to see everything. It was already
evening; there was a lighting of lamps and a ringing of bells, and we
stayed to see their worship.

[Sidenote: _The Hindú Smáshán_.]

The next day we went to the Hindús' _Smáshán_, or burning-ground, in
the Sonápur quarter. The corpse was covered with flowers, the forehead
reddened with sandal-wood, and the mouth blackened. The bier was
carried by several men; one bore sacred fire in an earthenware pot.
The burial-ground men made four holes in the ground with a crowbar,
into which they drove four stout stakes; then they piled up logs of
wood cross-barred of the same length and breadth, six or eight layers
high; it is teakwood. Then they lay the body on it. Everybody walked
up and put a little water in her mouth--first the husband, then the
father, father-in-law, relatives and friends, just as we throw dust
on the coffin. They pile more layers of wood on the body, leaving it
in the middle; then the husband comes out, and walks backwards to the
fire, and takes, with his hands behind him, a burning brand, and sets
the first light to the wood. The whole party in similar order (as
before named with the water) do the same, but _they_ face the pile,
and apply the fire to the four quarters, one at each cardinal point.
The rich burn with wood and ghee. The ashes and bones are thrown into
the sea. The ordinary ceremony costs sixteen rupees, and three hours
consumes a corpse. The burning of the Hindú is thus explained: He has
three births; the first physical, from his parents; the second his
religious ceremony, which makes him a _Dwija_, or twice-born man; the
third is the heavenly birth, attained by passing through the purifying
fire. All present at this funeral were Hindú except ourselves. They
throw sugar down to feed the ants. The clothes caught fire first, and
then the feet, and then you only see a great blaze and smell roasted
flesh. The burning-ground is a long, large, enclosed yard with a long
shed, or covered verandah, and seats for mourners. The yard is dotted
with these burning-places; a sacred cow is stalled at one end. Outside
is a little burial-ground for Hindú babies, as they are not burnt.

[Sidenote: _The Pinjrapole_.]

Another very curious place is the Pinjrapole, in the heart of the
native quarter called Bhuleshpsar--a hospital for sick, maimed, and
incurable animals, which covers two thousand square yards. There were
old bullocks that had been tortured, orphan goats and calves, starved
kittens and dogs, and blind and lame and wounded beasts. It was founded
fifty-seven years ago by Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy, supported by his money
and piety, and that of the well-known banker, Mr. Khamchund Motichand,
and by Hindú contributions to the amount of eight lakhs a year. I
admire immensely a religion that believes in animals having a kind of
soul and a future. To me this, is the missing link between Nature and
Grace. Perhaps I had better not say what I do think about it.

We then went for a little excursion to Jhinjeera, and one to Bassein,
for we found it extremely hot in March in Bombay. Bombay is a City of
large public buildings; every great man builds one, and it is called by
his name. But in 1876 there was no general hospital, no assembly-room,
no theatre, no lunatic asylum.

[Sidenote: _Bhendi Bazar_.]

One cannot say enough of the Bhendi Bazar. It is unrivalled in India,
and there one really sees what India is in the present time. It has a
totally different cachet to any other Eastern bazar. You have Hindú,
Parsee, Portuguese, Chinese--every race, caste, and family between
Cathay and Peru, Marocco and Pekin, Moscow and the Malay Peninsula.
Every house is of a different architecture and different colour--green,
blue, Cashmere shawl pattern, the names written in English, in
Maharattee, Guzaratee, and Hindostani. Here and there are inserted
small oratories dedicated to as many different gods as races, and you
are mostly attracted to them by a black, almost naked worshipper,
dancing furiously before it to the jangling of bells. Here are three
hundred and three jewellers and dealers in precious stones, fine
diamonds, carved blackwood furniture, cocoanut-fibre matting and reed
matting, brass and copper work, bronzes, ivory, and tortoiseshell,
Bombay box-work, carving in sandal-wood and ebony, turquoise ornaments,
shawls, and all sorts of silver and gold work, and old china. The
"swells'" houses are also the quaintest things under heaven, with every
colour in the rainbow, and all sorts of shapes.

The crowd, seething and frying in the gorgeous glare of the tropical
sun, is as remarkable as the houses which lodge it. Konkani Moslems,
Persian Shí'ahs, Bohrahs, Arabs from the Persian Gulf, or from the
stables of Abd el Rahman or Ali bin Abdullah, Afghans, Beloch Sindis,
and Brahmins and Mahmans, schismatic Shí'ahs and Khiyahi and Wáhhabis,
Hindú women in wonderful colours, the best-dressed women in India,
making the place look like a garden with their bright-coloured _sáris_.
A great object of curiosity is the variety of turban, every size and
shape, every colour and manner of wearing--some of the size of a
good-sized tea-table; some fit the head tight, some are red and horned,
some are worn straight, and some are jauntily cocked sideways. There is
the Pattewála (the local Janissary), the dark Portuguese, the Sisters
of Mary and Joseph, in black robes and white-frilled caps, gliding
meekly in and out the crowd, Souters canaries (policemen), Sepoy
riflemen, the Bheestie under his huge water-skin, Sulaymanis (Afghans)
from the hills, and Rohillas, also hill-men. After being there a week
one begins to learn the _tilak_--the Hindú forehead mark, the sign
that denotes his caste; and we saw eight various sorts. The colouring
of this crowd is truly wonderful, and the Hindú waggon, a painted box
on wheels, dating from the year 1, completes the scene. Nowhere in the
world, except perhaps at Damascus, are there so many varieties of race,
nationality, and religion as in Bombay.


MÁHÁBÁLESHWAR.


Máhábáleshwar is the favourite of all the sanitaria save the
Neilgherries, which, fortunately for the other poor stations, is
eight or ten days' journey by sea and land, very expensive, and rough
travelling for invalids. We took a ticket to Bassein, and to our right
were the far-famed Kanheri Caves (called "Kennery" by the English),
which are very like those of Karla. There are plenty of places which
could be advantageously converted into sanitaria--Khandála, Lanáuli,
Sinhgarh, Purunbhur, Punalla near Colapur, and Kalsabai in the Deccan,
and Tunga in the Northern Konkan. _It is no use waiting until you are
sick to look for sanitaria_; while you are healthy seek them all out,
and find which suits you best.

No private family can form a sanitarium. Some great official must
go there with all his Staff; then bungalows, inns, necessaries, and
comforts begin to grow; roads have to be cleared, water looked after,
wild beasts to be hunted out, regular supplies for man and beast to be
sent from the next greatest town, and things come round of themselves.
Máhábáleshwar was made by Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay 1827-30.
To reach it you have first got to make for Poonah, and after that you
have to go seventy-five miles.

The air was like blasts of a heated furnace on the 16th of April, and
the thermometer we pinned to the cushion showed 105º F. We ordered a
trap; the springs were broken, the projections stuck through the hard,
narrow cushions into our unhappy bodies, the carriage was lopsided
and bumped fearfully; but we were well, hearty, and happy. It was a
charming night, and we enjoyed it awfully, sleeping through the dark,
and drinking a lot of water. In the morning we passed a beautiful clean
bungalow at Soorool, where we brought down our provision basket, ate,
and had tea and milk with the old soldier that kept it; and we stopped
at Wali, the prettiest and most interesting village in Western India,
from its temples up to the river-bed.

We passed several most interesting things, which we inspected; and when
we arrived at the bottom of the mountain the horses were taken out,
and sixteen coolies took us up to the top. After every two minutes we
had to tie up our broken springs, but when we got under the verdure of
Máhábáleshwar at the summit, 4780 feet above sea-level, we found the
carriage-roads so broad and the vegetation and trees so plucked as to
give no shade, though the luxuriant woods extend over seventeen miles
long to five broad. The distances seemed intolerable, and the last
thirteen miles we were very tired. We had been eighteen hours out, but
on arrival we went off for a drive with Lady Agnes Danyell, who drove
a pair of "tattoos" the size of a dog. At the end of the day we were
thoroughly tired. We had been out twenty-five hours, and had had no
sleep for forty-one hours; we dined, and we do not remember the end of
the dinner nor how we got to bed. Dorabjee Sorabjee, the civil Parsee
of "Máhábáleshwar Hotel," treated us very well, and was most reasonable
in charges. One drives everywhere in a _tonga_, a little tea-cart with
small tattoo ponies; but it is an agony to drive with hired "tats,"
they are so ill-treated; so that Richard did nothing but swear at the
driver in his own particular dialect for being cruel. My fox-terrier
did nothing but struggle and fly at his throat, for she could not stand
cruelty either; and Richard, in contradiction, scolded me all the way
for my ridiculous tender sensibilities.

There were magnificent mountain scenes, with piles of Gháts on all
sides; the points went out into the air with a fall of four thousand
feet into the Konkan, and the ravines are wild and jagged. Sívaji,
born in 1627, was one of the greatest leaders of light cavalry ever
known. His character was fiery, and fascinated all bold adventurers.
He formed a large body of wild horsemen, whom he led to great military
enterprises, and at his death left a kingdom four hundred miles long
by a hundred and twenty broad, though only a subject of the Rajah of
Bijapur, with whom he broke faith. On yonder eminence is Purtabghur,
where this Sívaji, the founder of the Maharatta Empire, murdered the
Moslem General, Afzul Khan, in a disgraceful manner; whilst embracing
him he stabbed him with a dagger, called _waghnak_, a thing like a
tiger-claw, worn on the hand like a knuckle-duster.

The village of Máhábáleshwar is a Brahm settlement, where five rivers
in the dry and seven in the wet season arise; this is the Krishna
source, and these Maharattas are a very fine race. We went to Lingmálá,
where lie utterly neglected plantations of quinine (cinchona). Why!
when quinine is so dear?

At nine a.m. the sun is too hot; at five begins the cool afternoon.
At nightfall a horror of deep gloom settles upon the world up there.
The sun is as hot as Sind, the nights are cold. Here we again found
the Petersons. We went off to look at the iron mines; this is the
best iron, from which all the Damascus and Khorasán blades were made.
It is soft and pliable, and when the blade is made they harden it.
Richard brought away a lump of the iron, and Mr. Joyner, C.E., has
since had it made into an inkstand as a remembrance, which always stood
on Richard's writing-table, and which I keep now as a treasure. The
bridle-paths, and the shady dingly walks of Mátherán, are far better
than the broad carriage-roads of Máhábáleshwar, that, in spite of the
lovely green, give you no shade. Besides, Society is always on duty up
there. Tall carriages instead of basket chairs, and sables capped with
black chimney-pots, look queer in the wild woods. There is none of the
_abandon_ of the country.

The Dangar tribes linger here, the Thakurs cling to Mátherán, and
the Kátkaris haunt the lowlands. After a few days here, which Lady
Agnes Danyell made very pleasant to us, with drives and breakfasts
and dinners, we started for our return journey. We were twelve hours
getting down, stopping to admire Wali, and have some tea at Soorool.
There was just enough moon to show us the dark and awful parts of the
Gháts, and the windings of the woods and the very sharp turns suggested
tigers, jackals, and brigands (which do not exist here). We arrived
at the station at two in the morning, ate from our basket, got into
the train, reached Lanáuli at seven, and were at Bombay by midday. I
will not insert an account of the hill races and tribes, which would
overload this book, but will insert it amongst my husband's "Labours,"
as he taught them to me.


GOA.


[Sidenote: _Goa and West India_.]

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--£10 for a
thirty-six hours' passage; but there is no opposition.

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.[1]

At nine at night we reached Vingorla; the coast is very bad and
dangerous, and in the monsoon all but impossible. Vessels are often
wrecked, so steamers never go near, but put boats off. We disembarked
a Sister Marie (_fille de la Croix_), a young German nun, bound for
some desolate spot where they are forming a convent for educating
children, nursing the sick, and reclaiming the savage. This young,
interesting-looking girl of about twenty had to make her own way up
country; these are the true "Soldiers of Christ," and our hearts
yearned to her as she calmly and smilingly bid us good-bye, and went
over the ship's side.

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, monsoon 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 fœtid 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 24º 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).

All Portuguese India is only a strip of about seventy miles long, and
very narrow, which they would do much better to sell to the British
Government; for of all the God-forgotten, deserted holes, a thousand
years behind the rest of the creation, I have never seen anything to
equal Goa, and I pitied from my heart the charming, kindly, gentle,
hospitable people who have to live there. I have lived in sandy
deserts, in primeval forests; I have suffered hunger, thirst, cold,
heat, fatigue, privation, and danger, and thought it charming; but I
hated the sort of life at Goa. It is dead, and there is nothing to
reward one; only we were here for a purpose.

[Sidenote: _Life there_.]

There are three Goas, full of history and romance. There is the
Inquisition to study, and there is the tomb of St. Francis Xavier.

No. 1 is the _old_ Hindú Goa, now called San Lourenço, about six miles
from Panjim (New Goa), upon the winding river, and two miles to the
southward of Old Goa, or Goa Velha. It is only marked by a salt plain,
and two hills with a church upon each, and a bit upon the plain. It is
pretty healthy, and no one knows why it was deserted. Old Goa, or Goa
Velha, is that of St. Francis Xavier; it is nine and a half kilometres
from Panjim, by a good road along the winding river--a most picturesque
locality, full of history, Catholic tradition, and the scene of the
infamous Inquisition. It was deserted on account of malaria and
fever for New Goa (called Panjim), where we landed, and where the
few personages who are obliged to be there vegetate, except with an
occasional change to Cazalem, the six cottages on the open beach of the
bay corresponding to our Barra at Santos.

In Panjim are the barest necessaries of life; there is no inn, no
travellers' 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. The thirst
was agonizing. All the drinks were hot (no ice); the more you drank
the more you wanted. The depression was fearful, and never a breath of
air _even at night_. The blazing sun poured into our little room all
day, and baked it quite red-hot for the night. I used to look upon the
people who lived there as miracles--a truly purgatorial preparation for
death.

We found for hire only one small _gári_, a small open wooden cart with
room for two; the wheels wobbled, the spring on one side was broken,
the lamps dangled, there was a deal box for the driver, the harness was
old rusty chains tied together with bits of string. Our coachman and
footmen were two little boys with something round their loins. The pony
was broken down by mange, starvation, and sores. I insisted on keeping
him myself. He was put into a comfortable shed in Mr. Major's garden,
and had as much as ever he could eat and drink, and was groomed daily.
We started at dawn, for at nine it is too hot. At first the pony had to
be led by a rope by No. 1 boy. We used the whip gently and mercifully
from the cart, and the wheels had to be rolled round by No. 2 boy and
a help; but as soon as his sores healed, and he began to resume a
respectable appearance, he followed me about like a dog, and looked
after me with almost human eyes; and if he stopped needlessly after
that, the _gharawála_ running in front of him for a moment was enough,
without any whip or any rope. He trod his old forage underfoot with
contempt and used it as litter.

Richard was very fond of collecting native music from various parts of
the world, and we tried very hard to get them to treat us to some of
the music of Portugal and Brazil; but they are foolishly ashamed of it,
and will only sing in French and Italian, which does not suit their
voices. It would be difficult to find an uglier or meaner-looking race
than the people here. Black Christians are a mixed breed of European
and Indian blood. The _mestiços_ (Eurasians) or mixed breed compose
the mass, the Government officials are mostly from Portugal. The white
families settled here, native Portuguese, were called _castissos_. The
few who consider themselves pure Portuguese are very proud of it. The
officials from Portugal are, of course, pure, but the descendants of
the first great families have intermixed with the natives.

The mesquin rhubarb-coloured race are dressed in a scanty dirty-white
bit of decency, or the refuse of European rag-shops. A great sign
of respectability is the top hat. The poorest man who considers
himself a Portuguese twenty times removed, will wear a seedy patched
black coat and a black tile in a cocoanut-forest-hut to distinguish
himself from the natives, as a mark of respectability. The shabby
demi-semi-civilization, the enervating climate, the poverty, the utter
uninterestedness of everything, bears the curse of the Inquisition.
They bear, however, one mark of St. Francis Xavier's teaching, who
was a true gentleman (Hidalgo), besides being a saint. He preached
courteousness, and the manners of the lower orders are excellent.
The merest beggar has the manners of a gentleman; the poor all doff
their caps as you pass, and seem formed to exchange civilities with
Europeans. Richard found them just as he left them thirty years ago,
the women scolding, making a noise almost like pig-killing, the
children whining and crying as if they were perpetually teething, the
animals starved and ill-treated.

There is no escaping the heat of Goa; no ice, no punkahs, no tatties.
The houses have no verandahs, have no shade, all white paint, and the
sun bakes the walls the first hour it comes out. There is no milk and
no servants. They export annually twenty-eight thousand _excellent_[2]
servants, but they won't stay there.

If any extraordinary law could oblige anybody to live here, they should
bring a dozen tents, and pitch them under the trees, half a dozen good
horses, a tent servant, a first-rate cook who could market, a groom,
and a general servant and messenger. They should make a contract with
the British Indian steamers to supply them with everything, keep a
steam launch to go out and meet those steamers. But if any one were
rich enough to do all that, they would not live at Goa. However, we
were most lucky to have found the kind Majors.

[Sidenote: _What to see_.]

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 freshness. 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.

The site of the once so-called "Holy Office" is on the right hand of
the Cathedral and the Archbishop's Palace, a heap of ruins, covered
with luxuriant growth, and poisonous plants and thorns; not one
stone left upon another; not a wholesome shrub springs between the
fragments of masonry which, broken and blackened with decay, are left
to encumber the soil, as unworthy of being removed, or contaminating
another building with their curse. You must not think we walked through
comfortable paved streets to these different buildings, of which I only
mention two, but there were dozens. We scrambled through woods, over
hill and dale, and the distances tell us how large Goa must have been,
especially ascending a stony Scala Santa through briars and brambles
to the place where the victims used to be scourged. There was the
chapel where Xavier first started a school and a chapel for converting
and preaching, where he used to educate children; and hard by was the
well where he took his morning bath. It is like the Arab's "City with
impenetrable gates, still, without a voice or cheery inhabitant; the
owl hooting in its quarters, and night-birds skimming in circles in
its ruins, and the raven croaking in its great thoroughfare-streets,
as if bewailing those that had been in it." How thirsty we used to be!
But at the sight of a bit of silver, boys would climb the trees like
monkeys, pick off cocoanuts, chop off the little round piece at the
top, and hand them to us to drink. How beautifully white the inside
of the nut; how refreshing the milk, clean and cold as ice! Each nut
containing enough to quench the greatest thirst, leaving a refreshing
coolness in the mouth, throat, and interior. In a dry, parched, thirsty
land without water, there is drink for you at the top of the trees that
shade you--harmless drink, iced by nature.

The moonlit scenery of the distant bay smiles in all eternal Nature's
loveliness upon the dull-grey piles of ruined, desolate habitations,
the short-lived labours of man; delicately beautiful are the dark
hills, clothed with semi-transparent mist, the little streams
glistening like lines of silver over the opposite plain, and the purple
surface of the creek stretched at our feet. Musically, the mimic waves
splashing against the barrier of stone, and the soft whisperings of the
night breeze, alternately rose and fell with the voice of the waters.

During all our drives and long walks we were chiefly struck by the
poverty of the people and the unhealthiness of the air: but we were
healthy and strong, and we did not mind it. We drove once to a large
village called Ribandar for the purpose of seeing the Convent of the
Misericordia. Here are closely kept under strict surveillance, both
religious and civil, seventy orphan girls of all colours, class, and
ages, educated by the nuns, and who, when grown up, remain in the house
till they receive an offer of marriage. They look like birds in a cage,
and I pitied them; for, with the world full of nice pretty girls and
spontaneous love affairs, who would think of going to the World's End
to overhaul this cage of forgotten captives? Richard gives a rather
amusing account of his visit to this convent when he was a young
lieutenant thirty years before.[3]

We had two nice boat expeditions; one to Mr. Major's coffee plantation,
in which is a petrified forest, and one to Seroda; each expedition
occupying two or three days.

Seroda is a Hindú town of houses, pagodas, tombs, tanks, lofty
parapets, and a huge flight of steps, people, trees, and bazars, all
massed together. It is fearfully hot, dirty, and shut in on all sides.
In old days it was a nursery for _Nach_ girls.

[Sidenote: _The Inquisition_.]

Goa is well worth visiting, its history well worth learning. It is one
of those kingdoms that has been; that grew, reigned in magnificence,
declined, and is now a pauper. I studied its history on the spot in
Portuguese, and I thought that none of the English books upon it are
worth reading. I cannot give an account of it here, for the reason
of overweighting my book, but of all its grandeur there are only
two interests attaching to its name that _last_--one infamous, the
Inquisition; the other glorious, the poor Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier.
The Inquisition practically ceased in 1732, and was officially effaced
in 1812, being abolished by the interference of the British Government,
and its offices were shut up in the reign of the Count of Sarzedas, who
was Viceroy from 1807 to 1816; but for eighty years the Inquisition had
been _only a name_.

The religious history of Goa is even more striking than its civil
Government. It seems to have been a sort of sacerdotal republic--a huge
collection of Churches and Convents in a desert place. The province
was in its meridian, both civil and religious, 324 years ago. In 1571
it contained 150,000 practical Catholics, and owned half a million of
subjects in Portuguese India, and in Old Goa alone there were 200,000
inhabitants. It only _absolutely_ flourished during a space of 135
years. How it must have been cursed by the victims of the tortures of
the Inquisition, till God heard their cry, and avenged their blood, so
that not one stone remains upon another, whilst the only thing that
lives is the shrine of the one saint and gentleman, Xavier, and the
tomb of the Christian hero, João da Castro--as if God had preserved
them to shine out as everlasting treasures from the ruins of crime!
Xavier was the apostle of the Indies; his mission was to reform the
manners of Europeans in the Indies, whose lives were a disgrace to the
Christian profession, and on the other hand to preach the gospel to
the pagan population of the East. There is no space in this book to
give an interesting account of him and his works, but he went to India
in April, 1541, and was thirty-five years of age. He only lived ten
years, and there was no Inquisition in his time. They used to call him
the "God of Nature."

[Sidenote: _Xavier's Death_.]

In April, 1552, he set sail with a little band of apostles for an
expedition to China. A shipwreck drove them to Malacca, where they were
persecuted and detained. The Governor sent Xavier's vessel, the _Santa
Cruz_, to trade at the island of San Chan (Sancian), off the coast of
China, with orders to erect no buildings, save shelters of mats and
branches. Xavier resolved to embark with the three companions he had
kept back--a Chinese, a young Indian, and a lay brother, and after
great storms and difficulties Sancian was reached--a desolate sandy
region invested only by tigers. To please the Governor of Malacca, the
merchants and men on board all turned against Xavier; they denied him
sufficient food, and he was struck down by fever.

One morning of late November, 1552, amidst a breaking surf, a boat was
lowered from the ship's side, and made towards the island where they
had abandoned Xavier. The lay brother, the Chinese, the Indian, and one
Portuguese merchant named Alvarez, ascended a sandy hillock and hurried
to the prostrate body of a man. There, on a bed of sand, lay the great
apostle of the Indies, his head, grey with toil and suffering, exposed
to wind and sun. His face was flushed with fever, his thin hands
clasped his crucifix, and beside him was a little knapsack containing
the necessaries for Mass. They bore him to a shed of mats and leaves;
they bled him, but, being ignorant, pricked a vein which only produced
convulsions, and the operation was twice repeated. He was delirious,
and muttered only, "My Lord and my God! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy
on me! O most Holy Trinity! Queen of Heaven, show thyself a Mother!"
He came to his senses, smiling sweetly, and thanking those around him,
and told them his end was near. At two o'clock on Friday, December 2nd,
1552, he kissed his crucifix, and saying, with a gleam of joy upon his
face, "In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me not be confounded for
ever," life departed. He was forty-six years of age, and these events
happened 343 years ago.

What makes the freshness of the body at the present time extraordinary,
is that the merchant Alvarez put the body in a large Chinese chest,
filled up with unslaked lime to consume the flesh, and they buried
it, set up a cross, and two heaps of stones at the head and feet.
The following 17th of February, two months and a half later, by the
Captain's orders, the coffin was uncovered; but when the lime was taken
off, the body was found ruddy and flesh-coloured as though asleep, and
on making a puncture the blood flowed, and the priestly vestments were
unhurt. In June it was taken to Malacca, where the whole place (except
the Governor who had persecuted him, whose name was D'Atayde, and who
mocked at it) came to meet it in procession; then it was conveyed to
Goa, and all Goa went twenty miles out to sea to receive the body, with
great pomp and ceremony. This happened on the 15th of March, 1554. He
was already canonized by the people, but Pope Paul V. beatified him,
and he was canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622, and promulgated by Urban
VIII.

This place had a great attraction for Richard, and this was the third
pilgrimage he had made here since 1844.

Baldæus, a Protestant, in his "History of the Indies," says, "Had
Xavier been of the same religion as ourselves, we should have esteemed
and honoured him as another St. Paul;" and he concludes his elegy thus:
"Oh that it had pleased God that, being what you were, you had been, or
might have been, one of us!" Hakluyt, a Protestant, and Tavernier, a
Huguenot, and many other Protestants, speak equally in his praise.

In 1221 the Inquisition was introduced by Pope Innocent IV., and in
1255 by Pope Alexander III. It found little favour in France, Italy,
and Germany; but in the thirteenth century it crept into Spain; but
it was in Portugal where it grew and flourished, and in 1478 became
cruel. In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Torquemada,
the great Chief Inquisitor, worked it up to its maximum of full energy
and bloodthirsty ferocity; but it did not reach Goa till 1560, eight
years after the death of Xavier. This vile institution is said to have
existed two hundred and fifty years, and the last person burnt was a
Jesuit named Malagrida, about 1732. Every writer says that Goa was
the very worst City of the Inquisition. It was used for all manner of
private spites, and political intrigues under the name of religion. It
was this that caused the Portuguese to lose India, as no one who could
fly from it would run the risk of staying, and ships did not even like
to call in port. We were very much impressed by the booming of the
Cathedral bell, which had tolled so many to their _auto da fé_.

The Rev. Dr. Claude Buchanan, Vice-Provost of the College of Fort
William of Calcutta, went there in 1808, and worried the Inquisitors
considerably, which he could afford to do, as Buchanan's regiment, the
78th Highlanders, was at Panjim, only eight miles off, and would have
blown the Inquisitors and their Holy Office into the air if he had been
touched. Even Buchanan said that "Xavier was counted a first-rate man
_even_ amongst the English." He was there after it had been abolished
in 1770, but it was re-allowed under great restrictions in the reign
of Donna Maria (1779), until its final and total abolition. Colonel
Adams of the 78th, when Buchanan went up to Old Goa, said, half in
joke, half in earnest, "If we don't hear from you in three days, I
shall march the 78th up and take the Inquisition by assault."

[Sidenote: _The Inquisition perishes_.]

Buchanan _did_ forget to write, and, at the end of three days, the
Colonel sent him a note begging of him to come down to Panjim every
night to sleep in the fortress (a ride of eight miles), on account
of the unhealthiness of Goa. In 1812 the letters of the King from
Lisbon ordered liberty of conscience and total annihilation of the
Inquisition, being, as the King said, "so terrifying to all nations,
so contrary to the true spirit of the Institution, so opposed to the
original pious intention of his august and royal ancestors." The
Conde de Sarzedas wrote thanking the King, and begging that he might
also burn the enormous quantity of processes and documents, _as too
great scandals would result_ therefrom; so we have lost about forty
thousand _procés_, inexhaustible matter for historians, novelists, and
dramatic writers, showing the manners and customs of those centuries in
Portuguese India.

It only shows what the Catholic religion is, and that "Hell's gates
cannot prevail against Christ's Church," when the Faith could stand
unmoved and flourish under three centuries of this tribunal of fire and
woe, composed of serpents in its own bosom, traitors in the camp; worse
than internal civil war, covering even its own members with infamy.
From this monster's brutal claw all fled,--Godliness, Manliness, and
Nature.

Moreover, Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Jews, and Indians found the
Christian God even more cruel than Brahma or Allah; they deserted the
country and commerce, and fled from low envy, vile cowardice, and
calumny, which dealt brutally and safely--like vivisection--not with
crime alone, but with the most trivial actions of their home-life.
Sufficed a little success in an enterprise, a few more thousands, a
gallant action winning praise, a rise in the social scale, public
esteem for a good work done,--anything that raised a man above his
fellows was quite enough.

It is, perhaps, the same now, _as far as evil tongues and pens can
wag_, and will always be, and people wince with moral pain; but it
breaks no bones, scorches no skin, and the object of envy may still
breathe fresh air and light, and enjoy life and liberty, though a
few _soi-disant_ friends may fall away. Nay, the fact of being of
a different race, tongue, and creed, a variance of opinion, family
rivalries, an unhappy love, a little spite or jealousy,--all was turned
to account, all was of use to denounce one's enemy _on a religious
ground_. It was enough for a "familiar" to open his mouth to make
people lose their judgment and reason.

I have had a sight of all the documents existing, exclusively Goanese,
by the present descendants of the Inquisitors, and the authorities of
that time.

We had a charming Portuguese dinner with Dr. Da Gama. Our last evening
Mr. Major took us an excursion in his boat to Cazalem. We coasted along
for an hour and sang glees under a fine moon, accompanied by a heavy
swell, and we were carried ashore through the surf on native shoulders,
and passed a very merry evening.

[Sidenote: _Sea Journey to Suez_.]

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 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 _boatwála_ 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. Knowing 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 _boatwálas_ with perpetual promises of
_bakshish_. Everybody else was leaving it to Kismet. Our kind host had
been holloaing at the _boatwálas_ 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 roaring 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. We
generally chose Austrian-Lloyd's steamers. They owned at that time
a fleet of sixty-nine keel, covering twenty-two different lines,
reasonable in charges. An Italian _cuisine_, everything clean, with a
certain style and refinement. They are safe ships, and their sailors,
mostly Dalmatians, are a brave seafaring race, quiet, docile, and
sober, stalwart, honest, and civil, and mind their ship in a storm.

On calm nights, say a delightful evening with balmy air, crescent
moon, with its attendant star, our Dalmatian crew sing better than
many a usual opera chorus, though quite untutored. They are thorough
sailors, gay in fine weather, hard-working and brave in the worst
of storms, and never drink. I know nothing pleasanter than a voyage
in Austrian-Lloyd's in fine weather with few passengers. This time,
however, we were physically uncomfortable. The boats were not fitted
for regular English passengers from India. They steam very slow--eight
knots an hour. They then carried no stewardess or doctor; they do now.
Then they had no ice or soda-water, no skylight for wind-sails, only
one awning instead of three, no punkahs and tatties. I believe all that
is changed. So we were seventeen English passengers, and we fried alive
in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

The average English people, if not made comfortable at sea, are as
troublesome as a mustard plaster--nothing was right. They wanted their
huge lumps of beef and mutton four times a day; they ate up all the
provisions like locusts, and drank the cellar dry almost before we got
to Aden. What would last Italians and Greek six weeks, does not last an
Englishman one.

Italians and Greeks have quite another form of being troublesome.
They would send every half-hour for the captain to ask if there is
any danger; if the sea and wind are going down; to say that they feel
very bad, and ask him what they shall take. He, with the greatest good
nature, instead of giving them the hearty "blessing" that ours would,
recommends a little _eau sucrée_, and says we shall be in smooth water
in another hour, though he knows quite well that the glass is down, and
that we are going straight into a gale, which will last several days.

Richard and I were exceedingly comfortable, as we always were,
and it amused us to hear "our boys," as we called our English
fellow-passengers, swearing at the Triestine stewards in Hindostani,
and talking louder and louder in the hopes of being understood. We
used to hear all day shouts of, "Where is Captain Burton? where is
Mrs. Burton?" We were wanted to interpret. We were the connecting link
between Austrian-Lloyd's and the discontented Britishers. But at last
we all became exceedingly jolly. We slept on deck in rows, and read
and talked. In the evening we sang glees and duets. We women abolished
toilette for white tea-gowns.

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. We put off, with them, afterwards
to the Arabian shore, to rest after our journey at "Moses' Wells,"
about three miles in the Arabian desert--the scene of poor Palmer,
Gill, and Charington's departure. It was a lovely scene, with its blue
sea, yellow sands, azure sky, and pink and purple mountains. The sun
was hot, but the pure desert air blew in our faces, as we went across
the sand to the picturesque spot. The wells or springs are surrounded
by tropical verdure, intermingled with Fellah huts. The most romantic
spot of all is a single tiny spring, under an isolated palm tree,
standing all alone on a little hillock of sand and desert, far from all
else, as if that tree and that spring had been created for each other
to live alone. It was delightful after India and the rough voyage. We
took our _kayf_ there with the Arabs, who gave us delicious coffee and
_narghílehs_, and we rode camels. We were there at the time of Abdul
Assiz's death.

[Sidenote: _After a Stay in Egypt, to Trieste_.]

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 Compiègne (afterwards shot in a duel), Dr. Schweinfürth, 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
Corfú. After we leave Corfú, 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. The coming into
Trieste is very sweet from the sea. The beautiful little City, nestled
in its corner in the mountains at the very top of the Adriatic, seemed
to us the greenest and most beautiful spot we had ever beheld, after
hot India and barren Egypt and Arabia. The hills plumaged to the sea,
dotted with white villages and villas; Miramar standing well out to sea
in the warm haze; the splendid Carniola Mountains on the opposite side,
still slightly tipped with snow, were most refreshing to our eyes, and
we settled down in our little home with a feeling of rest, and enjoyed
our ever-warm reception from our Trieste friends after our sea voyage.

[1] I put this story in the _New Review_ last November. Hardly had I
done so when it was claimed by an American for Professor Henry, of the
Smithsonian Institute at Washington. It could hardly have happened to
two men, and Richard was much too witty to need to copy. It happened at
eleven o'clock on the 22nd of April, 1876. I was present, saw it with
my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, and thinking it too good to be
forgotten wrote it down there and then. The Archbishop and I mentioned
it in letters a few months ago.--I. B.

[2] Richard always took Goanese boys on his wildest travels, and they
were always true to him.

[3] "Goa and the Blue Mountains," which will later be in the "Uniform
Library."--I. B.




CHAPTER IV.

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 Opçina, 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. On the 1st of August
I had a great sorrow, in which Richard participated. I had taken out
to Syria a couple of Yarborough fox-terriers. "Nip" was one of their
offspring (one of five, born on the 24th of June, 1871, in Syria). She
accompanied me to England, and then through France, Italy, Germany,
to Trieste; then again all over Italy and Germany, back to England,
to Arabia, India, and Egypt. In India (in April, 1876) she suddenly
lost her eyesight from the heat. We nursed her for over three months,
and tried everything. She had four doctors, but she died on the 1st
of August, 1876, and is buried in Mr. Brock's garden, Campagna Hill,
_viâ_ St. Vito, Trieste. She had to be chloroformed, as she was in such
pain, and there was no hope for her. I put up a little tombstone to her
memory, much to the rage of the peasants, who were also very angry at
her little sealskin coat in winter, and her cradle to sleep in; they
considering that I treated her like a Christian, which was true. The
cradle had its mattress and pillow, sheets, blankets, and curtain; and
God help anybody who ventured to touch that cradle, except to make it,
like our beds, with the utmost respect.

During this month, while we were out swimming, there was a cry of
"Shark!" We swam for our lives to the baths; but one young man had
been drawn down by his foot, and either the shark was a small one, or
the cries frightened it, and the swimmer was strong, for he managed to
save himself with a mangled foot. But some time before there had been
a man sitting, dangling his naked legs in the water at the edge of a
boat lashed to the quay, close to the hotel windows, and a shark had
wriggled itself up, and bit one leg off by the thigh. The poor fellow
died in a couple of hours from the fright and loss of blood, so there
is a "shark scare" every year, and swimming is not an unmitigated joy.

[Sidenote: _Delightful Trieste Life_.]

We also had a delightful habit of not dining, but all our intimates
would appoint to meet at one _café_ or another, where we supped out in
the open air, at separate little tables--say each party of fifteen its
own table--where, the garden being illuminated, we ordered the fare
of the country, and the country wine, and smoked cigarettes. We would
meet about nine, stay till eleven or twelve, and disperse to our homes.
It was so sociable. There is nothing of this kind in England. There
was, about a mile and a half from Trieste, a village on the shore,
called San Bartolo, where we used to do the same thing on a larger
scale. We would be thirty or forty, have a fiddle and a harp, and dance
afterwards in the open by moonlight. About this time we had the great
pleasure of a visit from Mrs. (now Lady) Kirby Green, and her sister;
also Mr. Hamilton Aïdé, Mr. Matthews, our late Home Secretary, Miss
Yule, so famous for military tactics; also the Stillmans. Richard was
lucky enough to get an occasional trip with Baron Pino, our delightful
Governor, on the _Pelagosa_, the Government yacht.

An amusing little incident happened in connection with my learning
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 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.[1] Richard was also very
fond of a good opera, and we often went if there was a new piece.

On the 15th of October, 1876, we had a delightful excursion to Salvore
to see the new excavations and _castellieri_; Baron and Baroness Pino
made a party in the Government yacht, and gave us a charming breakfast.
Coming back, instead of getting in in early afternoon, we got lost in a
fog, and did not get back till eleven o'clock, when we found ourselves
grating against the lighthouse. I have a remembrance of that day in the
shape of a marble paper-weight with its little history engraved on it,
given to me by the excavator, Cav. Richetti, civil engineer.

We used to have a great many spiritualistic _séances_ at Monsieur and
Madame Jules Favre's, brother of Léon Favre. All the spiritualists used
to collect here.

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, surrounded 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 composed entirely of Churches,
Monasteries, and Convents, church dignitaries, and all sorts of
ecclesiastics and nuns--a Prince Archbishop 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 outflow, 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 dedicated 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 sermon; even plays are acted in
signs. The education is reading, writing, arithmetic, catechism, plain
work, fancy work, drawing, 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.

[Sidenote: _Henri V. of France_.]

After my retreat was over, I had the honour and the pleasure of being
sent for--unfortunately Richard had left--by the Comte and the Comtesse
de Chambord (Henri Cinq of France). By far the most interesting figure
was this now departed relic of ancient chivalry, who lived a great part
of the year here, the focus of a small Court, with an _entourage_ of
Legitimates. They sent for me twice, and desired that I should dine
with them. I had to explain to the Chamberlain that I had only the
dress I was travelling in, but they said that that did not in the least
matter; so I dined there, and the King honoured me by putting me on
his right hand. He was most cordial and in good spirits, and talked
incessantly, and was afterwards so gracious as to send me autographed
portraits of himself and the Queen. He had known my mother before she
was married, and had danced with her, I suppose, as a little boy; but
he told me of it when I was at Venice with part of my family in 1858,
when he made our six weeks' stay very happy.

[Sidenote: _Bertoldstein_.]

From there we visited Bertoldstein,--the station Feldbach,--the post
town Fehring. The castle, bought by Safvet Pasha (Count Kossichsky)
some twenty-six years ago, is an interesting feudal and melancholy
looking place, where he reunites the comfort of Europe with Egyptian
romance.[2] It is at the top of a hill, and there is a very beautiful
drive to Gleichenberg, where there are waters and baths, very much
frequented by Austrians, and a small theatre that was exceedingly
amusing, and here we saw daily some of the best Austrian society, and
heard some of the native music beautifully sung by them. The Pasha
kept plenty of thoroughbred horses, chiefly black stallions, which he
used to have paraded round the court of the house for our inspection,
a boy to each horse. We frequently had to move out of the way, and
to stand where their heels could not touch us; it was as much as the
boys could do to hold them. I never saw a more perfect whip; he always
drove four-in-hand, and the roads are so narrow, the drop at each
side so deep, that you could not help wondering what would happen if
we met anything, and I do not believe sometimes you could have put a
sheet of paper between the vehicles. We enjoyed ourselves here very
much for a few days, and then we returned to Graz. Then Richard went
up to Karlsbad, paid a visit to Maríenbad, and then to Teplitz as a
_Nach-kur_; then he went to Prague and Linz, then to Stein, then to
Klagenfurt, and back to Trieste, when we began to write more biography.

At this time Boïto's "Mefistofele" came to Trieste, and we both agreed
that we had never heard anything like it, and never would again. You
must be a musician to appreciate. The first time you feel almost
confused, but new beauties develop with each hearing.


MIDIAN.


In his old Arab days, wandering about with his Korán, 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 commoner 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.[3] His second interesting work on
this expedition was the "Land of Midian Revisited" (2 vols., 1879).

In all the expeditions that my husband has undertaken to different
mines the minerals are _there_, but there has been too much dishonesty
by those employed to carry it out, for my husband ever to have had his
proper share, as Explorer, Discoverer, and Reporter, or Leader of these
Expeditions. Every man has been for feathering his own nest, even in a
small way, regardless of the public good, and where any other nation
has been mixed up, it has cheated in favour of its own country. All
these mines will be worked some day, and men will profit largely, but
the one who deserved to reap good, is dead, and his widow will be dead
before the day comes round.

[Illustration: AKKAS.]

[Sidenote: _Akkas_.]

Between the first and second Expedition we had a large party from
Egypt--Prince Battikoff, Safvet Pasha, Count and Countess della Sala,
and others, and there were grand doings on board the _Ceylon_ (a
Peninsular and Oriental steamer) for the Queen's birthday. We also had
the pleasure of giving a little dinner to Salvini, who came to act
there for a week--a little party of eight, which included H.R.H. the
Duke of Würtemburg and Mr. George Smart. Then we went to Verona for
a while to see the two Akkas brought by Gessi from Africa; Richard's
object was, that it was very difficult to get hold of this important
little race. These were two males, and there was one at Trieste,
a female, which had been brought to his notice by Mdlle. Luisa
Serravallo, the daughter of our principal chemist, a very charming
family, and she a delightful girl, profoundly educated and serious, who
was studying this specimen together with the language, and Richard took
a great interest in it. He wanted to see what the effect would be of
bringing the Akka boys and girl into each other's presence, but through
the jealousy of the people who owned the respective treasures it was
not to be managed.

We had a little excursion in the _Pelagosa_, the Government yacht, to
Zara, to Lissa, and Cazza--a little trip of ten days.

One evening we started for Adelsberg, where we paid the usual visit
to the caves, and from where there are charming drives. We drove
to Idria, a pretty village with its church, through a magnificent
country, with splendid gorges, magnificently wooded (chiefly pines),
exceedingly fertile, with trout rivers, and delicious air. We descended
the quicksilver mine, and saw the whole of its workings. Idria is also
famed for its beautiful lace, which is exceedingly cheap, and which
you see sold in various parts of Europe with wonderful names attached
to it. We then visited the castle of Windisgrätz. We had a very merry
time, for we were a large party of English, and we had all sorts of fun.

There was a great joke against Richard, who wanted to inspect a place
for scientific reasons which were above the comprehension of the rest
of the party. It was one of those mysterious grounds in the Karso
where rivers, and even small lakes, disappear and rise up in some
other place, changing their ground as the swallows change air, at
certain seasons; but he did not tell them this, and they thought they
were going to see something wonderful. We drove and drove all day, in
carts without springs, over hill and dale and stones, until we were
half dead, and across a sort of jolting common, and then we came to a
little building that might have been a protection for cattle in bad
weather. We all got out and went anxiously into this building, and saw
nothing but the objectionable signs of cattle having been there, and
Richard (who was our guide) looked round in a profound meditation,
and then he nodded his head, and muttered these few words, "I see, I
see; I am perfectly satisfied;" and then he turned round, and we all
mounted our wretched carts again to the next possible roadside "tap,"
where our horses were fed and rested, and we got some eggs and rice and
beer, and then we all laughed immensely and chaffed him about having
brought us all that way to see--what? I joined the others for fun; but
then I knew, because he had told me. The place had a very long Slav
name, Zerknick-something, but they all christened it "Shirkins," and it
has remained so ever since. From this we went on to Graz, a beautiful
place halfway between Trieste and Vienna, which is the paradise of the
younger and poorer branches of the aristocracy, and retired officers,
military and naval. Some wag christened it Pensionville.


ON RETURN.


One of the papers on May 16th, and I think it was the _Daily News_,
wrote as follows:--

 "We referred yesterday to the latest discovery of Captain Richard
 Burton, who is surely the most fortunate of modern voyagers, as he
 is certainly the most widely travelled. The Highlands of Brazil, the
 kingdom of Dahomey, the fever-stricken shores of Eastern Africa, the
 Equatorial Lakeland whence flow the waters of the Nile, Scinde and
 the Punjaub, the ruined cities of Etruria, Iceland, and Hecla, the
 City of the Mormons, the country of the Druzes, the unknown land of
 El Aláh, with as many Cities as there are days in the year--all these
 are places not only visited, but described by a writer whose wealth
 of information seems unparalleled. Almost alone among Christian
 travellers, he has penetrated into the most sacred places of the
 most fanatic people; has witnessed the secret rites of Hindoos; has
 worshipped as a Moslem among Moslems in the City which received the
 fugitive Prophet, and may wear the green turban of a pilgrim, because
 he has performed the ritual of Islam at the Kaaba of Mecca, and has
 also received the Brahminical thread. His books of travel, united,
 form almost as many volumes as may be found in Hakluyt's Collection,
 Purchas's 'Pilgrims,' or Pinkerton's 'Voyages.' The wanderings of this
 modern Ulysses cover an area of a good quarter of the habitable globe
 and a period of forty years. He is one of those who have kept alive
 the glorious tradition of English adventure. There are Geographical
 Societies in every European country, but none can show so long a list
 of achievements as our own. There are travellers of France, Germany,
 Italy, and Russia to be found in every far-off corner of the earth,
 but none who have done so much as our own men. And now, to add to
 his long catalogue of honourable and successful voyages, the gallant
 Captain reports that he has restored an ancient California to the
 World, and that is none other than the Land of Midian."

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 reservoirs, 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 Pharaoh's new Joseph."

These seas were once bright with trade and craft and cargoes from every
part of the Eastern World. The mines flourished with the trade, and
doubtless perished through the same causes. First the struggle between
the Persians and Heraclius, and then the Moslem conquest.

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.

[Sidenote: _Waiting and working_.]

At the first expedition there was not money enough for us both to go,
so I had to make the sacrifice and stay behind.

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
Muwáylah and Shermá, to Jebel el Abyaz, and innumerable other places.

I spent my time partly in Trieste, but mostly in the rural (Opçina) inn
away up in the mountains, engaged in correcting the proofs of one of
his books. One day a party of friends came up to look after me, as they
said they wondered what on earth I was doing, it being the gay time in
Trieste, and I absent from everything; and they found me occupied in
rather a curious way, which gave rise to a great deal of chaff. I had
assembled a large party of all the country priests of the Karso, some
of them very curious, and I was giving them a dinner to amuse myself,
and the contrast between them (mostly Slavs) and the "swell" party
from Trieste was rather absurd. I never heard the end of that dinner.
"So this is the way you pass your time out here?" they all said to me.
"What a curious taste!" All my real days were taken up with protection
of cruelty to animals in the Karso, which is very bad, and writing. I
used to take tremendous long walks over the mountains. The landlady of
the inn also gave me enough to do. She and her husband were a spoony,
gawky boy and girl. They had just had their first baby (we had known
their grandfather and their father and mother). She was only sixteen,
and knew absolutely nothing; so when she was occupied in running after
her boy-husband, this baby was flung in swaddling clothes down upon the
stone floor, anywhere, and left to bawl its heart out for food or care
of any sort, and I began to perceive that it was dying; so I took it
from her, and kept it entirely under my own care. I passed three weeks
with that child in my arms. I dressed it in English baby clothes with
flannel, and I fed it and doctored it till it got quite well. By the
time she had a second she had grown wiser, and adopted my nursery ways
instead of her own.

While I was waiting I had one of my annual _fêtes_, giving prizes
for humanity to animals. It took place in the great hall called
del Ridotto, decorated with flags, and was well filled with the
Authorities, my friends, and crowds of people. The military band
played, the Governor was President, and he and the Committee and I sat
at a big table on the platform covered with the usual green cloth.
There were a great many speeches; I made mine in Italian, and spoke for
nearly three-quarters of an hour. The prizes were thirty of twenty-five
florins, six of twenty florins, two of fifteen florins, one of ten
florins, and we gave away many decorations and diplomas. I had the
honour of receiving a medal and many kisses and congratulations from my
friends.

I had the great pleasure of receiving Miss Irby and Miss Johnstone, who
were doing such admirable work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and which
was most interesting to hear about, and also again a visit from the
Stillmans. I had one more sorrow to go through. Léon Favre and his
wife, our French Consul-General, had always been most kind to us, and
during my husband's absence I was always counted upon for their Sunday
dinner. The Sunday before I had been up there, and we had been thirteen
at table, which I, being a superstitious woman, strongly objected to,
but I was laughed out of it. The following Sunday I went as usual to
dinner, when the maid-servant who opened the door informed me, with
tears, that her mistress had been dead just an hour. Léon Favre is now
dead, so that my remarks cannot agitate him, but when I saw her I was
of opinion that she was _not_ dead. The eyes were closed and the mouth
shut exactly as in sleep, and no one had either bound up the jaw or
closed the eyes. I called her husband, who was devoted to her, and told
him; but he declared that the doctors had been called in, and certified
that she was dead. The next day I went again, and had the same feeling
about it, and another great friend of hers, independently of me, went
upstairs and made a great fuss. However the doctors said she was dead,
and she was buried. She had died of heart disease.

I got very good news shortly about the Expedition, which put me in good
spirits.

[Sidenote: _I go out to join him_.]

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 Corfú 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 Alexandria, 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 pandemonium of clogs, 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 _Sambúk_ (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 going. So I made my way up to Zagazíg, and visited poor Mrs.
Clarke, who was 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 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 _Sambúk_, with head winds blowing, 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.

There was a nice little Franciscan Convent of Italian monks near the
inn, a mere hut with a room decorated as a chapel, where I used to pass
an hour or so every day. Consul West and his wife were most hospitable
to me, and they lent me a gigantic white donkey which nobody could
break. He was more difficult to ride than any horse I ever mounted, as
he ate his head off in the stable and never was ridden. I took long
desert rides on him, but he nearly dislocated all my bones. Once I rode
to see the Haj Caravan, and I went to see the _Da'aseh_ (the mounted
Shaykh riding over the backs of the people), and once came in for a
tremendous sand-storm.

General Charles Gordon arrived, and stayed a week here, which I enjoyed
very much, for of course I used to see him every day. He was certainly
very eccentric, but very charming. I say eccentric, until you got to
know and understand him. Also Mr. and Mrs. Ashley-Dodd came there for
several days. I was obliged to go to Cairo for four days, including
journeys. In those days it was a ten-hours' wearying affair. I arrived
at six, and about half an hour afterwards got an invitation to the
Khedive's theatricals, balls, and supper. It was a magnificent affair,
a perfect garden upstairs, halls of blazing light and flowers, gorgeous
dresses, magnificent supper and good wine, first-rate acting, and all
the great people in Egypt present. The Khedive was exceedingly gracious
to me. I had loads of people to see me, and many invitations. Amongst
others, that admirable old man, Baron Ferdinand de Lesseps (in spite
of his late _failure_, not his _fault_, a real Grand Old Man); and his
pretty wife invited me to Ismailíyyeh; but of course I could not go. I
just caught a glimpse of all my friends, not forgetting Mr. and Mrs.
Alexander Baird, and on the fourth day worried back to Suez in the
ten-hour train. During those four days and nights I think I had had
only four hours' sleep.

I had one little thing to amuse me. A P. and O. arrived and touched
there, and on these days, unless you had friends on board, the
passengers seemed to turn you out of house and home, and there
were generally a quantity of Indian military ladies. The ladies'
toilette-room for these passengers was near my room, and coming out I
saw them struggling on very uncomfortably, almost in the dark; so I
good-naturedly fetched a candle from my room, and said, "I am afraid
you are very uncomfortable in there--will you have a candle?" They
stared me up and down for a minute, and then said, "Why, of course. Go
and get us a comb and some hot water, will you?" I began to be amused.
I was in hopes they would give me a shilling--but they did not. I
called my maid and told her in German to go and tell the landlady that
they wanted a comb and some hot water. "Oh," they said, "do you _all_
speak German in this hotel?" I said, "I don't know--but that girl is an
Austrian." I then went back to my room.

The poor landlady had seen better days, and she used to feel quite
crushed when they said, "Send the woman with the boots, will you? and
look sharp," or some equivalent speech; and she used to take to her
bed after every steamer, which, however, fortunately I think, was only
once a fortnight; but as soon as she heard that they had done it to me,
she got quite well, and did not mind it a bit; so it did some good.
The fun was that in the evening they were so puzzled to see me sitting
at the top of the table with all the best people round me, and amongst
them two friends, a married couple, whom they had snubbed tremendously
on board, and whom I held in high honour, and who were awfully amused
at the way the ladies had treated me. Then in the evening I had a
tea-fight, to which all Suez came. Subsequently, a year after, I met
the very lady who had ordered me to get the comb at a dinner-party.
She sat opposite to me. I recognized her, but she did not recognize
me. I could not help telling the story to my next-door neighbour, who
appreciated the joke immensely, and said, "_Do_ say 'how-do-you-do' to
her, and tell her where you last met her." But I would not have spoilt
her pleasure for the world.

[Sidenote: _Richard's Triumphant Return_.]

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
looking 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 Zagazíg, 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 _Home News_,
June 1st, 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 continually 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 exhibition 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.

[Sidenote: _We go Home_.]

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 Saurmà, _née_ Comtesse
de Hatzfeldt, Lord Talbot de Malahide and his daughter Frances, and
General Stranz. At Corfú 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
us. The man died two days after landing in his own home, 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 anæmic. 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 Opçina 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 underground 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.

[Sidenote: _The British Association for Science_.]

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, Anthropological), the Vice-Royalties were also present, and
there was a great party that evening.

On the 23rd Richard lectured on the Ogham Runes[4] (El Mushajjar) at
Sir Samuel Fergusson's, and we returned on the 26th to London. At the
end of September I began to see about my "A.E.I." ("Arabia, Egypt, and
India ").

[Sidenote: _Society and Amusement_.]

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 11, 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 attending 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 downright 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 inspiration." A pity such a man
should have perished, in that useless fight in the Soudan, of fever. We
had the pleasure of a very pleasant dinner at Lady Ashburton's, where
we met several delightful people, notably Mr. Augustus Hare, Swinburne,
and Miss Hatty Hosmar, the famous sculptress. It was remarkably
interesting, and Mr. Hare told us delightful ghost stories. We then
went to Ashridge to Lady Marian Alford, who was the best friend we have
had in London, except Lord Houghton. Then I went to Brighton (where
we saw a good deal of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Sassoon) for the purpose of
helping at a bazaar in behalf of humanity to animals. Richard brought
out his second Midian book, called "The Land of Midian Revisited" (2
vols., 1879).

On the 19th of November took place the wedding of Colonel Oliphant and
my cousin Miss Gerard, which was a treat as a gathering of friends and
relations. Richard was at this time under Dr. Garrod for gout.

About December 22nd, Richard had an upset that caused him to be rather
poorly for three weeks, which disappeared one night in a quiet dinner
with our friend, J. J. Aubertin, who gave us a bottle of very old white
port, that seemed to cure him.


    THE LITERARY B'S OF 1878.[5]


            "One B. his honey found
            On Sinai's hallowed ground,
    And in Midian he sojourned for a season;
            But enemies there were
            Who stole the lion's share
    Of the fame and of the honour without reason.

            "Then a second busy B.--
            Mammon's votary is he--
    Who the sods and soil of Midian unrolled;
            He says the land is fair,
            But, in truth, there's nothing there
    So magnetic and attractive as its gold."

[1] Since going to press, Abbé Rossi has died the death of a penitent
priest, received all the last Sacraments of the Catholic Church, and
was escorted to the grave by six of his fellow-priests.--I. B.

[2] This Pasha and castle are sometimes mentioned in novels.--I. B.

[3]  The Khedive did not advance any money; he only desired the bills
to be sent in to him. He was deposed before the bills were sent in.
My husband's losses were great. Mine were £728.

[4] The Ogham being the "fair writing" of the ancient Irish literature,
and the Mushajjar is the Arabic Tree Alphabet, which is an Arab mystery
(how many yards of trees I have had to copy!). After having lectured on
it, he wrote an account of it for the Royal Society of Literature in
1879, and then made it into a pamphlet.--I. B.

[5] I think from _Punch_.




CHAPTER V.

SPIRITUALISM.

    "Prosaic after death, our spirits then
    Invent machinery to talk with men;

           *       *       *       *       *

    And Shakespeare's spirit visits earth to tell
    How he and Washington are very well;
    And Lindley Murray, from the body free,
    Can't make his verbs and nominatives agree;
    Ben Franklin raps an idiotic dream,
    And Webster scrawls vile twaddle by the ream;
    That splendid knave, Lord Bacon, has turned fool,
    And Penn's great soul is busy keeping school.
    Well may the living poet heave a sigh
    To think his spirit, stooping from the sky
    When he is dead, can rap at mortal call,
    Bad rhymes and wretched metre on a wall!
    Well may the hero shudder in despair,
    Whose soul can choose to animate a chair;
    And the great statesman, sinking in the tomb,
    To rise, and wheel a table round a room!"


[Sidenote: _Spiritualism--A Memorable Meeting on the Subject_.]

One night we had a most amusing spiritualistic meeting at the rooms
where the Society usually met, somewhere near the British Museum. It
was a night appointed for a very great gathering to hear Richard speak
on Spiritualism. The Spiritualists in 1878 were as anxious to claim
him as one of their Chiefs, as the Agnostics were in 1891-2, after
his death. Richard was the honestest, most truthful man I ever knew;
whatever he said he believed, but he believed a great deal more than
he said. He was such a many-sided man, that one individual could not
understand him; they could only see the one light presented to their
eye, and could not imagine the others. He was so anxious to get to the
highest of the high, that he studied everything, and amongst others
every religion, and when he thought he knew it he took the good out
of that religion, and practised it. Now, he thought that if several
manifestations which we had witnessed could be pushed further, and
especially one of which he was one of seven, that we should have a
closer connection with the other world, and for I cannot tell how many
years we pursued this phantom, and the more we saw the more puzzled we
got; for it never came up either to a Roman Catholic miracle, nor the
Sufi's mysticism, which he had practised so long in the East. And in
practical England, where there was generally so much money in the case,
there was three-quarters of a pound of humbug or jugglery to one ounce
of spiritual matter; and Richard at last became convinced that we were
on the verge of a new science, which any one who had time and power
to grasp this will-o'-the-wisp could turn to good practical account,
just as in old days with steam, railways, telegraph, telephones, and
electricity in all its branches. At times he and I together got very
near something, he being the power, and I the medium (this he called
the sixth sense), and then we lost all trace and gave it up. I was not
sorry, because I was always in hot water with my Church every time we
had a _séance_. I think, or rather, I should say, _he_ thought, that
people should not make a religion of it, and only use it for scientific
experiments. He did not believe in the "communion with the dead"
through _that_ medium--if for no other reason, that, as a spirit is
supposed to know all things, the spirits that came were always just as
illiterate as their invokers. They dropped their _h_'s in exactly the
same place where he or she did, and used exactly the same expression,
and were just or rather more vulgar, especially the joking spirits.
We had an excellent example of that, when a doctor, whom I will not
name, provided us with a splendid specimen for clairvoyant treatment,
and the soul of an Italian doctor presented himself and spoke through
the medium, who was evidently unaware that Richard and I could speak
anything else but English; and upon being asked certain questions, he
spoke a little broken English, with two or three words of very bad
Portuguese. We looked at each other, and we talked to him in Italian,
Portuguese, and Spanish; but he knew none of the three, which an
Italian spirit certainly would have done. His coming to was a splendid
bit of acting, and we had to pay our guinea for the medical advice
therein. This night, of which I write, Richard made the following
speech:--

 From _The Spiritualist_, December 13, 1878.

 "THE BRITISH NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SPIRITUALISTS.

 "_The Debate on Captain Burton's Paper._


 "The usual fortnightly meeting of the British National Association of
 Spiritualists was held at 38, Great Russell Street, on Monday evening,
 the 2nd instant. The chair was taken by Mr. Desmond Fitz-Gerald,
 M.S.Tel.E., and the rooms were crowded to excess, the paper to be
 read being by the renowned traveller, Captain R. F. Burton.

 "The Chairman--Ladies and gentleman, I have to go through a work of
 supererogation in introducing to you a gentleman with whose reputation
 at least you are already well acquainted. I have to introduce you to
 a gentleman who of old did great service to Spiritualism by defending
 the Davenport Brothers when they were unjustly attacked. I have to
 introduce you to a gentleman who, if he believed that Spiritualism
 or any part of it were a great truth, would, without any doubt,
 unhesitatingly and fearlessly stand up and support his convictions;
 I have to introduce you, in fact, to the modern Bayard, our English
 _chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_. After paying to him a _devoir_
 which sounds like a compliment, but which is not one, I have to say
 that I stand here rather anxiously awaiting what Captain Burton has
 to say in relation to Spiritualism. I know he is not quite one of
 ourselves; I know he is a very hard hitter, and if there are any flaws
 in our armour, I know he will make it ring again; but I feel certain
 we shall take every observation he may make in good part, being
 certain of the honesty and good intent of the speaker. (Applause.)
 I feel that I cannot sit down without mentioning the name of Mrs.
 Burton. (Applause.) Captain Burton is in my eyes, and I believe I
 represent the feeling of all those who know him, or even only know his
 reputation, one of the finest specimens of manhood I have ever had the
 honour to stand beside, and I must say of Mrs. Burton that I consider
 her the finest specimen of womanhood I have ever met. She is a lady of
 high birth, but she is something more, something higher than that. She
 is a true woman, who has over and over again stood beside her husband
 in times of trouble and imminent danger, and it is a great honour
 to me to be in the position of introducing you to our distinguished
 visitors this evening. With this little preamble, I will at once call
 upon Captain Burton to read his paper. (Applause.)


 "SPIRITUALISM IN EASTERN LANDS.


 [Sidenote: _Richard's Lecture_.]

 "I felt highly honoured when your energetic secretary, Miss
 Kislingbury, proposed to me a lecture in these rooms. It is, indeed a
 privilege; for here we Students may speak out what we honestly believe
 to be the truth, without fear of those brother-foes, the Theologian
 and the Scientist--the Black Terror and the Red Terror.

 "The subject allotted to me for this evening is 'Spiritualism'
 (or rather Magnetism, Occultism, and similar matters) 'in Eastern
 Lands,' and I would obtain your leave to enter into a personal matter
 which may interest Spiritualists. As regards standpoint, it can
 matter little to an audience what may be the opinions, spiritual or
 unspiritual, psychological or unpsychological, of one whose humble
 duty is to collect and narrate a few facts. But it would hardly be
 fair to enter upon such a subject without briefly laying down the
 standpoint from which it is viewed. Of course the _point de vue_ is
 that of the individual who pretends to be right individually, but
 who has no pretension to be right either absolutely or relatively to
 others.

 "The standpoint is intelligent enough. Seen from it, life is nothing
 but the innate condition of man's material and sensuous organization;
 as the old Materialist said, 'it is the _swabhám_ (nature of things)
 which thinketh in man.' Consciousness, concerning which battle still
 rages, is not a 'quality of the sentient principle, or, in other
 words, the soul;' but a condition of life inexplicable to us at
 present--a life itself. The supernatural is the natural misunderstood
 or improperly understood--we cannot say where nature either begins or
 ends. The superhuman is the superlative of human; we know what our
 senses and their 'interpenetration' teach us, but no man--positively,
 absolutely, no man--neither deity nor devil--angel nor spirit--ghost
 nor goblin--has ever wandered beyond the narrow limits of this
 world--has ever brought us a single idea or notion which belongs to
 another and a different world--has ever eluded the simple cognizance
 of man's five wits. 'I refuse,' says Verax, 'to doff my hat and go
 on my knees and strip myself of all that is deemed spiritual in my
 being, in deference to an arbitrary negation, which they who propound
 it profess their inability to maintain.' Let him keep his hat on, and
 point out one single spiritual entity which is not subject to our
 animal senses, or rather to the brain which directs them. With such
 belief, or absence of belief, I must be contented to remain, as a
 facetious friend said, 'a Spiritualist without the Spirits.'

 "An Agnostic, who can have no knowledge save that which his senses
 bring to him, is necessarily a materialist. By 'matter,' or molecular
 structure, or concourse of atoms, or whatever you please to call
 it, the Common Sense of mankind, our supreme arbiter of physics and
 metaphysics, understands that which is perceptible to, or cognizable
 by, the senses. When Berkeley proves logically that spirit only
 exists, we admire the ingenuity with which he shows that white is
 black and black is white. Like the Hindú philosopher he inverts the
 normal mode of definition by calling the invisible prototypes the
 only reality. Similarly, when Schopenhauer, the Buddhist of modern
 Europe, assures us that 'in reality there is neither matter nor
 spirit,' we note that he has adopted the Hindú idea of _Mâyâ_, or
 universal illusion; and that he reduces all existence to will and
 manifestation--will in motion being force, and force producing matter.
 When it is proved to us that matter does not 'exist,' we recognize a
 quirk or conceit in the use of the verb 'to exist.' Meanwhile, this
 chair, this table, these walls, and all with them are of matter,
 material. And that suffices for everyday use.

 "We avoid asserting that spirits do not exist; we fear being called
 upon to prove a negative; and we students are addicted to 'suspension
 of judgment'--a mental operation apparently distasteful to the
 multitude. But we affirm that if they do exist, they are material. As
 you see upon these walls they allow themselves to be photographed;
 therefore, they have substance, shape, and size; upstairs a simple
 instrument shows you their connection with weight. We, therefore,
 conclude that there are ample grounds for holding these spirits to
 be, like ourselves, of the world, mundane, of the earth, earthy. And
 when Spiritualists speak of a 'materialized spirit,' I can think only
 of a form of speech whose genus is _Taurus_, species _Hibernicus_.
 Similarly Lucretius makes Epicurus argue that the soul is material
 because all its belongings are of the material world. And Paracelsus,
 the mighty adept, declared 'the imagination of man is a seed which is
 material.'

 "We, a goodly company, thus place ourselves in direct opposition with
 immaterial animisers. We regret the term 'psychic force' applied to
 zoo-electricity, because it asserts a soul-theory. We claim to know
 the genesis of the soul, the place and almost the date of its birth.
 The beautiful conception of a refined body-form, denoted by the golden
 heart of the mummy, was familiar to the ancient Egyptian who, as Mr.
 Bonwick lately told you, had a soul's soul, as well as a body's soul.
 And, note, that your modern belief in perispirits and spirit-forms
 is that of the heathenry on the banks of the Nile who disbelieved
 in Moses. The Hebrews, Moses included, agreed to banish from their
 system a Soul-land, a Spirit-land, a Ghost-land, a Kutome, or
 Dead-man's-land, as Dáhome calls it; in other words, a future world,
 a state of rewards and punishments. Contented with _Ruach_ (Arabic
 Ruh), the 'breath,' that is, the sign and symbol of life, these
 sturdy materialists wanted no Gentile '_Atma_' (soul) in addition
 to '_Mátrá_' (matter). In Asia the fair vision may be traced to the
 Guebres, who taught it to the Jews during the captivity at Babylon:
 their subsequent teaching, Manicheism, or Dulism, the antagonism of
 light and darkness, good and bad, god and devil, positive and negative
 electricity is, still, and long will be, a power in the world of
 faith. In Europe it arose amongst the fair humanities of pagan Greece
 and Rome; as Cupid and Psyche prove, it did noble service to the
 poets; while prosaic Pliny declared that 'to seek for other beings
 external to him, is not only useless to man, but beyond his power.'
 St. Paul introduced into Christendom the threefold idea of a natural
 body, which could become a glorified body, of a soul, and of a spirit;
 while the moderns remark, 'Our ideas of the soul are not what they
 were a century ago; a century hence they will not be what they are
 now.' Personally, I ignore the existence of soul and spirit, feeling
 no want of a self within a self, an I within an I. If it be a question
 of words, and my _ego_, or subject, as opposed to the _non-ego_,
 or object; or my individuality, the concourse of conditions which
 differentiates me from others, be called a soul, then I have a soul,
 but not a soul proper. For some years, however, I have managed to live
 without what is popularly called a soul; and it would be hard to find
 one violently thrust into the recusant body.

 "But why do the Spiritualists so violently rage against us? Why these
 wails concerning the 'awful spread of materialism'? The Church hates
 the admirable Epicurus above all other heathen sceptic-sages, simply
 because he would abolish Churchmen. Is this the standpoint of the
 psychologist? Can there be anything less rational than the phrase
 which has of late grown popular, 'The dark and debasing doctrines of
 materialism'? Listen to the latest words of the learned Serjeant Cox:
 'The pursuit of psychology ("_Psyche_," my pretty maid) is certainly
 as elevating as that of materialism is degrading. The eyes of the
 materialists are fixed upon the earth. Psychology at least looks up
 to the heavens (blank sky and air). The regards of materialism are
 only for the present; psychology has a future'--let me add, a very
 unpleasant future, if Spiritualists say true. Hear, again, the words
 of one who was called in his day _l'austère intrigant_--'Belief in
 the supernatural is a fact, natural, primitive, universal, and
 consistent in the life and history of the human race. Unbelief in the
 supernatural begets materialism; materialism, sensuality; sensuality,
 social convulsions, amid whose storms men again learn to believe and
 pray' (Guizot). Granted to thee, O theologian! a personal Demiourgos,
 an anthropomorphic creator, by what right canst thou limit his power,
 his omnipotence? Surely the baser the material, the greater the feat
 which works it out into the noblest of forms. Far more wisely speaks
 an Eastern poet--


    'Is not the highest honour His who from the worst can draw the best?
    May not your Maker make the world from matter, at His own behest?
    Nay, more; the sordider the stuff, the cunninger the workman's hand--
    Cease, then, your own Almighty Power to bind, to bound, to understand!'

           *       *       *       *       *


 But man--made, we are told, in the image of God--has returned the
 good office by modelling his God after his own very human fashion.
 This is the anthropomorphism, the 'theanthropism' of Mr. Gladstone,
 concerning which the great master, Aristotle, wrote, 'Men create the
 gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but
 with regard to their mode of life.' Meanwhile, I hold it to be one of
 the brightest features of our times--this gospel derisively called 'of
 Doubt and Denial.' It shows the firm resolve of mankind no longer to
 be fooled with the fallacies of many faiths; his longing to supplant
 the fatuous fires of belief by the pure daylight of present reason,
 and his determination to shed the lively ray of science upon the dark
 deceits and delusions, the frauds, the follies, and the failures of
 the past.

 "And yet another objection. The scientist, in his turn, is addicted
 to laying down terms and bounds to the immeasurable field of human
 knowledge in the ages to come. He assures us, for instance, that we
 shall never know the connection between the body and the soul--for
 there are scientists who still have souls. I would ask--By what manner
 of authority can man lay down such a _ne plus ultra_? We hold, under
 certain limitations, the law of development--of progress--to be the
 normal order of the world. What, then, will be the result when the
 coming races shall have surpassed the present as far as the present
 has surpassed the man of the Quaternary and, possibly, the Tertiary
 ages? Meanwhile the antidevelopists, theological and scientific,
 who cling to the obsolete and immoral doctrine of degradation, are
 bound to find, sunk deep below earth's surface, vestiges and remains
 of ancient civilization in an ever-ascending scale; they must show
 us, in fact, water running up to its source. They are bound to
 produce, amongst the old stone folk, a cave-man who, by his noble and
 symmetrical skull, his delicate jaw, his short forearm, his straight
 shin, and, possibly, his 'hyacinthine locks,' shall receive the fading
 honours of Father Adam and Mother Eve. Lord Beaconsfield is 'all on
 the side of the Angels.' I cannot but hold to the apes. And if he be
 a fallen angel, I, at least, am a Simiad that has done something to
 develop itself.

 "Before entering upon magnetism and occultism in Eastern lands, will
 you kindly allow me a few words of personal explanation? In 1876
 I addressed to the _Times_ the following note upon extra-sensuous
 perception in the mesmeric state, suggesting the universality of the
 so-called 'spirit' phenomena:--

  "'Sir,--Seeing my name quoted in your columns (October 30, 1876)
  as one of those who have "certified to the genuineness of spirit
  phenomena," I venture to request the briefest of hearings. The
  experience of twenty years has convinced me that (1) perception is
  possible without the ordinary channels of the senses; and (2) that I
  have been in presence of a force or a power, call it what you will,
  evidently and palpably material if, at least, man be made of matter;
  but I know nothing of what is absurdly called Spiritualism, and I must
  be contented to be at best a Spiritualist without the Spirits.

  "'Some such force or power the traveller is compelled to postulate,
  even in the absence of proof. He finds traces of it among all peoples,
  savage as well as civilized; and it is evidently _not_ a "traditional
  supernaturalism." This all but absolute universality claims for it the
  right to rank in the "suprahuman category" of the late Lord Amberley,
  who did not hold, as I do, the superhuman and the supermundane to
  be the human and the mundane imperfectly understood. Even mere
  barbarians, as "the Earl" tells us in his last pleasant book, have
  learnt to juggle with it; and I fear that many a professional "medium"
  has, at times, when the legitimate agent failed him, learnt to
  supplement it by sleight-of-hand, pure and simple. In 1835 the late
  Mr. Lane startled the public with his account of the Cairo magician
  and the drop of ink in the boy's hand; and "Eothen" vainly attempted
  to explain the phenomenon as a "tentative miracle." Had the public
  read the "Qanoon-i-Islam" by Dr. Herklots, instead of passing over
  it as a cookery-book, they would have found the very same process
  everywhere utilized in India. Colonel Churchill's 'Mount Lebanon'
  (1853) again describes a notable feat performed by a Druze medium,
  which distinctly comes under the head of "Materialized Spiritualism,"
  to use the "Irish bull" now in vogue,--I am, sir,' etc., etc.

 "That 'perception is possible without the ordinary channels of
 sensation' is a hard saying. The Press took it up; and, I am
 told, the small boys at Norwood amused themselves by shouting to
 one another, 'Take care where yer going! yer havn't got Captain
 Burton's six senses!' But I meant simply to state my conviction
 that the senses--which, little known to us as the 'Laws of Nature,'
 after the study of twenty-four centuries, still conceal so many
 secrets--sometimes are, and often may be made, independent of their
 organs. Who amongst you cannot quote cases of men being strangely
 affected by the presence of some animal? You have all heard of Henri
 III. and of the Duke of Schomberg, who could not sit in a room where
 there was a cat. A notable instance of this occurred in my own
 family--a brave soldier who had fought through many a campaign, and
 yet who turned pale and faint in the feline presence. He neither saw,
 smelt, heard, felt, nor tasted the cat; the fact of its being there was
 enough.

 "Again, why should not the brain, or the nervous system, or whatever
 controls the sensuous processes of man, be able, when artificially
 excited, stimulated, exalted--as by mesmerism or somnambulism--to
 see, hear, and feel for itself; see, without eyes; hear, without
 ears; feel, without fingers? In other words--Why should it not be
 capable of clairvoyance and clairaudience? I assert that it does, and
 many in this room will support my assertion. A learned physician and
 devout Catholic--Dr. F. Lefebre, Professor of Pathology at highly
 orthodox Louvain--goes so far as to affirm 'it is possible that the
 somnambulists' power of foresight may be raised to a degree far above
 the ordinary level, and that they can sometimes penetrate into the
 future so far as to excite our utmost astonishment.' In fact, this
 honest and courageous scientist confesses his belief in 'second sight.'
 Thus the heterodoxies of yesterday become the orthodoxies of to-day.
 That sturdy incarnation of common sense, Dr. Johnson, the Philistine
 Colossus of English literature, would certainly, had Spiritualism been
 developed in his day, have become a thorough-paced Spiritualist. The
 theory of extra-sensuous perception of things sensuous is to be proved
 or disproved, not by hard words, not by mere logic, but by experiment
 and facts. Meanwhile I hold myself justified in believing it to be
 true, and others equally justified in believing it to be false. As the
 wise man said, 'Different people have different opinions.' And in our
 present transitional empirical state of knowledge unanimity appears
 hopeless. Half the world of Christendom believes that 'miracles' still
 take place; the other half denies their taking place: and who shall
 decide between them?

 "When my note appeared in the _Times_, that picturesque paper, the
 _Daily Telegraph_--whose peculiar gifts are _not_ what it claims,
 'logic' and 'common sense'--took up arms. With a war-whoop _à la
 jingo_, and a flourish of the tomahawk, which on this occasion assumed
 the guise of that weapon so deadly in the hands of a certain Hebrew
 Hercules, he proceeded to demolish me (November 14, 1876). 'How,' he
 asks, 'can a man _perceive_ a cat in the room without the sensation of
 sight?' I am not bound to answer his 'how;' I affirm that man can do
 it, that he has done it, and that he still does it. Again, 'How can he
 _perceive_ a clap of thunder without the sense of hearing?' Let me
 ask, in return, how many there are--some perhaps in this room--whose
 nervous systems infallibly tell them, without the intervention of the
 'Five Deluders,' that 'thunder is in the air'? After fixing upon me
 the term 'Suprahuman,' which I quoted from the late Lord Amberley's
 last book, he lectures me upon Eastern jugglery, as if I had never
 been out of Fleet Street. He asks, with that mock-humility so well
 known of old, in what the medium's 'legitimate agent' may consist? I,
 on my side, would inquire what he understands by sanative mesmerism or
 somnambulism--is it lawful or unlawful? He would shed a Saurian tear
 over my lapse from grace: 'It is melancholy to find a man of strong
 common sense indulging in such nonsense as this.' Finally, because I
 hold to 'nervous perception,' which may be called a sixth sense, after
 the fashion of one proposed by John Stuart Mill, he threatens me with
 _hysteria_, which again is not sound physiology, and (horrible to say!)
 with 'confirmed insanity.'

 "The 'Cairo magician,' whose ink-mirror in the boy's hand startled
 the public through Lane's 'Modern Egyptians '(chap. xii. vol. ii. p.
 99, edit. 1846), is probably familiar to all in this room. Not so the
 account of the same phenomenon, given by Dr. Rossi (_Gazette Médicale
 de Paris_, February, 1860). This physician, established at Cairo, has
 supplied ample details concerning the methods employed by the Egyptian
 sorcerers to produce sleep accompanied by insensibility.

 "'In this land of tradition,' writes Dr. Rossi, 'in this country where
 what was done forty centuries ago is still done at the present day,
 there exists a class of persons who gain their living by the profession
 of _Mandieb_.' [The latter is a mistake for Darb el Mandal,[1] as the
 Arabs call the process.]

 "'The effects produced by them, hitherto spoken of with contempt as
 charlatanism, are the same as those lately published by Dr. John Braid
 (1843). Still further, as you had foreseen by scientific induction,
 hypnotism in their hands is merely the first link of the chain which
 ends by the phenomena of "magnetic somnambulism," discovered by the
 Marquis de Puységur in 1784. They proceed in the following manner. They
 generally make use of a perfectly white platter of earthenware. This is
 the luminous object of Braidism. In the centre of this plate they draw,
 with pen and ink, two triangles crossing each other,[2] and fill up the
 space occupied by this geometrical figure with cabalistic words, the
 probable object being to concentrate the sight upon a limited point.
 Finally, to increase the brightness of its surface, they pour a little
 oil upon it.

 "'Generally speaking, they choose a young subject[3] for their
 experiments, and make him fix his eyes on the centre of the double
 triangle. Four or five minutes after[4] the following effects are
 produced. The patient begins to see a black spot in the middle of the
 plate; some minutes later, this black spot grows larger, changes its
 shape, and transforms itself into different apparitions, which float
 (or rather pass in procession) before the subject. Having reached this
 point of hallucination, the patient often acquires a somnambulistic
 lucidity as extraordinary as that of those who are magnetized.

 "'There are, however, some of these Shaykhs who, more simple in their
 preparations, without having recourse to geometrical figures or
 cabalistic words, cause the simple hypnotism and somnambulism of Dr.
 Braid, by making the subject fix his eyes upon one of those glass balls
 which contain oil, and serve for lamps.'

 "Before these lines had been written, a Member of the Institute, Count
 Léon de Laborde, bought from an 'Arab magician' at Cairo, of the
 confraternity of Lane's Shaykh Abd-el-Kadir, the secret of apparitions
 in the hollow of the hand. Children taken at hazard see with as much
 ease as through a _lucarne_ (skylight) men moving, appearing and
 disappearing (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, August, 1840).

 "Had the learned public been a little better read, they would have
 known what Dr. Herklots wrote some three years before Lane's account
 caused so much excitement, 'fluttering the doves' that began at once
 to shriek 'Necromancy.'[5] In the 'Qanoon-i-Islam' (chap. xxxiii.
 pp. 376-378. London: Parbury and Allen, 1837), translated by Dr. G.
 A. Herklots, we find Section I. devoted to the 'viewing of _Unjun_
 (anjan), or the magic mirror.'[6] The author says, 'For the purpose
 of ascertaining where stolen goods are concealed, or the condition of
 the sick whenever possessed by the Devil, or where treasure has been
 buried, they apply _Unjun_ to the palm of a child or an adult, and
 desire him to stare well at it.' This art is practised by Jogis,[7]
 Sányasis, and other Hindú devotees, who use it to ascertain the exact
 position of buried treasure. The 'Dafínah,' in India, emits fire-sparks
 at night, and rolls about like a ball of flame. Our author continues:
 'The person to the palm of whose hand _Unjun_ is applied, occasionally
 mutters a great deal of ridiculous nonsense. For example, that "at such
 and such a place there is a _lota degchah_, or _kurrahee_, full of
 rupees, etc., buried."'[8]

 "_Unjun_, we are told, is of five kinds, viz.:--

 "1. _Urth_ (arth) _Unjun_, used to discover stolen goods. This is
 prepared by triturating various roots, for instance, that of the _Abrus
 precatorius_, or carat tree, in water. It is thus applied to the inside
 of a piece of earthen pot which must be new and pure, and placed
 inverted over a lamp lighted with (fresh) castor oil. The lamp-black is
 collected, mixed with oil, and applied to the hand of a footing child,
 who, we are told, 'particularly details everything regarding what is
 wanted.'

 "2. _Bhoot_ (bhut) _Unjun_ is similar, but used chiefly for
 ascertaining what regards devils, evil spirits, and spirits, and the
 condition of the sick.

 "3. _D'hunna_ (dhanná) _Unjun_ is composed of a lot of white cloth
 dipped in the blood of a cat, an owl, or a 'king-crow;' the eyes,
 liver, and gall-bladder are rolled up in it, and it is used as a wick
 in a lamp of castor oil. The lamp procured is also mixed with oil and
 applied to the hand; hidden treasure is thereby discovered.

 "4. _Alop Unjun_, which, if applied to a person's eyes or forehead,
 makes him, wherever he be, invisible to others, while they remain
 visible to him.

 "5. _Saurwa Unjun_ is prepared with the suds of the _Dolichos lablab_.
 After staring for two or three _ghurees_ (each of twenty-four minutes)
 the subject will say something to this effect: 'First I saw the
 Farrásh (sweeper) coming; he swept the ground and departed. Then came
 the Bihishti (water-carrier), who sprinkled water on the flower and
 went away. The Farrásh reappeared and spread the carpet. Next came a
 whole army of fierce demons, fairies, etc., to whom succeeded their
 commander, who was seated on a throne. This was, in fact, the king of
 the Jinns, into whose presence the culprit was borne and forced to make
 confession.

 "The Hindi Moslem, from whose manuscript Dr. Herklots' translation was
 made, concludes the _Unjun_ section as follows: 'I myself place no
 faith in such _unjuns_ and _hazeeruts_ (spirit-summonings). Although
 born in this very country (Hindostan), bred and educated among this
 race (Moslems); yet, through the blessing of God, and the friendship
 of the great, by the study of good books, and by the hearing of sane
 counsel, the credibility of the existence of such things has been
 entirely effaced from my breast.'

 "This conclusion is evidently _ad captandum_. It must be remembered
 that the author wrote before 1832, when even European travellers
 who feared to be called 'credulous' were compelled to make an
 apology for recounting any phenomenon that savoured of the so-called
 'preternatural.' Spiritualistic societies have, at least, taught them a
 little more boldness in dealing with facts, and courage in affronting
 the vulgus.

 "I need hardly enlarge upon the antiquity and the almost universal
 use of the Magic Mirror: Cornelius Agrippa's crystal and Dr. Dee's
 bit of cannel coal are doubtless well known to you. But I would draw
 your attention to the curious fact that everywhere, and in all ages,
 the vision follows nearly the same ceremonial--the floor sweeping, the
 procession, the throne, the ruler, and the person summoned. This is
 the phenomenon which deserves investigation. Is it traditional--that
 is, taught by one 'magician' to another? Or is it spontaneous--the
 mesmerizer's thought reflected by the medium?

 "The following description of treasure-raising by magic, given in the
 words of a Tunisian notary, shows the popular idea of the process in
 Western lands, as opposed to that mentioned by Herklots:--

 "'On the evening appointed, the Moroccan and three others, besides
 myself, left the city as the gates were closed, and reached the
 appointed place when only two hours were wanting to midnight.

 "'After a short rest our guide took us to a fragment of ruin on the
 southern slope of a hill, where he desired us to remain perfectly
 silent, and instructed us not to be intimidated by anything we might
 see or hear. He could not tell precisely what would happen; but
 "whatever may transpire," he said, "give no utterance to your feelings,
 whether of fear or of joy; for if you do, our labour will not only be
 in vain, but the treasure itself will have to continue in the bowels of
 the earth for another century."

 "'He then lit a small lamp, and began his incantations. He stood in the
 centre, and we at the four cardinal points of the compass, only about
 four or five arms' length from him. Then he blew into a small flame
 the coals he had brought in an earthen cruse, and threw a variety of
 incense into it. No sooner did the smoke commence to ascend than he
 made a last imploring sign to us neither to move nor to utter a sound,
 and threw himself flat on the ground.

 "'In a few seconds we felt the ground beneath us heave like the
 waves of the sea, so that we had the greatest difficulty to stand
 erect; tremendous noises, like the sound of thunder, at the same time
 assailed our ears. By the dim moon we could discern hosts of cavalry,
 in the plain below, galloping up to us, with their guns and lances
 aimed at us. They rushed upon us in the most furious and threatening
 attitudes; but no sound--not even that of hoofs--could we hear, and
 horses and riders seemed to vanish when only within a few yards of us.
 But this strange army thickened; the fierceness of their countenances
 and their threatening position increased, while at the same time we
 distinctly heard the clangour of chains and other extraordinary noises
 underground. Although trembling from fright, we stuck to our posts,
 and obeyed to the very letter the Moroccan's instructions. But now
 huge masses of rock above us began to stagger; and, as if hurled by
 some supernatural and invisible force, commenced rolling down with
 the utmost velocity in the direction of the spot where we stood,
 threatening us with instantaneous destruction. The fear of death
 overcame our love for treasure. We fled with the speed of lightning,
 and called for mercy at the top of our voice, never stopping nor
 looking back till we found ourselves in safety.

 "'The Moroccan joined us soon afterwards, giving utterance to the
 greatest rage and fury as soon as he could make himself audible; and,
 had we not been four to one, he would, I believe, have committed murder
 that night. "The work," he said, "was on the eve of being completed,
 and the stones opened the gap for us to possess ourselves of vast
 treasures. Your cowardice has frustrated all. You might have been
 wealthy by this time; but beggars you were when you came here, and,
 through your own folly, beggars you return."'

 "Dr. N. Davis, who relates what was told to him (pp. 399, 400,
 'Carthage.' London: Bentley, 1861), notices other events of this kind.
 As an eye-witness he describes (p. 425) the charming of a dangerous
 serpent by one Haji Ibrahim, and owns that the fat little Darwaysh
 'had a certain influence over venomous reptiles--mesmeric, or of some
 other kind.' Elsewhere (p. 404) he tells of a dancing drinking-cup,
 that skipped merrily into the middle of the room; the same kind of
 manifestation as that produced by Colonel Churchill's Druze mediums.
 Tales of this nature may be found scattered through the pages of a host
 of travellers: they offer, in fact, no _embarras de richesses_.

 "The following is the modern European form of the magic mirror. I find
 in a well-known Masonic journal (the _Rosicrucian_, No. 4, April 1,
 1877) an article--'Evenings with the Indwellers of the World of
 Spirits'--by my friend, Mr. Frederick Hockley:--

 "'The pendant of a crystal chandelier destroyed in the palace of the
 Tuileries during the Revolution under Charles the Tenth (29th July,
 1830), had this evening arrived, and been laid upon the table, and had
 not been charged. My seeress, Miss Emma Leigh, taking it up, said--

 "'"It is thick; there is a vision in it.

 "'"There's a pair of compasses and a square. Now the compasses are
 opening; now there is a point on each end of the square, which has
 turned sideways. There's a book come underneath--a thick book, bound
 in rough calf, with thick bands up the back; now there's a man's face,
 very thin, dark, straight hair, quite black, come inside the compasses,
 and a thin, very thin hand placed upon the book.

 "'"Now the face has come from the inside of the compasses to a small
 space outside. The hand has opened the book; the book is very beautiful
 inside, it looks like a picture. There are two figures with wings on
 each side of a little oval; in the middle of the oval there appear
 words or figures beautifully coloured."

 "'This remained some time, and as the hour for using the C. A. mirror
 was at hand, I tried to dismiss the vision, but it remained. I then
 placed the crystal in my cabinet.

 "'At eight p.m. I invoked, as usual, the C. A. in his mirror, and the
 action lasted till a few minutes to ten, when the C. A. left.

 "'Ten p.m.--Immediately Emma took up Mr. Dresser's crystal she
 observed: "It is still clouded. The book is there open, and the man's
 face and shoulders. He has held his hand up, and the book has opened
 just in the same place. It looks very richly illuminated in gold and
 colours; there is an arch at the top, and one angel is standing upon a
 crushed ball. Now there are clouds of different colours coming up under
 the other figure at the bottom--white, like smoke, then purple, blue,
 pink, and golden-coloured, which covers all up to their wings.

 "'"In the oval the reading is not in English or like letters; it is
 large enough to be read. Two or three of the letters look like ducks
 with their heads under water."

 "'Emma then copied the contents of the oval, and when finished
 she said: "Now there's a little slip of paper come underneath the
 title-page with words on it."'

 "[For the rest of the article the reader must consult the Masonic
 journal.]

 "In Dr. Herklots we find the word 'Jogi' properly applied to a Hindú
 devotee. Some of our modern Spiritualistic writers ('Isis Unveiled')
 speak of a 'Hindú Fakir,' which sounds much like a 'Protestant
 Franciscan,' or 'Trappist.' These Jogis are familiar, by sight
 at least, to every Anglo-Indian, who includes them all under the
 comprehensive term, 'holy beggars.' They maintain the possibility
 of acquiring, even during life, entire command of our elementary
 matter, and all worldly substances. The means are certain ascetic
 practices, such as (1) long-continued suppressing of breath, and
 inhaling and exhaling in particular ways; some of them are said to
 retain respiration for an incredible time; (2) sitting in different
 attitudes, of which the Ayin Akbari (ii. 445) records eighty-four
 different _asans_, the eyes being generally fixed so as to produce
 hypnotism, or Braidism, upon the nose-tip. These austerities affect the
 _yoga_ (union) between the particle of vital spirit residing in the
 body and that which, being the source and essence of creation, pervades
 all nature--in fact, the _Anima mundi_, or soul of the world. Thus
 the Jogi, being liberated from his too coarse flesh, can make himself
 lighter than the lightest substances, and heavier than the heaviest. He
 can become as big or as small as he pleases. He can practise attrobacy,
 or levitation, and traverse all space. He can render himself invisible,
 and animate a dead body, by transferring his 'spirit'[9] into it. He
 can attain all objects, and become equally familiar with the Past, the
 Present, and the Future. Finally, he can be united with the sources of
 life, the archæal soul of the world, the 'Universal Soul' of Plato, and
 the Astral Light of the cabbalists. He now consequently escapes the
 pains and penalties of metempsychosis.

 "The Jogis are mostly strong in the Zoo-electric force, which Mr.
 Crooke's instrument has proved to be material as any other form of
 electricity. Its application evidently dates from the earliest ages,
 and is by no means confined to the nobly born and civilized races of
 man. My cousin, Edward Burton, when serving, about 1840, in the now
 abolished Royal African Corps at St. Mary's, Bathurst, Gambia River,
 found a self-taught negro magnetizer. 'Tom Tom Jack' wisely refused to
 meddle with 'whites' (Europeans), but boasted that he could hypnotize
 any black man. My cousin offered five dollars, a large inducement, to
 his orderly, 'Charley Ross,' if he could resist the force; but the
 magnetizer was successful. I may also state that in my own case the
 practice began naturally, long before I had the benefit of books and
 teachers.

 "Amongst those who have recorded 'Spiritualism' in Eastern lands, we
 must include Colonel Churchill.[10] He resided long upon the Lebanon,
 and he gained much mediumistic experience, especially from one of
 his friends, Bashír Talhúk. The following lines deserve quotation
 concerning the Shaykh, who, we are told, 'has devoted his time,
 singular as it may appear, to the cultivation of magic; and the stories
 he relates of his interviews with immaterial beings are novel and
 startling.'

 "'At times he will place a jug between the hands of two persons sitting
 opposite to each other; when, after the recital of certain passages
 taken indiscriminately from the Korán and the Psalms of David,[11]
 it will move spontaneously round. A stick, at his bidding, will
 proceed unaided from one end of the room to the other. A New Testament
 suspended by a piece of string to a key will, in the same way, turn
 violently round of itself.[12] On two earthenware jars being placed
 in opposite corners of a room, one being empty, the other filled with
 water, the empty jar will, on the recital of certain passages, move
 across the room; the jar full of water will rise of itself on the
 approach of its companion and empty its contents into it, the latter
 returning to its place in the same manner that it came. An egg boiling
 in the saucepan will be seen to spring suddenly out of the water,
 and be carried to a considerable distance.[13] A double-locked door
 will unlock itself. _There cannot be a doubt that an unseen influence
 of some kind is called into operation, but of what nature those may
 conjecture who like to speculate upon such matters._[14]

 "'But it is in the more serious cases of disease or lunacy that the
 supernaturally derived powers are called into play. Previous to
 undertaking a cure, he shuts himself up in a darkened room, and devotes
 his time to prayer and fasting. Fifteen and sometimes thirty days are
 passed in this state of abstinence and self-denial. At last one of the
 genii (Jinn), described by him to be much of the same appearance as
 human beings, will suddenly appear before him and demand his bidding.
 He then states his position, and requires assistance in the case he
 is about to undertake. The genii replies at once that his request is
 granted, and encourages him to proceed.

 "'The wife of Shaykh Ahmed Talhúk had been for more than two years
 afflicted with a swelling, which had been mistaken for pregnancy.
 Shaykh Bushír, after the usual preparatory discipline, passed his hand
 over her person, and in five minutes she arose perfectly cured. Shaykh
 Yúsuf Talhúk was brought before him a confirmed lunatic; in two days
 he returned to his home perfectly restored in health and reason.' [You
 see how shrewd was the apostle of Allah when he disclaimed the gift of
 miracle-mongering.]

 "'That the Shaykh stoutly maintained his intercourse with spiritual
 agents to be real and effective is unquestionable; and, indeed, the
 belief in magic, and in the interposition of an order of unseen
 creatures in worldly affairs, at the bidding of those who chose
 to devote themselves earnestly to such intercourse, is universal
 throughout the entire population of every religion and sect....
 Instances could be multiplied in which the most extraordinary and
 unaccountable results have been brought about, by the introduction of
 individuals who made this communion the subject of their study and
 contemplation. _But as the ears of Europeans would only be shocked by
 assertions and statements which they would not fail of holding to be
 utterly fabulous and ridiculous, the subject is merely alluded to in
 these pages to indicate the existence of a very prominent and prevalent
 belief in the Lebanon._' [Again I place in italics those words which
 supply a Spiritualistic Society with such an admirable _raison d'être_.]

 "The notes on Spiritualism which you have this evening favoured with
 your hearing are, to use a Persian phrase, only a handful which proves
 what the heap is. My friend Dr. Charnock especially recommends 'Le
 Spiritualisme Oriental,' by another friend, A. de Kremer (_Journal
 Asiatique_, 6 série, tom. 13, p. 105). Also he refers to index tom.
 20, in connection with 'Le Sougisme' (Reading-room, British Museum,
 2098D). In my 'History of Sindh' (London: Allen, 1851) I have given a
 chapter (No. viii.) and its notes to the same subject, Sufi-ism. And,
 lastly, in 'Vikram and the Vampire' (London: Longmans, 1870), I have
 related, under a facetious form of narrative, many of the so-called
 supernaturalisms and preternaturalisms familiar to the Hindús. These
 studies will show the terrible 'training,' the ascetic tortures,
 whereby men either lose their senses, or attain the highest powers of
 magic (proper), that is, of commanding nature by mastering the force,
 whatever it be, here called Zoo-electric, which conquers and controls
 every modification of matter.

 "Nothing remains but to thank you for the patience with which you have
 listened to a long ramble, and to hope that the debate will be more
 interesting than the discourse. According to the Arabs, 'The lesson is
 one; the talk (that follows the lesson) is one thousand.'"

After Richard's speech was over, and the President had duly thanked
him, he asked if any lady or gentleman would like to make a remark.
I had sat below my husband against the platform, and had been taking
notes of his speech all the time. I then got up and said, very modestly
and shyly, that if being the wife of the lecturer was no obstacle, I
should also like to be allowed to make a remark. Then I made my little
speech.

 "The Chairman--I have now to call upon Mrs. Burton.

 "Mrs. Burton--It appears to me that Spiritualism, as practised in
 England, is quite a different matter to that practised in the East,
 as spoken of by Captain Burton. Easterns are organized for such
 manifestations, especially the Arabs. It causes them no surprise; they
 take it as a natural thing, as a matter of course; in short, it is
 no religion to them. Easterns of this organization exhale the force;
 it seems to be an atmosphere surrounding the individual, and I have
 frequently in common conversation had so strong a perception of it,
 as to withdraw to a distance on any pretext, allowing a current of
 air to pass from door or window between them and myself. There is no
 doubt that some strange force or power is at work, trying to thrust
 itself up in the world, and is well worthy of attention. When I say
 'new,' I mean in our hemisphere. I believe it to be as old as time in
 Eastern countries. I think we are receiving it wrongly. When handled
 by science, and when it shall become stronger and clearer, it will
 rank very high. Hailed in our matter-of-fact England as a new religion
 by people who are not organized for it, by people who are wildly,
 earnestly, seeking for the truth, when they have it at home--some
 on their domestic hearth, and others next-door waiting for them--it
 can only act as a decoy to a crowd of sensation-seekers who yearn
 to see a ghost as they would go to a pantomime, and this can only
 weaken and degrade it, and distract attention from its possibly true
 object, science. Used vulgarly, as we have all sometimes seen it used,
 after misleading and crazing a small portion of sensitive persons,
 it must fall to the ground. I think Captain Burton has selected an
 admirable title for it--I allude to Zoo-electricity--until a better
 name discloses itself, but I regret to say that I cannot to-night join
 in the general applause which greets his lecture. It appears to me to
 suit all parties. He gives the Spiritualists a _raison d'être_, whilst
 he knows that he does not believe in spirits from the other world
 being subject to our uses, calls, and caprices. On the other hand, he
 has not exactly offended the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to
 which it is my glory to belong. The greatest anti-Spiritualist cannot
 accuse him of violating his own common sense, because he has expressed
 no belief, but simply recounted what is practised in the East. I
 am sure that I am the only person in this room, perhaps in London,
 possibly in the world, to whom the construction that the public may
 put upon the lecture of to-night is a thing of vital importance. I
 am, therefore, unwilling to leave Captain Burton's real sentiments
 on the subject quite so much to your imagination as I think he has
 done. He is certainly not a Spiritualist. Like other scientific men
 and materialists, he believes in a natural force which has no name,
 which he calls Zoo-electricity, but he does not mean the ghosts that
 real believers are said to see. I feel he has not done justice to
 himself, and this is why I have ventured to add this postscript to his
 address, in the fewest and plainest words that I can find. I need not
 tell you that he little thought to-night to find his wife amongst his
 opponents. I now thank you all exceedingly for having listened to me.

 "The Chairman--When Captain Burton sat down, he made an observation to
 me to the effect that now he was going to 'catch it.' I told him he
 would have to wait some time, but I think he has 'caught it' already.
 (Laughter.) Now I think it is high time that somebody should say a
 word for Spiritualism as _we_ understand it. I believe there is no
 very vital point of difference between us after all. We understand
 each other thoroughly. If the Spiritualist would only say--and it
 is a question of terms--that the spirits are formed of some kind of
 invisible matter which is not composed of any of the elements known
 to the chemists, and which has various, very wonderful properties and
 qualities, I think a great many of the difficulties and differences
 between ourselves and Captain Burton and other honest materialists
 might be got over."

[Sidenote: _Some Very Amusing and Instructive Speeches_.]

Then followed all sorts of fun. There were many speeches and
interesting questions, but I annex the most amusing.

 "Mrs. Hallock--As no one has touched upon one or two points, I wish
 to do so, though I shall not do it very well, I am afraid. I have
 been extremely interested in the paper, but do not at all agree with
 my friend Dr. Wyld, that because there are so many volumes containing
 accounts of these phenomena, we therefore do not need to hear about
 them from a person who has read, perhaps, more than we have. It is
 much more agreeable to listen to a person who has read and digested
 these things than to read them for ourselves; at least, it is in
 my case. I am very much afraid that this form of 'Spiritualism
 without spirits' is on the increase. I hope no one present will
 catch Captain Burton's disease, for I think it is almost a disease.
 I think that many of us are getting afraid that we shall believe in
 spirits. We think it is so much more fashionable to say there is a
 sixth or seventh sense. I do not accuse Captain Burton of not being
 courageous. Of course, that would be a very stupid thing for me to
 say, but everybody has a wee bit of cowardice--(laughter)--and perhaps
 Captain Burton was afraid to say it, and has had to let Mrs. Burton
 say it for him.[15] (Laughter.) I know it is getting very late, and
 I must not say much; but my quarrel is much more with Mrs. Burton
 than with her husband, because she complains of people who think
 it is a new religion. It is true there are such people, and I wish
 there were a great many more. I think it is not only a new religion,
 but a renewal of old things which were laid aside, perhaps, with too
 little consideration. I say it is as a religion that Spiritualism
 is going to stand. If it is not a religion, it will be remitted to
 the position that it held in the East; and if anybody here has any
 respect for the state of things in the East, that is more than I have.
 (Laughter.) I care nothing for all those phenomena. I consider that
 they are trash, although Mr. Massey, who is very much more learned
 than I am, thinks them worthy of consideration. I think we have heard
 quite as much about them from Captain Burton to-night as they are
 worth. (Laughter.) But it is this religion that I want to say one more
 word about. It is not only a religion, but it is a science, and it is
 because it is a religious science and a scientific religion that we
 are going to make it do what it has begun to do--that is, to leaven
 the whole world. The future of Spiritualism will be greater than
 anything else in the past history of mankind. We are told that history
 repeats itself. I think it has repeated itself quite enough in some
 respects; and now we are going to have a new future for the world, if
 Spiritualists are true to the great mission that is presented to them
 from the spirit-world--which is full of spirits, in my estimation.

 "The Chairman--It is getting so late that I shall not take up much
 of your time. Electricity is a science with a very broad back, and
 anything that has been difficult to understand has often been ascribed
 to electrical agency. Therefore I am not at all surprised that Captain
 Burton has given a new name to what was formerly called the psychic
 force. I have never been able to find any evidence whatever that there
 is any electricity whatever produced by the human body. If there is,
 the quantity is so insignificant in comparison with the great chemical
 changes continually taking place, that we must presume that in psychic
 phenomena there is an additional agency at play. In regard to the
 _raison d'être_ of Spiritualistic societies, I really think we must
 claim some other reasons for our existence than that which has been
 adduced. We claim, and Captain Burton supports our claim to a very
 great extent, I think, that there are very great new truths before us
 which are by no means perfectly understood, and that every facility
 that can be given for their study is a direct benefit, and one of the
 most important benefits that could be conferred upon humanity. Before
 asking Captain Burton to reply to what we have said in relation to his
 paper, I have only to say that I think if he and Mrs. Burton would
 discuss the matter thoroughly together, and arrive at a mean between
 their present conclusions, it would be very much the same conclusion
 as that which is so popular here. I gather from what Mrs. Burton said
 that she is a Spiritualist _par excellence_, only she believes in old
 Spiritualism, and does not exactly believe in the new. I feel that her
 Spiritualism would be carried a great deal further even than ours; and
 if she would neutralize her notions by those of her husband, and if on
 the other hand her husband would sink a little of his materialism in
 her spirituality, they would then strike out a very valuable average.
 (Laughter.) I have now to ask Captain Burton to reply. (Applause.)

 [Sidenote: _Interesting Discussions_.]

 "Captain Burton--If you will allow me, I will take the objectors in
 the order of their coming. Mrs. Burton has informed you that in this
 last paper I have been 'trimming.' I think you will own that it is the
 first time I have ever trimmed, and I can certainly promise you never
 to trim again. _A man's wife knows, perhaps, too much about him._ I
 think it scarcely fair to have his character drawn by his wife. I do
 not think gentlemen would go to their wives, or that wives would go to
 their husbands, in order to know exactly what they are. (Laughter.)
 The chairman first remarked that there is very little difference
 between my notions and those of the generality of Spiritualists; but
 he also alluded to an 'invisible matter, a substance not known to
 chemists.' Now, how is the existence of this substance proven? By
 spectrum analysis, or by the human mind, or out of the depth of your
 self-consciousness?

 "The Chairman--By the sight.

 "Captain Burton--Then it is not invisible?

 "The Chairman--It is always visible to certain persons.

 "Captain Burton--Therefore it is not invisible. But I object to your
 phrase 'invisible matter, a substance not known to chemists.' Mr.
 Wallace has been extremely kind in setting the ball going, and he also
 found for the first time how very much I do believe. I believe that
 the great difference is that the Spiritualist proper--the complete
 Spiritualist--believes that he is conversing with the spirits of
 departed beings. That is one of those canons laid down by Mr. Crookes.

 "Mr. Crookes--I believe that is one of them.

 "Captain Burton--You called that Spiritualism proper; whereas the
 belief that it is the work of the Devil you called the voice of
 the Church, did you not? (Laughter.) Mr. Wallace was kind enough
 to suggest that I should give you some personal experiences, and I
 believe the same thing was also mentioned by other gentlemen; but
 the fact is, at this hour it would be almost impossible. Moreover,
 at the end of this paper I referred you to a number of things I have
 written, in which there are my own personal experiences. For instance,
 alluding to the practice of Sufi-ism, in my 'History of Sindh,' I
 gave an account of a very long training I went through. But I shall
 be happy to prepare, as one of the speakers suggested, another paper
 if you choose to hear it. (Applause.) Mr. Crookes, in his extremely
 kind notice of my lecture, alluded to 'psychic force,' for which I
 have chosen to use another word. Psychic force is, I believe, getting
 out of fashion, and, if I am not somewhat mistaken, my learned friend
 Serjeant Cox proposed to abolish the use of the term altogether, and
 to adopt another expression--pneuma. With respect to Dr. Wyld, he
 has come to the conclusion, chiefly, I am told, by the experiments
 with Dr. Slade, that it is possible for a man not knowing Greek to
 write Greek. He also mentions five other languages similarly written,
 without telling us, however, whether any one of those languages was
 absolutely unknown to every person present.

 "Dr. Wyld--Yes, in my own case: not in all cases.

 "Captain Burton--That is the most important point of all, because
 believing in this Zoo-electricity and the force of will, and believing
 also in thought-reading, it is to me perfectly evident that if a
 medium is able to read thoughts, it is simply the action of himself
 and of those around him. The grand point in question is to know
 whether those languages were entirely unknown to any one present, and
 also if the latter had never learned those languages, because if any
 of them had ever learned the language the knowledge might return.
 I am sorry Dr. Wyld alluded to a book called the 'Isis Unveiled,'
 because that book is the production of a person who evidently knows
 nothing of the subject. (Messrs. Blake and Massey: 'No! No!') It
 is a collection of stones, put together without the slightest
 discrimination between Mussulman and Hindú, and, in fact, it is one of
 those repositories which may be useful to take up occasionally, but
 which is not to be quoted as an authority. Mr. Massey very correctly
 interpreted me, and I hope with him that the truth will prevail in
 this room and everywhere else. Dr. Blake regretted that he could not
 agree with me. Now, my friend of many years' standing says that I
 go too far, while Dr. Wyld says I do not go far enough. Dr. Blake
 quoted some great German names on the subject of idealism _versus_
 sensationalism, and very great English names too. In my remarks I was
 merely speaking of the matter individually. I warned you, I did not
 pretend to any form of truth except what is truth to myself--that
 it might be true individually, and at the same time not true either
 collectively or relatively. My old friend Mr. Spencer has told us a
 long story about a table, and he is right in what he says about the
 danger of adhering to Spiritualism. It was only the other day that I
 was treated with some disdain by a lady who heard that I was going to
 lecture upon Spiritualism. She thought it horrible that I should enter
 a room where Spiritualists were. (Laughter.) I understand perfectly
 that if there be such a thing as electric force or Zoo-electricity,
 it might cause a table to rise without difficulty. We know nothing
 whatever of the power. Mrs. Hallock has been kind enough, with that
 peculiar frankness which characterizes the sex, to lecture me upon
 my 'wee bit of cowardice.' She also seems to have fearful ideas of
 'Spiritualists without the spirits,' and she also finds that this
 abominable heresy is on the increase. It must be painful to her, as
 she evidently looks forward to converting the whole world--not in the
 East, because she disdains the East, and I presume that the West will
 appreciate her perhaps more than the East. Mr. Harrison has objected
 that Zoo-electric force does not exist; that, in fact, the human
 body does not contain any electricity. He qualified the assertion,
 however, by saying that there might be a little, but not enough to
 have much effect. That is a matter of dispute, and a number of French
 and American magnetists and mesmerists still assert that it does.
 Every one here present understands what 'mesmerism' and 'magnetism'
 mean. As a rule, men use the words without attaching any particular
 theory to them. I do not think we need to be afraid of going too
 far upon those points. I did not venture to include so well-known a
 scientist as Mr. Crookes among the red or black terrors. The chairman
 very properly remarked, 'electricity has a very broad back,' and wants
 it. We all know how electricity has been brought to explain every
 mysterious thing. He objects that I have no stronger _raison d'être_
 for a Spiritualistic society than that of giving greater boldness to
 men in expressing their belief, whether true or false, especially when
 their beliefs are unpopular. I consider such a _raison d'être_ as
 this amply sufficient. The chairman tells us that the true _raison
 d'être_ are the 'new truths' that he finds in it. Without quoting the
 old saying about what is true not being new, and what is new not being
 true, I very much doubt whether the 'new truths' are so valuable as
 the new fact of encouraging men to tell the truth about all things. He
 also advises me to discuss the matter with Mrs. Burton, and to settle
 our little domestic quarrel at home; in fact, he wants to make me a
 kind of primal Adam--'male and female created He him.' Ladies and
 gentlemen, I am exceedingly obliged to you for the kindness with which
 you have received me.

 "The Chairman--I think it is hardly necessary to ask for a show of
 hands. Captain Burton hits hard, but open-handed, and we should like
 to have some more hits from him. I am sure we should like to reply to
 what he says, and in endeavouring to meet him on his own ground, we
 shall assuredly strengthen ourselves. _Pro forma_ I will ask for a
 show of hands, according him a cordial vote of thanks.

 "The proposal was unanimously responded to."

There never was such a meeting as that. The room was crowded, and even
the stairs and the street. We all enjoyed it enormously, and nobody
more than Richard, who often referred to it after.

[Sidenote: _Interesting Letters_.]

Then somebody wrote as follows:--

 "That great and intelligent traveller, Captain Burton, a man who
 will not flinch from telling the truth because it is unpopular,
 wrote to the _Times_ a letter which disturbed the equanimity of that
 susceptible organ greatly some time back. In his letter Captain Burton
 said: 'An experience of twenty years has convinced me that perception
 is possible without the ordinary channels of sensation.' In a leader
 of the _Times_ of the date November 14th, 1876, Captain Burton was
 answered, and that Journal seemed to imagine it had flung its last
 shaft of scorn, when, in reply to the above assertion of Captain
 Burton, it cynically, but in all-unconscious sapience, remarked:
 'Captain Burton deserves a reward of merit for discovering for us the
 sixth sense of perception, which is neither seeing, hearing, smelling,
 touching, nor tasting, but something superior to all five.' That is
 just what Captain Burton does deserve, but I am sure the _Times_
 will be the last to give it to him. And, really, the _Times_ in its
 scornful exaltment also a second time spoke above its knowledge; for
 this is just what the sixth sense is--it _is_ superior to all the
 five senses, because it is less gross; it is psychical and they are
 only corporeal; but both categories, I believe, are equally perceived
 and real. 'Tell us,' said the _Times_, apostrophizing Captain Burton,
 'how investigators could, for themselves, "perceive" this mysterious
 entity without recourse to the ordinary channels of sensation.' I
 fear that even Captain Burton would have been forced to answer thus:
 You must first get the power of a perception before you can make
 use of it; and if you do not possess it, or understand about it,
 you must, in order to obtain a conception of it, be treated as you
 would treat blind men when you try to explain to them the beautiful
 mystery, to them, of ocular demonstration. And you must take us on
 trust, just as you expect men to take you on trust when you explain
 to them honestly and to the best of your ability that which you see.
 And what would you think of the blind man who should answer you, as
 you, in that article, answered Captain Burton, and said, as you did
 to him, 'This, of course, is mere fancy, and if indulged in, develops
 itself into hysteria, and finally, as Dr. Forbes Winslow can tell
 you, into confirmed insanity'? Why, you would think the blind man
 very ungrateful and very impertinent. But I will, in pity, spare you
 that last impeachment, and will only call you ignorant, because this
 perception spoken of by Captain Burton is not a perception that can be
 said to be indulged in; it is like the wind, it cometh when and where
 it listeth; and, moreover, can no more appropriately be said to be a
 thing indulged in than our natural sight; both have to put the term
 indulgence aside and to see that which they come across. Both eyesight
 and physical perception are a gift of God, only one is more common
 than the other."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "Lowther Lodge, Barnes, S.W., December 3, 1878.

 "DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

 "Your interesting lecture on Spiritualism explains what no one has yet
 been able to explain, the verse in the 'Persæ' of Æschylus, on the
 conjuring up of the ghost of Darius, v. 683; (Dind.)--

    στένει, κέκοπται, καὶ χαράσσεται πέδον.

 The effects are _exactly_ what your Tunisian describes, and the
 inference is that this Eastern magic is a very old and _real_ power.
 One is utterly perplexed, and can only fall back on what seems the
 doubtfulness of almost all evidence.

 "Believe me, very faithfully yours,

 "F. A. PALEY."

       *       *       *       *       *


 "SPIRIT GUARDIANSHIP.


 "A _Spiritualist_ was sent to me yesterday, bearing the date 19th of
 December, 1879, containing an article signed 'Scrutator.' It contained
 a description of two incidents in my Syrian life, in which I was moved
 by some power to do things against my will, which had a useful object
 in the end. 'Scrutator,' however, says that my husband's farewell
 note to me reached me at our house, a mile out of Damascus. If that
 had been so, there would have been nothing extraordinary, but quite
 natural that I should have joined my husband at Beyrout, as there
 was only a quarter of an hour's ride between the Consulate and the
 house. But I was thirty miles away, at the top of a mountain in the
 Anti-Lebanon, five thousand feet above sea-level, and quite out of
 reach of news or communication, save the three lines I received by
 a mounted messenger; and my difficulty was to descend the mountain
 in the dark, cross the country at dawn, to the probable spot where I
 could catch the diligence on the road. The power that moved me was
 therefore so much the stronger, and I think it very well accounted
 for by 'Scrutator.' However, as I am a Catholic, Catholicism is the
 _highest order_ of Spiritualism; what to 'Scrutator' is a force of
 spirit, is to me simply my angel guardian, who is to me an _actual
 presence_, to whom I constantly refer during the day, and who directs
 everything I ask him to. When I sit with other Spiritualists they say
 they can see him. I can't; I only feel the power. However, I am quite
 sure of one thing, that nothing happens by luck or chance; but that we
 are moved by our good and bad angels, and that those who are in the
 habit of meditating or reflecting a good deal arrive at a proficiency
 in knowing and understanding their calls.

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Trieste, December 26th, 1879."

      *       *       *       *       *

    "An answer--not that you long for,
    But diviner--will come one day:
    Your eyes are too blind to see it,
    But strive, and wait, and pray."
                 ----E. M. HEWITT.

[1] "'Mandal' is, properly speaking, a Persian word, and means the
magic circle in which the necromantist sits when summoning the demons
and spirits of the dead."

[2] "The well-known cabalistic figure known to Moslems as
Khátim-Sulaymán---Solomon's Seal."

[3] "A negro, a boy, or a woman with child, say the Arabs."

[4] "This is not time enough; in India half an hour would be the
minimum."

[5] "It reminded them of the Island of Glubdubdrib, 'where the
Governor, by his skill in necromancy, had the power of calling whom he
pleased from the dead' (Gulliver, chap. vii.)."

[6] "Lamp-black prepared in a peculiar way."

[7] "Of these men more hereafter."

[8] "Various kinds of brass pots and pipkins."

[9] "Read 'Zoo-electric force.'"

[10] "Churchill's 'Mount Lebanon' (London, 1853), vol. i. pp. 146-167."

[11] "This process, like the words of the vulgar 'spell,' was probably
used to concentrate the will."

[12] "The _Korán-gardán_, or Korán-turning of the Persians. Usually the
key is made fast to the book, and its handle rests upon the finger-tips
of the patients, whose nervous agitation and muscular action, unknown
to them, cause the movement. At Goa the Portuguese thus discover
thieves, etc. The gypsies of Spain also practise the rite, the accuser
and the accused singing the Song of Solomon."

[13] "A favourite gypsy trick in Northern Africa."

[14] "The italics are not the author's."

[15] Mrs. Hallock amused him very much.




CHAPTER VI.

ON LEAVE IN LONDON.


[Sidenote: _A Remarkable Visit_.]

Then Richard gave a lecture at the Architects', and we made up a party
to go. We had a very curious visit one night from a gentleman who had
occupied a position in one of the Government offices. He was very well
known, and had had some malady of the brain, so I shall not name him
for fear that I should hurt any of his relatives or friends. We had
not met before, but he said he came on business, and appeared to be
a Spiritualist of high degree. We were just going down to an eight
o'clock dinner--rather a large family party--and as the butler showed
him into the dining-room, I could not do otherwise than say, "We are
just going to sit down to dinner; will you take some?" He accepted
very readily. When my father, who was a very old man, came down, I
introduced him, and said, "Father, Mr. So-and-so has kindly consented
to stay and dine with us." "Oh, I am very happy," said my father. The
family all flocked down and fell into their seats, and dinner went on
very well till about the second course, and then, looking round the
table and seeing nearly all of us had aquiline noses, he said, "What a
treat it is to me to be with Rosicrucians once more!" My father nudged
Richard, and whispered, "What does he mean?" "I don't know," said
Richard, with an amused smile.

Presently Mr. ---- pointed at me, and said, "You have been a Queen
countless times, and an Empress seven times, and you will be again; and
also your sister" (pointing to Blanche Pigott, who was exactly like me,
and is now dead) "has been very often a Queen, and will be an Empress."
There was a little pause after this. Father began to look rather
frightened. Mr. ---- went on to say that he hated people with snub
noses, and described how he fell amongst a party of that common ilk,
and how they had treated him--how they had put him under a pump till
he was nearly dead, and had tied him down, and several other acts with
which we are all familiar from reading. After dinner he asked Richard
for a map of Midian, and taking it, he marked all the spots where the
best gold existed, and the different spots which contained anything
valuable, and what they were, and said that was what he came for (I
have it now).

He then said he would like to brew a bowl of Rosicrucian punch, and
requested us to order a bottle of brandy, two bottles of rum, and
several other things to be brought to him, and he did brew the punch;
and when he gave us each some, we all put it down and said, "I cannot
drink that, for I feel it to the very tips of my fingers." He said,
"That is just what you _ought_ to feel; it is how the Rosicrucians
always felt." He prescribed for all of us, and I remember one
gentleman, who had rather a red nose, was directed to rub the tip
of it with cantharides. We could not ask him to go, but at eleven
o'clock my father retired, and we stayed up with him till two o'clock;
but in spite of having drunk all the punch himself, as we found it
_impossible_, he was perfectly sober, agreeable, and gentlemanly, and
took his leave and went away.

My father was very angry with me for asking a lunatic to dinner, which
of course I had done quite unconsciously, but it was worse for me when,
next morning, he arrived for half-past one lunch, quite naturally
"delighted to find again his new Rosicrucian family." He told us that
he lived at Primrose Hill, that the last night he had been borne there
on air in a few minutes, and that his feet had never touched the ground
the whole way. But what _did_ touch us immensely was, that he said
that "last night he had not known where to look for a dinner, and the
spirits had directed him to our house, and had urged him to come back
on the present occasion." We were all very nice and kind to him; but it
had such effect on my father's nerves, he being very aged, that we had
to tell the butler to say, when he called again, that Richard and I had
gone into the country--as it was _us_ he had come ostensibly to see. I
have still about twenty very clever letters that he wrote us.

[Sidenote: _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.
In early January Richard got an attack of pleurodynia, from which he
very speedily recovered. Dr. George Bird attended him. Amongst other
friends, we saw a good deal of Hepworth Dixon. We also went down to
Hatfield; Lady Salisbury had a house party. Richard gave lectures at
9, Conduit Street. On the 22nd of January he gave his lecture to the
Anthropological.

On Sundays we used to visit the studios; oftenest to Mr. Val Prinsep's
and Sir Frederick Leighton's.

We spent a delightful day with Richard's old friend, Mr. John Larking,
"The Firs," Lee, Kent, and his family, who lived in half-Oriental
style, so that it seemed like a day back at Damascus. We also saw a
great deal of Dr. Percy Badger, who was always delighted (and his
wife too) to get hold of Richard. Dr. Badger turned an old kitchen
into a comfortable studio, and there we used to find him, working
hard at his Dictionary. Mr. Henry Irving gave us a delightful supper
at 15A, Grafton Street. We went to Bethnal Green to look at the Free
Library, and saw the Museum. We frequently had many pleasant dinners
and evenings at my father's, where people would come accidentally as
a pleasant surprise. One night came Lord Houghton, Lord Arundell, Mr.
F. F. Arbuthnot, and Uncle Gerard; it is noted because it was a very
amusing evening.

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 23rd of March, 1879, we drove down to Mortlake, where I now
live, to see the graves of my mother, and the uncle and brother who had
died in 1877. We called on Canon Wenham, who afterwards buried Richard
in 1891, and we went to look over the old house where my two aunts had
lived so many years and died.

On the 27th I went to the Drawing-room. We resumed writing and reading
part of Richard's memoirs. He also commenced writing 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 published "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."

One evening we had a masquerade dinner-party; everybody was to come
in some fancy dress, which was to be a surprise, and it was a great
amusement. Richard appeared as an Australian miner, I as Carmen; there
were huntsmen and Highlanders, and all sorts of funny people. There
seemed to be great astonishment in the street as the cabs in April kept
discharging their visitors at half-past seven.

We went to see Lord Archibald Douglas's (the English Don Bosco) Home
for Boys in Harrow Road.

In our early married life Richard had amongst his papers the following,
which was written between whiles in Somali-land and the Crimea, but
he never put them forward, nor should I do so, though perhaps it will
serve as a good map to his thoughts. But this year, in 1879, he gave a
copy of the Agnostic side only to a mutual woman-friend who is of that
persuasion, and she _now_ says, that to be _perfectly fair_, I ought to
bring it out--and I am nothing if not fair--nor do I see any reason or
object in being otherwise. She kindly lent me her copy, but after much
search in his private papers I have found his original, which I used to
chaff him unmercifully about, as his "Double Ten Commandments."

                                   "EGO."
                                 mapped out

                                The Frontiers

                closed down upon         open to the higher air

  1. The so-called bad                       1. The so-called good

  2. The material part of me                 2. The spiritualistic part
                                                of me

  3. Body                                    3. Soul

  4. Nature                                  4. Grace

  5. Reason                                  5. Heart

  6. The outside of me                       6. Inside of me

  7. Mind and Matter                         7. Faith

  8. The World I live on                     8. Home



      I.                                         I.

  Intellectual Truth is one; Moral           A Supreme Being.
  or sentimental Truth varies with the
  individual.


      II.                                        II.

  Revealed religions consist of three        The Trinity, Father, Son,
  parts, all more or less untrue. (1) A      and Holy Ghost.
  Cosmogony more or less absurd. (2)
  An Historical sketch, more or less
  falsified. (3) A System of morality
  more or less pure.


     III.                                       III.

  The Higher Law of Humanity bids            Jesus Christ, born of the
  us cast off the slough of old creeds,      Virgin Mary.
  especially the obsolete and the debasing
  doctrine of degradation; the Fall of
  Man, Original Sin, Redemption, Salvation,
  and so forth.


      IV.                                        IV.

  Reason, while suggesting the idea          Salvation and Hope.
  of a First Cause, a God, forbids us, in
  the present stage of humanity, to
  inquire further into the subject.


      V.                                         V.

  The description of the Devil and           Good and bad deeds and
  his Angels, of Hell, Heaven, and           expiation.
  Purgatory given by "Revealed Religions"
  are equally dishonouring to the Creator,
  and debasing to the Creature, if at least
  the latter be the work of the former.


      VI.                                        VI.

  Death, physically considered, is not       The Catholic Church and
  annihilation, but change.                  Sacraments.


      VII.                                       VII.

  Man's individuality, his Ego, survives     Resurrection of body and
  the death of the body.                     Soul.


      VIII.                                      VIII.

  To most races of men, the idea of          Communion with the Saints
  annihilation is painful, whilst that of    and the Dead.
  eternal parting is too heavy to be
  borne.


      IX.                                        IX.

  A next world, a continuation of            Passing over al-Sirat, the
  this world, is against our Reason, but     bridge as fine as a hair, to
  it is supported by sentiment, and by       El Mathar, or Purgatory--to
  the later traditions of both the Aryan     Heaven.
  and the Semitic races.


      X.                                         X.

  The only idea of continuation acceptable   Hell--Eternity.[1]
  to man, is that the future
  world is a copy of this world, whilst
  the law of Progress suggests that it is
  somewhat less material and not subject
  to death or change.

[Sidenote: _We leave London--I get a Bad Fall_.]

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
_coupé-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 _coupé-lits_ to be had, arriving
at half-past eight in the morning, where I found Richard waiting to
receive me on the platform, 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 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 Opçina 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 pleasant;
and often itinerant Hungarian gypsy bands would come in and play. This
summer we had the usual annual _fête_ for the cause of humanity, and
speeches and giving of prizes.


 "GOLD IN MIDIAN.

 "To the Editor of the _Globe_.


 "Sir,--The _Globe_ of the 25th of May has printed from the _Sheffield
 Telegraph_ a very serious misstatement on the subject of the
 twenty-five tons of mineral brought by Captain Burton from Midian,
 and I beg you to allow me a little space to refute it. The moment
 a lion leaves a place the jackals generally set up a bark; we left
 Egypt only on the 12th of May. There is a Spanish proverb which
 says, 'No one ever pelts a tree unless there is fruit upon it;' if
 this discovery were worth so little as its enemies assert, no one
 would take the trouble to attack it. We are only too glad to court
 discussion, but we want truth. Captain Burton will have to suffer for
 Midian what M. de Lesseps had to go through for his canal. There are
 plenty of drowning men in Cairo, who are only too happy to catch at
 any straw. Let me note the two principal blunders in the _Sheffield
 Telegraph_. Firstly, Captain Burton reported to his Highness the
 Khedive, and to the public, only what the Egyptian Government's own
 geologist and engineer, appointed by them to the Expedition, reported
 (of course, officially) to Captain Burton, and to the Government in
 whose employ he (M. George Marie) is. Secondly, close examinations and
 analysis show none of the evil results mentioned in the _Sheffield
 Telegraph_. On arriving in Trieste, Captain Burton was careful to have
 his own little private collection analyzed by Dr. L. Karl Moser, an
 able professor of geology, who declares that the turquoises are not
 malachites, but pure crystals of turquoise. Moreover, he has found
 metals in three several rocks where, till now, they were not known
 to exist--dendritic gold in chalcedony; silver lead in a peculiar
 copper-bearing quartz, and possibly in the red veins traversing the
 gypsum; and, lastly, worked coppers in obsidian slag. In fact, the
 collection has only gained, and will gain, by being scientifically
 examined. The Khedive has sent a quantity of each sort of mineral
 to London for analysis, and as soon as Captain Burton receives a
 telegram from his secretary, in whose charge it is, to say that it
 has arrived, he will, if permitted, hasten home to superintend the
 operation personally, and forward the official report to his Highness
 the Khedive. Meanwhile we only ask every one to suspend judgment till
 the results are known, instead of publishing and believing every
 gossiping bit of jealousy and intrigue that may issue from Cairo,
 thereby injuring the interest of future companies, of his Highness,
 and of Egypt, and lastly, but not least, casting a slight upon the
 noble and arduous work of my husband.

 "I have the honour to be, sir, yours obediently,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Her Britannic Majesty's Consulate, Trieste, May 30."

[Sidenote: _The Austrian Scientific Congress_.]

From Opçina 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 excursions 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, Vöslau, 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.

One day we had a delightful journey over the Semmering to Fröhnleiten.
The Badhaus was on a terrace, with the running river under it in
front, a plain and grand mountains all around. The night air was
perfectly delightful, with a beautiful starlight. We had gone there to
see the family of Mr. Brock, our dear old Vice-Consul. We then went to
Römerbad. The Pension Sophien Schloss was beautifully situated, and we
were well lodged. The baths there are like a gentle electric battery
for nerves--the water turns a magnet a hundred and thirty-five degrees;
the woods are lovely; the forestfull of squirrels come and play about
you. We had delightful walks, and visits from several friends in the
neighbourhood, Prince and Princess Wrede and others.

We had a most charming family of neighbours, who were some of our
best friends in Trieste; they had a lovely property, an old castle
called Weixelstein, near Steinbrück (Monsieur and Madame Gutmansthal
de Benvenuti). He was a Trieste-Italian gentleman, and she was the
daughter of a Russian, by an American wife, and is far away the most
charming woman I know, and so clever. Their place is to be got at
through a mountain gorge, and a river which you cross by ferry-boats.
It is an old-fashioned-monastery-like-looking house in a gorge, with
the river Save running through its park, and here we paid frequent
visits. We had a pleasant excursion also to Mark Tüffer; a delightful
moonlight drive back.

[Sidenote: _A Ghost Story_.]

After we had been there about a fortnight, the _avant courier_ of the
Crown Princess of Germany, now Empress Frederick, came to engage rooms.
Seeing that her Imperial Highness wished to be _incog._, that I was
the only Englishwoman there, and had been presented to her, that I had
got the only rooms in the place that were very nice, that I had the
only bath, we thought it would be good taste to vanish, which we did
next morning, and we went to our friends at Weixelstein. They received
so perfectly, making us at home, like part of the family, and they
let us do exactly what we liked without any effort at entertaining.
Here Madame Gutmansthal, who is a first-rate artist amongst many other
talents, began to paint Richard's picture, which was a great success,
and which is now on view at the Grosvenor Gallery, in the little room
to the left, with a pretty bronze medallion by Henry Page. Meantime he
translated the Weixelstein ghost story from Old German to English, as
he was very much taken with it. He writes--

[Illustration: SIR RICHARD BURTON IN 1879. By Madame Gutmansthal de
Benvenuti (Trieste).]

 "VERITABLE AND SINGULAR ACCOUNT OF AN APPARITION, AND THE SAVING
 OF A SOUL, IN CASTLE WEIXELSTEIN, IN KRAIN.


 "I send you one of the best ghost-stories, and one which your
 readers have certainly never seen. We were lately paying a visit
 to the Castle of Weixelstein, near Steinbrück, Krain (Carniola),
 the country-house of our hospitable friends Monsieur and Madame
 Gutmansthal de Benvenuti. My attention was drawn to two old and portly
 folios, entitled 'Die Ehre des Herzogthum's Krain'('The Honour of the
 Dutchy of Carniola'). An awful title-page of forty-six lines declares
 that it was written by Johann Weichard, Freiherr (Baron) Valvásor, or
 Walvásor, Lord of Wazemberg, and printed at Laibach in M.DC.LXXXIX.

 [Illustration.]

 "The author, a Fellow R. Soc. London, who was Governor of the Duchy
 and Captain of the Frontier, then an important post, is portrayed with
 long hair, _à la Milton_, shaven face, and laced cravat (Croatian)
 falling over his breastplate. The book is full of curious episodes,
 and above I give you the 'tune' it recommends for catching crabs.
 Amongst other things it gives a valuable disquisition on the bell
 (lib. xi.), which it dates from the days of Saint Jerome (A.D. 400).
 Volume I., which is historical, contains 836 pages (lib. i.-viii.);
 Volume II., 1007 (lib. ix.-xv.), besides the register (appendix,
 index, etc.). It is profusely illustrated by the author's hand with
 maps and plans, genealogies and coats of arms, scenery and castles,
 costumes and portraits; and, lastly, with representations of battles,
 sieges, hangings, roastings, and hurlings headlong from rocks. The
 tailpiece is a duello between a Christian man-at-arms and a 'turban'd
 Turk.' The plates are on metal, and remarkably good. A new edition of
 this notable old historic-topographical monograph is now being issued
 from Laibach (Labacus). 'Carniola antiqua et nova,' is happy in her
 'Memoirs;' Valvásor has a rival in Johann Ludovicus Schönleben, whose
 folio appeared Labaci M.DC.LXXXI., Œmoniæ Labaci Conditæ, MM.DCCC.IV.
 Of the latter, however, only the Tomus Primus, ending about A.D. 1000,
 appeared: the Secundus was not printed, and the fate of the manuscript
 is unknown.

 "Valvásor gives a view of Castle Weixelstein, 'Cherry-tree Rock,'
 which the Slavs call Novi Dvor (New Court). There is some change in
 the building since 1689. The square towers at the angles appear lower,
 from the body of the house having been raised. The _hof_, or hollow
 court to the south, has been surrounded by a second story; and the
 fine linden-tree in the centre is a stump, bearing a large flower-pot.
 The scene of the apparition is a low room with barred windows and
 single-arched ceiling, which is entered by the kitchen, the first door
 to the right of the main gate. The old families mentioned in the story
 have mostly disappeared. Enough of preliminary.

 "The following is a literal translation of Valvásor's Old German:


 "'_Veritable and Singular Account of an Apparition, and the Saving of a
 Soul, in Castle Weixelstein, in Krain._


 "'At the castle above-named, strange noises (_rumor_) were heard
 during the night for several years; but the origin of the same was
 a subject of (vain) research and speculation. After a time a new
 servant-wench (_mensch_), engaged in the house, whose name was
 Ankha (i.e. _Anna_) Wnikhlaukha, had the courage, on hearing these
 mysterious sounds, to address the ghost in the following manner:--

 "'The 15th of January, A.D. 1684.--Firstly, at night a noise arose in
 the servant-wenches' room, as though some one were walking about clad
 in iron armour and clanking chains. The women being sorely frightened,
 some stable-hands were brought to sleep with them. They were struck
 upon the head, and one was like to die of terror.

 "'The 16th January.--In the evening, as the lights still burnt, a
 rapping was heard at the room door, but when they went to see what
 caused it, nothing was found. Presently those inside put out the
 lamps, and lay down to rest. Thereupon began a loud clatter; the two
 servant-wenches, Marinkha (Marian) Samanoukha and Miza (Mitza, Mary)
 Sayeschankha, were seized by the head, but they could distinguish no
 one near them.'

 "The whole account is strictly 'spiritualistic.' Ankha is the chosen
 medium, and nothing is done till she appears on the scene. The ghost
 will hardly answer the officious and garrulous steward; and has
 apparently scant respect for the reverend men who were called in.
 One of the latter somewhat justified the ghost's disdain by telling
 a decided 'fib.' The steps by which the apparition changes from hot
 to cold, from weariness to energy, from dark to white robes, and from
 loud noises to mild, are decidedly artistic.

 "'_On the 17th of January nothing happened._

 "'On the 18th, the servant-wenches being in great fear, five others
 joined them. One, Hansche Juritschkno Suppan, put out the light when
 all lay down, locked the door, and endeavoured to sleep. Thereupon
 arose a dreadful noise. After it had ended, Ankha, by the advice of
 those present, thus bespake the ghost:

 "'"All good spirits, praise the Lord."

 "'(This is the recognized formula throughout Germany for addressing
 apparitions.)

 "'The ghost answered, "I also; so help me God, and Our Blessed Lady,
 and the holy Saint Anthony of Padua!"

 "'Anna resumed, "What wantest thou, O good spirit?"

 "'The ghost replied, "I want thirty _Masses_." It added, "This castle
 was once mine," and it disappeared.

 "'_On the 19th of January the ghost was present, but nothing unusual
 occurred._

 "'_On the evening of the 20th,_ the servant-wenches being still
 affrighted, the steward (Schreiber), one Antoni Glanitschinigg, and
 the man Hansche, before mentioned, with six other persons, were in
 the chamber. When all lay down to rest, the steward locked the door
 and put out the lamp. The ghost at once came and violently dragged a
 chair backwards. Whereupon quoth Antoni: "I confess that I am a great
 sinner; nevertheless, I dare address thee, and ask thee, in God's
 name, what more dost thou want?"

 "'To this question no answer was vouchsafed by the ghost, although
 the steward repeated it a second time and a third time. He then rose
 up and advanced towards the apparition, which was seen standing near
 the window, thinking to discover whether it was a true ghost, or some
 person playing a trick. It vanished, however, before he could lay hand
 upon it. The steward went out with one of the servant-wenches to fetch
 a light; and, whilst so doing, he heard the ghost speaking in the room
 he had left. When the lamp came nothing was found. Then all those
 present knelt down and prayed. After their devotions the light was
 extinguished, and the ghost reappeared, crying out, with weeping and
 wailing, "Ankha! Ankha! Ankha! help me." The wench asked, "How can I
 help thee, O good spirit?" Whereupon the ghost rejoined, "With thirty
 Masses, which must be said at the altar of St. Anthony, in the church
 of Jagnenz," which church is in the parish of Schäffenberg.'

 "Jagnenz is a church in the valley of the Sapotka, a small stream
 which falls into the Save river, about half a mile west of
 Weixelstein. Schäffenberg is the hereditary castle of the well-known
 county of that name. Wrunikh is another little church, remarkably
 pretty, near Weixelstein. Apparently the ghost served to 'run' Jagnenz
 against all its rivals.

 "'Hearing these words from the ghost, the steward again inquired, "O
 thou good spirit, would it not be better to get the Masses said sooner
 by dividing them, part at Jagnenz, the other at the altar of Saint
 Anthony in Wrunikh?" Whereto the ghost made an answer, "No! Ankha!
 Ankha! only at Jagnenz, and not at Wrunikh!" The steward continued,
 "As this ghost refuseth to answer me, do thou, Ankha, ask it what and
 why it suffers, etc." Then Ankha addressed it: "My good spirit! tell
 me wherefore dost thou suffer?" It replied, "For that I unrighteously
 used sixty gulden (florins); so I, a poor widow body, must endure this
 penalty." Ankha further said, "Who shall pay for these thirty Masses?"
 The ghost rejoined, "The noble master" (of the castle), and continued,
 "Ankha! Ankha! I am so weary, and dead-beat, and martyred, that I can
 hardly speak."

 "'Then cried the steward, "My good spirit! when the thirty Masses
 shall have been said, come back and give us a sign that they have
 helped thee." The ghost rejoined, "Ankha, to thee I will give a sign
 upon thy head." Ankha replied, "God have mercy upon me, that must
 endure such fright and pain!" But the ghost thus comforted her: "Fear
 not, Ankha. The sign which I will show to thee shall not be visible
 upon thy head, nor shall it be painful." It added, "Ankha! Ankha! I
 pray thee, when thou enterest into any house, tell the inmates that
 one unjust kreutzer (farthing) eats up twenty just kreutzers." Then
 the ghost began to scratch the wench's cap, or coif; and she, in her
 terror, took to praying for help. The ghost comforted her, bade her
 feel no fear or anxiety, took leave (_sic_), and was seen no more that
 night.

 "'_Late on the 21st of January_ the ghost reappeared, and made a
 terrible noise with a chair in presence of the lord of the castle,
 Sigmund Wilhelm Freiherr, (Baron) von Zetschekher, and of two
 ecclesiastics, Georg André Schlebnikh and Lorenz Tsichitsch. Several
 others, men and women, were present, and nothing took place till the
 candles were put out. Whereupon the said Schlebnikh began to exorcise
 the apparition, beginning with the usual formula, "All good spirits,
 praise the Lord." The ghost replied, "I also." It would not, however,
 answer any questions put by the ghostly man, but began to speak with
 Ankha, saying, "Ankha, help me!" She rejoined, "My dear good spirit,
 all that lies in my power will I do for thee; only tell me, my spirit,
 if the two Masses already said have in any way lessened thy pain."
 The ghost answered, "Yea, verily" (_freilich_). Ankha continued,
 "How many more Masses must thou still have?" and the reply was,
 "Thirty, less two." Then Ankha resumed, "Oh, my good spirit, tell me
 thy family name." Quoth the ghost, "My name is Gallenbergerinn." The
 wench further asked for a sign of salvation when all the thirty Masses
 should have been said; the ghost promised to do so, and disappeared.

 "'_On the night of the 22nd of January,_ when the lights were put
 out, the ghost reappeared, passing through the shut and tied door.
 This was in presence of Wollf Engelbrecht, Baron Gallen, of the lord
 of the castle, and of three priests, namely, Georg Schiffrer, curate
 of Laagkh, Georg André Schlebnikh, and Lorenz. There were several
 others. This time the ghost did not make a frightful noise as before,
 the reason being that eight Masses had been said. So at least it
 appeared from its address, "Ankha, Ankha, I thank thee; I shall soon
 be released." The wench rejoined, "O my good spirit, dost thou feel
 any comfort after the eight Masses?" The apparition replied, "Yea,
 verily, my Ankha;" and, when asked how many were wanted, answered,
 "Twenty-two." As it had declared its family name, it was now prayed
 to disclose its Christian name, in order that the latter might be
 introduced into the Masses by the four reverends. It said, "My name is
 Mary Elizabeth Gallenbergerinn." Further it was asked whether, being a
 Gallenberg, the thirty Masses should be paid by the Lord of Gallenberg
 or by "Zetschkher" of Weixelstein. It ejaculated, "Zetschkher"
 (without giving the title); and added, "A thousand, thousand, and a
 thousand thanks to thee, dear Ankha." The latter said, "O my good
 spirit, tell me what wrong didst thou do with the sixty gulden, that
 we may make restoration to the rightful owner." The ghost replied,
 "Ankha, this must I tell thee in secret." The wench begged that the
 matter might be disclosed in public, so that men might believe it; but
 the ghost answered, "No, Ankha; in private." It then took leave and
 disappeared, promising to come back for three more evenings.

 "'On the 23rd of January the lord of the castle, with three priests,
 prayed at the altar of Saint Anthony of Jagnenz, and five more Masses
 were said. They all lodged that night with Georg André, of Altenhoff,
 not far from the church. When the lamps were put out Ankha was placed
 sitting upon a chest, or box, between two ecclesiastics, Georg
 Schiffrer, of Laagkh, and André Navadnikh. Then after three raps, the
 ghost came in, and pulled the hair of one of these reverends. He stood
 up from the chest, whereupon it struck Ankha so violent a box on the
 ear (_ohrfeige_) that it sounded like a sharp clapping of hands, and
 could be heard over all the dwelling-place (_Läben_). Lights were
 brought, and showed the print of a left hand burnt in the coif on the
 right side of the wench's head; she was not hurt, but the cap remained
 heated for some time. Nothing else occurred that night.

 "'On the evening of the 24th of January, after prayers by the priests,
 and the lamps being extinguished, the ghost rapped once and came in.
 As the wench again sat on the same chest between the priests, the
 curate of Laagkh felt his hair tugged, and he rose up. Ankha at the
 same time exclaimed, "Oh dear! oh dear! whose cold hand is that?" The
 priest, who was sitting near, said, "Don't be afraid, the hand is
 mine;" but this was not true. He wished to do away with her fright,
 and with the impression caused by the touch.

 "'On the 25th of January, when all the required Masses had been said
 at the altar of Saint Anthony of Jagnenz, the Lord of Weixelstein and
 the priests engaged in the ceremony returned to pass the night at the
 castle, and to receive the thanksgiving of the Saved Soul. While they
 were supping the housemaid, carrying the children's food, was crossing
 the hall to the dining-room, when the ghost seized her arm. She
 started back, and saw behind her the form of a woman robed in white.
 As the family were retiring to rest, the lord of the castle ordered
 two of his dependents, Christop Wollf and Mathew Wreschek, to pass
 the night with the servant-wenches in the haunted room. As the lamps
 were put out the ghost entered and struck a loud rap upon the table,
 and said, "Ankha, now I am saved, and I am going to heaven." The
 wench rejoined, "O blessed soul, pray to Heaven for me, for the noble
 master, the noble mistress, and all the noble family, and for all
 those who helped thee to (attain) thine eternal salvation," whereto
 the ghost answered, "Amen, amen, amen." It then went towards Ankha,
 and privily told her the promised secret, strictly forbidding her to
 divulge it.

 "'Finally, it should be noted that before all these events Ankha had
 confessed and communicated.'

 "Trieste, September 8, 1879."

The walks in the woods were delightful, and when the picture was
sufficiently advanced we went to Trieste to meet Mr. and Mrs.
Arthur Evans. We also went with a large party to meet the Prince of
Montenegro, who arrived at Trieste, who was one of the handsomest men I
ever saw, of the dark mountaineer type. This September we had a great
blow. Our favourite Governor, Baron Pino, was transferred to Linz, and
he and his wife were so very popular that the whole town was in mental
mourning. We all went to see them off, and it was a very heart-breaking
scene. We all cried. I have seen such departures three times. One was
for the Spanish Consuless Madame Zamitt, a lovely and popular woman,
who a year or two later died of cancer in the tongue, and the third
was my own departure (though I say it who should not), on the 27th of
January, 1891.

Richard went for a little trip on the 29th of September to Fiume, and
afterwards we went to Albona.

I also induced the _podestá_, the Mayor, and several of the authorities
of the town to go round with me to become eye-witnesses of the
cruelties and the places where people kept their animals, and the
Mayor told me that, though he had been born and lived all his life in
Trieste, he was quite unaware that it contained such holes and slums as
I was able to show him.

We had the pleasure of being asked by one of our great friends, Baronne
Emilio de Morpurgo, to meet the great painter from Paris, Monsieur
d'Hébert, and I note a pleasant dinner with Monsieur and Madame Dorn,
editor of the _Triester Zeitung_, to meet Faccio the _maestro_; and
Signor Serravallo introduced to us Professor Giglioli, of Florence.
Then we went on again to Opçina, and from there we got a letter from
Uncle Gerard, to say that he and my aunt and cousins were coming to
Venice for ten days, and that we were to go and join them; which
summons we obeyed joyfully, and had a most happy time. After they left,
we went off to Chioggia, the fishing village near Venice, and we had
the pleasure of unearthing Mr. Jemmy Whistler and Dr. George Bird. Mr.
Whistler was a great find for us.

Dr. George Bird had appointed to meet me in Venice on his way to India,
as I was not well and wanted to see an English doctor (I had never got
over my fall); but I forgot to ask him what hotel he would stay at, he
forgot to tell me, and Venice is a place you might be months in, and
never meet a person you wanted to see. Consequently, when I got there,
I did not know how to meet him; so I went to the police, told them my
difficulty, gave them his photograph, and told them he did not know a
word of anything but English. The consequence was that the moment he
arrived the police brought him straight off to me; all the way he kept
wondering what law he had transgressed, and what they were going to
do with him. When he saw me, he gave what _we_, his intimate friends,
call one of his "smiles." He has a habit of roaring with laughter, so
loud that the whole street stops and looks, and he then says gently,
"Oh, excuse my smiling." He said, "Have you done this?" "Why," I said,
"of course; how else could I get at you?" The police spoke a few words
to me, and then, to his astonishment, I turned to him and said, "You
travelled with a young lady; you parted with her at such a station;
you came on alone, and you lost your luggage." "But how, in the name
of goodness, do you know all this?" "Ah," I said mysteriously, "secret
police!" We went off and immediately looked after the luggage, and
recovered it before he had to go on board his Indian steamer, and I had
my consultation.

[Sidenote: _Excursions_.]

It was now November, and very cold weather, with frequent _Boras_,
but we nevertheless managed a quantity of excursions in search for
_castellieri_ and inscriptions. One we took in a frightful _Bora_--I
don't know how we did it. We had a little country cart about the size
of a tea-cart, and two rattling good horses, and we drove for two
hours, passing four villages and reaching San Daniell, a fortified
village on a hill with an old castle under the big mountains. It was
owned by a primitive learned old man of seventy-four, and active as a
boy, a queer old housekeeper of a wife, sons who shoot, and daughters,
and three old brothers, who played cards with him in the evening. It
is a large landed property in the Karso, of no use because it is all
stones; the castle is draughty, all the windows and doors are open and
half unused; there is no idea of comfort. It has two heavy gateways
for entrance, an old wall for defence, and a Roman inscription. We got
a shelter with them, lunched in a primitive way in an old chimney in
an inn with the villagers; then we got another country cart and had
twenty minutes' more drive, and half an hour's rough climbing over
stones to get at the object of our search, which was a Troglodyte cave
fifty metres deep, the entrance in a side field, and said to have
been inhabited by ancients. There we stood for forty minutes in a
_Bora_ that made us hold on, taking squeezes of the inscriptions. Once
finished, we tumbled back over the stones till we reached our cart,
had twenty minutes' drive back, were glad to get near the fire and the
chimney, and have some hot coffee. There was a struggling quarter-moon,
and we drove back at a rattling pace to Opçina, encountering two
snowstorms on our way. When we arrived, after eight hours out, we were
frozen and had to be assisted out of the cart; there was a large china
stove in the dining-room, and we sat down, one on each side of it,
on the floor with our backs to it, and the landlord gave us some hot
brandy-and-water with spice in it. We were a great many hours before we
got any feeling at all, far less warm.

I have known a weak horse and man die on such a night on that road
in the _Bora_. We had fearful weather that year, something like the
present one (1892-3), but with our _Bora_ added on to it. We dined out
one night in Trieste, and forbid our coachman to go on to the Quai,
for fear of being blown into the sea; but he disobeyed us, and, to our
horror, we saw by degrees our cab got nearer and nearer the edge. When
it was about a yard or two from the edge, we opened the door and jumped
out on the other side, and the man had to jump down and lead his horse
into the back streets.

Richard now wrote a letter on the subject of the Indo-Mediterranean
railway, and he objected to the route of his friend Captain Cameron;
the object was to give the Indian mails seven days instead of three
weeks for letters to reach. Richard stood out stoutly for a line which
should start from Tyre in Syria, tap the very richest lands in Syria,
pass Ba'albak, and the once glorious valley plain of the Orontes,
reaching Aleppo.

During some part of this year (I cannot exactly say what day, as the
letter bears only the date Thursday) Richard was invited to come to
some place to meet the King of the Belgians, who had asked repeatedly
for him, calling him "the Pioneer of all these African travels," and
saying, "Where did you disappear to? nobody could find you;" which was
just like Richard's extreme modesty, going out of the way when any
honour or notice was going on.

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.

He desired me to give our usual Christmas-parties, so the poor children
had their feast at one o'clock on one day, the servants inviting all
their friends--had a supper and a dance; then I gave my English party,
which we all enjoyed very much, and passed my usual San Silvester night
(in English, seeing the old year out and the new year in) at Madame
Gutmansthal's, which was a settled thing whenever they and we were in
Trieste.

Whenever I was alone, I tried to introduce giving supper-parties only
to my intimate women-friends in tea-gowns; but it did not succeed very
well, as the husbands did not like not being asked.

On the 11th of January I gave a party to eighty-seven of our intimate
Triestine friends. The English and foreigners never assimilated; they
separated into different rooms, and they both spoilt each other's
pleasure.

A very amusing practice, which lasted some time in the good Society of
Trieste, was meeting to recite plays, French, German, and Italian,
everybody taking a part, sitting round a table and each reading our
part as if we were acting it. It was a very intellectual way of passing
the evening, and it ended by supper. Each house took its turn. Then we
used to have singing meetings on the same principle--sort of musical
classes, where we went in for glees, choir music, and particular
masters, such as Mendelssohn, Rubenstein, and so on.

[Sidenote: _Richard sends me Home to a Bone-setter_.]

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 17th
of February to meet a woman-friend who remained 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 went 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 "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 foundation 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_.

[Sidenote: _Richard meets with Foul Play_.]

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, 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" 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. I quote this letter prematurely because it regards the subject of
Midian.


 "GOLD IN WESTERN ARABIA.


 "Rohitsch-Sauerbrunn, August 5th, 1887.

 "After an unconscionable delay, the following letter was received
 by me, dated Jeddah (Red Sea), from Mr. A. Levick, son of my old
 friend the ex-postmaster of Suez, whose name is known to a host of
 travellers. It will be shown that, even without action on the part of
 Europeans, the cause of discovery is thriving, and the public will
 presently ask why, in our present condition, when there is almost a
 famine of gold, England pays no attention to these new fields.

 "'From inquiries I have made at Jeddah, I learn on good authority
 that gold quartz has been found in great quantities at Táif (the
 famous summering-place among the highlands to the east of Mecca), or
 rather on the mountain range between that place and Mecca. The person
 who gave me this information at the time of the discovery went to
 Constantinople and sundry other capitals, but the results obtained
 were not very encouraging. I was also told that Mr. Moel Betts (of the
 defunct company, Betts, Wylde, and Co.) has at Suez specimens of this
 quartz, which he took away with him from Jeddah when he went north.
 All this information is trustworthy, and you may thoroughly rely on
 its being correct, as I got it from a man in whom I can confide. An
 old Oriental traveller like yourself can understand how hard it always
 is to arrive at the truth in a place like this. However I am assured
 that the Government engineer of this district (Jeddah), a certain
 Sádik Bey, can also give me valuable details regarding the specimens
 found and the results obtained. Meanwhile you can confidently rely on
 the details which I have so far managed to obtain. I should also add
 that the person who so kindly gave me the news has further promised
 that he will do his utmost to provide me with specimens when he goes
 to Mecca. I have seen Mr. Consul Jago, and asked him if he could help
 me with anything. I shall be very glad to learn from you that the gold
 mines of Midian are likely to be coming on again, and I should think
 this a most favourable time to bring forward your most wonderful
 discoveries near Al-Muwaylah.'

 "So far Mr. Levick. I am not astonished to hear that the results of
 the gold quartz were 'unsatisfactory.' These opinions were probably
 picked up from the surface, or broken off from some outcrop. But the
 fact of their being found is all-important; and the outcome of the
 work would be very different were it carried out by a scientific
 engineer, or, better still, by a practical miner from the gold
 diggings. I have heard now of auriferous discoveries extending from
 between the mountains of Northern Midian, along the line of the West
 Arabian Gháts, until they meet the volcanic region about Aden. They
 have been reported to me from behind Yambu, and Mecca, Mocha, and
 Hodaydah; and I have a thorough conviction that some day they will be
 found exceedingly valuable.

 "RICHARD F. BURTON."

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 Crœsus 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 Opçina. 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. I got the best doctor, but he knew less about it
than we did. Nubar Pasha came over about this time, and came up and
stayed with us, and that did him good. He was soon able to breakfast
down in the garden. He now began to walk about freely, and to take long
drives, even to climb hills.

The first excursion that he made was to a _foiba_. This means one of
the great pot-holes in the Karso, some of which are a hundred, two
hundred, five hundred, or two thousand feet deep. Some of the most
brutal amongst the peasant Slavs have the habit of throwing their
animals down, when they want to get rid of them, and it was said that
a dog was thrown down there, and we thought we could hear its moans,
so we started off with a large party with endless ropes and grappling
irons. He sounded the depths, and at last we seemed to get hold of
something, at which all the men pulled and hoisted up a tree. This
frightened all the owls who had taken refuge in this hole, and they
flew out, and then we found that what we thought was the moaning of the
dog was the hooting of these owls. Then our fencing-master, Herr Reich,
came up to us frequently, and we had numberless drives over the Karso.


"IT."

    "If all the harm that women have done
    Were put in a bundle and rolled into one,
    The earth could not hold it, the sky not enfold it,
    It could not be lighted nor warmed by the sun!
    Such masses of evil would puzzle the devil
    And keep him in fuel while Time's wheels run."


We had once to pass through a very uncanny trial, which may be said to
have lasted from 1877 to the end of 1880, and somewhat (though in a
less degree) to 1883. We suddenly began to be inundated with anonymous
letters; then our private papers and writings would disappear; a great
fuss of finding them was made, and when all fuss and hope of recovery
was over, they would reappear. There was always some mystery hanging
about, and once we found on the floor a copy-book with some very good
imitations of my handwriting, or what my handwriting _would_ be if I
tried to disguise it a little backwards, and some very bad and easily
recognizable attempts at my husband's very peculiar hand. The anonymous
letters generally tried to set us against each other, if possible, and
I was always finding love-letters thrust into his pockets, whenever I
cleaned or brushed his clothes, which I generally did when he was ill,
in order not to have the servants in the room. Fortunately we told each
other everything, and he used to carry his letters to me, and I mine to
him, but we could make nothing of it.

At last he said, in 1879 (when he was going away to Midian), "You must
be _quite sure_ not to make yourself uncomfortable about any of this
sort of thing, and to tell me everything that occurs; because I am
_sure_ this is an intrigue, and a woman's intrigue, which has something
to do with money. When we were poor everybody left us in peace, but
ever since 1877 nothing has been talked about but the enormous riches
that I am _going_ to make in these mines, and you have been offering
parures of turquoise to all your friends in my name. So somebody is
working to try and separate us. You keep your 'weather eye' open, and
believe nothing, nor shall I, and you will see that one day or another
it is bound to ooze out." It did ooze out--after it did not matter.

Ever after these annoyances began, whenever we were going to make
the smallest remark which might be unlucky, we always used to say,
"Hush! '_IT_' will hear you;" and then we used to laugh. This became
so habitual with us, that everybody else thought we were alluding to
Providence, or evil spirits, or such like; but we were really alluding
to our uncanny, fleshly evil genius, who, though we did not know it,
was nestling close to us and heard it all. It was, therefore, with a
doubly heavy heart that I saw him depart on his third and last journey
for Midian, and was thankful when it was over.

[Sidenote: _Camoens_.]

Richard and I now went to Opçina 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 Opçina, 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. I
wrote the little sonnet for him, my preface, and the Glossary, and his
"Reviewers Reviewed."


    "TO MY MASTER CAMOENS.
    "(_Tu se' lo mio maestro, è lo mio autore._)

    "Great Pilgrim-poet of the Sea and Land;
      Thou life-long sport of Fortune's ficklest will;
      Doomed to all human and inhuman ill,
    Despite thy lover-heart, thy hero-hand;
    Enrollèd by the pen what marvellous band
      Of god-like Forms thy golden pages fill;
      Love, Honour, Justice, Valour, Glory thrill
    The Soul, obedient to thy strong command:
    Amid the Prophets highest sits the Bard,
      At once Revealer of the Heaven and Earth,
    To Heaven the guide, of Earth the noblest guard;
      And, 'mid the Poets, thine the peerless worth,
    Whose glorious song, thy Genius' sole reward,
      Bids all the Ages, Camoens, bless thy birth!"
                               ----ISABEL BURTON.


He was quite upset about the Glossary. When he had used archaic words,
which belonged to Chaucer and Spencer, he said, "Do you mean to say
that they won't understand me?" When I produced my glossary of three
hundred and fourteen words, he said, "You are never going to insult the
English public with that?" I said, "But, indeed, I am; and I know very
well that you have not fifteen readers that will know them without, but
they will pretend they do, and be very much offended, whilst internally
they will thank their God that they have got it, and are able to look
grand on the strength of it." But he curtailed it, and in this he was
encouraged by our old friend Bernard Quaritch.

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, Bibliographical, Historical
and Chronological, Geographical, and Annotative--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 whose two fates--master
and disciple--exists a strange similarity. The two volumes of "Life
and Commentary" show a profundity of learning and intelligence which
would be quite enough to make the name of any other man, if he had
never written anything else, but though Camoens has not taken hold of
the public yet, he will. Richard lived to do six volumes; he would
have done four more had he lived. His little letter of dedication to
Swinburne, in vol. i of the "Lyrics," is a masterpiece.


 "To

 "The Prince of the Lyric Poets of his day,

 "ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


 "MY DEAR SWINBURNE,

 "Accept the unequal exchange--my brass for your gold. Your 'Poems and
 Ballads' began to teach the Philister what might there is in the music
 of language, and what the marvel of lyric inspiration, far subtler and
 more ethereal than mere poetry, means to the mind of man.

 "Without more ado, allow me to excuse this 'transaction' by a
 something which comes from the East--

 "'A poor man, passing by one day when his King travelled, brought him
 a little water with both hands, saying, "Drink, my lord, for the heat
 is great." He accepted it gladly from him, not looking to the small
 quality of that service, but only to the good will with which it was
 offered.'

 "Believe me ever,

 "Your old friend and fellow-traveller,

 "RICHARD F. BURTON.

 "Desterro, Trieste,

 "September 25th, 1884."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "The Pines, Putney Hill, S.W.,

 "November 7th, 1884.

 "MY DEAR BURTON,

 "Your dedication makes me very proud, and the kindness of its terms
 gives me still a heartier pleasure than that of mere pride in your
 friendship. Thanks to you both, and notably to Frances H----" [me]
 "for her letter, or rather your joint one of the 10th, which has now
 been followed by the arrival of the two volumes. They are yet more
 interesting (naturally) to me than their precursors....

 "The learning and research of your work are in many points beyond
 all praise of mine, but not more notable than the strength and skill
 that wield them. I am hungrily anticipating the 'Arabian Nights.' You
 both know how we look forward to our next meeting with you, when you
 _shall_ not run away so soon as you did last time.

 "Both of yours always,

 "A. C. SWINBURNE."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "The Pines, Putney Hill, S.W.,

 "April 13th, 1881.

 "MY DEAR MRS. BURTON,

 "I am horribly ashamed to find that my letter of thanks to you on
 the arrival of the 'Lusiads,' which I quite thought had been at once
 written and despatched (this is the real honest truth, and not a
 lying after-thought to excuse myself), never went or existed at all,
 but remained in the limbo of good intentions. I cannot tell how, for
 I distinctly remember the very words I meant to send, and thought I
 had sent, of congratulations to Burton on having in that translation,
 as I think, matched Byron on his own chosen ground as a translator,
 and beaten him at his own weapon. The version of Pulci's 'Morgante,'
 on which Byron prided himself so greatly as being, in his own words,
 the best translation that ever was or will be made, is an infinitely
 less important, and I should think less difficult attempt on exactly
 the same lines of work, and certainly, to say the least, not more
 successful, as far as one can judge, without knowledge of Camoens in
 the original language.

 "With best remembrances to both of you.

 "Ever faithfully yours,

 "A. C. SWINBURNE."

I prefer the "Lusiads," but the Portuguese think that if Camoens had
never written the "Lusiads," his sonnets would have immortalized him,
and prefer his to Petrarch's.

Besides this, we used to fence a great deal during those years. We
set up a _tir 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
Opçina, 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.


    "GERALD MASSEY TO RICHARD F. BURTON.


    "'_Englished by Richard Burton._' And well done,
    As it was well worth doing; for this is one
    Of those old Poets, who are always new,
    That share eternity with all that's true,
    And of their own abounding spirit do give
    Substance to Earth's dead Shadows; and make men live
    Who in action merely did but flit and pass;
    Now fixed for ever in thought's reflecting-glass.
    This is the Poet of weary wanderers
    In perilous lands; and wide-sea Voyagers,
    And climbers fall'n and broken on the stairs.
    A man of men; a master of affairs,
    Whose own life-story is, in touching truth,
    Poem more potent than all feignèd truth.
    His Epic trails a story in the wake
    Of _Gama, Raleigh, Frobisher,_ and _Drake_.
    The poem of Discovery! sacred to
    Discoverers, and their deeds of derring-do,
    Is fitly rendered in The Traveller's land,
    By one of the foremost of the fearless band."
                              ----GERALD MASSEY.


 "BURTON'S CAMOENS.

 (A cutting from the Press.)


 "In his wanderings afar from the world's highway, he made Camoens his
 companion, and discovered a peculiar sympathy of mind between himself
 and the noble Portuguese--an affinity which Mrs. Burton seems inclined
 to trace even in the fortunes of the two men (_absit omen!_)."

       *       *       *       *       *


 The _Daily Telegraph_, February 21, 1881.


 "'Camoens,' he says, 'is the perfection of a traveller's study. A
 wayfarer and a voyager from his youth; a soldier, somewhat turbulent
 withal, wounded and blamed for his wounds; a doughty sword and yet
 doughtier pen; a type of the chivalrous age; a patriot of the purest
 water, so jealous of his country's good fame, that nothing would
 satisfy him but to see the world bow before her perfections; a genius,
 the first and foremost of his day, who died in the direst poverty
 and distress.' These are good titles to admiration in any case, and
 we cannot wonder that a great English traveller, himself too a poet,
 should have been captivated all these long years by the charms of that
 beautiful Portuguese tongue, and those noble and stirring sentiments
 which stand enshrined in Camoens' deathless pages. If it be true that
 Chapman's 'Iliad' is a great work because of the intense love and
 admiration which its author had for the blind old bard of Greece, then
 certainly Captain Burton's labour, which has taken up twenty years of
 a much-occupied life, ought, for the same reason, to be able to stand
 the test of time, inasmuch as it is the fruit of genuine and heartfelt
 devotion on the part of the translator to the author and his poetic
 masterpiece."

       *       *       *       *       *


 The _Daily Telegraph_, February 21, 1881.


 "'My master, Camoens,' Captain Burton calls him, and goes on to pay
 his tribute of gratitude for the real solace which the much-loved
 volume has been to him in many wanderings. 'On board raft and canoe,
 sailing vessel and steamer, on the camel and the mule, under the tent
 and the jungle tree, on the fire-peak and the snow-peak,' writes the
 accomplished 'Hadji,' 'Camoens has been my companion, my consoler, my
 friend;' and we may remark that a study of Camoens, who is an ideal
 patriot, as well as a constant lover, whose fair one was snatched away
 by death at the age of twenty, would be useful in the present day as
 an antidote to schools of thought which banish both patriotism and
 romance, as far as they can, into the region of forbidden sentiments.
 Indeed, so intensely patriotic is the bard, that in the opening of
 his epic he bids Achilles, Alexander, and all other ancient warriors
 and travellers, cease to 'vaunt long voyages made in bygone day,' as
 if the 'better bravery' of the Lusitanian explorers fairly threw into
 the shade all attempts in the same line which had been made before.
 This may be going a little too far, but, at all events, it is a fault
 in the right direction, which deserved better treatment than King
 Ferdinand's annual dole of five golden sovereigns."

[Sidenote: _A Little Anecdote about a Capuchin_.]

One day, as we sat at our twelve o'clock breakfast at Opçina, 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 breakfast, and I slipped out of the room and said to the landlord,
"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 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."

[Sidenote: _The Passion Play--Ober-Ammergau_.]

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, breakfasting at Franzensfeste. You are examined
at Kufstein, the frontier between 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 Hôtel 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 Mürnau,
where you go to the Pantelbraü 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 containing 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 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 Mürnau
we were deposited at a pretty cottage, where rooms were let by a Frau
Haüser.

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 Haüser 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 uninteresting.
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, "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 _fête_ 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
Innsbrück, 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 _Braüerei_. 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 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.

[Sidenote: _Celebrating a Vice-Consul's Jubilee_.]

On the 11th we had a great pleasure in celebrating our dear old
Vice-Consul Mr. Brock's fiftieth year at Trieste. He was so loved and
respected, that everybody wished to contribute some little proof, and
Mrs. Craig, the wife of Mr. George Craig, a merchant of Trieste, our
principal English lady, and I, received the demonstrations of their
good will, which were even more pronounced amongst the old Triestine
families than amongst the English, who were less wealthy, though not
less well disposed towards him; and on the 11th of September Mrs. Craig
and I were able to put a purse of £170 into his hands. The dear old man
was so much affected that I was afraid he would have a fit. He could
not sign a Consular report for two hours after.

On the 10th of December my publisher, poor Mr. Mullan, died, and
my boys' books were returned to me, to begin afresh with another
publisher, which was, unhappily, Mr. Bogue. On the 15th, Richard
lectured at the English Engineers' Club, which was very well attended,
much applauded, and was noticed largely in the foreign Press, in
most gratifying terms, speaking of him as dear and respected for his
learning, merits, and philanthropy, and I had my third _fête_ for
humanity to animals.

[Sidenote: _Monfalcone_.]

We went to the baths of Monfalcone, supposed to be excellent for gout
and rheumatism, heading round the gulf to the shore opposite Trieste,
and I must say they did Richard a great deal of good, though it was
slow.


 "THE BATHS OF MONFALCONE.

 "To the Editor of the _Medical Times and Gazette_.


 "SIR,

 "Will you allow me to make known to you a bathing-place which is never
 recommended in England by medical men, because it is so little known?
 Two hours' drive from Trieste, one by rail, two hours' drive from
 old classical Aquileja, close to the river Isonzo, and almost on the
 borders of Austria and Italy, a townlet of four thousand inhabitants
 lies seething in the plain, under a burning July sun. You may perhaps
 see it on the map, half an hour's distance from the sea, at the very
 head of the Adriatic. In 1433 it existed, and the baths in those days
 were thirty feet long and twelve broad. They have been perpetually
 bettered and destroyed from that period until a year ago; and I am not
 going to enter into any interesting or tedious details, but take them
 up at 1879, when the property was bought by a personal friend of ours,
 a gentleman of Trieste, named Dr. Rabl, D.C.L. He has put the baths in
 perfect condition and working order, and he will go on improving and
 bettering according as a more numerous and a better class of visitors
 are attracted here. At present there are a hundred and fifty bathers,
 but of the most uninteresting description--just the people 'you
 don't want to meet,' as _Judy_ says. There are rows of rooms for the
 mud-baths, and opposite corresponding rooms for the water-baths, and a
 large basin for those who like to swim or bathe in company. There are
 douches, and we are going to have vapour-baths. The same arrangements
 exist on the men's side of the establishment as on that for the women.
 The work of pumping up the water and collecting the mud by machinery
 is carried out with a sufficient staff of servants in attendance. The
 mud and the water in their natural state show 34° Réaumur. The water
 is beautifully clear, is mixed with sea-water, and contains lots of
 things, of which the principal are sulphate of soda. The baths are
 very powerful, and are resorted to for all bone pains--rheumatism,
 gout, neuralgia, lumbago, sciatica. The treatment ranges from twelve
 to eighteen baths; and in three years 1315 cures have been effected.
 The doctor is beginning to hang up the crutches the people leave
 behind, as they do _ex votos_ in a church. His name is Tamburlini; he
 is well informed and very efficient. We naturally take an interest in
 the works, as it is in our Consular district, and it might draw some
 nice English visitors here in summer-time. The baths are open from May
 to September. As I write now it is 83° F. in the rooms; going out is
 not possible (except to sit under the trees) from, say, 9 a.m. till 6
 or 7 p.m.

 "I am, etc.,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Monfalcone, July 10th."

 ("We have much pleasure in publishing the above letter from the
 enterprising wife of the still more adventurous 'Hadji.' It seems the
 fate of well-known travellers and men of science to be relegated to
 parts unknown, to wear out their days in what is supposed to be rest.
 If we remember aright, Charles Lever was banished to the dulness of
 Trieste. They sent Palgrave to Guiana, and James Hannay to Barcelona.
 We are glad to see that Mrs. Burton, at all events, continues to keep
 up those active spirits which so often and so well bestead her.--Ed.
 _Med. Times and Gaz._")

[Sidenote: _Richard's Metal and Colour_.]

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.

[1] Richard used always to say that, psychologically speaking, he was
convinced that he was a spoiled twin, and that I was the broken or
missing fragment.




CHAPTER VII.

ON SLAVERY.


You must now, dear Reader, bear with, or skip, a chapter on Slavery,
upon which Richard was very strong.


 CAPTAIN BURTON'S REPORTS TO LORD GRANVILLE ON ANTI-SLAVERY.

 _Letter No._ 1.


 "Cairo, April 27th, 1880.

 "MY LORD,

 [Sidenote: _Richard's Three Letters to Lord Granville_.]

 "I have the honour to report that during a late excursion to the
 Natron Lakes, lying north-north-west of Cairo, I came upon the
 track of a small but vigorous branch of slave traffic which is,
 I understand, carried on with much suffering to the victims. My
 companion, Professor William Robertson Smith, of Aberdeen, now
 returning to England, can give oral information on the subject; whilst
 Colonel Gordon, late Governor-General of the Equatorial Provinces,
 was perfectly successful in closing to slave-traders the Main Trunk
 Line--_viâ_ the Nile itself--he could not but throw the transit into
 two branches, the one east, the other west of the river. On April 11th
 we engaged a guide of the village of Abu-Rawásh, near the northernmost
 pyramid, which is the Nilotic terminus of the journey. This man, El
 Haji Musà, was reticent on the subject of _rakik_ (slaves); not so
 his son, Abdullah. The traffic was the conversation of the village;
 and from the youth we learnt that our only risk in a desert march
 would be that of meeting Arabs driving slaves. The village _Ghafèr_ (a
 watchman), Mohammed el Zayyàt, is said to assist in smuggling the new
 arrivals, who are dressed like town slaves; and the Octroi authorities
 can hardly be ignorant of a traffic which gives such large gains.
 Whether the Pyramid Arabs are concerned in it or not, I have not as
 yet ascertained at the Coptic Convent of the Mar-Makarios. I could
 obtain no information except that the transit had been once active and
 was now closed. But a second guide, Abd el Alàh, of the Bedawi tribe
 Beni Salamah, gave a very different account, which confirmed that of
 the youth Abdullah. The slaves are driven from the land popularly
 called Wadar, and by the people Bargo, through the line of oases lying
 west of the Nile. The season is winter, when water holes abound; the
 summer heats effectually stop it. At Siwah, the Oasis of Amaun, some
 eighteen marches from Cairo, the _rakik_ are driven to the Natron
 Lakes. Men, women, children, and babies carried on the shoulder, if
 they refuse to walk are beaten, and lastly are tied on camels' backs.
 At the Birket el Birdi, the easternmost of the Natron Lakes, we were
 shown the sweet-water pools from which they drink, and the places
 where they are kept to rest and recruit for several days, before being
 driven into the capital. Finally, in the Syrian convent, I heard
 that the last convoy of 1880 had passed by their monastery in March.
 Nothing would be easier than to put a stop to this proceeding, and if
 your Lordship should wish to know what measures I should propose, I am
 at all times ready to submit them to your approval.

 "I have the honour to be, my Lord,

 "Your obedient servant,

 "RICHARD F. BURTON."


 _Letter No._ 2.


 "Cairo, May 3rd, 1880.

 "MY LORD,

 "In continuation of my letter, separate--Cairo, April 27, on the
 revival of slavery throughout Egypt, I have the honour to add the
 following details. Three villages are connected with the Wadái Sywal
 slave-trade, namely, Kardási, Abu Rawásh, and the so-called 'Pyramid
 Arabs.' Of the latter, I heard from the Chevalier de Kremer and H. E.
 Yacoub Artim Bey, who, two years ago, convicted them of complicity
 about Kardási.... I was informed by Dr. Grant, of Cairo, and Mr.
 Hayes, of Alexandria, who, some years ago, came upon the caves where
 the slaves had to be lodged. The slave importation in Egypt has now
 assumed an importance which threatens to become scandalous. I need
 not enter into the polities of this present Egyptian Government, but
 it is essentially retrograde and strongly opposed to all reforms,
 especially to the employment of European officials. It has established
 slave bureaux at Cairo, Alexandria, Santa, and Es Siegrét, but not
 at the principal place, Assouan (Syene).... These employés send in
 mere blinds by way of reports; they have no general head, and being
 under-paid, they cannot refuse the larger inducements offered by the
 slave-dealers. The scandal which happened at Es-Siyút on April 20, 23,
 has doubtless been reported to your Lordship, and has found its way
 into the papers. Of some thousand head, only sixty-seven (thirty-nine
 girls and twenty-eight boys) were captured; the hundred and fifty
 slave merchants, with their camels, had the audacity to march upon a
 point which is not only a slave bureau but a railway station, with
 telegraph, etc.... Comment on such a proceeding is useless.... When
 Colonel Gordon, R.E., was compelled to leave Egypt by the retrograde
 and anti-European party now in office, his employé, Signor Gessi,
 hung, they say, eight slave-dealers. It was at once reported from
 Cairo to the Soudan, and throughout the slavery region, that Colonel
 Gordon had been dismissed for undue severity, and such a report was
 virtually an exhortation to reopen the slave-trade by destroying the
 leaders, who commanded bodies composed of from three to four thousand
 armed men.... All foresaw that his departure would be followed by its
 reorganization, and yet no steps were taken by the present Egyptian
 Ministry--they sent up a Governor-General, a certain Rauf Pasha,
 a Berberin, known only by his cruelties in Harar, where the ruler
 died under most suspicious circumstances. The Indian trade, though
 scotched, is by no means killed. Money will be easily raised at
 Khartum, Cairo, Alexandria, and men will be readily found. The best
 proof is the scandalous affair of Es-Siyút. I have also heard of a
 caravan of three hundred head being seen at Karaski on the Nile.
 Meanwhile the slave-traders, too weak to invade the country, pitch
 their camp upon the borders of Dar-Wardác and other slaving centres.
 They buy the captives offered to them, and march them through the
 oases, and along the Nile, at a part where there are no guards. From
 the terminus depôt Siwah, slaves are sent to Cairo and Alexandria,
 and, when these lines are dangerous, through the Oases of Augila to
 Tunis and Tripoli. There would be no difficulty in controlling this
 trade. In reducing hundreds to tens, and tens to units, the necessary
 procedure cannot be taken by a retrograde and a remiss Egyptian
 Ministry, or by a staff of under-paid employés.

 "I have the honour to be.

 "Your Lordship's obedient servant,

 "R. F. BURTON."


 _Letter No._ 3.


 "Consulate, Trieste, May 11th, 1880.

 "MY LORD,

 "In my two letters, separate--Cairo, April 27th, and Cairo, May
 3rd, which forwarded details of the slave-trade revival in Egypt
 and of the Wadái-Siwah line, which has temporarily taken the place
 of the Soudan trade, I neglected to mention another branch--which
 would require control, chiefly through the Red Sea. This is the
 Abyssinian, which includes the Galla tribes. The market resembles
 the Caucasian, especially the Circassian now extinct, in so far as
 parents sell their children, and relatives their kin. It is a small
 but constant supply of a high-priced article equally prized in Arabia
 and in Egypt. It required no apparatus, no expenditure of men and
 money, and consequently, to suppress it, will be a work of time and
 well-directed energy. During my return voyage from Alexandria, I met
 an old acquaintance (Dr. Geo. Reinisch), Professor of Egyptology to
 the University of Vienna, who with his wife had been living for some
 months in Abyssinia and the Upper Nile; he gave me all manner of
 details, and declared that the slave traffic is assuming an importance
 which it never had in the days of Ismail, the ex-Khedive. His
 account of it, indeed, is anything but creditable to the present
 administration of Egypt. Under Nubar Pasha or Sheríf Pasha, instant
 measures would be taken to abate the scandal, but the actual Ministry
 is too Moslem and too retrograde to interfere with the so-called
 patriarchal institution.

 "I have the honour to be, my Lord,

 "Your obedient servant,

 "R. F. BURTON."

[Illustration: Richard F. Burton. In 1880.]

He wrote, besides, a private letter to Lord Granville as follows:--

 "The Ministry under Riaz Pasha is doing all it can to abolish Colonel
 Gordon's fine anti-slavery work for the last six years. They have
 sent up a certain Rauf Pasha, almost a black, who will have no weight
 whatever; and the Red Sea will be in a worse state than ever unless
 some measures are soon taken; and slave-trade is speedily reviving
 in the Soudan and the Red Sea. The Ministry wishes to drive out all
 foreigners, and this makes times in Egypt harder than ever.

 [Sidenote: _His Application to be made Slave Commissioner_.]

 "I would like to have a temporary appointment in the Red Sea as Slave
 Commissioner. I want a salary of from £1600 to £2000 a year (£1600
 would do if allowed to keep Trieste on half-pay, £350 per annum),
 the use of a gun-boat, and a roving commission, independent of the
 Consul-General of Egypt, but to act in concert with a Consul (such as
 young Wylde) appointed to the Soudan. It is a thing that has long been
 talked about as a great want in the Red Sea, _if slavery is really to
 be exterminated_, and Gordon's splendid work to be carried out on the
 coast. Gordon Pasha has long wished to recommend _me_ for this work.
 As this last appointment would only be _temporary_--say for a couple
 of years--I would like to be allowed to keep Trieste to fall back upon
 when my work is done, and as a home for my wife when she cannot be
 with me. Other men are allowed to retain their Indian appointments,
 and still to take temporary service in Egypt: for this there are
 several precedents. Mr. Brock, the Vice-Consul at Trieste, who is
 thoroughly reliable, would act for me on half-pay, as he has done the
 last forty years. I guarantee that, placed in such a position, in _two
 years'_ time the Red Sea _shall be as clear of slaves as if slavery
 had never existed_.

 "RICHARD F. BURTON."


 "HOW TO DEAL WITH THE SLAVE SCANDAL IN EGYPT.


 "The systematic and official revival of the import slave-trade in
 Egypt was the necessary consequence of Colonel Gordon's compulsory
 retirement. The merest sketch of the measures adopted by that
 energetic English 'Governor-General of the Equatorial Provinces' would
 occupy the whole of this paper. Suffice it to say that, when matters
 came to a crisis, he attacked the well-armed and well-organized forces
 of the slave-dealers, sometimes numbering three to four thousand
 musketeers; and during two years' fighting he defeated them in more
 than one pitched battle. Thus he stopped the slave-hunting at its
 head-quarters, with its train of death and desolation. Had he remained
 in 'Black-land' the moral sense of England would not have been
 outraged by the horrors brought to light so soon after his departure.
 But he had routed the slaver without abolishing the slave, nor were
 his measures calculated to set the latter free.

 "Colonel Gordon's work, however, was too 'thorough;' moreover, his
 strict and honourable rule allowed no plundering and embezzling of
 'parasitical Pashas, foreigners in Egypt.' The Khedive (Ismail I.) by
 a stout-hearted _coup d'état_ had appointed and had unhesitatingly
 supported his great lieutenant. The Prince's dethronement was a
 signal for the downfall of the English Governor-General. The former
 was succeeded (June 26, 1879) by his eldest son, Taufik Pasha, who,
 however upright and public spirited, was young and inexperienced;
 and he had nothing to do but to place the helm of State affairs
 in the hands of a ministry. The President of the Council was Riaz
 Pasha el-Wázán, whose cognomen shows that he was not of Moslem
 origin. Rising, as Pashas usually rise, from the very lowest class,
 he determined to conciliate and gratify his new co-religionists by
 a retrograde and destructive, an anti-European and pro-Mohammedan
 policy. He went as far in this matter as he safely could; he gagged
 the Press in Egypt, and he addressed to the Consulate-General of the
 United States a complaint that the missionaries were attempting to
 proselytize Moslems. This Ministry ended (mid-February, 1881) with
 causing a military _émeute_ at Cairo, a thing absolutely unknown to
 the annals of the Capital. The movement is ominous, and it will injure
 the City in the estimation of the winter visitors, even more than did
 the Dengue-fever bred by its filth.

 "Again we must rapidly pass over the nicely graduated slights and
 insults by which Riaz Pasha compelled Colonel Gordon to send in his
 resignation early in 1880. But the desired effect was attained.
 Popular rumour pointed out Colonel Mason, an American staff officer,
 as Colonel Gordon's successor. This, however, was not to be; _L'Egitto
 farà da se_, Egypt for the Egyptians, _i.e._ Turks. The Kafir and the
 Giaour must be prepared to depart when no longer required; and Riaz
 Pasha made no secret of his hopes to see them depart without delay.

 "All men of experience in Egypt and elsewhere foresaw what would
 result from Colonel Gordon's compulsory retirement. Under Sherif Pasha
 or Nubar Pasha measures would have been taken to prevent the revival
 of the traffic. The old serpent had been scotched, not slain. Money
 was easily raised at Khartum, Cairo, and Alexandria. The Riaz Ministry
 contented itself with spreading a report throughout their unhappy
 hunting-grounds that Colonel Gordon had been dismissed for undue
 severity to the Jellabs (slave dealers); and such a rumour acting upon
 the reaction, the rebound was virtually an exhortation to reopen the
 trade. A successor was soon found in a man of colour, Rauf Bey (now
 Rauf Pasha), an officer of Berberine or negro origin, known, but not
 favourably, for his conquest of Somali-land and for strangling the old
 Amir of Harar after surrender. He was mentioned by Sir Samuel Baker
 ('Ismailïa,' i. 286, Appendix, 'Raouf Bey') as the bosom friend of the
 monster Abu Sa'úd. The new Governor-General of the Soudan acted as all
 knew he would; and his seal presently appeared upon the Government
 passage-tickets on board slave-transporting steamers (_Anti-Slavery
 Reporter_, November, 1880). These papers were given only to be retaken
 when no longer wanted as 'blinds.'

 "Colonel Gordon's orders were cancelled, and the import slave-trade
 was energetically revived by the Riaz Ministry. The scandalous scenes
 in the Desert, on the Nile, and even in the suburbs of Cairo, were
 known to Europeans as well as to natives. When every Consulate-General
 received the exactest details, these could hardly have escaped the
 knowledge of her Britannic Majesty's representative. But, as Colonel
 Gordon says, 'to the generality of our officials all is more or less
 rose-coloured.' Whether the cause was a commendable desire not to
 embarrass a struggling and indebted Government, or a laudable ambition
 to report what sounds pleasant to authoritative ears, the effect
 undoubtedly was that the English Government and the public were left
 in utter ignorance of the scandalous revival. It is time for the world
 to know how the crime was brought to light. 'Honour to whom honour is
 due' does not appear to be the rule of the Anti-Slavery Society.[1]

 "On April 10, 1880, Professor W. Robertson Smith, of Aberdeen, and
 I, set out together with the view of visiting the Coptic convents
 in the Desert about the Natron Lakes to the north-west of Cairo.
 We were detained three days at the village of Abu-Rawásh, near the
 northernmost pyramid of that name, by a robbery which called for the
 intervention of the police. The time was not wasted. The traffic of
 _rakik_ (chattels) was the common topic of conversation amongst the
 peasants; and the settlement proved to be one of the Nilotic termini
 of the transport line. We subsequently ascertained that the so-called
 'Pyramid Arabs' and the neighbouring hamlets, especially Kardási,
 were also connected with it. Kardási, indeed, had been convicted of
 complicity two years ago by Yacoub Artin Bey. Of course the Octroi
 employés were well acquainted with a traffic so lucrative.

 "The guide El-Haji Musá, engaged at Abu-Rawásh, succeeded in missing
 the way, and in nearly losing himself, by his desire to prevent the
 two Englishmen meeting a slave Caravan which was then expected. At
 the Coptic convent of Már Makárius no information was forthcoming
 from the monks, except that the once active traffic had been closed.
 But a second guide, Abd el-Aláh, of the Benú Salamáh Bedouins, gave
 a very different account, which was confirmed by others. The slaves
 are driven from the large region, popularly called Dar Wadái, and,
 by the inhabitants, Bargo. The season is the rainy winter, when the
 water-holes are full; the summer heats effectually end it. At Siwah
 (the Oasis of Ammon), some eighteen marches from Cairo, the chattels
 are driven to the Natron Lakes; men, women, children, and babes in
 arms forming regular caravans. If the adults refuse to walk, they are
 beaten; and, as a last resource in sickness, they are tied on camels'
 backs. At the Birket el Birdi, the easternmost of the Natron Lakes,
 we were shown the sweet-water pools from which the slave-gangs drink,
 and the places where they are halted to rest and recruit before being
 smuggled one by one into the capital. Finally, we heard at the Syrian
 convent that the last convoy of 1880 had passed in March.

 "On returning to Cairo (April 21) I met Dr. Leo Reinisch, Professor of
 Egyptology to the University of Vienna, who, with his wife, had been
 living for some months in Abyssinia, and on the Upper Nile. He gave
 all manner of details, and detailed that the slave-trade was assuming
 an importance which it never had in the days of the ex-Khedive. His
 account of it, indeed, was disgraceful to the Riaz Ministry. The
 slave-traders, no longer organized to invade the country, pitch their
 zaribahs, or armed camps, upon the borders of the man-hunting lands,
 Dar-Fur, Kordofan, the Niam-Niam country; Monbuttoland, and the whole
 valley of the Bahr el Ghazál. In these lands, nominally Egyptian, they
 buy the kidnapped negroes offered to them, and march them through
 the oasis, and along the Nile at parts where there are no guards.
 From the terminus of the main depôt, Siwah, the victims are sent to
 Cairo and Alexandria, and when these lines are dangerous, they are
 passed through the Oases of Augila to Tunis and Tripoli. Besides the
 Soudan, there is another branch, the Habesh or Abyssinian, which
 includes the Galla tribes and the peoples of Shoa, Gouga, Gurágue, and
 Godjam, whose chief Ras Adal has made his name infamous. The Habesh
 market does not include the 'Abid' (negroes proper) from the South
 and West of Khartum. At Zayla the notorious Governor, Abu Beker,[2]
 and his fifty sons (the former now charged with the foul murder of M.
 Lucereau), work the Galla mine to great profit. This trade resembles
 the _almost_ extinct Caucasian, especially the Circassian, so far
 that parents and relatives sell their children and kinsfolk. It is a
 small but constant supply of a high-priced article, equally in demand
 throughout Arabia and Egypt. It requires no apparatus, no outlay of
 men and money; and, consequently, to suppress it by closing the main
 artery, the Red Sea, may be pronounced practically impossible. It can
 only be destroyed by abolishing the demand.

 "Before leaving Cairo, Professor Smith, in a private conversation,
 recounted to her Majesty's Consul-General, who had never heard of
 the revival, what he had seen and gathered during his excursion. I
 reported the new tactics, of which the Foreign Office could know
 nothing, in three official letters to her Majesty's Government
 (April 27, May 3 and 11). I proposed what I then considered easy
 and efficacious means of suppressing this disgrace to humanity. The
 unmanageable duplicity shown in the after proceedings of the Riaz
 Ministry, and the adoption of plausible measures which serve only to
 mislead the public, have, since that time, compelled me to change
 my views, to expect nothing from compromise and to advocate whole
 measures.

 "Meanwhile the revival throve. In March, 1880, a large slave Caravan
 had been marched down the Nile; this successful speculation emboldened
 the Jellábs (slave-dealers) and the local authorities to attempt a
 second, which became a national scandal. Despite the convention with
 Great Britain, a large slave Caravan was openly conducted into Assiout
 (Lycopolis), a town of thirty thousand souls, a railway and telegraph
 station, the seat of a Christian mission, and actually one of the
 four slave bureaus. The latter had also been established at Cairo,
 Alexandria, and Tanta, purposely neglecting Assouan (Syene, at the
 First Cataract), whence there was a regular slave-line to Cairo. But
 the whole purpose was to satisfy the Consulate-General, or, as Colonel
 Gordon has it, to 'act whitewash.' Some such object must always be
 expected in Egypt when there is no European supervision.

 "This insult to the Powers was brought to light by Herr Gottfried
 Roth, a young Swiss teacher in the admirable mission schools of the
 United States. He had already heard of the March Caravan of three
 hundred head having been seen at Korosko on the Nile; and he had been
 informed that another from El-Fashr was expected at Assiout. He at
 once (April 20) visited the encampment of a thousand camels pitched
 in the Desert, near the town, and was assured that the traders had
 brought natron and ostrich feathers, but no slaves. He returned the
 same evening, and was offered fifty to sixty head for sale, at fifteen
 to twenty napoleons each. Next morning he went to Cairo, and laid the
 case before the English Consul-General (Mr. Malet), who, of course,
 knew nothing of the matter. The outrage was at once reported to Riaz
 Pasha and to the Ministry, who, doubtless, were well acquainted with
 all the details. They affected complete ignorance, and thus confessed
 to the pleasant position of being indebted for the first news to a
 foreigner. However, foreseeing trouble, they resolved to act at once,
 and, _alla Turchesca_, to counteract as much as possible their own
 action.

 "Herr Roth, knowing that the slave camp contained about three hundred
 dealers, headed by a notorious Ali, applied for a force to arrest
 the offenders. Next morning he returned to Assiout with a company
 of 108 regulars and three pashas, including a certain Doromanli. A
 cordon was drawn round the camp, with sentinels to prevent its being
 broken; and sixty-seven starveling slave boys (twenty-eight) and girls
 (thirty-nine) in filthy rags were found lying on the sand. It was a
 dreadful sight, which drew tears even from the Egyptians.

 "Next morning, at three a.m., Herr Roth led the wretches under
 military escort to the American Mission, the only safe place. At the
 same time the town was watched, and the chief streets were occupied
 by guards, with orders not to pass negroes. The Caravan had brought
 twelve hundred slaves, and almost all were stowed away in the houses.

 "The _Kazi_ (judge) sent with Herr Roth by the Riaz Ministry,
 then opened proceedings. Had he arrested all the negroes in the
 camp he would have secured testimony to proceed against the local
 slave-dealers, of whom many slept in the tents. But that was not
 his object. By the law of Egypt these men were guilty of theft with
 manslaughter. He took down the names of thirty-five traders, who
 swore that the chattels were their wives, children, and servants; and
 he illegally let the rest go. Herr Roth, despite his protests, was
 utterly unable to prevent this gross miscarriage of justice. Doromanli
 Pasha, in the presence of Dr. Hogg, Principal of the American Mission,
 also examined some of the thirty-five prisoners before several of the
 most influential men of Assiout. Not a few of those arrested confessed
 that the negroes had been stolen, but when the witness was asked the
 name of the buyer, the good Pasha silenced the answerer. Herr Roth,
 after attending the tribunal for a day and a half, left it in disgust
 at this gross misconduct in a Government official who, however, was
 doubtless acting under orders of the Ministry.

 "The slaves, when questioned in Arabic by the mission, related
 harrowing stories of their having been kidnapped. Some were stolen
 from their hearths and homes; others were forcibly dragged away while
 tending their cattle--_min wara el bahim_ (from behind the cattle)
 is the phrase generally used. A young wife was thus torn from her
 husband, and a lad of eighteen showed upon his neck the marks of the
 chains in which all were bound.

 "To abate so great a scandal as that exposed by Herr Roth, the
 Governor of Assiout was formally removed; but in Egypt that punishment
 has the less significance because it generally leads to a better
 appointment. Nor can underpaid officials, as are all Easterns below
 a certain grade, fairly be expected to refuse the large inducements,
 varying from $2 to £2 per head, offered by the slave-dealers. The
 Jellábs were at once set at liberty by Doromanli Pasha, with free
 permission to enter the town and to return home when they pleased.
 Of the slaves, forty-two were 'liberated,' that is, were handed over
 to the Pashas and Beys of the pro-slavery party: and, as Colonel
 Gordon remarked, a sale had been better for them. At the request of
 the British Consul-General some sixty were set free and carried for
 manumission to the _baptizoh_ (police office). The only result was,
 that on May 29 a boatload of the wretches was sent down to Cairo, and
 there disappeared. On May 18, an old slave, who went to the Government
 for 'papers of liberation,' was put in irons, as the marks on his
 body proved; he refused to obey the _Mudir_ and declare that he had
 emigrated of his own accord. In brief, out of the twelve hundred head
 only three hundred, almost all children, were recovered from the
 buyers.

 "So open and notorious a breach of treaty as that of the Assiout
 caravan compelled the Ministry to do something. Riaz Pasha abolished
 in June, 1880, the worthless slave bureaux, whose only work had
 been to send in more blinds by way of reports, and published in the
 _Moniteur Egyptien_ (June 9th) a circular letter addressed to eight
 _Mudirs_ or local governors. It ran as follows, and enabled Mr. Malet
 to assure his Government that the Riaz Ministry was most earnest and
 energetic in its measures to put down slavery. His Majesty's Ministers
 acknowledged the Pasha's good works by sending him a decoration, and
 retrograde Turkey showed her sympathy by advancing him to the grade of
 _Mushir_ (Field-Marshal)--


 "_Lettre-Circulaire_.

 "'Adressée par S.E. le Ministre de l'Intérieur aux Moudirs de Isneh,
 Keneh, Djirdjeh, Syout, Beni-Souef, Minieh, Fayoum, Djizeh, et Béhéra,
 en date du 9 Juin, 1880.


 "'Vous n'ignorez pas, Monsieur le Moudir, le degré de l'importance
 qui s'attache à la suppression de la traite des esclaves, ce commerce
 étant à la fois contraire aux principes mêmes de l'humanité et aux
 engagements qui lient le Gouvernement de S.A. le Khédive vis-à-vis du
 Gouvernement de S.M. Britannique, en vertu de la convention intervenue
 entre les deux Gouvernements.

 "'Pour atteindre ce but, certaines mesures avaient déjà été prises,
 des instructions rigoureuses avaient même été données à tous les
 agents de l'Autorité, pour qu'ils eussent à se pénétrer de leur devoir
 et des mesures qu'ils auraient à prendre dans cette question. Les
 faits récents, dont l'instruction a démontré qu'il a été possible à
 quelques djellabs (marchands), arrivant avec des caravanes venues
 de l'intérieur de l'Afrique, d'amener nombre d'esclaves, et de les
 introduire dans le territoire du Gouvernement, d'une part, et la
 négligence des agents de l'Autorité dans cette partie du territoire
 qui a donné lieu à leur poursuite et condemnation, d'autre part, ont
 crée pour le Gouvernement l'obligation de prendre des mesures plus
 grandes et plus efficaces pour supprimer complètement ce honteux
 trafic, et de renouveler ses instructions, et avertissements à tous
 ses agents, afin de leur rappeler leurs devoirs et la responsabilité
 qui en est la conséquence.

 "'A cet effet, le Gouvernement vient de créer un service spécial pour
 supprimer la traite, empêcher l'entrée en Egypte d'aucun esclave,
 et punir toute personne qui oserait entreprendre un commerce aussi
 révoltant, et tout agent de l'Autorité qui négligerait de remplir son
 devoir.

 "'Le Gouvernement a confié la direction de ce service à M. le Comte
 della Sala, sous les ordres duquel l'Autorité a placé un nombre
 suffisant de soldats et d'agents, et lui a désigné pour siège
 principal de son service la ville de Syout. La mission du Comte
 della Sala comprend toutes les provinces et toutes les parties de la
 Haute-Egypte jusqu'à Djizeh, à l'est et à l'ouest, et depuis Djizeh
 jusque et y compris la province de Béhéra, à l'ouest du Nil; elle
 comprend aussi la surveillance et la préservation de toutes les routes
 et de tous les chemins, de tous les déserts à l'ouest, les limites des
 oasis intérieurs et extérieurs jusqu'à Mariouette.

 "'S.A. le Khédive a donné au Comte della Sala pleins pouvoirs pour
 l'exécution et l'accomplissement de la charge qui lui est confiée.

 "'C'est pour le même effet que je vous adresse cette lettre, Monsieur
 le Moudir. Vous recevrez plusieurs exemplaires de la convention passée
 entre le Gouvernement Egyptien et le Gouvernement de Sa Majesté
 Britannique, ainsi que des règlements qui établissent les obligations
 des agents de l'Autorité, les mesures à prendre, et les peines bien
 graves à encourir par toute personne qui entreprendrait ce trafic
 ignominieux. Ces dispositions serviront de guide à votre conduite et
 action; vous aurez en outre à les faire publier parmi tous les agents
 et toutes les communes placés sous votre direction. Vous reconnaîtrez
 Monsieur le Comte della Sala comme étant le chef unique de ce service,
 et devant être l'intermédiare entre vous et l'Autorité Supérieure pour
 tout ce qui concerne ce service. Toutes les correspondances qui s'y
 rattachent doivent émaner de lui, ou lui être adressées. Vous devez
 suivre ses ordres et ses prescriptions avec la plus grande exactitude
 et la plus grande vigilance, et lui prêter immédiatement et sans le
 moindre retard toutes facilités et assistance quelconque qu'il pourra
 se trouver dans le cas de vous demander relativement à ce service.'


 "Despite this show of indignation and threats of severity, the revival
 went on merrily. Colonel Gordon had calculated that fifty thousand
 head annually leave what may now be called Equatorial Egypt to supply
 the households and harems of Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and other Moslem
 lands. Of these, some thirty thousand are run across direct to
 Jeddah, Hodaydeh, and other neighbouring ports with the full consent
 of the local authorities, who levy a capitation tax of ten piastres.
 During the April-May of 1880, about three thousand head, at the
 lowest figure, found a ready market in Egypt. Although open sale was
 forbidden, and the old slave market has been sold, there are still
 bagnios in the Moslem quarter of the capital.

 "Herr Roth, well knowing that other Caravans were expected, applied
 for an escort of fifty men to scour the desert oases and borders
 of the desert, in which the 'captives' were stowed away; he might
 have set free one thousand or so, but he was refused. And he
 had an unpleasant correspondence with Baron de King, the French
 Consul-General, for reporting as one of the most energetic of the
 slave-dealers at Assiout, a Captain M. Magar Damian, the French
 Consular Agent. He was charged with _trop de zèle_, and was told
 officially, that is, unpleasantly, to mind his own business. However,
 he did good work by printing a map of the Libyan Desert, showing the
 five favourite stations for stowaways. These are chiefly the oases
 of Khargeh (El-Khárijeh, the 'outer') and Dakhleh (El-Dákhilah, the
 'inner'), and neither had even a sentinel to stop the traffic. From
 the latter (in N. lat. 25°) the Caravans pass on to the Faráfarah
 Oasis and to Assiout, or to El-Bahriyeh and the Siwah Oases.[3] These
 favourite depôts are now guarded by a fair number of men; and sections
 of companies with dromedaries are also stationed in the Fazyúm, a
 notorious slaving province; at Turá, near Cairo, where the fellahs
 hide their goods in the Mukattam Hills; at Abusír, near Lake Mareotis;
 at Wardán, to command the line of the Natron Lakes, and at a few other
 crucial points.

 "Despite the Ministerial Circular, slaves poured in. Shortly after
 mid-May, eighty captives were taken at the Bolák Dakrúr station, on
 the west of the Nile and within sight of Cairo. They were found to be
 part of a batch of a hundred and twenty-six; the other forty-six had
 probably been sent forward and sold. In early June, some six weeks
 after the Assiout scandal, a third Caravan was reported to be making
 for that station from Dar-Fur, along the inland highway. When it
 arrived only thirty men and a hundred and sixty camels were counted:
 the slavers had heard of the capture and had left their chattels in
 the desert, some say with cut throats.[4] A fourth body was reported
 to be camping near one of the oases. About the same time a boat with
 ten slave-girls left Assiout for Cairo; on June 10, four Circassian
 girls were sold--one at Alexandria for £100, another at Assiout, and
 the two remaining at the capital, where they were secured for the
 highest harems. This branch of white slavery, though much reduced,
 still continues. In October, 1880, two white girls of eight and twelve
 years old were sold without opposition at Alexandria, and even on
 January 4, 1881, four more were landed at that port.

 "In June also a Nubian or Abyssinian 'beauty' was bought at the
 Meydán, or Moslem quarter of Alexandria, for £40 to £50, while two
 other Nubian girls fetched £12 to £15. This cheapness of an expensive
 commodity tells its own tale. In fact, the prices have not varied
 between 1874 and 1880. Nubian boys in the former year fetched from
 $40 to $60; girls, $45 to $70; and adults, $40 to $100. The relative
 prices of Abyssinians were $50 to $80, $80 to $150, and $85 to $200.
 In 1875 the values rose about 15 per cent.; and in 1878 they fell 12
 to 18 per cent. In 1879-80 the prices 'ruled firm.'[5]

 "To note a few more individual cases. A negro applied to the United
 States Mission at Assiout for aid in recovering his young wife, who
 had been cruelly beaten and put in irons by her master. This was
 the practice of the Bureaux when old slaves legally demanded their
 liberty. It was also reported to the mission that from forty to
 fifty slave-girls, driven by a Cairo dealer, were for sale in a yard
 at El-Farshút, a town three and a half days' march from Assiout.
 In August a hundred slaves were reported to be kept in the house
 of the Shaykh-el-Balad (Mayor) of the Khargeh Oasis, who demanded
 an honorarium of £1 to £2 per head. In October two Nubian girls,
 belonging to Mustafa Pasha el-Arab, a pensioned officer of Government,
 having been cruelly beaten, obtained a certificate of freedom from
 the Police Office, Alexandria; they were, notwithstanding, recovered
 by their inhuman master, who brought against them the usual unjust
 accusation of theft. The 'counter-charge' had become a system.
 Before 1873 an ill-treated slave could generally obtain legal
 manumission. This humane measure became obsolete under the present
 retrograde and anti-European Ministry. Slaves have even been punished
 for calumniating their owners.[6] No more need be said concerning
 individual sales: these pages could be filled with such cases; but
 their object is to take a broader view of the subject.

 "To return to the Riaz Circular. In May, 1880, Mr. John Scott, the
 learned and upright judge of the Supreme Court, Alexandria, had
 proposed to Mr. Malet and Major Baring to appoint an English chief for
 the 'Service of the Suppression of the Slave-trade,' newly organized
 to take the place of the absurd 'Bureaux.' But the department was
 to be made inefficient. There are three great trunk roads for slave
 importation--the Nile, the Western Desert, and the Red Sea. The
 superintendent should have had charge of all three, with assistants
 at Maritime Masáwwah and Suakin; and at Assouan and Khartoum, on
 the Nile line, he should have been provided with steamers on both
 waters, with a roving commission to visit all the ports, and powers
 to establish slave approvers. In fact, he should have been enabled
 to organize suppression, or at least repression. There are sundry of
 our countrymen perfectly fitted for the post, notably Dr. Lowe, now
 Sanitary Inspector at Alexandria, who served under Colonel Gordon, and
 who is well acquainted with Upper Egypt and the Soudan. But Mr. Malet
 was too cosmopolitan, too 'Anglophobie,' to prefer a compatriot, and
 he chose for nominee Count della Sala, a 'man of independent position,
 with his heart in the business.' Possibly the hope was _quieta non
 movere_, and to see work done, but without publicity or severity. A
 certain Ali Riaz Pasha was made Governor-General of the Egyptian Coast
 of the Red Sea, where the Port of Suakin had become notorious for
 shipping slaves.[7] The Commissioner's appointment was worth having,
 thirty thousand francs a year and the rank of Pasha (Major-General),
 under ten months' service. Count della Sala was supplied with an
 aide-de-camp, Colonel Turneisen, and a secretary, Dr. Dutrieux. This
 Belgian physician, who had travelled with the Belgian exploring
 expedition to Central Africa, presently left the 'service,' apparently
 because its operations were too restricted.[8] An agency was also
 offered to Herr Roth; the pay was 200 francs a month; but it was to
 be a secret, and the agent was to bind himself not to correspond with
 the newspapers, nor to write upon subjects connected with the slave.
 The young Swiss's honesty refused the attempt to silence him. The
 new department, whose range was limited by Alexandria and Assouan,
 doubtless, was _intended_ to show good; but it has done more than the
 intended good. Another mere sop as to foreign Powers, it has proved
 that no such half-measures are of the slightest use. When the highest
 native dignitaries support the abuse, which has the active sympathies
 of the public, and where foreign officials, with a few exceptions,
 know nothing of the people, and are almost indifferent to the
 existence of slavery, there can be but one way of abating the nuisance.

 "Though appointed early in June, Count della Sala contented himself
 with preparations till August. He then left Cairo for Assiout; and, in
 early September, found himself at Assouan, the southernmost point of
 his beat. With his escort of four hundred infantry and sixty cavalry,
 and acting with energy and discretion, he had little difficulty in
 temporarily closing the line of the Nile. But all foresaw the effect
 of that proceeding, which merely diverted the traffic to the Red Sea.
 The Jellábs must have laughed consumedly at the naïve simplicity of
 Europeans, so strong in arms, so weak in wits. The result was, despite
 the new 'service,' an immense increase of activity in the slave-trade.
 Count della Sala complained (November 19th) to Riaz Pasha that his
 work had been misreported. The Berberine Governor-General of the
 Soudan declared that the 'slave-trade was to-day unknown on the coasts
 of Red Sea,' and the Ministerial newspapers (_Moniteur, Egyptien,_
 etc.) assumed a tone of offended dignity. 'What right have people to
 complain when Egypt was never so active in the suppression of slavery,
 when we are spending £14,000 a year!' True, but notwithstanding the
 import notably increased, and people will look at _results_. To the
 boast that six hundred slaves (a mere handful) had been liberated,
 it asked how many slavers had been arrested _en flagrant délit_ and
 hanged. It had a right to show surprise when the answer was 'none.'

 "Thus we can perfectly appreciate the value of the following
 supplementary circular of July, 1880:--


 "'MINISTÈRE DE L'INTÉRIEUR.

 "'Lettre-Circulaire adressée à tous les Moudirs.


 "Malgré les mesures rigoureuses, prises en vu d'empêcher la traité,
 et en dépit des peines prescrites à l'égard des Djellabes (marchands)
 qui osent encore se livrer à ce trafic, ces derniers ne reculent pas
 devant l'entreprise d'amener des personnes en qualité d'esclaves.

 "'Il est incontestable que les Djellabes ne continuent ce commerce que
 par ce qu'ils trouvent des acquéreurs qui achètent leur marchandise
 et qui entretiennent ainsi à leur profit une ressource de bénéfices
 considérables. Il est élémentaire, en effet, que faute d'acheteurs les
 Djellabes auraient depuis longtemps abandonné ce commerce, et comme
 conséquence le Gouvernement ne se serait plus trouvé dans la nécessité
 de surmonter bien des difficultés et de supporter tant de dépenses.
 On aurait évité aussi l'application des peines graves qui atteignent
 plusiers des Djellabes et autres dans le but de supprimer complètement
 la traite.

 "'En conséquence, et considérant qu'aux termes de la convention
 intervenue entre le Gouvernement du Khédive et le Gouvernement de
 S.M. Britannique toute personne qui prendrait part à la traite des
 individus amenés dans les conditions précitées est considérée comme
 complice du Djellabe au double point de vue du crime et de la peine
 qu'il entraîne, il a été jugé nécessaire d'avertir que toute personne
 qui achèterait des esclaves amenés et vendus frauduleusement par les
 Djellabes, est soumise aux mêmes peines qui frappent ces derniers, en
 vertu du règlement relatif à la suppression de la traite.

 "'Le présent avertissement est donné au public afin qu'il soit connu
 de tous, que toute personne qui s'exposerait à commettre le crime
 ci-dessus signalé s'attirerait elle-même l'application de le même
 peine prescrite à rencontre des Djellabes.

 "Le Ministre de l'Intérieur,

 "'(Signé) RIAZ.

 "'Caire, 31 Juillet, 1880.'


 "The moment the Chief of the 'service' returned to Cairo the slave
 import again distributed itself between the Red Sea and the Nile. The
 Riaz Ministry, however, did not fail to make the most of the temporary
 shift. A German employé, Giegler Pasha, Deputy-Governor of the Soudan,
 a lieutenant of Rauf the Berberine, and _ipsis Muslimis Muslimior_,
 was put forward to romance for the benefit of his adopted country.
 Accordingly, he wrote to the official journal of Cairo (October 11th)
 emphatically denying that the traffic of slaves had increased in
 the Soudan since the departure of Colonel Gordon. He denounced such
 attacks as 'unjust and ignoble, and offensive to truth;' and he ended
 by a personal attack on Dr. Lowe, an officer universally respected.
 At Khartum itself the trade, it is true, has been extinct; at least,
 slave Caravans are no longer marched there, and Herr Giegler had not
 visited the unhappy hunting-grounds since 1876.

 "But this German official's assertions were utterly opposed to fact.
 Schweinfurth, of 'The Heart of Africa,' who had lately reported the
 murder of King Munga, of Monbutto, by Yusuf Pasha, Mudir of Senár,
 forwarded (November 11th) a report from Herr Richard Buchta, a
 young Austrian, who had lived three years (1878-80) in the valley
 of the Bahr el-Ghazal, and in Mtesa-land, working as a photographic
 artist. He named seven _Mudirs_ engaged in shipping slaves, one
 of them receiving two dollars a head: he accused the Captains and
 crews of the Government steamers of the White Nile as implicated
 in the trade; he forwarded a list of prices paid for 'chattels'
 ($50 to $200); he reported meeting a Caravan of a hundred head at
 Metemma, in June, 1880, and he declared that negroes were shipped
 for Jeddah with passage tickets granted at the Government office,
 Khartum (_Anti-Slavery Reporter_, November, 1880). His statements
 were confirmed by a letter (September 21st) to _La Finanza_, an
 Italo-Egyptian paper, by Messrs. Wilson and Felkin, who had travelled
 from Uganda, and found the trade thriving in Kordofan, Dar-Fur, and
 other Egyptian provinces of Equatorial Africa.

 "The utter failure of the 'Service for the Suppression of Slavery'
 bore fruit in Egypt. Conceding that the Government was disposed
 seriously to carry out the provisions of the Anglo-Egyptian
 Convention, sensible men found that this instrument, despite its
 apparent stringency, abounds in faults and omissions. There is no
 need to quote the text _in extenso_; it is given in that popular
 publication the _Anti-Slavery Reporter_ (November 1st, 1877), and in
 the official collections of such documents, dated August 4th, 1877. It
 was signed by Cherif Pasha, one of the most straightforward statesmen
 known to this part of the world; and it was followed by a decree of
 the ex-Khedive, Ismail, on the 17th of the same month.

 "Briefly to note the defects of the seven Articles. No. I makes
 all public trading in slaves, negroes, and Abyssinians, illegal,
 vaguely punishable by law. Good; but also Article II., which condemns
 slavers guilty of _vol avec meutre_, and would punish the Jellábs
 as murderers, is so severe that it defeats its own object. Article
 III. promises well in favour of released slaves, who, it gratuitously
 assumes, cannot be returned to their homes; but does not specify the
 measures. Article IV. pursues as murderers all 'mutilators' of, and
 'traffickers' in, children; the former would be justly punished; but
 the latter would escape. Article V. refers to a special ordinance
 concerning slave traffic in the Egyptian dominions. Article VI.
 concedes the right of search, but allows an open door of escape for
 slaving vessels; and, finally, Article VII. fixes the date when the
 Convention shall become operative. Annex A. establishes a special
 slave department at Alexandria and Cairo to carry out the Convention.
 Of this mere 'blind' sufficient has already been said. A supplement
 of four articles prohibits private sale and transfer of black slaves
 from family to family, after seven years (1884) in Egypt proper and
 twelve years (1889) in the Soudan. This measure should have been made
 immediate under pain of fine and imprisonment; the custom has long
 been the favourite excuse and subterfuge for the import trade; and
 now, while _wholesale_ is forbidden, _retail_ is permitted. Lastly,
 the supplementary article, No. III., abolishes the traffic in white
 slaves (_i.e._ Circassians), male and female, after the expiration of
 seven years (1884). Here again is another undoubted error of judgment;
 the white 'chattel,' a mere article of luxury and _luxure_, should
 have been made at once contraband.

 "Nor was Colonel Gordon's scheme for the suppression of slavery less
 criticized. That energetic officer again proposed (_Anti-Slavery
 Reporter_, p. 120, November, 1880) a permanent Consul at Suakin, the
 great outlet of North-eastern Africa; a Vice-Consulate at Masáwwah,
 and a Consul-General for the Soudan, with a roving commission, and
 head-quarters at malarious Khartum. He would also--(1) register
 existing slaves; (2) proclaim that non-registered slaves are free;
 and (2) forbid Arabs passing into the Bahr el-Ghazal basin without
 passport or guarantee that the travellers will not buy slaves. The
 same precaution was to be taken for Dar-Fur, 'of whose population at
 least two-thirds has been carried away into slavery.' But Consuls are
 not dictators--they may be useful in reporting, but they cannot put
 down the scandal. In fact, all these measures are mere palliatives
 when humanity calls aloud for a cure. We must strike at the _fons et
 origo mali_.

 "In this conviction I addressed my Government (February 7th, 1881) a
 letter upon the detestable traffic in eunuchs. All forms of slavery
 are as contrary to the spirit of El-Islam as to that of Christianity,
 but Mohammed especially forbade the employment of unsexed men, lest
 a demand be thereby created (Hidayah, vol. iv. p. 121). Article IV.
 of the Anglo-Egyptian Convention rightly punishes the offence with
 death; and no one would regret to see the murderer hanged when a
 boy dies under the mutilating razor. Yet it is calculated that not
 less than eight thousand of these unfortunates are annually imported
 into Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. As a rule, the 'Tawashi' are now an
 obsolete article of luxury, used to sit at the doors of wealthy Beys
 and Pashas, and to escort 'Harems' when driving out.

 "The foci of the supply are the Soudan, Nubia, Abyssinia, Kordofan,
 and Dar-Fur, especially the Messalmiyeh district. One of the frontier
 towns is called Towasheh (eunuchs), from the infamous traffic there
 conducted by Moslem 'Fakih,' or religious teachers.[9] Many are
 emasculated in the district between Majarah, or Majarash, and the port
 of Masáwwah. There are also shambles at Mbadr, near the harbour of
 Tajurrah, where Yusuf Bey, the Governor, last year unsexed some forty
 boys, including the brother of a hostile African Chief. All these
 places are now Egyptian.

 "The nature of the subject forbids details in pages intended for the
 public eye; but, in communicating with my Government, I have been
 as explicit as decency permits, and my description makes the blood
 run cold. The subjects range between four and ten; if this operation
 be performed on older boys, they seldom survive. At the age of ten
 the loss may be seventy per cent., and even in the case of younger
 children about one-fourth, to state a low figure, die from the razor.
 By this murderous operation, boys who would fetch from £5 to £10 rise
 in value to £25 and £80. Here, then, the manumission might well begin.
 All eunuchs should be set free without compensation to the owners,
 who have broken the Commandments of their own Lawgiver by purchasing
 them; and the extreme penalty of the Convention should be carried out
 in the cases of notorious mutilators, who have slain literally their
 hundreds.[10]

 "The foregoing pages prove, if they prove anything, that the Egyptian
 Government has done what it could, in fact what we may characterize as
 its best, and has failed; that when the course of slave importation
 is blocked upon the Nile, or the desert, it shifts to the Red Sea, or
 _vice versâ_; that the stowing away of 'chattels' in the various oases
 greatly increases their miseries; and that the numbers imported and
 the prices ruling in 1880 do not materially differ from those of 1873.

 "The abolition of slavery is unpopular amongst the mass of Egyptians,
 whose prejudices in its favour are often charged upon their faith.
 _On the contrary_, Mohammed went as far as any innovator could go, in
 attacking a national custom of immemorial origin. He nowhere speaks
 of a legitimate source of slavery, except those taken captive in war,
 men who would otherwise be put to death; and, even in this case, he
 enjoins their being set free on payment of a fair ransom. 'You all
 come one from another and from Adam, the common father,' he exclaims.
 In one place he enjoins that alms-giving should buy the freedom of
 slaves; in another he expressly commands, 'Show kindness to your
 slaves;' and in another (Korán, chap, xxiv.) he says, 'If any one of
 your slaves asks from you his freedom, give it to him, if you judge
 him worthy of it; give them a little of the goods which Allah granted
 you.'[11] And it may be noted that amongst Moslems of all sects the
 name of Jelláb, the 'seller of men,' is synonymous with infamy.

 "Egypt has now reached that grade of civilization when she can afford
 to dispense with the _corvée_ (forced labour) and with every form
 of slavery. All Egyptians know that the slave mostly leads an idle
 and useless life; and that reduced cultivation reduces revenue. All
 right-thinking Egyptians will rejoice to see the pauper freeman
 employed, instead of the rich man's slave, to see honest labour
 relieved from the curse of servile competition. But there must be
 pressure from without. The present state of things is unfair to
 all. It is unfair to the Prince, whose humanity revolts against the
 institution, but who cannot abolish it single-handed. It is unfair to
 the Government, which is impotent, and will be impotent in presence
 of public prejudice. It is unfair to the Jelláb, who is legally
 doomed to death, and socially encouraged by large profits to persist
 in his organized murders. And I need scarcely say that it is unfair
 to the slave, whose hard lot is made harder by the impotent attempts
 to 'suppress' him. Briefly, there is no possibility of arresting the
 supply except by cutting off the demand. It was the same in Western
 Africa, where the whole British fleet, much less a 'Coffin Squadron,'
 could not have barred the Middle Passage, had not the Southern United
 States, Brazil, and finally Cuba, refused to buy. Hence, for the last
 decade, not a slave has left the Western Coast, and we now keep a
 cruiser or two where, in 1865, we had sixteen.

 "It is certain--and let the reader duly weigh the fact--that the blow
 must come from Head-quarters in the shape of an immediate and absolute
 manumission of slaves domestic and prædial in every part of Egypt.
 The 'international supervision,' an idea lately ventilated, could do
 no good. The proposed registration of slaves will prove a snare and a
 delusion. We must not salve the core that wants the knife. A decree
 abolishing the legal status of slavery would be a grand and generous
 policy, spontaneously anticipating the period when the public opinion
 of Europe will enforce the measure. Such a decree would meet with
 universal favour, not only in England, which has ever denounced this
 blasphemy against humanity, and in France, whose several Republican
 Governments have always been inspired with the noblest sentiments upon
 the subject of freeing the slave; it would be applauded throughout the
 Civilized World.

 "Nor would this decree entail, as it appears at first sight, a formal
 interference with the rights of property, even conceding to man the
 right to hold property in man. The proclamation would not cause the
 good slave-master to lose his 'chattels.' The cruel and the niggardly
 would lose them, and would deserve their losses. At the same time,
 if judged advisable to follow the example of 1834, the owners might
 receive a certain indemnity for slaves purchased _before_ 1877; and
 a small loan would easily be raised for the purpose. Grants of land,
 free of taxation for some years, might be given to the industrious
 _liberti_ who wish to remain in Egypt; the others might be established
 in colonies at Bogos and the many healthy sites near the highlands of
 Abyssinia. But these are mere details. The essential point is a decree
 for _general and absolute manumission_.

 "And when humanity is satisfied by setting men free, it is to be hoped
 that Egypt will do something towards the prevention of cruelty to
 animals. The Egyptian is not brutal; his is the thoughtless cruelty
 of the child, who cannot realize the fact that beasts suffer like
 himself. Such is the force of custom that a donkey boy rarely passes
 a donkey in the street without dealing a cut of the _jeríd_, or
 palm stick. There have been various abortive attempts to organize
 protective measures; but without the active co-operation of the
 _native_ authorities none can succeed, and the retrograde Ministry of
 Riaz Pasha has proved a stumbling-block in the way of all improvement.

 "Financially speaking, Egypt is now on the path of Progress. Let her
 show herself worthy of the good fortune that awaits her, and of her
 high destinies as a civilizing Power in the barbarous regions of the
 'Dark Continent.' Let her gratify the World, and secure for herself
 the blessings of all good men by a decree abolishing utterly and for
 ever the sale of human beings--the 'league with death and covenant
 with hell.'

 "RICHARD F. BURTON."

[1] "Their publications have carefully mentioned every traveller
who reported the 'steady increase of the trade in slaves,' and have
carefully ignored Professor Smith and me."

[2] "_Egyptian Gazette_, December 28, 1880."

[3] "The reduced map is given in the Supplement to the _Anti-Slavery
Reporter_, September, 1880."

[4] "This detail is given in a private letter to the writer."

[5] "_Il Messaggiere Egiziano_, Alexandria, August 7, 1880."

[6] "_L'Echo d'Orient_ of Alexandria, December 3, 1880."

[7] "An account of a Caravan and prices is given in the _Egyptian
Gazette_ of August 21, 1880."

[8] "_Anti-Slavery Reporter_, January, 1881."

[9] "For this particular see Dr. Lowe's valuable communication in the
_Anti-Slavery Reporter_ (September, 1880, p. 87). He is personally
acquainted with the ground."

[10] "'And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in
his hand, he shall surely be put to death.'--EXOD. xxi. 16."

[11] "M. Jules Sakakini, corresponding member of the Anti-Slavery
Society, has treated this matter in the _Echo d'Orient_, December 22nd,
1880."




CHAPTER VIII.

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 3rd of February we had a very bad earthquake, and if I may quote
it as a proof of animals having some knowledge of what is coming, the
dog, a large setter, who slept in our rooms, sprang suddenly into
our beds, and insisted on getting under the clothes. We were rather
frightened, and thought he had gone mad. Richard opened the door,
and ordered him to go into the passage; he obeyed, but whined his
objections. Two minutes after, we were shaken by an earthquake; so we
jumped up and ran to the door and let him in, because we knew what was
the matter with him--he looked awfully scared.

We made a day or two's excursion to Monfalcone, and then H.M.S. _Iris_,
Captain (now Admiral) Seymour, came in to meet the Ambassador, Mr.
Goschen. We went down to join him in receiving Mr. Goschen, and the
_Iris_ started at once for Constantinople.

On the 10th H.I.H. Prince Rudolf came to Trieste to start for the East.
Later I had the honour of receiving a telegram from Prince Rudolf to
thank me for my "Inner Life of Syria," which he found very useful in
his travels in the East.

We went to a village ball at Opçina, which was very amusing. Baron
Morpurgo this month gave a grand ball in honour of H.I.H. the Archduke
Carl Stefan, to which we were invited.

About this time we had the pleasure of a visit from one of the best
women we had ever known, Mrs. Louisa Birt of Liverpool, who is a female
Don Bosco, and spends the whole of her time in rescuing poor children
from the streets. I believe in one year five thousand had passed
through her establishment. At parting she gave me her little bag, with
her initials on it, which I have still.

We also had seen a good deal of Lieutenant Karl Weyprecht, of the
Austrian Navy, who, with Lieutenant Payer, discovered Franz Josef's
Land during the Austrian Arctic Expedition, 1872-74; but this year he
died, at the age of forty-three.

We had a short excursion to Laibach, to see the Littai Mines, in Krain,
in which Richard was employed as reporter. They are lead and cinnabar,
which concession embraces 1 3/5. Now there were great preparations for
the return of Prince Rudolf. Of course the Austrian Squadron was in,
and he was received with great honour. The City was illuminated, the
streets were full; and in the evening there was a grand opera, and
three thousand in the theatre. When the Prince entered there was great
applause and "Vivas!" ladies clapping hands and waving handkerchiefs;
the National Hymn was played, and all stood up for over ten minutes.
The people showed immense loyalty, and the Prince left next day.

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.

[Sidenote: _Duino_.]

Duino is a village picturesquely situated on an eminence overhanging
the sea, two hours' drive from Trieste, and right in the Karso, the
wild stony district before described. This village and castle remind
one of old times. The village is completely towered over and dominated
by the feudal castle and fortress of the Hohenlöhes, which stand on
the rocky cliff, once surrounded by a keep, a moat, and a drawbridge
in which now grow flowers. The village and everything around them is
theirs, and their flag flies from the tower. The Prince, who was a
very handsome man, died in 1868, and is buried in the family vault in
the chapel. The Princess (the _châtelaine_), who is a sad invalid, was
in her youth a beautiful, gentle, aristocratic blonde, full of talent
and _esprit_. She was a Countess Della Torre (de la Tour d'Auvergne),
Thurn being the Austrian branch. Her early history was very romantic.
She resides there, and has two sons and three daughters, of which
one is married to Prince Thurn and Taxis, and one son to a young and
pretty Countess Kaünitz. The rural inn of the village was within a
stone's-throw of the castle, and we remained there for six weeks taking
the baths, and living every day in their pleasant society. The castle
is filled with antiquities, family relics, old china, and is one of
the show places of the country. It has its ghost (a white lady), and
amongst other curiosities is a small portrait of a family saint, the
famous Cardinal Hohenlöhe. The old Salle d'Armes (all the ancient
armoury was stolen by the French) is made to represent a cave under the
sea, full of shells and stalactites against a white sand wall, which,
lit up at night, look like diamonds.

The grounds and shrubberies descend to the sea, where there is a
bath-house, and where we used to have great fun swimming. On the
opposite side is an old ruined castle in which Dante took refuge, and
it is said the scene suggested his "Inferno," but it is more likely
that the Caves of Adelsberg did that. The park is not quite _our_
idea of a park; it is a space enclosed in four walls, with four large
gateways, bearing armorial carvings. The ground is stony, covered
with holm oak, in which the deer and birds flourish. It is closed
against smugglers; the only lock has a secret, and the key is kept by
one old retainer. In the old days the smugglers put out the eyes of a
celebrated stag reindeer which always followed them. The tiny village
inn is not uncomfortable, if you do not mind roughing it; there is
a post, a telegraph office, and a Catholic chapel, belonging to the
castle, and the only drawbacks are bad food and forty minutes' drive
to reach a train, the Princesses having very sensibly, for their own
peace, refused to have a station. The Trieste Sunday-trippers and
ill-treaters of animals cannot get so far, so it is beautifully still
and rural. There is a pretty bay, and an old monastery some way off,
which is a pleasant walk.

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_.[1] 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. Here I must relate a
little story showing the force of imagination:--

In the carriage were two of the Princesses, Richard, and me. Suddenly,
at the top of a roof, I caught sight of a rat, which appeared to me
to be fascinated and spellbound by the music. "Look!" I said. "Don't
move; but watch that rat, fascinated by the music." So we all sat and
watched it, and thought it a most interesting fact in nature, that rats
should share this in common with lizards and snakes and other things.
We all saw it move; we all saw its head turn and its tail move, and we
kept still, not to frighten it away. It lasted so long, however, that
we were compelled to drive on; and next day we sent to inquire, and we
found it was made of painted tin, and fixed to the top of a house--an
Italian _scherzo_!

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 used to spend many hours on the rocks with the Princesses, fishing
for crabs, swimming, boating, telling ghost stories, and playing cards.
Here we read Sinnett's "Occult World," which I reviewed.

The Princess's married son lives at Sagrado--a comfortable gentleman's
seat, with a park, stags, good stables, and an unrivalled view. It has
a remarkable bath-house in the park. They were both charming people,
and we enjoyed our visit to them very much.

On the 24th of June, Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, of Somerleaze, and their two
daughters (one since became Mrs. Arthur Evans) came over to Duino to
see us. It was the day of the horse-fair with the Hungarian Gypsies,
which afforded them some amusement. 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 11th of this month our friend, Mr. Andrew Wilson, aged
fifty-one, the author of the "Abode of Snow," one of those who wrote
the little sketch of Richard's career, died.

 From _Truth_, July 7, 1881.

 "Dear Mistress Truth,--I am truly flattered by the genial and
 un-Grundy-like 'Anecdotal Photograph' of my Husband.

 "But, dear Madam, allow me one word. Don't let your readers confound
 a bruise on the brow with a spear-wound through the mouth, splitting
 the palate-bone, and received in a 'thrilling fight' when some three
 hundred and fifty savages made a night attack on four Englishmen.
 Captain Burton usually spares Society any allusion to his adventures,
 but at times 'lions' are expected to roar, and are held contumacious
 if they keep silence.

 "Knowing you only by good report, I do myself the pleasure of
 enclosing my card, and of requesting you, dear Madam, to believe me

 "Your admirer,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Trieste, June 29th."

[Sidenote: _Our Squadron_.]

On the 1st of July H.M.S. _Iris_, the _avant courier_ of the Squadron,
arrived. The Squadron itself arrived on the 7th. 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 _fête-champêtre_ and ball
at Opçina, as we wanted, as early as possible in the beginning 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
Opçina. 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 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 English 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 omnibus 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 unconscious 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 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 _attaché_, 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 omnibuses to go down to Trieste.
Thus ended our first _fête_ 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.

[Sidenote: _Our Squadron leaves_.]

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 11th 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 Morpurgo 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. Captain Selby, of
H.M.S. _Falcon_, was left behind to pick up deserters. We dined with
him after parting with the Squadron, and some of his men did a very
pretty hornpipe in the moonlight to amuse us.

It is wonderful how popular our sailors became at Trieste; they did
such fresh, innocent, playful sort of jokes, and withal so manly
and so generous, that they cannot but fail to attract foreigners,
whose soldiers and sailors are much more like a patent machine. Most
respectable families of the middle classes made great friendships with
them, and received them into their families in intimacy, and I am
told that they say that the men save up all their money for coming to
Trieste. When they fraternized with the Austrian soldiers and sailors,
who had not much money in their pockets, they always treated them,
which won all hearts.

One man, who evidently had not tasted beer for a long time, went to
the Café Specchi, where he asked for a bottle of beer (they are very
small); he drank it, paid for it, and called for another. I was not
there, but rumour said that he did not get up till he had drank fifty
of these little bottles, and had collected quite a crowd around him.
One day they were larking about, and they ran away bodily with an old
woman's fruit-stall, she following them shrieking. When they had had
their fun out of her, they ran back with it, and put it down again, and
then gave her two and sixpence. She was so delighted that she wanted
them to do it again, and called after them every time they passed,
asking them to run away with her stall, like a big child. Another day
a lot of them played leap-frog in the Piazza. The Triestines had never
seen leap-frog, consequently quite a crowd collected. Once a party of
them went into the market, and they each bought one of those large
feather kitchen blowers, which they used like fans, and then they came
back joining arms and dancing a step all down the street, fanning
themselves. All these things "fetched" the Triestines immensely.

One day I saw one of them standing by the Austrian Admiral's garden;
an apple tree hung over into the road, so he plucked an apple and ate
it. He was in the public road, and of course the apple had no business
there. Immediately the sentry came out, and a crowd of soldiers and
sailors around him were all jabbering at him. He looked at them
quietly, and went on munching his apple till they touched him, and then
he gave a sort of a quiet, sweeping back-hander, which knocked one or
two of them down. I foresaw a row, so I stepped up to him and said, "I
am your Consul's wife, and I want to tell you that they are trying to
make you understand that those are the Austrian Admiral's apples, and
that you must not eat them." So he smiled and said, "I am sure I am
exceedingly obliged to you, ma'am. I did not know that there was any
reason why I should not eat the apple, and I wondered what they were
all jabbering at me for." And he saluted and went. Then I explained to
the irritated men that he had not known; that he did not understand
a word they said, and that if an apple was in the road, it seemed as
if any one might take it, and that he was very sorry that he had not
understood. When the Squadron left Trieste, eighteen of them hid,
and did not join their ships; and when at last they were caught, and
brought off, they said, "It was such a ---- ideal place that they had
not really the heart to leave it." I begged Captain Selby so hard not
to punish them much. And he said, "Oh no, the darlings! Wait until I
get them on board a ship; I'll have them tucked up comfortably in bed
with a nice hot grog." We then had a visit from Captain Maude, who had
got a little longer leave.

We never saw poor Captain Selby again, as he was afterwards murdered.

[Sidenote: _We go to Veldes_.]

On the 8th of August we started for a new trip, and went _viâ_ Laibach
to Veldes, _viâ_ 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. On the island is a little church,
and the house of a peasant family who keep the church. In the church
is a long rope, by which you ring a bell (a big church bell); it is
called the "wishing bell." You kneel down and wish for something, and
pray for it, and then you get up and ring the bell. If you have several
wishes, they say you are sure to get the first. After I had finished,
Richard rowed off to a spring, and I went and visited the people. There
was an old man of ninety, his daughter, her daughter, and a baby--four
generations. After talking to them for some time, I noticed a little
carved wooden figure of Death with a scythe, and I said, "Oh, do you
know, there is something in this little cottage that I rather envy
you." "What is that?" said the old man. I said, "That death figure."
"Why," he said, "ladies are generally frightened of that;" but he
added, "I could not part with that. My grandfather carved it when he
was a boy. I am over ninety; it must have been there for a hundred
and fifty years. We have a superstition that it keeps us alive to a
great old age." I said, "Pray excuse me; I had no idea that it had
any importance attached to it, or I would not have noticed it." And I
turned the conversation to other things; but when I got up to go, he
said, "What did you mean to give me for that death's head?" I said,
"Why, hardly anything--perhaps a couple of florins; you must forget
that I said such a thing." "Oh no," he said, "I could not afford to
lose so much money as that." So the end of it was that I gave him five
florins, and brought away the skeleton, and we were both delighted,
and I mean to leave it when I die to the person whose life is most
important to the country.

Now, Richard was absent without leave from F.O., but of course he never
left without the Consulate being in the charge of the Vice-Consul, and
all money affairs settled. We were dreadfully frightened of meeting
any one we knew. Think of our horror when we saw coming into the
restaurant the Chaplain of the Embassy at Vienna--our Chief's Chaplain!
Fortunately, the Rev. G. L. Johnston was one of the most charming and
gentlemanly men I ever saw. Richard bolted up to bed; but I thought
it would be wiser to take the bull by the horns, so I went up to him,
and confided our difficulty to him. He burst out laughing, and said,
"My dear child, I am just doing exactly the same thing myself." I ran
upstairs and fetched Richard down again.

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 Hôtel 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 Würmbrandt the Governor of Istria, Count Bombelles, in
attendance on Prince Rudolf, Prince Windisgrätz, Professor Müllner,
Abbate Glübich, the African travellers Holúb 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 magnificent 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.

[Sidenote: _We part company--I am sent to Maríenbad_.]

Here, at Ischl, Richard and I parted company. I was ordered to go to
Maríenbad; Richard returned to Steinach-Irding, to Steyr, and back to
Steinach, and from there to Vienna.

I had an eighteen-hours' journey, changing trains three times, baggage
twice visited. I first had to get from Jehl to Wels, there to change
for Passau, thence to Regensburg, where we again changed train; then
began bad driving and bad manners, and I turned round to somebody and
said, "My dear Austrians are not quite so nice or civil up here, as
they are in other parts," and my fellow-traveller said, "Oh, don't
you know, you are just crossing a corner of Prussia for a couple of
hours;" after which we picked up the niceness of Austria once more.
From Regensburg to Eger, and from thence to Maríenbad, completed the
journey. Hôtel Klinger is very comfortable, and Dr. Basch, to whom
I was recommended, was out with the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico.
You hardly see any English at Maríenbad, but Austrians, Hungarians,
Bohemians of course, and many Jews, chiefly Polish.

The cure is an unlimited quantity of Kreuzbrunner water at six
o'clock a.m., with an hour's walk, an exquisite band--just as good as
Godfrey's, if not better--playing the while. The Maríenbad band is, I
think, the best I have ever heard; the conductor is a very big "swell,"
and has lots of decorations. Later you have fifteen minutes' bath of
_Marien Quelle_, which is wonderfully electric, and then you have a
_Moor-fuss-bad_, which means mud up to the knees. To a novice this
sort of thing is very amusing; to see the procession to the springs,
almost like a religious procession, each with a glass in their hand. I
think all this is a great mistake for some people, and only produces
congestion--I think that Maríenbad exhales congestion out of the very
ground. I found a good German professor to read with, and I established
a little branch for prevention of cruelty to animals, which was very
much needed, especially by the dogs which draw the carts.

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.

[Sidenote: _The Scientific Congress at Venice_.]

On the 7th of September I was so ill that I did not know how to get
to Vienna, but I had myself put into a _coupé_ to myself, with room
to lie down, and I never stirred off it during the eleven hours and
forty minutes _viâ_ Pilsen and Budweis to Vienna, when at the 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 Geographical Congress, which was opened on the
15th. The illuminations 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 exceedingly 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,
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."

Would they have ventured so to treat Stanley or Livingstone or any
other Traveller? No! they would not. Every nation had put forth its
best men, but it must be acknowledged--whether it is jealousy or what,
I cannot imagine--ours get crushed and ignored on every possible
occasion, and the men of intellectual straw shoot up to make fools of
themselves and their country. The following letter was sent afterwards
to Richard by our old friend, H. W. Bates:--

 "1, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, W., October 1st, 1881.

 "DEAR BURTON,

 "I read your very amusing and clever account of the Venice Congress in
 the _Academy_ before receiving your letter of the 26th. There cannot
 be any doubt that your estimate of the meeting is correct, and that
 it was a vain show without any serious import for science. But then
 the question arises, 'Who expected it to be otherwise?' We in London
 did not. A proof of which, take the fact that the R.G.S. did not send
 anything for exhibition. Lord Aberdare to a certain extent represented
 us there, but there was no intention, as far as I know, of British
 geographical science being represented there for serious purposes,
 because nobody here believed anything serious would be done at the
 Congress. Notwithstanding all this, I cannot understand how it came to
 pass, that you and Cameron were not asked to take the active part that
 was your due in the meetings and discussions. Nobody of course wanted
 geographical information, but for the European _éclat_ of the thing
 _you_ ought to have been put forward.

 "Yours sincerely,

 "H.W. BATES.

 "P.S.--You will not see a word about Venice in our October number. We
 shall perhaps give a page about it in November, if I can get authentic
 report of what little work was done. Can you supply it, _i.e._ a dry,
 serious _compte-rendu, professionally_?

 "Mrs. Burton's communication has not yet arrived. Give my kind regards
 to her."

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 Glübich.

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 Malamocco, 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. I had supper with Consul Faber, and we looked over
his splendid book of "Fishes," which was going home to the "Fisheries."
The next day we had an expedition to Tersate with Count and Countess
Hoyos, and the following day I went back to Trieste. Meantime Richard
went on to Petras and Zante, Messina, Sardinia, Gibraltar, Lisbon, and
Madeira. Then arrived at Trieste Lady Mary Primrose, now Lady Mary Hope
(Everard Primrose's sister).


1882.


[Sidenote: _Life and Incidents of Trieste_.]

Our usual parties took place, the children's, the servants', the
English party, and the Foreign party; that was a _regular_ Christmas
thing.

About this time, at the end of January, arrived Mdlle. Sara Bernhardt,
who gave us three or four performances. I had the pleasure of calling
on her, and found her very charming, and she wrote something for me.
Her performance enchanted every one; but the theatre, the only one
disengaged, was quite unworthy of her.

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.

On the 25th we got the intelligence of poor Captain Selby's (of H.M.S,
_Falcon_) death, who was murdered by Albanian shepherds. Two hours
after his skull had been broken by the axe of the assailants, he was
able to climb on board the ship, and died on the 22nd of February,
1882. He was a brave and good man, and could ill be spared.

On the 1st of March I had a telegram from the present Lord Houghton
to tell me that his father lay dangerously ill at Athens. He arrived
himself at Trieste on the 4th, and I saw him off the same day to Athens.

I got a sort of feverish cold in April, and was confined to my bed,
and I was very much surprised at getting a summons to the Tribunal.
My doctor (Professor Liebman) arrived, and I said, "I wonder what I
am wanted at the Tribunal for; I have not done anything wrong that
I know of?" and he said, "I shall certainly write and say that you
cannot come." Later in the day my door opened, and in marched a solemn
procession of gentlemen in black, with pens and ink and papers. I
was rather taken aback, and asked them "what they wanted." They then
produced a letter in Italian, which purported to be, though it was very
incorrect, a translation of a letter I had written to Mr. Arthur Evans
in Herzegovina. They asked me what I knew about Mr. Evans. I said, "I
know nothing but good of him; but why do you ask?" "Because," they
said, "he is in prison for conspiring against the Austrian Empire."
"Oh," I said, "what has he done?" They said, "You must know something
about it, because you have written to warn him. What do you know?"
I said, "I only know that I heard some of the officers here saying
that he was meddling in what did not concern him, and that, if they
could catch him off civilized ground, they would hang him up to the
first tree, and as I know his wife and her family, and they are my own
compatriots, I thought I would write and say to him, 'What are you
doing? Whatever it is, leave it off, as you are incurring ill will in
Austria by it.'" I _meant_ to be very kind, but I ought not to have
done it, as it not only vexed Mrs. Evans, whom I liked very much, but
unluckily, as the post was slow between Trieste and Herzegovina, it
did not reach until after he had been put into political confinement,
and consequently the authorities had opened it, read it, and had it
translated, and had summoned me to give an account of myself. However,
on my assuring them that I knew nothing but what I had heard from
themselves, they were quite satisfied, and took their departure.

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 Hôtel Impérial 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 15th 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.

[Sidenote: _Gold in West Africa_.]

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 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 washings
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 '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_.

[Sidenote: _Mining_.]

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 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
subpœnaed, 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. However, 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
straightforward, 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.

I purposely omit names, as I do not care to hurt anybody unless
necessary. These very mines, which I believe Mr. Johns and his Board
have been depreciating so much, have been bought by a man who knew the
gold mine well, and because of its wealth has acquired it from the
natives. He says (1893), "Ever since it was ruined by the weakness
of the directors in London, and the utter incapacity or worse of the
managers on the Guinea Coast, the natives themselves have been mining
it and getting lots of gold out of it, and the writer has just bought
it up again." The thing became a failure entirely through incapacity
and dishonesty abroad, as will be proved by the success of the mine
in proper hands. I had at one time several lumps of quartz with bits
of gold sticking out of it, which Richard picked up himself on the
property.

About eight weeks before Richard died, he dictated a paper to me, and
left papers in my hands which thoroughly prove that he had lost instead
of receiving, and that what he did receive was demanded back again; and
though not obliged, he did pay it, even his own expenses going out and
coming home to make the reports for their benefit, for which he was
promised such good payment.[2]

[Sidenote: _African Mines_.]

He said West Africa has been called the "White Man's Grave." Bombay
and Zanzibar both have had the same reputation, and to sleep ashore
was considered certain death; but English officials now live ashore in
both, and though no European is fever-proof in Africa, Englishmen who
take precautions are pretty healthy. As for labour, if the natives
won't undertake it they can get any amount of Indian coolies and
Chinese. Richard said, "What Africa wants is an honest man at the head,
and machinery;" and almost the last thing that he ever said to me upon
business matters was, "Whatever interests I may have in the West Coast
of Africa, or in Midian, I mean to stick to, and if you survive me, do
you stick to them."


 From the Press.

 "WEST AFRICAN MINES.


 "When Sir Richard Burton was invited to go to the Gold Coast in search
 of the precious metal to which that region owes its name, he is
 reported to have said, 'Geography is good, but gold is better.' The
 result of his expedition, in which Commander Cameron took part, was to
 establish the fact that the Gold Coast still deserves its name, and
 many attempts have been made of late years to exploit the district.
 The Governor of the colony has recently sent a very careful report on
 the gold-mining industry to Lord Knutsford, based to a great extent
 upon personal observations. The conclusions he arrives at are that the
 country is rich in gold, and that earnest and well-considered attempts
 are being made to work the mines, the chief difficulty being the want
 of labourers, who would have to be imported, probably from China.

 "Every two or three years Captain Burton appears like a meteor in
 London, and in that City of four millions he invariably succeeds
 in creating a stir. However hurried his visitations, his presence
 is keenly felt. He wakes up the learned Societies, startles the
 Geographers, is the hero of banquets, and drops a new book in his
 wake. As we all know, his early exploits have become a part of the
 history of our times, and in our annals of discovery or daring there
 is nothing to beat his work in Africa--tracking the secret sources
 of Old Nile, or his famous pilgrimage to Mecca. As time goes on, the
 grass does not grow beneath his feet. A man cannot set the Thames on
 fire every day, but he has lived to do many wonders. Cast away as he
 is to the east of Venice, and chained to his post at Trieste--doomed
 by perverse fate to an isolation that must be almost as irksome as
 the rock of St. Helena to Napoleon[3]--when he ought to be in some
 splendid position worthy of his powers, Captain Burton makes the most
 of leisure and leave of absence. If we do not hear of him and there
 is no sign, we may be sure he is not losing time. Either he is deep
 in some hard literary enterprise, such as his recent translation of
 the epic of Portugal, 'The Lusiads,' or he is off on some fresh quest
 interesting to science or to the multitude. He has just now returned
 from his old haunts, West Africa, and he comes this time in his
 familiar character of Gold-finder."


 "MINING ON THE GOLD COAST.

 "To the Editor of the _Mining World and Engineering Record_.


 "Sir,--Some months have passed since my last communication. I have had
 little to say, and was unwilling to intrude upon your valuable space.
 Now, however, the state of things has changed, and I am compelled once
 more to apply to you for hospitality.

 "It is a pleasure to see the Gold Coast taking its proper place in
 your columns. The _Mining World_ of November 10th contains three
 separate notices, highly encouraging to those who, like myself,
 thoroughly believe in the vast mineral wealth of our ill-fated colony,
 in the facility of 'getting' the metal, and in the manageability of
 the climate, which is certainly not worse than was that of Bombay
 at the beginning of the present century. I remark with satisfaction
 that the 'debauched, incapable' class, at first sent out, _faute de
 mieux_, has been gradually improved off, and that able men are taking
 its place. Lastly, I am delighted to observe that at least one of the
 new-comers has proposed to adopt the style of work especially adapted
 for the Gold Coast, and has determined to preface the good old 'shaft
 and tunnel' system by pouching the superficial deposits.

 "A case in point. One of my correspondents kindly forwarded to me a
 copy of Mr. Lowman's last report to the directors of the African Gold
 Coast Syndicate, Limited. This manager, sent out to develop the huge
 and rich 'Ingotro Concession,' reached Axim only on August 16th. On
 reaching his destination he was at once informed by Chief Appo that
 the bottom of the Nánwá Valley, an old lagoon, abounds in gold, 'if we
 could but only get water out.' After puddling and washing, 'with extra
 good results,' sundry samples of the clay, he cut on the east bank of
 the rivulet a drain 350 feet long by 3 feet wide and 2½ feet deep,
 with a fall of 1 in 80. I may remind you that the stream in question,
 as shown by Captain Cameron's map, 'snakes' all down its valley, and
 that ditches from one loop to another would lay bare a great length of
 bed. Its width varies from 15 to 30 feet; the depth from 18 inches to
 6 feet, and it runs all the year round. Mr. Lowman began another drain
 400 feet long, to cross-cut the lagoon, which now infects the lower
 bed of the Nánwá, and which would easily empty into the Ancobra. He
 proposed to hydraulic with 350 feet of troughs or sluice-boxes, which
 were all ready for laying, and one Molyneux box (loose hopper, patent
 riffles, and slide tables), 'the first ever made or used on the Gold
 Coast.' A sketch of the 'flats' and of the machinery was attached to
 the report, and I can say nothing except in their praise.

 "The lagoon clay to be puddled and 'Molyneux'd' is described as a
 still, yellow argile, resting upon a hard bottom of quartz pebbles.
 The cuttings opened up drifts of black sand, considered to be 'highly
 auriferous' (see the 'Gold Book'), and these were reserved for
 washing at convenience. The results of panning and cradling on the
 Nánwá flats, and on the whole line as far as Kitza, yielded samples
 varying from 4 dwts. to 10 ozs. per cubic yard of stuff. What would
 California and Australia say to those figures? Mr. Lowman adds, and I
 believe him, 'There is no property between Axim and Tacquah so well
 adapted for hydraulicking and alluvial mining in all its branches
 as the Ingotro Concession. There is plenty of water and a good fall
 for tailings by simply cutting channels from river bend to bend, and
 letting them run into one of the deep valleys or carrying them direct
 to the Ancobra river. Another great advantage is that the Ingotro
 mines can be worked at one-half the expense of any quartz mine on
 the coast. Water here will do the work of steam with half the number
 of hands. The whole of the Nánwá Valley is auriferous, good payable
 ground, which would take sixty to seventy years to work out, without
 touching the quartz.' Now we come to what will greatly benefit the
 climate, the only weak point noted at Ingotro by Cameron and myself.
 'An absolute necessary piece of work will be to clear the river banks
 and to remove the trees which have fallen across the bed. We must also
 do away with (N.B.--I hope after panning) the large silted-up banks
 of sand and gravel which have accumulated in the river bends, causing
 the stream to overflow and to swamp the low lands, after each little
 freshet. Some of the banks, four to five feet high and fifteen across,
 are perfect natural dams. The work should not occupy more than three
 or four months.'

 "The first thing which struck me on the Gold Coast was a conviction
 that its 'nullah beds' will supply the greatest quantity of metal
 for the least possible expenditure. The late M. Bounat, a Frenchman,
 who taught Englishmen the value of their colony on the Guinea Gulf,
 began (as I related in the 'Gold Book,' ii. 360) with the intention
 of dredging the Ancobra river for dust and nuggets. And he was right.
 Every little rivulet bed in the land must be ransacked before the
 hills are washed down by hydraulicking; and the sooner the 'steam
 navvy' appears upon the scene the better.

 "Mr. Lowman evidently took good counsel, and, not being a consulting
 engineer, was not above taking a lesson from 'Chief Appo.' You may
 imagine my vexation on hearing that he had been recalled for 'want
 of funds.' Want of funds! Why, three months' work and a few hundred
 pounds would have enabled him to wash gold enough for paying all the
 labour he requires. Surely the directors of 'Ingotro' must see this as
 clearly as I do. It is a sorry time to draw back when standing upon
 the very verge of a grand discovery. I would state, in your pages,
 my certainty that such is the case; and if the Nánwá project fail, I
 would subside into a 'mere traveller,' as a booby acquaintance kindly
 described me.

 "Excuse the length of this letter--the importance of the subject amply
 justifies it.

 "I am, etc.,

 "RICHARD BURTON.

 "Trieste, Austria, November 26th."


 "To the Editor of the _Mining World and Engineering Record_.

 "Sir,--You should have heard from me before had not _petite santé_
 stood in the way of good intentions. Life in a little Mediterranean
 harbour-town makes one almost look forward to leaving the world in
 view of some extensive explorations beyond the world.

 "My letters from the Gold Coast are cheering. Captain Cameron and Mr.
 Walsten are doing prime work. The former is being supplied with funds,
 an essential point which I cannot urge too strongly upon the two
 companies for whom he is now labouring. The 'present and future' of
 the Gold Coast mainly depends upon his success.

 "Many thanks to Mr. Louis F. Gowan for his 'pile of experience' about
 Chinese coolies. This is what we want--familiarity with the subject,
 not more dogmatism. And the question is whether Chinamen in Africa
 would be the 'pig-tailed cut-throats' described by Mr. Gowan. I did
 not find them so in Bombay, San Francisco, and Peru.

 "On the other hand, I am in nowise edified by the dogmatism displayed
 at the annual meeting of the Guinea Gold Coast Mining Company. A
 chairman is hardly expected to be an expert, but he must not address
 his shareholders as if he were a high authority. I read: 'Now,
 gentlemen, hydraulic sluicing are very easy words to pronounce, but
 it is a deuced hard operation to perform.' After some exceedingly
 useless statements about hydraulicking in Australia, he continues:
 'The directors took the best advice they could, namely, that of your
 consulting engineer, and he was opposed to it. He said, "It is quite
 true that if your country is impregnated with gold, and if you have
 got great results everywhere by assay, it is advisable, but you
 have not got any here (!), and therefore it would be very unwise
 expenditure."' The chairman concludes, 'We were bound then to take the
 opinion of an expert against the opinion of Captain Burton on that
 point, because otherwise you would have real reason for blaming us.'

 "This is really too bad for the unfortunate shareholders, who have
 only £15,000 left wherewith to carry on the work. Their property is
 cut by two streamlets, and these have never even been tested for
 gold. I have still to learn what experience of mining is possessed
 by the consulting engineer; but that he has a complete ignorance of
 Africa, I well know. Every writer on the Gold Coast from Bosman to
 Swanzy tells him that the land is impregnated with gold. He says it
 is not. As regards his management, it is enough to wreck any company.
 He recommended a person who reported in his cups that he could find
 no gold. I am waiting to see how his second _protégé_ turns out;
 present reports are the reverse of favourable, and if number two fail
 like number one, I shall offer you a suggestion of my own concerning
 management on the Gold Coast.

 "Against these miserable theories let us see what is the language
 of actual experience. To begin with Mr. Edward Smith's report on
 the Kitzia Concession:--'When going up the creek from the native
 village, I saw fourteen native women washing alluvial soil in the bed
 of the creek; and, on inquiring as to the result of their washing,
 Mr. Grant, the interpreter, told me they were making six shillings
 each per day. The stuff they were washing was from the surface of the
 side of the hill hard by. The creek could be turned, and a water-race
 brought alongside of the hill, so as to command the surface and to
 ground-sluice this portion of the property with good paying results.'
 Such is the hydraulicking recommended by me; but, apparently, where
 native women succeed, consulting engineers expect only failure. I
 must say with Abernethy, 'Read my book!' And that is not all. Captain
 Cameron writes to me from Axim, 'I shall get very good washing by the
 engine (_i.e._ without expensive leats or water-races), and think
 about ten or twelve shillings to the ton. I have over thirty feet fall
 for the sluices, which will give me three hundred and sixty feet (if
 necessary) of boxes.' I reported to you what my friend declared in a
 former letter, that he could wash down a whole hillside.

 "In conclusion, I hope that the shareholders, after comparing the
 statements of fact and theory, will insist upon their engineers
 abandoning the old humdrum, beaten track; and will compel them,
 whether they like it or not, to send home gold washed from the surface.

 "I am, etc.,

 "R. F. BURTON.

 "Trieste, Austria, April 20th, 1883."


 From _Mining Journal_, February 5th, 1887.

 "WEST AFRICAN GOLD MINES.

 "To the Editor of the _Mining Journal_.


 "Sir,--I have been surprised that these West African properties
 have not been brought to the front during the present excitement
 in gold-mining affairs, for that the gold is there is beyond all
 question. I do not forget that several of the companies which started
 a few years ago came to grief, but the cause of this was well known
 to be mismanagement and misfortune--forces which would ruin the best
 scheme in the world. But that these are going to prevent success in
 West Africa for ever I fail to believe. Let us look for a moment at
 what has really been going on quietly during the past twelve months
 there, and I think we shall see cause for much hopefulness in the
 near future. The Wassau Mining Company's monthly report is now before
 me. The crushing for twenty-two days in November gave 232 ozs., which
 netted the sum of £894 19_s._ in London, after deducting freight and
 expenses. This is at the rate of £1220 per month of thirty days. Their
 monthly expenses, I believe, are now somewhere about £500. This shows
 a profit at the rate of over £8000 a year, or 8 per cent. on the
 capital, and much more than this is a mere question of machinery. The
 manager reports on December 1: 'If anything, the mine looks better
 than ever.' The French Company have reorganized their affairs, and
 a large and able staff left England on January 1st. Their property,
 at a depth of 40 feet, gives an average yield of 17½ dwts. per ton
 in a south-west direction, and in a north-east direction it gives 21
 dwts. At 63 feet it gives 2 ozs. 15 dwts., and in Bonnat's shaft, at
 83 feet, it yields 5 ozs. 13 dwts. per ton. With figures like these
 one may fairly ask, Where are the East Indian mines? Where, even,
 are the Queensland properties? The Swanzy Estates Company, a private
 enterprise, carefully and economically managed, have been working for
 upwards of two years, on a property which, though not so rich as the
 others, is none the less likely to pay handsomely, as the quantity of
 mineral in sight is enormous, and it can be worked at a mere nominal
 cost, in consequence of its position. They are receiving regular
 returns, and the owners are more than satisfied. Cinnamon Bippo,
 another private property, equally well and economically worked, has
 at least one lode a mile in length, the average assay from which,
 over its entire distance, gives 2¼ ozs. to the ton, and by actual
 crushing of about 300 tons it has yielded 1 oz. 8 dwts. per ton, at an
 estimated profit of seventy shillings per ton. With improved machinery
 and appliances, the owners are satisfied that they will get about 2
 ozs. per ton, and the quantity of ore is absolutely unlimited. I now
 turn to your issue of Saturday last, and draw attention to the report
 on Essaman. Mr. Harvey says, respecting the Prestea reef, 'I have
 discovered that this is only a portion of an auriferous belt over 200
 ft. thick. The cross-cut has been driven through the belt to cut the
 reef, so there is proof undeniable of what I state, and, moreover,
 the whole is permeated with auriferous veins of quartz. Who knows but
 that some day or other this hill may be opened and worked as a quarry?
 Believe me, we know little of the wealth of Africa.' Mr. Harvey
 reports the main reef to be 10 feet thick at the point where driving
 will be commenced, and the average samples taken right through confirm
 his previous estimate of about 2 ozs. per ton. Mr. Harvey is right; we
 know little of the wealth of Africa, but it will not be much longer
 concealed.

 "PSEUDONYM.

 "January 31st, 1887."

I quote this prematurely, because it finishes the subject:


 "AN EXPLANATION.


 "Mr. W. J. Johns has called our attention to a very important letter
 respecting the Guinea Coast Company, Limited, which has been received
 from Sir Richard F. Burton. This letter would have been read by Mr.
 Johns to the shareholders of that company who assembled at last
 week's meeting, but no opportunity presented itself for him to do so.
 Many misstatements were made at that gathering respecting Mr. Johns
 and other gentlemen connected with the company, which in a really
 deliberative assembly, anxious only for the facts, might have been
 set aside. The letter of Sir Richard Burton (an old correspondent of
 the _Mining World_) tells its own tale. It is as follows:--

  "'Hôtel Windsor, Cannes, January 25th, 1887.

  "'I am greatly scandalized at seeing the papers crammed with the
  falsest statements about the property of the Guinea Coast Company.

  "'Two great points require emphatic contradiction. The first is, that
  the place is a swamp; the second, that it contains no gold.

  "'As regards both these statements I have only to bring in as evidence
  my own book, "To the Gold Coast for Gold," and I am ready to maintain
  every word therein printed.

  "'The place, so far from being a swamp, struck me as peculiarly
  healthy, and the condition of the natives proved that such was the
  case.

  "'As regards the gold, I noted in my book that Captain Cameron and
  I were unable to descend into the native shafts on account of their
  being full of water. But the number and extent of these diggings told
  their own tale, and I need hardly repeat that auriferous quartz reefs
  are only nibbed by the country people.

  "'It would be impossible for me to be in England as early as the 24th
  of next month, but I have written to my friend and fellow-traveller,
  Commander Cameron, whose opinion of the mines and mine were identical,
  to print in some leading papers our distinct and emphatic denial of
  the two falsehoods above noticed, which have been unblushingly foisted
  upon the public.

  "'(Signed) RICHARD F. BURTON.'"

[1] Richard wrote "The Castellieri; or, Prehistoric Ruins of the
Istrian Peninsula," and "More Castellieri--the Seaboard of Istria."

[2] This was deemed chivalrous and foolish by his own lawyer.--I. B.

[3] A good simile. The British Government seemed quite as afraid of one
as of the other--friend or foe, she must cage her eagles.--I. B.




CHAPTER IX.

ANOTHER SHORT LEAVE TO LONDON.

1882.


[Sidenote: _London and back_.]

I notice the pleasantest and most remarkable little events of this
visit to London.

We made a pilgrimage to Hughenden to visit the grave of Lord
Beaconsfield, and to put a wreath. We went to the Lyceum on the 10th
of June, to see _Romeo and Juliet_, and had the pleasure of making
Miss Ellen Terry's acquaintance; also to several great parties, and
had a charming lunch at Putney with Swinburne and Mr. Watts. We had a
very pleasant dinner at Lord and Lady Bath's. On Sunday afternoons we
generally went to Sir Frederick Leighton's, or the Dowager Lady Howard
of Glossop's, or Lady Holland's. We went down to visit Captain Cameron
and his family at Sevenoaks.

On the 20th Miss Florence Monckton-Milnes was married to Major
Henniker, of the Guards, and the wedding was exceedingly pretty at St.
George's.

On the 23rd we dined with Lord Houghton, to meet H.R.H. Prince Leopold
and the Duc d'Aumale; also Lord Stourton and Mowbray gave a great ball
to all the Old Catholics (the cousinhood). It was a beautiful ball,
and the Pope's picture was surrounded with garlands of flowers and
lights, and I remember creating a stir by taking Richard there, who,
I supposed, was _of course_ included in the invitations. This month
Richard lectured at the Geographical Society. Amongst clever people we
met Mr. Leslie Ward, the _other_ caricaturist of _Vanity Fair_, and a
rising poet, Mr. St. Clair-Baddeley, who attracted us much. There was
a meeting at St. James's Hall for protection for animals, Princess
Beatrice giving the prizes, and quite at the end of the afternoon,
after her Royal Highness had gone, I was asked to make a speech, which
I did.

The members of the Royal Naval Club (founded 1765) gave a dinner at
Willis's Rooms, St. James's, in Richard's honour.

The bombardment of Alexandria was on the 11th and 12th of July, 1882,
and he was very much excited and interested about this, and he wrote a
long history of what ought to be done for Egypt. Lady Fitzgerald (Lord
Houghton's eldest daughter) arrived from Egypt about this time, and was
the centre of attraction, both official and private, as she was able to
tell us all about it. I left my Indian Christmas book with Mr. Bogue
on the 7th of July, and never saw it after. We went to Sir Frederick
Leighton's Academy party, to Mrs. Childers's, and Lady Wilson's ball.

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.

[Sidenote: _The Great Trieste Exhibition_.]

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 buildings 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. However, at night, there was an
_émeute_ in the town, begun by the Italianissimi.

[Sidenote: _Émeute at Trieste_.]

Nothing was talked of but the _émeute_. Some Italians had thrown a
bomb as an Austrian regiment was passing, but it did not go off till
the wrong moment, so only a policeman's hand was crushed, and our poor
friend Dr. Dorn, of the _Triester Zeitung_, had his leg shattered, was
carried home in a pitiable state, and months after I saw the large
pieces of bone that had come out of his leg. There were four men
concerned in the throwing of the bombs, the chief of which was one
Oberdank, a deserter from the 22nd Regiment of Infantry; they were
taken at Ronchi. This had the effect of driving everybody away from
the Exhibition. The people who had come from foreign parts to exhibit,
swore they would not stay, that they did not feel safe, and they wanted
to pack up their things. The Exhibition was always empty, which, of
course, was the object of the Italians. Blanche and I went down one
morning, and we saw everything most beautifully, for there were not
twenty people in it.

Then the Baron Morpurgo told us that every night the bands were
playing, and the ices and refreshments always waiting, but that nobody
ever came; and they went round and collected a few friends who would
have the courage to go in the evening. Richard and I and Blanche
willingly started off in their boat at night, to go and hear the band,
to eat ices, and enjoy the illuminations; but as soon as we really
began to enjoy ourselves, a telegram was handed to the Morpurgos that
the town was in _émeute_; so they all jumped up, even the old Baron,
who was very brave and active, and said, "That must be _our_ people,
and we will go down and have the gates of the old town (Ghetto) shut,
and let them calm down; they shall not get into the town, and that
will stop the mischief; and you," he said to us, "don't attempt to go
back through the town, but go round in the boat and land just under
your own windows, and get in that way," which we did. I was again sent
off, early August, for my second summer to Maríenbad--three are the
usual course (and Richard went to Monfalcone for his gout baths)--where
Blanche and I enjoyed ourselves very much in a quiet way. We walked,
drove, read, studied German, made excursions, saw again Madame de
Novikoff, and went to the little German plays, which were very amusing.
There came Mr. and Mrs. Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Robert Bourke (Lord
Connemara), Mrs. and Miss Baldock, and Captain Bury. The band was the
same as last year and quite exquisite. We had a very nice collection
of people, and formed a pleasant little table at feeding time. I was
not sorry when it was over, on the 9th September, to start again for
Vienna, and on the 11th to go down to Trieste, for it never agreed with
me.

I could not resist writing the following during my cure:--


 "CAPTAIN BURTON.

 "To the Editor of _Vanity Fair_.


 "Dear Vanity,--It was very kind and nice of you to have noticed us
 in your paper, but, if I may make an observation, I should like to
 have had the rose without the thorn. The article is likely to make
 the public think that Captain Burton is living on the fat of the land
 at public expense, and doing nothing to earn it. I do not want any
 one to put the 'evil eye' upon the poor hard-earned little £600 a
 year--_well_ earned by forty years' hard toil in the public service.
 It is true that Government has sometimes, but not often, spared him
 for a few months at a time to do larger works, which have been for
 more general public benefit and wider extended good; but all the
 journeys quoted in _Vanity_ have been undertaken _between_ his various
 posts, when he has been out of employment, or during the usually
 _allowed_ leave that _other men_ spend in Pall Mall. On all the
 occasions when he has had 'leave' as above, he has gone _voluntarily_
 on half-pay those few months. If any one grudges us our pittance,
 and will inquire in Africa, Brazil, Damascus, or Trieste, they will
 find that at no time, of those or any other months, has a single
 detail of Consular work been omitted, or neglected, or performed by
 incompetent or ordinary subordinates, whilst every penny of public
 money was nervously accounted for. They will learn that we have ever
 given double of what we have received; that every one of our four
 Consulates has been a credit to the Government; that the English of
 our district have always been proud of their Consul and Consulate;
 that foreigners are always on most friendly terms with them, and the
 authorities intimately so. If this be so, will not what you call an
 'Amateur Consul' do quite as well as the other sort, whatever that may
 be? You are, however, my dear Vanity, mistaken on another point. The
 higher the post and the more important the duties, the greater is the
 ambition to discharge them nobly. How much more keenly would one feel
 as an Eastern diplomat, for instance, than settling a dispute between
 the cook and the mate of a merchant vessel, or signing passports? Your
 'Series' writer must have dipped his pen in vinegar and gall when he
 wrote about the 'much-prized posts.'

 "I am, my dear Vanity, yours obediently,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Hôtel Klinger, Maríenbad, Bohemia,

 "September 1st, 1882."

The Dowager Lady Galway and Count and Countess della Sala, also
General Francis, arrived at Trieste for the Exhibition, which was a
very great pleasure to us. The Emperor and Empress and the Prince and
Princess now announced their intention of doing good to the Exhibition
by coming to visit it; there was a grand reception prepared, bands of
music, the houses decorated, the ships dressed, flags and triumphal
arches, salutes of artillery, and shouts of "Eviva!" girls in white,
and flowers to strew, and at night illuminations. The first evening
there was a grand theatre night with the ballet "Excelsior," and the
applause when the Imperial party entered was deafening, and lasted
fully a quarter of an hour. Next day was the Exhibition. The Baron
Morpurgo had prepared a splendid _fête_ on board the _Berenice_. The
City was illuminated, so was the ship, and all the cream of Trieste was
present. Every moment the Emperor and Empress were expected, and we all
fell into our places in lines, through which they were to pass; several
times they were announced, and several times did we retire and sit down
again.

At last the Imperial boat actually arrived, and went several times
round the _Berenice_ and steamed away again. The disappointment and
mortification of the truly loyal givers of the _fête_ may easily be
imagined; but it was perhaps as well, if the stories current next
day had only a shadow of truth in them. It was commonly talked about
afterwards that, unknown to the givers of the _fête_, the vessel had
been observed to be much lower in the water than she ought to be,
through somebody having taken out some plug that ought to have been
in it, which caused a very gradual sinking. It was _suspected_ that
amongst the workmen one had been bought, just as in Nihilist cases, and
that the moment the Imperial party had set foot in the ship, that they,
and of course all of us, were to be blown into the air by a dynamite
clock, and the Chief of Police had begged--perhaps had had some
intimation that there was something uncanny somewhere--the Imperial
family not to sup on board. True or untrue, these were the stories on
the morrow. Anyway, none of the authorities dared go to bed, or hardly
breathe, as long as the Imperial family remained in the neighbourhood.
It appeared there were bombs across the railway, bombs in the
Exhibition, bombs in the boats, and bombs in the sausages; at least,
that was the state of feeling in Trieste during those three days, and
I should think the Imperial family must have been immensely glad when
they saw the last of the town, and got out of the Irredentista country.
The next day was the Arsenal inspection, a launch, and a boat serenade
at night to Miramar. On the 20th they went, arrived in safety, and
everybody breathed again.

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, _maître 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 mediæval sword, and
the third would have brought all the modern schools up to date, with
illustrations.

At this time Richard took it into his head to interfere with my
department--the maid-servants--and he sent away my cook and got one of
his own. He said to me (quite with a knowing nod of the head), "The _ne
plus ultra_ of Trieste;" so the first morning, when cooking our twelve
o'clock meal, she asked for a bottle of wine. I should have refused
it to my own cook, but I had to give it her, and when she drank that,
she had another. She then hit the kitchenmaid over the head with the
saucepan, and, being a very powerful woman, she threw the housemaid
into the _scaffa_ (sink). Hearing screams, I ran into the kitchen, and
then she went for me, but instead of throwing me out of the window, she
threw her arms round my neck and said I was an angel. "All the same,"
I said, "I think you must go, and I should like to settle up with you
at once." I went and asked Richard humbly if the "_ne plus ultra_"
was to be kept; and he said, "Certainly not--the brute!" and he came
and turned her out there and then, and sent her wages after her. So I
said very quietly and seriously, "Now, Jemmy, I have got to cook the
breakfast myself; won't you go out and find me another cook?" "No,"
said he, laughing; "I think I have had quite enough of that."

[Sidenote: _We lose an Old Vice-Consul_.]

In October we had a great loss in our dear old friend and Vice-Consul,
Mr. Brock, which Richard and I both felt very much. He had that mania
which all old Englishmen serving abroad get, that they must go and
die, and "leave their bones in dear old England," which they remember
as it _was_ thirty, forty, or fifty years ago; it is a madness they
always repent when it is too late, as they are never rich enough to
do what they invariably want, which is to put themselves back, and
reinstate themselves in the climate, in the life, which suited them
and the friends who _had_ surrounded them. I know my own husband would
have enjoyed enormously coming over here and settling down, being
independent in private life, but he would not have been able to stand
it more than a year without travels. I only can, because I am so near
him, and so near death, it is not worth while to change.

Mr. Brock and his family left on the 8th of October, and his place
was taken by Mr. P. P. Cautley. He and his wife have both been dead
for some time, leaving many daughters; but during the whole of his
remaining years he wrote constantly, "Give me news of Trieste. I only
care for my friends of Trieste; I am a stranger in my own land. One has
no business to return; one is an intrusion. One's place has long ago
been filled up; one's relations have forgotten one; one is no longer a
member of the family."

[Sidenote: _Lord Wolseley_.]

On the 24th arrived Lord Wolseley in the _Iris_, Admiral Seymour. We
received him and saw him to the station, collected the English, had a
little procession of bouquets and a few British cheers to see him off,
and then we got our friends of the _Iris_ to breakfast with us in the
Hungarian part of the Exhibition.

[Sidenote: _Richard is sent to find Palmer_.]

On the 27th 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 gunboat 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 Kántara 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 Hasábli. There was Salem el Sheikh ibn Salámeh
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 scouring 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 Arábi was going on, and Egypt was in great excitement 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.[1]

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 invaluable books. It was one of
the things that used to make us both boil with rage, and _now_ 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.

After having prepared Richard for his journey to Egypt and seeing
him off, I went up to Opçina with Blanche, drove over to Duino to
see the Princesses Hohenlöhe, and on to Gorizia (German Görz), where
we went into a Convent, I wishing to make what we Catholics call a
"spiritual retreat." It was November weather; our rooms were very
cold, and naturally poorly furnished, as becomes convent cells. There
was a church attached to the house, and Padre Bankich, a Dalmatian
Jesuit, was our director. My niece would give a very amusing, though
sad account of this expedition, but I do not think it has anything to
do with the story. When we came out of retreat we made a delightful
picnic-pilgrimage to the Monte Santo before alluded to. It is a most
charming expedition, and the view repays the climb. Before leaving
Gorizia I attended to our branch Society for Protection of Cruelty to
Animals, and had two little rooms built for the lassoed dogs. We then
returned to Opçina. There was a splendid comet at this time. On return
to Opçina we gave a dinner-party to our friends at Trieste, and we
(women) dressed like _mandriere_ (the peasants' costume on _fête_-days).

[Sidenote: _Trieste Life_.]

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 Opçina. This day we had
dreadful storms; the lightning fell in the town three times, and the
telegraphs could not work.

Oberdank, the bomb-thrower, was hanged on the 19th. He said if he was
pardoned he would kill the Emperor. He was more like a Nihilist than a
disciple of Orsini.

On the 31st of December we went to the last happy St. Silvester we
ever had, at Madame Gutmansthal's. We assembled at nine, and broke
up at 3.30. Richard was a gold-digger rowdy; I was Hagar, a gypsy
fortune-teller, and favourite of the Shah of Persia, exceedingly well
acted by Monsieur Thomas, the chief superintendent of the railway; my
niece Blanche was Miss Jex Blake; the Princess Wrede was a Neapolitan
peasant, and Admiral Buchtá a Neapolitan fisherman. The two Neapolitans
danced the tarantella most beautifully. We all had different
characters. I told fortunes, and they sang, danced, and recited most
perfectly. One lady (Madame Thomas) impersonated Sara Bernhardt, and
took her off to the life. Our hostess was a marquise of the _ancienne
régime_. We were thoroughly well amused. After this year, misfortunes
began to come upon us _all_, and we never had another like it.


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 (not
published). He makes a note of Gustave Doré's death on the 22nd of
January. Schapira writes a report that Palmer is still alive, but this
was a false report.

On the 28th he notices that Colonel Warren is made a K.C.M.G., and that
poor Mr. Zech, whom we visited last year, died on the 29th.

Colonel Rathborne wrote in 1883:--

 "21, Leamington Road Villas, Westbourne Park, W.,

 "December 4th, 1883.

 "MY DEAR BURTON,

 "Thanks for your kindly note, which came to hand this morning. Would
 that in reply I could give as good an account of my time as you give.
 What a constitution of brass--no, of iron--yours must be! I am so glad
 that you are writing your own biography.[2] What a tale of stirring
 adventure by sea and land you will have to narrate! I can quite fancy,
 however, that if you had the choice, you would add a little active
 work now and then to the _otium_ of endless scribbling. For the life
 of me, I cannot divine why your services have not been called into
 requisition during the late Egyptian imbroglios. As far as I know, we
 have not had a man in that country, save Rogers, conversant with the
 Arabic, and hardly one who can be accused of anything like a knowledge
 of Eastern peoples. I do not quite make out whether you are serious
 or not in the programme which you have drawn out for settling the
 Egyptian difficulty. In one point, at least, and that the principal
 point, viz. definite annexation, it coincides with what I wrote to our
 Jupiter Tonans."

He was very gouty all this month, but not laid up. He was able to
attend the school feast and _fête_ at Opçina, and was able to go to a
masquerade ball at Baroness Morpurgo's. He was "Cœur de Lion;" I was
"Berengaria," his wife; and Blanche was the goose-girl, out of the
Christmas number of the _Graphic_. There was a very witty _comédie_
performed by amateurs.

I now wrote a book called "The Sixth Sense," and was vain enough to
think it very clever; but I was afraid it would do harm, and I took the
courage to burn it.

We gave our usual Christmas-parties in January. He was also able to
take plenty of drives with me, but could not walk much. We passed
our lives between Trieste and Opçina, carrying our literature up and
down. One of his great amusements was a small donkey which used to run
into the terrace-garden, which overlooked the sea, where we used to
breakfast, and the donkey and the setter used to have games of romps
like two kittens playing, the donkey racing round the place, biting and
kicking, and the setter dodging him. They seemed to know exactly what
they were to do, and they came every day at the same hour to play.

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.

On the 24th of February we had a great shock in the death of poor
Reich, our fencing-master. He went out well dressed, with a cigar in
his mouth, very early, took a walk in the Via Riborgo, mounted some
steps, put a pistol to his head, and blew his brains out. Some people
ran, hearing the pistol; he was quite dead, but his cigar was still
alight. Suicide is the commonest thing in the world in Trieste; nobody
takes any account of it. The fact is that he had been getting into
bad health. An Italian fencing-master had set up in the town, and got
all his best Italian pupils away. I had not fenced at all the winter
1882-3, and Richard, of course, had been away so much and had had many
twinges of gout, and therefore it was a matter of great reproach to
us that we had not gone and paid him visits, and cheered him up, and
looked after him--so often a little friendship prevents a man from
going to this extremity. Richard felt it for a long time.

Reich was a Bohemian and an old trooper, and Richard said he was the
best broadswordsman he had ever seen. He has frequently told me to
stand steady, and he has made a _moulinet_ at me; you could hear the
sword swish in the air, and he has touched my face like a fly in the
doing of it. He did it frequently to show what he _could_ do, but he
used to say that he would not do it to any of his men pupils, for fear
they should flinch either one way or the other, which would of course
have cut their faces open; but he knew I should stand steady. I liked
that.

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 instead of twenty-four, the
number of those concerned, and why the Governor of El Arish was not
hanged too. We went on to Castelnuovo, 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 Wippach, to Heidenschaft, and Plani, and came back. We
spent our birthdays, 19th and 20th of March, in Opçina, and received a
telegram with twelve friends' names attached to it.

We now had a visit from Mr. Oswald, from the Foreign Office, and the
Mudies arrived--we showed them the lions of the place, and saw them
on board _en route_ to Corfu; also came Dr. Lewins, of the Army and
Navy Club and Jermyn Street, a _savant_ from Bombay, the same who is
bringing out Miss Näden's works.

On the 30th of January we gave a masked ball to a hundred and
fifty-eight people, which was a great success. It began at half-past
nine, and lasted till six. In a room close to the door were two
gentlemen of the party, who were appointed to "receive." Everybody who
arrived had to go into that room and unmask, in order to be sure that
we did not get any "riff-raff" in; they then masked again, and passed
in before any one else was admitted. The unmasking began at supper,
when the great surprise was to see who you got next to you. One big
Viennese lieutenant, six feet high, and big in proportion, came dressed
as a woman, and his airs and graces were lovely.

On the 19th of March Richard began to write on the Congo, and on this
day one of his friends died (Major Wemyss).

The remains of Palmer and his two companions, discovered by Sir Charles
Warren in the desert at Tih, were carefully collected and placed in
three coffins, painted black, with a white cross upon each; they were
received by the dockyard officials, March 30, and were removed to
London for interment at St. Paul's Cathedral. This is in his journal of
the 31st of March.

Colonel and Mrs. Montgomery were now appointed American Consul-General.
Very nice people, but they could not stand Trieste more than ten days;
left it, and settled in Switzerland.

Richard was very bad all April; but it was honest gout in the feet, and
he was quite healthy.

In his journal he much mourns the death of Abd-el-Kadir in Damascus, on
the 24th of April, at the age of seventy-six.

[Sidenote: _Count Mattei's Cure_.]

On the 1st of May he sent me to Bologna to be under the famous Count
Mattei for my complaint; the journey occupied eleven hours. I took my
niece Blanche. We found that he had gone to Riola, two hours' rail
from Bologna, so we went on there to a _pension Suisse_, called Hôtel
della Rosa. The train runs along the Reno river. The Hôtel Rosa holds
about twenty patients, and was kept by Monsieur and Madame Schmidt;
she was his right-hand agent, was initiated in all his business, and
superintended all his patients. Now she works on her own account in
London and other capitals. It is a lovely mountain place, this castle
perched on a high crag about half an hour's scramble above the
pension. Count Mattei has restored the castle, I think, of Savignano.
There was nothing left but a little tower on the raw rock, and he has
constructed the most solid, handsome, fantastic, eccentric castle
possible to conceive, of stone and marble, regardless of expense, for
he is the Monte-Cristo of the country.

[Sidenote: _Count Mattei_.]

Having dropped my bag and secured a room at the pension, I climbed
up there. First I had to conciliate a very doubtful-looking mastiff;
then appeared a tall, robust, well-made, soldier-like looking form in
English costume of blue serge, brigand felt hat, with a long pipe,
who looked about fifty, and not at all like a doctor. He received me
very kindly, and took me up flights of stairs, through courts, into a
wainscoted oak room, with fruits and sweets on the table, with barred
iron gates and drawbridges and chains in different parts of the room,
that looked as if he could pull one up and pop one down into a hole.
He talked French and Italian, but I soon perceived that he liked
Italian best, and stuck to it; and I also noticed that, by his mouth
and eyes, instead of fifty, he must be about seventy-five. A sumptuous
dinner-table was laid out in an adjoining room, with fruit and flowers.
I told him I could not be content, having come so far to see him,
to have only a passing quarter of an hour. He listened to my long
complaints about my health most patiently, asked me every question,
but he did not ask to examine me, nor look at my tongue, nor feel my
pulse, as other doctors do, but said that I did not look like a person
with the complaint mentioned, but as if circulation and nerves were
out of order. He prescribed four internal and four external remedies,
and baths. I wrote down all his suggestions, and rehearsed it, that he
might correct any mistakes; and then asked him of his remedies for gout.

After an hour I was dismissed and went down to the pension, where
everything was clean; the air was beautiful, the supper delicious,
though simple. They were going to build a larger pension. I never heard
nightingales sing more beautifully. Mattei had a nephew and niece
living with him, the governess, and six servants. His life passes in
building and improving this château, and his medicinal studies. He is
awfully good to the poor, and gives them advice, medicine gratis, and
money. After dinner I had a long talk with Mrs. Schmidt, who carries
out his directions, with great knowledge and tact. She enlightened me a
great deal about my health and his remedies, and gave me a hint not to
mention fees, or he would never speak to me again; and so, of course, I
was careful not to look at my hotel or medicine bill, except the total.

The next morning I got up at five, and, with a strong horse and little
cart, Blanche and I went up an awful breakneck road to a crag as high
again as Mattei's castle, where was a solitary little country chapel.
We asked to have Mass and Communion, as it was the first Friday in the
month. A priest like an old family picture came out and said Mass and
gave us Communion, and we scrambled down again by half-past nine for
coffee at the pension. I then set off to have a second consultation
with Mattei. This time the dog sat at my feet. And then he called his
governess to show me over the castle. (Doré with a bad nightmare would
be nothing to it.) It was grand, bold, splendid, and reckless; but the
beds were marble--æsthetic biers--with classic garlands of flowers in
marble vases on marble tables; the furniture a marble bench. Think of
it in winter. There were drawbridges with bolts everywhere--the bedroom
doors drawn up at night, showing black bottomless pits in the rock,
into which a would-be assassin would fall. The look-out was splendid,
wild and eerie. When I saw the mad allegories on the wall in fresco, I
said, "Is it right to take medicine from such a lunatic? And yet he has
cured hundreds and thousands, so I suppose I may."

Then I found that I was not to wait here, because all their beds
were full at the pension, but I was to buy a month's medicines, to
go to some quiet mountain place and rest, and perform my cure, and
correspond with him. I was to eat and drink well, and do everything
I always did; so my bourne will be Krapina-Teplitz in the Carniola,
where Richard would also go for his gout-baths; a cheap, wild, quiet,
mountain retreat. I found, however, just before going away from Mrs.
Schmidt, that whereas he had told me to put one hundred globules of one
medicine into my bath, that I must only put fifty, as he was very fond
of beginning at the highest and letting you down, instead of beginning
at the lowest, and bringing you up to what you can stand. I also found
out that loads of people were frequently in agonies of pain, and had to
remain so till they telegraphed for Madame Schmidt, who came with the
antidote; and I did not like that prospect. I believe she has done away
with all these risks now by her new improvements in treatment; but she
was not a free agent then as she is now, and I should think must have a
very great success.

These scraps of information will interest many people. I then came back
to Venice, where I found dear Lady Marian Alford, which made me stop
three days, and then I went on to Trieste.

After I got back Richard and I were dining, and I began my cure, "six
globules dry on the tongue with the first spoonful of soup." Almost
as soon as I had swallowed it, I began to feel very odd, as if I had a
sort of private earthquake going on in me, and got frightened. Richard
said, "Why, it can't be those miserable little globules. I would
swallow the whole bottle." "Don't do that," I said, "but take what I
have taken--six dry on the tongue with a spoonful of soup." In a few
minutes he was deadly pale, and began to stagger about as I did. He
said, "No more of that. These are things that ought to be done _under
the eye of the Count himself, or Mrs. Schmidt,_ and so neither you nor
I will do that cure." I do not want to choke anybody off from doing the
cure, because I think it would be a great success under Mrs. Schmidt's
personal directions.

The Karso air was now charming, so that we went up there for awhile,
and went over again to Duino and Monfalcone. But first we went during
this month to see the whole of the Niebelungen, first the Rheingold,
the Walküre, Siegfried, the Götterdämerung, beautifully performed at
Trieste.

[Sidenote: _We get the House we wanted_.]

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.

Just as Richard went off, an Arundell nephew of mine arrived in bad
health. He was doing what a great many people do--embark at Liverpool
on a Cunard, and do the round with the ship. You pay £40, you have two
months' cruise, seeing the whole of the Mediterranean out and back,
Trieste being the furthest port. The ship remained there a week.

Krapina-Teplitz did Richard no good--the waters were too strong--and
he came back on the 11th 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 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 Arundell's old ship. Our ball
on the same plan as last year, but--once bit, twice shy--at the Jäger.

It is a palatial sort of residence, on the summit of a glorious
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 _fête_ for the animals, and at
night the opera. The Captains of the ships gave a dinner to Richard and
me at Opçina.

Then came the Emperor's dinner at Miramar, a dance on board the
_Inflexible_. We had a splendid ball on board the _Teméraire_ (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 Jäger instead of Opçina,
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 I 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 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 unfortunately, however,
would have no bedroom, except the biggest room in the house--so large
that he could divide it into four parts, sleeping 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.

[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE BURTON DIED.]

[Sidenote: _Scorpions_.]

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 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.

[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE BURTONS' DRAWING-ROOM AT TRIESTE. _From
a Photograph by Dr. Baker_.]

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.

[Sidenote: _"Gup"_.]

He notices Sir William Williams of Kars died on the 26th of July, aged
eighty-three, and the great earthquake at Casamicciola, in the island
of Ischia, took place on the 28th. Poor Haji Wali died on the 3rd of
August, at the age of eighty-four. He was Richard's companion in the
days of Midian.

On the 12th of August arrived our new Consular Chaplain (the Rev. Mr.
Thorndike), a charming, gentlemanly, and devout man, who had been in
the army.

Richard's friend, Mr. George Paget, now arrived--he had bought a house
at Scutari.

On the Emperor's birthday, 18th of August, there were two rows in the
town between Austrians and Italians.

On Friday, the 24th, the Comte de Chambord (Henri V.) died. No need to
comment upon such a misfortune.

Further on in August there was an Italian regatta, and we had a
delightful dinner on the P. and O. _Lombardy_, the Lascar crew rowing
us to San Bartolo to supper and back. We then had a visit from Mr.
Lavino, correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_, whom we had met so
often in Vienna, and Mr. Oswald from the Foreign Office.

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.

At this time poor "Zæo" was performing in the theatre, and taking her
nightly leaps of seventy-five feet. One night she missed and fell. Miss
Bishop and I used to visit her daily and try to do what we could for
her.

To our great regret, our niece, Blanche Pigott, had to leave us on the
2nd of October, 1883, having been with us for about eighteen months;
but she was required at home, and so we lost our whilom daughter. I was
very glad at having Miss Bishop with me; not only a devoted friend, but
so knowing about sickness. After seeing our niece off, Richard walked
home, and when Miss Bishop and I had finished various commissions we
arrived home, and found him with his first serious attack of gout.

[1] It is in the Appendices (H).

[2] The biography alluded to, never made any further way than what I
now make public.--I. B.




CHAPTER X.

MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS OF CHARACTER AND OPINIONS.


I am afraid all this "gup," as Richard would call it, will be
considered 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 afterwards. 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 wants _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.[1]

 "_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
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 "leave." 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 been thrown in our teeth by successful
people who ought to have had better taste.

[Sidenote: _Miscellaneous Traits of Character and Opinions_.]

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 conversation, 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 particularly 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, "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 committing 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 conventionality
of the usual British home circle, which frightens so many men from
entering into matrimony, and which forms the antidote to the cosiness,
companionship, and security of home, to two 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 what 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 own, 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 conventions 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 affection 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 occasionally
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
to "nag" a man, because, if he is a gentleman, he is at an utter
disadvantage--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 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 him 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 himself 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 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 not 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:--

 "1. 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 cafés 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. Unfortunately,
 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 kindness, 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
 his own state he describes, and not the woman he runs down, who has
 snubbed him and knows 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 considered 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 manqué_, 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 _séance_.

    "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?"

"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?"

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 myself 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.

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 immensely 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 _entrées_, 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 _fejão_ and _farinha_, 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 _kabábs_; 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 _bácalá_ (dried codfish) and
_sauerkraut_, but they have both such a horrid smell that I bargained
to have them on Saturday, the day _after_ my 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, "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 longer 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 elsewhere--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 _déjeuner_ (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 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 such_--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 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 £18 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:--

    "Sháwir hunna             wa Khálif           hunna."
    "Consult them (_fem._)    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 Hindú _smáshán_, or burning-ground, it reminds him so
painfully of the unpleasant smell of roast Hindú" (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 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 complained 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."


 DESCRIPTION OF RICHARD IN EGYPT.

 Cutting from the _Argonaut_.


 [Sidenote: _Descriptions from Other Sources_.]

 Edwin de Leon, for many years Consul-General of the United States in
 Egypt, thus writes of the late Sir Richard Burton:--

 "Richard Burton was self-reliant, self-sustained, seeking no support
 from heaven or earth, substituting self-will for faith and strenuous
 effort for Divine assistance; endowed by nature with a frame of
 iron and muscles of steel, he was an athlete who might have figured
 in the arena in Greek or Roman times. Audacious in speech and act,
 and fond of shocking the prejudices of those with whom he talked,
 he was the expounder of the most outrageous paradoxes possible to
 conceive. He was eminently a social animal; loved the pleasures of
 the table, and would talk with a friend all night in preference to
 going to bed, and in the Chaucerian style. Yet, with women, I never
 knew him even hint an indelicacy; for the charm of his conversation
 was to them very great, he had so much to tell. In his earlier days
 he was a strikingly handsome man, and even since his face had been
 scarred and furrowed by wounds and trials, there yet lingered on that
 expressive countenance the 'faded splendour wan' which had survived
 his youth. Among his personal habits was that of carrying in his hand
 an iron walking-stick, as heavy as a gun, to keep his muscles properly
 exercised, and a blow from his fist was like a kick from a horse. Mind
 and muscle with him were equally strong propellers, and the animal
 nature as vigorous as the intellectual. He had the faculty of making
 staunch friends and bitter enemies, and many of each. Burton had a
 curious characteristic which he shared with Lord Byron--that of loving
 to paint himself much blacker than he really was, and to affect vices,
 much as most men affect virtues, and with the same insincerity. In one
 of his shipwreck stories, after describing how they all suffered from
 the pangs of hunger, and the wolfish glances they began to cast on
 each other from time to time as the days wore on and no relief came,
 dropping his voice to a mysterious whisper, almost under his breath he
 added, 'The cabin-boy was young and fat, and looked very tender, and
 on him, more than on any other, such looks were cast, until----' Here
 he paused, looked around at the strained and startled faces of his
 auditors, in which horror was depicted, and then abruptly concluded,
 as though dismissing a disagreeable memory, 'But these are not stories
 to be told at a cheerful dinner-party, in a Christian country, and
 I had best say no more. Let us turn to some more cheerful subject.'
 Of course he was pressed to continue and complete his story, but
 stubbornly refused; leaving his hearers in a most unsatisfactory state
 of mind as to the _dénouement_ of the unfinished narrative."


 DESCRIPTION OF RICHARD IN HIS STUDY AT TRIESTE.

 Cutting from _Life_.


 "Though standing nearly six feet high, he did not look a tall man, his
 broad shoulders, deep chest, and splendidly developed limbs deceiving
 the eye as to his real height. His hands and feet were small. His
 hair was of the deepest black, and was always worn close-cropped. In
 the East he went with his head clean shaven, covered with a fez and
 a white cap underneath it. As a talker he was unrivalled. His voice
 was soft and musical, contrasting strangely with the commanding tones
 which one would fancy necessary for him whose life so often depended
 on the power of his tongue over uncivilized men. His laugh was like
 the rattle of a pebble thrown across a frozen pond. While the best of
 ordinary men never aspire to know more than something of everything,
 and everything of something, he might almost without exaggeration be
 said to know everything of everything. He was an especial favourite of
 young men, who would literally sit at his feet as he talked. To all
 he was the kindest and truest of friends, and the brightest and most
 uncomplaining of companions in spite of his many disappointments.

 "His literary work was always a labour of love with him, and those in
 the next room would often hear a hearty laugh burst from him as he
 lighted on the quaint conceit of some Oriental chronicler."

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; "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 complained 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 extremely 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.

[1] 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.




CHAPTER XI.

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 Opçina, 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.

[Sidenote: _Richard's First Bad Attack of Gout_.]

On the 31st of November Richard really got so bad he alarmed me, for he
nearly fainted, and I got the master of the Opçina 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 the _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 peritonitis 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!!!"

He notices the death of Richard Doyle the 11th 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 alternately 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 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 sall 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.

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, without 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 perceive 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" (Calcutta
edition), taking it up from the material already collected with
Dr. Steinhaüser 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 Trübner, 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.

[Illustration: RICHARD BURTON IN HIS BEDROOM AT TRIESTE. _Here he began
his "Arabian Nights," 1st April, 1884. In this room he died on 30th
October, 1890. By Albert Letchford._]

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.

[Sidenote: _His Leave of Absence_.]

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 Hôtel Daniele was only just across the road, and leaning
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 Maríenbad,
although I must say that the only two objects of interest between
Vienna and Maríenbad are Prince Schwarzenberg's castle and the storks
sitting on their nests on the cottage roof-tops. We went to Klinger's
Hotel, and here he rapidly progressed, 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 strawberries, myosotis, buttercups, and daisies, and
enjoyed Maríenbad 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
Königswort, 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. There was a very pretty concert of eight
Spanish students, paying their way with guitar and bandurria. They sang
lovely little Spanish songs, and charmed everybody very much. 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. In our absence two griefs happened at Trieste. One was the
death, on the 8th of June, of a very peculiar little child, whom we
had taken a great fancy to and a great interest in, but whose story
would not come well into this book. She had foretold her own death on
this day three months before, when in good health. The other was of a
poor Irish lady, who had made an unfortunate marriage, and was bravely
earning her living in Trieste by giving lessons. She got suddenly
ill, and the doctor on visiting her, seeing that she had no means of
comfortable nursing, advised she should accompany him to the hospital.
She did, and she died almost immediately, and had to be buried within a
few hours, and what hurt us more than all was that nobody knew it till
it was over. Maríenbad never agreed with me, and I had to let Richard
and Mr. Aubertin go over to Carlsbad without me, but they were only
absent a day.

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
Pöltschach, 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 constantly 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.

[Sidenote: _We return to Trieste--Streams of Visitors_.]

On the 3rd of September we left Sauerbrunn for Trieste, and went
on the 4th to meet Lord Northbrook, with Sir Evelyn Baring, Lord
Wolseley, Major Wardropp and Major Macdonald, Lord Airlie, Lord Charles
Beresford, Colonel Swaine, and others. The _Iris_ came in to fetch
them. Mr. George Paget, Mr. Egerton, and Major Hoare also arrived, and
lastly the Marchese and Marchesa di Guiccioli, best known to us through
Byron, though that is not a source of pride to the family. Mr. and Mrs.
Percival, Professor Sayce, and Mr. Myers, _en route_ to Egypt, were the
next visitors, and we enjoyed their week's stay very much. Arrived also
Dr. MacDouall the author, Lady Baring, Artin Yakoob Pasha and his wife,
Madame Nubar Pasha, and Mr. Rowett, a great merchant from Rangoon,
married to a friend of ours, Miss Ritterbandt; then came Colonel Wynne,
Lady Fitzgerald, Mr. Quirk, Mrs. Reginald Talbot, Miss Wortley, and the
travellers, Mr. James and Mr. Lort-Philips, _en route_ to Somali-land.
So we had a lively time.

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 _attaché_ 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.

Being the Consul's wife, I had a good many funny experiences, and met
with all possible classes and characters. One of the annoyances of a
Consul, and, if they are women, of his wife, is that everybody who is
not strictly honest, and is fond of making delightful journeys abroad,
of which he or she boast loudly when they go back, starts with just
enough money to take them out of England. They then go to the first
Consul, represent themselves in distress, and get him to pass them
on to the next Consul; and they make quite a beautiful tour in this
way. But the poor Consul hardly ever sees a penny of the money back,
and after a little experience he begins to be harder, and small blame
to him. My particular grievance was, that every girl who was too
vivacious to stay at home, would always come abroad to look for work,
as a governess, secretary, or companion. Some were regular swindlers,
some were anything but nice, and some were poor inoffensive creatures
who would not have embarked on the enterprise if they had known what
they would have to go through; but seven out of nine were generally
very odd.

After having seen all our friends off, we went up to Opçina, where I
sent out thirty-four thousand circulars for the "Arabian Nights."

[Sidenote: _Richard's Second Attack of Gout_.]

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. It was a sad Christmas, but he got better the day after Christmas
Day; only, as he would walk about without much clothing, and would
eat sucking pig, he went back to bed ill; so then we tried Mattei's
remedies, and his electricity. On the 15th of December we lost a great
friend in the Duchess of Somerset.

On St. Silvester night we were not able to keep our usual engagement.
We had one glass of champagne together in his room, and the servants
went through a very usual ceremony in Trieste of forming procession,
and chevying the evil spirits with sticks and brooms out of the house
down the stairs, and out of the street door, and inviting the good
spirits and good luck to come and dwell with us.

Richard notices poor Sir Charles Sebright's death, aged seventy-seven,
on the 10th of October.

One of Richard's great delights was the setter at Opçina (so often
mentioned), named Fazán. He was so fond of us that on Saturday, as he
was perfectly sure we should arrive about four, about two o'clock he
would go to the wood stack, draw a great block of wood out with his
teeth, and carry it to Daneu, the master of the inn, and, wagging his
tail, would run and put it down before the stove, as much as to say,
"Light the fire; they will be cold when they come up;" then he would
fetch another bit, and come and sit before the gate at about half-past
three to wait for our arrival, and he never left us, night or day,
as long as he was there. During Richard's gout attacks it frequently
occurs in his journals, "I feel too well to-day to be altogether
right;" and next day, surely, he would have some attack of gout. It was
so difficult for him to understand that he could not do what he did
when he was twenty-five, and to get him to train down to what he could
do, not what he _used_ to do.

We now tried a new thing that seemed very good, and that is fusel oil,
which is of the dregs of whisky; it is deadly poison to drink, but it
acts splendidly on gouty limbs; and then we tried sulphur foot-baths.


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 accident, 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."

On the 17th of January he mourns Colonel Burnaby's death.

He was delighted in February with reading a German author, who began
his book thus: "Der Geruch der rosen verpestet die Lüft und die
verdammten Nachtigallen heulen die ganze Nacht."

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 13th_; it is our unlucky day, and we have got to be very careful."

[Sidenote: _Gordon's Death_.]

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 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
rediscovered, nor reappear in England--and Gordon was quite the man to
do it.

I quote this prematurely, because it concerns the present subject:--


 "IS GORDON DEAD?


 "Trieste, April 29, 1887.

 "I have just received a note from the Rev. Mr. Robert W. Felkin, dated
 Edinburgh, April 2nd. Under the supposition that I am proceeding with
 an expedition to the Soudan in order to discover General Charles
 Gordon, he encloses me a note from a youth whom he educated in England
 for some years, and whom he has now placed at the American Mission
 School at Assiout. It dates from as far back as November 28, 1886.

 "The following is the extract:--

 "'There was a man came from Khartoum and said that he was one of
 General Gordon's soldiers; he came into class (school) and the master
 asked him many questions, and he said that General Gordon had a
 steamboat and went down to South, and there was a Turkish soldier
 whose face was like his, and they killed him and said it was General
 Gordon.

 "'He said a great many things about Gordon's soldiers, that they were
 not able to use their guns because they were so weakened with hunger.

 "'(Signed) SULAYMAN KABSUN.'

 "I see with pleasure that Mr. Felkin never thought that the evidence
 proved Gordon's death, and conceives many ways to explain his escape.

 "RICHARD F. BURTON."


 London _Figaro_, September 26th, 1887.


 "I am not surprised," says a correspondent, "to hear that Sir Richard
 Burton has from the first maintained that Gordon is not dead. He was
 Gordon's intimate friend, and, being of the same stamp, having lived
 the same kind of glorious life, and had the same experience of his
 country's neglect, is more likely to know than others what Gordon, in
 disgust at the treatment he received from the Government, could and
 might do. Moreover, as Sir Richard Burton says, no two of the several
 accounts of Gordon's death are alike. He is sure to have had a picked
 lot of attached followers, who, as well as one steamer, are missing."

 A correspondent wrote: "A friend called in the other day to see Sir
 Richard Burton, and remarked, 'Why, Burton, if Gordon turns up, the
 Government will begin to believe in your knowledge. You will be a
 made man.' Burton replied with his usual quiet 'Ye--es,' stroking his
 chin thoughtfully; 'for God's sake, my dear fellow, don't say anything
 about it. The Foreign Office will only say what a damned beast I was
 to know it when _they_ never even suspected 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.

On the 14th of April he notices the death of his enemy, Major-General
Rigby of Zanzibar, and then poor Rogers Bey, regretted by us both, and
then of Nachtigall the traveller.

[Sidenote: _Colonel Primrose's Death_.]

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!" On the 11th of May he mourns Douglas Jerrold,
and was touched at the account of Mr. Fred Fargus's death, better known
as Hugh Conway.

This summer the English opened a lawn-tennis club, which was very
amusing. Our Consular chaplain played lawn tennis like a boy of twenty.

[Sidenote: _Leave to England_.]

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; but when I got back to
the hotel, I found a telegram from a man I knew, one of what Richard
used laughingly to call "my wife's pious pals," who said, "If you want
to see a girl exorcised of the devil, come at once to Bologna." I went
down to the station, only instead of taking my ticket for London, I,
naturally, wild with curiosity, and knowing I had plenty of time, took
it at once for Bologna.

I stayed there three days. I do not think I am quite at liberty to
give an account of what I saw, in these criticizing times, but it was
wonderfully interesting, and I had a thorough insight into mediæval
Italy, which I renew whenever I get the chance, as it is more than
interesting. After three days I went on thence to Milan to see the
Certosa of Pavia, one of the most glorious architectural relics in
Europe, and from there I went to Pusiano, a now hidden "sanctuary" that
will one day become famous to all the world. Pusiano is a village of
one street, on the borders of a beautiful little lake, with villages
and churches on the opposite bank; it is situated in the Lake Country,
and there one lives with the peasantry in primitive style. I stayed
there three whole days; it is beautiful in summer, but a terrible snow
desolation in winter. It is quite off the railway line, and one gets to
it in a little country cart. When I got back to Milan I embarked for
home by the St. Gothard, Bâle, to Paris. Paris was black with people in
mourning for Victor Hugo. It was his funeral next day; soldiers lined
the streets, artillery commanded the two ends of the streets to fire
on the people if the red flag was raised. I had much difficulty in
getting to the station, for besides being in a hurry to get home, I did
not want to be shut up in Paris alone, if anything occurred. Arrived
at Boulogne, the passenger-boat was gone, so I took the cargo-boat
at one in the night, and arrived at 4.30 a.m. at Folkestone, where
the custom-house kept me till about six, searching for dynamite in my
baggage, and I arrived in town on the 2nd of June. Somehow I put my
arm out, and had to go back to Hutton the bone-setter. Richard did not
arrive till twelve days after me.

He was delighted when he got on board the _Tarifa_ on the 19th. He
then notices the death of Victor Hugo in Paris on May 23rd. He seemed
to enjoy the journey thoroughly, and to have got quite rid of the gout
the moment he left. He was always thoroughly happy on board a ship,
and so sorry when the voyage was over. He never knew what sea-sickness
was. He could eat enough for three on board, and when the ship was
rolling right round in the water, he would balance himself, holding the
ink-bottle in one hand, and writing with the other.

He used to go away by himself and make pilgrimages; I know of about
ten he made to various places. Once, in 1875, he left town to go into
the country for a week, and to my surprise I received a private letter
from him from Paray le Monial, the place once so talked about in
the papers as a pilgrimage-place of St. Mary Margaret Alacoque and
the Sacred Heart.[1] He had gone there to make a pilgrimage all by
himself, and brought me back some medals and rosaries. He used to go
into every church. He made a pilgrimage on this voyage to St. Nicholas
of Bari, and brought me a lot of curios. The ship's course went by way
of Venice, Fiume, Bari, Naples, Palermo, and Malaga, where they found
cholera, and then to Gib. and Lisbon. He arrived in high spirits on the
14th of June.

Here I may remark that he kept two sets of journals. The public
set contained remarks on the weather, scraps out of newspapers,
and "Varia" (notes of what he reads), the people he writes to, the
people he receives letters from, and public news. In the private
set, come notices on his and my health at one side, what he and I
did, obituaries, his sentiments about things in concentrated notes,
condemnations of things, and scraps of poetry on the circumstances here
and there.

I must here notice making at this time acquaintance with three very
interesting people. One was a gentleman who would not like to be
named, the leader of a religious sect, who conceals his name under
the _soubriquet_ of the "Recorder," and who is the St. Paul of their
belief in a second advent--he publishes a book called "The Mother, or
the Woman clothed with the Sun;" and another was Dr. Anna Kingsford,
who became my fast friend, and who used to let me work with her in
regard to the protection of animals. She was tall, fair, delicate,
soft, refined, exceedingly pretty, beautifully dressed, of the highest
possible culture, combining the education and courage of both man and
woman. I made her acquaintance at an Anti-vivisection meeting, with
Lord Shaftesbury in the chair, and the Bishop of Oxford present, a very
little while before Lord Shaftesbury's death. The third interesting
person was Mr. George Lewis.

[Sidenote: _Arabian Nights_.]

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 hundred
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 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 Æolian 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 understand the Arabs, and if
the '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 _mechanique_. 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 Supplemental volumes. At first
I rather objected to his risking the "Arabian Nights," from a passage
written by himself in his "First Footsteps in East Africa," page 36--

 "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
 in 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 language is so wonderful, the expression so
graceful, the rendering of thought as well as words so accurate, the
poetry so fresh and charming. 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 conversation
in Arabic, but to read the popular books and newspapers, and to write
letters to his friends; he will also possess a _répertoire_ of Arab
manners and customs, beliefs and practices, which are not 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.

I do not know whether to be amused or provoked because people are
prejudiced against "Lady Burton's edition of the 'Arabian Nights,'"
as a milk-and-water thing. I did not write nor translate it; it is
_Richard Burton's_ "Arabian Nights," with a coarse word or two cut
out here and there, and a Society word introduced, but in nowise
altering the text (when I say a Society word, I mean of course an Arab
Society word, not an English one); and my name was only put upon it to
copyright and protect my husband's from piracy.

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.


    _Athenæum_, 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."


 _Morning Advertiser_, September 15th, 1885.

 "As the holiday season draws to a close, the publishers' announcements
 of 'new books' fill column after column of the organs chosen from
 these special _communiqués_. But there is one work which is not
 entered in these lists, though for years scholars, and many people
 who are not scholars, have been looking for it with an eagerness
 which has left far behind the ordinary curiosity which is bestowed
 on the greatest of contributions to current literature. And to-day
 the chosen few who are in possession of the volume in question are
 examining it with an interest proportionate to the long toil which
 has been bestowed on its preparation. We refer to Captain Burton's
 translation of the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' now entitled
 'The Book of the thousand Nights and a Night,' of which the first
 tome has just been issued. There will be ten in all, so that it must
 be well on for two years before the entire series can be in the hands
 of those who have subscribed for it. For the book is not published.
 It is even questionable whether a copy will be in the British Museum
 or the Bodleian, unless those institutions have entered their names
 in advance. It is printed 'by the Kamashastra Society of Benares for
 private subscribers only,' and Captain Burton, in a circular sent with
 the first volume, earnestly begs that it will not be permitted to fall
 into the hands of any save scholars and students of Moslem manners.
 For years and years the 'Arabian Nights' have been a sort of nursery
 companion. But it is, perhaps, unnecessary to tell any one acquainted
 in the slightest degree with Oriental romances that the 'Alf Laylah
 wa Laylah' in its unabridged form is, despite the popularity which it
 enjoys as a 'child's book,' emphatically not for the entertainment
 of boys and girls. Hitherto, however, all of the editions have been
 imperfect and more or less colourless versions of the original. They
 have been prepared for the drawing-room, and even Mr. Payne inserted
 a Latin word here and there rather than search Captain Grose's
 'Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' for its equivalent. Captain Burton
 scorns any such namby-pambyism. In the Arabic a spade is usually
 called a spade, and in the latest English translation it is never
 designated an agricultural implement. Moreover, the endless footnotes
 which the editor appends, speak with much freedom of many things
 usually avoided as themes for conversation in polite society, though
 they throw a flood of light on hundreds of features of Oriental life
 on which, since travellers have been compelled to write for 'refined'
 audiences, the student has failed to be informed.

 "Yet, admitting that the 'Nights' are often coarse and indelicate,
 and sometimes even gross, it is a mistake to suppose that they are
 demoralizing in the same way that a French novel of the Zola type
 is, or might be. Indeed, what we would call its impropriety is only
 a reflection of the _naïve_ freedom with which talk is to this day
 carried on in the family circles of the East. They see no harm in what
 we should regard as indecency. So that when Captain Burton prefaces
 his unbowdlerized version with the Arab proverb, 'To the pure in
 heart all things are pure,' he presents perhaps the best defence he
 could against the attack which it is quite possible may be made on
 him for devoting many years of his life to what he terms 'a labour of
 love.' One hundred and eighty years have passed since Galland, the
 French Orientalist, published his version in twelve small volumes.
 But though even at that time it was not thought proper to issue a
 verbatim edition--so far as the accessible manuscripts permitted--the
 best scholars of the age did not hesitate to pronounce them forgeries.
 In brief, they were regarded in much the same light that Macpherson's
 'translations' of 'Ossian's Poems' were at a later date. But the less
 critical world cared very little whether Antony Galland had invented
 them or merely translated them from some 'unknown Arab writer.' They
 eagerly read these wondrous stories. Europe was on fire with delight
 at anything so unconventional, so entirely undidactic, so completely
 without any religious, moral, or philosophical purpose, and which
 delineated the primitive manners and customs of the East. The fine
 gentlemen and gay ladies could talk about nothing else than 'jins'
 or genii, as they were called after the French fashion, viziers--or
 'Wazirs,' as Captain Burton has it--caves of jewels, underground
 palaces, enchanters and kalendars, princes of black islands, and kings
 in disguise. The terrible justice of the Kazi, or Cadai, as he used
 to be called, and the equally fearful vengeance of the husband who
 is at last undeceived, were revelations to the easy-going, utterly
 corrupt Europe of the _ancien régime_. Edition after edition appeared,
 though in nearly every case these so-called fresh versions were little
 more than translations, more or less abridged, from Galland. Of
 late, however, several more or less complete editions have appeared.
 Among them may be mentioned those of Torrens, Lane, Payne. Torrens
 was, however, a poor Arabic scholar, and though Lane was a better
 one--if not quite so good as he afterwards became--he was, like his
 predecessors, in terror of offending propriety. Hence, though some
 simple folk supposed that his language was sufficiently plain, it only
 required the consultation of the Breslau, the Bulak, or the Calcutta
 edition of the original to be convinced to the contrary. Mr. Payne
 brought out a nine-volumed translation for the Villon Society. But it
 was printed solely for private subscribers, and though issued at seven
 guineas cannot now be procured under twenty-five or thirty when a copy
 accidentally comes into the market. Payne was, however, not much more
 than an amateur Arabist, and his practical acquaintance with Arabs and
 the East was simply _nil_. Captain Burton, it is unnecessary to remind
 any one, is in a very different case. Thirty-three years ago he went
 in the disguise of an Indian pilgrim to Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no
 one capable of giving the world the result of his experience has so
 minute, so exhaustive a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life generally.
 Hence the work now begun only a limited number of students can ever
 see, and it is simply priceless to any one who concerns himself as
 marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation.

 "But what may possibly interest many almost as much as the stories
 and notes, is the almost sad preface in which the Editor tells the
 tale of his toils. In 1852 he began this translation at Aden. His
 friend Dr. Steinhaüser, to whose memory it is dedicated, was to
 undertake the prose, while Burton accepted the metrical portion of
 the book as his share of the task. But Steinhaüser died, 'and after
 the fashion of Anglo-Indians his valuable manuscripts left at Aden
 were dispersed,' and very little of his labour reached his colleague.
 But fitfully the work progressed amid a host of obstructions. In
 deadly Consulships in West Africa and Brazil, in livelier ones in
 Damascus and Trieste, the business went on, just as it had gone on
 less systematically in Somali-land and Central Africa. And, toilsome
 though the task unquestionably was, it was lightened by the pleasant
 memories it recalled. Many a time and oft, after the day's journey
 was over, he had gathered the Arabs around him, and read or recited
 these tales to them, until the tears trickled down their cheeks, and
 they rolled on the sand in uncontrollable delight. 'Nor was it only in
 Arabia that the immortal "Nights" did me such notable service. I found
 the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to their discipline;
 no one was deaf to the charm, and the two women cooks of my caravan
 on its way to Harar were incontinently dubbed by my men "Shehrazade"
 and "Deenarzade."' Yet as his labour approached the period when it
 ought to appear in print, prudent friends hinted at the danger he
 ran of injuring his professional advancement. 'Literary labours,
 unpopular with the vulgar and half-educated, are not likely to help
 a man up the ladder of promotion. But common sense suggested to me
 that, professionally speaking, I was not a success, and at the same
 time that I had no cause to be ashamed of my failure. Philister can
 pardon anything but superiority. The prizes of competitive service
 are monopolized by certain "pets" of the _médiocratie_ and prime
 favourites of that jealous and potent majority, the mediocrities,
 who know "no nonsense about merit." It is hard for an outsider to
 realize how perfect is the monopoly of commonplace, and to comprehend
 how fatal a stumbling-stone that man sets in the way of his own
 advancement who dares to think for himself, or who knows more or
 does more than the mob of gentlemen-employés who know very little,
 and who do even less.' This is bitter, but not more severe than the
 way Captain Burton has been treated by his Country, if not by his
 Countrymen, deserves. It is simply disgraceful that a man of his
 great achievements and colossal learning should have been neglected
 by successive Governments when pretenders and 'mediocrities' were
 being honoured and rewarded for doing little or nothing. After the
 death of Major Morrice--such has been our encouragement of Arabic
 knowledge--there was not an English official in the Suakin camp
 capable of speaking Arabic. Not one understood native customs.
 'Moslems,' writes Burton, 'are not to be ruled by raw youths who
 should be at school and college instead of holding positions of
 trust and emolument. He who would deal with them successfully must
 be, firstly, honest and truthful, and, secondly, familiar with and
 favourably inclined to their manners and customs, if not to their law
 and religion.' In 'Alf Laylah wa Laylah' the means of obtaining this
 knowledge lies."


 _St. James's Gazette_, September 12th.


 "One of the most important translations to which a great English
 scholar has ever devoted himself is now in the press. For three
 decades Captain Burton has been more or less engaged on his
 translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' the latest of the many versions
 of that extraordinary story which has been made into English, the only
 one at all worthy of a great original."


 _Home News_, September 18th.


 "Captain Burton has begun to issue the volumes of his subscription
 translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' and its fortunate possessors
 will now be able to realize the full flavour of Oriental feeling.
 They will now have the great storehouse of Eastern folklore opened to
 them, and Captain Burton's minute acquaintance with Eastern life makes
 his comments invaluable. In this respect, as well as in the freeness
 of the translation, the version will be distinguished from its many
 predecessors. Captain Burton's preface, it may be observed, bears
 traces of soreness at official neglect. Indeed, it seems curious that
 his services could not have been utilized in the Soudan, when the want
 of competent Arabic scholars was so severely felt."


ORIGINAL VERSE.


I have never read, nor do I intend to read, at his own request, and
to be true to my promise to him, my husband's "Arabian Nights." But
I have read the reviews, some with pride and some with pain, while
all the private letters of congratulation have been a great source of
gratification to me; and I have gathered all together, _pro_ and _con_,
which form an interesting book.

Out of a thousand picked scholars it is something to be able to assert
that all the men whose good opinion is worth having, are loud in
its praise. I think a man who gives years of study to a great work,
purely with the motive that the rulers of his country may thoroughly
understand the peoples they are governing by millions, and who gives
that knowledge freely and unselfishly, and who while so doing runs the
gauntlet of abuse from the vulgar, silly Philistine, who sees what the
_really_ pure and modest never see, deserves great commendation. To
throw mud at him because the mediæval Arab lacks the varnish of _our_
world of to-day, is as foolish as it would be not to look up because
there are a few spots on the sun.


    TO RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON.
    "_The Thousand Nights and a Night._"

    Adown the welkin slant the snows and pile
      On sill and balcony; their feathery feet
      Trip o'er the landscape, and pursuing sleet,
    Earth's brow beglooming, robs the lift of smile:
    Lies in her mourning-shroud our Northern Isle,
      And bitter winds in battle o'er her meet;
      Her world is death-like, when, behold! we greet
    Light-gleams from morning-land cold grief to guile:

    A light of golden mine and orient pearl,
      Vistas of fairy-land, where Beauty reigns
    And Valiance revels; cloudless moon, fierce sun,
    The wold, the palm-tree; cities; hosts; a whirl
      Of life in tents and palaces and fanes:
    The light that streams from "Thousand Nights and One."
                                    ----ISABEL BURTON.
    Tangier, Morocco, February 19.


 "CAPTAIN BURTON'S 'ARABIAN NIGHTS.'


 "A friend lately asked Captain Burton why he was bringing out his
 translation so soon after another and a most scholarly one. He
 answered, 'Orientalists are anxious to have the real Eastern work. I
 had received sundry letters saying--Let us know what the mediæval Arab
 was. If he was exalted and good, let us see it. If he was witty, let
 us hear it. If he was uncultivated and coarse, still let us have him
 to the very letter. We want once for all the real thing. We want a
 mediæval Arab, telling the tales and legends of his own country, and
 showing the world what he has remained whilst the West has progressed
 in culture and delicacy.--Now, I will do this by notes and a running
 commentary, enabling the student to read between the lines, and
 perfectly to understand much of what he would otherwise pass over
 without understanding. I am determined subscribers shall learn from my
 work what they cannot find in any other, and to make it a repertory of
 Eastern knowledge, by no means intended for the many-headed, but for
 the few who are not too wise to learn, or too omniscient to acquire
 knowledge. I regret more than I can say the coarseness of the Arabic,
 but I consider it not less my duty to translate it word for word. My
 Oriental renderings will make it quite different from all the other
 translations, and I shall leave nothing for any other man in the
 future to do.'"

 R. F. B.


 "PANTAGRUELISM OR PORNOGRAPHY?

 "To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.


 "Sir,--Your correspondent 'Sigma' has forgotten the considerable
 number of 'students' who will buy Captain Burton's translation as
 the only literal one, needing it to help them in what has become
 necessary to many--a masterly knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. The
 so-called 'Arabian Nights' are about the only written halfway house
 between the literary Arabic and the colloquial Arabic, both of
 which they need, and need introductions too. I venture to say that
 its largest use will be as a grown-up school-book, and that it is
 not coarser than the classics in which we soak all our boys' minds
 at school. The Arabic classics are not in Egyptian-Arabic, which
 varies much from Syrian and other branches of the language, and a
 thorough knowledge of the daily customs and family life of Egypt is a
 knowledge, however repulsive, to be conscientiously sought by all who
 are either administrators or philanthropists in Egypt.

 "I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

 "ANGLO-EGYPTIAN.

 "September 14th."


 _Glasgow Times_, 24th November, 1888.

 (Anent the Bodleian refusal and the biography of his book.)


 The _Glasgow Times_ says, "But the chapter is something more than
 that. It is a remarkable addition to the history of the 'Quarrels
 of Authors.' Sir Richard Burton, as we have before indicated, is a
 good hater, and he smites his enemies hip and thigh. The enemies are
 rather numerous, and some of them, it must be admitted, were scarcely
 worth powder and shot, but the way in which the old fighting man and
 traveller (he still seems to retain all the energy characteristic
 of both) 'goes for' them is refreshing in the extreme. But though
 Sir Richard has a good many enemies, he has also a large number of
 friends, and if he is liberal and forcible in retort, he is lavish in
 acknowledgment of kindly words and of help however slight."

 Sir Richard Burton says, "All this is utterly unfair. It allows the
 unfortunate public no chance of learning the truth. The narrator may
 be honest and honourable, but he dare not state the facts, nor has he
 the courage of his own opinions. If he did, 'Society' would turn upon
 him with the usual 'Oh no, we never mention him,' and his name never
 would be heard unless accompanied by a snarl or a sneer. The fact is,
 England's chronic disease is Religiosity in the few, and Hypocrisy in
 the many.

 "RICHARD F. BURTON.

 "Hôtel Meurice, Paris, July 17th, 1888."


 "REPRINTS OF THE 'ARABIAN NIGHTS.'


 "The Granville, Ramsgate, August 13th, 1888.

 "I have given to the public, under my wife's superintendence and name,
 the pure unadulterated article. But the tastes of civilization ever
 incline to the worked-up, which has the advantage of art applied to
 nature. At Trieste we often offer our English friends a _petit verre_
 of real gin distilled from the juniper berry, and now unprocurable at
 home; and we enjoy the wry mouths made by those who are accustomed to
 Hollands and Old Tom.

 "The main difficulty, however, is to erase the popular impression
 that the 'Nights' is a book for babies, a 'classic for children;'
 whereas its lofty morality, its fine character-painting, its artful
 development of the story, and its original snatches of rare poetry,
 fit it for the reading of men and women, and these, too, of no puerile
 or vulgar wit. In fact, its prime default is that it flies too high.

 "RICHARD F BURTON."


 A literary friend writes to Lady Burton: "The omissions are so deftly
 done, and the _pruning so slight_, that the book ought to be read
 in every English house, in every English-speaking land. The English
 alone is an education. If I wanted young folk to learn a good style, I
 would train them on the 'Nights.' I would give passages to the Board
 Schools."

[Sidenote: _London again_.]

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. On the 1st of July we went to the Hermetic
Society, where Anna Kingsford lectured on "The Communion of Saints."
We worked very hard at our "Arabian Nights," and all our time over and
above we went into Society, were very gay, and enjoyed ourselves very
much; we also went to see the _Mikado_ several times, which we enjoyed
extremely. We often went to the "Inventories," as we knew the Chief
of the Electric light, Sir Francis Bolton, and we used to go up into
his station, and see the lights turned off and on. Richard thought the
trees and lights very pretty, and especially the electric lilies under
the water, and the moon prettier still.

On the 21st of July we had a very merry family party for my father's
eighty-sixth birthday. He made a speech, and after dinner sang a little
song of which he was very fond. He had a lovely tenor voice even
then--true and sweet. It was the last happy family meeting, for on the
25th, at nine o'clock in the morning, he had a paralytic stroke without
any warning of ill health.

This year I made a long speech in St. James's Hall, concerning
appealing to the Pope for a circular letter for the Protection of
Animals (9th of July).

The following was not my speech, but my sentiments, which I mean to
quote.

 "I thought that his Holiness might be induced graciously to concede
 such an order for the benefit of mankind. The man who begins by so
 small a thing as kindness to the beast who is working by his side the
 livelong day, acquires habits of mildness with his wife and children.
 Having patience, he loses the habit of oaths and blasphemies. It is
 fury that makes men drink. From drink follows spending money, cards,
 and low company. If a man is kind to his beast he lets it rest on
 Sunday. That means that he is keeping the Sunday holy and free from
 servile work. That day's rest saves his health and prolongs his life,
 besides benefiting his soul. If a man is kind to his beast it lasts
 longer, and enables him to do more work, and earn more wages. Not only
 is he able to feed it better (its only reward), but he can keep his
 wife and family respectably. They rise in the world's esteem, and to
 a higher position. Hence kindness to animals is a small beginning of
 great things, and is not unworthy even of a Pope's patronage."

On the 3rd of July we went to Lady Hooker's garden-party at Kew, and
there met, amongst others, the Gordons, who were so kind to us in the
Brazilian mines. She died soon after.

On the 19th of July we lunched with Lord Houghton, and little thought
we should not see him again. On the 11th of August we had the
misfortune to lose him. Richard paid several visits to Oxford, but
returned in time for Lord Houghton's funeral service at St. Margaret's,
Westminster Abbey, on the 18th of August, and his sorrow for this good
friend occupies a whole page of his journal. We also had the pleasure
of seeing an old friend, Sir Edwin Arnold, one of the most delightful
of Eastern poets, who gave me his "Light of Asia." Carlo Pellegrini
came several times to lunch with us, in reality wishing to caricature
Richard in _Vanity Fair_, which he did--but it was one of his few great
failures.

The first volume of the "Arabian Nights" came out on the 12th
of September, 1885, and the sixteenth volume, the last of the
supplementals, on the 13th of November, 1888; thus in a period of
three years we had produced twenty-two volumes--the ten originals, the
six supplementals, and my six volumes, _i.e._ so-called mine. We paid
several visits to Richard's sister and niece, Lady and Miss Stisted,
at Norwood, and we went to Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot at Upper House,
Guildford, where we met some very pleasant people; then we went to
Wardour, to Lord Arundell's. About this time Mr. H. H. Johnson, Artist,
Consul, African traveller, and universal favourite with everybody,
was occupying his beautiful little flat in Victoria Street, and gave
us some pleasant teas. We brought out our little translation from the
Brazilian of "Iraçema" and "Manoel de Moraes, the Convert," at our own
expense. The _Punch_ and _Vanity Fair_ caricatures came out on the
22nd, Thursday.

[Sidenote: _Richard's Programme for Egypt_.]

On the 28th of October we went down to Hatfield, where there was a
large party in the house. On this occasion Lord Salisbury wanted
privately to know what Richard's programme would be for Egypt, and he
wrote out the following for him:--

 "First and far away, annex Egypt and all its territory entirely; but
 if the Government does not decide on this bold stroke, at least have
 no half-measures.

 "Secondly, if not annexation, recall Ismail, ex-Khedive, Arábi Pasha,
 and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, and, if _they take an oath of allegiance_ to
 your Government, make Ismail your English Viceroy, with a guard of
 honour only. Send Arábi as the Governor of Sudan, and Mr. Wilfrid
 Blunt to Darfur.

 "Oblige the Sudanese to give up their arms, and abolish the useless
 expense of the Egyptian Army and Navy.

 "Garrison with English troops Alexandria, Cairo, Suez, Ismailíyyeh,
 Port Said, Suákin, Masáwwah, one fortress at Perim, one at Rossier
 (the point between Suez and Akabah), and one fortress on the Akabah
 side.

 "Put the bulk of the army (say five thousand men) in Khartum. Make
 Valentine Baker Military Governor of Khartum (it should, of course,
 have been Gordon, if he had not unfortunately been killed last
 January).

 "Station one Man-of-War at each of the following posts:--Alexandria,
 Port Said, Suez, Suákin, Masáwwah; a gunboat at Perim, Rossier,
 Ismailíyyeh, and one close to Akabah; say two gunboats in the Suez
 Canal, and two in the Red Sea to look after the Slave-trade.

 "Banish Ismail's sons for ten years; the only one of his family worth
 anything is Hossein, not Hassan. Hossein is too clever, Hassan is a
 fool, but Tewfik is the worst. If anything happens to Ismail, replace
 him by Hossein. Do not do things bit by bit, or the Egyptians and
 Sudanese will destroy them bit by bit.

 "Collect all your material, and put the whole _régime_ in action the
 same day.

 "Forbid Slave-trade, and hang at the next tree or nearest yardarm all
 Slave-dealers caught red-handed after date of proclamation. All cases
 of treachery should be dealt with in the same summary way, whether
 Pasha or Fellah. Two hangings would suffice to stop the whole, and
 would be the true, short, and only merciful way to exterminate slavery.

 "Teach Ismail and Arábi and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt what their conduct and
 that of every official in the country would have to be, and make them
 _take their oath_ before appointing them.

 "Exempt five years' taxes to the whole land, save a small nominal
 tax to keep up your right. Order your employés to make the natives
 understand that these five years are conceded that they may have time
 to recover and improve and prosper, but that after five years the
 taxes will again be put on.

 "When you begin to take your taxes again, allow them to be collected
 by the natives, with only sufficient superintendence from your own men
 to avoid being cheated, but do not interfere as to the _manner_ of it,
 as no European could ever extract a piastre from a Native.

 "But spend the first five years' collection on the country. Help
 them to improve themselves; give them full religious liberty. Instil
 humanity to man and beast by preaching, example, and schools.

 "Give them the freedom of Foreign Trade; foster National Industries;
 build yourselves harbours and docks and fortresses in the
 Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and especially lighthouses
 in the Red Sea.

 "You should make roads and railways, encourage irrigation, form wells
 every six hours' march throughout the country, employ native labour.

 "Form Sudanese troops (as in India), officered by English.

 "Give waste lands to settlers (our Emigrants) intermarrying with
 natives. Provide them with looms, and encourage all manufacture,
 native and foreign.

 "After seven years, give them a free press; they are not fit to have
 _any_ press just now.

 "The first five years you would have to spend your own money largely.

 "The second five years spend _their_ own upon these improvements.

 "The third five years it would not only be self-paying, but give you
 large returns.

 "This programme should be the 'labour of love' of your Governors and
 employés, besides their appointed duty.

 "If England has still backbone enough to do this, in ten years' time
 you will not only possess a flourishing country, and your road to
 India, but the money you will have spent, as well as that which has
 been lost through the past three years' blundering and weakness,
 will come back to you a hundred-fold, and the Souls of all our best,
 bravest, and noblest men, who have been uselessly murdered, and who
 lie buried in the sands, will be at rest, and bless God that _at last_
 they have died for a holy end.

 "I wish I were exhorting in favour of Syria, instead of Egypt; but
 I feel convinced that such a grand and startling policy would be so
 appreciated in England that the Government who had courage to do it
 might defy anything."

In the course of the preparation of the "Arabian Nights," we became
acquainted with Dr. Steingass, who afterwards brought out a Persian
and Arabic dictionary, and who I strongly recommend to anybody wanting
honest Eastern literary assistance. He assisted in correcting the
proofs.

On the 20th of June Richard deplores the death of Mr. Vaux, M.A.,
F.R.S. We made acquaintance with Mr. C. Heron Allen, who was then very
much engaged on Palmistry. Richard notices seeing Schapira several
times. We also had a visit from Mr. C. Doughty, the African traveller.

On the 27th of July he dined with the Gentlemen-at-Arms. For a while
he took up Volapük, but that he did not stick to, as he did not believe
it would be of any use.

On the 13th of September he notices the death of General Sir A.
Horsford, an old friend.

On the 9th of October his friend Mr. Bernard Quaritch gave a large
dinner in Richard's honour, with all the principal _literati_
(masculine) to meet him, and it appears to have been very enjoyable.
Richard made a speech, and read out the story of "Ali the Persian" from
the "Nights." (We also had a very pleasant dinner with Mr. and Mrs.
Bancroft, where we met a great many charming people.)

[Sidenote: _He asks for Tangier_.]

On the 21st 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 Lordship 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.

He notices calling on Colonel Kitchener, and remarked that he was
rather like Charley Drake.

[Sidenote: _Parts with my Father_.]

On the 20th of November, 1885, he went round to pay his farewell
visits, and lastly to my father. Now, although my father was paralyzed,
and confined to his room, he was comparatively in no danger of death,
and the doctors had assured me, that if we went away, and returned as
we intended the following June, that they believed we should find my
father alive, and no worse, if not better, than at present; but when
Richard went to wish him good-bye, something seemed to come over them,
and Richard knelt down and asked his blessing, and asked him to pray
for him. My father put his hand upon his head with great emotion, and
blessed him fervently, and Richard left the room with the tears running
down his cheeks. My father died shortly after, and his last prayer was
for Richard and for me--he never spoke after that.

[Sidenote: _Goes to Marocco_.]

On the 21st of November Richard started for Marocco in Forwood's
steamer _Mequinez_, from St. Katherine's Wharf. I accompanied 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.

It was now the election-time, and my father, who was paralyzed, and
who was a strong Conservative, went nearly out of his mind, because he
could not go down to the polling-place and vote. He ordered himself
to be dressed, and a brougham to be sent for, though the doctor said
it would kill him, and I was only able to quiet him by assuring him
that a _statement_ would be received in _his_ case; and I drew it up,
and he signed it. A pious fiction, which served to prolong his life
for a little bit. Then I paid visits to Garswood (the Gerards') and
to Knowsley. During this time I was getting the four volumes of the
"Nights" out, which I was left for. I was dreadfully spied upon by
those who wished to get Richard into trouble about it, and once an
unaccountable person came and took some rooms in the same lodgings with
me after Richard left, but I settled with the landlord that either I
should leave, or that person should not have the rooms; and of course
he did not hesitate between the two, so I took the whole of his rooms
for the remainder of my stay.


 WHAT THE WORLD SAID ABOUT MAROCCO.

 _Pictorial World_, March 13th.


 "'We sincerely trust that the present Government will not fail, amidst
 other acts of justice and good works, to bestow some signal mark of
 her Majesty's favour upon Captain Richard Burton, one of the most
 remarkable men of the age, who has displayed an intellectual power and
 a bodily endurance through a series of adventures, explorations, and
 daring feats of travel, which have never been surpassed in variety
 and interest by any one man.' 'Twas thus that our contemporary, the
 _Morning Advertiser_, concluded a leader a few weeks ago on one whom
 it rightly called 'A Neglected Englishman.' The protest, however,
 has passed unnoticed by the powers that are. The gallant Captain
 still remains in the comparatively humble position of her Majesty's
 Consul at Trieste, while men whose claims upon their country cannot
 be compared to his are constantly receiving far more important
 appointments. Others wear the honours which he should have worn.
 Captain Speke's services in the East were duly recognized--Captain
 Burton's were not; yet Speke was Burton's lieutenant, and it was
 to the latter's guidance that the former owed not a little of his
 success. Burton discovered Lake Tanganyika, which he declared
 contained the Sources of the Nile; Burton it was who exposed the
 horrible massacre at Jeddah; Burton explored the Pacific coast,
 crossed the Andes, navigated the river San Francisco, gathering most
 valuable information, political, geographical, and scientific, on the
 way. The same intrepid traveller made that extraordinary pilgrimage
 to Mecca and Medina. Again, Burton originated the system of bayonet
 exercise which is now in use in the British army, and the same
 gentleman has given us some of the most interesting and instructive
 books of travel that were ever penned. And yet, forsooth, an obscure
 Consulate is considered a fitting reward for such services! Let Mr.
 Disraeli's administration look to it."


 _Manchester Courier_, October 18th, 1889.


 "The truth about Sir Richard Burton, whose versatility is only
 equalled by his thoroughness and solidity, is that he is far too
 able for the Foreign Office. That very superior department does
 not want able men; it wants persons of average--below rather than
 above--ability, who will prostrate themselves like a fire-worshipper
 to the rising orb of day, before 'the Office.' It hates like poison
 the clever Secretary or Consul who obtains praise or reputation in
 any other way than through Downing Street. Personally, I rather like
 Foreign Office clerks when they are off duty; but when they put on
 official 'side,' and array themselves in war-paint, especially when
 they commit themselves to foolscap paper with large margins, they
 always remind me of Thackeray's 'Ranville Ranville, Esq., of the
 Foreign Office, who was such an ass, and so respectable.'"


 _Society_, October 28th, 1889.


 "It has at least seemed good to those who are set in authority over us
 to do something for that accomplished, indefatigable, and patriotic
 Englishman, Sir Richard Burton. No man has in his way done more for
 the country than this intrepid traveller and humane man. Yet his
 reward hitherto has been simply that worthless title which is flung
 as a bone to a hungry dog, to those Court lackeys who assist in the
 establishment of Imperial institutes, or emerging from the digger
 and sheep-washing stage, amass a pile in Australia, and, returning
 to their native land, put a price on their loyalty or their party
 services. In honouring a man like Sir Richard Burton, the nation
 reflects honour upon itself."


 _Whitehall Review_, July 15th.


 "Sir Richard Burton, K.C.M.G., is at present in London, on one of
 those rare, brief visits which are the special delight of all who
 have the fortune to be acquainted with Al-Haji Abdullah. Friends
 and admirers of the famous pilgrim will hear with pleasure that Sir
 Richard is in excellent health, and that, with the indefatigable
 energy which is characteristic of this modern amalgamation of the
 wanderer and the scholar, of Odysseus and Aristotle, he is rapidly
 bringing to a conclusion his famous translation of the 'Arabian
 Nights,' and organizing the issue of a popular edition of the
 same, adapted for the lasses and lads of the Latin lyrist. Sir
 Richard is, however, we regret to say, one further victim of the
 administrative blunders of the existing--if it can now be called
 existing--Government. As every one knows, Sir Richard Burton is
 without a peer in his knowledge of the languages, manners, customs,
 habits, and thoughts of the great races of the East. He has been in
 places where but half a dozen Europeans have ever penetrated, he has
 perilled his life again and again in the pursuit of knowledge, he
 has amassed more stories of information on all things Oriental than
 probably a single scholar or any six scholars ever gained before, he
 has enriched literature with some of its most valued works on Eastern
 subjects. He is the very man to be employed in some of our great
 Eastern dependencies, but he has been kept in Trieste, where his
 special talents are of little avail, for long enough; and now, when
 he is especially desirous of obtaining the Marocco Legation, he is
 passed over, and the place given to an obscure official. It is simply
 a scandal.

 "It is true that we are a stiff-necked, narrow-minded race. We require
 to have genius cried out from the house-tops before we would recognize
 it amongst us; and, as usual, such recognition comes too late,
 regretfully. 'You must teach us better things.'"


 _Evening Post_, November 1st, 1888.


 "Sir Richard Burton and Lady Burton were interviewed as they passed
 through Paris with regard to the news from Lille, announcing the death
 of Henry Stanley. Sir Richard said, 'I don't believe that Stanley is
 dead yet. It is just as I told you last August. When everybody thinks
 the time has come to pull out their handkerchiefs and weep over him,
 he will amaze us all by turning up safe and sound and smiling.'"


 From the _Bat_.

 "BURTON THE BEWILDERING.


 "At long last, those who are high in office seem to have made up
 their minds that it was time to bestow some sign of official favour
 upon Captain Burton. None too soon, certainly. For more than a
 generation Captain Burton has been one of the most remarkable of
 living Englishmen. In a life that has already run pretty close to the
 span of the Psalmist, he has laboured with a fiery energy at work
 which no other living Englishmen could or would have accomplished.
 Thirty years ago all Europe, ay, all the civilized, and much of the
 uncivilized, world, was holding its breath in amazement at the record
 of the adventurous Briton, who had made his way, guided only by his
 genius and his stout heart, into the very core of Mohammedanism,
 into that sacred and secret city into which through all time only
 half a dozen men who were not the devotees of Islam were ever able
 to penetrate. There is something peculiarly fascinating in the story
 of that daring enterprise, of the lonely, gallant English gentleman
 converting himself with a skill more marvellous than enchantment into
 the Caboolee pilgrim and medicine man, and invading Meccah, inspired
 by the passion for strange knowledge, and supported only by his own
 strong will and unfailing courage. In the Oriental legend two angels
 always attend upon the body of a man. It is only stretching the
 Eastern fancy a little further to declare that Azreel, the Oriental
 angel of death, was Burton's closest companion during that eventful
 pilgrimage. 'A blunder, a hasty action, a misjudged word, and the
 wanderer's bones would have whitened the desert sand,' and the world
 would have been the poorer by one of the most brilliant books of
 travel ever written, by a whole library of other books, and by a whole
 history of deeds scarcely less daring. There is, indeed, a familiar,
 we may almost call it a famous story, to the effect that Burton, when
 within the walls of the sacred city, did perform a common action after
 the fashion of the Frank and not of the Moslem, that he saw a true
 believer watching him curiously, and that for fear of accidents he
 promptly 'went for' that true believer, and killed him on the spot,
 on the 'dead men tell no tales' principle. That anecdote has formed
 the text for scores of arguments. Men have wrangled fiercely over the
 question it suggests as to whether a traveller placed in such imminent
 and deadly peril was or was not justified in slaying the spectator of
 his mistake, on the chance that such spectator might betray him. The
 argument remains to afford food for contest, but the story on which
 it is founded has vanished into nothingness. For Captain Burton has
 assured the City and the world, in a note to one of the recent volumes
 of his 'Arabian Nights,' that the whole thing is fiction, a canard, a
 literary wild duck of the wildest.

 "Meccah, and the record of the pilgrimage thereto, would haw been
 venture enough and renown enough for an ordinary lifetime. It is
 merely an episode in the active and literary career of Captain Burton.
 Into the generation that has come and gone since the Sheikh Abdullah
 shook the dust of Meccah from off the soles of his sacrilegious feet,
 where has Burton not been and what has he not done? He has gone hither
 and thither 'like the wind's blast, never resting, homeless'--now to
 the Land of Midian, now to the Gold Coast for gold, now dwelling in
 Damascus, now in the dim and dangerous Cameroons, now in Trieste,
 and now in Marocco. With all this, as if possessed by a very demon
 of work, he has found time to store his brain with a most marvellous
 multiplicity of learning, and to write a very Alexandrian library of
 books on all manner of strange and widely differing subjects. Every
 one of his travels has been made the theme for a long, but never too
 long, record. He has translated the lengthy 'Lusiads' of Camoens with
 the same lightness of heart with which most men would sit down to
 scratch off a leading article. He has given the world that monument
 of fascinating knowledge on a fascinating subject, 'The Book of
 the Sword,' to which the erudition and research of a long lifetime
 might well appear to have been devoted. He has imported grotesque
 devil tales from Hindostan. He has written under the thin disguise
 of a Persian bard--a disguise as thin as that of Bodensted's 'Mirza
 Shaffy'--a wonderful poem which speculates upon the life of man
 in something of the spirit of Fitzgerald's 'Omar Khayyam.' He has
 translated, for the benefit of the curious and initiated few, a Hindoo
 work on 'Martial Relationships,' which is one of the eccentricities
 of literature. Now, in what would be called, were he any one else but
 Richard Burton, his old age, he is bringing out his great translation
 of the 'Arabian Nights,' one of the most valuable contributions that
 have ever been made to the literature of Oriental investigation.

 "Was there ever a more bewildering man than this modern Admirable
 Crichton, who can speak more languages than Mezzofanti--it is a treat
 to hear him troll out some Persian love-ditty or Arabic desert-song
 in their guttural originals--who has been everywhere, who can fight
 with every weapon, who is something of a doctor, and something of a
 wizard, and something of a philosopher. The English Government, in
 whose service he has passed his life, has scarcely made the best use
 of him. He knows more about Eastern countries and Eastern peoples,
 and can speak more Eastern languages than probably any living man,
 and therefore a wise Administration planted him, during many recent
 years of Eastern complication, in which he might have rendered
 splendid service to the State, in an Italo-Austrian town, where the
 mouse-coloured cattle recall the Campagna, and neighbouring Miramar
 suggests the luckless lord of Mexico, and where Burton's special
 knowledge was well-nigh of no avail. He is happier now beneath the
 blue Marocco skies. There, with the white domes and the spreading
 palms of the East ever in his eyes, he can peacefully finish what
 is, perhaps, the greatest labour of his life--his version of those
 marvellous tales which have delighted the Orient for cycles, and which
 have profoundly influenced European thought and literature for nearly
 two centuries."

[Sidenote: _He waits for me at Tangier_.]

November 28th, in Marocco, Richard mourns the death of our good old
friend, the Duke of Somerset. He settled down at the hotel close to the
sea, called on every one, got out his work, and waited for me.

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. However, he was not long in Tangier before he began to
feel gouty again.

[1] It is a curious thing that he never missed the chance of a
pilgrimage to any holy shrine.




CHAPTER XII.

RICHARD ON HOME RULE AND THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION.


I think that these valuable letters written by Richard in 1886, a year
before he became an invalid, are too precious not to be reproduced in
this difficult crisis, regarding Home Rule, as they were written for
the same crisis seven years ago. He had a most wonderful foresight,
that seemed inspired, and could prophesy with almost a certainty for
many years ahead. Although he was a Conservative in politics, he was
fully convinced that this should be the programme, but carried out in a
proper manner, with a rider.


 "A 'DIET' FOR IRELAND.


 "Tangier, Marocco, January 10th, 1886.

 "Every province of Austro-Hungary (the Dual Empire which should and
 will be tripled to Austro-Hungaro-Slavonian) enjoys the greatest
 advisable amount of 'Home Rule' by means of its own Landstag or Diet.
 The little volumes, each in the local dialect, containing the rules
 and regulations for legislative procedure are broadcast over the
 country; and I would especially recommend those which concern the Diet
 of Istria and--a thing apart--the Diet of Trieste City to the many who
 are now waxing rabid with alarm at the idea of an Irish Parliament in
 the old house on College Green.

 "In 1883 I undertook a detailed study of Diets in general, but first
 sickness and then a decidedly more interesting work intervened.
 Englishmen abroad will find such a task the reverse of unprofitable.
 A certain school of politicians, which aims mainly at destroying
 whatever is, and to whom an aristocrat Empire is a red rag to a
 rageous bull, have ignored the fact, still true as when the saying
 was first said, that if Austria did not exist she would have to be
 invented. Even they may be interested to learn that the tie by which
 she connects such a host of various nationalities--differing in
 speech, religion, manners, customs, and interests--is the local Diet,
 which satisfies the aspirations of every reasonable man to 'Home
 Rule.'

 "The local Diet (Landstag) offers the immense advantage of submitting
 to the discussion of experts, provincial questions which, in the
 shape of Bills sent up to the much overworked Imperial Parliament
 (Reichstag), would be disposed of by a 'Massacre of the Innocents.'
 Otherwise the great assembly in Vienna, as in London, would be placed
 in a false position, which, 'like a wrong focus in photography,
 distorts every object.'

 "The local Diet encourages decentralization; the growing evil of
 Europe being that of crowded Cities and over-populated Capitals, where
 wealth may prosper but where man decidedly decays; in fact, becomes
 non-viable. Hence Mandarin Tseng is reported to have said that the
 strength has gone out of England; and it surely will go when we have a
 greater majority of town population.

 "The local Diet acts as a distributor to wealth; and we all know that
 questions of self-government rest mainly on the solid base of _£ s.
 d._ When absentee-landlords carry their money to, and never fail to
 spend the season in, the Metropolis, reserving their economy for home
 residence, local industries cannot but suffer. The provincial Diet
 meets, we will say, two months before the Imperial Parliament; and
 creates a kind of sub-season in the provincial Capital, which, like
 Dublin and Edinburgh, never forgets that she was once a real Capital.
 The deputies take their families with them, and part of the revenue
 and income drawn from the land is returned to the land.

 "As with us, dire consequences were predicted for Magyar Home Rule
 in Pesth, and for Czech Home Rule in Prague, which would soon swamp
 the German element and eat up the landlords. Now there is a notable
 social resemblance between the Magyar and the Irish Kelt; nor will any
 one pretend that the animosity in the sister island against foreign
 rule is hotter in 1886 than was that of the Magyar against Austria in
 1848-50. Yet the latter learned only moderation from Home Rule, and
 he is now a loyal subject. If, however, any especial defence for the
 landlord-class be temporarily necessary, this can be done by counting
 acres instead of noses, till increased national prosperity, and a
 sense of having had justice dealt to the people, shall allay the ill
 feeling.

 "The local Diet has at times proved troublesome by intermeddling
 with Imperial questions; for instance in Croatia, which has produced
 a Slavonian Parnell--men both to be honoured for the energy
 and persistency with which they have claimed liberty for their
 fellow-countrymen. But these troubles are good in one point; far
 better an outburst in open air than in confinement, where the strength
 of the explosion is immensely increased. In normal times the limits of
 local authority are studiously kept, as they are exactly laid down,
 and every member knows his competency or incompetency to lay a measure
 before the House. A law officer of the Crown, appointed _ad hoc_,
 attends every meeting of the local Diet, and can veto debate upon
 questions beyond its legislative sphere.

 "I believe that the study of these little volumes, treating upon the
 local Diets of Austria, will suggest to England not only a Parliament
 in Dublin, but a similar assembly in Edinburgh and in Carnarvon;
 furthermore, that if they prove useful and important, as they promise
 to do, England will presently be distributed into circuits or
 districts, each provided with its own Diet.

 "RICHARD F BURTON."


 _Pall Mall Gazette_, January 18th, 1886.


 "Sir Richard Burton, that extraordinary scholar, who touches no
 subject that he does not illuminate, has written a letter on Home Rule
 too interesting to be lost to sight. His object is to point out that
 a solution of the Irish question is possibly to be found in the way
 each province of Austro-Hungary enjoys the greatest advisable amount
 of Home Rule by means of its own Landstag or Diet. To those 'who are
 now waxing rabid with alarm at the idea of an Irish Parliament in the
 old house on College Green,' he especially prescribes a study of the
 Diet of Austria and the Diet of Trieste. Sir Richard Burton enumerates
 three great advantages of the Diet system as it is there seen. First,
 provincial questions are submitted to the discussion of experts in
 the Landstag, whereas if they were simply poured into the overworked
 Reichstag, they would be slaughtered almost without a hearing. Second,
 the local Diet encourages decentralization, and the most evil effects
 of it, the tendency of the population to concentrate itself in the
 towns, and there decay. Third, the local Diet acts as a distributor
 of wealth; a kind of sub-season is created in the provincial capital,
 the deputies take their families there, and a proper part of the
 revenue from the land returns to it again. Sir Richard Burton's
 scheme is well worthy of further study, and this, he believes, will
 suggest a Parliament, not only in Dublin, but also in Edinburgh and in
 Carnarvon."


 "A DIET FOR IRELAND.

 "To the Editor of the _Morning Post_.

 "Sir,--Would you kindly allow me space for a few lines by way of
 postscript to my note 'A Diet for Ireland,' printed in the _Academy_
 of January 16? Since that time 'a Diet' with a witness has been
 proposed, and hapless Hibernia has been offered the proud position
 of 'our latest colony.' But, if the 'Speak-house' in College Green
 be refused, what then? Will England have the pluck to fight for the
 integrity of her Empire, as did our Yankee cousins a quarter of a
 century ago? Or is she so blind, as not to see that civil war is
 threatened, that even civil war is better than disruption, ignominy,
 ruin, and that her success would be easy, certain, and decisive?
 Though no longer in the _première jeunesse_, I would willingly
 shoulder a musket in such a cause, and so, doubtless, would many
 myriads of my fellow-countrymen.

 "Yours, etc.,

 "RICHARD F BURTON.

 "April 26, 1886."

 [Sidenote: _Another Postscript_.]

 "But," he afterwards wrote, "I should have put a rider on to the first
 letter, because it only touches the political, not the religious
 state of the question. Austrians and Hungarians are both more or
 less Catholic, whilst England and Ireland are bitter Protestant and
 bitter Catholic. It becomes no longer a political, but a religious
 question. There are plenty of good, honest, loyal Irish Catholics in
 Ireland, as well as good, loyal Protestants in the North of it. The
 loyalty of the English Catholic is well known; the mischief lies with
 the Fenian Priest, who prefers stepping into the political arena to
 confining himself to the more humble and obscure calling to which he
 is vowed, that of saying Mass, and administering the Sacraments to his
 fold. Woe be to him! And if the Pope is properly informed, it would
 take a wiser head than mine to know, why he does not excommunicate
 them. No honestly minded Catholic wants to see temporal power put
 into the hands of these Fenians, which might possibly lead back to
 the Inquisition. When they clamour for Home Rule, it is not Home Rule
 that they want, it is the education of their children. They say, 'We
 want to bring up our children as good Christians and good loyalists,
 but we do not want them brought up _for_ us as Materialists and
 Socialists." In this I think they are right, _but the education should
 be compulsory_; and if they had the spirit of a louse, or any _esprit
 de corps_, and a civil tongue with decent behaviour, they would get
 it. For my own part, I see no hope of a rightful sentiment until
 they get a _Man_ at the helm of the British Government. When I say a
 man, I understand somebody who does not care one fig for his place,
 and when he does right, it is for the Nation to take him or leave
 him as they like, and if there _was_ such a man, they would accept
 despotism from his hands. If it were _me_, I should have my agents in
 Ireland, quietly separating the goats from the sheep. I should have
 my Men-of-War lying off in different places. In one single night the
 goats would be seized, priest or layman, and they would be conveyed
 far, far away to my Monastic jail, my Siberia, where they would be
 well treated, well taken care of, and allowed their Mass and their
 Sacraments; but the only ships that touched there would be provision
 ships, and it would be a '_lifer_,' without any communication, by
 letter or otherwise, with the outer world; and any one aiding or
 abetting would be hung at the yardarm. Ireland would be quiet in a
 year; peace, happiness, and _union_ restored.

 "RICHARD F BURTON."

I heartily concur in every one of these sentiments. I think that
although, in 1829, Catholics were emancipated, they have never been,
during these sixty-four years, placed on an equality, even in England,
with their Protestant fellow-creatures. This is not quite right. It
shows itself more in _unnecessary_ pin-pricks, than in any large
circumstances. I will merely quote, as an example, one silly little
thing that comes in my own radius. I have a little annuity from my
father, and four times a year I am obliged to certify that I am alive.
I was ill in bed and wanted the money. So I sent for my Catholic
Priest, and asked him if he would sign it; he said certainly. In a
few days I got it back from a Government annuity office, with the
following remark, in red ink:--'We cannot take the signature of a Roman
Catholic Priest: Act 10 Geo. IV. cap. 24, special section 24.' Now,
is not this ridiculous? Canon Wenham is a gentleman and a man of the
world, who has known me for forty years, but his word cannot be taken
because he is a Catholic; so I had to wait until I was well enough to
get up, and to go out (suffering inconvenience for the want of this
money), to look for the Protestant clergyman, whom I did not _then_
happen to know, and who, when he saw me, was obliged to say, 'Are you
_really_ Lady Burton?' 'Yes! I am _really_ Lady Burton.' And _his_
word is taken because he is a Protestant! Is it not nearly time that
such utter rubbish, such absurd little insults should be repealed?
They do not hurt educated, large-minded people--they make them laugh;
but there are many classes that they _would_ hurt, and thousands of
such mosquito-stings make a big whole, and very likely _do_ affect
and _dis_affect a part of Her Majesty's subjects, who, if not baited,
would be as loyal as the Sun. If Catholics like to take a back seat,
they ought to be perfectly happy, and perhaps that is why they are so
silent; but if that is not so, I am convinced that if they were all of
one mind and one spirit, and if their grievances were represented in
a dignified and reasonable manner, what they want with regard to the
education of their children, would be conceded to them. And the Irish,
who, with educated exceptions, probably do not realize what Home Rule
and separation from England absolutely means--the uneducated, as likely
as not, think it is something to eat--will never attain their project,
by shooting English Agents and Landlords and hamstringing innocent
animals, thereby proving how unfit they are to govern themselves, or to
be invested with any power or authority.

[Sidenote: _Treatment of Catholics and Loyalty_.]

I should like to be allowed to requote a thing I have printed before
in my life. I think that it is excessively wicked of those who have
chosen to confound religion with politics, and to make it appear
unpatriotic and un-English to honour our Divine Master in our own
way, and it is doubly malignant to fasten such a stigma upon the Old
Catholic aristocracy of England. Show me loyalty like unto ours. Who
fought and bled and died? Who sacrificed their lands and wealth freely
as our ancestors did in all times, out of loyalty to their King? It is
convenient now to pander to vulgar prejudice, to taunt us with a slight
and a sneer on the smallest pretext, or without one, in the hopes of
ousting us from the Court and from the World. But wait a little; the
World's life is not yet over, and if the throne, through weak policy,
should ever totter--which may God avert from us!--we shall joyfully
go, as one man, woman, and child, with our hearts and lives, and all we
possess in our hands, as we did before, to offer it upon the altar of
our loyalty. It is no use to discuss the matter now in times of peace;
the hour, when it comes, will prove which is loyal and disloyal, which
is patriotic and unpatriotic. We will show all these men, who to-day
dare to talk of loyalty to _us_, whether "blue blood" and old faith,
or Cotton and Cant, love the throne best. I ask nothing better than
to prove it in the name of all the Old Catholics in England; and our
Pope would be the first to bless us for our loyalty. No Pope has any
temporal power in England, nor could wish or expect it. The Army would
march to-morrow wherever the Queen ordered, and fight without asking a
question, and two-thirds of it is Catholic.

The late Lord Gerard, who had the honour of being A.D.C. to the Queen,
and who was the rigidest of all rigid Catholics, said, when the
question was first raised, though he was an old man, "By ----! the
man who tells me that I am not loyal, had better be a couple of stone
heavier than I am!" We are still brought up with the old-fashioned
loyalty, as if it were a part of our religion, and we are ready to
do as we did before when our Sovereign needs us. We should almost as
soon think of going into our church and tearing the cross down off
the altar, as of showing any disrespect, presumption, disloyalty, or
indifference to our Queen or her family, much less treachery. And in
the name of all ancient Catholic England, I throw my glove down to
those who accuse us of it, be they who they may. I do not pretend to
know anything about our converts--I have been too long away--but my own
people, we who have been Catholics from all time, "render to Cæsar the
things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's."

I once heard a story of a lieutenant in some regiment, who was
honest, steady, and quiet, full of sterling qualities; but he was
dull, reserved, religiously inclined, or less brilliant than his
brother-officers. They laughed at him, and associated but little with
him. He was well born, but poor, and without interest; so he remained
without, in the cold shade, both as to promotion and the warmth and
cheerfulness of friendship and society. But he never complained; he
lived on and did his best.

Then at last came the Crimean War. A battery was to be taken; and
the guns were so well pointed at this particular regiment, which
was the storming party, that they were forced to give way. But, in
hopes of rallying his own company, this young fellow passed all his
brother-officers with a laugh. He flung his shako before him, and,
sword in hand, rushed through a breach into the battery, followed
by his handful. They never came out again. At the mess that night
there was not a man but who wished he had better understood his
brother-officer. They now remembered a thousand good qualities and
incidents that ought to have endeared him to them, and they vainly
tried to recall any little kindness that they had shown him. All felt
ashamed of the contempt with which they had treated one in every
respect their superior. Of that stuff we are made, and when the
occasion comes we will prove it.


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
face, and exceedingly low-spirited; but he got better and better, as he
always did as soon as he was with me.[1]

[Sidenote: _We winter in Marocco--Richard made a K.C.M.G_.]

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, conveying 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 diplomatic
 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 supplying 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."

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 Sharífah called on me; she
was the Englishwoman who married the Sheríf 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 Dulness,'
 and passed a pleasant week at the '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 now they have fallen long behind the age, and could not defend
 themselves against a single ironclad. The fact is now generally
 recognized.

 [Sidenote: _A Bad Hurricane at Sea_.]

 "We embarked in ugly weather on board the Cunarder s.s. _Saragossa_;
 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 '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 prepared. 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 passing 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 _enceinte_, 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 herself, Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, a
 rich basilica erected on the site of a pagan temple.

 [Sidenote: _I have Another Fall_.]

 "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 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, commanding 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 immediately 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 disobliging
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 torn 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 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.

[Sidenote: _Naples_.]

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.

He writes: "It was rather fun in Genoa. Because I wore my fez,
everybody took me for part of the Carnival, and followed me."

Before we left, it being the King's birthday, there was a march past
our hotel of all the soldiers and sailors. The sailors were good, but
the rest sadly defective and slipshod. We went to Puzzuoli, from where
the steamer sailed. The ship went to Palermo, Messina, Catania, came
along the Dalmatian coast, and, after a very peaceful journey of a
week, reached Trieste. I went by rail to Rome, and I do not wish for a
worse train than that between Naples and Rome, nor more disagreeable
railway officials than those I found at Naples.

As I arrived late, and did not count my change, I lost eighteen francs,
and three of my boxes were kept back from Jack-in-office reasons. At
Rome I waited in the station for three hours to get another train, and
was delighted to get into an Austrian train with a good bed and a civil
conductor. I arrived in Florence next morning, where I did some more
mediæval Italy that day and part of the next, and in the evening got on
to Bologna for the same object. I then arrived at Trieste, on the 20th
of March, with a very unpleasant journey, and, as there was a cholera
scare, met with a great deal of visiting of baggage and fumigation.
I arrived at ten in the evening, and was accustomed to be met by a
crowd of friends, and was surprised at finding that there was no one to
meet me; but when I got into our house, three telegrams were handed to
me that had not reached me. The first was, "Father very ill--can you
come?" the second was, "Father died to-day;" the third, "Father buried
to-day at Mortlake" (yesterday). I then understood that everybody knew
it, and had kindly desisted on account of what would have been my grief
had I known. It was a severe blow, and I felt it very much, for I had
not expected it. I was thus in Trieste three days before Richard, and
was able to go on board and receive him.

On the 25th, the English, headed by Mr. P. P. Cautley and Mr. Salvari,
our first and second Vice-Consuls, presented us with a beautiful cup
for our silver wedding.

Richard notes in his journal (as we at once paid a visit to Duino
Opçina), "Andrino" (my little god-child, whom I saved in former years
as a babe) "is dead, the setter Fazan is given away, Brownie the
donkey is sold. I shall not now care so much to go to Opçina; all my
amusements are taken away."

On the 10th of April he began his "Terminal Essay," and vol. viii. was
sent home. We went to a very nice Assault of Arms; that was a thing we
never neglected.

He writes--

 "In May, my wife and I had a pleasant change, being invited by our
 colleague, Mr. Faber, H.B.M.'s Consul for Fiume, to visit his castle
 Schloss Sternstein, near Cilli, in Steiermark. We found a modern
 building, which had superseded the ancient feudal château, whence the
 old legend of a Styrian Romeo and Juliet has not wholly faded. We
 enjoyed the society of Mr. and Mrs. Faber, who are hospitality itself,
 and amused ourselves with their numerous and beautiful children; and
 last, but not least, the simple German life and perfect rest and
 liberty were exceedingly refreshing. My wife and I went to look at
 an old mill, with cottage attached, to see if we could make that our
 future cottage."

We stopped at Cilli on the way back, and thence to Trieste. We had
constantly at home many people who came in to lunch and dinner, as it
was our one time off work, and people knew it was our great pleasure
and chose that hour for coming to see us. The family from Duino, the
Princesses Hohenlöhe, and the Princess Taxis, whenever they came into
town to do commissions, used to take their breakfast with us _en
route_. A great part of the summer we used to sit under one particular
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!"

He here notices the death of Mr. White-Cooper, F.R.G.S., the eminent
oculist, with whom and his wife (Lady Cooper) we were on the most
friendly terms. He was now working at the ninth volume of the "Nights."


POLITICS.


[Sidenote: _The Great Chinese Move_.]

A man's politics and a man's religion are supposed to be two very
prominent features in his character. I therefore give you a _résumé_ of
Richard's politics in the Appendices (E). Now, being in an official
position, he never was able to express his opinions very freely, and
what I give you, though they were actually written by me, and published
by me in various books and pamphlets, were what I _learnt_ from my
husband, as _I learnt everything that I know from him_. To him I owe
all the education that I have received. I consider that he _made_ me,
so to speak, and whatever little publicity or fame have been accorded
to me by those who know me, I owe it entirely to him. In one part of
his politics you will see that he strongly advocated an alliance with
China; and I am sure that Mr. G. H---- will have no objection to my
publishing the letters he wrote me in 1886, praising me for what I
wrote, that I may give the honour where it is due, to Richard. Richard
has been consulted over and over again by different Governments; he
has given his knowledge and suggestions freely, and they have often
been carried out, but have never in one single instance been publicly
acknowledged in any way, and scarcely thanked for privately.

 "December 6th, 1886.

 "DEAR LADY BURTON,

 "Of course you will recollect sending me a presentation copy of your
 work, 'Arabia, Egypt, and India,' with

  'To G. H.,
    a grateful souvenir
      from Isabel Burton,'

 written on the title-page.... Well, I want you to send me another, as
 the other is out of my possession. Thus--

 "In reading it I had been much struck with the chapter, 'A Peep into
 the Future of North-Western India,' and especially with the last
 forty-seven lines, as containing a proper solution of our difficulties
 with Russia.

 "I took the liberty of marking pages 394 and 395, and sending the
 book to Lord Salisbury twelve to fifteen months ago, during his short
 administration before the present one, and I asked him, if _what Mrs.
 Burton said was true_, whether an arrangement with China would not
 free us in the future from all the bother with Russia--and, if he
 thought so, would he not do it at once? I received an answer. Now, in
 _three or four weeks_ after I sent it, _I saw in the papers_ that _we_
 had entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with China, in
 case of a war with Russia, and since then the collapse of Russia's
 pretensions, and _our_ own power in future, to remain in the _van of
 civilization_ as we list, without fear, are matters of history.

 "It is surprising how _plainly_ people see things _when they are
 once pointed out_. I believe you pointed it out at the right moment,
 and that I was a small instrument in the matter of getting it
 accomplished. And who shall say that a greater stroke of policy was
 ever accomplished? Its consequences are far-reaching indeed.

 "My brother-in-law, Major ---- of the ---- Regiment, whose regiment is
 stationed in India, although he is home on furlough, considers it a
 masterpiece of strategy, looking at the position we were in. However,
 let that pass; it is not the only good you have done, and I'll be
 bound to say are doing, in the world now.

 "Yours sincerely,

 "G. H----.

 "P.S.--How are the donkeys, horses, and the other animals you took
 under your protection in Trieste getting on? I often wonder. If you
 have time, please read pages 394 and 395 of your book, commencing,
 'But our highest prospect,' etc."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "14th December, 1886.

 "MY DEAR LADY BURTON,

 "I am much pleased by receiving your note and hearing from you once
 again.

 "I enclose a copy of the two pages to which I called Lord Salisbury's
 attention, and you will say yourself, looking at the words in the
 light of subsequent events--to say nothing of the present position--it
 is hard to say what influence these words have had on the present and
 future of the whole world.

 "England's arm was paralyzed, and has _been for some time_, by the
 nightmare and bugbear of Russia. Bismarck, to clear himself and his
 own country, had been pointing _Russia to India_; but when _this_
 occurred, and it became clear that at last we had secured ourselves
 in India by this Chinese alliance, Russian bother at Afghanistan's
 frontier ceased. Germany hastened to offer thirty-five millions loan
 to China. France stopped her war and sent a deputation after the
 German with proposals for trade, and Russia at Merv, and France at
 Tonquin, were both paralyzed and powerless for harm. Burmah was taken
 and our future secured, and, what is more, England was again free to
 declare, as Lord Salisbury did at the last Mansion House banquet, that
 if any of England's interests are imperilled, her own right arm is
 quite powerful enough to right them at once, without assistance from
 any European Power.

 "Without this arrangement with China dared he to have said so? No!
 However, whatever the facts are, one thing is certain, that what has
 happened is for the best.

 "I hope you will get the pension.[2] If you think I could do anything
 towards it I will gladly try, so long as _I am not doing any harm_
 by interfering. I ought to say I sent the book to Mr. Gladstone two
 months before I sent it to Lord Salisbury, when Gladstone was in. He
 returned it. I suppose the reference to Gordon was too much for him.
 Of course he may have initiated what Lord Salisbury carried out with
 China.

 "With kind regards, believe me

 "Yours sincerely,

 "G. H----."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "31st January, 1887.

 "MY DEAR LADY BURTON,

 "I enclose you a little scrap from to-day's paper about Germany and
 China. The jealousy shown all round by the different Powers since our
 agreement with the latter one, is clear proof what a great thing _they
 think it is for us_. One thing is certain, that those two pages of
 yours have done more to '_make history_,' as it is called, than many
 wars could do, and without blood-shedding. The more I think of it,
 and the more I view the convulsion which must come very soon from all
 these armed men, the more I am satisfied that it is a grand thing for
 Lord Salisbury that, having India secure, he can now do as he feels he
 can best secure the future in accordance with the spirit of our old
 traditions.

 "With kindest regards, believe me

 "Yours sincerely,

 "G. H----.

 "P.S.--I conclude you received the _Asiatic Review_ article _in Paris_
 by the Marquis Tseng. I sent it there to you."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "June 28th, 1887.

 "MY DEAR LADY BURTON,

 "I have not heard one word from you or any one else since the
 earthquake, and have often wondered what had become of you, and how
 you fared.

 "What a time you had! much worse than any one would think who had
 not himself known and seen in others what _a serious matter nervous
 suffering is_.

 "As to the Government, they might have given Sir Richard the pension.
 However, if it's not done when you return, I would stick to them for
 it. They can well afford it, for they are having a grand innings
 through this China business. Even the French papers say how cleverly
 Lord Salisbury has managed by playing off China against Russia.

 "I am satisfied that will be the chief road in future to India, Japan,
 and China, _re_ Liverpool to Halifax, Canadian Pacific to Vancouver,
 and steam over the Pacific.

 "It will beat the Suez Canal; but Lord Salisbury has got quit of
 the _Russian periodical scares_, which was the great thing, and all
 through you.

 "Give my kindest regards to your husband, and believe me always,

 "Yours sincerely,

 "G. H----."

The paragraph in my book above alluded to, was as follows:--

 "But our highest prospect of happy deliverance from this terrible
 northern rival (Russia) is still to be noticed; and that so little
 attention has been paid to it by our writers, is not a little
 astonishing to the student. In Russia it must have caused a vast
 amount of anxious thought; and it readily explains the cautious system
 of her approaches, parallels, and encroachments in the East; her
 provisional system of indirect until ready for direct rule over her
 new conquests; her strategic lines of observation and demonstration;
 and her carefully disposed apparatus of supports, reserves, and
 bases of operations. _Nolens volens_, will-we nill-we, Russia must
 eventually absorb Kashgar; she must meet China face to face, and then
 her serious troubles begin.

 "The dash of Tartar blood in Russian veins establishes a remote
 cousinhood with China. There is something of physical, and more of
 moral, likeness between the two peoples. Both are equally sturdy,
 hardy, frugal, energetic, persistent, aggressive, and brave in facing
 death. Both have a national speech, a peculiar alphabet, and, to go
 no further, a religion which distinguishes them from the rest of the
 world. Both are animated by the sturdy vigour of a newly awakened
 civilization. During the war of 1842 we facetiously said that it
 was rank murder to attack the Chinese troops with any missiles but
 oranges. Presently the Ever-Victorious Army led by Gordon, one of
 England's noblest and best neglected sons, showed the might that was
 slumbering in a nation of three hundred millions.

 "And now China is preparing herself, with that slow but terrible
 steadfastness of purpose which distinguishes her, to exercise her
 influence upon the civilized world,--upon the other three-fourths
 which compose the sum of humanity. After a hundred checks and defeats
 she has utterly annihilated the intrusive Mohammedan schism which
 attempted to establish its independence in Yunnan. She will do the
 same in Kashgar, although the dilatoriness of her proceedings,
 unintelligible to the Western mind, tends to create a false feeling of
 security. She is building a fleet and rolling her own plates. Her army
 is being drilled by Europeans; the men are armed with Remingtons, and
 she has six manufactories for breech-loading rifles. Securely cautious
 of her coming strength, she declines all little wars with England and
 France, till another dozen years or so shall enable her to meet her
 enemies on terms which, forecasted in 1842, would have appeared the
 very madness of prophecy.

 "Such is the nation which is fated to contend with Russia for the
 glorious empire of Central Asia. This is the power which our Press and
 its teachers have agreed to ignore. In the coming struggle we shall
 see the direct result of the Crimean War, and then, perhaps, we may
 reap the reward of sacrifices and losses which hitherto have added
 little to our honour or to our power."

[Sidenote: _We get Leave again to England_.]

He writes--

 "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.' The route lay through Krain or
 Carniola, with its queer little capital Laibach."

We made a ten days' delightful journey to England. At Krainberg began
the beautiful scenery, hills and dales, grey stone, sheets of snow,
pines, wheat-fields and cattle below, clouds and rain above, with a
burst of sunlight through, the river rushing by us, the peaks of the
Triglav in the clouds, the railway three thousand feet high. We were
both delighted and glad we came. Loads of Sunday people in costume
filled the stations till we got on to Villach. There is nothing like
the Austrian Tyrol for lovely scenery, which begins at Krainberg,
becomes perfect at Tarvis, and declines at Lienz. The Drau is a nice
river before it marries the Danube; it is brisk and full of life.

At Villach the scenery and the gorges of the Drau were dressed in
rainbow suit, mist and sunshine together. Lienz was very charming; we
took a very great fancy to it, and from hence went on to Toblach, which
opens into the magnificent gorge of the Cortina d'Ampezzo, which leads
to the Dolomites. This time we were not so stupid as to go to the big
Hôtel Toblach, because we were ill-treated last time; so we came to
the Gasthof Ampezzo, rough but comfortable, with good native cooking,
and a beautiful view up the valley of Ampezzo, where we had _Forellen_
(the mountain trout), good black cock, and excellent wine (_Offner_).
Then we went on to Innsbrück. We had one of those _Aussichtswagen_
at the end of the train, all of glass, so that you can see the view,
which was delightful, crossing the Brenner. The Brenner was full of
snow amphitheatres, deep gorges, firs in spring suits, and tower-shaped
rocks. The heat was very great; there are seventeen tunnels on this
crossing, some as long as four or five minutes. Dull old Innsbrück was
reached at last, where one feels as if the clouds were resting on the
top of one's head.

Innsbrück has a good hotel (Europa), but ridiculously dear. Here we
found some old Trieste friends, Baron and Baroness von Puthon, _née_
Comtesse de Bombelles; so we decided to pass a whole day at Innsbrück,
and to go on to Bâle the following day. Here in the Cathedral are the
bronze antique statues of the Imperialties of Austria from earliest
times, which I have before mentioned. We left the next day, and went
through the Arlberg tunnel, running through a most picturesque country.
The carriages are high and good, the ventilation excellent. Landeck
is the last station before entering the tunnel--it occupies eighteen
minutes by the express--and Arlberg is the station at which you come
out. The tunnel is lighted by a lamp at every mile. In going through
the Arlberg Richard remarked that the ground was rotten, and later
on this was more than confirmed. Feldkirch is the last Austrian, and
Bocks is the first Swiss station. The road is pretty, but not equal
to the other passes. The train then runs all along the lakes until
Zurich, after which the country is very common till Bâle. The Euler
is an old-fashioned but good hotel close to the Bâle station. We now
went in for a nineteen hours' journey by express from Bâle to Boulogne
and Folkestone--baggage is visited on the frontier at Delle. The train
_had wagon-lits_, but it shook and lurched as if the carriages were
very badly coupled. We stayed at Folkestone, as usual, to see Richard's
sister and niece, and found the local Exhibition going on.

In London we simply resumed our work of a few months before. Richard
attended the _levée_ on the 25th. He notices some pleasant dinners that
were given to us by Mr. Christie, and the poet Mr. St. Clair Baddeley
at Albert Mansions, at Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft's, where we met the Oscar
Wyldes, and lots of other pleasant people.

My so-called edition of the "Arabian Nights" was now being brought
out. It was a very melancholy time for me, my father being dead, and
we were, as is usual, dividing the property, packing up, and breaking
up the old home, which had been our refuge on all the holidays of our
married life.

[Sidenote: _Oxford_.]

He wrote--

 "Arrived in London, we had to realize the blow that had befallen us.
 The good old father, Henry Raymond Arundell, had quietly passed away,
 little short of eighty-seven, and we met to dine and drink a silent
 toast to his memory on his eighty-seventh birthday; the home, which
 had been the family _point de réunion_ since 1861, was now to be
 given up. This house was the link that held the family together, and
 once separated, people hardly ever reunite upon the same terms. All
 will understand how painful are such final breakings-up. On returning
 home, nothing so saddens the heart of the exile as the many empty
 chairs round the table. After a few visits to country houses, we found
 ourselves compelled to make sundry trips to Oxford. I had already
 memorialized the vice-chancellor and the curators of the Bodleian
 Library for the loan of the Wortley Montagu manuscripts of the
 'Arabian Nights.' Not a private loan, but a temporary transference to
 the India Office under the charge of that excellent librarian, Dr. R.
 Rost. This led to the usual long delays, and finally, on November 1st,
 came a distinct refusal, which was the more offensive because a loan
 had been lately made to another applicant, an Anglo-Indian coloured
 subject. The visits were essentially unpleasant. The Bodleian is the
 model of what a reading library should _not_ be, and the contrast of
 its treasures with their mean and miserable surroundings is a scandal.
 In autumn the University must be closed at three p.m., lights not
 being allowed; the student must transfer himself to its Succursale,
 the Ratcliffe, which as a _salle de lecture_ is even worse. The
 'Rotunda' is damp in the wet season, stuffy during the summer heats,
 and the cave of Eolus in windy weather. Few students except the
 youngest and strongest can endure its changeable nerve-depressing
 atmosphere. Nor did Oxford show well in point of climate; the air
 is malarious, and the resolute neglect of sanitation is a serious
 obstacle to students at this so-called Seat of Learning. Moreover,
 the ancient University had now become a mere collection of finishing
 schools, or rather a huge board for the examination of big boys and
 girls.

 "The old Alma Mater had always been to me a _durissima noverca_.
 Although the late Mr. Chandler, of Pembroke College, had stoutly
 opposed all lending of Bodleian books and manuscripts, he thoroughly
 sympathized with me, and he said to my wife, 'Who could have foreseen,
 when opposing all loans and laying down laws to limit the facilities
 of students, that directly afterwards Richard Burton would turn up and
 want an Arabic manuscript, a manuscript, moreover, which no man in the
 University can read, although it boasts of two Arabic professors?'

 "It was in vain to seek for a copyist at Oxford, and those who offered
 themselves in London I found by no means satisfactory. At last my wife
 hit upon the bright idea of photographing the pages required, and
 imparted her idea to Mr. Chandler, and Chandler thought it was a most
 valuable hint to the University. He not only carried it out, but he
 insisted on bearing all the expenses himself, despite my earnest wish
 to do so. The University should be grateful for this solution of the
 question. Books are now no longer lent, but photographs can always be
 obtained."

[Sidenote: _His Last Appeal to Government_.]

On the 1st of July we went to a party at Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Wylde's,
and there Richard met a man with whom he used to play chess thirty-five
years ago. Richard arrived at playing three games blindfold; but
after he left the Army he gave it up, because he wanted his brain for
other things. 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 Commissioner
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 Rosebery 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 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 Europeans, 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 Dahomé,
 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 examinations
 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 £300 a year to 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
 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 political
 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.

 "I 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."


 WHAT THE WORLD THOUGHT ABOUT IT.

 (Press cuttings from many papers.)


 "Richard Burton, four years before his death, wrote to the Government
 that the climate of Trieste was killing him, and begged that he might,
 after forty-five years of public service (nineteen in the Indian Army,
 and twenty-six in the Consular Service, always in bad climates),
 be allowed, at the age of sixty-six, to retire on full pension. He
 said if there were any difficulty from the Treasury to make up full
 Consular pension, that perhaps his services might be recommended to
 the Civil List, so as to make up £600 a year; and that if _that_ could
 not be granted, that the latter might be put in his wife's name, she
 being an authoress, and his coadjutor in all his services.

 "He said he would not be so tedious as to quote all his services, but
 would venture to lay a few facts before their lordships which might
 earn some consideration. That this being no political question, he
 was sure the public and the press would endorse it heartily as an
 exceptional case.

 "Over forty-seven of the greatest names in the kingdom supported this
 petition, as well as the press on both sides, but it was refused."


 PENSION.

 _Court and Society Review._


 "The many friends of Sir Richard Burton are endeavouring to obtain for
 him permission to retire from the Consular Service with his pension
 a few years before the usual time, and, considering the services
 rendered by the veteran explorer to his country and to the world
 at large, and the ludicrous inadequacy of the rewards meted out to
 him, there is nothing very extravagant in such a request. How great
 his claims to generous treatment really are is a matter of which
 most people are probably but ill informed. Thus, within the last few
 weeks it has been stated in a score of newspapers that Sir Richard
 Burton was 'the author of the system of bayonet exercise in use in
 the British army.' Quite true. But how is it that no one has added
 the trifling fact that Sir Richard Burton's reward for that work was
 a severe official 'wigging,' and, when the necessity for a system of
 bayonet exercise could no longer be concealed, permission to draw upon
 the Treasury for the munificent sum of _one shilling_?

 "In 1861, again, Sir Richard Burton was treated with egregious
 injustice. He had dared to hint in the days of John Company that the
 Court of Directors had been guilty of neglect of duties, and the
 truth of his view was proved by the fact that, had his counsel been
 followed, the massacre of Christians at Jeddah in 1851 would never
 have occurred. This was quite enough. He had been in the right, and
 his official superiors in the wrong. A black mark was, therefore,
 put against his name; and when the Indian Army passed, three years
 afterwards, from the Company to the Crown, the grudge was paid off.
 He being then on half-pay, had been appointed by Lord Russell Consul
 at Fernando Po. There are scores of instances of officers being
 allowed to take civil appointments whilst still upon the cadre of the
 Staff Corps in India. But the opportunity was too tempting. Burton
 had offended the 'big-wigs,' and, without the chance of appeal, his
 nineteen years of service were wiped out, and he was left without pay
 or pension. Even the Whigs of a quarter of a century ago recognized
 the injustice with which he had been treated, and so, after his famous
 expedition to Dahomé, he was appointed Consul at Damascus. There,
 unfortunately, he was found to be in the way. He would not sit by and
 watch threatened massacres or injustice to the Christian population,
 and so, at the request of Rashid Pasha, was removed by Lord Granville,
 who, as Lady Burton says, with some bitterness, 'is always complaisant
 and polite to foreigners.' A few months later Lord Granville found
 out his mistake, and made such reparation as he could by appointing
 Sir Richard Burton Consul at Trieste, where he has since remained, in
 the enjoyment of the colossal income of £600 a year, less official
 outgoings.

 "It is surely not too much to ask that a man who has been thus
 treated--who has served his country for forty-four years, and always
 under the most arduous conditions--should be allowed to pass the
 evening of his days in retirement in the enjoyment of the very modest
 pittance to which his latter official services entitle him. He has
 sown, and others have reaped; and there can surely be no impropriety
 in allowing the very small boon which his friends ask for him. If he
 had associated himself with the South Kensington ring in 1851, he
 would have received his knighthood a dozen years ago, and there would
 have been no necessity for his friends to be troubling themselves now
 about his pension."


 _The Bat_, December 7th.


 "I do most sincerely trust that Sir Richard Burton's friends will
 be successful in obtaining for him an adequate retiring allowance
 from his post at Trieste. Wherever modern deeds of daring are known,
 there is the name of Burton held in honour; and even in these days of
 exploration and travel, I stand amazed opposite a shelf containing
 the record of Burton's travels. In literature and scholarship he is
 not less distinguished than in geography; and yet he has been left to
 languish, year after year, in a place like Trieste, which is precisely
 one of those places which would suit the intellect and capacity of the
 average Foreign Office hack. After forty-five years of most eminent
 public service Sir Richard wants to come home to live in peace, and
 the question is whether he is to have a proper pension to enable him
 to do so. He is within four years of completing the term which would
 entitle him to a retiring allowance, for he has been in the Consular
 Service only since 1861."


 Cutting from _Truth_, October 7th, 1886.


 "There is a rumour that Sir Richard Burton wants to retire and take
 his pension, but that after forty-five years' service (nineteen
 military and nearly twenty-six consular) the pension is so small
 that he is driven to choose between losing his health in the
 pestilential drainage of Trieste, or retiring on something less than
 the necessaries of life. He might receive a pension for soldierly
 services, one for consular and diplomatic, and one for literary and
 linguistic services. This is not a political question, and it is one
 of those exceptional cases in which the country would willingly see
 the rigour of departmental law suspended, and a fair pension granted."

[Sidenote: _Chow-chow_.]

In August we went up to the Exhibition at Edinburgh to see our dear
old friend Mr. Mackay Smith, to whom we wished good-bye on the 26th
of August, and we never saw him again; and Mr. David Herbert, also a
friend of Richard's.

From thence we went to Glasgow to see Mr. and Mrs. Crawford, Mr.
Clouston, who was contributing some notes to the "Arabian Nights," Mr.
Gibbs, and Mr. David Main, publisher, bookseller, and poet.

From Glasgow we went to stay with Mr. Alexander Baird at Urie,
Stonehaven, where we met a very pleasant party: amongst others Sir
Samuel and Lady Baker. We returned to Edinburgh, thence to London.

In Edinburgh we looked after publishers and "Swords."

On the 18th of September Mr. H. Irving gave us a very agreeable supper
at the Continental Hotel, and Mr. Arbuthnot a pleasant dinner at
Richmond. Mr. George Paget was with us. We sauntered on the bridge and
watched the boats.

Richard notices a lunch at "dear old Larking's, aged eighty-five," who
sheltered him when going to Mecca; and that we had a very pleasant
dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Labouchere at Twickenham, and Richard dined
with the "Odd Volumes;" also a delightful lunch with G. A. Sala, and
one pleasant party at the Dowager Lady Stanley's of Alderley.

We saw a good deal of Count Téleki, who was starting on his African
travels, and we had a pleasant lunch with Mrs. (now Lady) Jeune.

On return we went to Wardour, where there had been a great storm;
some big oaks had been torn up in the pheasant copse near the Castle,
a shepherd's hut had been lifted up and dashed to pieces, and a
ploughshare had been blown along. We came in for an amusing village
dance. Thence we went to Bournemouth for two days, where we met a
good number of friends, dining with Sir Richard and Lady Glyn; then
to Eastbourne to see an old friend of my girlhood, the Comtesse de
Noailles, where we met Captain Jephson, who afterwards went with Mr.
Stanley to Africa.

Lord Iddesleigh was now our Chief at the Foreign Office, and both he
and Lady Iddesleigh were extremely kind to us, and we had a delightful
dinner at their house.

My father's dear old home was quite empty, and before the keys were
given up, Richard and I went all over it on the 18th of September,
and took a solemn leave of it. On the 27th of September Richard had
his last (independent) jolly night with his men-friends. He dined at
Boodle's to meet Prince Salms, and then he went to Mr. Deutsch's, and
he came home at half-past one, having had a very agreeable evening,
but it was for the last time in that kind of way. We had a dinner at
Mr. and Mrs. Ashbee's to say good-bye to Count Téleki before going to
Africa, and I gave him a talisman.

On the 6th of October we went to hear Mr. Heron Allen's lecture on
palmistry at the Vestry Hall, Hampstead.

[Sidenote: _His Third Bad Attack of Gout without Danger_.]

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; amongst others, I remember Lord Stanley
of Alderley, Mr. James Cotton of the Academy, St Clair Baddeley, Mr.
Arbuthnot, Miss Bird, J. H. McCarthy, junior, Mr. Anderson the author,
African traveller, and discoverer of the third movement of the Earth,
used to come and amuse him.

On the 10th of November, 1886, the first volume of my "Nights" came out.

After nearly six weeks' confinement to the house, Richard thought
that he should like to try Dr. Kellgren, of Eaton Square, who went
in for shampooing, and gives a kind of athletic treatment for these
complaints, and I went down to Eaton Square first to see what it was
like. On the 29th of November he came, and it was a very curious
experience. He arrived with a young lady called Miss Alice, who is
his right hand. They first treated _me_ for quite a different malady,
and my yells amused Richard very much, because he did not know that
it was not a joke. He was afraid to let anybody come into the room,
for fear that they should shake his foot, and he was presently being
driven round the room like a wild beast. This was kept up for several
days, and there is no doubt that, awful as it seemed, he was able to
go down to Dr. Kellgren's in Eaton Square in a brougham with me, with
restoratives in the carriage, on that day week, and he got gradually
better. We were able to drive to Putney and lunch with Swinburne and
Mr. Watts.

_This_ is his own account of it--

 "Three short visits to Oxford and one long one in a single month were
 sufficient to bring on a disabling attack of gout--my third attack of
 gout, which threatened to last. It was made as pleasant to me as it
 could be, by the kindness and attention and sympathy of such men as
 Professors Chandler, Sayce, and many other kind friends; and, helpless
 in both feet, 20th of October, I was ambulanced up to London by my
 wife, men to carry me from bed to train at each end, and bed in
 train. I went through my first treatment by Dr. Foakes, the rhubarb
 and magnesia man, but though the drugs formed a good prophylactic,
 they failed to subdue a sharp attack. After six weeks of bed, I
 determined upon a neck-or-nothing treatment, and sent my wife to fetch
 me Dr. Kellgren, the celebrated Swede, concerning whom there is such a
 variety of opinions in London. The treatment is simply horrible; the
 gouty limb, which can hardly bear the noise of a person passing over
 the carpet, is shampooed and twisted and pumped up and down till the
 patient is in absolute agony, and as soon as he is able to stand upon
 it he is driven round the room like a wild beast. There seems to be
 some danger in the practice; the lithic acid expelled from the joint
 is absorbed into the circulation, and in the protean malady no one can
 tell when or where the mischief may break out--in stomach, brain, or
 heart. However, the treatment was for _the moment_ most successful,
 and after a week I was able to crawl downstairs, limp into a cab, and
 visit Mr. Kellgren's establishment, No. 1, Eaton Square.[3]

 "The improvement continued, and we determined to pass our Christmas
 at Garswood with our uncle, the late Lord Gerard. He had always been
 both to me and to my wife a kind and generous friend, and a second
 father. It was her second home, and it was with heartfelt sorrow that
 we saw him fast declining, and felt sadly sure that we should not
 see him again; and so it proved, for after much difficulty he was
 persuaded to go up to town and take the best medical advice, but two
 days after was found dead in his bed. He belonged to that old school
 of good and gallant English gentlemen, which in its time made the name
 of Englishmen a word of honour throughout the civilized world. We took
 the opportunity of going over to Knowsley, which is a mere drive,
 where we found a large party, and we then returned to London, and were
 invited to Hatfield, where we also found a large Christmas party. On
 the 1st of November we said good-bye to Lady Marian Alford, who was
 declining in health, and we had a fear that we should not see her any
 more."

Richard notices on the 11th of November the death of our old friend the
Dublin philanthropist, Sir John Lentaigne, and on the 8th of December
he writes feelingly about the death of Lady Orford at Florence.

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.

[1] 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.

[2] Richard's retiring pension--full pension for his four last years.

[3] N.B.--I could often wish that that treatment had never taken place.
I cannot help connecting subsequent misfortunes with it.--I. B.




CHAPTER XIII.

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 Professor
Zotenberg, and was delighted with the library, the Bibliothèque
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 Hôtel Windsor, as we were rather done up.

[Sidenote: _Cannes and Society_.]

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
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 Asnàn,' 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
 organization 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 Hôtel 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 millionaires of
 the newest. Cannes is a syren that lures to destruction, 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 _misère
 physiologique_, reminding one of Madeira. One meets with friends
 without number,[1] and what with breakfasts, 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 café
 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 Highnesses. We had the honour
of being invited to breakfast by their Imperial Highnesses the Prince
Leopold and Princess of Hohenzollern-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 "Pentamerone of
Basili." He spoke the Neapolitan dialect very fluently as a boy.

[Sidenote: _The Earthquakes--Riviera_.]

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 earthquake.' 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, especially
Nice, Mentone, and chief of all Diana Marino, suffered terribly.
Mentone seemed as if freshly bombarded, and Diana, where the focus 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 folks
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 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 Abbé's room, and flung herself upon his bed,
shrieking, 'Get up! get up, Father! I have not confessed for twenty
years.' The poor Abbé 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--

    1.
    "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
 amusement 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 agitation, 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."

[Sidenote: _Richard becomes an Invalid_.]

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 something, 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 preparatory
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; 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. 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 Aurélie 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 Government, 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.


[Sidenote: _His own Account of it_.]

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 circumstances 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 strenuously 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,
 'How many valuable lives are lost by 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 determination 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.

 [Sidenote: _Our Journey with Dr. Leslie_.]

 "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 Hôtel 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 palpitation 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 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 corner.

 "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, 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.
MacDowall, and Madame Emily de Laszouska, _née_ 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 Opçina, the Slav village of the Karso, to the
Jäger, to Duino to visit the Princesses Hohenlöhe, and received many
visitors of all nations, many of them exceedingly interesting.

[Sidenote: _Drains_.]

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 investigation 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.

[Sidenote: _The Queen's Jubilee_.]

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 we attended
officially; on the second we had a banquet and ball at the Jäger.
Richard took the chair at dinner. He was brought down to dinner by his
doctor, where he made a most loyal and original speech, which I insert;
immediately after dinner he was taken upstairs again. It was the
only occasion on which he would ever consent to wear his order of St.
Michael and St. George.


 "HER MAJESTY'S JUBILEE AT TRIESTE.


 "The British subjects residing at Trieste have sent an address to
 her Majesty, signed by the whole colony, bound in dark red velvet,
 surmounted by the word 'TRIESTE' in gold letters.

 "They collected a considerable amount amongst themselves, part of the
 Women's fund to go to the Queen's General Fund, and the rest to a
 local charity for distressed English.

 "On the morning of the 20th there was divine service in the Protestant
 Church, which commenced with 'God save the Queen.' There was scarcely
 a dry eye in the church. Many of those present had not been home for
 thirty years or more.

 "In the evening a grand banquet of seventy-five covers was presided
 over by Captain Sir Richard and Lady Burton, the vice-president being
 the Rev. Mr. Thorndike, the Consular Chaplain. All the members of the
 Consulate, Mr. P. P. Cautley, British Vice-Consul (now acting because
 of Sir Richard's recent illness), and Mr. Nicolas Salvari, assisting.

 "The magnificent hall of the Jäger was adorned with flags, flowers,
 and lights; the centre-piece being the Queen's portrait, peeping out
 of a forest of laurels. Maestro Piccoli's band played during the
 banquet.

 "Sir Richard Burton (who wore for the first time his decoration of St.
 Michael and St. George), although in very feeble health, rose to give
 the toast of the evening, and made a speech which caused every heart
 to dilate with pride and loyalty. He said--

 [Sidenote: _Richard's Speech_.]

 "'We are about to drink the health of the greatest Lady in the land!
 To-night is a great night for us, and a proud one! All the world is
 assembled to-night throughout the globe to do honour to one Woman, the
 only woman in history who for fifty years' glorious reign, as Wife, as
 Mother, as Sovereign, as Widow, as Mother of her people, has been a
 shining light in each of these capacities to the whole world!

 "'This woman is our Queen! (Cheering.)

 "'An English man or woman says with emotion, "MY Queen!"
 Why? Because she is enthroned in our hearts, she is enthroned on our
 domestic hearths, as if she belonged to each one of us separately
 and singly. When we say "OUR Queen!" we say it with pride,
 for we feel that we clasp hands all round the world, from England to
 our independent American cousins, to Canada, to India, to Australia,
 to New Zealand, more than half the globe being English-speaking
 peoples--ONE great Nation held together by ONE great
 Woman! (Cheers.)

 "'An English man or woman may be individually mean and little; but
 they can never be so as a Nation. A man is mostly what his mother
 makes him. Show me a man noble, brave, loyal, strong, and true, and I
 can form a pretty good idea of the mother who bred him! (Hear, hear.)

 "'We are singularly fortunate in the women of our Royal Family. Look
 at our Nation's idol, the Princess of Wales! That lady has been the
 pivot of greatness and attraction for over twenty-four years, with
 every eye fixed upon her; yet none have ever heard her say one word,
 none have ever seen her do, aught but what befitted a Queen! And
 what perhaps _all_ do not know is, that although she may have been
 in public all day, perhaps tired, perhaps suffering, perhaps obliged
 to be in Society a greater part of the night, she never once omitted
 (so long as her children were little) to go into her nursery every
 evening at a certain hour to hear them say their prayers at her knee,
 lest those little prayers should ever become a mockery--just as any
 homely mother amongst _us_ would do, if she had good sound sense and a
 womanly heart. (Hear, hear.)

 "'With such women as these, we may confidently look forward to a long
 line of great kings, and feel that England's future strength and
 greatness, despite wars, despite political troubles, will endure to
 all time! (Cheers.)

 "'Let nothing mar our conviviality to-night. Many of us may not see
 for years such a reunion in Trieste, some of us--_never_; but we shall
 be able, in future time, to close our eyes, and see in fancy dreams,
 all these kindly, beaming faces around us.

 "'Let us unite in affectionate loyalty and reverence, in thankfulness,
 for the peace, prosperity, and advancement in civilization and
 humanity, which our Queen's fifty years' unique reign has brought to
 us and to the whole world.

 "'May God's choicest blessings crown her good works! May she be
 spared for many long, happy, peaceful, and prosperous years to her
 loyal, devoted people! May her mantle descend upon her children and
 her children's children! And may the loving confidence between her
 Majesty and all English-speaking peoples, throughout the world, ever
 strengthen and endure to all time!

 "'Now let Trieste hear for once, with one heart and one voice, a true
 British cheer!

    "'HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN!'

 "This toast was drunk with an enthusiasm equal to the demand, so that
 the hall and woods rang again with 'Hip! Hip! Hip! Hurrah!' and cries
 of 'The Queen!' 'The Queen!' which lasted several minutes.

 "Sir Richard then rose once more, and gave 'The Emperor and the
 Empress of Austria, whose guests we are! the Lord of the Land we live
 in!'

 "The Rev. Mr. Thorndike made two charming speeches, the first in
 proposing the health of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and all
 the Royal Family, which was received with enthusiasm; the second in
 proposing the health of President Cleveland of the United States (the
 American Consul-General, Mr. Gilbert, and his predecessor, Mr. Thayer,
 being the only strangers invited). The respective national anthems
 were played after each of these four toasts.

 "The healths of Sir Richard and Lady Burton were then enthusiastically
 drank, and as by this time Sir Richard was very fatigued, Lady Burton
 rose and returned thanks. Mr. Thayer then recited some of his own
 poetry in England's praise, very prettily done, showing the difference
 between the time of Queen Elizabeth and that of Queen Victoria.

 "The Rev. Mr. Thorndike's health was then drank, and that of Mr.
 Cautley, Acting-Consul.

 "The banquet was followed by songs executed by Miss Agnes Thorndike,
 who has a magnificent voice. 'God save the Queen' was sung with true
 devotion by the seventy-five English; then followed the ball, which
 was kept up with great spirit, and which was concluded with 'Sir Roger
 de Coverley' just before dawn.

 "On the night of the 21st the British Consulate, Sir Richard Burton's
 private house, and the dwellings of most of the British residents,
 were brilliantly illuminated. Telegrams, letters, and cards of
 congratulation continued to pour in from all quarters. Mr. and Mrs.
 Craig had an evening _fête_ with illuminated garden for forty English
 children on the 22nd, and this terminated the three days' festivities
 at Trieste.

 "June 23rd, 1887."

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 letting 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
Opçina, 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.

[Sidenote: _Ally Sloper_.]

In early 1887 I received a diploma from _Ally Sloper_ for _having
translated the "Arabian Nights_," and wrote him the following letter:--

 "St. James's Hotel, Piccadilly, W.

 "January 2nd, 1887.

 "DEAR FRIEND ALLY SLOPER,

 "I was quite overcome to find that you had elected me a member of
 the Sloperies. I felt that I had really 'awoke and found myself
 famous,' and that my poor husband, who had spent thirty-two years in
 translating and perfecting the 'Arabian Nights,' wasn't in it at all.
 I did not feel _at all_ like the bellows to the organ, or the fly
 on the wheel. Everybody says that since I have received the diploma
 I give myself such dreadful airs that nobody can live with me. When
 I have calmed down again, and grown used to my new honours, I will
 strive always to deserve the good opinion and confidence of the
 Sloperies, by emulating all that is best and noblest in the world, and
 doing the most useful work I can find for my remaining years.

 "Yours always truly,

 "ISABEL BURTON, F.O.S."

Then Richard received a diploma, and sent the following:--

 "Cannes, February 23rd, 1887.

 "DEAR OLD MAN,

 "Excuse the familiarity of the address. You know that we have been
 friends for years, and I know that you have often done me a good turn.
 But really this last honour is overwhelming to a man who has some
 sense of shame remaining. 'F.O.S.!' I must try to 'live up' to that.

 "Ever yours sincerely,

 "R. F BURTON, F.O.S."

[Sidenote: _We think of a Caravan_.]

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 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 preserved this nest sacredly, in the hopes others
would come, and I hope it is there still. It made Richard a little
superstitious, which superstition 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 Hohenlöhe, Princess Taxis, and Prince Palavacini, and
the Comte de Brazza to tea. These impromptu 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, probably,
fits if he had not been taken such 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.

[Illustration: THE BURTONS' SMOKING-DIVAN, TRIESTE. _A Photograph by
Dr. Baker._]

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.

[Sidenote: _He gets much better--We go for our Summer Trip_.]

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 15th 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 £60
 a year, and they lived an hour from Trieste like peasants, and in
 a peasant's cottage. The sons found employment, 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 Pöltschach, 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.[2] 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 _promenoir_ 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 imagined, is simple
 enough. They rise before the sun, walk about drinking the waters, and
 flock to the restaurant for rolls and _café 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 _déjeuner à la fourchette_, which is
 really a dinner. The cooking was tolerable, the wines too, and the
 price half that of Maríenbad. 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 niente_ after eleven of hard drudgery. The
 visitors vary from six to twelve thousand. The nicest drives are
 Rohitsch, to Pöltschach, and Marein, Graf Atems Schloss, Kostránitz,
 and Maríen 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 fantastic lie to punish them, they have gaped, and said,
 'How wonderful! 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!

 [Sidenote: _Some of our Royalties come to Trieste_.]

 "The fourth event was the arrival of the English Squadron, on
 September 9th, at Trieste, with the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh,
 Prince George of Wales, the Marquis of Lorne, 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 harmonious relation. This had been our pleasant duty for many
 years past, and now, on this, the grandest occasion of all, we were
 condemned 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 disappointed 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 Würmbrandt and the Gräfin,
 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 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 coachman 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, archæologist 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."

[Sidenote: _We lose Dr Leslie, and Dr. Baker comes to us_.]

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 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
appointment, and I begged to be allowed to write and ask him to accept
ours. I obtained permission, and he relieved Dr. Leslie on October
15th, 1887.

[1] I notice he was introduced to one lady whom he describes in his
journal as "a charming kangaroo;" and it was so apt, so clever, as his
comparisons always were.--I. B.

[2] Sauerbrunn has been already mentioned, but I want to give his
description of it.




CHAPTER XIV.

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 welcome, 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 _attaché_; 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.

[Sidenote: _Programme of our Day_.]

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 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
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.

[Sidenote: _Abbazia_.]

His journal continues:--

 "On the 1st 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, unformed 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 Hammám 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
 newspapers, 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 _doré_ 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 Janc, the
 Catholic priest, to come and read German with me in the evenings, and
 I had my literature--my two last volumes of supplemental '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
 jurisdiction. 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 _promenoir_,
 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; consequently you are driven
 into a kind of _estaminet_, 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 employé of the _Südbahn_,
 which owns the place, and not to a _hôtelier_, 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 a
healthy gout in the feet. The thermometer was at zero, and we had
almost perpetually such awful snow for two months, and the comforts
were so primitive, that we disliked it, and we wrote together a little
pamphlet on it.

On the 9th of January, 1888, we were made very unhappy by reading Lady
Marian Alford's death in the papers, which we felt very badly. She was
the kindest friend we had in London, and Richard said, "I believe by
the time we get back to London nearly all our old friends will be dead."

It is a custom here on Shrove Tuesday night to ring all the church
bells at eleven o'clock, to make the rich people leave off eating meat
preparatory to Ash Wednesday (Lent), and to give the poor time to eat
up the refuse before midnight.

Richard was gouty off and on all this snow-time. On the 18th the Crown
Prince, poor Prince Rudolf, 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. She was a
lady doctor, Anti-vivisectionist, advocate of vegetarianism, President
of the Theosophical Society, and founder of the Hermetic Society for
the study of religion and philosophy. Both Richard and I became very
nervous as the 26th came round, the anniversary of his fit, but it
passed off without any trouble.

On the 19th of February, 1888, he deplores the death of the Rev. George
Percy Badger, D.C.L., the eminent Oriental scholar, at seventy-three.

[Sidenote: _We return to Trieste_.]

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.

We were now reading "Mohammed Benoni," the work of Mr. Pedicaris, of
Marocco.

On the 12th of March, 1888, he notices "the first swallows over the sea
at sunset."

Mr. Thayer wrote to the _Tribune_ from Trieste, under date of March 17--

 "Lady Burton's expurgated edition of 'The Thousand Nights and One
 Night' is now complete in six handsome volumes. The last of the copy
 for Sir Richard's supplementary volumes of the 'Nights' will be sent
 to England next week. His motto has been for forty years, 'Without
 haste, without rest,' and as soon as the 'Nights' are ended, he will
 begin in earnest, what must prove to be a work of remarkable interest,
 his autobiography. His life, detailed by himself, if his conversation
 affords the means of judging, must be as fascinating as a romance. Its
 scenes range from the jungles of India to the tropical swamps of South
 America, from the snows of Iceland to the mephitic moraines of Central
 and Western Africa. Two years ago, his health was so broken that his
 friends feared he might not be able even to complete the 'Nights,' and
 we quite despaired of ever enjoying his autobiography; but now the
 case is happily altered, for, though still far from well, through the
 care and solicitude of his noble wife and his excellent physician, we
 have every reason to hope that his enormous power of continuous mental
 labour will carry him through the work."

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 7th 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 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 11th 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.

[Sidenote: _His Notes on his Swiss Summer_.]

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 conveyed 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 Hôtel 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, abounding with acacia
 and yellow broom, and peopled with cuckoos and hoopoes. We dined
 at the buffet in the open. We were directed 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 of 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 Haüser, who have made this the model
 establishment 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 Haüser 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 décor de théâtre_. 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 mediæval 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.

 "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 confirmed, the
 Swiss railways generally, for accommodation and convenience, 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.

 [Sidenote: _Aigle_.]

 "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 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 _cuisine_. After a month's stay, we
 determined 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; we 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
Rénan's "Apôtres."

I need not say that wherever we 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
Rhône 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 _Curé_ at Aigle, the Abbé 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 we had had enough of it, and went to Geneva, where his delight
was to go and take a huge middle-day dinner with 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.

[Sidenote: _Our Last Visit to England_.]

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 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 Salvation 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 Commander 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 _muezzin's_ 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. 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 restlessness 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. We 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 21st of August we went down to Bromley Holwood to see Lord and
 Lady Derby; they showed us Pitt's old house, the oak 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 Lützow 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.

[Sidenote: _Richard leaves it for ever_.]

On the 15th of October, 1888, Richard left London. Little did we think
he would never return to it more alive. We stayed at Folkestone 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 Professor
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 Hôtel 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 (château 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. At first he was very nervous
and tired, but he wound up as he went on, and, like our Society, at
the end he was asked to sit down, and everybody who felt inclined got
up and asked him questions, which he answered. The meeting was very
cordial. There are some very distinguished men in Geneva, and all the
best Society, when you have pierced the outer crust, tends to serious
life, study, and acquiring information. On the 1st of December we
went on to Vevey, where we found Madame Nubar Pasha. Monsieur Albert
de Montêt, a member of one of the great families--a young man, but
learned--came frequently to breakfast. We stopped at the Hôtel du Lac
on the Lake, but it was too damp, so we went up to Mooser's, which
was delightful. Here I was asked to lecture at the house of the great
family of the place--the De Couvreurs, and it was just a repetition of
the one at the Geographical Society in Geneva.

[Sidenote: _His Advice about Suákin_.]

From here Richard wrote:


 "THE POSITION AT SUÁKIN.

 "To the Editor of the _Times_.


 "Sir,--The decisive defeat of the dervish invader unsieges Suákin,
 but the chronic difficulties of our false position are by no means
 diminished. We cannot evacuate the unhealthy, wretched slave port,
 because it would immediately be occupied by rivals or enemies, and
 our unwritten compact with the Egyptian Government binds us to retain
 it. But occupation under the existing circumstances means simply a
 protracted state of petty warfare, and troubles will recur at regular
 intervals, until one party or the other will prefer to give way.

 "The grievance of the Soudanese tribes is most reasonable. They have a
 racial and inherited hate and dread of the Egyptian and of the Turk,
 and they will never rest until they rid 'Blackland' of them. I found
 the same feeling prevalent throughout the Somali country, and at
 Harar, where my greatest danger was of being mistaken for an Osmanli.

 "To make the game worth the candle, we must clear Suákin of its
 Egyptian clique, and re-embark the last Egyptian soldier _en route_
 for the Nile Valley. I would not expose British troops to the
 abominable climate of the Red Sea littoral; but I think that, after
 the fighting is fought, the Indian sepoy could resist the exile till
 such time as we can make peace with the tribes, raise, arm, and
 discipline a native Soudanese contingent, and settle the country on
 the firm basis of commerce and friendly intercourse. And note that the
 sepoy is more feared in Egypt than the British soldier; the latter has
 a scornful dislike to shed black blood, whereas the former shows no
 such weakness.

 "I see that the 'basest of kingdoms'--for such Egypt has become once
 more--officially objects to the return of Mr. Wylde, and that our
 authorities have, as usual, admitted the preposterous demand. Mr.
 Wylde has committed the unpardonable sin of publishing two volumes of
 home-truths. He has shown up the wild Suákin clique; he has accounted
 for our military failures; he has unsparingly denounced the jobbery
 and corruption which disgrace our petty district wars. He is loved
 neither by civil administrators nor by military incapables, and he is
 the _bête noir_ of railroad contractors and others of the same genus.
 But he has shown us the way out of our difficulties--that is, if we
 choose to adopt the results of his long and extensive experience.
 But the Soudan question is becoming, like its Eastern kinsfolk, easy
 enough to be settled, whenever settlement shall become necessary; and,
 meanwhile, it is a permanent malady most profitable to the faculty.
 Without it what would become of the diplomatists and the host of
 little nationalities and individuals who delight to fish in troubled
 waters, and who would starve in the calm of peace and quiet?

 "To my countrymen I would say, 'Englishmen, at least be humane. The
 Soudanese tribes never had any quarrel with you. They knew you only
 as the folk who came among them to shoot big game. They entertained
 you hospitably, and they freely lent themselves to all your fads. With
 indescribable levity you attacked these gallant and noble Negroids,
 who were doing battle for liberty, for their hearths and homes, and
 for freedom from the Egyptian tax-gatherer and from the Turkish
 despoiler. You threw yourselves, unlike your forefathers, who dearly
 loved fair play, on the strongest side, and you aided in oppressing
 the weak by a most unholy war. You have cast an indelible blot upon
 the fair fame of England. With your breech-loading rifles and Gatling
 guns you attacked these gallant races; but Allah sometimes defends
 the right, and you have had more than once to flee before men armed
 with a miserable spear and a bit of limp leather by way of a shield.
 Your errors were those of ignorance. Do not persist in them now that
 you have learnt the truth. After dispersing the dervishes, seize the
 earliest opportunity of showing your magnanimity, and come to terms
 with the gallant enemy, upon the express condition that no Egyptian
 official, civil or military, shall ever pollute the land with his
 presence. And if this step fail (but it will not fail) to restore
 peace, you will at least have offered the best atonement for the
 bloody misdeeds of the past.

 "In advocating this treatment of the Suákin affairs, I presume that
 the public is no longer blinded about our occupation of Egypt. We
 entered the country for a purpose which, as all experts know, was
 perfectly Utopian. We shall not teach the Moslems of the Nile Valley
 our civilization, nor shall we Christianize even the Christian Copts.
 We shall remain among them upon sufferance. We shall even be welcome,
 after a fashion, to the Fellah so long as we half tax him, and abate
 the nuisance of the Pasha and the Bey and the Greek village usurer.
 But this means that we must continue there for an indefinite time. The
 embarkation of the last British soldier will be followed by horrors
 far surpassing the worst 'plagues of Egypt' in the olden days.

 "I am, sir, yours faithfully,

 "RICHARD F BURTON.

 "(Vevey,) December 21st, 1888."


 Extract from a cutting.


 "We have had enough of these sickening massacres. Sir Richard Burton,
 who knows the Egyptian to the bone, and who is a second Gordon in his
 knowledge of the Soudan and its people, has declared that it is folly
 to expect Fellah troops, officered by Europeans, to fight against any
 Mahdi. He foresaw the present disaster when he wrote that nothing that
 Sir Evelyn Wood or Baker Pacha might do 'could prevail against Fellah
 superstition.'"

On Christmas Eve, 1888, we amused ourselves with putting our stockings
outside the door, like the children, for Santa Claus, and we all filled
each other's with little presents; but the two greatest amusements were
that my contribution to my husband's stocking was only a birch-rod,
_i.e._ a _bonbonnière_ made exactly like a birch-rod, the goodies being
in the handle. He was delighted with this, and I found it amongst his
treasures after his death. The other was that (of course) we all filled
Lisa's stocking to repletion, and she got some very pretty things. So
she said, "Oh, I like this game! I never saw it before; I shall put
my stocking out every night." She thought they would always come. On
Christmas Day we had _egg-nogg_ with the Montgomerys, our ex-American
Consul of Trieste.


 "RICHARD'S NOTES FROM VEVEY.


 "Montreux, January 10th, 1889.

 "I noticed, like all tourists, two inscriptions, public and modern,
 and was informed by my hospitable Veveysan friends that both are based
 upon erroneous 'Factology.'

 "No. 1, placed behind the Halle aux Blés, to the north of the Place du
 Marché, runs:--

                                 'Ici
                 Jean Jacques Rousseau logea en 1732.'


 "No. 2, which has more interest for Englishmen, runs thus:--

                            "'Ici habitait
                            Edmund Ludlow,
             Lieut.-Général, Membre du Parlement Anglais,
                  Défenseur des Libertés de son Pays.
                 L'illustre Proscrit avait fait placer
             cette Inscription sur la Porte de sa Demeure,
                "omne solum forti patria quia patris."
                Energiquement protégé par les Autorités
             et accueilli avec sympathie par les habitants
                    de Vevey, Edmund Ludlow a vécu
                   dans cette ville de 1662 à 1693,
                          année de sa mort.'


 [Sidenote: _Discussing about Ludlow_.]

 "The place pointed out to me is No. 49, Rue du Lac, occupied by
 the Imprimérie Loertscher et Fils, which still prints the famous
 _Messager Noiteux_, an almanack dating from 1707. The alley setting
 off to the north, and called 'Ruelle des Anciens Fossés de la Ville,'
 shows that the exiles were then lodged outside the town, and consequently
 a strict guard was necessary for their safety. Lausanne
 failing in this matter, Mr. John Lisle, M.P., another of the gallant
 band, was there shot in the back by a hired assassin.

 "Ludlow returned to England in 1689, before the accession of Charles
 II., risked his life for nearly two years, and finally hurried back
 to Vevey in 1690, or three years before his death (aged seventy-two).
 Possibly he may then have lodged at the place noted by the epigraph.
 There is a local legend known to all--even to the guide-books--that
 early in the present century an English couple introduced themselves
 as 'Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow' to M. Grenier, who had bought the house
 from M. Cottier, the successor of M. Dubois. While the lady remained
 pleasantly chatting with the ancient proprietor, the gentleman
 slipped out of the room and carried off the wooden tablet bearing the
 epigraph, 'Omne solum,' etc.

 "Vevey behaved with characteristic hospitality and the true Switzer's
 love of liberty in protecting the 'regicides' against the bravos of
 Savoy, paid with English gold by the Merry (and most unchivalrous)
 Monarch. She should take more pride in this one heroic action
 than in having harboured a host of royalties and quasi-royalties--the
 Empress Maria Federowna, the Kings of Bavaria, Wurtemburg,
 and the Netherlands, Princes Alexander and George of Prussia,
 Princess de Lignitz, the Grand-Duchess Anne of Russia, and many
 a minor star. She also, at the instance of Mistress Ludlow, gave to
 her guests their last homes under her most honoured roof--the
 church of St. Martin (built in A.D. 1498). The five rest side by side
 in the northern aisle--Andrew Boughton and John Phelps (clerks
 to the Court, who read out the death-sentence), Gawler, Love, and
 Ludlow. The latter has a memorial tablet on the northern wall over
 his grave, surmounted by a most un-Puritan crest--a lion rampant--and
 (therein) he 'winged his way to the eternal mansions.' Phelps
 has also a brand-new slab of black marble facing eastwards, set up
 by two Anglo-American kinsmen of the same name. Broughton,
 who 'slept in the Lord,' was placed under the aisle-pavement, and
 all the other gravestones are hidden by a boarding which we hope
 to see removed as soon as the fine old pile, whose massive masonry
 is splitting, and whose western portal and huge belfry with turreted
 angles are palpably sloping northwards, shall have found certain
 funds for repairs now necessary. The view from the church terrace
 is inimitable. Here no art can equal nature, and it is a sufficient
 illustration of Mendelssohn's dictum (Lady Wallace, p. 96), 'The
 Swiss can paint no beautiful scenery, precisely because they have it
 the whole day before their eyes.'

 "R. F. BURTON.

 "P.S.--In reading Ludlow's memoirs we must beware of his truly
 British cacography--_e.g. Baron de Chatteler_ (for Chattelard, vol. iii.
 p. 153), _Tunno_ (for Thonon, in Chablais, p. 157), and _Ouches_ (for
 Ouchy, port of Lausanne, p. 158).

 "_Correction_ (which he notes in journal).--Several correspondents
 have written to point out some manifest errors of date in Sir R. F.
 Burton's 'Notes from Vevey,' in the _Academy_ of last week. In the
 Ludlow inscription, the date of his arrival at Vevey should clearly
 be '1662,' and not 1642; and the passage, 'Ludlow returned to
 England in 1689, before the accession of Charles II.,' should apparently
 run--'Ludlow returned to England in 1688, before the
 accession of William and Mary.'"


 "NOTES FROM LAUSANNE.


 "Lausanne, February 24th, 1889.

  "The _Academy_ of February 2 contains two corrections of my 'Notes
 from Vevey,' one error being typographical, and the other an _infelix
 culpa_, the result of inordinate carelessness. As your correspondent
 remarks, 1642 should be 1662; and I find, by inspection, the date
 so recorded upon Ludlow's tablet. The second passage should be
 read, 'Ludlow returned to England about mid 1689, shortly after the
 accession of William and Mary.' Your correspondent proposes, 'Ludlow
 returned to England in 1688;' but the following official letter,
 kindly furnished by M. Albert de Montêt, shows this also to be an
 error. The General's report of his intended journey, addressed to
 their Excellencies the Seigneurs de Berne, with its queer French,
 quaintly Anglicized and Roundheaded, may perhaps interest some of your
 readers.

 "'Lettre de Ludlow au Conseil de Vevey, du 2 Juin, 1689,
 "Manuaux de la Ville, L.," p. 103.

 "'Mes très honnorés Seigneurs! Le Seigneur qui m'a pourveu
 (_sic_), avec plusieurs autres de mes compagnons en mes souffrances
 et exil pour la parolle et le témoignage de Jésus, d'un asile très
 favorable: en nous conduisant par la colonne de feu sous votre bénin
 et equitable government, m'appelant aujourd'huy pour faire un tour
 dans mon pays d'Etat pour y faire mon possible pour fortifier les
 mains de notre Gédéon, qui est miraculeusement suscité pour nous
 retirer de la maison de servitude et démolir l'autel de Baal contre
 ceux qui prennent la querelle pour luy (soi?) et choisissent plustôt
 de se mettre soubs l'arbre de l'Espine que soubs l'équitable domination
 du roy de la justice et du prince de paix. Ayant par la grande bonté
 de Dieu depuis plusieurs années, entre autres providences signalées
 et spéciales, amplement et pleinement expérimenté les effets de la
 très gracieuse réception à notre première arrivée en cette ville, qu'il
 vous a plu de nous signiffier par feu M. le Banderent De Montet de
 votre part, comme membre du même corps avec yous auquel Christ
 et (est?) le chef, je me trouve obligé devant que je parte pour
 l'Angleterre, ignorant les choses qui m'y doivent arriver, de vous en
 témoigner ma très humble recognoissance vous suppliant de l'accepter
 jusqu'à ce que l'occasion se présente pour le manifester plus réelement,
 vous asseurant que je ne manqueray pass de s'en (m'en?)
 préveloir pour vous faire voir à tous en général et à chacun en
 particulier que je seray tenu ma vie comme obligé d'estre, Très
 honnorés Seigneurs Votre très humble, très fidelle et très obéissant
 serviteur.

 "'(Signed) EDM. LUDLOWE (_sic_).'

 [Sidenote: _Richard's Remarks on Lausanne_.]

 "To an Englishman at Lausanne, Gibbon is still the prime subject
 of local interest. I had also been assured that many imprinted
 autographs remain in private hands, despite the mass of correspondence
 published in the 'Life and Letters,' pp. 178-356, by Mr. W. J.
 Day, London, F. Warne (undated). But I repeat that the traveller
 must as often discover what there is not as determine what there is.

 "An introduction to M. William de Charrière de Sévery (the
 grandson of M. Wilhelm de Sévery, Gibbon's familiar and legatee)
 convinced me that rumour had exaggerated. He has a few notes,
 a single bundle, mostly private, if not confidential; and the same is
 the case with Mdme. Grenier-Bourgeois. The 'relics' are most
 interesting. We were shown the favourite writing-paper, letter-sized,
 gilt-edged, and rough, fit only for the goose-quill, of which a few
 ink-stained specimens are preserved; the cards, playing and others,
 upon which notes to intimates were generally written in a schoolboy
 hand, stiff and tall; a long list of linen for bedding, etc., proving
 business habits; and the last will and testament (October 1, 1791),
 covering three pages foolscap-sized--of the latter Mr. Day (p. 176)
 prints an abstract. The cellar still contains a few bottles of the
 'Malmsey-Madeira' which Gibbon sent for in 1789 (p. 123), and
 which he had probably to thank for a frightful attack of gout. We
 were favoured with a sight of the portraits: one the usual Kit-cat in
 pastels--Lausanne then containing sundry famous pastellistes--a
 cameo-bust on wedgwood (much idealized), and an _aquarelle_ of
 'The Historian' (hideous exceedingly), sitting before the façade of
 his house at Lausanne, afterwards removed to make way for the
 Hôtel Gibbon. This, by the way, is a fraud, boasting that its
 garden contains the identical chestnut tree under which the last
 lines of a twenty-years' work were written. Unfortunately, the oft-quoted
 passage describing that event (p. 103) assigns it to 'a
 summer-house in my garden,' near a _berceau_, or covered walk of
 acacias; all of which have long disappeared to make way for the Rue
 du Midi. Upon the strength of this being 'Gibbon Castle,' we are
 somewhat overcharged and underfed; and we are convinced that
 Lausanne wants an establishment, like the admirable 'National' of
 Geneva, half-way between the City and Ouchy, her port, and not far
 from 'Christ Church' Square.

 "Voltaire is so forgotten by the general world at Lausanne, that
 even an educational professor ignored his 'philosophical' exile in
 Switzerland. He left Vaud after a dispute with the ecclesiastical
 authorities. Yet there are still three places that belong to him:
 Monrepos, a villa to the north-east, where tradition says the _première_
 of 'Zaire' was acted; Maison Gaulis, in the Grand Chêne Street;
 and Maison Mont-Riond (Round Hill) Dapples (Gibbon's 'D'Apples').
 The latter rises east of the historic hillock, crowned with two trees,
 described in every guide-book. The house, whilom infamous for
 damp, was drained dry by the Funicular Railway, and is now let to
 Dr. Niven, whom we last met at Matharan (Bombay). The chief
 room in the two-storied block is traditionally the theatre. A few
 yards to the north-west there is also the half of a cottage under an
 inordinate tile roof, capping clay walls with wooden beams, three
 stories high at the Lake front. _La Casquette_, as the artists call their
 favourite, is, or rather was, a kind of snuggery, whereto Voltaire
 retired for study in solitude; and yet it is mistermed by sundry of
 the folk _Laboratoire de Rousseau_. It is now occupied by a gardener,
 whose family of twelve, despite overcrowding and bad air, shows
 signs of exceptional health and strength. I only hope that the
 Municipality will buy it and rail it round, and preserve it as a relic.

 "RICHARD F BURTON.

 "N.B. to all who 'undigest'--Avoid any but distilled water at
 Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux, and throughout the limestone regions
 of Switzerland."




CHAPTER XV.

AT MONTREUX.


On the 2nd of January, 1889, we moved ourselves to the Hôtel
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 Château de
Chillon, to Hôtel 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. Abbé
Stercky went with us. He is one of the monks, was Curé of Aigle,
and Richard liked him. The little inn is cosy, with its good Dalmatian
proprietor, who kept a cheerful room, a blazing wood fire, a
capital good breakfast, and a good bottle of Dôle de Valais. We
passed a good deal of time in the monastery.

It is the oldest Augustinian monastery in the world, and having
Abbé 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, Père 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;
there were presents, and flowers, and little speeches. I got quite
choky, and Richard ran away and locked himself up. The next
day we gave a big tea-fight, and enjoyed it very much. Richard
had now a little return of the gout attack, but it passed off in a few
days. The evenings were lovely. I can remember one, nay, many
evenings, with a clear sky, the mountain of snow standing out like a
vision, lit by a lovely crescent moon and large evening star.

At Chillon we saw the room where Miss Sterling, of the Salvation
Army, was imprisoned for talking religion to the children. She had
written on the walls, and we often revisited the chapel where so
many have suffered.

On the 28th (January) Richard got a letter announcing the death of
one of our friends, Mr. Paul Bird; and on the 29th, Carlo Pellegrini.

On the 5th of February came Mr. Lorie, painter, from Egypt.

We were very disappointed to find the Archbishop Mermillod had
left for Cannes, being very ill, as I had known him since 1858.

[Sidenote: _M. Elisée Réclus_.]

Here we had the pleasure of a visit from the famous Elisée
Réclus: _homme de lettres_ and geographer is, perhaps, his right
description, but as an Agnostic he stands out a little far; even the
Sacrament of Matrimony is, they say, prohibited in his family. I
was very anxious to give him a cordial reception, as he interested
Richard and all of us immensely. His opinions coincided with the
following, taken from Mrs. Bennett-Edwards' "Unwritten Law"--

 "'Legalized marriage is tyranny--the tyranny of the Law and
 of the Church over the privacy of the individual. I will have no
 son and no daughter of mine a slave. If the result of a man's or
 a woman's life be moral--if it produce good, not evil, to the
 society--by what right does any Law or any Church interfere to
 regulate it? Wait,' he said to us; 'do nothing hastily that you may
 repent later. Wait until your characters and tastes be formed by
 your experience; and then, if you find them suitable one with the
 other, take up your lives together, that together you may reach the
 goal which I have set you--to the bettering, by example, of your
 fellow-men. Teach them that love, which means unity, is stronger
 to bind man to woman than any law; that a man's or a woman's
 honour is stronger to compel faith than any religious superstitions.'"

At the hour appointed the door was thrown open, and an
announcement was made, which I did not hear, but I immediately
left my armchair and my book, and walked over with both hands
extended, saying, "Dear Monsieur Réclus, I am so delighted to
make your acquaintance; such a pleasure to know such a distinguished
man." He received my little speech with profuse bows and
cordial thanks, and then pulling a key out of his pocket, he proceeded
to wind the clocks. I felt a little surprised, but I thought
it was perhaps another of the great man's peculiarities, so I went on
talking to him the while, telling him how glad my husband would be
to talk geography and science over with him, when the door opened,
and a loud voice announced Monsieur Elisée Réclus. I picked
myself up in a minute, and immediately performed the same ceremony
as before. The clock-winder behaved so beautifully; he never
moved a muscle of his face, and when he had finished his work, went
out with a lovely bow. This episode delighted Richard and Dr.
Baker.

On the 31st of January we had the report of poor Prince Rudolf's
death; it threw a gloom over everything. On the 13th arrived Mr.
Gustave Oppenheim, an old friend.

[Sidenote: _Our Swiss Outing_.]

When Richard had had enough of Montreux, we moved on to
Lausanne. All came to see us off, and we wondered how many of
us would meet again. Here we found Colonel Abbadie, Dr. Baker's
mother and sister, Marc Dufour, a celebrated oculist and philanthropist,
and Abbé Deruaz. 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. We also had the pleasure of
meeting there the Rev. H. B. Chapman, Father Damien's friend.

On the 25th we went off to Berne to see Mr. and Mrs. Scott, our
Minister. It was looking very picturesque and beautiful; the Hôtel
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.
Monsieur de Montêt's brother, Emanuel, a banker, called and showed
us the lions. We were now reading the "Service of Man" by
James Carter Morison.

It was now that we returned, 1st of March, 1889, to Lucerne,
which was another "Snow Hell." We went to the Hôtel 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. I did not know it then, but I know it now, by three subsequent
experiences, that I had a sharp attack of influenza, but we
did not talk so much about this epidemic in 1889. It was a great
mortification that I had to be several days in bed, as one of my
cousins and some others were waiting to do a very nice expedition,
which I should have thoroughly enjoyed, and had to let them go
without me. There was one fortunate thing, that when I was ill,
Richard was well; and if he was down, I was always perfectly well
and able.

On the 10th we went down to Venice, to the Hôtel 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.

[Sidenote: _Trieste again_.]

On the 30th we accompanied Prince and Princess Victor Von
Hohenlöhe and daughter to the _Ungaria_ for Corfú.

On the 22nd of March, he regrets the death of Lady Arnold, on
March the 15th--"grieved for the poet's sake;" and also Miss
Whately, of Egypt, whom we knew.

We now had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Jokai,
the Hungarian novelist, who came to Miramar to consult the Archduchess
Stephanie about Prince Rudolf's work, which was to come
out in fifteen volumes for the people.

On the 13th of April I wrote a petition for the children of the
Orphanage of St. Joseph (the one that Richard and I were interested
in), and we put down our names for a hundred florins, and promised
them a life-sized statue of their patron saint.

We had, as usual, our servants' party, which they keep very much
as they would in England, only they are very witty when drinking
toasts in improvising verses on names.

On the 10th of April he remarks the death of Father Damien.

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
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 in
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 10th 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.

[Illustration: THE VIEW FROM THE BURTONS' BEDROOM AND STUDY,
OVER THE SEA, AT TRIESTE.
By Albert Letchford (from an Oil Painting).]

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 Téleki, 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 Hohenlöhe 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 Würmbrandt, 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' _fête_.

Sometimes our drives were varied by delightful little sea-trips.

On the 13th of June, going up to Opçina, 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 neighbours
and friends, Mr. and Mrs. Craig. In June also Richard felt
sadly the death of Professor Chandler.

On the 1st 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
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."[1]

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 Mürzüschlag, which is the station at the bottom of the
Semmering, on the Südbahn 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 Südbahn'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
Mürzüschlag.

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
the pigs, another side by the wash-house, and so on; but even these
discomforts, and some of them were very ludicrous, had their compensations.
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 excursion
to Reichenau. On the 31st we went to Neuberg, and visited
the old Cistercian Monastery and Cathedral, and the Emperor's shooting-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.

[Sidenote: _Maria-Zell--Austrian Lourdes_.]

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 mountain-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 Löwen,
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-à-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
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.

[Sidenote: _Semmering_.]

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 Mürzüschlag 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 _dépendance_ of the Südbahn 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-Schütze, 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
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 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.

[Sidenote: _Home again_.]

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, Lieutenants
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 7th 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 entertain
our dear friend Alexander Thayer, ex-Consul-General of the
United States (who dined with us regularly once a week), on his
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 15th 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.
However, Captain Osborne, mail-agent, and Mr. David Low,
P. and O. agent, kept us alive. We saw everything there was to be
seen all around. At Brindisi we visited Virgil's house, upon which
they are building a new one.

We visited the Churches, the Column, and the Castle. The
Cathedral has a silver altar behind the boards, and dates from earliest
Christianity: the priests say that St. Peter was here, but not St.
Paul. The town reminds us of Tangier--it has something Spanish,
Moorish, and Venetian about it; but with all that it is common.
There are two Calvaries, and there is a little old Basilica of San
Giovanni, the oldest church here, which belonged to the Templars,
and is now a little locked-up museum of antiquities. It contains
antique stones and inscriptions. The marble column near the
Cathedral was set up by one Lupus Propaspata, of the eleventh
century; it is fifty feet high, and the capital decorated with
sea-monsters. The broken one near it seems to have formed part of
a Roman temple.

The Great East India Hotel is like a caravanserai; the harbour is
full of steamers, of which the P. and O.'s are kings, and are always
in-pouring and out-pouring their wonderful and amusing contents
into the hotel, for a few hours. 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.


MALTA.


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. During this November, we were greatly interested
in, and dreadfully shocked at the conduct of the Brazilians to their
Emperor. We passed here a most enjoyable month, and found a
very charming society, receiving the hospitality of Admiral Sir
Anthony and Lady Hoskins (the Admiral of the station), and
Admiral and Mrs. Buller (Port-Admiral), Lady Dingli, Mrs. Walter
Strickland (whose husband was my cousin), father and mother of
Count Strickland, also another cousin, Father Hornyold, S.J., the
Provincial of the Jesuit College, and no end of friends in the Navy.
We thought both Valetta and Sliema were very romantic. This is not
the place certainly to describe Malta at great length, firstly, because
it would take too much space away from Richard, and secondly,
because most people know it. Mrs. Strickland gave a big lunch
in our honour, to make us acquainted with all the great Maltese
families. We had the honour of a visit from Prince Louis of
Battenberg, and, I think, not the most uninteresting morning was
one that we passed with Mr. Harry of "The Palms," an Englishman
who has been settled there for a long time, and who is a wonderful
collector of curios, and passionately attached to his flowers.
Once, when I made a visit, there was a little hesitation, so I said
to the servant, "Oh, don't go up; I am afraid ---- may be taking
a siesta." "Oh no, my lady!" he said, looking quite shocked, as
if he thought it was something to drink.

Richard was writing his Catullus at this time.

During our twenty-three days we got quite a large acquaintance--General
and Mrs. Wilkie, Acting-Governor (Sir Henry Torrens, the
Governor, died in England at this time), Mr. and Mrs. Worthington,
a very charming Miss Fanny Portelli Carbone, Lieutenant Carr of
the _Scout_, Archdeacon Hardy and his family, Mr. Mandeville-Ellis,
whom we had known before, and no end of officers of the
army and navy, who were also kind and hospitable. Lieutenant
Carr and Lieutenant Savory gave us a charming lunch on board
the _Hibernia_. It is hardly necessary to say that we visited the
Barracca and the Armoury, under Richard's guidance, who knew
Malta so well. Richard went to the Armoury, and longed to
rearrange the whole hall. He inspected all the swords very rigidly,
saw Dragut's blade, battle-axes--said all the swords were mixed,
and were mostly Toledos with no dates to them. He said, "I am
much disgusted by the quantity of 'rot,' and they have very probably
thrown away their best specimens." Dr. Baker kodak'd one hilt for
him. Then we passed a great deal of time in St. John's, the great
Templars' Church.

The most interesting thing of all is Fort St. Elmo, with its chapel,
its views, and its guns. It was in this chapel that the last little
remnant of the starving, emaciated Templars, who knew they could
hold out no longer against the besiegers, assembled to hear Mass
and receive Communion before their last fight. The _ossuario_ is at
the Capucini; there are forty embalmed monks, and one chapel all
of bones and skulls, which was very interesting. The Governor's
palace is also worth seeing. At Citta Vecchia is a very interesting
visit to St. Paul's, and the grotto of St. Paul's, where you see a
statue life-size in the middle of the cave, carved of marble, and for a
moment looking almost real: also a new Roman villa, quite Pompeian,
but with coarser mosaics: the view, and the gateway, where is an old
statue of Juno; last, and not least, a Maltese woman named Farujea,
who makes gaudy mule-cloths, and, if you give her a large enough
order, will make them at seven shillings a pair, three yards long, for
which you give a much larger price in Malta. At a church called
Santa Maria di Gesù, in Valetta, there is a crucifix, which has a
legend that the poor man who made it did not know how to carve
the face, and that an angel carved it for him; but I think the work
was too bad to have been the angel's. There are any amount of
churches. There is Vittoria, a very old Templar church, and the
Canonesses of St. Ursula, which is evidently a sister house of our
Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, Essex.
There is the Jesuit College with about six hundred boys. Father
Hornyold shows you what good little Englishmen they are training.
There is the big 110-gun at Sliema.

On one drive Richard descended to Marsa; found women fishing
and rowing, and men mending nets. There he found one Phœnician
tank, and one Phœnician temple.

Though everything here, between the walls, looks like rock and
ivory, on a slight coating of fertile soil grow fruit and flowers, and
world-wide-famed potatoes. The streets are lively; the vehicles are
very small, very high up, very uncomfortable, on four wheels, and
are called _carrozzellas_. They are covered with an ornamented
tarpaulin, and curtains for need. Their drivers look ruffians. The
horses are small and strong, and though their lives appear to be of
the hardest, they look mostly fat and well-kept. Many come seven
miles into town with a lot of peasants, work all day, and go back
with their load at night. The streets are all the steepest possible,
up and down hill; they have no break, and if you stop at a house,
the horse has to keep the full carriage back with his body. They
ought to wear out very soon. The horse gets dry clover in the morning,
a midday meal of bread, which the driver pulls out from under the
seat and cuts up for him, and at night beans. The only real cruelty
I saw was, that as they dare not flog or maltreat, they have sharp-pointed
things concealed in their hands, and when no one is looking
they drive them into tender places, chiefly to the beasts of burden
and under the harness, and the loads look large.

Our hotel, Michael Cini, Royal Hotel, had good clean rooms,
baths, good food and wine, reasonable prices, very attentive, and
the best situation. I thought all the other hotels horrid. The
women of the higher class wear a black silk dress, and a black silk
mantle called _faldetta_, stiffened round the head, caught up at one
side in pleats like a fan or shell; they look very pretty in it, and
like coquettish nuns. The lower orders go barefoot, with their
shabby dress short in front, and a train sweeping the street behind,
and a shabby _faldetta_. Valetta is the centre, but Malta is divided
into several suburbs with other towns, or dependencies--Floriana,
Vittoriosa, and Senglea across the harbour, Sliema and Citta
Vecchia; four smaller ones are Crendi, Macluba, Hagiar-Khem,
Mniadra; and Gozo, a separate but smaller island. The most
impressive thing that I saw to my mind in Malta was a military
funeral--the reversed arms; the "Dead March" by the band; the
slow swaying march of the soldiers; the respectful salute of every
soldier as it passed the ramparts crowded with red-coats; the body
on a gun-carriage, covered with the Union Jack, so solemn, so
respectful as it should be, so different to Continental funerals.

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 week 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 eternal 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
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 everywhere; 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.

[Sidenote: _Tunis_.]

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--landing
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
a half-hour does the eight miles into Tunis station; then you
go in a 'bus to the Grand Hôtel. Never go to the Grand Hôtel,
only fit for commercial travellers, but go to the Grand Hôtel 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.

[Illustration: 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
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 beginning 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 Mamlíf.

Here we were reading "Salammbó," and Mr. Broadley'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 hospitality.
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--1. 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 excavated,
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
the palace of Cardinal Lavigérie. Cardinal Lavigérie was trying to
make a small Rome at old Carthage; his new Cathedral was of Maltese
build--another al Melláhah, 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 circular,
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--_fatuæ_ on the
right 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 excavate anywhere. There is a huge
convent. The monks are all in white, with a big rosary and fez, and are
called "Les Pères 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 accommodation, 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 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. Kœly,
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.

[Sidenote: _Constantine_.]

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 in the night, 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 Hôtel 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
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.

[Sidenote: _Sétif_.]

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 Sétif. 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 Sétif we found the Hôtel 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 agreeable
day, chiefly in the market, which was full of picturesque Berbers,
who had also some curious things to buy.

[Sidenote: _Bouira_.]

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 through the Gates or Gorges. The little Hôtel 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 Hôtel St. George's, Mustafa Supérieure, was an immense
long way, but delightful when one got there.

[Sidenote: _Algiers_.]

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. Campbell
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.

Richard was now invited to the Stanley Exhibition.


 _Daily Chronicle_, February 20th.

 "SIR RICHARD BURTON AND MR. STANLEY.


 "Sir Edward Lee, hon. secretary of the Stanley and African
 Exhibition to be opened at the Victoria Gallery, has received the
 following letter from Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, the African
 Explorer, and her Majesty's Consul at Trieste:--

 "Hammam R'irha, February 17th, 1890.

 "DEAR SIR EDWARD LEE,

 "Your kind invitation to be present at the general
 meeting for the Stanley and African Exhibition has only just reached
 me, and the direction will explain the cause of delay. I cannot say
 how great is my regret at being absent on such an occasion. I
 should have wished at this and at every other opportunity to express
 my hearty admiration of all that Stanley has dared and done. He
 is to me, and always will be, the prince of African travellers.

 "I am, dear Sir Edward Lee,

 "Yours faithfully,

 "RICHARD F BURTON."

[Sidenote: _Hammám R'irha_.]

On the 16th of February we started for one of the greatest humbugs
in the world, the baths at Hammám R'irha, passing Blidah,
where there is a wonderful gorge, and archæological 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 _calèche_, 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 Suleiman,
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
Supérieure 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 Régence, where we stayed a fortnight
in order to see something of Algiers. Here we read "Mosállam,"
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
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 _Duc de Braganza_). Mrs. Campbell
Praed, who had been with us all along, accompanied us to Marseilles,
and it was delightful to have her society.

[Sidenote: _Things one would rather have left unsaid_.]

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.

[Sidenote: _Marseilles--Hyères--Nice--Home_.]

The following day it darkened, and looked rainy and cloudy, and
the sea inkier as we approached the Gulf of Lyons. The approach
by sea to Château d'If and the Isle d'Hyères, with their little rocky
islands, the solitary lighthouse, and Notre Dame de la Garde towering
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 Cannébière and Noailles.

After staying here one day, we went on to Toulon, and on to the
Hôtel Continental at Hyères, 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 manœuvres 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 rather 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 Hôtel de
la 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
Hôtel, 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.


HOME AGAIN, 19TH MARCH, 1890.


On the 20th he notices with regret the death of General Sir
Thomas Steele.

From this time I got very ill with peritonitis, and was laid up for
some little time, and Richard and Dr. Baker took care of me.

We had two earthquakes, which shook the walls.

On the 7th of April he notices the death of Miss Mary Boyle.

I went out for the first time on the 9th of April, and the day
before that we recommenced our evening writing together, which continued
during the remaining seven months of his life; and we made
rough notes of most of the things which are in this biography, though
perhaps in different words. We had a visit from an old friend, Miss
Maria Gordon-Duff, and a friend of hers, Miss Jean Grieve, which
we enjoyed very much.

On the 19th of April the Bishop consecrated the little Church
which we had helped to start less than a year ago. He said Mass,
with the Chief Authorities and many of the Benefactors present, and
the life-size statue that Richard and I had promised them, which
was quite a work of art, from Messrs. Mayer of Munich, was the
centre-piece of the altar. Colonel and Mrs. Adams arrived, who
were interested about the animals like myself, and I took her all
over my public stables and other arrangements, with which she was
much pleased.

On the 21st of April our friend Mr. Frank James, African traveller,
was killed by a wounded elephant in the Gaboon country.

On the 9th of May, Mr. Letchford's picture of Richard was
finished and sent to the Stanley Exhibition. Our old friend Mr.
Arbuthnot arrived on the 11th, and stayed several days with us,
which cheered Richard up immensely.

Captain Melfort Campbell, of Gibraltar, died on May 12th, and
with him the Vigo Bay scheme.

On the 17th I had another attack of peritonitis, and Lisa was ill
in bed with erysipelas; and Richard expressed a wish to leave Trieste
for good, which I heartily coincided in, thinking it would save him
much illness, but he afterwards changed his mind.

On the 11th of June we had storms of thunder and lightning like
a bombardment for twelve hours. It was very fatiguing to the
nerves.

On the 13th we had a large tea-party from Duino--Princess
Taxis, Prince Hohenlöhe, Prince Eric, and the Duchess della
Grazia.

We now had a great annoyance in receiving the following paragraph:--


 "ILLNESS OF SIR RICHARD BURTON.


 "While all England, says the London correspondent of the
 _Liverpool Mercury_, is continuing to _fêté_ Mr. Stanley, it is not
 pleasant to reflect that his great predecessor in African exploration,
 Sir Richard Burton, is lying very dangerously ill, neglected and
 alone, in London lodgings. Yet in his time and in his own way the
 elder traveller accomplished even more remarkable feats than the
 hero of the hour. His romantic pilgrimage to Mecca and El-Medinah
 in the disguise of a Moslem devotee, his journey through
 Berbera to the Sacred City of Harar, where no other infidel foot has
 ever trodden, were but preliminaries to the great achievement of his
 life, the discovery of Lake Tanganyika--the credit for which had
 been claimed for Captain Speke. This discovery paved the way for
 all that has since been done in Central Africa."

This hurt me very much, and it annoyed my husband as much as
it did me, and I returned the following answer:--


 "SIR RICHARD BURTON.

 "To the Editor of the _Morning Post_.


 "Sir,--My relations have startled me with a cutting from a
 'London Correspondent' saying that 'Sir Richard Burton is lying
 very dangerously ill, neglected and alone, in a London lodging,
 whilst Stanley is being fêtéd.' If the love and devotion of a wife
 may count for anything, Sir Richard will never be neglected nor
 alone whilst I am alive. I have been married to him for nearly
 thirty years, besides a five years' engagement, and during all those
 thirty-five years I have never been absent from him one day that
 I was allowed to be with him--in other words, I have never been
 absent except to execute his orders. For the last seven years we
 have hardly been a day apart, and for the last three and a half years
 that he has been ailing, never one hour away out of the twenty-four.
 During these three and a half years we have, in consequence of the
 weakness of his health, sacrificed everything to have a resident
 English doctor (who was looking for such a berth) living and travelling
 with us. And instead of a London lodging, we have a beautiful
 and romantic home (with every comfort for him that our means
 allow) at the very head of the Adriatic. Next year his term of
 service expires (forty-nine years' actual service), and then we shall
 both be, if alive, 'in a London lodging, neglected and alone.' But
 to state that now is what the Americans would call 'a little previous.'
 On the other hand, I am very grateful to the correspondent
 for the truth of his statement about my husband's career, showing
 that in the midst of this fêting and rejoicings for the great traveller
 Stanley, the pioneer who opened up the way without money or help
 or applause, enduring the severest hardships and perils, and cold
 receptions on his return, is not forgotten at home, and that they
 know that it is to him first that they owe the fact that many of these
 desolate regions have now trade and schools and missions, and the
 beginning of civilization. I feel confident that God will make up to
 him more than he has missed of this world's honours.

 "Yours, etc.,

 "ISABEL BURTON.

 "Trieste, June 15."

We had at this time six days of continuous violent storms, which
made his health less good. We had one more charming outing;
to Duino, to attend the Gypsy fair, where, as usual, we were after
Romany and Gypsy lore. I tried to buy up some of their skeleton
horses, but they wanted £5 a piece. We had a very delightful
and memorable evening there on the 24th of June (all the family
of Duino dining with us at the inn).

On the 30th we were honoured by a visit from Archduke Ludwig
Salvator.


OUR LAST TRIP.


On the 1st 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 interesting
pilgrimage of Monte-Santo on a peak, which is a small Maria-Zell,
the _local_ Lourdes, 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 air was 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 Innsbrück 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 Innsbrück 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,
good church, etc. In the Cathedral there is an Holbein's altar
to see.

[Sidenote: _Switzerland_.]

We left after two days, and arrived at Zurich in time for the great
Schiefs-Stätte _fête_, 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 Hôtel
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 disgrace 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
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'hôte_, 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 Bâle, from
Bâle 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 halfway, for I
saw that the frequent attacks of indigestion and nervousness 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_."

[Sidenote: _Davos-Platz--Ragatz_.]

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 Quellenhof
Hotel is as big as a village, but it was too full to be comfortable.
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 Pfäfersbad,
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 Pfäfers village,
where an old Convent is turned into a large Lunatic Asylum.

Wartenstein is a châlet-restaurant which holds about thirty visitors,
and there is a lovely view. We left Ragatz when we had seen everything,
and went on a new line of railway only opened a fortnight before,
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 purpose
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 comfortable
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 Süs, 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
Samäden, where we were very badly treated by the landlord, who
made us pay sixty-six francs for three-quarters of an hour's
entertainment.

[Sidenote: _St Moritz--Maloja_.]

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 whether you or I will be the first to
go?" Richard died two months after that, and ten months later he
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 coachman
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
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.

[Sidenote: _We descend into Italy homewards_.]

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 September,
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 Hôtel 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
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 "Kârma." 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 Hôtel, 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 Supplementals came out
(November 13th, 1888); and in early morning we used to take a
list of all the manuscripts published and unpublished, their destinations
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 11th of September he deplores in his journal the death of
Sir William Hardman, of the _Morning Post_.

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 Hôtel
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 complained
that he had no pleasure in walking.

On the 19th (the day before he died) he complains of a little
lumbago.

[1] 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?"




CHAPTER XVI.

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--
      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 thinking he had
but six weeks to live.

The day before he died, though he was unusually well and cheerful, 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 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
Constantinople till we had settled ourselves in England. Also that
during our Swiss tour, when we got to Zurich in August, and were so
near Bâle, 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."[1]

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
fight 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?"

[Sidenote: _Our Last Happy 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
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 clergyman
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 experience 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. Nor 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."

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 happiness 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 happiness,
for we were making our preparations for a delightful voyage to Greece
and Constantinople, which was to last from the 15th of 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 ourselves 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?"
                                 ----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 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.

    "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.

[Sidenote: _The Sword falls--He is called away_.]

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
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--"Si vivis," 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 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,[2] that I was alone and
desolate for ever.

[Sidenote: _The Sixty Hours between Death and Funeral_.]

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;[3] 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 happiness, that I lifted up my
heart to God in a fervent thanksgiving _for 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!

    "So nigh is glory unto dust,
      So near is God to man,
    When Christ whispers low, '_Thou must_,'
      The heart replies, 'I can.'"

Before twelve o'clock that morning, eight Masses were said for him in
the churches. My confessor came to pray by his side. Burials here take
place very soon, but I had sixty hours conceded to me; and there were
prayers going on in that room, offered up by priests, pious people, and
the orphans from our orphanage, who passed the night by him from eight
p.m. till six a.m., watching and praying and reciting the office for
the dead, the rosary, and singing hymns; and all day there were good
people doing the same, and myself always. It was I who closed his eyes
and who bound up the jaw, and the doctor who straightened the limbs. He
looked in a peaceful sleep, with adorable dignity and repose--a very
majesty in his death--every inch a man, a soldier, and a gentleman.

    "Weep no more about my bed;
    Weep no more, be comforted.
    Where I am ye soon shall come;
    This, this only, is our home.
    I am only gone before,
      Just a moment's little space;
    Soon upon the painless shore
      You shall see me face to face;
    Then will smile and wonder why
    You should weep that I should die."
                 ----CHARLES A. READE.

    "Jesus, I have not loved Thee best,
      Nor given my heart to Thee;
    But let my truant bosom rest
      On meaner things than Thee.
    'Twas love that led Thy hand to part,
    That cherished idol from my heart."

Mr. Albert Letchford, sculptor and artist, who had been working in
our house for nearly a year, painted a most striking picture (natural
size) of my husband after death, which is now my dearest treasure. He
also took a plaster bust, and his hand and foot, which were beautifully
formed and small. The hand and foot are mine; the bust was purchased by
Richard's friend, F. F. Arbuthnot, but broke in the casting. All day
friends flocked in, as the custom is, to say a prayer, and to sprinkle
the body with holy water--not counting those who stayed there. The
idea was suggested to me that I need not bury him at Trieste, and so
exile myself from home for the remainder of my days; that the Austrian
Government in its great kindness and delicacy would make a way open for
me; and when I reflected how he longed to reach England, and to lay his
bones in his native land, I determined that it should be so, though not
in the manner we had hoped and wished, and that my home should still be
"our cottage." For a sure test of real death, I requested that the left
ulnar vein should be opened, and a strong charge of electricity should
be applied for two hours; and then the embalmers came, and I was turned
out of the room.

There are two ways of embalming. The one is disembowelling, and filling
with spices as in the old days, but that would have necessitated the
body being removed from the house. The other, a more modern way, is the
injection of some substance in the veins, which, if a success, makes
the body look like white marble. This latter was the one chosen. Only
I was not allowed to kiss him after, and everything in the room that
was used, even to the mattress, had to be burnt. The embalming was
done by the Protofisico, Dr. Constantini, and Dr. Merlato, with three
assistants, our doctor and Mr. Letchford being present. Our ritual
enjoins the observance of the customs of the country in which we live;
he was therefore laid out in full uniform, the room dressed like a
_chapelle ardente_, surrounded with candles, and covered with wreaths
sent by friends.

    "His dews drop mutely on the hill,
    His cloud above it saileth still,
      Though on its slopes men sow and reap:
    More softly than the dew is shed,
    Or cloud is floated overhead,
      'He giveth His belovèd sleep.'"
                 ----MRS. BROWNING.

I find something so horrible, so repulsive, in the people who
frequently abandon the dead, because they cannot bear to see them die,
and leave them alone; who leave the corpse in its winding-sheet in a
darkened chamber, which the household and family rush by, as if some
dreadful horror was there; where no prayers or sacrifices follow to
help the soul, which sees its abandonment by those whom it held dear.
It seems to me that the consignment of the body to a low dark place,
and the glad flying away from it, is something fearful. It makes one
think of the Saviour when He descended to the Garden of Gethsemane,
when Time was over for Him, and all whom He loved and trusted fled from
Him. Judas betrayed, Peter denied, Thomas disbelieved, they all slept,
they all hid, they all ran away from Him; and whilst He sweated blood
for us, not one watched and prayed with Him. So with the soul.

    "When from the trammels of this life terrestrial
      The Glorifier, Death, shall set us free,
    The pure expansion of a love celestial
      Shall bind me closer, O my love, to thee."

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.

[Sidenote: _The Funeral at Trieste_.]

I can never forget what Austria in general, and Trieste in particular,
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 _nothing_, 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 contentment 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--an honour never before accorded to a
foreigner. One half-Englishman 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 _cortège_. 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 illa," 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 Zaujuhá ma'ahá b'tadir el Ramar 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 Zaujuhá mislahá tayarán maksús el Jenáhh."
("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 of the cemetery
had his own bedroom draped, adorned, and consecrated 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 intrepid
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.

[Sidenote: _The Dreadful Time that followed_.]

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 replied 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 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.


 Cutting from _Black and White_, June 20th, 1891.


 "A tomb shaped like an Eastern tent stands amidst alien palms in a
 little corner of English earth beside the Thames. Within that tomb,
 in the churchyard at Mortlake on Monday last, one of the greatest
 Englishmen of the reign was laid to rest. Under happier conditions
 and in a freer age Richard Burton might have founded an Empire; had
 his life been passed in the service of some great Continental Power,
 Richard Burton would have received much honour from the State while
 he lived, much honour from the State at his death. It is somewhat
 disheartening to think that, because he lived in our time and gave
 his services to the Government, he died a Consul at Trieste--a desert
 eagle in a cage--with his genius almost unrecognized by the State; to
 think that after his death it was left to his widow and his friends
 to bear him to his grave with such ceremony as they deemed fitting.
 He was placed in his tomb with the most solemn rites of the Catholic
 faith, in the presence of many of those who knew him best and loved
 him most--and no one knew him well, who did not love him. The great
 career is over; the life of endless adventure, tireless enterprise,
 unfading courage, is done, and Mortlake earth holds the bones of the
 hero."

    "Rapt though he be from us,
    Virgil salutes him, and Theocritus;
    Catullus, mightiest-brained Lucretius, each
    Greets him, their brother, on the Stygian beach;
    Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante reach;
    Milton and Wordsworth bid him welcome home;
    Bright Keats to touch his raiment doth beseech;
    Coleridge, his locks aspersed with fairy foam,
    Calm Spencer, Chaucer suave,
    His equal friendship crave:
    And godlike spirits hail him guest, in speech
    Of Athens, Florence, Weimar, Stratford, Rome.
                          ----"WILLIAM WATSON.

    "October 15, 1892."

Finding my purse would be too slender to carry it out, and as friends
started subscriptions for me,[4] 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.

    "Beautiful rest where the willows weep,
    Beautiful couch where the moss lies deep,
    Beautiful life that earns beautiful sleep."

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 "Kasîdah," 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 Æolian 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 "Monograph on Indian Architecture," which will
include tentage and tombs, to explain my meaning in his "Great Tents of
Antiquity" better than I have done for myself.

I felt the necessity, in my altered circumstances, of trying to arouse
myself, that I might do what I knew he would wish me to do--to leave
Trieste, and carry out all that we should have done had he been alive.
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 playfully
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 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 classifying 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.

The only letters Richard had not yet answered, and which would have
been answered the following Thursday, were--A. Jameson, of Riverbank,
Newmilns, Ayrshire, Scotland; Miss Bird, 49, Welbeck Street, Cavendish
Square; John Addington Symonds, Am Hof, Davos-Platz, Switzerland;
M. Zotenberg, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Lady Stisted,
Grazeley, Gypsy Hill, S.E.; Dr. F. Steingass, 6, Gairloch Road,
Camberwell, S.E.; George Faber, our English Consul at Fiume; J. J.
Aubertin, 33, Duke Street, St. James's.

[Sidenote: _Colonel Grant attacks Richard after his Death_.]

My husband died on the 20th of October, 1890, and on the 25th of
October Colonel Grant ventured to attack him for the first time in
print, and the following letter appeared in the _Times_ of the 28th of
October, 1890:--


 "BURTON AND SPEKE.

 "To the Editor of the _Times_.


 "Sir,--In the _Times_ of the 21st inst. there is a notice of the
 death of Sir Richard Burton, an extract from which I give here: 'To
 the unhappy dispute between Burton and Speke, which gave rise to such
 bitter feeling, it is not necessary to do more than allude.' I do not
 myself see why your readers should have any doubt as to which of the
 two travellers was to blame for this 'unhappy dispute,' neither why a
 slur should rest on the memory of Speke, one of the most upright men I
 ever knew--brave, noble, and true.

 "Burton's instructions from the Royal Geographical Society were:--

 "'The great object of the expedition is to penetrate from Kilwa, etc.,
 and to make the best of your way to the Lake of Nyassa, etc. Having
 obtained all the information you require here, you are to proceed
 northwards, etc., towards the source of the Bahr-el-Abiad (White
 Nile), which it will be your next great object to discover. You will
 be at liberty to return to England by descending the Nile, or you may
 return by the route you advanced.'

 "On his return from Unyanyembe after discovering Lake Tanganyika, his
 companion, Speke, wished him to follow up the above instructions,
 but Burton, using strong language, declared 'he was not going to see
 any more lakes.' Hence Speke went north alone and discovered the
 Victoria Nyanza, returning to Unyanyembe with his twenty followers.
 The discovery of this lake seems to have been galling to Burton; it
 created a 'bitter feeling,' and few words were exchanged by them
 during the remaining part of the journey to the East Coast. Things
 went from bad to worse. Speke was too generous to publish what
 occurred at this time, but he communicated grave charges against
 Burton to his relatives and to the Geographical Society, and the
 judgment of the Society was shown in the fact of their selecting
 Speke, and not Burton, to complete his discoveries.

 "The two travellers had no sympathies, their natures entirely
 differed. Speke observed and mapped and collected the specimens
 of natural history. He was the geographer and sportsman of the
 expedition. Burton knew little of these matters. He excelled in his
 own line, made copious notes by day and by night of all he saw and
 heard; he had the gift of languages; while surrounded by natives
 he amused them, won their confidence, and so obtained those stores
 of information which have been since transferred to something like
 eighty volumes. He travelled with three heavy cases of books for
 consultation. These included a work on the Upper Nile, which would
 have been of important service to Speke--had he ever seen it!

 "A sore subject of 'quarrel' was the non-payment of the Wanyamezi
 porters who had accompanied them to their own 'Land of the Moon.'
 These men did not receive their just wages, in consequence of which
 upwards of a hundred of the same race deserted the next expedition,
 which was in command of Captain Speke and me.

 "Under the above circumstances, and many more I could name, no one
 will feel surprised that 'unhappy disputes' and 'bitter feeling'
 existed between the two travellers, and I cannot see how it can be
 said of Sir Richard Burton that 'no man ever succeeded better with the
 natives of Africa and Asia.' Neither do I agree with the writer of
 the article that he was 'a man of real humanity,' when I consider his
 treatment of his companion and his native followers.

 "My long-dead friend's honour is too dear to me to allow a shade of
 doubt to rest on his honoured name; therefore, with all respect for
 those who mourn the more recently dead, I ask your insertion of this
 in your valued paper.

 "I have the honour to be your obedient servant,

 "J. A. GRANT, Lieut-Col.

 "Househill, Nairn, October 25th."


[Sidenote: _I answer directly to the "Graphic" in Two Parts_.]

I only saw it (as I refused to look at newspaper scraps in my grief) on
the 4th of January, 1891, and I answered as follows:--

[Sidenote: _My Answer_.]

 "In my earliest agony after my husband's death, Colonel Grant's letter
 to the _Times_ was the first that caught my eyes, and the bitter cry
 arose to my lips--

                 'He had not dared to do it,
    Except he surely knew my lord was dead;'

 and I read no more. I do regret that he had not written this letter
 any time within the last thirty-one years, that my husband might have
 heard and answered the 'grave charges' of which Colonel Grant speaks
 now, but of which Richard Burton never heard; but he is not dead so
 long as I live.

 "Now that Burton and Speke are together above, there are only two
 below who may venture to give an opinion on the matter--Colonel Grant
 and I.[5] If I live, my future work will be to write my husband's
 life; but as that will take me some time, I cannot have the public
 misled until then. I know I am right in saying that, whatever the
 Royal Geographical Society may have thought then, they have since
 learned the truth, and know what a true and valuable member they
 possessed in Richard Burton, of which they have now given me most
 gratifying proofs. No one can speak so truly as I can, because I
 possess all Richard Burton's private journals; I know all the secrets
 of his life for the past thirty-five years. I have all Speke's
 letters, and the copies of my husband's to him. Men do not tell
 everything to their men-friends. I knew Speke, and I am less offended
 with Colonel Grant because I believe him honest and staunch, and
 that he says what he thinks he knows. I will give the _résumé_ of my
 knowledge, trying to avoid detail.

 "When Richard Burton was preparing for his lake journey into Africa
 (1856) I was just engaged to him, and John Hanning Speke, his friend,
 wanted to accompany him as second in command. Burton applied for him,
 and, after difficulties, leave was granted. Speke had been already
 with him to Somali-land, and knew perfectly well what travelling
 with Burton meant, and was glad to go again. Speke was not then,
 nor did he pretend to be, a geographer, a scientist, an explorer;
 he was a first-rate sportsman, and he meant to shoot, to get ivory
 and specimens for natural history, to collect the fauna and animals
 north of the Line in Africa, but he never gave the Nile a thought.
 That was Richard's hobby. Richard advised him to coach up all that
 would be most useful on the journey, in case one of them should fall
 sick; and he did, for all the world knows what a terrible journey they
 had pioneering and cutting their way, with no money, no comforts,
 no support, or protection. That was in days when exploring meant
 losing your life at a moment's notice, perishing of hunger, thirst,
 privation, fever, hostile natives, wild beasts, and reptiles. There
 was no picnicking on champagne and truffles then, no 'riding to
 Tanganyika in a bath-chair.' It was work for men. They were both
 fearfully ill on and off. They were great friends, and called each
 other Dick and Jack.

 "All the spare time in tents Richard helped Speke with his scientific
 instruments, correcting up journals and maps, and learning the
 languages as spoken there. When Speke was ill Burton tended him like
 a woman, and when Burton was ill Speke did not repay him in kind.
 There were no quarrels, but Speke had a peculiarity which, when once
 Richard had become familiar with, he respected, but found a little
 trying--there being only two of them. Speke would be silent for days,
 when Richard would find out that he had unconsciously given some
 little offence which Speke had treasured up. Many people have that
 temperament. When they had been absent over two years, and Speke
 had got well, but Richard was down with fever, Speke was impatient
 to go on; Richard therefore sent him forward in the direction of
 Nyanza, which was Speke's great discovery, and he eventually came
 back triumphant, saying he had 'discovered the sources of the Nile.'
 Richard said, 'It seems almost too good to be true.' Speke, being
 well, wanted naturally to return, and push on, but Richard said to
 him, 'I am a much older man than you, Jack, and I am not getting
 better. You will be ill again, and I unable to nurse you, and we shall
 both be down at once, much further from home, our money and stores
 giving out, our followers discontented. Consent to our return, and we
 will go home, recruit our health, report what we have done, get some
 more money, return together and finish our whole journey.'

 "Speke agreed, and they set out on the return journey to the coast,
 and when they reached Aden, Richard being too weak for the journey,
 and Speke impatient to get to England, Richard agreed to come on by
 the next steamer. There was no quarrel up to this. As regards the
 non-payment of the negroes, it was thus: The porters were to receive
 a certain pay for their services, and an extra reward if they behaved
 well. They behaved ill, and therefore Richard, being the Chief,
 decided that they should receive their pay only, but not their reward,
 because he said, 'If they are rewarded for their ill-doing, they will
 behave ill to us when we return, and to any future travellers, being
 certain of their money, no matter what their conduct. They will not
 respect us, but only think we act from fear.' Speke at first objected,
 but then said it was right; so did Consul Rigby. They both changed
 afterwards to suit circumstances. Any one who is used to negroes will
 know that if they behaved well to Speke and Grant afterwards, and
 others who followed, it was because of this mulct which Burton had the
 courage to stand by, and receive the blame at home for. My husband
 was lavish of his money, and when any one of his dependents had to be
 punished he used to say, 'I will do anything sooner than dock their
 pay.' To _me_ it sounds supremely ridiculous to speak of such a thing
 in connection with _his_ name. Now, when Richard and Speke parted, it
 was on the best of terms. Richard said, 'I shall hurry up, Jack, as
 soon as I can,' and Speke's parting words--_the last he ever spoke to
 him_--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 that.' I need not
 say that the appearance of Speke alone in London gave us the keenest
 anxiety. Here comes in the quarrel.

 "On board the same ship with Speke, part of the way home, was Laurence
 Oliphant. I liked Laurence Oliphant, so did Richard, and so did and do
 hundreds in London, and I am ashamed to write anything against a dead
 man, but I must do it to defend my own. He got hold of and poisoned
 Speke's mind against Richard. He said 'that Burton was a jealous man,
 and being Chief of the expedition he would take all the glory of
 Nyanza, which, he said, was undoubtedly the true source of the Nile,
 for himself; that if he were in Speke's place he would go up to the
 Royal Geographical Society at once, and get the command of the second
 expedition; that he would back him, and get others to.' Speke resisted
 at first, but his vanity prevailed, and carried him along until one
 thing after another was piled up against the unconscious absentee.[6]
 I grieve to say that these were neither the first friends nor the last
 that Laurence Oliphant sundered with no apparent settled object. He
 worked upon Speke till he planted the seed of bitter enmity against
 Richard to the end. I mentioned this to Mr. Stanley in August, 1890,
 at Maloja, and he replied, 'How very odd; he did exactly the same to
 me!' When Richard arrived, this information was the first that greeted
 him--that his friend and companion had cast him off, and become his
 enemy. He had gone up to the Royal Geographical Society, and secured
 all the honour of the expedition, and had been appointed to command
 the second expedition with Colonel Grant.

 "I shall never forget Richard Burton as he was then. He had had
 twenty-one attacks of fever, was 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
 support him about the Botanical Gardens for fresh air, and sometimes
 convey him away almost fainting 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 hardly
 a friend to greet him. 'Jack' was the hero of the hour, the Stanley
 of 1859-64. This was _one_ of the martyrdoms of that uncrowned king's
 life, and I think that but for me he would have died. 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 to mark in their letters
 how they descend from 'dear Jack' and 'dear Dick' to 'dear Burton' and
 'dear Speke,' until they become 'sir.' Now I must tell you, 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). Through her auspices, Speke and
 I met, and also exchanged many messages, and we nearly succeeded
 in reconciling Burton and Speke, and would have done, 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. Burton was so kind to me, nursed me like a
 woman, taught me such a lot, and I was so fond of him, but it would be
 too difficult for me to go back now.' And upon that last sentence he
 always remained.

 "At last came the British Association Meeting (Bath, September, 1864).
 We had been married in 1861, and were back on leave from the West
 Coast of Africa. Laurence Oliphant conveyed to Burton 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 to 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 distinguished
 people were with the Council; Burton 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.
 Burton 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.

 "Yours obediently,

 "ISABEL BURTON."

There were old servants to be placed out, many people dependent 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.

I became almost listless as to _exterior_ things; I suppose that is
always the way with a deep-sea grief. I had a little relief by the
coming of my cousin Canon Waterton, of Carlisle, and he, by leave
from the Vatican, said Mass in our chapel, gave me Communion every
morning, stayed with us a month, and helped me wonderfully with the
books and manuscripts. He is a highly educated man of good family,
living in the best society, was educated in France, so he was a
fitting person to consult on many points, to which no one else there
could have helped me. I should like to say a word of parting with the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose affairs I wound
up before leaving, because the history is rather curious, and will
interest a large body of people who subscribed to it. I had employed
four active men; the rest of the Society was nominal. One of these men
died of apoplexy one month after my husband; the second had a stroke
of paralysis and died immediately after I left; the third fell into a
well, and his body was not found till several days; the fourth was very
ill of blood-poisoning, had to be sent away, but has since returned and
is well--five of us put _hors de combat_, as I was stricken down with
grief. I left a complete chart of directions as to how the remaining
money, 1916 florins, should be employed, after which there would be no
more funds, and the work closed. The remaining man is Inspector Mottek,
of the police, and one new man, both of whom I can trust. The money
is under control of the bank, the accounts are sent to me every three
months. It has lasted two years and three months, and I believe there
are a few florins still left. This will comfort my numerous donors.

[Sidenote: _The Beloved Remains are removed to England_.]

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, dovetailed, 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;"
which he did, poor fellow, about a year later. May God reward him for
his good work!

[Sidenote: _I leave Trieste and go to Liverpool_.]

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.


    "A TRIESTE.


    "Quando la sera piano sprofonda
    Il sol nell' onda--solcando il mar,
    Presso la riva d' un mesto addio
    Il suol natio--vo' a salutar.

    "Veggo le case, le ville, i monti,
    Che ai bei tramonti--pajono d' or
    E 'l scosso mare che con dolcezza
    Bagna e accarezza--le sponde ancor.

    "Qua e là pur veggo qualche nocchiero
    Che con leggero--legno va e vien,
    E qualche vela che al debil raggio
    Tributa omaggio--nell' ampio sen.

    "Mentre la sera man mano imbruna
    Veggo la luna--nel ciel vagar,
    Dietro alle nubi va lentamente,
    Poi, di repente--si specchia in mar.

    "Indi apparire veggo una stella
    Lieve ma bella--d' aureo splendor,
    E poi dell' altre formano in cielo
    Screziato un velo--di luce e d' or.

    "Poi, da lontano; la u' v' è Trieste
    Debili e meste--sovra il terren
    Veggo brillare mille più e mille
    Vaghe scintille--che van che vien.

    "Talvolta io sento flebili tocchi,
    Poi, dei rintocchi--qua e la mandar
    Un cupo suono che giunge a meta
    Per l' aere cheta--lento a vagar.

    "E allor contento penso a quel lido
    Mio dolce nido--di pace e amor
    E sospirando dico t' è degno
    II tronco e il regno--di quel splendor.

    "Terra diletta se un qualche giorno
    A te ritorno--di vita pien,
    Allor baciare in dolce pianto
    Ti voglio tanto--caro terren."
                     ----S. DI G. SFETEZ.

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 arrangements with Canon Wenham, and
on the 11th 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 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 conveyances
waiting to take us and the body to Mortlake. We unpacked 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 had been my life's best efforts,
      Now I waste no thought or breath;
    For the prayer of those who suffer
      Has the strength of love and death."

[Sidenote: _I fall ill_.]

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 occasionally 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. The 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."

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.[7]

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 £668 towards it.[8]

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.

[Illustration: THE MAUSOLEUM AT MORTLAKE WHERE SIR RICHARD BURTON IS
LAID AT REST. Carved by Messrs. Dyke, 49 Highgate Road.]

[Sidenote: _The Mausoleum Tent complete_.]

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." 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:--


    "RICHARD BURTON.


    "Farewell, dear friend, dead 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 wife.
    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.

[Sidenote: _The Funeral in England at Mortlake_.]

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 window of coloured glass, with Richard's
monogram, and the whole adorned with seven hanging and various other
Oriental lamps. It is no small compliment to Messrs. Dyke, that 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 _generally_, 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. Trains left Waterloo for
Mortlake at 10.20 a.m., arriving at 11.47.

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 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 procession filed out exactly at 11.10, 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 Magdalen'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.


    SIR RICHARD BURTON, KNIGHT.

    Born 1821. Died 1890.


    "He resteth now. His noble part is done,
    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.

One might add--There lies the best husband that ever lived, the best
son, the best brother, and the truest, staunchest friend.

Cardinal Manning had written me a beautiful letter full of blessings
and consolation, in which he said, "As for myself, I will not fail to
remember you on the day of the requiem--my heart will be with you;
but I have not left the house for many months, and have ceased to
officiate. I therefore cannot be with you, for I am within a few weeks
of my eighty-fourth year."

Then one of my sisters took me away to the country at once.

At the end of July I went down to my Convent, the Canonesses of the
Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, Essex. It has been full of my
relations for six generations, and is like a second home to me. I
passed most of my youth in it, and I returned to it with pleasure.
There I found a mental and physical tonic. The 1st of September,
1891--the date that we were to have been settled in London together--I
came to London, and took a small house in Baker Street, and finding
I could never keep away from the mausoleum, I bought a very little
cottage close to it, and I set about making them comfortable and
pretty, out of my two hundred and four cases from Trieste, and a little
second-hand furniture.

During this sad time, death has been alarmingly busy with us. We
were four sisters, all married. One sister, exactly like me, died in
September; all three sisters lost their husbands in November, January,
and September; and one sister lives with me. I was brought to death's
door with influenza in January, 1892, but I was spared to do the work
I am now doing. I got my books and papers housed in March, 1892. The
books are tidied and classified, but my papers are not; but I was
afraid to trust to sufficient life if I took six months to put them
in order, so I have hurried on to give these pages to the world, and
whilst I live I shall transact the rest of his literary work set
forth in the preface. The loss of eight immediate relatives and my
own wretched health have marked little epochs in the period that has
elapsed.

 "It is a terrible thing to be innocent, and yet to know yourself
 suspected. Nobody in such a case can ever act quite naturally. The
 very sense of innocency, coupled with the knowledge of the suspicions
 against one, gives rise to an awkward self-consciousness which looks
 like guilt in the eyes of others."

[Sidenote: _"It" Confesses--too Late_.]

I must now refer to the episode of "_It_." In July, 1891, after all
my troubles, I was summoned to the death-bed of a lady who I thought
was a great friend of mine. I went with great warmth and distress of
feeling, and when I went up to her bed to kiss her, she drew away and
said, "Do not kiss me. I have sent for you to make a confession, as if
it were to a priest; but you must give me a solemn promise never to
betray me, after I am dead, that my husband and my girls, who go out a
great deal in Society"--naming very high quarters--"may not have to be
ashamed of me, and curse my memory." I gave the required promise, for I
thought she was going to breathe her last, and she said she could not
die in peace. I will never betray her name, but I have a right to tell
the substance of what she said, because I have had to suffer bitterly
through it, and may still be suffering without knowing it. She asked me
not to look at her, and in pity I turned away.

She said then, "I am '_It_.' In 1876-7 your husband began mining in
Midian, and subsequently in West Africa, and nothing was talked of
but the millions that you were then sure of making--£100,000 in six
months, so you said, and the rest following quickly. Now, I was awfully
fond of money. I was much attracted by your husband. I loved you, and
admired you; I hated you, and was jealous of you. I was not in love
with him--So-and-so was my lover--but I thought that if I could only
conciliate him, and disgust him with you, I should probably get a
great deal of that money which I wanted; for my extravagances were far
beyond the means of my husband or my lover, and I live very much in the
world." She here confessed all she had done against us both, until our
mining hopes had come to nothing. "I was dreadfully disgusted," she
owned, "finding it impossible to alienate you, as the moment you found
out anything you went and told each other; but I was surprised that you
never suspected the right person, and you both of you frequently openly
joked with me about '_It_.' Towards the end I saw that your husband
disliked and distrusted me, but he could not fix in his own mind why it
was. You were easily deceived, but I dared not do anything except in
his absence. I took a wicked pleasure in your perfect trust in me."

She had free access to all my letters, papers, journals, and writings,
and knew my every movement. She would send me nice letters in a hand I
did not know, but signed with a name I did know, in the hopes I might
answer it. If I did answer it, I made a fool of myself, and if I did
not answer it, _she did_, copying from my own writings my style and
mode of speech. She was assisted in the forging part of the business (I
mean handwriting) by a needy Englishman, with a college education, who
was an expert in copying hands.

For a long time I sat crouched up in the room without answering, with
my head buried in my hands--my consternation and my humiliation were
so great, and I was wrestling with myself--and at last I answered her
pitiful entreaties for pardon. I said, "I am sixty years old, I have
left the world, I have one foot in the grave, and I have nothing to
do with Revenge; but, before I go, I _must_ clear the name I am so
proud to bear. No one shall ever know who '_It_' was. Your husband and
your daughters and the _crème_ of Society shall still bless and regret
you; but you must give me the list, as far as you can, of the people
you have written to, either in my name or my husband's, and then, if
God will forgive you, and if Richard will forgive you, then I will
also--and may you rest in peace!" I asked her what _sort_ of letters
she had written. "You frequently allowed me to help you to answer your
letters. Sometimes I wrote gushing letters, so as to make you seem
silly; sometimes I gave your opinions to people in high positions,
to make you seem impertinent. Sometimes I wrote you letters myself,
in a feigned hand, and answered them in _your_ hand (imitated) to
the supposed writers." I did not trust myself to speak, but I wrote
down all the names she gave me, and I wrote this history to all those
concerned, and, except one, they have all answered me. I left the room
quietly, and she eventually died.

    "Now, now my frame is old and wan and weary,
      And now my years on earth can be but few;
    I count the days, when God's voice, calling clearly,
      Shall lead me, O my loved one, back to you!"

[1] From "John Halifax."

[2] 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.

[3] His journals show that he believed in this too.

[4] I received £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 for it.

[5] And since writing this, Colonel Grant has gone to join them.

[6] Speke told me of this, and after his death I taxed Laurence
Oliphant with it, who said so simply, "Forgive me--I am sorry--I did
not know what I was doing," I could not say another word; but Richard
and he were friends after that.--I. B.

[7] I owed my pension to several of our old friends; notably the
Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, the Royal Geographical and other
learned Societies.

[8] I mention this because I had an anonymous letter sent me which
taunted me with touting for subscriptions for it.--I. B.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE TWO CONTESTED POINTS BETWEEN A SMALL SECTION OF ANTAGONISTS AND
MYSELF.

    "Because I'm with the swallow, however far he flies;
    Because the lark within me leaps upwards to the skies;
    Because, where'er there's singing of birds on hill or plain,
    We catch each other's meaning and join in one refrain;
    Because the forest temples where God has made His throne
    Can rustle to a rising chant they sing to me alone;
    Because, where'er I find them among the waving grass,
    The daisies and the violets nod shyly as I pass;
    Because the flowers have secrets that few men seem to see,
    And yet they ope their bosoms and tell their tales to me;
    Because the earth is fairer; because the roses blow
    With a loveliness and purity that few men care to know;
    Because the heavens are higher than many dare to think;
    Because the heavens are nearer, I tremble on their brink;
    And oh, because to all the joys of birds and beasts and flies,
    The myriad joys that move the earth and fill the summer skies,
    There's something in this heart of mine, there's something that replies;
    Because those other singers whom death has granted fame
    Stand by my side in solemn hours and call me by my name;
    Because I dare to meet their gaze, and seem to understand
    The language which proclaims them all of one great father-land;
    Because their touch is on me; because in accents mild
    They hail me as a follower, a servant, yet a child;
    Because the fairies hearken, I call them at mine ease;
    Because I hear the angels' harps in the pauses of the breeze;
    Because a spirit's with me, where'er my steps have trod,
    Whose eyes have something of myself, and, oh, far more of God;
    Because, when night is silent, I watch the planets roll,
    And hear their solemn melodies in the centre of my soul;
    Because of one great action I feel myself the part,
    A life whose sphere is nature, a life whose voice is art,
    And in my breast re-echo the pulsings of its heart;
    Because my thoughts are splendour, because my thoughts are sin,
    With a shock, as if of armies amid the battle's din;
    Because the shades of former days go with me on my way,
    And because to-morrow's sunshine is on my path to-day;
    Because my heart-strings tremble to the pressure of thy hand,
    And because I live a sorrow which none can understand."
                                   ----MAARTEN MAARTENS.


THE "SCENTED GARDEN" CONTROVERSY.


I must now revert, I hope for the last time, to the "Scented Garden."
I made the greatest mistake in the world; I did not know my public,
I did not know England. I was under some delusion which I have often
bewailed, that I was responsible to, or owed some explanation to,
the would-be buyers of that book, nor can I _now_ think how I could
have imagined that it was, or described it as, my husband's _magnum
opus_--perhaps it was because it was the first work of the kind I had
ever read--as it certainly was the _least_ of his works, and I should
say that his "Mecca and Medinah" and his "Arabian Nights" were his
best. The abuse I got by a portion of the Press, and eventually volumes
of anonymous letters, which were far coarser than the "Scented Garden,"
and which would have shocked Whitechapel, induced me a month later to
write a second letter to the _Echo_, which I reproduce, and, as it went
on, a further explanation in the _New Review_.


 _Lady Burton's Last Words to the "Echo."_


[Sidenote: _My Defence about the burnt MS. to the "Echo."_]

 "On reading my own letter in the _Morning Post_, which paper has
 always been my best friend, I see that the few lines that explained
 my _reasons_ for taking the public into my confidence are cut out,
 probably on account of its length. I quite understand, and see exactly
 what the opposite side think of it. I wrote to the _Morning Post_,
 'I am obliged to confess this, because there are fifteen hundred
 men expecting the book, and I do not quite know how to get at them,
 also I want to avoid unpleasant hints by telling the truth.' My
 _reasons_ were, that there were too many people after the book, too
 many inconvenient letters and questions from those who expected it
 and wanted to buy it, and had I not told what I did, my few bitter
 enemies--we all have some--would hint and not speak out, which is the
 worst of all things. Will you believe that I have been four months
 in England, and quite unable to wind-up half our affairs because my
 whole mornings have been taken up with answering such letters? I can
 satisfy all the objections. Had my husband lived, the book would now
 have been in the printing press; I should never have been allowed to
 read it, and I should have done exactly what I did to the 'Arabian
 Nights'--worked the financial part of it. I intended privately to
 offer it for three thousand guineas to a bookseller with whom my
 husband and I had had a long-standing friendship, in order to save
 myself the trouble of all I went through with the 'Arabian Nights,'
 and it was only on getting the double offer from the unknown man,
 which was more than I could ever have hoped for--not the next day,
 as the Press has it--that I sat down to read it. The money was quite
 a secondary consideration with me, though I like money as much as
 most women, and have got none; but no woman who truly loved a man,
 and cared for his interests after death, would have coveted that
 class of monument for his beloved memory, and only the most selfish
 or thoughtless of men could have expected me to give it up. Such
 men would not have risked one little corner of their good names,
 or reputations, or profession, or money, or family, or society, in
 connection with any book on this subject. No! they would have shoved
 him forward into the breach; they would have egged him on with the
 bravado of schoolboys to his face, in good fellowship--how often have
 I seen it!--and, if anything went wrong, would probably have pretended
 that they did not know anything about it. He would have been perfectly
 justified, had he lived, in carrying out his work. He would have been
 surrounded by friends to whom he could have explained any objections
 or controversies, and would have done everything to guard against the
 incalculable harm of his purchasers lending it to their women-friends,
 and to their boyish acquaintances, which I could not guarantee.

 "Was it a classic? No! it was not a classic; it was a translation from
 Arabic manuscripts very difficult to get in the original, with copious
 notes and explanations of his own. But it is very difficult for me, as
 a woman, to tell you exactly what it was.

 "I have received hundreds of letters, with all sorts of opinions,
 all except a few thoroughly approving my act, and some of these are
 anonymous, showing how careful people are with their own skins, but
 the most curious trait is that so many agree with me privately and
 write in the papers against me. I did not expect my confession to be
 noticed at all; it was a great surprise to me to find it discussed. I
 only meant to stop the letters asking for it. Moreover, I only burnt
 what was my own property, and at my own loss. If my husband had been
 alive I should not have read it, and I should not have done it. He
 and I both supposed that he would live for many, many years; but,
 nevertheless, one day, several weeks before he died, when we were
 travelling in Switzerland, he called me into his room, and dictated
 to me a list of such things as he wished burnt in case I survived
 him, and three documents, which he signed. One of them, amongst other
 things, contained the following:--

  "'In the event of my death, I bequeath especially to my wife,
  Isabel Burton, every book, paper, or manuscript, to be overhauled
  and examined by her only, and to be dealt with entirely at her own
  discretion, and in the manner she thinks best, having been my sole
  helper for thirty years,' etc., etc., etc., etc.

  "'(Signed) RICHARD F BURTON.'

 "I need hardly tell you that the 'Scented Garden' was not included in
 the list of things to be burnt. I did it purely out of love for my
 husband, and all the censure is as nothing to me in comparison to his
 memory and our speedy reunion.

 "Shortly after we married we lost all we possessed in the world in
 Grindlay's fire, and when the news was brought to him he remained
 silent for a few minutes, and then turning to me, said, 'The worst
 part of the loss is that there were boxes full of priceless Arabic
 and Persian manuscripts, which I picked up in out-of-the-way places;
 but,' he added, smiling, 'the world will be all the better for the
 loss.'

 "When I wrote to the _Morning Post_ I never calculated or thought
 of either praise, or blame, or gain; in fact, I think any one may
 see I never thought of myself at all, or I should have been more
 worldly-wise. I shall never regret what I have done, but I shall
 regret all my life having confessed it, though I could scarcely have
 helped it, as I was ordered to do so. My husband did no wrong; he had
 a high purpose, and he thought no evil of printing it, and could one
 have secured the one per cent. of individuals to whom it would have
 been merely a study, it probably would have done no harm; but once you
 get a thing in print in England you have lost all hold of it, and the
 merest schoolgirl, if she is bent upon seeing it, will get to do so,
 and the more the mystery the keener they are.

 "You will pardon me, who have spent the best part of thirty years on
 foreign stations, for saying, that if what people tell me be true,
 and if England progresses in this line at the rate she has done for
 the last fifteen or twenty years, let us say in another sixty or
 seventy years, my husband's 'Scented Garden' would have become a
 Christmas book for boys, on the plea that the mind should be trained
 to everything. I shall not have done the world such an injury as they
 make out. Thousands, millions, admire my husband, and many talk of
 their great love for him, in many instances truly, but I am the only
 being in the world to whom he was _everything_, whose soul is mine,
 whose interests are mine, and therefore I am obliged to harden myself
 against all abuse, although I quite understand the people of the
 opposite part, from their point of view.

 "I do not understand what the Press meant by my casting a slur on his
 memory. Did any slur attach to him from the 'Arabian Nights'? On the
 contrary, great praise, and fame, and gain! Why, then, should a slur
 come from the 'Scented Garden'? It was not the world's slur that was
 to be feared. I did not think I could laugh now, but I did when I read
 'that I appealed to the public for sympathy and acclaim for my own
 purity--at his expense,' for there is no cause for sympathy--I never
 thought about being pure or impure--I felt no sacrifice. I know what I
 saw. I knew what I had to do, and I did it. It is no use explaining,
 because the world would not understand me--and there is no need why
 it should. It never understood _him_ whilst he lived, and it will not
 understand _me_ while I live.

 "Some articles in the Press say that I am uneducated. I am not going
 to deny it, but my husband found that I had quite sufficient common
 sense to trust me unreservedly with the whole of his business of
 whatever nature for thirty years, and he never had cause to regret it,
 nor did he ever do the slightest thing without consulting me. This
 is the only instance in which I have not co-operated. I am accused
 of doing it to earn money, which is rather illogical. If that was
 my object, why did I not quietly pocket my six thousand guineas,
 hold my tongue, and pass the manuscript quietly to a man who is
 incapable of betraying me? Out of the many hundreds of letters which
 I have received since the 20th of June, three offered to start public
 subscriptions for me, but I declined them, because this subject is, to
 me, too sacred for barter. The only money I have ever asked for was
 for the monument. I forgive those who have heaped me with unmeasured
 abuse, but I shall never forget it, and I thank them for showing me
 what sort of people were waiting for the book, and how right I was
 to burn it. Yet I am quite sure that more than two-thirds of this
 particular school would condemn what has been said and written to me,
 did they know it. At any rate, I am quite certain that none of it
 (either private letters or Press) was penned by any true friend of Sir
 Richard's to his wife.

 "ISABEL BURTON."

      *       *       *       *       *

 "My confession has been twisted and turned into the following:--'That
 my poor husband had been engaged on a most beautiful and scientific
 work for thirty years, that he had finished it all but the last page,
 that it contained gems of science, that it was full of transcendental
 Oriental poetry, and that I brutally burnt it, the day after he was
 dead, in either wanton ignorance or bigotry.' Now, the truth is this.
 Ever since 1842, whenever my husband came across any information
 on _any_ subject, he collected it and pigeon-holed it, and at this
 particular time the accumulations of twenty-seven years (since
 Grindlay's fire, which lost all preceding ones) were pigeon-holed in
 different compartments, on as many as twenty different subjects. As
 fast as he had finished one book, he opened a compartment to produce
 another, and sometimes had several books on the stocks at the same
 time, on as many different large plain deal tables.

 "It was towards the end of 1888, that he pulled out of its nook the
 material which would go towards the 'Scented Garden,' and occasionally
 he translated bits from an Arabic manuscript called the 'Perfumed
 Garden,'[1] by the Shaykh El Nefzáwih, a Kabyle Arab of the early
 sixth century (Hegira), the French translation of which is as poor, as
 a translation of the original, as all the translations of the 'Arabian
 Nights' were (except Mr. John Payne's) until Richard's came out, which
 was the perfect one. The only value in the book at all, consisted in
 his annotations, and there was no poetry. He was engaged on Catullus
 at the same time, and he threw all his strength and style into the
 more virile work at the expense of the other. His journal of 31st
 of March, 1890, contains this sentence--'Began, or rather resumed,
 "Scented Garden," and don't much care about it, but it is a good
 pot-boiler,' which I interpret that he knew it was not up to the mark;
 but the time he was actually seriously occupied on it was from 31st
 of March, 1890, till the 19th of October--not quite seven months. I
 have often bewailed my own folly in considering that I was in any way
 responsible to or owed any explanation to the public respecting my
 husband's writings, and the only object, as I said, of my letter was
 to deliver myself from the bother of the letters and visits of a very
 large number of would-be purchasers. I never supposed for an instant
 that my action would excite any comment, one way or the other, much
 less did I suppose that any one would attach any kind of blame to my
 husband, any more than to the printing of the 'Arabian Nights,' which
 gave him so much _kudos_ and plenty of money.

 "I know that no one would have _dared_ to blame him had he been alive,
 nor to have represented me as throwing a blight on his reputation,
 for whom I would at any moment, during a period of forty years, have
 cheerfully given my life. I knew that this book, being the outcome
 of sickness during the last two years of his life, was not up to the
 standard of his former works. Turner's executors burnt a few of his
 last pictures under similar circumstances to leave his reputation as a
 painter at its zenith. I acted from the same motive. I should not have
 dared to burn any autobiography, and every word that he wrote about
 himself to be given to the public is given. I consider that I have
 done infinitely more for his reputation and memory by burning it than
 by printing it. People must not tell me that I am no judge, because I
 wrote _with_ him, and _for_ him, and also copied everything for him,
 for the first twenty-six of our thirty years' married life, till I
 broke down myself, and the 'Arabian Nights' was then handed over to
 another copyist, I doing all the rest. He laid no stress on bringing
 it out, except for money's sake. When he had done the 'Arabian
 Nights,' he said, in his joking, honest way, 'I have struggled for
 forty-seven years, distinguishing myself honourably in every way that
 I possibly could. I never had a compliment, nor a "thank you," nor
 a single farthing. I translate a doubtful book in my old age, and I
 immediately make sixteen thousand guineas. Now that I know the tastes
 of England, we need never be without money.'

 "Had we lived to come home together, I should have talked him off
 printing it, as I did another manuscript, quite on a different
 subject, and he knew that if I had my will, I would burn it. This did
 not prevent him, about eight weeks before he died, leaving me sole
 executrix of all he possessed, with instructions '_to sift thoroughly,
 and publish anything that I thought would not misrepresent him to the
 public_,' adding, '_having been my sole helper for thirty years, I
 wish you to act solely on your own judgment and discretion_.' Now,
 I judged, after long thinking, that the subject would be unpopular;
 that had he lived to explain it, to talk about it in the clubs amongst
 his men-friends, it would have been different; that I probably should
 have worked the financial part of it, as I did that of the 'Arabian
 Nights,' because I should not have read it, and large sums would
 doubtless have accrued from it. He always wrote over the heads of his
 public, and sixty years in advance of his time: I think that about
 fifteen people would possibly have understood it and his motives
 (which were always noble) if the germ was big enough to produce the
 good intended.

 "Given fifteen people to read and understand, given a dead hero who
 could no longer profit from the money, who could not explain or defend
 himself if he were attacked by the press, who could not enjoy the
 praise of a small section of his fellow-men; given two thousand or
 more other men who could buy the book and in course of time would tire
 of it and sell it. It would be bought by rich Tom, Dick, and Harry. It
 would by degrees descend amongst the populace out of Holywell Street,
 the _very opposite result_ to what the upright manly translator would
 have desired, and the whole contents might be so misunderstood by the
 uneducated that the good, noble, glorious life of Richard Burton, of
 which I and thousands of others are most proud and delight to honour,
 might sixty years hence receive a very different colouring from the
 truth, and be handed down to posterity in a false light.

 "Many people will regret that Richard did not leave his manuscripts in
 the hands of a literary man, a lawyer, or a so-called friend. If he
 had, little men without a name would have profited by it, by tacking
 on theirs to his big name, money would have been made, and everybody,
 without distinction, who could have paid would have been pandered to,
 but _nobody_ would have thought of the dead man, the soldier, the
 chivalrous gentleman in his tomb--he knew this. I _alone_ stand here,
 and I think it an honour, for his sake, to bear with the epithets of
 scorn that the brutality of the athlete, and the dyspepsia of the
 effete--mostly anonymous Braves--have showered upon me. All that he
 has left will be given to the public by degrees, if it is more than a
 mere sketch, but it is cruel to the dead to give their sketches to the
 world and pretend that they are their best work, simply because they
 fetch money."[2]

     *       *       *       *       *

The _Leicester Post_, a little while ago, wrote:--

 "I don't think that Lady Burton's coming book will contain any
 explanation of her action in destroying the manuscript which Sir
 Richard endeavoured to complete on his death-bed. It is now said,
 with some show of authority, that the work contained but one chapter,
 which in a _virginibus puerisque_ light, might have given offence; if
 this were so, it seems appalling that the whole work should have been
 consigned to the flames. Lady Burton cannot know of this report, or
 she would hasten to relieve the literary minds, whose plaint is bitter
 because anything has perished which came from the translator of the
 'Arabian Nights.'"

Now, it is absurd to suppose that Richard tried to complete a
manuscript on a death-bed of three hours. As to _authority_, there were
only three people who ever read that manuscript--Richard who wrote
it, the copyist who copied it, and myself. I can relieve the literary
minds at once. The first two chapters were a raw translation of part
of the works of "Numa Numantius," without any annotations at all, or
comments of any kind on Richard's part, and twenty chapters translation
of Shaykh el Nafzáwih from Arabic. In fact, it was _all translation_,
excepting the annotations on the Arabic work. I asked the copyist, who
is a woman, "what she would have done with it," and she said, "I think
I should most likely have been tempted with the money, but if I cared
for my husband as much as you did, and if he was dead, I hope I might
have burned it." I asked her "upon what grounds she would have burnt
it," and she said, "Because the Press would assuredly have criticized
it. If he were alive he could answer for himself, and explain--he being
dead, _you_ could not; and we all know what men-friends are, and how
many would have put themselves in the slightest difficulty to take his
part. Sir Richard had the courage of his opinions, but his friends have
not, and would only come forward if it could aggrandize their own names
a little bit. You have done very well." It makes me sick to hear all
this anxiety of the Press and the literary world, lest they should miss
a word he ever wrote. When he came back in 1882, after being sent to
look after Palmer, he had a good deal of information to give, and he
could not get a magazine or paper to take his most valuable article
till it was quite stale. We used to boil over with rage when his books
or articles were rejected. Only the other day I sent a most valuable
letter of his, written in 1886, to a Liberal and a Conservative
paper, and neither of them would take it. And _now_, because a few
chapters, which were of no particular value to the world, have been
burnt, the whole country's literary minds are "full of bitter plaint
because anything has perished which came from the translator of the
'Arabian Nights.'" Such are the waves and whims of such people. They
are (privately of course), selling down at Soho a "Scented Garden,"
translated by the bookseller himself, from a miserable little French
copy, which they pretend is "Sir Richard Burton's Scented Garden,"
gulling people who ought to know better--but not scholars--and who
deserve to lose their money, paying for trash that my husband never
saw. I hope the seller charges them enormous sums, and I hope that some
of the purchasers will have the common sense to bring an action against
him for obtaining money under false pretences.

I have done no evil and am unharmed. I am not afraid of slander which I
have not deserved; it will die out and I shall live.

Those who say I have failed in my trust, wish it to be so, mean that
it shall be so, if it depends upon them. Slander is very cruel; it
tracks its victims like a bloodhound, but it generally crushes its own
begetter.

     *       *       *       *       *

 "THE SECOND BONE OF CONTENTION IS RELIGION.

     "No, no; it is not there the sorrow lies,
     Not in the lack of hands that could applaud,
     But in the lack of hearts that, answering, rise
     As loadstones to the magnet, the replies
     Electric of a sympathy which cries:
     'The truth is with thee!'"
                  ----MAARTEN MAARTENS.


[Sidenote: _And to the New Review_.]

 "Heredity is a strong thing, and cannot always be shaken off. It
 breeds alike forms of body, forms of soul, disease to this, good
 teeth or scanty hair to that, or colour, or talents, or creed. My
 Burtons mostly have Catholic-phobia; they hate it without knowing
 what it is, because their ancestors seceded from it at the time of
 the Reformation; but one of the most anti-Catholic of them, at the
 age of seventeen, wrote me more than one beautiful letter imploring
 me to take her, and get her baptised and received into the Catholic
 Church. I have them amongst my treasures now; but I did not do so,
 because it would have been an act of treachery to her mother, and
 dishonourable to take advantage of a girl, and she has since been very
 grateful for it. Another Burton, whilst labouring from the effects
 of an Indian sunstroke, used always to turn his face alternately
 towards Mecca (evidently thinking of my husband), and then turn the
 other way and say his rosary: something Catholic having come into
 his unbiased, unconscious brain. Richard, when he was out in India,
 had no one to keep him in order. As soon as he was well emancipated
 and untrammelled, he answered the call of his Bourbon blood, and
 transferred himself to the Catholic Church, and this is the way he
 describes it to the public--he always spoke lightly of the things he
 felt the most: 'What added not a little to the general astonishment
 was, that I left off "sitting under" the garrison chaplain, and betook
 myself to the Catholic chapel of the chocolate-coloured Goanese priest
 who adhibited spiritual consolation to the buttrels, butlers, and
 head servants, and other servants of the camp.' He frequently spoke
 in after writings of 'the Portuguese priest who had charge of his
 soul,' who, when Richard committed some escapade, 'was like a hen
 who had hatched a duckling.' These writings were lent by Richard to
 Mr. Hitchman, with other notes, in 1887, but he did not understand
 the importance of it, nor what it pointed to, and left it amongst
 the parts he did not use.[3] When I asked Richard how it was that it
 escaped public comment, he said, 'Because, when I mention that I went
 to the chocolate-coloured priest of the Goanese Church, the English
 only think it is some black tribe, where I have been probably tarred
 and feathered, whilst I was very much in earnest; but since it is no
 use annoying my people, and as it has escaped Mr. Hitchman, and as
 it only concerns you and me, and is no business of any outsider, I
 do not wish you to say anything about it till my death-bed, or some
 time after my death, and that only if you are put in any difficulty.'
 Cardinal Wiseman knew it, for he passed Richard through all the
 missions in wild places all over the world as a Catholic officer, and
 was willing to patronize my marriage. But Richard never let _me_ know
 anything about it until after we were married, and I have kept it all
 my life a secret. I have always steadily said that '_I did not know_,'
 because I never meant to tell it to any one but those who had a right
 to ask, as I did not see how it concerned the public.

 "The public have allowed me to think it unworthy of having anything
 but _public_ events related to it by the result of my stupid
 confidence about the burnt manuscript; one almost begrudges it the
 truth. Look at Grant Allen, a strong and clever man, who stated a
 while ago in the _Athenæum_ in a paragraph, 'The worm will turn,'
 that he had been asked to write something personal, that he threw his
 whole soul and religion into a book, and that when he gave it to
 his publisher he besought him to destroy it, or 'no one would ever
 read one of his books again.' It is the same with me; but I have one
 advantage; I want _nothing_ of the public except what it accords to
 me freely and out of its own courteous sympathy, and I do want it to
 understand its departed hero--therefore I sacrifice myself for the
 public good.

 "I think that the World, if a man speaks its own shibboleth, if
 he wears its last new-fashioned coat in the Park, has no right to
 complain if he does not show it the colour of the singlet that he
 wears next to his skin, or the talisman that he wears round his neck,
 which his wife happens to see, because she helps him to dress and
 undress.

 "Richard was so beautifully reserved, such a past master in concealing
 his real thoughts and feelings, whilst talking most freely, so as
 never to hurt his surroundings by letting them imagine that he did not
 trust them with everything. I used to tell him that he was like the
 'Man with the Iron Mask.' He did not see what right any one had to
 know anything, except what he just absolutely chose them to know.

 "I feel with Walt Whitman:--

    'I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid
          and self-contained.
    I stand and look at them long and long.
    They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
    They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
    They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
    Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
          owning things.'


 "I am by no means going to tell you that his Catholicity was a
 life-long, fixed, and steady thing, like mine. It was not. He had
 long and wild fits of Eastern Mysticism, but not the Agnosticism
 that I have seen in England since my widowhood. It was the mysticism
 of the East--Sufiism. Periodically he had equal Catholic fits, and
 practised it, hiding it sometimes even from me, though I knew it. In
 every place we lived in, except Trieste, he had a priest from whom he
 took lessons, but even this stopped, after he had resident doctors
 and could not go out by himself. From Trieste he used formerly to go
 to Gorizia, two hours express inland, and other towns. He was worse
 than ever _in talk_ the three last years, but the things that he said
 were so innocent and so witty that I was often compelled to laugh or
 to go away and laugh. Still, as I saw his health declining I grew
 frightfully anxious, nay agonized, and in 1888, two years before he
 died, I made a general appeal for prayers in our Church, which he saw
 and kept a copy of in a drawer."

     *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Religion_.]

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 remember a
speech which he made in London--I believe it was in 1865, I think at
the Anthropological--in which he said, "My religious opinions are of
no importance to anybody but myself; _no 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
_might_ silence those who jabber upon things of which they are 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, whatever
cynics may say. Be in trouble, and you must wonder at the innumerable
kind hearts who will call and write, and offer every 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 themselves 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 larger part
did not know how to appreciate 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
Geographical Society, almost tabooed by Society on account of the
machinations 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 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 manuscript"
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.

[Sidenote: _I take my Leave_.]

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.

    "'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.

    "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 Brother Gods_.

    *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Good-bye_.]

[Illustration: Isabel Burton

    "I beg of you, I beg of you, my brother,
      For an alms this very day;
    I am standing at your doorstep as a _Beggar_,
      Who will not be turned away;
    And the charity you give my soul shall be--Pray for me!"]


[1] This is a work of Arabian erotology--the Arab art of love--and
would have been brought out with the same privacy and a limited number,
and at a prohibitive price, like the "Arabian Nights," so that the
general public have sustained no loss, and the penny-a-liner would
never have seen it.--I. B.

[2] "I was told lately that a 'Scented Garden,' from a mild French
translation, is being sold and passed off to the uneducated, not to
scholars, as Burton's 'Scented Garden,' under the false plea that I
carried away with me from Trieste a copy of it. I now state upon my
oath, that there were but two copies of Richard Burton's 'Scented
Garden;' one was his own original, and one a clean copy; that I burnt
them both, and that no other copy was made from them, on the solemn
written declaration of the copyist, and I warn the world against buying
a spurious article. I also was told that people talk about bringing
out works in collaboration with my husband. There is only one genuine
collaboration, and that will appear in time; that is Catullus; Richard
Burton's poetry, Mr. Leonard Smithers' prose. Richard, to save me, used
to pretend to his men-friends that I knew nothing of these works, and
people who want notoriety pretend that they were collaborating with
him, thinking they can do so _now_ with impunity. Richard _did_ tell
me everything, although he did not allow me to read the works; but
now that he has left me his literary executrix I find it necessary to
say that I _do_ know my own business, that I warn people from taking
liberties with my husband's name and my property to sell spurious
literature. About six weeks before Richard died (not because he
contemplated his death, but because we were going away for four months
to Greece and Constantinople, which would leave us very little time on
our return for the actual exodus on the following July 1st) we took,
a week together, in the early morning, a list of all the manuscripts,
published and unpublished, and their destinations when packed up for
England. Hence, when I was offered assistance in the sorting and
arrangements from numbers of people after his death, I replied, That
I did not want help, because I knew them "as a shepherd knows his
sheep"--hence a few bitter enemies. The so-called collaborations are
all in my husband's handwriting, and I have them, or rather I keep all
my literary treasures in a bank for safety, and take them out piecemeal
as I need them. Three of his diaries have indeed been abstracted
since his death, 1859, 1860, and 1861, but fortunately they are not
the _private_ ones, which were always kept under lock and key, but
those containing public remarks, memoranda, and so on, which were left
about. Numbers of our best books have also disappeared, notably an old
Shakespeare of twelve vols., which he charged me never to part with.
Of course it is impossible to say where they may have been lost during
a period of seventeen months; I only got them housed March, 1892; only
after I am dead let no one exhibit them as 'gifts from my intimate
friend and fellow-worker, Richard Burton.' There is also missing £200
worth of scrip shares in African mines."

[3] "Mr. Hitchman returned all these writings to Richard, who wanted to
use them for his own autobiography, which he was to begin in 1891, and
I have them now for his biography."




APPENDIX A.

LIST OF CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD F. BURTON'S WORKS.


A Grammar of the Játaki or Belochi Dialect. Bombay Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society, India. 1849.

Grammar of the Mooltanee Language. India, 1849.

Critical Remarks on Dr. Dorn's Chrestomathy of Pushtoo or Afghan
Dialect. India, 1849.

Reports to Bombay: (1) General Notes on Sind; (2) Notes on the
Population of Sind. Printed in the Government records.

Goa and the Blue Mountains. 1851.

Scinde; or, the Unhappy Valley. 2 vols. 1851.

Sindh, and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the Indus. 1851.

Falconry in the Valley of the Indus. 1852.

A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise. 1853.

Pilgrimage to Mecca and El-Medinah. 3 vols. 1855.

First Footsteps in East Africa. 1856.

Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa. 2 vols. 1860.

The whole of Vol. XXXIII. of the Royal Geographical Society. 1860.

The City of the Saints (Mormon). 1861.

Wanderings in West Africa. 2 vols. 1863.

Abeokuta and the Cameroons. 2 vols. 1863.

The Nile Basin. 1864.

A Mission to the King of Dahomé. 2 vols. 1864.

Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. 1864.

The Highlands of the Brazil. 2 vols. 1869.

Vikram and the Vampire. Hindú Tales. 1870.

Marcy's Prairie Traveller. Notes by R. F. Burton. _Anthropological
Review_, 1864.

Psychic Facts. Stone Talk, by F. Baker. 1865.

Paraguay. 1870.

Proverba Communia Syriaca. Royal Asiatic Society. 1871.

Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast. 2 vols. 1872.

Unexplored Syria. Richard and Isabel Burton. 2 vols. 1872.

The Lands of the Cazembe, and a small pamphlet of Supplementary papers.
Royal Geographical Society. 1873.

The Captivity of Hans Stadt. Hakluyt Society. 1874.

Articles on Rome. Two Papers. _Macmillan's Magazine_, 1874-5.

The Castellieri of Istria: a Pamphlet. Anthropological Society. 1874.

Gerber's Province of Minas Geraes. Translated and annotated by R. F.
Burton. Royal Geographical Society. 1874.

New System of Sword Exercise: a Manual. 1875.

Ultima Thule: a Summer in Iceland. 2 vols. 1875.

Gorilla Land; or, the Cataracts of the Congo. 2 vols. 1875.

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.

Etruscan Bologna. 1876.

Sind Revisited. 1877.

The Gold Mines of Midian, and the Ruined Midianite Cities. 1878.

The Land of Midian (Revisited). 2 vols. 1879.

The Kasîdah.

Camoens. 6 vols. of 10. First publication. 1880.
--I. The Lusiads. Englished by R. F. Burton. Edited by his wife,
  Isabel Burton. 2 vols.
--II. The Commentary, Life, and Lusiads. R. F. Burton. 2 vols.,
containing a Glossary, and Reviewers reviewed by Isabel Burton.
--III. The Lyrics of Camoens. 2 vols. R. F. Burton.

A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881. 8vo.

To the Gold Coast for Gold. 2 vols. 1883.

The Book of the Sword. 1 large vol. of 3. By R. F. Burton, Maître
d'Armes. 1884.

Iraçema, or Honey Lips; and Manoel de Moraes, the Convert. Translated
from the Brazilian by Richard and Isabel Burton. 1 vol. 1886.

Arabian Nights. Printed by private subscription, 1885-8. 1000 sets of
10 vols., followed by 1000 sets of 6 Supplementary vols. (Lady Burton's
Edition).

Besides which, Sir Richard Burton has written extensively for _Fraser,
Blackwood,_ and a host of Magazines, Pamphlets, and Periodicals; has
lectured in many lands: has largely contributed to the newspaper Press
in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (both North and South), to say
nothing of poetry and anonymous writings.


LIST OF LADY BURTON'S BOOKS.


Inner Life of Syria. 2 vols. 1875.

A. E. I. (Arabia, Egypt, and India). 1879.


LIST OF SIR RICHARD BURTON'S _UNPUBLISHED_ WORKS.


Uruguay. Translated from Brazilian author by Richard and Isabel Burton.

Ladislas Magyar's African Travels. )
Pentamerone.                       ) These are quite complete.
A book on the Jews.                )

Catullus. (Almost complete.)

In a semi-state of completion, or only materials and notes, are--
More Notes on Paraguay.
Personal Experiences in Syria.
Lowlands of Brazil.
North America.
South America.
Central America.
A book on Istria--More Castellieri.
Materials for four more books of Camoens.
Materials towards another book on the Sword.
Materials for a book of Greek Proverbs (Greek Anthology).
Materials towards a book on the Gypsies.
Ditto Slavonic Proverbs.
Ditto Dr. Wetstein's Haurán.
Ditto Apuleius, or the Golden Ass.
Ditto Ausonius (Epigrams).

The Uniform Library will bring out a cheap edition for the people,
first, of all his hitherto published works, to which will gradually be
added his unpublished works as fast as they can be produced, that the
British Public may be made familiar with all that he has written.

This Life will be followed by 2 vols, collecting all his Pamphlets,
Essays, Correspondence with the Press, Letters, and the pith of the
work he has endeavoured to do for the benefit of the human race during
his seventy years; and this will occupy me another year, or, let us
say, two whole years, and will be called "The Labours and Wisdom of
Richard Burton."




APPENDIX B.

NOTES ON "THE KASÎDAH."

"NOTE I.--HÂJÎ ABDÛ, THE MAN.


"Hâjî Abdû has been known to me for more years than I care to record.
A native, it is believed, of Darâbghird in the Yezd Province, he
always preferred to style himself El-Hichmakâni, a facetious 'lackab'
or surname, meaning 'Of No-hall, Nowhere.' He had travelled far and
wide with his eyes open; as appears by his 'couplets.' To a natural
facility, a knack of language-learning, he added a store of desultory
various reading; scraps of Chinese and old Egyptian; of Hebrew and
Syriac; of Sanskrit and Prakrit; of Slav, especially Lithuanian; of
Latin and Greek, including Romaic; of Berber, the Nubian dialect, and
of Zend and Akkadian, besides Persian, his mother-tongue, and Arabic,
the classic of the schools. Nor was he ignorant of 'the -ologies' and
the triumphs of modern scientific discovery. Briefly, his memory was
well stored; and he had every talent save that of using his talents.

"But no one thought that he 'woo'd the Muse,' to speak in the style of
the last century. Even his intimates were ignorant of the fact that he
had a skeleton in his cupboard, his Kasîdah or distichs. He confided
to me his secret, and when so doing he held in hand the long and hoary
honours of his chin with the points towards me, as if to say with the
Island-King--

    'There is a touch of Winter in my beard,
    A sign the Gods will guard me from imprudence.'

And yet the piercing eye, clear as an onyx, seemed to protest against
the plea of age. The MS. was in the vilest 'Shikastah' or running-hand;
and, as I carried it off, the writer declined to take the trouble of
copying out his cacograph.

"We, his old friends, had long addressed Hâjî Abdû by the sobriquet of
_Nabbianâ_ ('our Prophet'); and the reader will see that the Pilgrim
has, or believes he has, a message to deliver. He evidently aspires
to preach a Faith of his own; an Eastern Version of Humanitarianism
blended with the sceptical or, as we now say, the scientific habit of
mind. This religion, of which Fetishism, Hinduism, and Heathendom,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islamism, are mere fractions, may, methinks,
be accepted by the Philosopher: it worships with single-minded
devotion the Holy Cause of Truth, of Truth for its own sake, not for
the goods it may bring; and this belief is equally acceptable to honest
ignorance, and to the highest attainments in nature-study.

"With Confucius the Hâjî cultivates what Strauss has called the 'stern
common sense of mankind;' while the reign of order is a paragraph
of his 'Higher Law.' He traces from its rudest beginnings the all
but absolute universality of some perception by man, called 'Faith;'
that _sensus Numinis_ which, by inheritance or communication, is now
universal except in those who force themselves to oppose it. And he
evidently holds this general consent of mankind to be so far divine
that it primarily discovered for itself, if it did not create, a
divinity. He does not cry with the Christ of Novalis, 'Children, you
have no father;' and perhaps he would join Renan in exclaiming, _Un
monde sans Dieu est horrible!_

"But he recognizes the incompatibility of the Infinite with the
Definite; of a Being who loves, who thinks, who hates; of an _Actus
purus_ who is called jealous, wrathful, and revengeful, with an
'Eternal that makes for righteousness.' In the presence of the endless
contradictions, which spring from the idea of a Personal Deity, with
the Synthesis, the _Begriff_ of Providence, our Agnostic takes refuge
in the sentiment of an unknown and an unknowable. He objects to the
countless variety of forms assumed by the perception of a _Causa
Causans_ (a misnomer), and to that intellectual adoption of general
propositions, capable of distinct statement but incapable of proofs,
which we term Belief.

"He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems,
maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of
equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world,
and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming
the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising
disputes whose violence, acerbity, and virulence are in inverse ratio
to the importance of the disputed matter. A peculiarly active and acute
observation taught him that many of these jarring families, especially
those of the same blood, are par in the intellectual processes of
perception and reflection; that in the business of the visible working
world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas
in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual
evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly
charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.

"Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right,
and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite
past creeds; will account for the present, and will anticipate the
future with a continuous and uninterrupted development; this, too,
by a process, not negative and distinctive, but, on the contrary,
intensely positive and constructive. I am not called upon to sit in
the seat of judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the
attempt succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because
not limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive
as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal. Meanwhile he satisfies
himself,--the main point.

"Students of metaphysics have of late years defined the abuse
of their science as 'the morphology of common opinion.'
Contemporary investigators, they say, have been too much
occupied with introspection; their labours have become merely
physiologico-biographical, and they have greatly neglected the study of
averages. For, says La Rochefoucauld, _Il est plus aisé de connoître
l'homme en général que de connoître un homme en particulier_; and on so
wide a subject all views must be one-sided.

"But this is not the fashion of Easterns. They have still to treat
great questions _ex analogiâ universi_, instead of _ex analogiâ
hominis_. They must learn the basis of sociology, the philosophic
conviction that mankind should be studied, not as a congeries of
individuals, but as an organic whole. Hence the _Zeitgeist_, or
historical evolution of the collective consciousness of the age,
despises the obsolete opinion that Society, the State, is bound by the
same moral duties as the simple citizen. Hence, too, it holds that the
'spirit of man, being of equal and uniform substance, doth usually
suppose and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is
in Truth.'

"Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last
eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing,
yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race.
Hâjî Abdû would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of
what their votaries call 'pure truths,' by the innate imperfections
of the same. Both propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty
for simple unbelief; rewards and punishments being, by the way,
very disproportionate. Thus they reduce everything to the scale of
a somewhat unrefined egotism; and their demoralizing effects become
clearer to every progressive age.

"Hâjî Abdû seeks Truth only, truth as far as man, in the present phase
of his development, is able to comprehend it. He disdains to associate
utility, like Bacon ('Nov. Org.' I. Aph. 124), the High Priest of the
English Creed, _les gros bon sens_, with the _lumen siccum ac purum
notionum verarum_. He seems to see the injury inflicted upon the sum
of thought by the _à posteriori_ superstition, the worship of 'facts,'
and the deification of synthesis. Lastly, came the reckless way in
which Locke 'freed philosophy from the incubus of innate ideas.' Like
Luther and the leaders of the great French Revolution, he broke with
the Past; and he threw overboard the whole cargo of human tradition.
The result has been an immense movement of the mind which we love to
call Progress, when it has often been retrograde; together with a
mighty development of egotism resulting from the pampered sentiment of
personality.

"The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible
future state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a daydream,
whose revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The condition may
appear humble and prosaic to those exalted by the fumes of Fancy, by a
spiritual dram-drinking which, like the physical, is the pursuit of an
ideal happiness. But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence
of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of
mankind, no Catholic opinion held _semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus_.
The intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon
the subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof. Even
the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what
we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate
that receptive mood which, marching under the shadow of mighty events,
leads to the highest of goals,--the development of Humanity. With him
suspension of judgment is a system.

"Man has done much during the sixty-eight centuries which represent
his history. This assumes the first Egyptian Empire, following the
prehistoric, to begin with B.C. 5000, and to end with B.C. 3249. It was
the Old, as opposed to the Middle, the New, and the Low: it contained
the Dynasties from I. to X., and it was the age of the Pyramids, at
once simple, solid, and grand. When the praiser of the Past contends
that modern civilization has improved in nothing upon Homer and
Herodotus, he is apt to forget that every schoolboy is a miracle of
learning compared with the Cave-man and the palæolithic race. And, as
the Past has been, so shall the Future be.

"The Pilgrim's view of life is that of the Soofi, with the usual dash
of Buddhistic pessimism. The profound sorrow of existence, so often
sung by the dreamy Eastern poet, has now passed into the practical
European mind. Even the light Frenchman murmurs--

    'Moi, moi, chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête
      Je passe--et refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux,
    Je m'en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête,
      Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux.'

But our Hâjî is not Nihilistic in the 'no-nothing' sense of Hood's
poem, or, as the American phrases it, 'There is nothing new, nothing
true, and it don't signify.' His is a healthy wail over the shortness
and the miseries of life, because he finds all created things--

    'Measure the world, with "Me" immense.'

"He reminds us of St. Augustine ('Med.' c. 21). 'Vita hæc, vita misera,
vita caduca, vita incerta, vita laboriosa, vita immunda, vita domina
malorum, regina superborum, plena miseriis et erroribus.... Quam
humores tumidant, escæ inflant, jejunia macerant, joci dissolvunt,
tristitiæ consumunt; sollicitudo coarctat, securitas hebetat, divitiæ
inflant et jactant. Paupertas dejicit, juventus extollit, senectus
incurvat, importunitas frangit, mæror deprimit. Et his malis omnibus
mors furibunda succedit.' But for _furibunda_ the Pilgrim would,
perhaps, read _benedicta_.

"With Cardinal Newman, one of the glories of our age, Hâjî Abdû finds
'the Light of the world nothing else than the Prophet's scroll, full
of lamentations and mourning and woe.' I cannot refrain from quoting
all this fine passage, if it be only for the sake of its lame and
shallow deduction. 'To consider the world in its length and breadth,
its various history and the many races of men, their starts, their
fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts, and then their
ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their
aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the
impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and
broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution (!) of what
turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things as if
from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes; the greatness
and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims and short duration, the
curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the
defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish,
the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the
corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the
whole race so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words,
"having no hope and without God in the world"--_all this is a vision
to dizzy and appal, and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound
mystery which is absolutely without human solution_.' Hence that
admirable writer postulates some 'terrible original calamity;' and thus
the hateful doctrine, theologically called 'original sin,' becomes to
him almost as certain as that 'the world exists, and as the existence
of God.' Similarly the 'Schedule of Doctrines' of the most liberal
Christian Church insists upon human depravity, and the 'absolute need
of the Holy Spirit's agency in man's regeneration and sanctification.'

"But what have we here? The 'original calamity' was either caused by
God or arose without leave of God, in either case degrading God to man.
It is the old dilemma whose horns are the irreconcilable attributes of
goodness and omniscience in the supposed Creator of sin and suffering.
If the one quality be predicable, the other cannot be predicable of
the same subject. Far better and wiser is the essayist's poetical
explanation, now apparently despised because it was the fashionable
doctrine of the sage bard's day--

    'All nature is but art . . .
    All discord harmony not understood;
    All partial evil universal good.'
                  ----(Essay, 289-292.)

The Pilgrim holds with St. Augustine Absolute Evil is impossible
because it is always rising up into good. He considers the theory of a
beneficent or maleficent deity a purely sentimental fancy, contradicted
by human reason and the aspect of the world. Evil is often the active
form of good; as F. W. Newman says, 'so likewise is Evil the revelation
of Good.' With him all existences are equal: so long as they possess
the Hindú Agasa, Life-fluid or vital force, it matters not they be

    'Fungus or oak or worm or man.'

War, he says, brings about countless individual miseries, but it
forwards general progress by raising the stronger upon the ruins of
the weaker races. Earthquakes and cyclones ravage small areas; but the
former builds up earth for man's habitation, and the latter renders the
atmosphere fit for him to breathe. Hence he echoes--

                 '--The universal Cause
    Acts not by partial but by general laws.'

Ancillary to the churchman's immoral view of 'original sin' is the
unscientific theory that evil came into the world with Adam and his
seed. Let us ask what was the state of our globe in the pre-Adamite
days, when the tyrants of the Earth, the huge Saurians and other
monsters lived in perpetual strife, in a destructiveness of which we
have now only the feeblest examples? What is the actual state of the
world of waters, where the only object of life is death, where the Law
of murder is the Law of Development?

"Some will charge the Hâjî with irreverence, and hold him a 'lieutenant
of Satan who sits in the chair of pestilence.' But he is not
intentionally irreverent. Like men of far higher strain, who deny
divinely the divine, he speaks the things that others think and hide.
With the author of 'Supernatural Religion,' he holds that we 'gain
infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the reality of
revelation;' and he looks forward to the day when 'the old tyranny
shall have been broken, and when the anarchy of transition shall
have passed away.' But he is an Eastern. When he repeats the Greek's
'Remember not to believe,' he means, Strive to learn, to know, for
right ideas lead to right actions. Among the couplets not translated
for this eclogue is--

    'Of all the safest ways of Life the safest way is still to doubt;
    Men win the future world with Faith, the present world they win
            without.'

This is the Spaniard's--

    'De las cosas mas seguras, mas seguro es duvidar;'

a typically modern sentiment of the Brazen Age of Science following the
Golden Age of Sentiment. But the Pilgrim continues--

    'The sages say: I tell thee no! with equal faith all Faiths receive;
    None more, none less, for Doubt is Death: they live the most who most
            believe.'

"Here, again, is an Oriental subtlety; a man who believes in everything
equally and generally may be said to believe in nothing. It is not a
simple European view which makes honest Doubt worth a dozen of the
Creeds. And it is in direct opposition to the noted writer who holds
that the man of simple faith is worth ninety-nine of those who hold
only to the egotistic interests of their own individuality. This dark
saying means (if it mean anything), that the so-called moral faculties
of man, fancy and ideality, must lord it over the perceptive and
reflective powers,--a simple absurdity! It produced a Turricremata,
alias Torquemada, who, shedding floods of honest tears, caused his
victims to be burnt alive; and an Anchieta, the Thaumaturgist of
Brazil, who beheaded a converted heretic lest the latter by lapse from
grace lose his immortal soul.

"But this vein of speculation, which bigots brand as 'Doubt, Denial,
and Destruction;' this earnest religious scepticism; this curious
inquiry, 'Has the universal tradition any base of fact?' this craving
after the secrets and mysteries of the future, the unseen, the unknown,
is common to all races and to every age. Even amongst the Romans, whose
model man in Augustus' day was Horace, the philosophic, the epicurean,
we find Propertius asking--

    'An ficta in miseras descendit fabula gentes
    Et timor haud ultra quam rogus esse potest?'

"To return: the Pilgrim's doctrines upon the subject of conscience and
repentance will startle those who do not follow his train of thought--

    'Never repent because thy will with will of Fate be not at one:
    Think, an thou please, before thou dost, but never rue the deed when done.'

This again is his modified fatalism. He would not accept the boisterous
mode of cutting the Gordian-knot proposed by the noble British
Philister--'we know we're free and there's an end on it!' He prefers
Lamarck's, 'The will is, in truth, never free.' He believes man to
be a co-ordinate term of Nature's great progression; a result of
the interaction of organism and environment, working through cosmic
sections of time. He views the human machine, the pipe of flesh, as
depending upon the physical theory of life. Every corporeal fact
and phenomenon which, like the tree, grows from within or without,
is a mere product of organization; living bodies being subject to
the natural law governing the lifeless and the inorganic. Whilst
the religionist assures us that man is not a mere toy of fate, but
a free agent responsible to himself, with work to do and duties to
perform, the Hâjî, with many modern schools, holds Mind to be a word
describing a special operation of matter; the faculties generally to be
manifestations of movements in the central nervous system; and every
idea, even of the Deity, to be a certain little pulsation of a certain
little mass of animal pap,--the brain. Thus he would not object to
relationship with a tailless catarrhine anthropoid ape, descended from
a monad or a primal ascidian.

"Hence he virtually says, 'I came into the world without having
applied for or having obtained permission; nay, more, without my leave
being asked or given. Here I find myself hand-tied by conditions, and
fettered by laws and circumstances, in making which my voice had no
part. While in the womb I was an automaton; and death will find me a
mere machine. Therefore not I, but the Law, or, if you please, the
Lawgiver, is answerable for all my actions.' Let me here observe that
to the Western mind 'Law' postulates a Lawgiver; not so to the Eastern,
and especially to the Soofi, who holds these ideas to be human,
unjustifiably extended to interpreting the non-human, which men call
the Divine.

"Further he would say, 'I am an individual (_qui nil habet dividui_), a
circle touching and intersecting my neighbours at certain points, but
nowhere corresponding, nowhere blending. Physically I am not identical
in all points with other men. Morally I differ from them: in nothing
do the approaches of knowledge, my five organs of sense (with their
Shelleyan "interpenetration"), exactly resemble those of any other
being. _Ergo_, the effect of the world, of life, of natural objects,
will not in my case be the same as with the beings most resembling me.
Thus I claim the right of creating or modifying for my own and private
use, the system which most imports me; and if the reasonable leave be
refused to me, I take it without leave.

"'But my individuality, however all-sufficient for myself, is an
infinitesimal point, an atom subject in all things to the Law of Storms
called Life. I feel, I know that Fate _is_. But I cannot know what
is or what is not fated to befall me. Therefore in the pursuit of
perfection as an individual lies my highest, and indeed my only duty,
the "I" being duly blended with the "We." I object to be a "self-less
man," which to me denotes an inverted moral sense. I am bound to take
careful thought concerning the consequences of every word and deed.
When, however, the Future has become the Past, it would be the merest
vanity for me to grieve or to repent over that which was decreed by
universal Law.'

"The usual objection is that of man's practice. It says, 'This is well
in theory; but how carry it out? For instance, why would you kill,
or give, over to be killed, the man compelled by Fate to kill your
father?' Hâjî Abdû replies, 'I do as others do, not because the murder
was done by him, but because the murderer should not be allowed another
chance of murdering. He is a tiger who has tasted blood and who should
be shot. I am convinced that he was a tool in the hands of Fate, but
that will not prevent my taking measures, whether predestined or not,
in order to prevent his being similarly used again.'

"As with repentance so with conscience. Conscience may be a 'fear which
is the shadow of justice;' even as pity is the shadow of love. Though
simply a geographical and chronological accident, which changes with
every age of the world, it may deter men from seeking and securing the
prize of successful villany. But this incentive to beneficence must be
applied to actions that will be done, not to deeds that have been done.

"The Hâjî, moreover, carefully distinguishes between the working of
fate under a personal God, and under the Reign of Law. In the former
case the contradiction between the foreknowledge of a Creator, and
the free-will of a Creature, is direct, palpable, absolute. We might
as well talk of black-whiteness and of white-blackness. A hundred
generations of divines have never been able to ree the riddle; a
million will fail. The difficulty is insurmountable to the Theist
whose Almighty is perforce Omniscient, and as Omniscient, Prescient.
But it disappears when we convert the Person into Law, or a settled
order of events; subject, moreover, to certain exceptions fixed and
immutable, but at present unknown to man. The difference is essential
as that between the penal code with its narrow forbiddal, and the broad
commandment which is a guide rather than a taskmaster.

"Thus, too, the belief in fixed Law, _versus_ arbitrary will, modifies
the Hâjî's opinions concerning the pursuit of happiness. Mankind, _das
rastlose Ursachenthier_, is born to be on the whole equally happy and
miserable. The highest organisms, the fine porcelain of our family,
enjoy the most and suffer the most: they have a capacity for rising to
the empyrean of pleasure and for plunging deep into the swift-flowing
river of woe and pain. Thus Dante ('Inf.' vi. 106)--

                     '--tua scienza
    Che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta
    Più senta 'l bene, e cosi la doglienza.'

So Buddhism declares that existence in itself implies effort, pain, and
sorrow; and, the higher the creature, the more it suffers. The common
clay enjoys little and suffers little. Sum up the whole and distribute
the mass; the result will be an average; and the beggar is, on the
whole, happy as the prince. Why, then, asks the objector, does man ever
strive and struggle to change, to rise; a struggle which involves the
idea of improving his condition? The Hâjî answers, 'Because such is the
Law under which man is born: it may be fierce as famine, cruel as the
grave, but man must obey it with blind obedience.' He does not enter
into the question whether life is worth living, whether man should
elect to be born. Yet his Eastern pessimism, which contrasts so sharply
with the optimism of the West, re-echoes the lines--

                       '--a life,
    With large results so little rife,
    Though bearable seems hardly worth
    This pomp of words, this pain of birth.'

"Life, whatever may be its consequence, is built upon a basis of
sorrow. Literature, the voice of humanity, and the verdict of mankind
proclaim that all existence is a state of sadness. The 'physicians of
the Soul' would save her melancholy from degenerating into despair by
doses of steadfast belief in the presence of God, in the assurance of
Immortality, and in visions of the final victory of good. Were Hâjî
Abdû a mere Theologist, he would add that Sin, not the possibility of
revolt, but the revolt itself against conscience, is the primary form
of evil, because it produces error, moral and intellectual. This man,
who omits to read the Conscience-law, however it may differ from the
Society-law, is guilty of negligence. That man, who obscures the light
of Nature with sophistries, becomes incapable of discerning his own
truths. In both cases error, deliberately adopted, is succeeded by
suffering which, we are told, comes in justice and benevolence as a
warning, a remedy, and a chastisement.

"But the Pilgrim is dissatisfied with the idea that evil originates
in the individual actions of free agents, ourselves and others. This
doctrine fails to account for its characteristics,--essentiality and
universality. That creatures endowed with the mere possibility of
liberty should not always choose the Good appears natural. But that of
the milliards of human beings who have inhabited Earth, not one should
have been found invariably to choose Good, proves how insufficient is
the solution. Hence no one believes in the existence of the complete
man under the present state of things. The Hâjî rejects all popular
and mythical explanation by the Fall of 'Adam,' the innate depravity
of human nature, and the absolute perfection of certain Incarnations,
which argues their divinity. He can only wail over the prevalence of
evil, assume its foundation to be error, and purpose to abate it by
uprooting that Ignorance which bears and feeds it.

"His 'eschatology,' like that of the Soofis generally, is vague and
shadowy. He may lean towards the doctrine of Marc Aurelius, 'The unripe
grape, the ripe and the dried: all things are changes not into nothing,
but into that which is not at present.' This is one of the _monstruosa
opinionum portenta_ mentioned by the Nineteenth General Council,
alias the First Council of the Vatican. But he only accepts it with a
limitation. He cleaves to the ethical, not the intellectual, worship of
'Nature,' which moderns define to be an 'unscientific and imaginary
synonym for the sum total of observed phenomena.' Consequently he
holds to the 'dark and degrading doctrines of the Materialist,' the
'_Hylotheist_;' in opposition to the spiritualist, a distinction far
more marked in the West than in the East. Europe draws a hard, dry line
between Spirit and Matter: Asia does not.

"Among us the Idealist objects to the Materialists that the latter
cannot agree upon fundamental points; that they cannot define what is
an atom; that they cannot account for the transformation of physical
action and molecular motion into consciousness; and _vice versâ_, that
they cannot say what matter is; and, lastly, that Berkeley and his
school have proved the existence of spirit while denying that of matter.

"The Materialists reply that the want of agreement shows only a study
insufficiently advanced; that man cannot describe an atom, because he
is still an infant in science, yet there is no reason why his mature
manhood should not pass through error and incapacity to truth and
knowledge; that consciousness becomes a property of matter when certain
conditions are present; that Hyle (ὔλη) or Matter may be provisionally
defined as 'phenomena with a substructure of their own, transcendental
and eternal, subject to the action, direct or indirect, of the five
senses, whilst its properties present themselves in three states,
the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous.' To casuistical Berkeley
they prefer the common sense of mankind. They ask the idealist and
the spiritualist why they cannot find names for themselves without
borrowing from a 'dark and degraded' school; why the former must
call himself after his eye (_idein_); the latter after his breath
(_spiritus_)? Thus the Hâjî twits them with affixing their own
limitations to their own Almighty Power, and, as Socrates said, with
bringing down Heaven to the market-place.

"Modern thought tends more and more to reject crude idealism and to
support the monistic theory, the double aspect, the transfigured
realism. It discusses the Nature of Things in Themselves. To the
question, is there anything outside of us which corresponds with our
sensations? that is to say, is the whole world simply 'I,' they reply
that obviously there is a something else; and that this something else
produces the brain-disturbance which is called sensation. Instinct
orders us to do something; Reason (the balance of faculties) directs;
and the strongest motive controls. Modern Science, by the discovery
of Radiant Matter, a fourth condition, seems to conciliate the two
schools. 'La découverte d'un quatrième état de la matière,' says a
Reviewer, 'c'est la porte ouverte à l'infini de ses transformations;
c'est l'homme invisible et impalpable de même possible sans cesser
d'être substantiel; c'est le monde des esprits entrant sans absurdité
dans la domaine des hypothèses scientifiques; c'est la possibilité
pour le matérialiste de croire à la vie d'outre tombe, sans renoncer
au substratum matériel qu'il croit nécessaire au maintien de
l'individualité.'

"With Hâjî Abdû the soul is not material, for that would be a
contradiction of terms. He regards it, with many moderns, as a state
of things, not a thing; a convenient word denoting the sense of
personality, of individual identity. In its ghostly signification he
discovers an artificial dogma which could hardly belong to the brutal
savages of the Stone Age. He finds it in the funereal books of ancient
Egypt, whence probably it passed to the Zendavesta and the Vedas. In
the Hebrew Pentateuch, of which part is still attributed to Moses, it
is unknown, or, rather, it is deliberately ignored by the author or
authors. The early Christians could not agree upon the subject; Origen
advocated the pre-existence of men's souls, supposing them to have been
all created at one time and successively embodied. Others make Spirit
born with the hour of birth: and so forth.

"But the brain-action, or, if you so phrase it, the mind, is not
confined to the reasoning faculties; nor can we afford to ignore
the sentiments, the affections which are, perhaps, the most potent
realities of life. Their loud affirmative voice contrasts strongly with
the titubant accents of the intellect. They seem to demand a future
life, even a state of rewards and punishments from the Maker of the
world, the _Ortolano Eterno_,[1] the Potter of the East, the Watchmaker
of the West. They protest against the idea of annihilation. They revolt
at the notion of eternal parting from parents, kinsmen, and friends.
Yet the dogma of a future life is by no means catholic and universal.
The Anglo-European race apparently cannot exist without it, and we
have lately heard of the 'Aryan Soul-land.' On the other hand, many of
the Buddhist and even the Brahman Schools preach Nirwâna (comparative
non-existence) and Parinirwâna (absolute nothingness). Moreover, the
great Turanian family, actually occupying all Eastern Asia, has ever
ignored it; and the 200,000,000 of Chinese Confucians, the mass of
the nation, protest emphatically against the mainstay of the Western
creeds, because it 'unfits men for the business and duty of life, by
fixing their speculations on an unknown world.' And even its votaries,
in all ages, races, and faiths, cannot deny that the next world is
a copy, more or less idealized, of the present; and that it lacks a
single particular savouring of originality. It is, in fact, a mere
continuation; and the continuation is 'not proven.'

    'It is most hard to be a man;'

and the Pilgrim's sole consolation is in self-cultivation, and in
the pleasures of the affections. This sympathy may be an indirect
self-love, a reflection of the light of egotism: still it is so
transferred as to imply a different system of convictions. It requires
a different name: to call benevolence 'self-love' is to make the fruit
or flower not only depend upon a root for development (which is true),
but the very root itself (which is false). And, finally, his ideal is
of the highest: his praise is reserved for

                        '--Lives
    Lived in obedience to the inner law
    Which cannot alter.'


"NOTE II.


"A few words concerning the Kasîdah itself. Our Hâjî begins with
a _mise-en-scène_; and takes leave of the Caravan setting out for
Mecca. He sees the 'Wolf's tail' (_Dum-i-gurg_), the υκαυγές, or
wolf-gleam, the Diluculum, the Zodiacal dawn-light, the first faint
brushes of white radiating from below the Eastern horizon. It is
accompanied by the morning-breath (_Dam-i-Subh_), the current of air,
almost imperceptible except by the increase of cold, which Moslem
physiologists suppose to be the early prayer offered by Nature to
the First Cause. The Ghoul-i-Biyâbân (Desert-Demon) is evidently
the personification of man's fears and of the dangers that surround
travelling in the wilds. The 'wold-where-none-save-He (Allah)-can
dwell' is a great and terrible wilderness (_Dash-i-la-siwa Hu_); and
Allah's Holy Hill is Arafât, near Mecca, which the Caravan reaches
after passing through Medina. The first section ends with a sore
lament that the 'meetings of this world take place upon the highway of
Separation;' and the original also has--

    'The chill of sorrow numbs my thought: methinks I hear the passing knell;
    As dies across yon thin blue line the tinkling of the Camel-bell.'

"The next section quotes the various aspects under which Life appeared
to the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First comes Hafiz, whose
well-known lines are quoted beginning with Shab-i-târîk o bîm-i-mauj,
etc. Hûr is the plural of Ahwar, in full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose
eyes are intensely white where they should be white, and black
elsewhere: hence our silly 'Houries.' Follows Umar-i-Khayyâm, who
spiritualized Tasawwof, or Sooffeism, even as the Soofis (Gnostics)
spiritualized Moslem Puritanism. The verses alluded to are--

    'You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse
    I made a second marriage in my house,
        Divorced old barren Reason from my bed
    And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.'
                   (St. 60, Mr. Fitzgerald's translation.)

"Here 'Wine' is used in its mystic sense of entranced Love for the
Soul of Souls. Umar was hated and feared because he spoke boldly
when his brethren the Soofis dealt in innuendoes. A third quotation
has been trained into a likeness of the 'Hymn of Life,' despite the
commonplace and the _navrante vulgarité_ which characterize the
pseudo-Schiller-Anglo-American School. The same has been done to the
words of Isâ (Jesus); for the author, who is well-read in the Ingîl
(Evangel), evidently intended the allusion. Mansur el-Hallâj (the
Cotton-Cleaner) was stoned for crudely uttering the Pantheistic dogma
_Ana'l Hakk_ (I am the Truth, _i.e._ God), _wa laysa fi-jubbatî il'
Allah_ (and within my coat is nought but God). His blood traced on
the ground the first-quoted sentence. Lastly, there is a quotation
from 'Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes,' etc.: here παῑζε may mean
sport; but the context determines the kind of sport intended. The
Zâhid is the literal believer in the letter of the Law, opposed to
the Soofi, who believes in its spirit: hence the former is called a
Zâhiri (outsider), and the latter a Bâtini, an insider. Moses is quoted
because he ignored future rewards and punishments. As regards the 'two
Eternities,' Persian and Arab metaphysicians split Eternity, _i.e._
the negation of Time, into two halves, _Azal_ (beginninglessness)
and _Abad_ (endlessness); both being mere words, gatherings of
letters with a subjective significance. In English we use 'Eternal'
(_Æviternus_, age-long, life-long) as loosely, by applying it to three
distinct ideas; (1) the habitual, in popular parlance; (2) the exempt
from duration; and (3) the everlasting, which embraces all duration.
'Omniscience-Maker' is the old Roman sceptic's _Homo fecit Deos_.

"The next section is one long wail over the contradictions, the
mysteries, the dark end, the infinite sorrowfulness of all existence,
and the arcanum of grief which, Luther said, underlies all life. As
with Euripides 'to live is to die, to die is to live.' Hâjî Abdû
borrows the Hindu idea of the human body. 'It is a mansion,' says
Menu, 'with bones for its beams and rafters; with nerves and tendons
for cords; with muscles and blood for cement; with skin for its outer
covering; filled with no sweet perfume, but loaded with impurities; a
mansion infested by age and sorrow; the seat of malady; harassed with
pains; haunted with the quality of darkness (Tama-guna), and incapable
of standing.' The Pot and Potter began with the ancient Egyptians.
'Sitting as a potter at the wheel, Cneph (at Philæ) moulds clay,
and gives the spirit of life to the nostrils of Osiris.' Hence the
Genesitic 'breath.' Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being, 'by whom
the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated.'
We find him next in Jeremiah's 'Arise and go down unto the Potter's
house,' etc. (xviii. 2), and lastly in Romans (ix. 20), 'Hath not the
potter power over the clay?' No wonder that the first Hand who moulded
the man-mud is a _lieu commun_ in Eastern thought. The 'waste of agony
'is Buddhism, or Schopenhauerism pure and simple. I have moulded 'Earth
on Earth' upon 'Seint Ysidre''s well-known rhymes (A.D. 1440)--

    'Erthe out of Erthe is wondirli wrouȝt,
    Erthe of Erth had gete a dignite of nouȝt,
    Erthe upon Erthe had sett all his thouȝt
    How that Erthe upon Erthe may be his brouȝt': etc.

"The 'Camel-rider,' suggests Ossian, 'yet a few years and the blast of
the desert comes.' The dromedary was chosen as Death's vehicle by the
Arabs, probably because it bears the Bedouin's corpse to the distant
burial-ground, where he will lie among his kith and kin. The end of
this section reminds us of--

    'How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
    How complicate, how wonderful is Man!'

"The Hâjî now passes to the results of his long and anxious thoughts: I
have purposely twisted his exordium into an echo of Milton--

    'Till old experience doth attain
    To something of prophetic strain.'

"He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his
Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:--'En général les
croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-mêmes' (says J. J. Rousseau,
'Confessions,' I. 6): 'les bons le font bon: les méchants le font
méchant: les dévots haineux et bilieux, ne voient que l'enfer, parce
qu'ils voudraient damner tout le monde; les âmes aimantes et douces n'y
croient guère; et l'un des étonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de
voir le bon Fénélon en parler dans son Télémaque comme s'il y croyoit
tout de bon: mais j'espère qu'il mentoit alors; car enfin quelque
véridique qu'on soit, il faut bien mentir quelquefois quand on est
évêque.' 'Man depicts himself in his gods,' says Schiller. Hence the
_Naturgott_, the deity of all ancient peoples, and with which every
system began, allowed and approved of actions distinctly immoral, often
diabolical. Belief became moralized only when the conscience of the
community, and with it of the individual items, began aspiring to its
golden age,--Perfection. 'Dieu est le superlatif, dont le positif est
l'homme,' says Carl Vogt; meaning, that the popular idea of a _numen_
is that of a magnified and non-natural man.

"He then quotes his authorities. Buddha, whom the Catholic Church
converted to Saint Josaphat, refused to recognize Ishwara (the deity),
on account of the mystery of the 'cruelty of things.' Schopenhauer,
Miss Cobbe's model pessimist, who at the humblest distance represents
Buddha in the world of Western thought, found the vision of man's
unhappiness, irrespective of his actions, so overpowering that he
concluded the Supreme Will to be malevolent, 'heartless, cowardly, and
arrogant.' Confucius, the 'Throneless king, more powerful than all
kings,' denied a personal deity. The Epicurean idea rules the China
of the present day. 'God is great, but He lives too far off,' say the
Turanian Santâls in Aryan India; and this is the general language of
man in the Turanian East.

"Hâjî Abdû evidently holds that idolatry begins with a personal
deity. And let us note that the latter is deliberately denied by
the 'Thirty-nine Articles.' With them God is 'a Being without Parts
(personality) or Passions.' He professes a vague Agnosticism, and
attributes popular faith to the fact that Timor fecit Deos; 'every
religion being, without exception, the child of fear and ignorance'
(Carl Vogt). He now speaks as the 'Drawer of the Wine,' the 'Ancient
Taverner,' the 'Old Magus,' the 'Patron of the Mughân or Magians;' all
titles applied to the Soofi as opposed to the Zâhid. His 'idols' are
the _eidola_ (illusions) of Bacon, 'having their foundations in the
very constitution of man,' and therefore appropriately called _fabulæ_.
That 'Nature's Common Course' is subject to various interpretation, may
be easily proved. Aristotle was as great a subverter as Alexander; but
the quasi-prophetical Stagyrite of the Dark Ages, who ruled the world
till the end of the thirteenth century, became the 'twice execrable' of
Martin Luther and was finally abolished by Galileo and Newton. Here I
have excised two stanzas. The first is--

    'Theories for truths, fable for fact, system for science, vex the thought.
    Life's one great lesson you despise--to know that all we know is nought.'

This is in fact--

    'Well didst thou say, Athena's noblest son,
    The most we know is nothing can be known.'

The next is--

    'Essence and substance, sequence, cause, beginning, ending, space and time,
    These be the toys of manhood's mind, at once ridiculous and sublime.'

"He is not the only one who so regards 'bothering Time and Space.' A
late definition of the 'infinitely great,' viz. that the idea arises
from denying form to any figure; of the 'infinitely small,' from
refusing magnitude to any figure, is a fair specimen of the 'dismal
science'--metaphysics.

"Another omitted stanza reads--

    'How canst thou, Phenomen! pretend the Noumenon to mete and span?
    Say which were easier probed and proved, Absolute Being or mortal man?'

"One would think that he had read Kant on the 'Knowable and the
Unknowable,' or had heard of the Yankee lady, who could 'differentiate
between the Finite and the Infinite.' It is a commonplace of the age,
in the West as well as the East, that Science is confined to phenomena,
and cannot reach the Noumena, the things themselves. This is the
scholastic realism, the 'residuum of a bad metaphysic,' which deforms
the system of Comte. With all its pretensions, it simply means that
there are, or can be conceived, things in themselves (_i.e._ unrelated
to thought); that we know them to exist; and, at the same time, that we
cannot know what they are. But who dares say 'cannot'? Who can measure
man's work when he shall be as superior to our present selves as we are
to the Caveman of part time?

"The 'Chain of Universe' alludes to the Jain idea that the whole,
consisting of intellectual as well as of natural principles, existed
from all eternity; and that it has been subject to endless revolutions,
whose causes are the inherent powers of nature, intellectual as
well as physical, without the intervention of a deity. But the Poet
ridicules the 'non-human,' _i.e._ the not-ourselves, the negation of
ourselves and consequently a non-existence. Most Easterns confuse the
contradictories, in which one term stands for something, and the other
for nothing (_e.g._ ourselves and not-ourselves), with the contraries
(_e.g._ rich and not-rich = poor), in which both terms express a
something. So the positive-negative 'infinite' is not the complement
of 'finite,' but its negation. The Western man derides the process by
making 'not-horse' the complementary entity of 'horse.' The Pilgrim
ends with the favourite Soofi tenet that the five (six?) senses are
the doors of all human knowledge, and that no form of man, incarnation
of the deity, prophet, apostle or sage, has ever produced an idea
not conceived within his brain by the sole operation of these vulgar
material agents. Evidently he is neither spiritualist nor idealist.

"He then proceeds to show that man depicts himself in his God, and
that 'God is the racial expression'; a pedagogue on the Nile, an
abstraction in India, and an astrologer in Chaldæa: where Abraham, says
Berosus (Josephus, 'Ant.' I. 7, § 2, and II. 9, § 2), was 'skilful in
the celestial science.' He notices the Akârana-Zamân (endless Time)
of the Guebres, and the working dual, Hormuzd and Ahriman. He brands
the God of the Hebrews with pugnacity and cruelty. He has heard of
the beautiful creations of Greek fancy which, not attributing a moral
nature to the deity, included Theology in Physics; and which, like
Professor Tyndall, seemed to consider all matter everywhere alive.
We have adopted a very different Unitarianism; Theology, with its
one Creator; Pantheism with its 'one Spirit's plastic stress'; and
Science with its one Energy. He is hard upon Christianity and its
'trinal God': I have not softened his expression (لغز = a riddle),
although it may offend readers. There is nothing more enigmatical to
the Moslem mind than Christian Trinitarianism: all other objections
they can get over, not this. Nor is he any lover of Islamism, which,
like Christianity, has its ascetic Hebraism and its Hellenic hedonism;
with the world of thought moving between these two extremes. The
former, defined as predominant or exclusive care for the practice
of right, is represented by Semitic and Arab influence, Korânic and
Hadîsic. The latter, the religion of humanity, a passion for life and
light, for culture and intelligence; for art, poetry and science, is
represented in Islamism by the fondly and impiously cherished memory of
the old Guebre kings and heroes, beauties, bards and sages. Hence the
mention of Zâl and his son Rostam; of Cyrus and of the Jâmi-i-Jamshîd,
which may be translated either grail (cup) or mirror: it showed the
whole world within its rim; and hence it was called Jâm-i-Jehân-numâ
(universe-exposing). The contemptuous expressions about the diet of
camel's milk and the meat of the Susmâr, or green lizard, are evidently
quoted from Firdausi's famous lines beginning--

    'Arab-râ be-jât rasîd'est kâr.'

"The Hâjî is severe upon those who make of the Deity a Khwân-i-yaghmâ
(or tray of plunder), as the Persians phrase it. He looks upon the
shepherds as men,

    '--Who rob the sheep themselves to clothe.'

So Schopenhauer (Leben, etc., by Wilhelm Gewinner) furiously shows how
the 'English nation ought to treat that set of hypocrites, impostors
and money-graspers, the clergy, that annually devours £3,500,000.'

"The Hâjî broadly asserts that there is no Good and no Evil in the
absolute sense as man has made them. Here he is one with Pope:--

    'And spite of pride, in erring nature's spite
    One truth is clear--whatever is, is right.'

Unfortunately the converse is just as true:--whatever is, is wrong.
Khizr is the Elijah who puzzled Milman. He represents the Soofi, the
Bâtini, while Musâ (Moses) is the Zâhid, the Zâhiri; and the strange
adventures of the twain, invented by the Jews, have been appropriated
by the Moslems. He derides the Freewill of man; and, like Diderot,
he detects 'pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a president, a pig in
a priest, an ostrich in a minister, and a goose in a chief clerk.'
He holds to Fortune, the Τύχη of Alcman, which is, Εὐυομίας τε καὶ
Πειθοῡϛ ἀδελφὰ, καὶ Προμαθνίας θυγάτηρ,--Chance, the sister of Order
and Trust, and the daughter of Forethought. The Scandinavian Spinners
of Fate were Urd (the Was, the Past), Verdandi (the Becoming, or
Present), and Skuld (the To-be, or Future). He alludes to Plato, who
made the Demiourgos create the worlds by the Logos (the Hebrew Dabar)
or Creative Word, through the Æons. These Αἰῶυερ of the Mystics were
spiritual emanations from Αἰών, lit. a wave of influx, an age, period,
or day; hence the Latin _ævum_, and the Welsh Awen, the stream of
inspiration falling upon a bard. Basilides, the Egypto-Christian, made
the Creator evolve seven Æons or Pteromata (fulnesses); from two of
whom, Wisdom and Power, proceeded the 365 degrees of Angels. All were
subject to a Prince of Heaven, called Abraxas, who was himself under
guidance of the chief Æon, Wisdom. Others represent the first Cause to
have produced an Æon or Pure Intelligence; the first a second, and so
forth till the tenth. This was material enough to affect Hyle, which
thereby assumed a spiritual form. Thus the two incompatibles combined
in the Scheme of Creation.

"He denies the three ages of the Buddhists: the wholly happy; the
happy mixed with misery, and the miserable tinged with happiness,--the
present. The Zoroastrians had four, each of 3000 years. In the first,
Hormuzd, the good-god, ruled alone; then Ahriman, the bad-god, began to
work subserviently; in the third both ruled equally; and in the last,
now current, Ahriman has gained the day.

"Against the popular idea that man has caused the misery of this world,
he cites the ages, when the Old Red Sandstone bred gigantic cannibal
fishes; when the Oolites produced the mighty reptile tyrants of air,
earth, and sea; and when the monsters of the Eocene and Miocene periods
shook the ground with their ponderous tread. And the world of waters is
still a hideous scene of cruelty, carnage, and destruction.

"He declares Conscience to be a geographical and chronological
accident. Thus he answers the modern philosopher whose soul was
overwhelmed by the marvel and the awe of two things, 'the starry
heaven above and the moral law within.' He makes the latter sense a
development of the gregarious and social instincts; and so travellers
have observed that the moral is the last step in mental progress. His
Moors are the savage Dankali and other negroid tribes, who offer a cup
of milk with one hand and stab with the other. He translates literally
the Indian word Hâthî (an elephant), the animal with the Hâth (hand, or
trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present,
which is merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and the spectacle
to be seen from Mushtari, or the planet Jupiter.

"The Hâjî again asks the old, old question, What is Truth? And he
answers himself, after the fashion of the wise Emperor of China,
'Truth hath not an unchanging name.' A modern English writer says: 'I
have long been convinced by the experience of my life, as a pioneer
of various heterodoxies which are rapidly becoming orthodoxies, that
nearly all truth is temperamental to us, or given in the affections and
intuitions; and that discussion and injury do little more than feed
temperament.' Our poet seems to mean that the Perceptions, when they
perceive truly, convey objective truth, which is universal; whereas the
Reflectives and the Sentiments, the working of the moral region, or
the middle lobe of the phrenologists, supplies only subjective truth,
personal and individual. Thus to one man the axiom, _Opes irritamenta
malorum_, represents a distinct fact; while another holds wealth to be
an incentive for good. Evidently both are right, according to their
lights.

"Hâjî Abdû cites Plato and Aristotle, as usual with Eastern songsters,
who delight in Mantik (logic). Here he appears to mean that a false
proposition is as real a proposition as one that is true. 'Faith moves
mountains' and 'Manet immota fides' are evidently quotations. He
derides the teaching of the 'First Council of the Vatican' (cap. v.),
'all the faithful are little children listening to the voice of St.
Peter,' who is the 'Prince of the Apostles.' He glances at the fancy of
certain modern physicists, 'devotion is a definite molecular change in
the convolution of grey pulp.' He notices with contumely the riddle of
which Milton speaks so glibly, where the Dialoguists,

                       '--reasoned high
    Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
    Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.'

"In opposition to the orthodox Mohammedan tenets which make Man's
soul his percipient Ego, an entity, a unity, the Soofi considers it a
fancy, opposed to body, which is a fact; at most a state of things,
not a thing; a consensus of faculties whereof our frames are but the
phenomena. This is not contrary to Genesitic legend. The Hebrew Ruach
and Arabic Ruh, now perverted to mean soul or spirit, simply signify
wind or breath, the outward and visible sign of life. Their later
schools are even more explicit: 'For that which befalls man befalls
beasts; as the one dies, so does the other; they have all one death;
all go unto one place' (Eccles. iii. 19). But the modern soul, a
nothing, a string of negations, a negative in chief, is thus described
in the Mahâbhârat: 'It is indivisible, inconceivable, inconceptible:
it is eternal, universal, permanent, immovable: it is invisible
and unalterable.' Hence the modern spiritualism which, rejecting
materialism, can use only material language.

"These, says the Hâjî, are mere sounds. He would not assert 'Verba
gignunt verba,' but 'Verba gignunt res,' a step further. The idea is
Bacon's 'idola fori, omnium molestissima,' the twofold illusions of
language; either the names of things that have no existence in fact, or
the names of things whose idea is confused and ill-defined.

"He derives the Soul-idea from the 'savage ghost' which Dr. Johnson
defined to be a 'kind of shadowy being.' He justly remarks that it
arose (perhaps) in Egypt: and was not invented by the 'People of the
Book.' By this term Moslems denote Jews and Christians who have a
recognized revelation, while their ignorance refuses it to Guebres,
Hindus, and Confucians.

"He evidently holds to the doctrine of progress. With him protoplasm
is the Yliastron, the Prima Materies. Our word matter is derived from
the Sanskrit माढ़ा (mâtrâ), which, however, signifies properly the
invisible type of visible matter; in modern language, the substance
distinct from the sum of its physical and chemical properties. Thus,
Mâtrâ exists only in thought, and is not recognizable by the action
of the five senses. His 'Chain of Being' reminds us of Prof. Huxley's
Pedigree of the Horse, Orohippus, Mesohippus, Meiohippus, Protohippus,
Pleiohippus, and Equus. He has evidently heard of modern biology, or
Hylozoism, which holds its quarter-million species of living beings,
animal and vegetable, to be progressive modifications of one great
fundamental unity, an unity of so-called 'mental faculties' as well
as of bodily structure. And this is the jelly-speck. He scoffs at the
popular idea that man is the great central figure round which all
things gyrate like marionettes; in fact, the anthropocentric era of
Draper, which, strange to say, lives by the side of the telescope and
the microscope. As man is of recent origin, and may end at an early
epoch of the macrocosm, so before his birth all things revolved round
nothing, and may continue to do so after his death.

"The Hâjî, who elsewhere denounces 'compound ignorance,' holds that
all evil comes from error; and that all knowledge has been developed
by overthrowing error, the ordinary channel of human thought. He ends
this section with a great truth. There are things which human Reason
or Instinct matured, in its undeveloped state, cannot master; but
Reason is a Law to itself. Therefore we are not bound to believe, or
to attempt belief in, anything which is contrary or contradictory to
Reason. Here he is diametrically opposed to Rome, who says, 'Do not
appeal to History; that is private judgment. Do not appeal to Holy
Writ; that is heresy. Do not appeal to Reason; that is Rationalism.'

"He holds with the Patriarchs of Hebrew Holy Writ, that the present
life is all-sufficient for an intellectual (not a sentimental) being;
and, therefore, that there is no want of a Heaven or a Hell. With far
more contradiction the Western poet sings--

    'Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
    In one self-place; but when we are in hell,
    And where hell is, there must we ever be;
    And, to be short, when all this world dissolves,
    And every creature shall be purified,
    All places shall be hell which are not heaven.'

For what want is there of a Hell when all are pure? He enlarges upon
the ancient Buddhist theory, that Happiness and Misery are equally
distributed among men and beasts; some enjoy much and suffer much;
others the reverse. Hence Diderot declares, 'Sober passions produce
only the commonplace ... the man of moderate passion lives and dies
like a brute.' And again we have the half-truth--

    'That the mark of rank in nature
      Is capacity for pain.'

The latter implies an equal capacity for pleasure, and thus the balance
is kept.

"Hâjî Abdû then proceeds to show that Faith is an accident of birth.
One of his omitted distichs says--

    'Race makes religion; true! but aye upon the Maker acts the made.
    A finite God, an infinite sin, in lieu of raising man, degrade.'

In a manner of dialogue he introduces the various races each fighting
to establish his own belief. The Frank (Christian) abuses the Hindu,
who retorts that he is of Mlenchha, mixed or impure, blood, a term
applied to all non-Hindus. The same is done by Nazarene and Mohammedan;
by the Confucian, who believes in nothing, and by the Soofi, who
naturally has the last word. The association of the Virgin Mary and
Saint Joseph with the Trinity, in the Roman and Greek Churches, makes
many Moslems conclude that Christians believe not in three but in
five Persons. So an Englishman writes of the early Fathers, 'They
not only said that 3 = 1, and that 1 = 3: they professed to explain
how that curious arithmetical combination had been brought about.
The Indivisible had been divided, and yet was not divided: it was
divisible, and yet it was indivisible; black was white, and white was
black; and yet there were not two colours but one colour; and whoever
did not believe it would be damned.' The Arab quotation runs in the
original--

    '_Ahsanu 'l-Makâni l' il-Falâ 'l-Jehannamu_,
    The best of places for (the generous) youth is Gehenna:'

Gehenna, alias Jahim, being the fiery place of eternal punishment. And
the second saying, _Al-nâr wa lâ 'l-'Ar_'--'Fire (of Hell) rather than
Shame,'--is equally condemned by the Koranist. The Gustâkhi (insolence)
of Fate is the expression of Umar-i-Khayyâm (St. xxx.)--

    'What, without asking hither hurried _whence?_
    And, without asking _whither_ hurried hence!
        Oh many a cup of this forbidden wine
    Must drown the memory of that insolence.'

"Soofistically, the word means 'the coquetry of the beloved one,' the
divinæ particula auræ. And the section ends with Pope's--

    'He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'


"CONCLUSION.


"Here the Hâjî ends his practical study of mankind. The image of
Destiny playing with men as pieces is a view common amongst Easterns.
His idea of wisdom is once more Pope's--

    'And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.'
                              ----(Essay IV., 398.)

"Regret, _i.e._ repentance, was one of the forty-two deadly sins
of the Ancient Egyptians. 'Thou shalt not consume thy heart,' says
the Ritual of the Dead, the negative justification of the soul or
ghost (Lepsius, 'Alteste Texte des Todtenbuchs'). We have borrowed
competitive examination from the Chinese; and, in these morbid days of
weak introspection and retrospection, we might learn wisdom from the
sturdy old Khemites. When he sings 'Abjure the Why and seek the How,'
he refers to the old Scholastic difference of the _Demonstratio propter
quid_ (why is a thing?), as opposed to _Demonstratio quia_ (_i.e._ that
a thing is). The 'great Man' shall end with becoming deathless, as
Shakespeare says in his noble sonnet--

    'And Death once dead, there's no more dying then!'

"Like the great Pagans, the Hâjî holds that man was born good, while
the Christian, 'tormented by the things divine,' cleaves to the
comforting doctrine of innate sinfulness. Hence the universal tenet,
that man should do good in order to gain by it here or hereafter;
the 'enlightened selfishness,' that says, Act well and get compound
interest in a future state. The allusion to the 'Theist-word'
apparently means that the votaries of a personal Deity must believe
in the absolute foreknowledge of the Omniscient in particulars as in
generals. The Rule of Law emancipates man; and its exceptions are the
gaps left by his ignorance. The wail over the fallen flower, etc.,
reminds us of the Pulambal (Lamentations) of the Anti-Brahminical
writer, 'Pathira-Giriyâr.' The allusion to Mâyâ is from Dâs Kabîr--

        'Mâyâ mare, na man mare, mar mar gayâ sarir.
    Illusion dies, the mind dies not though dead and gone the flesh.'

Nirwânâ, I have said, is partial extinction by being merged in
the Supreme, not to be confounded with Pari-nirwânâ or absolute
annihilation. In the former also, dying gives birth to a new being, the
embodiment of _karma_ (deeds), good and evil, done in the countless
ages of transmigration.

"Here ends my share of the work. On the whole it has been considerable.
I have omitted, as has been seen, sundry stanzas, and I have changed
the order of others. The text has nowhere been translated verbatim;
in fact, a familiar European turn has been given to many sentiments
which were judged too Oriental. As the metre adopted by Hâjî Abdû was
the _Bahr Tawîl_ (long verse), I thought it advisable to preserve that
peculiarity, and to fringe it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the
original.

"Vive, valeque!"

[1] "The Eternal Gardener: so the old inscription saying--

Homo  {locatus est in }
      {damnatus est in}
      {humatus est in }
      {renatus est in } horto."




APPENDIX C.

BHUJANG AND THE COCK-FIGHT.

_Specimen of his early writings in Scinde._


"Some years ago, when surveying the country about this Hoosree, I had
an opportunity of reading a lecture to a gentleman about your age,
Sir: hear how politely he received it, without ever using the word
'dogmatical,' or making the slightest allusion to 'forwardness.'

"I was superintending the shampooing[1] of a fighting cock--about as
dunghill and 'low-caste' a bird as ever used a spur, but a strong
spiteful thing, a sharp riser, and a clean hitter withal. Bhujang,[2]
the 'dragon,' had sent many a brother biped to the soup-pot. Ere the
operation of rubbing him down ended, in walked an old Moslem gentleman,
who had called in a friendly unceremonious way to look at and chat with
the stranger.

"Cocking, you must know, Mr. Bull, is not amongst these people the
'low' diversion your good lady has been pleased to make it. Here a man
may still fight his own bird and beat his own donkey _à discrétion_,
without incurring the persecutions of a Philo-beast Society.

"There was a humorous twinkle in the Senior's sly eye as it fell upon
the form of Bhujang, and the look gained intensity when, turning
towards me, the scrutinizer salaamed and politely ejaculated--

"'Máshálláh! that _is_ a bird!--the Hyderabad breed,[3] or the Afghan?'

"I shuffled off the necessity of romancing about my dunghill's origin,
and merely replied that, struck by his many beauties, I had bought him
of some unknown person--I did not add for eightpence.

"'What Allah pleases!--it is a miraculous animal! You must have paid
his weight in silver! Two hundred rupees, or three hundred?'[4]

"Many people are apt to show impatience or irritability when being
'made fools of'--whereby, methinks, they lose much fun and show more
folly than they imagine. My answer to the old gentleman's remark was
calculated to persuade that most impertinently polite personage that
the Frank, with all his Persian and Arabic, was a 'jolly green.'

"Thereupon, with the utmost suavity he proceeded to inform me that
he also was a fighter of cocks, and that he had some--of course
immeasurably inferior to the splendid animal being shampooed
there--which perhaps might satisfy even _my_ fastidious taste. He
concluded with offering to fight one under the certainty of losing
it,[5] but anything for a little sport; again gauged me with his
cunning glance, salaamed, and took his leave.

"In the evening, after prayers, appeared Mr. Ahmed Khan, slowly
sauntering in, accompanied by his friends and domestics; a privileged
servant carrying in his arms a magnificent bird, tall, thin, gaunt, and
active, with the fierce, full, clear eye, the Chashmi Murwarid,[6] as
the Persians call it; small, short, thin, taper head, long neck, stout
crooked back, round compact body, bony, strong, and well-hung wings,
stout thighs, shanks yellow as purest gold, and huge splay claws--in
fact, a love of a cock.

"I thought of Bhujang for a moment despairingly.

"After a short and ceremonious dialogue, in which the old gentleman
'trotted' me out very much to his own satisfaction and the amusement of
his companions, the terms of the wager were settled, and Bhujang was
brought in, struggling upon his bearer's bosom, kicking his stomach,
stretching his neck, and crowing with an air, as if he were the
_Sans-peur_ of all the cocks. 'There's an animal for you!' I exclaimed,
as he entered. It was a rich treat to see the _goguenard_ looks of my
native friends.

"Countenances, however, presently changed, when sending for a few
dozen Indian cock-spurs,[7] like little sabres, I lashed a pair to my
bird's toes, and then politely proceeded to perform the same operation
to my friend's. Ahmed Khan looked on curiously. He was too much of
a sportsman, that is to say, a gentleman, to hang back, although he
began to suspect that all was not right as he could have wished it to
be. His bird's natural weapon was sound, thin, and sharp as a needle,
low down upon the shank, at least an inch and a quarter long, and bent
at the correctest angle; mine had short, ragged, and blunt bits of
horn--the most inoffensive weapons imaginable. But the steel levelled
all distinctions.

"We took up the champions, stood a few yards apart--the usual
distance--placed them on the ground, and when the '_laissez aller_' was
given, let go.

"For some reason, by me unexplainable, the game-cock, especially in
this country, when fighting with a dunghill, seldom begins the battle
with the spirit and activity of his plebeian antagonist. Possibly the
noble animal's blood boiling in his veins at the degrading necessity
of entering the lists against an unworthy adversary confuses him for
a moment. However that may be, one thing is palpable, namely, that he
generally receives the first blows.

"On this occasion the vulgarian Bhujang, who appeared to be utterly
destitute of respect for lineage and gentle blood--nay, more like an
English snob, ineffably delighted at the prospect of 'thrashing' a
gentleman--began to dance, spring, and kick with such happy violence
and aplomb, that before the minute elapsed one of his long steels was
dyed with the heart's blood of his enemy.

"Politeness forbad, otherwise I could have laughed aloud at the
expression assumed by the faces present as they witnessed this especial
'do.' Ahmed Khan, at the imminent peril of a wound from the triumphant
dunghill, whom excited cowardice now made vicious as a fiend, raised
his cock from the ground, looked piteously for an instant at his
glazing eye and drooping head, bowed, and handed it over to me with a
sigh.

"Then like the parasite of Penaflor after dinner, I thus addressed him--

"'Ahmed Khan, great is the power of Allah! Did not a gnat annihilate
Namrud,[8] the giant king? Could Rustam, the son of Zal, stand against
a pistol-bullet? or Antar against an ounce of aquafortis? Have you not
heard of the _hikmat_[9] of the Frank, that he is a perfect Plato in
wisdom and contrivance? Another time, old gentleman, do not conclude
that because our chins are smooth, we are children of asses: and if you
will take my advice, abstain from pitting valuable cocks against the
obscure produce of a peasant's poultry-yard.'

"'Wallah!' replied my visitor, all the cunning twinkle out of his eye,
'I will take your advice! Your words are sharp: but they are the words
of wisdom. But'--here obstinacy and conventionalism obscured Ahmed
Khan's brighter qualities--'your bird is a wonderful bird. Máshálláh!
may he win many a fight, even as he has done this one!'"

[1] "As Orientals generally fight their birds without spurs they pay
extraordinary attention to feeding, training, and exercising them. They
are sweated and scoured with anxious care, dosed (in my poor opinion a
great deal too much) with spices and drugs most precisely, and made to
pass hours in running, flying, and leaping. The shampooing is intended
to harden their frames; it is done regularly every day, morning and
evening. A fair course of training lasts from three weeks to a month,
and the birds are generally brought out in excellent condition."

[2] "Game-cocks, like chargers, are always called by some big and
terrible name."

[3] "The game-cocks of Hyderabad, in the Deccan, are celebrated
throughout India, for their excellence and rarity. So difficult is it
to purchase birds of purest blood, that I have heard of a rich Moslem
visiting the Nizam's capital for the purpose of buying eggs."

[4] "The usual price of a first-rate cock is £3 or £4. My friend was
indulging his facetiousness when he named £20 or £30."

[5] "The usual wager is the body of the bird killed or wounded."

[6] "The 'pearl eye.'"

[7] "The Indian cock-spur differs essentially from ours. It is a
straight bit of steel varying from two to three and a half inches in
length, with a blunt flat shaft, ending in a sharp sword-like blade,
the handle as it were of which is bound to the bird's fore toe, shank,
and hind toe. Every cock-fighter has dozens of these tools, made in
every possible variety of size and angle to suit the cocks."

[8] "Nimrod, represented to be a cruel tyrant, who, attempting to
martyr Abraham, was slain by a mosquito--sent to eat into his brain for
the general purpose of pointing many a somnific Oriental moral."

[9] "_Hikmat_, philosophy, science, political cunning, king-craft,
etc., a favourite word for head work in Central Asia."




APPENDIX D.

VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF MEER IBRAHIM KHAN TALPUR
A BELOCH CHIEF.

_Another specimen of Richard's fresh writings in Scinde._


"Enter Mr. Hari Chand, a portly pulpy Hindoo, the very type of his
unamiable race, with a cat-like gait, a bow of exquisite finish; a
habit of sweetly smiling under every emotion, whether the produce of a
bribe or a kick; a softly murmuring voice, with a tendency to sinking;
and a glance which seldom meets yours, and when it does, seems not
quite to enjoy the meeting. How timidly he appears at the door! How
deferentially he slides in, salaams, looks deprecating, and at last is
induced to sit down! Above all things, how he listens! Might he not be
mistaken for a novel kind of automaton, into which you can transfer
your mind and thoughts--a curious piece of human mechanism in the shape
of a creature endowed with all things but a self?

"You would start could you read his thoughts at the very moment that
you are forming such opinions of him.

"'Well, Hari Chand' (after the usual salutations), 'and pray what
manner of man may be this Meer Ibrahim Khan.--Talpur, is he not?'

"'Wah! wah! What a Chieftain! What a very Nushirawan[1] for all-shading
equity! a Hátim for overflowing generosity--a Rustam--

"'That is to say, always considering that he is a Beloch,' says Hari
Chand, perceiving by the expression of _my_ face that _his_ opinion
requires modifying.

"'For a Beloch! The Sahab's exalted intelligence has of course
comprehended the extra fact that they are all dolts, asses, fools. But
this Ibrahim Khan, saving the Sahab's presence, is not one of them.
Quite the contrary.'

"'You mean he is a rogue!'

"'The Sahab has the penetration of an arrow--a rogue of the first water!

"'A rogue of the first water. He has won the wealth of Bokhara and
Samarcand by the sunshine of the countenance of the Honourable
Company, to whom he sells camels at six pounds a head, after compelling
his subjects to receive two pounds for them. Ah! well said the poet--

    "I would rather be a companion of devils
    Than the ryot of an unjust king."

"'He has almost doubled the size and resources of his jagir (feof), by
the friendship of certain Sahabs who--' (here we must stop Hari Chand's
tongue with a look). 'And when the Valiant Company allows him twenty
thousand rupees to excavate his canals and improve his land, he--the
Lord bless him!--expends half, and lays by the other moiety in his
coffers.

"'But,' pursues Hari Chand, delighted that we allow him a reasonably
free use of his subject, 'has not the Sahab seen with his own eyes what
a prodigious thief he is? Did not the poor Scindian complain yesterday
that his camel had been stolen from him? and the peasants, that they
were starving? and the Hindoos, that they were ruined? Every man, to be
sure, may cut off his own dog's tail! It were well, however, if nothing
worse could be said about this Ibrahim.'

"Now Mr. Hari Chand's countenance assumes that deep mysterious
expression which courts the operation of 'pumping.' After which,
chuckling internally at having secured for himself the acute
gratification of being able to tear a man's reputation to shreds, he
resumes in a low soft tone of voice, as if the tent walls had ears--

"'He murdered his elder brother! Yes, Sahab, before the battle of
Meeanee, Ibrahim was a poor sorry fellow, a cadet who was not even
allowed to sit in the presence of the great. But

    "The world is a water-wheel, and men the pots upon it;
    Now their heads are beneath the stones, now they are raised high
          to heaven."

"'At the battle of Meeanee a matchlock ball pierced the occiput of
Ibrahim's brother, and the clan, when they saw their Chief bite the
dust, ran away like sheep, headed by Ibrahim Khan, the leader of
the flock, who ran a little faster than the rest to show the line
of direction. When the Fort of Hyderabad surrendered, one of the
first persons that gave up his dangerous sword to the General Sahab,
was Ibrahim Khan, who had the address to oust his nephew from the
inheritance, and by plentiful foxplay took all the carcase from the
tiger.

"'And now,' continues Hari Chand, anxious to improve each fleeting
minute, 'Ibrahim, who five years ago was not allowed to show his mouth
at Court, sits on a chair before the Collector and pays visits to the
Madams--the ladies of the English. He has ventured to boast that one
of them is desperately enamoured of him.' ('This,' says Hari Chand
to himself, 'will irritate the fools'--ourselves, Mr. Bull--'beyond
measure.') 'He drinks curaçoa and brandy like a Sahab. He has become
proud. Yesterday, for instance, instead of coming out for miles and
miles to meet the Sawari----

"'The Sahab is a servant of the Honourable Company--long be its
prosperity! Whose dog is Ibrahimoo,[2] that he should treat the "lords
of the sword and pen"[3] in this disgraceful way? that he should send
that owl[4] of a nephew to greet them with his hootings, and venture
to be absent when they arrive at his grave?[5] Had Smith Sahab the
Collector' ('now I have that red-coated infidel on the hip,' thinks
Hari Chand) 'been coming with his writers, and his scribes, and his
secretaries, and his guards, and all his retinue, Ibrahim would have
been present to kiss his feet. And why? Because Smith Sahab is a--good
easy man, who allows the bandit to do what he pleases. Ah, well said
Nizami--[6]

    "The joys of this world!--donkeys have engrossed them.
    Would to Allah, Nizami had been a donkey!"

"'But perhaps,' continues Hari Chand during a short pause, in which
time his mind had been almost preternaturally active, 'it is not so
much Ibrahim's crime as that of Kakoo Mall.'

"'And who may Kakoo Mall be?'

"'Kakoo Mall? The Sahab does not know who Kakoo Mall is? Ibrahim's head
moonshee, a Khudabadi Banyan of a fellow' (our man, Mr. Bull, is a
Sehwani, a Green instead of a Brown), 'and one of the most unscrupulous
ruffians that ever carried inkstand in his belt.'

"Thereupon a fierce worrying of Kakoo Mall's character. In common
charity I would draw our man off, only that most probably Kakoo Mall is
about this time abusing us and Hari Chand to Ibrahim, just as violently
as Hari Chand abuses Ibrahim and Kakoo Mall to us.

"'He will, I would swear, do his best that your honours may not be
treated with the courtesy due to your rank, and that I, your humble
servant, may be insulted.'

"'Very well, moonshee, we will look after him. You may go. At eleven we
start for our visit. Be ready to accompany us; and don't be afraid of
Kakoo Mall.'

"'Under the shadow of your eagle wings,' replies Hari Chand, with a
lovely bow, 'what have I to fear from the puny talons of the carrion
crow?'

       *       *       *       *       *

"We mount our horses, still in native costume, and cross the village,
our moonshee ambling by our side, and a few ferocious Afghan servants
bringing up the rear, much to the astonishment and quite to the
admiration of its inhabitants.

"We reach the courtyard gate of the Talpur's dwelling. Three ragged
rascals, with sheathed swords in their hands and daggers in their
belts, headed by another nephew, rush up to us as if their intention
were to begin by cutting our throats. The young Chief, seizing our
hands, chatters forth a thousand congratulations, salutations, and
messages, nearly tears us from our saddles, and demands concerning our
happiness, in tones which rise high above the whooping and yelling
of his followers. One fellow rushes away to pass the word, 'They
come.' And out pours a whole rout to witness the event, and, by their
presence, to communicate to it all possible importance.

"After jostling and being jostled through half a dozen narrow gateways,
we arrive opposite the verandah, under which stands Meer Ibrahim
Khan Talpur. I see this reception is to be a poor attempt at court
ceremonial.

"We dismount--twenty men pressing forward to hold our stirrups, the
whole party yelling 'Bismillah!' (in the name of Allah) as our feet
touch the ground. Then Ibrahim Khan, pressing forward, seizes our
hands, wrings our arms in their sockets, and--oh, compliment with which
we might readily have dispensed!--precipitates himself upon our bosoms,
clasping us firmly to a 'corporation,' and applying a rough-bearded
chin to the upper portions of both our shoulder-blades consecutively.

"We are led in with our slippers on. Our host has not removed his,
consequently we will continue to wear ours. Another volley of inquiries
and another series of huggings, as we are led up to the silken ottoman,
upon which he, the Chief, and his eldest nephew are to sit, a motley
crowd of relations, friends, acquaintances, dependants, and any one
who happened to be passing the house at the time, pressing in, looking
curiously at us and fearfully at our retainers. All arrange themselves
with the noise of a troop of ravens upon the floor.

"Observe, Mr. John Bull, in the corner of the room Hari Chand and Kakoo
Mall, almost weeping with joy, throw themselves upon each other, and
murmur _mezzo-voce_ thanks to that Heaven which hath thus permitted the
tree of hope to put forth green leaves and to bear sweet fruit.

"Charming this choice blossom of true civilization, blooming amid the
desert of barbarism around it! Had a violet or a forget-me-not appeared
to us in the centre of Ibrahim Khan's courtyard, the sight would
scarcely have been more suggestive. What memories it revives! One of
them--

"When the fascinating Lady F. Macarthy, an authoress and a _femme
d'esprit_, had sketched with a pencil, stolen from Wit, the character
of her bosom friend, Miss Anne Clotworthy Crawley, and published the
same, the English world laughed, but Dublin joyed with double joy.

"Dublin joyed thus: firstly, at seeing the picture; secondly,
at foreseeing the scene it would occasion when the sketcher and
the sketched met for the first time in public. There was much of
anticipation, much of vague and happy expectation, in this idea.

"Was it disappointed?

"No! At the next ball, Lady Florence, unwilling to show Miss Crawley
that she could not use as well as abuse a friend, and Miss Crawley, as
unwilling to show Lady Florence her consciousness of having been abused
as she deserved, both with one impulse at the same moment clave the
crowd, and--they had been parted at least five days--kissed each other
with all the ardour of feminine friendship.

"'And faith,' said every Irishman of the hundred who witnessed the
scene--'and 'faith, I disp'hised them both!'

"Kiss on, Kakoo Mall and Hari Chand!

       *       *       *       *       *

"At the end of the time the host motions away his pipe, and prepares
himself to converse and hor! hor! with renewed vigour.

"'Were you at Nasir Khan's fight?'--so the battle of Meeanee is called
by the Scindians, as opposed to Sher Mohammed's fight, the battle of
Dubbah.

"We reply in the negative, and suspect that we are in for one of our
noble host's stock stories.

"'Hor! hor! that _was_ an affair. O Allah, Allah Akbar! was ever the
like of it before?'

"'Then you were present, Meer Sahab?'[7]

"'I--yes, indeed I was. I went out with all the vassals of my poor
brother' (a broad grin), 'whom you killed. Look at his son, my nephew
there' (pointing to the lean scowler sitting by his side). 'Well, you
killed his poor father. And, hor! hor! you would have killed me,'
pursues Ibrahim, highly amused by the idea, 'but I was a little too
sharp even for the Frank.'

"We stimulate him by an inquiry.

"'How?' he vociferates. 'Why, when we went out of the tent to attack
you we started to hunt the deer. Some carried swords, others spears,
and many sticks, because we wanted to thrash you soundly for your
impudence--not to kill you, poor things. My brother--now Allah illumine
his grave!--was a simple-minded man, who said, "What can the iron of
the Angreez[8] do against the steel of the Beloch?"

"'We drew up in a heap, eager for the onslaught. Presently some guns of
yours appeared; they unlimbered: they began to fire. So did ours; but
somehow or other we shot over you, you shot into us. I was on the other
part of the field, so of course I didn't care much for that. But, a few
minutes afterwards, what did we see?--a long red line, with flashing
spikes, come sweeping over the plain towards us like a simoom.

"'Allah, Allah! what are these dogs doing? They are not running away?
All my poor brother's men put the same question.

"'Then bang went the great guns, phit the little guns; the Franks
prayed aloud to the Shaitan with a loud, horrible voice; we to Allah.
What a mosque full of mullahs it was, to be sure![9] Who could fight?
We howled defiance against them. Still they came on. We stood and
looked at them. Still they came on. We rushed and slashed at them, like
Rustams. Still they came on--the white fiends.[10] And, by Allah, when
we ran away, still they came after us. It was useless to encounter this
kind of magic; the head magician sitting all the time on the back of
a little bay horse, waving his hat in circles, and using words which
those that heard them sounded like the language of devils. I waited
till my poor brother fell dead. Then I cried to the vassals, "Ye
base-born, will you see your chieftain perish unavenged?" And, having
done my best to fight like a soldier, I thought I had a right to run
like one--hor! hor!

"'But now tell me--you are an Englishman--is there any chance of the
Ameer's ever returning from captivity?'

"The assembly, after being convulsed with laughter during the Chief's
account of his prowess at the battle of Meeanee--there are 'toadies' in
Scinde as elsewhere--was breathless whilst he awaited our answer to his
question.

"'No, Meer Sahab, there is none. The morning of prosperity has at
length dawned upon Scinde. It leads to a day that knows no return of
night!'

"'Allah Tuhar--the Lord be thy preserver!' There was no laugh as
Ibrahim Khan uttered this short prayer.

"We rise; so does every man in the room. Vehemently are we pressed to
stay. Vehemently do we refuse. Then there is a rushing to the doors,
a whooping for horses, an appearance of the animals, madly kicking
and plunging because ten hands are holding each bridle. The Chief
accompanies us as far as the main gate of his palace, shaking hands,
laughing violently, and catechizing us about our healths and brains;
he repeats his delight at having made friendship with us, and, as
a conclusion, again clasps us to that development which would not
disgrace the fat fame of a Falstaff.

       *       *       *       *       *

[What can be more true or witty, more picturesque and characteristic,
than this picture of a Beloch dinner and tea party?--I. B.]

"'A tea-party! 'What horrible goblins of the past are conjured up by
these three syllables!

       *       *       *       *       *

"The first object that meets our glance, as we near the tents, is a
line of Belochies drawn up behind a row of earthen pots, in shape and
hue by no means unlike monstrous turnips. These--the turnips--are a
present of choice confectionery; material, coarse sugar, rice, flour,
spices, and clarified butter--always sent in token of friendship or
favour. There are ten pots full for you, the 'great gentleman,' eight
for me, the thinner man, one for our moonshee, who looks a profound
disgust at not having received two, and the rest for the servants.
The latter will obtain, although they cannot claim, possession of the
whole, and the result will be a general indigestion, which nothing but
a certain preparation of tartar can remove. Half a pound of the foul
mixture would place our lives in imminent peril. Another uncomfortable
effect of the ceremony is, that in this case, as on all occasions
where an Oriental sends you a present, a return is expected, and the
amount of the return is supposed exactly to show at what rate you value
yourself. We must give vails to all the fellows, otherwise we shall
be called 'fly-suckers,' _i.e._ skinflints--a reputation which you,
in your own country and in these days, seem rather to court than to
avoid, Mr. Bull; but what the East is not yet sufficiently enlightened
to appreciate. We must also send a 'token' to the noble giver of the
sweetmeats. If we withhold it, he will not be too shamefaced to apply
for it in person. I remarked that, during the visit, he repeatedly
admired your ring--a bloodstone with the family crest, a lion rampant,
upon it. Send it to him, with an epigrammatic compliment, which I will
impromptu for you, and you will earn, as the natives say, a 'great
name.'

       *       *       *       *       *

"'Well, Hari Chand, how progresses the Ameer?'

"'The Ameer? Your exalted intelligence will understand most
prosperously, only he has robbed his ryots of all their camels, and now
he is quarrelling with the neighbouring jagirdars (country gentlemen)
in order to get theirs to cheat the Company with; he has depopulated
the land of small birds to feed his twenty hawks; he has been to
Hyderabad and has returned stark-staring mad, swearing that he drank
two sahibs under the table, and made love to every madam[11] in the
place' (Hari Chand is determined to excite our _ghairat_, or jealousy,
on that point by perpetually hammering at it); 'he has married another
wife, although people say he has five[12] already; the new one being
a devil, fights with all the old ones, who try to poison her; and
his eldest daughter, when on a visit to the capital, ran away with a
mounted policeman. Wah! wah! Verily, it is a noble family, as the poet
said of the people of Cabul--

    "A most distinguished race are they;
    The men can't say 'Yes,' the women can't say 'No.'"'[13]

"'And Kakoo Mall?'

"'Oh, Kakoo Mall! He is making a fortune by sedulously practising
all kinds of iniquities. Praised be Allah! what a scoundrel he is!
It would take hours to sketch out his villanies even for the exalted
intelligence of your honours to comprehend them. But one of these days
Kakoo must and will come to a bad end, a very bad end, which may be a
warning to mankind.'

"This prediction, Mr. Bull, is simply the result of envy on the part
of Hari Chand, who would give one of his eyes for the unlimited powers
of doing evil, that good (to himself) might come of it, which he
represents Kakoo Mall to enjoy. Of course he alludes piously to the
vengeance of the gods, but the reference is an habitual one; the heart
knows nothing about what the tongue speaks.

"'Ut sit magna, tamen certe lenta ira decrum est,' is a sentiment which
misleads the Eastern as well as the Western would-be criminal. These
people theoretically own the idea of retribution in this certain life;
practically, they act as if sure to evade it. An unseen, an uncertain
punishment has so little effect when threatened from afar! Offended
Heaven may so easily be propitiated by vain oblations, and equally vain
repentance. And, after all, celestial vengeance so often comes too
late--a man may enjoy himself so many years before the blow descends!
So they never neglect to threaten one another with the _ira deorum_,
and always sit in the teeth of it themselves.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Here is the Sawári, the retinue. Meer Ibrahim Khan, all crimson and
gold, alights from his steed, a handsome Beloch mare, whose bridle and
head-gear are covered with grotesque silver ornaments, and stands a
moment patting her, to show off her points and equipments. The saddle
is richly mounted--though far inferior to those used by some of the
petty Indian princes, whose led horses are decked in harness plated
with precious metals studded with diamonds--and there is no deficiency,
at the same time no particular attraction, in the abundance of girth,
housing, martingale and crupper, with which a gentleman's animal in
this part of the world must be lumbered.

"Ibrahim Khan prepares for dinner by dismissing all his attendants
but one, Kakoo Mall, who remains to 'toady' his highness, to swear
the truth of every falsehood the great man tells, to supply him with
an idea or a word whenever conversation does not flow glibly, and to
be insulted, 'chaffed' and derided, _tour à tour_, as the ill-humour
or joviality of his Chief prevail. The Ameer's quick glance has
detected that we have nought but ale and cognac to offer him; that
point settled, he assures his mind by feeling the smooth insides of
our wine-glasses, by taking up the spoons, avoiding their handles,
by producing brown facsimiles of his thumbs upon the white surface
of the salt, by converting the mustard-pot into a scent-bottle, and
by correcting any little irritation of the epidermis with our only
corkscrews.

"'Will you take a glass of the water of life, Meer Sahab?'

"Perhaps, Mr. Bull, you expect our visitor to drink a few drops of
brandy, as the French take _un petit verre d'absinthe pour ouvrir
l'appetit_. If so, a quarter of an hour will convince you of your
mistake.

"Ibrahim Khan hands his gold-hilted sabre to the Afghan servant--who
receives it at a distance, as if it bit, with a sneering smile, for
which he shall presently receive well-merited correction--sees it
deposited in the corner of the tent, and then seating himself heavily
upon the edge of the cot of honour opposite the dinner-table, he
clutches a tumbler, blows warmly into it, polishes the damp interior
with his pocket-handkerchief, and prepares to attack the liquid part of
his meal.

"We must join him if you please. In Scinde men drink before, in England
after, dinner. At home, the object, we say, is to pass time pleasantly
over a glass of wine; here, they honestly avow, they drink to get
drunk, and wonder what makes you do the same, disclaiming all intention
of doing it. The Eastern practice is admirable for securing the object
proposed to itself; every one knows that half a bottle upon an empty
stomach does the duty of two emptied under converse circumstances.
Moreover, the Scindians declare that alcohol before meals whets the
appetite, enlivens the spirits, and facilitates digestion. Habit is
everything. I should advise you, Mr. John Bull, to follow the Meer's
example at humble distance; otherwise a portly old gentleman in a
state of roaring intoxication, singing and speechifying, excited
combativeness and general benevolence, may be the concluding scene of
this feast of unreason.

"The dinner passes off rapidly. Ibrahim Khan eats quite as much as
he drinks. Not contented with scooping up masses of boiled rice,
hard eggs, and unctuous stews, in his palm, now and then stripping
a kabab-stick[14] with his fingers, and holding up a large bone to
his mouth with both hands, he proposes after our example to practise
the knife and fork. With these articles, the former in the left, the
latter in the right fist, he attempts to dissect a roast fowl, which
dances away from him, as if it had vitality, over the damask, to the
tune of loud hor! hors! Again he tries--again he fails, although he
prefaced the second attempt by a Bismillah: 'Heathen dog' (to Kakoo
Mall), 'is the soul of thy father in this bit of carrion?' for which
gross insult[15] the Hindoo mentally fines his lord a thousand rupees,
to be cheated the first opportunity. At last, desperate by the failure
of many efforts, he throws away the fork, transfers the knife to his
right hand, and grasping with his left the animal's limbs, he tears it
piecemeal with a facility which calls for a loud explosion of mirth.

"I never yet saw an Oriental laugh at himself so readily. Generally
speaking, childlike, they are nervously and uncomfortably sensitive
to ridicule of all kinds. Nothing offends them more lastingly than a
caricature, be it the most good-natured. A writer of satire in Persia
rarely dies an easy death; and the present race must be numbered
amongst things that were, before a man could edit, at Teheran, a number
of _Punch_ and live through the day.

"Scindian cookery is, like the country and its native, a link between
the Iranian and the Indian systems. Central Asia is pre-eminently the
land of good living and of masterly _artistes_, men as truly great in
their exquisite art as Paris or Naples ever produced: it teems with
enjoyment to the philosophic _bon vivant_, who will apply his mind
to naturalizing his palate. Amongst the Hindoos, the _matériel_ of
the _cuisine_ is too limited, consequently there is a monotony in the
succession of rice-dishes and vegetables: moreover, the bilious ghee
enters into almost every preparation, the sweets are cloying, and the
profuse spices annoying to the tasteful palate. In Scinde there are
dawnings of culinary light, which would in a happier moral clime usher
in a brilliant day. You have seldom eaten anything better--I will
answer for the fact, Mr. Bull--than a _salmi_ of black partridge, with
a garnishing of stewed _bengans_, or egg-plants.

"The repast ends more abruptly than it began. The Scindian, as the
boa-constrictor, is always torpid after his ample meal, and he holds to
the apothegm of the Salernitan school--

    'Post prandium est dormiendum.'

You may observe our guest's fat heavy eyelids winking and drooping
with progressive somnolency as the time for his _siesta_ draws nigh.
He calls for a cup of lukewarm milk--the invariable and offensive
conclusion to dinner here; apologizes for leaving us--he must go to his
prayers and attend to his guest-house[16]--promises a return to tea in
the evening, calls for his horse, mounts it and retires.

"Now that he has gone, perhaps you also, sir, may have 'letters to
write.'

       *       *       *       *       *

"'Ibrahimoo was so full of wine,' remarks Hari Chand, 'with these eyes
I saw him almost tumble over his animal. He go to pray! He went to
prepare for the evening's work. As for his guest-house, it is called by
all the poor around, "House of Hunger." Your honours, I hear, gave him
only beer and brandy. You will see him presently return with a donkey's
load of bottles. And I am told that he is going to bring his eldest
boy. Ah, your honours must button up your pouches now!'

       *       *       *       *       *

"Here comes the Ameer with some additions to his former escort, Kakoo
Mall; a little brown boy five or six years old, a minstrel, and a
servant carrying many 'grey-beards.'

"In few parts of the world do you see prettier children than those of
the higher class in Scinde. Their features are delicate and harmonious;
the forehead is beautifully _bombé_; the full, rounded cheek shows
almost olive-coloured by the side of the silky black curls; and there
is an intelligence and a vivacity which you scarcely expect to see
in their large, long, lustrous black eyes. Their forms are equal to
their faces; for symmetry and finish they might serve as models to
the well-provided Murillo or Correggio. And the simplicity of their
dress--a skull-cap, a little silk frock like a night-gown, confined
with a waist-shawl in which sticks the tiniest of daggers, and a pair
of loose slippers--contrasts most advantageously with the dancing-dog
costumes with which your good lady, Mr. Bull, invests her younger
offspring, or the unsightly jackets and waistcoats conferred upon Billy
when breeched. If you like their dress you will also admire their
behaviour. The constant habit of society makes them companionable at
an age when your progeny is fit for nothing but confinement in a loose
box called a nursery. The boy here stands before his father, or sits
with him when ordered, more staidly than one of your adults would do.
He listens with uncommon gravity to the conversation of his seniors,
answers pithily and respectfully when addressed, and never requires to
be lectured upon the text, 'Little children are made to be seen and not
heard.' At eight years of age he is master of the _usages_; he will
receive you at the door in the absence of his progenitor, hand you to
your proper seat in the room, converse with you, compliment you, call
for pipes, offer you sweetmeats, invite you to dinner, and dismiss you
without failing in a single point. As a boy he is a little man, and
his sister in the harem is a little woman. This you may object to on
the score of taste; say that it robs childhood of its chief charm, the
natural, the innocent, and all that kind of thing. At any rate, you
must own that it also preserves us from the very troublesome displays
of the said charm in the form of pertness, selfishness, turbulence, and
all the unlovely details comprehended in your 'naughtiness'--the Irish
'boldness.'

"Our admiration of their children is reciprocated by the Orientals. I
have heard of a Chief travelling many miles to see the fair and flaxen
hair of a 'European baby;' and 'Beautiful as a white child' is almost
a proverb amongst the dark-skinned Maharattas.

"We must treat Master Ibrahim--I beg his pardon, Meer Jan Mohammed Khan
Talpur, as he sententiously names himself--with especial attention,
as a mark of politeness to his father. We insist upon his sitting
down--upon the highest seat, too--inquire with interest after his horse
and his hawk, look at his dagger, and slip in a hope that he may be as
brave a soldier as his father. But we must not tell him that he is a
pretty boy, or ask him his age, or say anything about his brothers and
sisters, otherwise we offend against the _convenances_. And when we
wish him to be sent home--that venerable maxim,

    'Maxima debetur puero reverenda,'

is still venerated in the East--we give him a trifling _tohfeh_
(present), a pocket-pistol or a coloured print, and then he will feel
that the object of his mission has been fulfilled. In Central Asia a
child's visit is a mere present-trap.

"You admire the row of bottles displayed upon the table--a dozen at
least of champagne and sherry, curaçoa and noyau, brandy and gin,
soda-water and pale ale. You will wonder still more when you see
Ibrahim Khan disposing of their contents recklessly, mixing them (after
consumption) by tumblers full, intoxicating himself with each draught,
and in each twenty minutes' interval becoming, by dint of pushing
his cap off his brow, scratching his head, abusing his moonshee, and
concentrating all the energies of mind and body upon his pipe, sober as
judges are said to be.

"A faint 'twang-twang' draws your attention to the corner of the tent.
As in the ages preceding Darius, so since his time the _soirée_ of
Oriental Cæsar, or Chief, never ended without sweet music.

"Remark the appearance of the performer. He is a dark,
chocolate-coloured man with a ragged beard, an opium look, sharp,
thin features, and a skin that appears never to have known ablution.
A dirty, torn cloth wrapped round his temples acts as turban; the
rest of the attire, a long shirt of green cotton and blue drawers, is
in a state which may be designated 'disgusting.' In his hand is his
_surando_, the instrument of his craft, a rude form of the violin, with
four or five sheep-gut strings, which are made to discourse eloquent
music by a short crooked bow that contains half the tail of a horse.
He is preparing to perform, not in the attitude of a Paganini, but as
we see in old Raphaels, and occasionally in the byways of Italy--the
instrument resting upon his lap instead of his collar-bone. Before
the preliminary scraping ends, whilst the Meer is reviling Kakoo Mall
_sotto voce_, a word or two about the fellow and his race.

"The Langho, or, as he is politely and accurately termed, the
Manganhar, or 'asker'[17]--they are the most peremptory and persevering
of beggars--is a particular caste in Scindi. Anciently all the great
clans had their own minstrels, whose duty it was to preserve their
tradition for recital on festival occasions, and to attend the Chief in
battle, where they noted everything with an eagle's eye, praising those
that fought, and raining showers of curses, taunts, and invectives
upon those that fled. This part of their occupation is now gone. In
the present day they subsist principally by the charity of the people,
and by attending at the houses in which their professional services at
marriages and other ceremonies are required. They are idle as well as
fond of pleasure, dirty, immoral, and notoriously dishonest. _Largesse_
to a minstrel being a gentlemanly way of wasting one's substance in
Scinde, those that employ the 'asker' are provoked to liberality till
either the will or the way fail. In the mean time he spends every
pice, with all the recklessness of a Western _artiste_, in drinking,
gambling, and the silliest ostentation. He is not expected to live
long, and none knows what becomes of him in his old age.

"Our friend the Meer has, I am told by Hari Chand, suffered so much
from these men's sneering encomiums upon his valour and conduct in the
late war, that he once tried the experiment of paying them liberally
to avoid his palace. Finding that the revenues of Persia would be
inadequate to carry out the scheme, he has altered his tactics, and
now supports half a dozen of these, on the express condition that they
never allude to the battles of Meeanee or Dubbah in his presence.

"And now, as Ibrahim Khan looks tired of attempting to converse with
our surly Afghans, and of outraging the feelings of his moonshee, we
will lend an ear to Music--heavenly maid--as she springs upon us in
grimly guise from the head of Aludo, the minstrel.

"The singing will commence with a favourite rhapsod theme--the murder
of the great Lord Bahram, the ancestor of the Talpur Princess--by
order of Sarfaraz, the Kalhora; and with the deadliest accuracy will
it detail how an individual of lowly birth but brave, Shah Baharo, a
Scindian, when ordered by the despot to do the deed, refused, saying,
'I will fight the Beloch like a man.' How Sarfaraz made light of Shah
Baharo's chivalry and honour, asking, 'Where is Mohammed the Prophet
of Allah, and where is Musaylimah the liar?'[18] How Shah Baharo
responded with great temper and a prodigious quantity of good advice,
the major part of which was _à propos_ of everything; how Sarfaraz
cozened and flattered till he found a willing bravo in Ismail Mombiyani
the Scindian; how the said Ismail, being a one-handed man, cut down
the valiant Bahram from behind with a sword which he held in his left
hand, raised a little higher than usual, and drew down the murdered
chief's shoulder; how Ismail, after the assassination, cut off Bahram's
head; and, finally, how Sarfaraz looked at it, and gave utterance to
unchristianlike sentiments.

"All the terrible minuteness of a French novel of the day or an Italian
historical romance!

"The sounds that accompany are more remarkable than the words of the
song. Each fresh verse is ushered in by a loud howl so strikingly
discordant that your every nerve starts at it, and so prolonged that
anticipation wearies of looking forward to its close. To which follows
the _aria_, a collection of sharp shatterings, in a key strained at
least two notes above the _voce di petto_, which, nevertheless, must be
forced up to the mark, falsetto being unknown here. And, lastly, the
conclusion of the phrase--a descent into the regions of the _basso_
till the voice dies away, vaguely growling--lost, as it were, and
unable to merge from the depths into which it strayed. Then the howl,
the chatterings, the soprano scream, and the growl over again. Half an
hour of this work goes to the formation of a Scindian melody.

"Melody!

"Well, yes, melody! You see, sir, all around you are ecstatized,
consequently there must be something to attract admiration in the
performance. Of all the arts, Music is the most conventional. What do
you think Orpheus would have thought of Thalberg--Thalberg of Orpheus?
The tradition of all ancient people, Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans,
and others, tell of minstrels who worked miracles by the voice, the
guitar, the lute, and the lyre. The Music of the Greeks and Romans is
beyond our reach; that of the Hindoo and the Persian is still in its
old age,--much the same, I suppose, as it was when it began to exist.
Accustomed to his own system, the Indian cannot derive the least
pleasure from ours. The noisiness confuses him; his ear cannot detect
a phrase, and he is ignorant of its harmony as he would be insensible
to discord. He wonders greatly how it is that the European, so superior
to him in arms and arts, can be so far behind in this one science, and
he turns with eagerness to the strain familiar to his ear; not to the
'Hindostanee melodies,' which are occasionally composed in London, but
to an honest, downright bit of barbarism such as we have just now heard.

"After my description, you will be astonished to hear that I could do
anything but suffer during the endurance of the minstrel's song. At
first all was pure torture. Presently the ear, in its despair, began
to make friends with the least harsh sounds, as prisoners do with
spiders or jailors. Then, as a note or two became familiar, the utter
strangeness wore off, and a sensation of grotesque enjoyment, novel and
unexplainable, struggled into existence. At last, when a few years had
thoroughly broken my taste to bear what you have just heard, I could
listen to it not only without the horror you experience, but also with
something more like gratification than composure. Possibly I like it
better for the disgust it provoked at first. So the Highlander learns
to love his screaming, wheezing bagpipe, the German his putrescent
_Sauerkraut_, the Frenchman _haut-goût_ in game, the Italian his rancid
olives, and all the world their snuff and cigars--things which at first
they must, as they were human, have hated.

"The songs generally sung by these Eastern _jongleurs_ are legends,
ballads, certain erotic verses which are very much admired by every
class, and mystical effusions which the learned enjoy, and which the
unlearned, being utterly unable to comprehend them, listen to with the
acutest sensations of pleasure. The Homer of Scinde is one Sayyid Abd
el Latif, a saintly bard, whose Risalo, or collection of distichs upon
traditionary themes of the two passions, Love and War, has been set to
different musical modes, and is, by the consenting voice of society,
admitted to be a perfect _chef d'œuvre_, a bit of heaven on earth.

"I will translate one of the songs which Aludo sings--a short satirical
effusion, directed against the descendants of that celebrated man by
some Scindian poet, who appears fond of using the figure irony.


    "AN ODE TO THE HOLY MEN OF BHIT.[19]


    1.
    "'Ye monks of Bhit, whose holy care
    In fast and penance, wake and prayer!
    Your lips and eyes bespeak a love
    From low earth weaned to Heaven above!
    Your hearts have rent all carnal ties,
    Abjured all pomps and vanities!
    Not mean will be your meed, I ken,
    In Heaven's bright realms, ye rev'rend men!'

    2.
    "'And yet, they say, those tuneful throats,
    With prayers' stem chaunt, mix softer notes;
    Those mouths will sometimes deign to sip
    The honey-dew from maiden's lip;
    And other juice than salt tear dyes
    With purpling hues those heavy eyes.
    Ah, ah! twice blest your lot, I ken,
    Here and hereafter, rev'rend men!'

       *       *       *       *       *

"You have a small musical snuff-box with you. Mr. John Bull; wind it
up, put it in your pocket, and try the effects of a polka or a waltz.

"All are silent in a moment. They start, stare, peer about the room,
and look very much scared by the strange sounds. In another minute
they will run away from us adepts in the black art. You see how many
miracles could be got out of a few such simple contrivances as a
grind-organ, an electrical machine, or a magic lantern. Now produce
the cause of astonishment whilst I attempt to explain the mechanism
of the invention. The sight of something soothes them; their minds
become, comparatively speaking, quiet; still they handle the box with
constraint, as if it had the power of stinging as well as singing.
All are vociferous in praise of the music, probably on account of the
curiosity of the thing, as a civilized audience applauds a sonata
upon one string, at which it would yawn if performed upon four. Even
the Minstrel declares with humble looks that the charm has fled his
_Surando_, that his voice is become like to the crows. This, however,
is his politeness, not his belief. In what part of the world, or at
what epoch of the creation, did a painter, a musician, or a poet, ever
own to himself that he is a dauber, a mar-music, or a poetaster?

"Ibrahim Khan will by no means refuse a 'dish a tea,' especially when
offered to him during a short account of the Chinese Empire: the
beardless state of the Celestials and the porcelain tower being topics
which will at once rivet his attention. Orientals in their cups love
to become inquisitive, scientific, theological, and metaphysical. But
he qualifies the thin potation with quite an equal quantity of brandy,
as in his heart of hearts he has compared the first sip to an infusion
of senna disguised by sugar and milk. The Belochies, unlike their
neighbours the Persians and Afghans, are not accustomed to the use of
_Chahi_.[20]

       *       *       *       *       *

"'Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur, listen! The meetings of this world are
in the street of separation. And truly said the poet that the sweet
draught of friendly union is ever followed by the bitter waters of
parting. To-morrow we wander forth from these pleasant abodes, to
return to Hyderabad. My friend, Jan Bool Sahib, is determined to feast
his eyes upon the Edens of Larkhana and to dare the Jehannums of
Shikarpur.'

"The Chief rises steadily, though intoxicated.

"'You are the King of the Franks. You are the best of the Nazarenes,
and, by the blessed Prophet, you almost deserve to be a Moslem! Swear
to me that you will presently return and gladden the glance of amity.
What is life without the faces of those we love? Wah! wah! I have
received you badly. There are no dancing-women in my villages. I would
have seized a dozen of the ryots' wives, but Kakoo Mall said--didn't
you, you scoundrel----?'

"'Certainly, great Chief!'

"'How can the Haiwans,[21] the Scindees, venture to show their
blackened[22] faces in the presence of those exalted lords? If I have
failed in anything, pardon me.'

"The tears stand in Ibrahim's eyes. No wonder. He has nearly finished
six bottles. He grasps our hands at every comma; at every full stop
vigorously embraces us. Yet he is not wholly maudlin. To water the
tree of friendship, as he phrases it, he stuffs my cheroot-case into
one pocket, and a wine-glass into the other. I must give him your
musical box, Mr. Bull, and as an equivalent--I don't wish him to go
home and laugh at our beards--I gently extract his best hunting-knife
from his waistband and transfer it to my own, declaring that with that
identical weapon will I cut the throat of a poetic image called Firak
or Separation.

"Now the adieus become general. The minstrel raises his voice in
fervent prayer; he has received five rupees and a bottle of bad gin.
All the followers put their heads into the tent to bless us, and to see
if we have anything more to give them. The Ameer, convinced that there
are no more presents to be distributed, prepares to depart, accompanied
by his secretary, when Hari Chand, determined upon a final scene,
raises the tent-fly and precipitates himself into Kakoo Mall's arms."

[1] "The just king of Persia."

[2] "A diminutive and decidedly disrespectful form of the proper name."

[3] "A high title in Persia, terribly prostituted in Scinde and India."

[4] "The bird of wisdom in Europe, in Asia becomes the symbol of
stupidity: _vice versâ_, the European goose is the Asiatic emblem of
sageness."

[5] "A metaphor, by no means complimentary, for his house and home."

[6] "A first-rate Persian poet infinitely celebrated and popular for
satire, morality, and gross indecency."

[7] "The polite address to one of the blood-royal."

[8] "An allusion to the boasted superiority of what is called Damascus
steel over our Sheffield cutlery."

[9] "As we should say, 'What a bear-garden!' Two mullahs in one mosque
are sure to fight."

[10] "One of the Rustam's great exploits was slaughtering the Divi
Sapid, or White Demon--a personage, say the Persians, clearly typical
of the modern Russians."

[11] "European ladies in general."

[12] "Four wives are allowed by law and religion, but if a man marries
half a dozen or so, it is considered a peccadillo, not a felony."

[13] "Which, by-the-by, is borrowed from the Arab saying concerning the
city of Wasit."

[14] "Bits of roast meat with onion between, fastened together with a
skewer."

[15] "Fowls are considered impure in the extreme by high-caste Hindoos."

[16] "The wealthy nobles in Scinde generally support an establishment
called Mehman-Khana (guest-house), in which they receive and entertain
poor travellers and strangers."

[17] "To call a man 'beggar' does not sound polite in English, but it
does in Scinde ears. An Oriental would generally prefer being under any
kind of obligation to his superiors than lack connection with them."

[18] "A false prophet, _i.e._ an unsuccessful one, contemporary with
Mohammed. The phrase is a classical one amongst the Moslems: it is much
used when drawing odious comparisons between man and man."

[19] "Bhit is a small town lying to the eastward of Hyderabad. The word
in Scinde literally means a 'heap,' and is applied to the place because
the holy Abd el Latif ordered his followers to throw up a mound of
earth as a foundation for the habitations of men. The holy subjects of
the Ode, although his descendants, have quite lost reputation amongst
the Bards, because they ungenerously appropriated the hoards entrusted
to their charge by the wife of the dethroned Kalhora prince. Perhaps,
being very wealthy, they are become, as might be expected, very
niggardly, and that is another cause of offence."

[20] "Tea."

[21] "In Arabic, 'anything that hath life'--popularly used to signify
a beast as opposed to a human being, or a human being that resembles a
beast."

[22] "Blackened, _bien entendu_, by certain unquenchable flames."




APPENDIX E.

POLITICS.

RICHARD'S VIEWS UPON THEM, AND WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE--A SUBJECT TO BE
CONTINUED IN THE FUTURE WORK, "LABOURS AND WISDOM OF RICHARD BURTON."


"And now for a serious bit of moralizing, from gay to grave. The
radical changes of the last five years in Paris deserve chronicling
and deep study. The War and the Commune have made a new world. '_La
nation la plus aimable la plus aimée et peut-être la moins aimante_,'
has been translated, 'The light and joyous character may lie below,
but there is a terrible hard upper crust of sulkiness and economy run
mad--rage for lucre, and lust _pour la revanche_.' There is only the
_ancienne noblesse_, the Faubourg St. Germain, the souls loyal to their
King and to their Faith, who remain pure. So far, the Parisians are
like the Irish Kelt,--a blathering, bumptious, bull-and-blunder loving
race. The former have been converted in half a century by politics
and polemics into a moping and melancholy brood. It is no longer the
fashion in France to speak without an introduction. Men will sit side
by side at _table d'hôte_ in dead silence for a month; they travel
twenty-four hours in the railway without opening the mouth; and if a
loud laugh be heard in public, it is sure to come from some _triste
Anglais_. Even the women, although they still fling the look of hate
at a pretty toilette, seem to have abdicated the supremacy of the
toilette. Once you never did, now you often see the absence of corsets
upon figures that can't stand it. They are badly painted, and it is a
sin to paint badly. They are _outrées_ in their dress, and the neglect
of these things is a bad sign in Paris. The middle and the lower
classes, who used to be _à quatre épingles_, are _mal coiffées_, with
their petticoats hanging below their dresses, as we were in the days of
_les Anglaises pour rire_. We have learnt many things from our French
friends, and amongst the _good_ things, how to dress; but dress never
made _our_ women's beauty--it did that of the French.

"The theatres are clearing 27,000,000 of francs (1875), when during
the palmiest days of the Empire they never exceeded 17,000,000. Except
at the new Opera, the scenery and decorations are those of our penny
gaffs. 'Les Italiens' bears the palm of dowdyism, and actors and
actresses seem to have decayed with the decorations. The _cuisine_,
except in special instances, has notably fallen off. The bottles are
all 'kick,' the famous bread and butter has lost caste. The _café au
lait_ is all chicory--maximum water, minimum beans. Mammonolatry is
rampant, and the great problem of manufacture and depôt, of store and
shop, is how to charge the most for the worst article. Economy has now
become a vice instead of a virtue, and 1,852,000 souls manage to pay
12,280,000 francs in taxes per annum.

"It is impossible to pass a day in Paris without hearing and speaking
politics. The French, I have said, are sulky, especially with the
'Perfidious,' because she has supplanted them in Egypt, where for so
many years England had by a tacit convention supplied the material and
France the personal. They question the wisdom of our last dodge. It is
the first move in the coming Kriegspiel. I hate half-measures, and I
would have bought the Canal wholly out and out, and put a fortress at
each end, and taken a mild nominal toll to show my right. I would annex
Egypt and protect Syria, occupy the Dardanelles, and after that let the
whole world wrangle as much as it pleased. What is the use of having
a Navy superior to all the united navies of the rest of the world, if
we can't do this? The world will never be still till Constantinople
returns to the old Byzantine kingdom; and we might put a Royalty there,
say the Duke of Edinburgh, who, being married to the Czar's daughter,
would unite the interests of Russia and England. Let the Turk live, but
retire into private life; he is a good fellow there, and we can respect
El Islam so long as he has nothing to butcher.

[Sidenote: _Central Europe_.]

"Let Austria become a mighty empire,--nineteen million Slavs, eight
million Germans, five million Hungarians. Let Italy be satisfied
with her Unity and Freedom and Progress, and Prussia repose upon her
Bismarck, and France keep quiet and look after her health. But as it
is, the three Emperors may say to us, 'Gentlemen, you have got what
you want; we will follow suit--look on, and don't spoil sport.' Taken
_per se_, this Suez Canal measure is a patch of tinsel gold plastered
upon the rags of foreign and continental policy which our ins and
outs have kept us up during the last decade, whilst under-authorities
are apparently told off to declare periodically that England has
lost none of her prestige abroad. Listen to the average politician
of the multitude.[1] I do not like the doings of my own party (I am
a Conservative); and what irritates me more is, that little as _he_
knows, there is sound truth in what he says.

"The fact is, that England has repudiated the grand old rule of
aristocracy which carried her safely through the Titan wars of
the early Buonaparte ages, whilst she has not accepted the strong
repulsive arm of Democracy, which enabled the Federal to beat down the
Confederate. She rejects equally the refined minority and the sturdy
majority; she is neither hot nor cold; she sits between two stools, and
we all know where that leads to.

"This Suez move would have been a homogeneous part of a strong
policy--that is, a policy backed by two millions of soldiers, by a
preponderating fleet of ironclads, and by a school of diplomatists,
which has not been broken in to 'effacing' themselves. Of our
politicians generally, the less said the soonest mended; but I have
unbounded confidence in our Premier,[2] in our Navy, and the good
heart, rough common sense, firmness, and _esprit de corps_ of our
British public. The next shake--and it will be heavy and soon--will
give us the Euphrates Valley Railway, despite the cleverness of an
Ignatieff. The first disaster will bring on a revival of the Militia
Law, and I should not be surprised if we live to see ourselves
revolve round again to a general conscription, and the 'do nothings'
will eventually go to the wall. It is a pity to tie the hands of so
long-sighted a Premier.

"Revenge is still the dream of Paris, and the dream is not of the wise.
The three Emperors love the three Empires, and hate one another; the
Government and the Lieges are blinded by jealousy; each wishes to be
the first in the race, and to see the other two distanced. All are
mounted upon a war footing _au piéd de guerre_; which means that they
intend fighting, and Germany especially must fight or she is lost; to
her peace is more ruinous than war. France is cutting her way up with
the purse instead of the sword. The great Triad might alter the map of
Europe. 'The sons of Hermann' would absorb Belgium and Holland; the
Muscovite swallow Constantinople with its neighbouring appendages,
and Austria _convey_ ('the wise call it') the remainder of Turkey's
Slavonic provinces. But they will do nothing of the kind. Germany has
proved herself the natural guardian of the Eastern frontier of Europe.

"A Franco-Russian alliance is now, in 1876, in everybody's mouth.
France is for the moment safely republican, with a chance of M. Thiers,
the kingmaker, succeeding to the Presidency.[3] She casts the blame of
the Communal excesses upon the Buonapartists, because she fears them;
but she has clean forgotten Legitimists and Orleanists. As regards the
Franco-Russian alliance, opinions follow two courses. The sensible and
far-seeing, which (like councils of war) never fights, would unite with
Russia and temporarily keep the peace. The majority of hot heads and
Hotspurs would use it for another '_À Berlin!_' to attack Prussia from
the east as well as the west.

"Yet, if the truth be told, France is far less ready for war than
England. She can hardly raise 400,000 men to defend her own frontiers.
We assisted at various reviews, and inspected many of the camps; we
saw artillery, cavalry, and infantry equally unfit to face an educated
enemy. Every order given by an officer was answered or questioned by
a private, 'Mais, ce n'est pas cela du tout, mon Capitaine.' Guns,
horses, and men were equally inefficient. True, the chassepot is being
changed for the fusil Gras, the sword-bayonet is being supplanted by
a neat triangular weapon unfit to cut cabbages and wood, and the six
arms manufacturers of France are not wasting an hour. But after seeing
the skirmishes and advances in line, one cannot help feeling certain
that at this rate half a century will elapse before the Frenchman is
ready to fight the Prussian. Meanwhile, every head of man, woman, and
child here pay half a franc (fivepence sterling) per diem, and the
municipality of Paris spends, I am told, an income inferior only to the
six great Powers of Europe.

"The part of the Regal-Republican, Imperial-Republican Capital
showing least change is that Conservative quarter which may be called
'Anglo-American Paris.' This 'West End' is bounded north by the
Boulevards des Italiens and the Madeleine; south by the Rue Rivoli
and the river (a mere ditch, but not so dirty as father Thames);
east by the Rue Richelieu, the Palais Royal, and Véfour; west by the
Embassy and the Chapel, with the Vendôme Column as a landmark. Here
the northern and western barbarians have their King Plenipo, and
their Consul, their chaplain and physician, their pet hotels, English
(Meurice's), their club and library (Galignani's), their tavern
(Byron's, famed for beer), their dentist, their pharmacies, and their
shops labelled, 'English (or American) spoken here,'--which generally
means, 'I'm a thief, you're a fool.' We can tell a compatriot a mile
off--the men by their billycock hats and tweed suits, their open
mouths, hats well at back of head, and red guide-books; the women by
their wondrous dress and hats--for which there are special shops--their
turned-up toes and noses, their manly strides, their taking men's arms,
one on each side; and the glum faces of both sexes on the Sabbath,
when the guide-book is exchanged for the Common Prayer-book and the
Bible. In this region, where the snuffle of the Yankee mixes with the
_h_aspirations of the Cockney, the really Parisianized Englishman is
never seen, and if compelled to pass through it he hurries with muffled
face in trembling haste, like Mahomet rushing down the demon-haunted
defiles of El Hidjr.

"Milan is bravely raising a monument to Napoleon III., whilst the
popular feeling of young Italy runs strong against the French. The
main reasons appear to be the abstraction of Nice, and the domineering
tone assumed by the late Empire. Moreover, 'the _peoples_' (Kossuth
still lives at Turin) do not readily pardon their benefactors. Witness
the aversion of Spain and Portugal for England since the Peninsular
War. In the next campaign the general voice of the younger and more
fiery sort, and of that solid power, the Left Centre, will compel
the constitutional Government of Victor Emmanuel, despite all his
prepossessions and prejudices, to side with Germany against France.
This was written years ago, but it is, methinks, still true.

"I was astonished to find the Italianissimo feeling so rampant in
Upper Italy, and the people so excited upon the subject, when their
Government have set them an example of calmness, common sense,
moderation, and constitutional spirit of compromise, which go far to
redeem the character of the Latin race, even in this, the darkest day
of its history. Because Dante made the Quarnero Gulf finish Italy,
and because Petrarch established the Alps as the surroundings of his
fair land, their new geographical politicians would absorb Trieste and
Istria; and when Jove shall wax wroth, he will probably grant them
their silly prayer.

"Trieste has a mixed population. North of Ponte Rosso is Germania,
composed of the authorities, the employés, and a few wealthy merchants.
They have a maniacal idea of Germanizing their little world, a mania
which secures for them abundant trouble and ill-will, for eight
millions cannot denationalize thirty-two millions. There are twelve
thousand Italians at Trieste who speak a corrupted Venetian; eleven
thousand of these are more or less poor, one thousand are perhaps too
rich. However, their civilization is all Roman, and they take a pride
in it, whilst the _exaltés_ and the Italianissimi hate their rulers
like poison. In this they are joined by the mass of the wealthy and
influential Israelites, who divide the commerce with the Greeks. The
former subscribe handsomely to every Italian charity or movement; and
periodically and anonymously memorialize the King of Italy. The lower
class take a delight in throwing large squibs, here called by courtesy
'torpedoes,' amongst the unpatriotic petticoats who dare to throng
the Austrian balls. The immediate suburbs, country, and villages are
Slav, and even in the City some can barely speak Italian. This people
detests all its fellow-citizens with an instinctive odium of race, and
with a dim consciousness that it has been ousted from its own. Thus
the population may be said to be triple. Politics are lively, and the
Italianissimi thrive because the constitutional Government, which has
taken the place of the old patriarchal despotism, is weak, acting as
if it feared them. Austria of to-day is feeble and gentlemanly, and as
such is scarcely a match for the actual Italy. Let us lay out a little
map of politics immediately around our small corner of the world.

"Being devoted Austrians, we have many anxieties concerning the
political health of this admirable country. Austria, once so famed
for the astute management, the 'Politiké,' which kept in order the
most heterogeneous of households between Bohemia and Dalmatia, and
from Hungary to the Milanese, is suffering from a complication of
complaints. The first is the economic: her deficit for 1877 is already
laid at twenty-six millions of florins; she lives on paper, and she
habitually outruns the constable. Secondly, are the _modus vivendi_
with Hungary, the Convention, the Bank, and half a dozen other
troubles, which result from the 'chilling dualism' of Count Beust
(1867). The inevitable rivalry of a twofold instead of a threefold
empire is now deepening to downright hostility. The Slavs complain
that the crown of the Empire is being dragged through the mire by the
'Magyarists;' and on December 9th, the Vienna Chamber of Deputies heard
for the first time a proposal to substitute Trialism for Dualism.
Third, and last, is the Eastern Question, in which the poor invalid is
distracted by three physicians proposing three several cures. Doctor
Hungary wants only the integrity (!) of Turkey: alliance with England,
war with Russia. Doctor Germany, backed by the Archduke Albert,
and aided by the army, looks to alliance with Russia, and to the
annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina when Turkey falls to pieces.
Lastly, Doctor Progressist, with the club of the Left, advocates the
cold-water treatment, absolute passivity: no annexation, no occupation,
no intervention. The triad division seems inveterate: even the
Constitutionalist party must split into three--a Centrum, a Left, and
a _Fortschritts partei_. Hence Prince Gortschakoff, not without truth,
characterized this mosaic without coherence as 'no longer a State, but
only a Government.'

"Austria, like England, is suffering from the manifold disorders and
troubles that accompany a change of life. At home we have thrown
over for ever the rule of Aristocracy; and we have not yet resigned
ourselves to what must inevitably come--Democracy pure and simple.
Accordingly, we sit between two stools, with the usual proverbial
result. Austria, in 1848, sent to the Limbo of past things the
respectable 'paternal government,' with its _carcere_, its _carcere
duro_, and its _carcere durissimo_; and threatened to make sausage-meat
of M. Ochsenhausen von Metternich. Constitutionalism, adopted by
automatism, found the Austrians utterly unfit for freedom; and the
last thirty years have only proved that constitutionalism may be more
despotic than despotism. Austria has ever been the prey of minorities,
German and Magyar. Her _Beamter_ class has adopted the worst form of
Latin _Bureaucratie_. Her Press has one great object in life, that
of 'Germanizing' unwilling Slavs. Her fleet has lost Tegetthoff and
Archduke Max. Her army, once the best drilled in Europe, and second
to none in the _ingens magnitudo corporum_, has been reduced by
short service to a host of beardless boys; and the marvels of the
Uchatius gun will not prevent half the regiments being knocked up by a
fortnight's work. But these are the inevitable evils of a transition
system, and if Austria can only tide over her change of life, she will
still enjoy a long, hearty, and happy old age.

"Hence Austro-Hungary is freely denounced as 'disturbing the European
Areopagus.' Hence Paskievich declared in 1854 that the road to Stamboul
leads through Vienna. Hence Fadajeff, the Panslavist, significantly
points out that Europe contains forty millions of Slavs who are _not_
under the White Czar. These ancient Scythians have hitherto shown very
little wisdom. Instead of cultivating some general language,--for
instance, the old Slavonic, which would have represented Latin,--they
are elaborating half a dozen different local dialogues; and, at the
last Slav Congress, the Pan-Slav Deputies, greatly to the delight of
the Pan-Germanists, were obliged to harangue one another in German. If
'Trialism' be carried out in the teeth of Hungary, what and where can
be the capital of the Jugo-Slavs--the Southern and Latin, as opposed
to the Pravo-Slavs or orthodox? Where shall be the seat of its Houses?
Prague is purely Czech, utterly distasteful to Slavonia, Croatia, and
Dalmatia. Laibach in Krain is the only place comparatively central;
but that means that all would combine to reject Laibach. Meanwhile the
Slavs declare that they are treated as Helots, and that they will stand
this treatment no longer.

"Austria will hardly declare war against Russia even at the bidding of
the Turko-Hungarian alliance--even if menaced with her pet bugbear, the
formation of a strong Slav kingdom, or kingdoms, on her south-eastern
frontier. She is thoroughly awake to the danger threatened by her
friends, that of falling into her four component parts, each obeying
the law of gravitation--Styria, Upper and Lower, absorbing herself in
Germany, and Dalmatia and Istria merging into Italy. She has made all
her preparations for occupying Bosnia, which the Turks are abandoning,
and for which it is generally believed they will not fight. Count
Andrassy, the rebel of 1848, the Premier of 1876-78, will keep his
own counsel and carry out his own plans. He has been unjustly charged
with a vacillating and uncertain policy; as if a man who is being
frantically pulled diametrically in four opposite directions were not
obliged to stoop at times in order to conquer.

"Italy has of late made strong representations at Vienna against the
possible occupation of Bosnia by Austria. She knows that the step
would for ever debar her from the possessions of Dalmatia; and that
the old kingdom, the mother of Emperors, will never rest satisfied
till her extensive seaboard is subtended by a proportionate interior.
Italy would prefer to occupy Bosnia _in propriâ personâ_; but, that
being hardly possible, she would leave it occupied, or, worst of all,
occupied by the Turks. Italy is the deadliest enemy of Austria, and
wears the dangerous aspect of a friend. Such is the present standpoint
of the Empire,[4] and you see she is still, as she has been for years,
a 'political necessity.' We, her well-wishers, can only say to her, in
olden phrase, _Tu, felix Austria, nube,_--'Yea, marry, and take unto
thyself the broad and fertile lands lying behind the Dinaric Alps.'

"Meanwhile, Italy, the rival sister of France, the recipient of many
favours from her, and, _par consequence_, her bitterest foe, bides
her time, remains quiet as a church mouse, and, like the Scotchman's
owl, thinks hard. She is at present the last, the only hope of
Latinism. She has shown, since 1870, a prudence, a moderation, an
amount of common sense, comparatively speaking, which have surprised
the world. Ethnologists, who scoffed at 'Panlatinism,' were overhasty
in determining that the game of the Latin race was 'up;' and that the
three progressive families of the future are the English (including the
German and the Anglo-American), the Slav, and the sons of the Flowery
Land. The present standpoint of Italy is this. She has a treaty with
Russia which makes her a spectator. She has returned an overwhelming
majority of the progressists, who aim at converting her into a
Republic; and Italy, classical and mediæval, has never attained her
full development except under Republican rule. Meanwhile, her 'citizens
and patriots' look forward to recovering Nice, where, in 1860, some
26,000 votes against 160 were polled in favour of annexation to France.
She wants an Algeria, and would like to find it at Tunis, with Carthage
for capital. And finally, she would fain round off her possessions
by annexing from Austria the Trentine, the county of Gorizia, the
peninsula of Istria, including the chief emporium, Trieste, and even
the kingdom of Dalmatia.

"It was not a little amusing to note the expression of simple amazement
with which the general Press of England acknowledged the discovery that
Italy 'actually contemplates' this extension of territory. Would they
be surprised to hear that such has been her object for the last six
hundred years; that in her darkest hour she has never abandoned her
claim; that during the last half-century she has urged it with all her
might, and that at the present moment she is steadily labouring to the
same end? We, who derive experience from the pages of history, firmly
believe that the prize would even now be in her hands were it not for
Prussia, who calculates upon the gravitation of the Austro-German
race, and who already speaks of Trieste as 'our future seaport.' But
why, we ask, cannot Italy rest contented with Venice, which, after a
century of neglect, might by liberal measures again become one of the
principal commercial centres of Europe?

"Under Augustus the whole of Istria was annexed to the tenth region of
Italy; the south-eastern limits being the Flumen Arsæ, the modern Arsa,
that great gash in the Eastern flank beyond which began Liburnia. Hence
Dante sang ('Inferno,' ix. 113-115)--

    'Si come a Pola presso del Quarnaro
    _Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna,_
      Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo.'

Hence Petrarch (Sonnet cxiv.) declares of his Laura, whose praises he
cannot waft all the world over--

              '----udralo il bel paese,
    Ch' Apennin parte, e 'l mar circonda e 'l Alpe.'

And who can forget the glorious verse of Alfieri, the first to discern
Italy in the 'geographical expression' of the eighteenth century?--

    'Giorno verrà, tornerà giorno in cui
    Redivivi ornai gli Itali staranno,
    In campo armati,' etc., etc., etc.

"Italy bases her claim to the larger limit, upon geography, ethnology,
and sentiment, as well as upon history. Only the most modest of
patriots contend that the Isonzo river, the present boundary of
Austria, was a capricious creation of Napoleon I. The more ambitious
spirits demand the whole southern watershed of the Julian Alps; nor are
they wanting who, by 'Alps' understanding the Dinaric chain, would thus
include the whole kingdom of Dalmatia inherited from the Romans.

"Ethnologically, again, Istria declares herself Italian, not Austrian.
Her 290,000 souls (round number) consist of 166,000 Latins to 109,000
Slavs, the latter a mongrel breed that emigrated between A.D. 800 and
1657; and a small residue of foreigners, especially Austro-German
officials. The Italians are, it is true, confined to the inner towns
and to the cities of the seaboard; still, these scattered centres
cannot forget that to their noble blood Istria has owed all her
civilization, all her progress, and all her glories in arts and arms.
Lastly, 'sentiment,' as a factor of unknown power in the great sum
of what constitutes 'politics,' is undervalued only by the ignorant
vulgus. The Istrians are more Italian than the Italians. Since the
first constitution of 1848, they have little to complain of the
Government in theory, much in practice. Austria, after the fashion of
Prussia, unwisely attempts to 'Germanize' her Italian subjects, who
in Istria outnumber the Teutons by five to one. The true policy of
Austria would be to Italianize the Italians, to Slavonize the Slavs,
and to Magyarize the Hungarians; in other words, to elicit the good
qualities of her four component races, instead of attempting to unrace
them. And her first practical step should be to abolish all idea of
'Germanizing.' If she did not try for it, it might settle itself.

"The chief danger of Italy, at present, is wishing to go too fast.
She would run before she can walk steadily: she forgets the past:
she ignores that her independence and unity were won for, and not by,
her; that each defeat was to her a conquest. She had the greatest
statesman in Europe, Cavour; who so disposed his game, opening it in
1854 with the Crimean War, and following it up with a seat for Piedmont
amongst the Great Powers in the Congress of Paris, that it led by a
mathematical certainty to Solferino in 1859, and to securing Rome for a
capital in 1870. But 'milor Camillo' is dead, and Prince Bismarck, who
rules in his stead, bluntly says, 'No one can doubt, even beyond the
Alps, that an attack upon Trieste and Istria would meet the point of a
sword which is not Austrian.' Italy must put her house in order before
she can aspire to extend her grounds. Her income is insufficient for
her expenses; her gold is paper; her currency is forced, and her heavy
taxes breed general discontent. She has a noble estate for agriculture,
but her peasants prefer the stocking to the stocks, the Funds, or the
Bank. Her Civil Service is half paid, and compelled to pay itself.
Her Custom-house duties are a scandal to a civilized power, and her
post-office is a farce. Her army cannot compare, in fighting qualities,
with that of Prussia, Austria, or even France. Her sailors are not
tailors, but she cannot afford a first-rate armour-clad fleet; she was
beaten at Lissa, and her seaboard would easily be blockaded by a great
maritime power. Moreover, she has that dual Government at Rome, and a
terrible skeleton in the cupboard,--her treatment of the Pope.

"The Liberal press and the 'indignation meetings' of Italy have been
alternatively severe and sarcastic upon _entente cordiale_ between the
Vatican and the Seraglio. But the Papal logic is clear and sound. It
says, 'The reverence of Constantine for the Keys transferred the seat
of civil empire to the Byzantium, whereas Anti-Christ Russia founded
the pseudo-throne of Saint Peter in the far north. We fought against
the Moslem when he was an aggressor. Innocent XI., not to mention the
crusader-Popes, preached the liberation of Vienna. Pius I. worked up to
the Battle of Lepanto. But things are now changed. You, Bulgarian and
Bosnian Catholics, have religious liberty, and you will have political
liberty when you deserve it! Meanwhile, obey the Sultan, who has
nothing to do with Christianity, and shun Anti-Christ--the Czar.' Good
logic, I say, cold and clear-drawn; but powerless to purge away the
sentiments, the prejudices, and the passions of mankind.

"Italy drives the coach too fast. Patriotic Italians declare that
England has no right to hold Malta. Cyprus was under Venice; _ergo_,
they think it should be under Italy. The Trentine, the Southern Tyrol,
Istria, and Dalmatia, are in the same conditions. The Latin kingdom has
achieved a great position in Japan. She sends her travellers to explore
New Guinea. She aims at being the most favoured nation in Egypt,
where she lately received a severe _schiaffo_. The Italian national
expedition landed in the dominions of the Khedive without having had
the decency to call upon him in Cairo. You know how the Egyptian
noticed the affront. Finally, she talks of herself as one of the
Powers, ready to occupy the insurgent districts which the Porte cannot
reduce. Such is the actual standpoint of United Italy.

"I will now sketch the state of Hungary, whose ambition threatens to
make her aggressive, entitled, by the press of England, the 'backbone
of the Austrian monarchy;' and praised for the 'superior political
organization' with which she has crushed her Slav rivals.

"Since the days, now forgotten, when Prince Esterhazy first flashed,
in London society, his diamond jacket upon the dazzled eyes of the
'upper ten thousand,' the name of Hungarian has been a passport to
favour amongst us. We meet him in the shape of a Kinsky, an Erdŏdy, or
a Hunyadi,--well born, well clad, and somewhat unlearned, except in the
matter of modern languages. But he is a good rider, a keen sportsman,
and a cool player for high stakes--qualities in one point (only) much
resembling Charity. He looks like a gentleman in a drawing-room and in
the hunting-field; he is quite at home at a fancy ball; he wears his
frogged jacket, his tights and his tall boots, his silks, satins, and
furs, with an air; his manners are courteous, cordial, and pleasant;
in money matters he has none of the closeness of the cantankerous
Prussian, none of the meanness of the Italian; and, lastly, he makes
no secret of his sympathy with England, with the English, and with
all their constitution-manias. What can you want more? You pronounce
him a nice fellow, and all, woman especially, re-echo your words,
'He is _such_ a gentleman!' and--he received the Prince of Wales so
enthusiastically!

"But there is another side (politically speaking) to this fair
point of view. The Hungarian is a Tartar with a coat of veneer and
varnish. Hungary is, as regards civilization, simply the most backward
country in Europe. Buda-Pest is almost purely German, the work of the
Teutons, who, at the capital, do all the work; you hardly ever hear
in the streets a word of Magyar, and the Magyars have only managed
to raise its prices and its death-rate to somewhat double those of
London. The cities, like historic Gran on the Danube, have attempts at
public buildings and streets; in the country towns and villages the
thoroughfares are left to Nature; the houses and huts, the rookeries
and doggeries are planted higgledy-piggledy, wherever the tenants
please; and they are filthier than any shanty in Galway or Cork, in
Carinthia or Krain. The Ugrian or Ogre prairies have no roads, or
rather they are all road; and the driver takes you across country when
and where he wills. The peasantry are 'men on horseback,'--in this
matter preserving the customs of their Hun and Tartar ancestors. They
speak a tongue of Turkish affinity, all their sympathies are with their
blood-kinsmen the Turks, and they have toiled to deserve the savage
title of 'white Turks,' lately conferred upon them by Europe.

"Fiume, the only seaport of Hungary, is a study of Hungarian
nationality. The town is neatly built, well paved, and kept tolerably
clean by Slav and Italian labour, the former doing the coarse, the
latter the fine work. The port is, or rather is to be, bran-new.
Because Austria chooses to provide a worse than useless, and
frightfully expensive--in fact, ruinous--harbour for Trieste, whose
anchoring roads were some of the best in Europe, therefore (admire the
consequence) Hungary demands a similar folly for her emporium, Fiume,
whose anchoring roads are still better. After throwing a few million
of florins into the water, the works are committed to the charge of
the usual half-dozen men and boys; moreover, as the port is supposed
to improve, so its shipping and its business fall off in far quicker
ratio. Commerce cannot thrive amongst these reckless, feckless people.
There is no spirit of enterprise, no union to make force, no public
spirit; the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee are bustling New England
centres in comparison with Fiume; and the latter, which might have
become the emporium of the whole Dalmatian coast, and a dangerous rival
to Trieste, is allowing her golden opportunity to pass away never to
return. For when Dalmatia shall have been vitalized by the addition of
Bosnia and the Herzegovina, her glorious natural basins--harbours that
can hold all the navies of the world--will leave Fiume mighty little to
do except what she does now, look pretty and sit in the sun.

"All Englishmen who have lived long amongst Hungarians remark the
similarity of the Magyar and the southern Irish Catholic. Both are
imaginative and poetical, rather in talk than in books; neither race
ever yet composed poetry of the highest class. Both delight in music;
but, as the 'Irish Melodies' are mostly Old English, so the favourites
of Hungary are gypsy songs. Both have the 'gift of the gab' to any
extent, while their eloquence is notably more flowery than fruity.
Both are sharp and intelligent, affectionate and warm-hearted; easily
angered and appeased, delighted with wit, and to be managed by a
_bon mot_; superficial, indolent, sensitive, punctilious, jealous,
quarrelsome, passionate, and full of fight. Both are ardent patriots,
with an occasional notable exception of treachery; both are brilliant
soldiers; the Hungarians, who formerly were only cavalry men, now
form whole regiments of the Austrian Line. They are officered by the
Germans, who will not learn the language, justly remarking, 'If we
speak Magyar, we shall be condemned for ever to Magyar corps, and
when the inevitable split takes place, where shall we then be?' Both
are bold and skilful riders; and, as the expatriated Irish Catholic
was declared by Louis Le Grand--an excellent authority upon such
matters--to be 'one of the best gentlemen in Europe,' so Europe says
the same of the Hungarian _haute volée_.

"As regards politics and finance, Buda-Pest is simply a modern and
eastern copy of Dublin. The Hungarian magnate still lives like the
Squireen and Buckeen of the late Mr. Charles Lever's 'earliest style;'
he keeps open house, he is plundered by all hands, and no Galway
landowner of the last generation was less fitted by nature and nurture
to manage his own affairs. Hence he is drowned in debt, and the Jew
usurer is virtually the owner of all those broad acres which bear so
little. An 'Encumbered Estates Bill' would tell strange tales; but the
sabre is readily drawn in Hungary, and the 'chosen people,' sensibly
enough, content themselves with the meat of the oyster, leaving the
shells to the owner.

"This riotous, rollicking style of private life finds its way into
public affairs; and as a model of 'passionate politics,' the Hungarian
is simply perfect. He has made himself hateful to the sober-sided
German and to the dull Slav; both are dead sick of his _outrecuidance_;
the former would be delighted to get rid of the selfish and
short-sighted irrepressibles, who are ever bullying and threatening
secession about a custom tax, or a bank, or a question of union. They
are scandalized by seeing the academical youth, the _jeunesse dorée_
of Magyar universities, sympathizing with Turkish atrocities, declaring
Turkey to be the defender of European civilization, _fackelzuging_ the
Turkish Consul, insulting the Russians, and sending a memorial sabre
to a Sirdar Ekrem (Commander-in-Chief), whose line of march was marked
by the fire-blackened walls of Giaour villages, and by the corpses of
murdered Christians, men and women and babes. Could the Austro-Germans
only shake off the bugbear of Panslavism, they would cut the cable,
allow the ne'er-do-well Hungarian craft to drift away water-logged into
hypostatic union with that big ironclad the Turk; they would absorb the
whole of Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and Albania; they would cultivate the
Slav nationality, and they would rely upon racial difference of dialect
and religion to protect them against the real or imaginary designs of
Russia. Prince Eugène of Savoy, in the last century, a man of wit, was
of that opinion, and so are we.

"Hungary, indeed, is a tinder-box like Montenegro, and much more
dangerous, because her supply of combustible is on a larger scale.
The last bit of puerile folly has been to press for an Austrian
military occupation of Servia; and why? Because an Austrian monitor,
being in a part of the river where 'No thoroughfare' is put up, was
fired upon with ball cartridges by a _schildwache_ (sentinel) from
the fort walls, and exploded, bungler that she was, one of her own
shells. The Hungarians had been raving at the idea of 'occupation'
in Bulgaria, but the moment they saw an opportunity of breaking the
Treaty of Paris, they proposed doing so at once. By-the-by, now that
Prince Wrede, a _personâ ingratâ_, is removed from Belgrade, you will
hear no more of Servian outrages against Austria. To the 'Magyarists'
we may trace most of the calumnies against the brave and unfortunate
Servian soldiery--lies of the darkest dye, so eagerly swallowed by the
philo-Turk members of the English Press, and danger of Hungary and her
politics of passion. Russians and Turks might be safely put into the
ring together, like 'Down-Easters' in a darkened room, and be allowed
to fight it out till one cried, 'Enough!'

"If these views of Hungary and the Hungarians be true--and they are
our views--you will considerably discount the valuation set upon them
by the Turcophile Press. They were once a barrier against Tartar
savagery, a Finnish race, invited by the Byzantine Emperors to act as
a buffer against Mohammedanism. The three orders of Magyars--Magnates,
Moderates, and Miserables--hate Russia for the sensible and far-seeing
part which she played in 1848-49; all excitement is apt to spread; even
so in a street dog-fight, every cur thinks itself bound to assist, and
to bite and wrangle something or other, no matter what. And where, we
may ask, is the power that can muzzle these Eastern ban-dogs? who shall
take away the shillelaghs of these Oriental Paddies?

"A taste of Hungarian quality has been given by M. Vambéry in the
columns of the _Daily Telegraph_. M. Vambéry was born in Hungary, of
Israelitish German parents. Like the sons of Israel generally, he hates
Russia, and he loves England, and probably he has good and weighty
reasons both for his hate and for his love. He was daring enough to
tell us, in his first book of travels, that after dinner with the
Turkish Minister at Teheran--and a very good dinner it was--he just
disguised himself as a dervish, and travelled perfectly _incog._ for
months and months under Russian eyes, partly through Russian territory.
The Russians must have known every step taken by M. Vambéry. He saw
only what he was allowed to do; and thus Mr. Schuyler, whose name
has, we regret to say, been altered by the irreverent Turcophile to
'Squealer,' roundly declares that he never visited the places which he
has so well described. You will therefore regard M. Vambéry's opinions
upon the subject of Turkey with suspicion, and reserve all your respect
for his invaluable publications upon the Turanian dialects, his
_spécialité_. Lieutenant Payer's book will disappoint you; its main
merit is that of having been written by a Magyar.

"Do not believe these Ugrians to be 'the backbone of the Austrian
Empire,' whatever they may be to its element of weakness, the Monarchy.
And if you are driven to own that the Hungarians 'play the leading part
in the events of Southern Europe,' understand that the chief end and
aim of Magyarist policy is to ruin the Slavs. I am a strong Austrian,
with a great admiration for the Hungarians, who are to me, personally
and individually, most attractive; but this does not blind me to the
disadvantages they, _en masse_, bring to Austria. _I believe the Slav
to be the future race of Europe, even as I hold the Chinese to be the
future race of the East._ In writing politics and history which may
live after one is long forgotten, one must speak the truth, and bury
repulsions and attractions.

"Were I Emperor of Austria, I should have the police organized on
English principles. I should punish with death the first two or three
cases of brutal crime. The people are excellent. It speaks highly for
the independent Triestines that, with weak laws, and authorities that
act as though they dreaded them, the worst crimes are only stabbing
when drunk, and suicide; and the latter is entirely owing to the
excitability of the climate and the utter throwing off of religion,
whilst all moral disgrace or dread is removed by the applause conferred
on the suicide, and sympathy with the surviving family--which last is
good and noble. I have seen thousands accompanying a _felo de se_ to
the grave, with verses and laurel leaves and a band of music, as if he
had done something gallant and brave. Indeed, one was considered very
narrow-minded for not joining in his eulogy.

"They say that forty years ago Trieste was a charming place to live in;
but that, with increase of trade, luxury and money flowed in and faith
flowed out. Let us say that the population is 150,000, with suburbs;
20,000 are practical Catholics, 30,000 are freethinkers, and 90,000
are utterly indifferent. In fact, the national religion is dying out;
and when that is so in a Catholic land, there is nothing to replace
it except Socialism. After repeated outrages and torpedo-throwing,
the Habeas Corpus would have been at once suspended in free England,
and the French would have placed the City under martial law. The
Empire-Kingdom does not, however, disfranchise the turbulent City by
suppressing the local Diet till such time as the public expression of
disloyal feeling shall have disappeared. A more manly policy would suit
better. Trieste is also allowed to retain peculiar privileges. She is
still a free port; her _octrois_ are left to her for squandering and
pillage, and are so heavy that till lately the adjoining villages
consumed sugar which came _viâ_ Holland all round and through Europe.
Trieste has three towns, as well as three races. The oldest is the
Citta Vecchia, which dates before the days of Strabo. Filthy in the
extreme, it is a focus of infection. Smallpox is rarely absent from it,
and it swells the rate of mortality to the indecent figure of 40 to
50 per 1000 per annum; London being 22, and Madras 36. The climate is
peculiar. It has three winds--the _Bora_ (Boreas), the Baltic current,
the winter wind, cold, dry, highly electrical, very exciting, and so
violent that sometimes the quays have been roped, and some of the walls
have iron rails let in to prevent people from being blown into the sea.
And there have been some terrible accidents in my time. An English
engineer has been blown from the quay into the hold of a ship (thirty
feet). I saw him in the hospital, a mere jelly, but nothing more; he is
well and at work. A cab and horse have been upset, and also a train.
The summer wind is the Scirocco, straight from Africa, wet, warm, and
debilitating; whilst the _contraste_ means the two blowing together,
and against each other, with all the disadvantages of both.

"Trieste is a political and coy personage, hotly wooed by Italy and
by Germany. The latter openly declares that she is part of the new
Teutonic Empire, and that the eight millions or so of Austro-Germans
ought to belong body and soul to the Fatherland. Meanwhile she is
enjoyed by the Empire-Kingdom, greatly against the grain. A powerful
rival is rising a few miles to the south, in the person of Croatian
Fiume, which has long ago repented her of having cast her lot with
Hungary. The Flanatic Bay of the ancients is magnificent, almost
equalling the scenery of Naples. A French company is building a port,
which will avoid much of the expense and some of the errors fatal
to Trieste; and but for the inveterate backwardness of the people,
the utter ignorance of what progress means, and the miserable local
jealousies, Fiume, connected by a railway with Agram or Zagabria, might
already have risen upon the decline of Trieste; but Fiume does not see
her advantage, and we retain our supremacy.

"Beyond the Sinus Flanaticus begins the kingdom of Dalmatia, with a
line of natural harbours between Zara and the Bocche di Cattaro, which
are perhaps the finest in the European world. Unhappily, at present
these ports have nothing to export or import. After long and careful
consideration of the question, based upon the impartial hearing of both
sides discussed, we have come to the conclusion, firstly, that the
dualism of 1867 has not been successful; secondly, that Austria should
have been a _Triregno_; thirdly, that H.I.M. Franz Josef might still
be crowned King of Bohemia as well, and thus establish a nucleus about
which the divided families of Slavs, especially the estimable Slovenes,
the Wends who founded Venice, could and would group themselves. I am
essentially Austrian by sympathy; but I do not like the Germans to
chuckle when they tell me that the last great Slavonic Congress, which
met in 1845, was compelled, after various failures, to make speeches in
German; because the laughers ignore the fact that Panslavism is still
rampant in Austria, and the clergy puff up the patriotic movement with
all their might, and that schools and colleges are teaching the rising
generation its rights as well as its wrongs. None but an inveterate
theorist, who holds that the Slav race is not to be the race of
the future, would neglect the importance of a people constituting
nearly half the total of Austro-Hungary--nineteen millions out of the
thirty-four which remained after the cession of Venice in 1866.

"The evil action of this unfair dualism is now causing profound
discontent. Dalmatia is the narrowest kingdom in Europe--300 miles
long by 0 to 15 miles broad, the cypher representing the two spots
where Turkey touches the sea. She is a face without a head; the latter
would be Bosnia and the Herzegovina. She has a profusion of ports
which have nothing to port, and a fine seafaring population ready for,
and capable of, any amount of carrying trade, but condemned to be
professors, custom-house officers, and fishers of sardines. Bosnia,
with her unworked mines and forests, her unimproved flocks and herds,
and her hundred other sources of neglected wealth, is the complement
of, a political necessity to, Dalmatia. Some day she must become
Dalmatian, and the sooner she connects herself with Austro-Hungary by
a _plébiscite_, or some such civilized instrument, the better it will
be for both. The only drawback to this movement in the far west of the
Ottoman Empire is that it appears to be somewhat premature. Russia has
her hands full in Eastern Asia, and Austria has for some time a hole in
her pocket. No one knows how sick the famous Sick Man really is since
his last attack of Russomania, following his chronic Russophobia[5]--an
attack brought on by our own disgraceful (Liberal) abandonment of the
Black Sea Treaties. None know, save those who have sat by his bedside,
looked at his tongue, and have felt his pulse. He was breaking fast
when he determined to risk a national bankruptcy. Finding the so-called
'tax of blood' too heavy, he was already talking of a Christian
recruitment, which would have been the beginning of the end; and the
paroxysm induced by sending a few thousand troops to ravage and lay
waste his discontented outlying estates, has reduced him to the last
gasp. For the rebellion, although premature, is a reality--it will not
be put down by paper; it means to last till next spring, and when the
fighting season comes it will call for the armed intervention of Europe.

"The integrity of the Ottoman Empire has been, since the days of
Chatham, a fortieth article of faith to English statesmen; although
since the publication of Macfarlane's 'Turkey and her Destiny,' every
traveller from Mostar to Bussorah, from Candia to Circassia, has shown
up the miserable misrule which oppresses those fair and fruitful
regions. The British Cabinet till now has not opened its eyes to ask
'How long?' or has had originality enough or irreverence sufficient
to pull down the old idol, and to propose a remedy for the present
condition of things. The official mind was made up; there was no more
to be said upon the subject. A Government that preferred peace and
present prosperity to the discharge of an arduous and distasteful
duty, laid down its law, determined to let sleeping dogs lie, till
that little matter of the Turkish debt, the neatest thing done by the
arch-enemy of the Ottoman, came like a thunderbolt and 'roused the
spirit of the British Lion.'

"Meanwhile the action of Austria has been sadly trammelled by the
Dualism which she has brought upon herself. The German population of
the Empire naturally dislikes being swamped by the new influx of Slavs,
but it has not proved itself unpatriotic. The contrary is the case with
the kingdom of Hungary--the five millions of Magyar who, strengthened
by the position and the character of Count Andrassy, have opposed
themselves with all their might to the development of Dalmatia. This
is a mistake, because sooner or later Dalmatia will develop herself
without them. The reason that Austro-German officers joining Hungarian
regiments avoid as much as possible studying the language is that they
fear not being allowed to exchange, and they do not see their way in
case of a separation between the Empire and the Kingdom.

"The British philo-Turk, if any there be now, would characterize the
absorption of Bosnia and Herzegovina--I would even add Montenegro
and Albania, with the frontier of Greece--as a spoliation of Turkey.
Let him prove that it is not a just and right retaliation for
the centuries of injury which she has inflicted, which she still
inflicts, and which she will ever inflict, upon the sacred causes of
civilization and progress. If any casuist declare that the misrule of
a Government, as in the case of Oude, does not justify the annexation
by Powers professing faith in the development of man, in the religion
of humanity; if he put forward that old saw, that 'the end does not
justify the means,' let him be answered that Europe has duties which
she owes to herself; that the first rule of conduct is her own safety,
and that the second is the support of her co-religionists in Europe and
Asia, throughout the Ottoman Empire. The Christian population equals,
if not exceeds, the Mohammedan, and the evident hope with which it
looks forward to emancipation from Islamism deserves the most careful
consideration.

"For the last ten years the relations of Great Britain with Turkey
have been peculiar and unsatisfactory. The Ottoman voice has openly
said, 'The last Englishman who cared for us was Lord Palmerston. You
will assist us if it be to your interest, no matter how we treat you,
well or ill. You do not fight for an idea, like France. You will not
fight for love of us, as in the days of Silistria and Eupatoria. We
prefer an open enemy to a false friend. Go to! We have had enough of
you.' And they showed their especial contempt by their treatment of
English subjects in Turkey; the debts owed to them by the Turk remain
unpaid, and in Syria our fellow-countrymen were the last to receive the
compensation for the destruction of their property in the massacre of
1860.

"Again, the present is, if any, the moment for us to act, or to
encourage action in others. The stride of the young Colossus is
temporarily, not lastingly, stayed. In future times[6] _quien sabe?_
(but God avert it!) we may be so hampered by civil disturbances between
Capital and Labour, so trammelled by intestine troubles in Ireland, or
so engaged in external war, that moral force only will not suffice to
give our voice any weight in the European world. And the effect would
be allowing Russia, a vigilant enemy of overpowering resolution, to
annex Turkey in Europe without any attempt to preserve the last rag of
balance of power by strengthening the hands of Austria.

"Again, there are thousands of our fellow-countrymen scattered over
the surface of Turkey, and were England known to be incapacitated
from using arms, yet having arms and money, it is to be feared that
the first Russian gun fired from Constantinople would be the signal
of a miserable butchery. But it will be said that the Sultan has
begun the task of reform; his last rescript has been more favourable
to the Rayyahs than anything ever issued by Turkey. I reply, it is
easy to have dust thrown in our eyes provided we open them for the
purpose. What have all the Hatts Shereef or Humayoun yet done for the
Christian Turk? We must be made, after the image of David Urquhart, to
believe in such pie-crust promises. Grant we that H.I.M. the Sultan
is sincere, yet he cannot act himself, and there is no one to act for
him. The Turkish official, and, for the matter of that, the unofficial,
society is much like her army. The private is an excellent man, sober,
honest, truthful, brave, and docile to a degree. Promote him, and he
runs through the several grades of bad comparison, not _repenté_,
but with an agility which surprises the slow northern mind. As a
non-commissioned officer he is bad; higher he is worse; and command
makes him worst. The same with the French peasant; give him a small
_emploi_, a bit of gold lace, and he falls from an angel to a demon in
a week, without stopping to look round.

"Now back to _notre premier amour_, Trieste. I associate with
politicians and clever men all day, with open eyes and ears; and an
occasional peep at a despatch makes one learn a great deal, and form
strong opinions. I am neither philo-Turk nor Russ. I am John Bull to
the backbone, with personal Austrian sympathies, and a strong leaning
to all that is of Arab blood.

"This port was once a favourite with the British bird of passage,
especially when embarking with the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd for
Alexandria. But the Northerner did not approve of the line. He liked
his beef and mutton in huge joints, not in slices and cutlets; he
preferred his potatoes in their jackets to _pommes de terre à la
maître d'hôtel_; in fact, he grumbled about everything, and at Suez he
transferred himself on board the P. and O. like one that had found a
home. The stranger has also been put to flight by the hotel-managers.
This city is one of the dearest in Europe. The shilling, the lira,
and the franc have become the florin; but these gentlemen gild
refined gold, and charge highly for the operation. There are three
establishments which call themselves first-rate, and which Englishmen
would consider decently comfortable. Unhappily, they belong to
companies, not individuals, and they are farmed out to managers, who
squeeze you as the tax-gatherer does the Rayyah. There are no tables
of charges hung up in the rooms, so you pay according to length of
purse, real or supposed. Thus the late Lord Dalling had a bill of £45
for two days, during which he never dined in the house, and the present
Prince Ypsilante was plundered at the same time of 950 florins. It is
said that he sent for the manager, and, after settling his account,
warmly complimented him upon being the greatest rascal he had ever had
to do with. So the late Lord Hertford, when paying off his Parisian
architect, politely regretted that he had never had _le déplaisir de sa
connaissance_.

"All the world here is reading M. Charles Yriarte. That popular writer,
the Ipsilon of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, who spent the winter of
1873-4 in Istria and Dalmatia, Montenegro and Herzegovina, published
his trip in the illustrated journal, the _Tour du Monde_; and, the
time being propitious, it was translated into Italian at Milan, with
a variety of notes, taking the Italianissimo view of the matter,
and converting a delightful tale of travel into a rabid wrangle of
politics. The Austrian Government has shown a want of knowledge of
human nature, put the book _à l'index_, confiscating every copy found
in the libraries; consequently we are all devouring it _en cachette_."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Red Sea_.]

[Here we change from Central Europe to the massacre at Jeddah in 1858
(the source of the official wigging), and the cause of cholera.]

"In 1858 there was a cruel, cowardly massacre of the few Europeans
and Christians, including the English and French Consuls, which was
revenged by the French with two bombardments and a fine of 2,241,016
francs. It arose from our suppression of the slave-trade, and jealousy
at finding that the Europeans, whose exports and imports are worth
about £3,000,000, were absorbing the commerce; moreover, these two
feelings still exist. Our present Vice-Consul, Mr. Wylde, is a man
well fitted to the post, which is anything but a pleasant one. His
open-hearted, straightforward, and fearless ways of dealing with the
natives succeed perfectly. He knows what the native disposition is,
and how to treat it, whilst he is of a joyous temperament and quite
insensible to any danger. Still (as he laughingly remarked to me
one day) it would doubtless be much more comfortable if the morning
and evening _shell_ (instead of gun) were fired into the town; and,
joking apart, every passing Man-of-war ought to have orders to look
in _en passant_, just to call on the authorities, and to see what the
delightful natives have been up to since the last ship passed. Some
day the Wali Pasha of the Hejaz may be a fanatical hater of Europeans,
the Kaimmakám of Jeddah may be a weak-minded good-intentioned man who
cannot keep things in order, or intestine troubles may draw away the
troops; and these visits are more necessary in places where perpetual
orders from home necessitate an interference with the slave-trade,
which the Arabs are ever ready to resist. There ought to be cruisers
perpetually visiting and reporting upon the condition of all the
outlying little ports, where at present British subjects are unfairly
left to take care of themselves.


"HOW CHOLERA SPREADS--THE JEDDAH MASSACRE OF 1858.


"One must read 'Une Mission au Hedjaz Arabie,' par Dr. Buez (Paris:
Masson, 1873, Académie de Médecine), which treats of the epidemics
which the Hajj engenders,--the focus of infection for Egypt, the
Mediterranean, and consequently for Europe. At any rate, one may note
the nine conclusions.

"1. Arabia, and especially El Hejaz, with its pure air, does not
originated the morbid elements which express themselves in dysentery
and typhus, cholera and plague. Small-pox, however, in certain places
is always to be dreaded.

"2. Cholera is at present the special genesis of India.

"3. Steamers, though on the whole beneficial to the general health
of the pilgrims, produce new sanitary conditions, and aid greatly in
propagating the choleraic element, thus becoming a permanent and, at
times, a real danger to Europe. The same is the case with railroads,
but to a much less extent.

"4. All the great outbreaks in the Hejaz, notably that of 1865, when
five hundred _per diem_ died at Mecca during the Hajj, were imported,
indirectly or directly, from India, and then spread over the civilized
world.

"5. The problem of preserving Egypt, Syria, the Levant, and Europe from
cholera is to be resolved only through the strictest surveillance,
by competent men, over pilgrims bound from India to the Hejaz, and
to Egypt from the Red Sea ports--Jeddah, Rais, Rabegh, Yambu, Líth,
Gonfodah, Jisán, Hodaydah, Lohayah, Mocha, etc.

"6. The question is complicated by the existence of choleraic foci,
which may be termed secondary and local, as opposed to primitive or
original, where the epidemic has lingered, and possibly has incubated
till again exasperated by occult conditions--telluric, atmospheric, or
hygienic. This fact demands increased measures of surveillance. They
may not be thoroughly satisfactory, but because we cannot close all the
doors we need not leave all the largest open.

"7. At the period of embarking from the Red Sea ports, where _bakshish_
is the key to most consciences, the local Health Office and the
member of the Sanitary Council annually sent from Stamboul after the
International Conference of 1866 should be assisted by a special
commission of European physicians, who could, moreover, modify and
improve the different 'Passenger Acts.'

"8. 'Long Desert,' a march of twenty-one days, is the best of _cordon
sanitaires_, alone able to 'purge' infected caravans.

"9. _Ergo_, when the Hejaz is attacked by cholera the sea-road should
be peremptorily closed to all pilgrims, an operation whose difficulties
have been greatly and needlessly exaggerated; nor should it be reopened
till after at least one pilgrimage season has passed away without
accident.

"To these wise conclusions I would add a truth. All quarantinary
measures are unpopular with Moslems, who regard them as inventions
of the evil one, or, as the vulgar say, 'flying in the face of
Providence.' Moreover, at Mecca it is every man's interest to conceal
the outbreak; and there is always a danger of the earliest cases
finding their way to Jeddah before the existence of cholera is
suspected at the port. Indeed, clean bills have been given under such
circumstances. Evidently, the only remedy for this evil is to make the
special sanitary commission of European physicians meet annually at
Mecca.

"Now, if such great meteoric changes can be effected by a mere riband
of water let into the sand, what will happen when we submerge a great
part of the African Sáhara (whose eastern limits are unknown), and
thereby create a sea, perhaps, bigger than the Mediterranean? We
cannot calculate the possible amount of climatic modification which
such a new offset of the Atlantic might induce; and some clever men
think that the Sáhara Sea is likely to affect many parts of the
Mediterranean basin, and even the whole southern seaboard of Europe,
with changes which may be deleterious in the extreme. The scirocco
from Africa is the summer wind _par excellence_ of the 'White Sea,' as
the Arabs call it, blowing through half the year, and that half the
most dangerous--if we submerge the desert, say with a foot or two of
water upon rotting vegetation, what will its effect be upon the world's
health?

       *       *       *       *       *

"A new Passenger Act is, I believe, about to appear; let us hope that
it will abate one part of the nuisance. At present we can never feel
safe on board these crowded cattle-pens. An epidemic might break out
any moment; in case of shipwreck all would be lost; and even if the
screw were injured, or the main shaft were to break, hundreds on board
would die of starvation.

"Each ship should be compelled to carry a condensing apparatus
and cooking-ranges, calculated to accommodate the pilgrims; while
one passenger per two tons (registered) should be the maximum of
freightage. Before departure, the devotees ought to be severally and
carefully inspected by the Port Surgeons; at Aden the health officer
should take them in charge; and in case of infectious disease having
appeared on the voyage, they should be quarantined at Perim or at the
Kumarán Islands, off Lohayya. No one after a certain age should be
allowed to embark--the Korán allows him to send a substitute; and the
same is the case with the infirm and with invalids. Each person should
prove that he carries at least four hundred rupees in ready money, and
that he has left with his family sufficient to support it according
to its station: such is the absolute order of the Hanafi school, to
which all these Bengalis belong. On arriving at Jeddah, all should take
out passports from her Majesty's Consulate, paying a fee of one rupee
per head, and the same for _visas_ after return: the French and the
Dutch charge a dollar. Proclamations in Hindostani and Persian should
be issued at the several Presidencies, and be published in the local
papers every year before the annual preparations for the pilgrimage
begin. I am certain that all sensible Hindí Moslems would be grateful
for a measure relieving them from exorbitant charities, and from the
reproach that Hindustan is the 'basest of kingdoms;' whilst we should
only be doing our duty,--a little late, it is true, but better now than
neglecting till the evil shall have become inveterate. That everlasting
incuriousness and _laissez-aller_ of the Anglo-Indian are the only
reasons why precautions were not taken twenty-five years ago.


_The Massacre._


"I took some trouble to investigate the causes which led to the
horrible massacre of June 15, 1858. This is far from being an old tale
of times which will not return; it is an example of what may occur any
day in the present excited state of the Moslem world. Moreover, the
conditions under which it occurred are precisely those of the present
moment, and an ugly symptom has just appeared.[7] The village _moplah_
(Malabar Moslem), who murdered Mr. Conolly, has been allowed to escape
from surveillance at Jeddah, to embark at Líth, and probably to return
to India _viâ_ Makalla in Hadramant. But as popular memory in England
is short upon such subjects, it is necessary to give a _résumé_ of the
facts.

"The innovation of appointing European Consuls to Jeddah, the 'Gate of
the Holy City,' was resented by the Moslems, both on the grounds of
religion and of private interests, especially when protected foreign
subjects began to absorb the greater parts of the commerce. Several
_ballons d'essai_ were launched. In 1848 an attempt was made to
assassinate, near the Medinah Gate, M. Fulgence Fresnel, the famous
Arabist, who was often consulted upon questions of casuistry by the
D.D.'s of Mecca. The criminal was saved by a certain Abdullah Muhtásib,
a Fellah of Lower Egypt, who began life as a baker, and who rose to
be farmer of the _octroi_ and Chief of the Police; thus being able to
bribe and bully _à discretion_. In 1849, Mr. Consul Ogilvie was openly
insulted in the bazar, and obtained no redress. During my first visit
to Jeddah, Mr. Consul Cole had avoided all troubles by his firmness
and conciliatory manners; but, after his departure, the so-called 'War
of the Sherífs' (1854) suggested a grand opportunity for despoiling
the Christians. Abdullah Muhtásib again appeared as the villain of the
play. He was, however, arrested, and exiled to Masáwwah by the _Wali_
of the Hejaz, Namik Pasha.

"In 1856 Abdullah Muhtásib returned triumphant from his exile, and
the Sepoy war of 1857 once more offered him a tempting opportunity.
Actively assisted by his son, he brought into the plot the Kadi (Abd
el Kadir Effendi), the Sayyid el Amúli, the Shaykh Bagafur, Abdullah
Bakarum, and the wealthy merchant Yusuf Banaji. Presently, in June,
1858, during the height of the pilgrimage, it became known that
Captain Pullen, H.M.S. _Cyclops_, intended to carry off the _Irania_,
an English ship upon which Turkish colours had been hoisted. Abdullah
Muhtásib and his friends met at the Custom-house _café_, and sat, _en
permanence_, to direct the issue of their conspiracy. At two p.m. on
June 15, the ship was worked out, the boats of the _Cyclops_ left, and
the coast was clear.

"Violent harangues in the bazar roused the cry of 'Death to the
Infidel!' The plot burst like a barrel of gunpowder, and at six p.m.
the massacre began. The Sayyid el Amúli took charge of Mr. Page, whom
he beheaded with his own hand; the body was thrown into the streets
to be hacked to pieces by the mob; the house was plundered, and the
flagstaff was torn up. M. Sabatier, however, is in error when he
reports that the English dragoman and _kawwás_ were murdered: one died
lately, and the other, a very old man, is still living.

"Meanwhile, two bands of ruffians attacked the other objects of their
hate. One rushed to the French Consulate, and broke in the doors when
they were closed by the _kawwás_. Madame Eveillard was first stabbed,
and then her husband was cut down, despite the heroic defence of the
daughter, Mdlle. Elsie, who, after seizing one of the chief murderers
by the beard, and severely biting his arm, was wounded by a yataghan in
the face. She and the lady's-maid, saved by the tardy arrival of the
_kaimmakám_ (commandant) and two Government _kawwáses_, were taken from
the blood-bespattered home to a Turkish house. Monsieur Emérat,[8] the
Chancellor, after bravely fighting for fifteen minutes, was preserved
in the same way, and, sabred in three places, was led by his faithful
Algerian, Haji Mahommed, to the quarters of Hasan Bey, commanding the
artillery. M. de Lesseps was, therefore, misinformed about Mdlle.
Eveillard saving herself by drawing the cushions of the divan over her
body, and by simulating death whilst the murderers slashed at her legs.
He says nothing of the _kaimmakám_, and he attributes the honour of
saving the two lives to a negro boy and the old Algerine soldier.[9]
The flagstaff was torn down, the tricolour trampled upon, and the
Consulate given over to plunder.

"The other band rushed to the house of Sabá Mascondi, the richest
of the Greek merchants, and therefore the most obnoxious of all the
Christians. My husband well remembers this amiable and inoffensive man.
He had been repeatedly warned, but he refused to believe a massacre
possible till he and his party, some twenty men, mostly from Lemnos,
met one evening. At length, when it was reported that the Consulates
were being pillaged, three of them went out to inquire. Meanwhile the
armed mob rushed in, and instantly cut down eight; the rest jumping out
of the windows, and flying over the terraces and down the street, to
reach the sea. Poor Sabá veiled his head, and also tried to escape. M.
Sabatier heard two accounts of his death: one was that he was killed in
the house of the English dragoman (an error); the other, that he was
recognized in his rude disguise by the son of Abdullah Muhtásib, who
blew out his brains with a pistol. This is a fact.

"The French Consul-General also relates that the _Cyclops_, anchored
only three miles off, perceiving a tumult in the town, armed her boats
and sent them to find out the cause; that the crews were fired upon,
and that they returned, without further action, to their ship. It
is hard to believe this. A few shells thrown into Jeddah would have
cleared every street in half an hour. No justification was wanted for
resenting so gross an insult, and instant measures might have saved
some unhappy lives. But in those days we were still under the glamour
of that most unfortunate Crimean War, and modern England does not, as a
rule, encourage her officers to incur any manner of responsibility.

"The first act of retribution was on the early morning of July 25, when
the _Cyclops_, at the distance of twenty-five hundred yards, bombarded
Jeddah for two hours. This was repeated till noon on the 26th, when
the new Governor-General, Namik Pasha, arrived. The people, of course,
evacuated the town; a few houses were injured, a minaret was knocked
crooked, and some fifteen boats were destroyed.

"Presently France, who, whatever may have been her sins of omission
and commission, has ever shown a noble jealousy of her national honour,
determined not to be played with after this fashion; and she sent, not
a 'person of rank,' but M. Sabatier, the fittest head and hand for the
work. The inapt and treacherous politic of the Porte on this occasion
bears a fraternal resemblance to her manœuvres adopted after the
massacre of Damascus (1860), with this difference: at Beyrout there was
no Sabatier, but there was a certain trickster of the first order, Fuad
Pasha, whose reckless ambition had caused the catastrophe. The Sultan
appointed, as his Commissioner, one Ismail Pasha, who hastened off to
the Hejaz, and, in concert with the feeble and negligent Namik Pasha,
put to death half a dozen poor devils, complied a voluminous _Mazbatah_
(_procès verbale_), and hurried back to Constantinople with thirty-nine
'compromised' individuals. Heavy bribes had induced him to estimate the
damage done to Christian property at twenty thousand francs. '_Il était
difficile de faire associer les consuls de France et d'Angleterre à
meilleur marché_,' is M. Sabatier's only comment upon this part of the
proceeding.

"As Ismail Pasha persisted in conversation with his two
fellow-Commissioners, that his part of the work had been thoroughly
done, and that he was expected at Stamboul, M. Sabatier and Captain
Pullen, R.N., set out in the _Cyclops_, with the English and
French flags flying together on the mainmast, and reached Jeddah
on October 12th, 1859. Here they found Commodore Seymour with the
_Pelorus_ (twenty-one guns); the corvette _Assaye_ (ten guns); and
the _Chesapeake_ (fifty-one guns) expected. Five days afterwards,
Namik Pasha arrived from Mecca; and, as the Turkish Commissioner
had admitted that all the local authorities were accessories to the
murder, M. Sabatier proceeded to examine all witnesses, Moslems as
well as Christians. Even he, accustomed for long years to the abstruse
chicanery of the East, must have been surprised to hear the Turkish
authorities laying the blame upon Captain Pullen; as if a mere question
of maritime and international law could have borne such fruits. Even
he, so well inured to the contempt of European intelligence--which is
an article of faith with all Orientals--must have been startled, as
well as shocked, to see the abominable Abdullah Muhtásib sitting side
by side with Hasan Bey, the wretched commandant of artillery, when
the Consulate of France was still a mere shell, and the walls were
bespattered with the blood of his fellow-countrymen.

"It would be tedious to relate how bravely and how well M. Sabatier did
his duty. Briefly, in January, 1859, Tricoult, _capitaine de frégate_,
appeared upon the stage, and a few hours brought the authorities to
their senses. The miserable Ismail Pasha lost his head on 'Raven's
Isle,' within sight of Jeddah; Abdullah Muhtásib and the Sayyid el
Amúli on the Custom-house square (January 21st, 1859). The fine for the
losses of the Christians amounted to 2,241,016 francs, of which 500,000
were paid to the Eveillard family, 100,000 to M. Emérat, and 100,000 to
Sabá Mascondi's relatives.

"The Jeddah massacre was made the stalking-horse to bring down
slave-trading in the Red Sea, which had already been abolished
theoretically (1885) under the effects of the Crimean War. In June,
1869, vizierial letters were addressed especially to the Hejaz, without
any effect beyond causing a disturbance; they were essentially dead
letters, worth only their weight of spoiled paper. This is not the
place for so extensive a subject. I will only state that the traffic
still flourishes at Jeddah; that the market, till lately, was under the
eyes of the British Consulate; that on representation it was removed a
few yards off; that the Turkish authorities, even if they wished, are
unable to stop or even to hinder it; and that the only remedy is armed
intervention, serious and continued,--in fact, a 'Coffin Squadron,'
like that of the Persian Gulf, stationed in the Red Sea, with 'slave
approvers' all around the coast of Arabia. I need hardly say that
we should demand the right of search, and that a Consul-General or
Slave Commissioner, with a sufficient staff and salary, the use of
a gunboat, and a roving commission, should be appointed to the Red
Sea, independently of the Consul-General of Egypt, and in lieu of the
trading Consul of Jeddah.

"M. Sabatier on the occasion omitted only one step, probably because he
judged that the hour to take it had not struck. He should have insisted
upon Mecca being opened to the world, and upon all travellers being
protected there, as they are at Jerusalem and other 'Holy Cities.'
It is high time that these obsolete obstructions to the march of
civilization should everywhere be swept away; the world will endure
them no longer. Mecca is not only a great centre of religion and
commerce; it is also the prime source of political intrigues, the very
nest where plans of conquest and schemes of revenge upon the Infidel
are hatched; and, as I have before said, the focus whence cholera is
dispersed over the West. Shall a misplaced sentiment of tolerating
intolerance allow her to work in the dark against humanity? Allah
forbid it!

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _India_.]

[We now change to India.]

"I suppose no one has any idea (and certainly no foreigner has) of the
amount of diplomacy or the responsibility incurred by the Viceroy of
India. The India House may well be quoted as 'the focus of politics for
nearly all Asia, and the storehouse of romance of all the East.' It
has to regulate our relations with all the neighbouring foreign Powers
_beyond_ the limits of Hindustan, and with the four hundred and sixty
dependent Princes and Chiefs within our own Indian Empire.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I inspected the cotton-mills. It is evident that India must become a
manufacturing country, or it can no longer defend its teeming millions
from famine. When this great work shall have been done, Great Britain,
with one foot on Hindustan and the other in China, will command
the cotton and wool manufactures of the world, and be the greatest
producing power ever known.

       *       *       *       *       *

"We now know, even at home, that India is not a country, but a
continent. It contains as many races as the whole of Europe: here
we have the Jangali, or wild men; the Dravidians, or old Turanian
immigration; the pure Aryans from Persia, as the Nágar Brahman; the
vast variety of mixed breeds between Dravidian and Aryan, such as the
Telinga Brahman; and, besides these four great families, a number of
intrusive peoples--Christians from Chaldea and Portugal; Jews, white
and black; Rohillas ('hill-people') from the Afghan mountains; Sidis
(Wásáwáhili) from Zanzibar; and Arabs, pure or mixed, the latter
showing its type in the Mapillahs (Moplahs) of Malabar. After all, in
Europe there are only three: the great Slav race, occupying the eastern
half of the continent; the Scandinavo-Teuton; and the Græco-Latin
races. Europe also speaks three great forms of language; here we
have the three, Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic, or Turanian, with
some thirty modifications of the Prakrit, which, in the hands of the
literati, became, like the modern Greek spoken at Athens, the Sanskrit,
or finished speech. It was the same with the _Latina Rustica_, not the
language of Virgil and Cicero, but the quaint country tongues which
branched off into the neo-Latin family.

"Again, the climate of India has a far wider range than that of Europe,
even if we throw into the latter Iceland and Spitzbergen. The west
regions of the mighty Himalayas, the 'Homes of Snow,' represent the
Polar regions; and we run through the temperates into the tropical, or
rather the equinoctial, about Ceylon. And what a richness and diversity
of productions in the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral worlds,
compared with the poor produce of the temperate regions! What untold
wealth still hidden in the soil, and awaiting the skill and energy
of the nineteenth century! What a grand field for exploration and
discovery! Dr. de Marchesetti, a young Italian botanist from Trieste,
assures us that the fungi, one of the most interesting families of
plants, have hardly been studied at all. And how much remains for us to
learn! For instance, no sword-cutter in Europe can tell you anything
about the steel which makes the far-famed Khorásáni blades, miscalled
'Damascus;' and the dismantiferous regions between the valleys of the
Ganges and the Krishna are in great part unexplored ground.

       *       *       *       *       *

"On the other hand, the Kharekwasla Tank and the noble dam, built by
Mr. Joyner, C.E., are well worth visiting, both on account of the
intrinsic excellence of the work, and the great consequences to which
such works must lead. It not only supplies the 'Monsoon Capital' of the
Bombay Presidency, but it will diffuse life and plenty over some ninety
linear miles of now waste ground. Travelling from Poonah to Hyderabad,
you remark that the land at this season is mostly fit only for the
traditional dragon and wild ass; it is, like Sind, a cross between an
oven and a dust-bin. Yet where the smallest rill flows, all is life
and verdure; the emerald-green topes, and the leek-green paddy fields,
are a repose to the sight, a 'coolness to the eye,' as the Arabs say;
and you hasten to plunge that hot and weary organ into the damp lush
vegetation of orchard and field and kitchen-garden. The first step will
be to supply water, as Mr. Joyner is doing; the second, to regulate its
use. Here the golden fluid is wasted in a way which would scandalize
the Arab, the Egyptian, the Sindi, and the 'Heathen Chinee.'

"And this leads us to notice another popular error which has gained
possession of the British brain. Certain statistics, which may be
correct, have taught it that India is an overcrowded land, and that
its population per square mile, exceeding that of England, approaches
that of Belgium. This, as with all statistics, is both true and untrue.
Parts of Bengal, for instance, teem with human life; and as native wars
are no more, and famines are to be turned, regardless of expense, into
plenty, or rather profusion, the peasantry will end, in Kafir phrase,
with 'eating one another up.' For note that the true cause of Indian
famines is concealed from England. There is plenty of provision. There
is an abundance of transport. But the people are so penniless that when
grain rises one penny a pound, they must live on wild roots or starve.

"The statement that India is overcrowded is utterly misleading as
regards the whole of India. Throughout the peninsula the lands are of
three kinds, not including the jungles and forests, which cannot be
touched without danger of diminishing the rain-supply. There are the
fertile, as Gujerat; the wholly desert, mostly sandy and stony tracks;
and the half-desert, which grows luxuriant crops only during the rains.
And the latter are so extensive that with irrigation they would support
at least treble the actual number of inhabitants.

"India, then, has more than one string to her bow: she will dispose
of her increasing millions in three ways. Firstly, she will keep them
at home and feed them by irrigation, which costs much, gives slow
profits, but ends by being the best of investments. Secondly, she will
export them to our other colonies, where labour is so much wanted, and
where, as free hands, they will take the place of our old friend, the
'a'mighty nigger.' Sind, I need hardly tell you, calls aloud for them,
and can offer the richest of soils. Thirdly, she will retrench her
useless expenditure; abolish a host of local Governors who should be
Secretaries; of Commanders-in-Chief who should be Major-Generals; and
of Members of Council whose chief work is to spoil foolscap. Lastly,
she will become a manufacturing country. She has coal and iron; she
breeds millions of human beings, hireable at sixpence a day; her men
can mine, and her women and children can work at _la petite industrie_.
Despite the 'mildew' with which mildewed Manchester, _pace_ Mr. E.
Ashworth, is attempting to inoculate India; despite the timidity of
statesmen, and despite the jealousy of the manufacturing mob, which
wishes to buy dirt-cheap from India, and to make her pay 100 per cent.
for working her own produce, we have a conviction, as we have before
said, that Indian manufactures will succeed; and that Great Britain,
with one foot on Hindustan and another in China, whose three hundred
millions work at threepence a day, will command the wool and cotton
markets of the world, and will become the greatest producing power that
the globe ever bore.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Lanauli is a place of some importance, being the locomotive station
at the head of the Bhore Ghát, whilst the site upon the edge of
the Sahyadri Range renders it tolerably healthy for the Europeans.
Consequently, where a few huts formerly rose, the place now contains
some two hundred pale faces. I saw with immense satisfaction
fifty-three men of the New Railway Volunteer Corps, which numbers
a total of one hundred and fourteen, being drilled by a red-coated
sergeant, under the eye of Captain Buckley. This is truly a patriotic
movement, and one which may prove far more important than we expect
in these days, when the native powers have armies far exceeding our
own in numbers. There is hardly an 'Indian officer' who does not
expect another 'Sepoy Mutiny' within ten years, and yet we do little
to prepare for it. Were I Viceroy, every station should have its
cannon-armed and casemated place of refuge.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Shere Ali Khan is an ill-conditioned Prince--proud, coarse, and
violent. Yet there is something to be noted on the side of this little
Highland chief. His hostility dates from those early days when,
perhaps, we deserved scant friendship. During the Sepoy Mutiny he urged
the invasion of the Punjaub upon his wise old father, Dost Mohammed
Khan, whom a Russian paper reports on the throne, although he has been
dead for years. The masterly inactivity which Lord Lawrence still dares
to recommend, did not prevent that Viceroy acknowledging the claims of
Afzal Khan, the brother who had deprecated the Punjaub invasion. Shere
Ali had a pet grievance against Lord Mayo, and he was especially hurt
by Lord Northcote refusing to pay his subsidy--'tribute,' the wise
would call it--with the desired regularity. His relations with the
present Viceroy need hardly be noticed. The truth is that a policy of
alternate do-nothing, bullying, and cajoling have persuaded him firmly
that he holds the road to India; that the keys of the treasure-house
are in his hands. Hence he persistently refused to receive the Káshgar
mission; 'their blood be upon their own heads if they come to Cabul!'
Hence he admitted no English representatives, and he hardly permitted
the _Wakeel_, or resident Agent of her Majesty's Government, to address
him in Durbar. That he despises us, we cannot fail to see; nor less can
we fail to feel that we have not forced him to respect us. We might
have withdrawn that phantom of a _Wakeel_; we might also have withdrawn
his subsidy or tribute, a lakh of rupees _per mensem_, till his
manners improved; or, better still, we might have reserved it for his
successor. But a high-principled Viceroy objected that such proceedings
would be a 'premium upon rebellion.'

"That unhappy mission has placed us between the horns of an ugly
dilemma. If we do not fight, we offend public opinion at home and
abroad, in England and in India. If we do fight, we play Russia's
own game. Although never committed to paper, there was an implied
agreement between the two great Europe-Asiatic Powers that our Asiatic
army should not be employed in European wars. The policy of the
moment thought fit to throw a new weight into the scale; and Russia's
comment must have been something of this nature: 'Oh! you will employ
your Sepoys in Europe, will you? All right; meanwhile you shall have
enough to do with them in India!' Whatever alarmists told the world,
Russia has hitherto meddled mighty little with our Eastern Empire.
Now, however, times have changed, and we may look out for squalls. Our
Imperial 'Bakht,' our conquering star, our unbroken good luck, may yet
be our shield and our defender. Not the less this Afghan war threatens
to be the beginning of serious, nay, of fatal troubles, which may shake
our Indian Empire to its very foundation. Behind it stand General
Scindia and the Nawab of Hyderabad,--now the great Moslem power, the
Delhi of the Peninsula. Behind all, terrible and menacing as the Spirit
of the Storm which appeared to Da Gama, rises that frightful phantom,
a starving population reduced to the lowest expression of life by the
exorbitant expenditure of our rule.

"I would willingly point a moral with the state of the Sepoy army, now
reduced to a host of Irregulars; with the cost of a march _à Cabul_
against an enemy whose improved weapons have been supplied by ourselves
as well as by Russia; with the Russian claim to wage aggressive and
non-official war, even as we did in Turkey; with the effect which our
intense sensitiveness to every step taken by Russia must exercise upon
the Sultan and his Ministers; and lastly, with the possible results
to England, which under the workings of a Free Trade, the reverse of
free, threatens to become a Macclesfield on a very large scale. Is the
prophecy of the Koh-i-noor to be fulfilled after all, and a ridiculed
superstition to become a reality?


"THE NIZAM DIAMOND--THE DIAMOND IN INDIA.


[Sidenote: _Diamonds_.]

"It would be unpardonable to quit Golconda without a word concerning
the precious stone which, in the seventeenth century, made its name a
household word throughout Europe; and also without noticing the great
diamond whose unauspicious name, Bala (little) Koh-i-noor, I would
alter to 'The Nizam.' Not a little peculiar it is that professional
books like Mr. Lewis Lieulafait's 'Diamonds and Precious Stones'
(London: Blackie, 1874), which record the life, the titles, the weight,
the scale, the size, and the shape of all the historic stones, have
utterly ignored one of the most remarkable. Mr. Harry Emanuel does not
neglect even the Násik diamond, which fetched only £30,000: we must,
by-the-by, convert for intelligibility his 'Mahratta of Peshawur' into
the 'Peshwa of the Maharattas.'

"The history of the Nizam diamond is simple enough; like the Abaïté,
and unlike the Koh-i-noor, its discovery cost at most a heartache, and
did not lose a drop of man's blood. About half a century ago it was
accidentally found by a Hindú _sonár_ (goldsmith) at Narkola, a village
about twenty miles cast of Shamsábád, the latter lying some fourteen
miles south-west of the Lion City, on the road to Maktal. It had been
buried in an earthen pipkin (_Koti_ or _Abkhorah_), which suggests,
possibly, that it had been stolen, and was being carried for sale to
Mysore or Coorg. The wretched finder placed it upon a stone, and struck
it with another upon the apex of the pyramid. This violence broke it
into three pieces, of which the largest represents about half. With the
glass model in hand it is easy to restore the original octohedron. The
discovery came to the ears of the celebrated Diwan (Minister) Rajah
Chandú Lál, a friend of General Fraser, who governed the country as
Premier for the term of forty-two years. He took it very properly from
the _sonár_, before it underwent further ill-treatment, and deposited
it amongst his master's crown jewels. Lately Messrs. Aratoon, of
Madras, offered to cut it for three lakhs of rupees, a modest sum,
considering the responsibility and the labour such operations involve;
but the figure was considered exorbitant. A M. Jansen of Amsterdam,
who died about a twelvemonth ago, volunteered to place it in the hands
of Messrs. Costa, who certainly did not improve its big brother. This
offer was also naturally enough declined. Let me hope, however, that it
will not be cloven into a plate or flat slab _more Indico_.

"The stone is said to be of the finest water. An outline of the model
gives a maximum length of 1 inch 10.25 lines, and 1 inch 2 lines for
the greatest breadth, with comfortable thickness throughout. The face
is slightly convex, and the cleavage plane, produced by the fracture,
is nearly flat, with a curious slope or groove beginning at the apex.
The general appearance is an imperfect oval, with only one projection
which will require the saw. It is not unlike a Chinese woman's foot
without the toes, and it will easily cut into a splendid brilliant,
larger and more valuable than the present Koh-i-noor.

"I can hardly wonder at this stone being ignored in England and in
India, when little is known about it at Hyderabad. No one could tell
me its weight in grains or carats. The highest authority in the land
vaguely said 'about two ounces or three hundred carats.'[10] The
blacksmith who made the mould was brought to us, and the rascal showed
a bit of wood shaped much like a clove of orange. Finally, I was driven
to accept the statement of Mr. Briggs (i. 117): 'Almost all the finest
jewels in India have been gradually collected at Hyderabad, and have
fallen into the Nizam's possession, and are considered State property.
_One uncut diamond alone of three hundred and seventy-five carats is
valued at thirty lakhs of rupees_, and has been mortgaged for half that
money.'

"Let us now estimate the value of the Nizam diamond. For uncut stones
we square the weight (375 x 375 = 140,625) and multiply the product by
£2, which gives a sum of £281,250. For cut stones the process is the
same, only the multiplier is raised from £2 to £8. Thus, supposing a
loss of 75 carats, which would reduce 375 to 300 (300 x 300 = 90,000 x
£8), we obtain a total value of £720,003.

"Allow me briefly to compare the Nizam diamond (uncut 375 carats, cut
370) with the historic stones of the world. The list usually begins
with the Pitt or Regent, the first cut in Europe. When the extraneous
matter was removed in unusual quantities, it was reduced to 136¾
carats, valued from £141,058 to £160,000. The famous or infamous
Koh-i-noor originally gauged 900 carats; it was successively reduced
to 279 or 280 (Tavernier) and to 186¼ (= £276,768) when exhibited in
Hyde Park; its last treatment has left it at 162½ carats. Then we have
the Grand Duke's or Austrian, of 139½ carats (= £153,682); the Orloff
or Russian (rose cut) of 195 (193?) carats; and the Abaïté, poetically
called the 'Estrella do Sul' (Star of the South), weighing 120 carats.
The 'Stone of the Great Mogul,' mentioned by Tavernier, is probably
that now called the Daryá-i-noor: it weighs 279 9/16 carats, and
graces the treasury of the Shah. The nearest approach to 'The Nizam' is
the Mattan or Laudah diamond of 376 carats. Experts agree to ignore the
Braganza, whose 1680 carats are calculated to be worth £5,644,800: the
stone is kept with a silly mystery which makes men suspect that it is a
white topaz.

"And now to notice the diamond diggings of India, and especially of
Golconda, their ancient history and their modern state. I will begin
by stating my conclusions. Diamonds have been found in the Ganges
Valley: they are still washed as far north as Sambalpúr, and in the
Majnodi, an influent of the Mahanadi, on the Upper Narbada (Nerbudda),
on the line of the Godaveri and on the whole course of the Krishna. The
extreme points would range between Masulipatam and the Ganges Valley;
the more limited area gives a depth from north to south of some 5º (=
three hundred direct geographical miles), beginning north from the
Central Provinces and south from the Western Gháts, a breadth averaging
about the same extent, and a superficies of ninety thousand miles. A
considerable part of this vast space is, I need hardly say, almost
unexplored, and the sooner we prospect it the better. The curious
reader will find the limits laid down in the 'General Sketch,' etc., of
British India, by G. B. Greenough, F.R.S.

"The history of the diamond in India begins with the Maharabháta (B.C.
2100). The Koh-i-noor is supposed to have belonged to King Vikramaditya
(B.C. 56), and to a succession of Moslem princes (A.D. 1306), till it
fell into the hands of the Christians. Henry Lord's 'Discovery of the
Banian Religion' quaintly relates how 'Shuddery' (Sudra), the third
son of Pourvus (Purusha), 'findeth a mine of diamonds,' and engenders
a race of miners--this is going back with a witness, _teste_ Menu. At
what period India invented the cutting of the stone we are yet unable
to find out; the more civilized Greeks and Romans ignored, it is
suspected, the steel wheel. The Indian diamond was first made famous in
Europe by the French jeweller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier (born 1605, died
1689), who made six journeys to the Peninsula as a purchaser of what he
calls the Iri (_hira_).

"Tavernier's travels are especially interesting to diamond-diggers,
because he visited the two extreme points, north and south. He began
with 'Raulconda,' in the Carnatic, some five days south of Golconda
(Hyderabad), and eight or nine marches from Vizapore (_hodie_ Bijapur).
In 1665 the diggings were some two hundred years old, and they still
employed sixty thousand hands. The traveller's description of the sandy
earth, full of rocks, and 'covered with coppice-wood, nearly similar
to the environs of Fontainebleau,' is perfectly applicable to the
Nizam's country about Hyderabad. The diamond veins ranged from half
an inch to an inch in thickness, and the precious gangue was hooked
out with iron rods. Some of the stones were valued at two thousand,
and even at sixteen thousand crowns, and the steel wheel was used for
cutting. He then passed on to the Ganee diggings, which the Persians
call Coulour (_hod._ Burkalún), also belonging to the King of Golconda.
They lay upon the river separating the capital from Bijapur. This must
be the Bhima influent of the Krishna, and the old jeweller notices the
'corracles' which are still in use. The discovery began about A.D.
1565 with a peasant finding a stone gauging twenty-five carats. Here,
we are told, appeared the Koh-i-noor (nine hundred carats), which
'Mirzimolas,' or 'Mirgimola,' the 'Captain of the Mogols,' presented
to the Emperor Aurungzeb. The sixty thousand hands used to dig to the
depth of ten, twelve, or fourteen feet, _but as soon as they meet with
water there is no hope of success_. Tavernier then records the fact
that the king closed perforce half a dozen diggings between 'Coulour
and Raulconda, because for thirty or forty years the yield of black
and yellow had given rise to frauds.' The Frenchman's last visit
was to 'Soumelpore' (Sambalpur), 'a town of Bengala, on the river
Gowel,' a northern affluent of the Mahanadi. The season for washing
the diamantiferous land began in early February, when the waters ran
clear; other authors make it extend from November to the rainy season;
and the eight thousand hands extended their operations to fifty _kos_
up-stream. Gold and the finest diamonds in India--locally called
'Brahmans'--were found in the river-bed and at the mouth of the various
feeders.

"So far Tavernier. In 1688 and 1728 the well-known Captain Hamilton
('New Account,' etc.), in his twenty-ninth chapter, treating of
'Maderass, or China-Patam,' describes the diamond mines, evidently
those of Partiál in the Northern Circars, as being distant a week's
journey from Fort St. George; and he records the fact that the Pitt
diamond was there brought to light.

"The precious stone was practically limited to Hindustan and Borneo
before A.D. 1728, when diggings were opened in Brazil. At first the new
produce was rejected by the public, till it found out that many Indian
stones from the New World were sent to Goa, and thence were exported
to Europe. Still the general view was not wholly wrong. The specific
gravity of the diamond averages 3.6, and the difference of oxide in
the crystallized or allotropic carbon does not exceed a third place
of decimals. This, however, makes all the difference in lustre; and,
even in England, we have lately found out that a small brilliant of
perfect water, hung to the ear, for instance, is far more effective
than a stone much superior in size but inferior in quality. The public,
perhaps, do not remember that as far back as 1868 my study of the
formations which bear the Brazilian diamonds enabled me to forecast
that the gem would be found in a variety of places where its existence
had never been suspected. Thus, to mention no others, they were washed
in the Cudgegong river, near Rylston, New South Wales; the Australian
Diamond Company failed, however, probably by bad management, to pay its
expenses. It has been otherwise with the South African diggings, which
began with the Vaal river; the stones are inferior even to those of the
Brazil, yet they have reduced the value of the latter by one-third.
When another great revolution or other political trouble shall occur,
the diamond will recover its old market price.

"'The diamond mines of Golconda,' says Mr. Briggs (ch. vi.), 'derive
their name from being in the kingdom of Golconda, and not from being
near the Fort. They are at the village of Purteeali (Partiál), near
Condapilly, about one hundred and fifty miles from Hyderabad, on the
road to Masulipatam.[11] The property of them was reserved by the late
Nizam when he ceded the Northern Circars to the English Government.
They are superficial excavations not extending ten or twelve feet
deep in any part. For some years past the working of them has been
discontinued, and there is no tradition of their having ever produced
very valuable stones.'

"This _résumé_ is so full of errors that we cannot but suspect that
they conceal some design. The historian must have known that the Pitt
diamond, one of the finest and most perfect of its kind, was produced
at Gáni Partiál, and that the Koh-i-noor came from the so-called
'Golconda mines.' Again, Partiál, on the north bank of the Krishna,
some fifty miles from the Bay of Bengal, is only one of many diggings
in the vast area which I have before laid down, some being still
worked, and the others prematurely, we must believe, abandoned.

"The student will do well to consult that valuable volume, the
'Geological Papers on Western India' (Bombay, 1857), edited by my old
friend, Dr. Henry J. Carter. Here he will find detailed modern notices
of a multitude of mines. John Malcolmson, F.R.S. (p. 6), treats of the
diggings at 'Chinon on the Pennar,' and the Cuddapah mines (p. 6).
Of the latter Captain Newbold says ('Geological Notes' p. 375), 'The
diamond is found in the gravel beds of the Cuddapah district below
the _Regur_,' the black, tenacious, and fertile soils of Central and
Southern India. The same scientific officer, who died too early for
his fame, describes (p. 67) the yield of Mullavelly (or Malavilly),
north-west of Ellore, as 'occurring in a bed of gravel, composed
chiefly of rolled pebbles of quartz, sandstone, chert, ferruginous
jasper, conglomerate, sandstone, and Kankar, lying in a stratum of
dark mould about a foot thick.' Both these geologists inferred the
identity of the sandstone of Central with that of Southern India from
the existence of the diamond at Weiragad, a town about eighty miles
south-east of the capital. Malcolmson declared that the 'celebrated
diamond mines of Partel (Partiál), Bangnapilly, and Panna, occurring
in the great sandstone formations of Northern India, as well as the
limestones and schists associated with them, exhibit from the latitude
of Madras to the banks of the Ganges the same characters, and are
broken up or elevated by granite on trap rocks, in no respect differing
in mineralogical characters or in geological relations.'

"The Rev. Messrs. S. Hislop and R. Hunter, who visited and described
the Nagpur mines, object to this assertion, and endeavour to prove
that the 'diamond sandstone of the Southern Maharatta country is a
conglomerate, reposing upon the arenaceous beds, which have _never_
yielded the precious stone, nor are there any data to prove that the
conglomerate derived most of its materials from that source.' Dr.
Heyne contributed an excellent description of the mines of Southern
India, especially those of Bangnapilly (p. 689); of Ovalumpilly, six
miles from Cuddapah (p. 691); and of others in the Ellore district.
This experienced geologist concludes, 'All the diamond mines which I
have seen can be considered as nothing else than alluvial soil.' Major
Franklin ('Geological Translation,' second series, vol. iii. part
i.), who visited the mines of Pannah in Bandelkhand, before Victor
Jacquemont's day, makes the diamond sandstone, between the Narbada
(Nerbudda) and the Ganges, belong to the 'New Red'--apparently an
error. Others have described the diggings east of Nagpur (Central
Provinces) as having been opened in a matrix of lateritic grit. Dr.
Carter ('Summary of the Geology of India,' pp. 686-691) connects the
'diamond conglomerate' with the Oolitic series and its _débris_, and
he offers (p. 688) a useful tabular view of the strata in the mines
of Bangnapilly, described by Voysey, and Pannah or Punna, by Franklin
and Jacquemont. The most important conclusion is their invariable
connection with sandstone.

"Dr. Carter's volume quotes largely from the writings of Mr. Voysey
(_Journal As. Soc._, Bengal, second Report on the Government of
Hyderabad), a geologist who maintained the growth of the diamond as
others do of gold: he declared that he could prove in alluvial soil
the recrystallization of amethysts, zeolites, and felspar. During his
last journey from Nagpur to Calcutta he visited the diamond washings
of 'Sumbhulpore,' in the Mahanadi valley, and he describes the gems
as being 'sought for in the sand and gravel of the river,' the latter
consisting of pebbles of clay slate, flinty slate, jasper and jaspery
ironstone of all sizes, from an inch to a foot in diameter.

"We possess fortunately a modern description of the diggings, which, I
have said, were visited successively by Major Franklin and by Victor
Jacquemont. M. Louis Rousselet ('L'Inde des Rajahs,' Paris, Hachette,
1857), in his splendid volume (pp. 440, 443), gives an illustration
and an account of the world-famous mines of Pannah, the Pannasca of
Ptolemy (?), a little kingdom of eastern Bandelkhand erected in 1809.
The Rajah sent a _Jemadar_ (officer) to show him the diggings, which
are about twenty minutes' walk from the town. The site is a small
plateau covered with pebble-heaps; and, at the foot of a rise somewhat
higher than usual, yawns the pit, about twelve or fifteen or twenty
feet in diameter (about one hundred and eighty feet deep). It is
pierced in alluvial grounds, divided into horizontal strata, _débris_
of gneiss and carbonates, averaging thirteen metres. At the bottom is
the diamond-rock, a mixture of silex and quartz, in a gangue of red
earth (clay?). The naked miners descend by an inclined plane, and work
knee-deep in water, which the _noria_, or Persian wheel, turned by four
bullocks, is insufficient to drain; they heap the muddy mixture into
small baskets, which are drawn up by ropes, whilst a few are carried by
coolies. The dirt is placed upon stone slabs, sheltered by a shed; the
produce is carefully washed, and the silicious residuum is transferred
to a marble table for examination. The workmen, each with his
overseer, examine the stones one by one, throwing back the refuse into
a basket; it is a work of skill on the part of both men, as it must
be done with a certain rapidity, and the rough diamond is not easily
distinguished from the silex, quartz, jasper, hornstone (corundum), etc.

"Tradition reports that the first diamonds of fabulous size were thus
found, and the system of pits was perpetuated. When one is exhausted it
is filled up and another is opened hard by--a deplorable system, as one
hundred cubic metres must be displaced to examine one, and around each
well a surface of twenty times the area is rendered useless. Moreover,
much time is lost by the imperfect way of sinking the shaft, which
sometimes does not strike the stone.

"This diamond stratum extends more than twenty kilometres to the
north-east of Pannah. The most important diggings are those of the
capital, of Myra, Etawa, Kamariya, Brijpur, and Baraghari. The mean
annual produce ranges between £40,000 and £60,000--a trifling sum, as
the stones are the most prized in the world, and sell for a high price
in the country. They are pure and full of fire; the colour varies from
the purest white to black, with the intermediate shades--milky, rose,
yellow, green, and brown. Some have been found reaching twenty carats,
and the Myra mine yielded one of eighty-three, which belongs to the
crown jewels of the Mogul. Of course, the real produce must be taken
at double the official estimate, despite all precautions; such is the
case everywhere. The Rajah has established an approximate average
amount, and when this descends too low, he seizes one of the supposed
defaulters and beheads him or confiscates his goods. He sells his
diamonds directly to Allahabad and Benares, and of late years he has
established ateliers for cutting. These are the usual kind, horizontal
wheels of steel worked by the foot.

"Evidently here we have a primitive style, which has not varied since
diamond-working began. Good pumps are required to drain the wet pits.
Instead of sinking a succession of shafts, tunnels should be run along
the veins of diamond-bearing rocks. Magnifying-glasses and European
superintendence would improve the washing. I need hardly say that the
yield would double in the hands of Brazilians or South Africans.

"The precious stone is still brought for sale from the nearer valley
of the Krishna to Hyderabad. It occurs, I was assured, in a white
conglomerate of lime locally called _gar-ká-pathar_, which must be
broken up and washed. As it is found in a region of crystalline rocks,
common sense would suggest tracing up the material to the places
where it may have been formed; but this is never done. During our
week's visit I was consulted by two Parsee merchants concerning the
rudimentary tests of scratching and specific gravity. In fact, at
Golconda, where the finest gems used to be worked, no one, strange to
say, can now recognize a rough diamond.

"The 'Highlands of the Brazil' (ii. 113) has given a detailed list
of the various stones associated with the gem; and specimens of the
_cascalho_, or diamond gravel, the _tauá_, the _canga_, etc., have been
sent to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Mr. Swinton. It is advisable
to remark that this association has everywhere been recognized. In
Borneo we are told that 'the diamond is known by the presence of
sundry small flints.' The gem-yielding pebble-conglomerate of India,
not usually a breccia, as was proved by Franklin, Newbold, and
Aytoun (_loc. cit._, p. 386), contains quartz and various quartzose
formations; garnet, corundum, epidote, and Lydian stone; chalcedony and
carnelian; jasper of red, brown, bluish, and black hues; and hornstone,
a kind of felspar, whilst 'green quartz indicates the presence of the
best stones.' Fossil chert is yielded by the limestone, and the highly
ferruginous and crystalline sandstone produces micaceous iron ores,
small globular stones (pisoliths?), and almost invariably fragments of
iron oxide. Finally, there are generally traces of gold, and sometimes
of platinum. At Hyderabad I was assured that such was the case on the
Krishna river; but none of my informants had any personal knowledge
of washing. Finally, Dr. Carter's 'Geological Papers' convinced me
that the sandstones of the diamond area will be found to resemble the
_itacolumite_--quartzose mica slate or laminated granular quartz, of
Brazilian 'Minas Geraes.'

"These considerations convince me that diamond-digging in India
generally, and especially in Golconda (the territory of Hyderabad),
has been prematurely abandoned. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the machinery for draining wet mines was not what it is now;
and the imperfect appliances led to the general belief that all the
deposits were purely superficial. Doubtless some were in the alluvial
soil of the most recent rocks; but M. Rosselet's account shows that
deep digging may still be practised to advantage. Voysey also saw
the 'sandstone breccia' (diamond conglomerate?) of Southern India
'under fifty feet of sandstone, clay, slate, and slaty limestone.' The
Brazilian miners ('Highlands,' ii. 121) have only lately learned to
descend one hundred and eighty feet; and they find some of their best
stones at the lowest horizon. The Vaal River and other South-African
washings, opened in 1868, soon reached sixty feet.

"Immediately about the Golconda Fort the rocks, almost wholly syenitic
and granitic, supply only quartz, chalcedony, carnelian, and amethyst;
but we had heard of chance diamonds being picked up by the accolents
of the Krishna river, and Sir Salar Jung, with his usual liberality,
proposed laying a _dák_ for us to Raichor. He was ready, in fact,
to meet a wanderer's wishes in every possible way. I presently,
however, learned from good authority that only crystalline rocks, like
those which we had seen in the Golconda tombs, are produced by this
central section of the Krishna, and that _itacolumite_ must be sought
elsewhere. Evidently the precious stones have been rolled down from
some unknown distance; and to follow the 'spoor' demanded more time
than I could command.

"It would be wasting paper to insist upon the benefits of reviving
the ancient industry. But India is slow, deadly slow. In her present
impoverished state she wants an energetic cultivation of every branch
of industry. She does nothing; worse still, she rages against those
who advise her to be up and doing. There is a fatal lethargy in her
air. England administered like Anglo-India would be bankrupt in a week.
And, locally speaking, diamond-working is a necessity. Hyderabad is
not a rich country, and her trade is well-nigh _nil_. But she has coal
that wants only a market; and if to the 'black diamond' she can add
the white diamond, her future prospects are not to be despised. The
first step is, of course, that of 'prospecting,' of systematically
reconnoitring the ground, with the aid of a few experienced hands
imported from the Brazil and South Africa. If the search be successful,
a company or companies would soon be found to do the rest. For me it
will be glory enough to have restored the time-honoured 'mines of
Golconda.'

"We left at the week's end the country of 'our Faithful Ally,' greatly
pleased with the courtesy and hospitality which seem to be its natural
growth. And I have a conviction that, despite the inevitable retrograde
party of all native states, the _codini_ of the East, the warlike
Zemindars, the 'dissolute vagabonds,' the 'Pathan bravos,'and the
'cut-throats and assassins' of the Press, this realm has become, since
1859, the 'greatest Mohammedan power in India.'

"The return journey to Bombay gave time for other reflections. At
present our 'enormous dependency, India, the most populous and
important that ever belonged to a nation, and conferring a higher
prestige on the ruling race than has ever been conferred by any other
subject people'--as the judicial Trollope has it--is, has been, and,
under present circumstances, ever will be, somewhat neglected by the
general public of England. No home Britisher can interest himself even
moderately in such a colony; it is too distant, and it can hardly be
brought nearer by local parliaments and similar institutions. Although
'taxation without representation is tyranny,' we are not yet prepared
to grant, what eventually must be granted, Representative Government.
We are therefore driven to seek some other course.

"Again, at Hyderabad, as in India generally, we are living upon a
volcano which may or may not slumber for years. See how of late all
soldiers have come round to the same opinion concerning the 'scientific
frontier.' All, in fact, are tacitly agreed to treat our Empire in
India like an army; with supports, reserves, with outposts, vedettes,
and similar martial appliances. The remedies hitherto proposed for the
natural disaffection of the great native powers, kept as they are in
a state of _quasi_-tutelage, appear to be mere quackeries, likely to
do harm rather than good. For instance, to make the energetic Indian
prince more powerful within his own jurisdiction would be simply to arm
him against ourselves.

"But why not at once admit a certain number of seats in the House
of Lords? Of those who claim salutes of twenty-one guns, there are,
besides four foreigners, three Indian princes, the Nizam, the Gaikwár,
and the rulers of Mysore, who all happen at present to be minors.
Amongst those honoured by nineteen guns we find Scindhia, Holkar, and
Udepúr; whilst Jaipúr, with twelve others, has seventeen guns. Of
course, it would be necessary to limit the number to six or seven, but
the hope of eventually rising to the dignity should not be withheld
from Chiefs of lower grade.

"Nothing would tend more directly to conciliate the princes of India,
and to make them our firm friends, than to admit them to the highest
dignity of the Empire--to a House where they would doubtless hasten to
sit; where they would learn their true interests, and where they would
find themselves raised to a real, instead of a false equality with the
ruling-race.

"Mr. Sowerby addressed a letter (April 25th, Broach) to the _Times of
India_, entering into a discussion with me on the Diamonds of Golconda,
to which I replied as follows:--


 "'THE UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES OF INDIA.

 "'To the Editor of the _Times of India_.


 "'Sir,--Amidst the hurry and worry of departure, I failed to find a
 spare moment for noticing the valuable communication dated Broach,
 April 25th, and bearing the name of your distinguished correspondent
 Mr. Sowerby. The calm and quiet of my present home, the "Minerva,"
 allow me leisure _à discretion_, and perhaps some of your readers may
 not be unwilling to see how much may be said on the other side.

 "'The Madras Government would have done better to send a few
 experienced diamond-diggers to the Cuddapah country, instead of
 "driving the unfortunate diamond-seekers away from the fields;" but
 we have already heard something concerning the modicum of wisdom with
 which the world, even in Madras, is governed. Of course, untrained
 prospecting and ignorant working end, as a rule, in "the most
 abject poverty, wretchedness, and starvation." Thus we explain the
 Spanish proverb, "A silver-mine means misery, a gold-mine ruin." The
 "Garimpeiro," or pick-and-pan adventurer in the Brazil, could hardly
 keep himself alive on manioc and tobacco, where the wealthy English
 companies, which took his place, filled their coffers. With the
 diamond the same is the case, and hence I have been able to draw up
 a "rose-tinted" account of the diggings in Minas Geraes. Capital and
 skilled labour succeed where the desultory attempts of untaught men
 breed nothing but failure. My "projects" are simply to place the true
 state of the case before the English capitalist, and to enlist the
 sympathies of individuals and of the public; it would be a profligate
 waste of labour to attack the _vis inertiæ_ of the Indian Government,
 and bepreach the caste whose _dharma_ it is to work the machine.
 It is hardly possible to believe that, whilst the diamond has been
 found in spots scattered over the enormous area, say, of five hundred
 direct geographical miles in depth, bounded north by the Mahanadi
 and south by the Krishna, the mineral resources of vast and almost
 unexplored tracts, like the highlands of Orissa, should continue to
 be neglected. And, although an attempt to revive the diamond-mines
 of Sambalpore resulted, I am told, in failure, my advice would be
 to begin with the oldest diggings, which, as Tavernier shows, were
 systematically abandoned after reaching the depth of a few feet,
 because the owners ignored the art of pumping. Even if the deserted
 spots be so worked out as not to yield a single gem, they will make
 an excellent practical study of the formations in which the stone
 may be expected to occur elsewhere. My principal difficulty will be
 the utter unfamiliarity with the subject which belongs to the class
 whose interests are most concerned. The first attempt brings me the
 following answer: "I will give my opinion of the undertaking when I
 have studied the details; but Golconda is an ungodly place to invite
 the British capitalist to." As regards preliminaries, a friend, whose
 touching modesty induces me to withhold his name, writes to me:
 "The success in finding minerals and gems to the east of the Gháts
 is simply a question of prospecting; and the more prospectors the
 merrier. Why, there must be now ferreting in Australia, Tasmania,
 and New Zealand, little short of half a million of skilled hands.
 Geologists are valuable only so far as they indicate formations likely
 to prove fertile; the real work must be done by prospectors."

 "'I am far from thinking, with Mr. Sowerby, that, in a hopeful matter
 like this, of development of wealth, "native rulers will always take
 their cue from the paramount power," however rigidly our official seal
 is affixed to the mineral treasures lying dormant in the land. One of
 the commonplaces of the theoretical English writer is the exceeding
 Conservatism of the East: practically I have found the reverse.
 True, the Bombay "Kumbi" rejected the ridiculous windmills by which
 the late Dr. Buist proposed to abolish the cheap and all-sufficient
 water-wheel; and thus he incurred the vehement displeasure of that
 _perfervidum ingenium_, who had, they said, a monetary interest in the
 matter. But show the Hindú and Hindí (Moslem) that the novelty will
 pay or will save money, and they will adopt it as readily as almost
 any nationality known to me. What nonsense has been written and read
 about the failure of Indian railways, because nothing could persuade
 the Brahmin to ride side by side with the pariah! The truth is, caste
 remains powerful as long as it pays; in the inverse condition it is a
 name, and nothing more.

 "'But practically it is very little matter whether the Government
 of H.H. the Nizam take or take not the cue from the groovy and
 torpid rule which distinguishes British India in this section of the
 nineteenth century. That it will grant free and liberal concessions I
 am persuaded. Still, after all, the diamond-diggings in the Krishna
 Valley, though far-famed for their produce in days gone by, are a mere
 line of trenches compared with the depths of field which lies behind
 them.

 "'Upon the subject of iron-making in India, Mr. Sowerby and I must
 agree to differ. Of course, stone may be too rich for smelting
 purposes; my travels have shown me mountains of iron, in the United
 States and in South America, which are, perforce, neglected for
 poorer ores. But the common charcoal-smelted metal of the Brazil is
 preferred by the English mining companies--for instance, at São João
 d'El Rei--to stampers of the best English steel; and I fail to see
 why the same should not be the case in India, when replanting of
 trees shall become the rule, and when the woods and forests shall be
 properly managed. In my former letter, however, I alluded especially
 to sword-blades and other costly articles, in which the least thing
 thought of is the value of the raw material. Mr. Sowerby asserts,
 "Not a single attempt has been made to manufacture arms in India
 on a European scale and on European principles, but it has ended
 in financial failure." Yet, further on, we are told that a "native
 smith of Salem makes the best of hog-spears and hunting-knives."
 European principles, I presume, mean the use of coal, whilst the
 native preferred charcoal. And why should the Brazil succeed so
 admirably with its thousands of little Catalan furnaces, and India
 fail? Evidently the quality of the fuel is, in both cases, the vital
 condition of success.

 "'The specimens of Hyderabad coal shown to me at the Nizam's capital
 were of thicker formation and of superior quality to the "brown coal
 of Southern Austria," which is more lignite. And yet the latter pays,
 even for steamers, when mixed with a certain proportion of Cardiff.
 There _is_ a demand for coal almost throughout the ancient kingdom
 of Golconda, where the land has been ruthlessly disforested; and
 there should, methinks, be little difficulty in inducing the people
 to abolish in its favour the use of "gober" and other fuels to which
 their poverty drives them. Here the only want is evidently cheap and
 easy transport; and with this object I proposed Mr. Worsley's "wooden
 idea."

 "'Your distinguished correspondent throws undue stress, it appears
 to me, upon the fact that these cheapest of tramways have been known
 in England for centuries, and have been supplanted by light iron
 rails. Because the latter are found cheapest in England, _argal_,
 as the grave-digger said, they should be adopted in India. But the
 mine-owners in the Brazil, where wood is hard and abundant as in
 India, still work with wooden rails; and in both countries the state
 of the thoroughfares, especially beyond the main lines of traffic, is
 like that of England two hundred years ago.

 "'Upon this subject the modest friend before quoted writes to me
 as follows:--"I shall be much obliged if you will give me all the
 information you can about Worsley's wooden railways. I have five
 hundred acres of excellent timber at a point of the Tasmanian
 north-west coast, three hundred and fifty miles from Melbourne. I
 am within two miles of a shipping-place, and I shall have to make
 five miles of tramway with wooden rails, _as is always done in this
 neighbourhood_" (italics mine); "but the ordinary flanged wheels are
 used, and they drub the rails horribly. I understand your description
 of the rails, but I cannot gather from your letter to the _Times of
 India_ what sort of wheels Mr. Cayley Worsley proposes to use. Could
 you send me a plan, or tell me where to get one?"

 "'Mr. Worsley supplied me with a sketch-design of his invention or
 modification, but as it contains novelties perhaps unknown to Mr.
 Sowerby, whilst allowing me to put the public in possession of the
 outline of his scheme, he naturally enough insisted upon the details
 and the plan being kept secret. I have therefore referred my valued
 correspondent to the inventor himself, whose private residence is No.
 62, Belgrave Road, London.

 "'Finally, when Mr. Sowerby roundly asserts "it is rather too late in
 the day to teach us anything new in making cheap tramways," I presume
 that he has seen or has read about the "Pioneer," lately invented by
 my friend Mr. John Hadden, C.E., and exhibited during last December
 at Mr. Lee Smith's office, No. 6, Westminster Chambers, and the
 "Economical," belonging to Mr. Russell Shaw. If not, he would do well
 to master the subject, and then he will probably conclude with me that
 what has been done in tramways (as in other matters) is a very small
 part of what remains to be done.

 "'Yours, etc.,

 "'R. F. BURTON.

 "'Aden, at Sea, May 18th, 1876.'


"A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA.


[Sidenote: _India_.]

"I would fain enter a vehement protest against the spirit and the
manner in which the relative positions of Great Britain and Russia are
treated by Englishmen, and I hope to show the immense detriment to
which this treatment has subjected, and still subjects, our prestige
and our good name.

"We were lately asked by an educated native of Bombay if the Russians
are not ready to throw fifty lakhs of men--five hundred thousand
bayonets!--upon British India; and not a few of the lower classes,
Mussulmans all, had told me that the 'Moskoff' is about to attack the
Punjáb.

"Men now just middle age, whose youth saw the virulent attack of
Russophobia which in 1838-39 led to the Afghan War, the severest
shake, next to the Sepoy Mutiny, which our Indian Empire has ever
endured, find it difficult, with the proverbial difficulty of mastering
new ideas after the tenth lustre, to appreciate the complete change
in the positions of the two great rival Powers. As early as 1791,
Russia prepared to invade India from Orenburg, _viâ_ Ashur, Ata, and
Asterabad, 'the line of least resistance,' Meshhed, Herat, and Kandahar.

"Let us suppose that in 1835 she had taken heart of grace and
resolved to follow in the footsteps of Nadir Shah. The road to Delhi
lay completely open to her. She had only to point to India, the
'traditional plunder-ground of Central Asia,' and all the rugged
robber-hordes, from the Sutlej to the mouths of the Euphrates, would
have rushed to the 'loot' like wolves and vultures to the quarry, and
Persia was only waiting to see the offensive action taken. Afghanistan
was ever ready to renew the pleasant scenes of Paniput. The whole line
of the Indus, Mooltan, Bahawulpore, and Sind, under the Talpúr Amirs,
would have hurried to the flank attack. The direct line lay through
the dominions of our good friend and bitterest enemy, Runjeet Singh,
whose gallant heart was broken by the easy successes of the British in
Afghanistan, where he flattered himself they had fallen into his trap.
With the Punjáb would have sided Cashmere, Nepaul, and even Bhootan;
in fact, the whole region south, and possibly north, of the Himalayan
range.

"But Russia did not take the opportunity, which means she had other
things to do; and that cautious, far-seeing Power saw no advantage
in a raid like the 'Chapáo' of Nadir Shah. Now the conditions of our
frontier are completely changed. From the modest line of the Sutlej and
the great North-western Desert, we have occupied a thousand miles of
the Indus frontier, extending from Peshawar to the sea; the Punjáb is
ours; Cashmere, Nepaul, and Bhootan exist on sufferance; they may be
ours at any moment we please.

"Persia might still join Russia, but we have operated more than once
with fatal effect upon her vulnerable heel, the Gulf. Her strength has
been wasted by famine; her exchequer is empty; and the chivalry of the
Desert, her Iliyát or Bedawi, have been crushed by the contact of a
so-called Regular Army. The Afghans would still flock to enrol under
the banners of the North, but they would be met by their hereditary
foe, the Sikh. How secure we are upon this point may be judged by
the way in which the military authorities have dismantled the whole
Indian fortress. Our native army has been converted into an irregular
machine, which could not meet even the Abyssinians without sending for
reinforcements of officers to Madras and Calcutta.

"The hare-hearted Sepoy--undoubtedly the worst soldier in Asia--has
been reduced to eight European officers per regiment, with all the
combatants mounted, so as to secure their being swept away by the first
fire.

"We have no army in England beyond what is required for police
purposes; nor shall we have one until the Britons, still happily
separated from the total world, determine, by a general conscription,
to march with the rest of Europe, and to exchange a small standing army
for a national force. And whilst we literally hold India with eighty
thousand white faces, we freely allow the Native Powers to levy and to
drill troops in numbers exceeding our own. Evidently our authorities
are very sure of their affair. Possibly they rely upon the fact that
the game is no longer worth the candle; that India, that golden land,
has been squeezed till no more is to be got out of her. 'Poor India,
every hair of her head is numbered!' said a mercantile traveller, when
I explained to him the figures on the date trees; and, certainly,
between the Abkari (excise) and the salt-tax, we have thoroughly
emptied the pockets of the breechless population.

"But, happily, things are gradually getting to the worst, and we may
fairly hope that they will surely mend. Presently we shall take a
lesson from Russia, who manages her trans-Caucasian provinces by a
mixture of foreign and native _employés_. Nothing more offends the
patriotic Russian than to doubt that he is wholly European; and yet
to the dash of Asiatic blood he owes many of his highest national
gifts,--his facility in acquiring languages; his devotion to his
Emperors, the 'Shadows of Bog upon Earth;' his subtle and persistent
policy; his love of conquest and military glory; and his fatalistic
calmness under fire.

"We shall remedy the chronic discontent of a pauper population by
opening up new sources of wealth in reproductive works, in manufactures
and mines. At present India is administered for the benefit of England,
or rather, of the English trading classes, who must supply the public
offices with paper and sealing-wax, and the soldiers and sepoys with
broadcloth and ducks. The National Religion of England will become the
State Church in India, and we shall cease to foster and encourage, by
a fatuous and absurd toleration, the fanaticism of Pagan idolatry. We
shall borrow from Russia another lesson of economy, by substituting
military law and rule for the pseudo-constitutionalism with which we,
like Portugal, have afflicted India; we shall relieve our great colony,
or rather conquest, of such an incubus as Presidency Governors and
Commanders-in-Chief, Members of Council and Chief Justices. We shall
reserve High Courts and similar preserves for lawyers' game; but we
shall confine them to the various capitals, where wealthy natives may
play at law, and ruin themselves _à discretion_.

"With this money, now profligately wasted upon civil establishments,
we shall maintain an efficient Native Army, which will deliver us
from the feeble politic of 'purpose and no power.' At home a general
conscription, or a revival of the Militia Act, will give us a force,
between actives and reserves, of two millions of men. The first
serious 'shake' in the East or the West will show us that our national
existence depends upon this measure, or rather that the alternative
will be subsiding into the position of Belgium and Holland. And
finally, when Russia begins her railway from Tabriz to Teheran and
Baghdad, we shall check her by the Euphrates Valley Line, at present
our principal Colonial want. And thus the 'Ikbal,' or good fortune,
which apparently departed with the defunct East India Company, will be
inherited by the Imperial Rule.

"The Government of the Company, it must be remembered, was
aristocratic,--an aristocracy of bales and barrels, if you please,
but still, to a certain extent, a rule of honour. Its successor acts
upon the latest and most modern rules of political economy; it buys
its labour in the cheapest market, and it demands only a fair day and
a half's work for a fair day's wage. It notably borrowed from China
its system of competitive examinations, which examine all least worth
examining,--that is, the memory and the receptivity, not the moral
and physical value of its Mandarins. Some day, perhaps, we shall see
a return of the well-abused system of patronage, whose evils can
so easily be checked by the administration of proper tests, and by
provisional appointments to be confirmed only after a sufficient period
of practical trial.

"To an Englishman who has at heart the honour and interests of his
native land, nothing is more offensive than the low standing taken
by our writers in treating of the Central Asian Question, and the
tone of despondency which contrasts so disparagingly with the high
grounds assumed by the Russians. England accepted as a kind of boon the
creation of a neutral zone,--a string of independent semi-barbarian
States, separating the frontiers of the two great Asiatic Powers.
Russia, with the moderation engendered by her intense vigour and
vitality, throws this sop to Cerberus, perfectly certain that the
measure is merely temporary, whilst the powerful war party which looks
upon the Cesarewitch as its head, openly expresses its scorn and
disgust. We are told by our Pundits that 'all we want is rest--rest
from foreign wars, rest from political disturbance.' We want nothing of
the kind: our only want is, _de l'audace, de l'audace, et toujours de
l'audace_.

"We are assured that we are conservative, not aggressive; whereas our
rivals are aggressive, not conservative; in other words, that they are
young and active and strong, while we are old and stiff and weak. We
are advised to push forward, because any check upon our frontier would
raise a host of enemies in our troubled rear,--which means that our
position in India is more or less precarious. We are informed in the
same breath that Russia has certainly not contemplated anything like an
invasion of India; and yet we are advised to take the strongest steps
in order to secure ourselves from invasion.

"A curious comment, by the way, upon the first dictum is the tone
of the young Grand Duke Nicholas' letters, published by Miss Fanny
Lear, in which he considers an appointment to the Caucasus as the
first step of a Russian march upon India. Again, we read the alarming
sentence, 'If there was danger to British India from the attitude and
possible designs of Russia twenty-eight years ago, that danger must
be increased a hundred-fold at the present day.' Furthermore, we are
threatened with the 'moral leverage' which Russia, by menacing India,
can bring to bear upon us in Europe; and with the chronic conflagration
which would result from the mere contiguity of a rival European Power;
in other words, we are told that Russia can make India too hot to hold
us,--as if we could not make, by means of China, Turkestan too hot to
hold Russia. Her troops are ever moving on resistless as fate, whilst
we are thoroughly alarmed by their advance: that is, Russia swoops like
the hawk, while we cower like the pigeon.

"Hence, the perpetual reports of new invasion-routes from the North
which fill our Press, the old Buroghil Pass being the latest 'fad.'
And hence the trembling anxiety with which the Anglo-Indian eye was
fixed upon the late Amir el-Muminin, Ya'akub Khan of Kashgar, as if a
struggling little Moslem Prince, who would assuredly be crushed between
the rival Colossi, Russia and China, held the destinies of British
India in his weakling hand. Hence the exaggerated importance attached
to what is called the 'Indian situation,' to the 'Russian glacis'
on the north-east of Persia, and to the strategic approach from the
south-eastern corner of Persia, 'which is so stealthily, but steadily
progressing.' And hence, finally, the forcible feeble stand which
we are making about the independence of villainous Bokhara, and the
inviolability of pauper Merv--a village which once numbered a million
of souls.

"This tone of excited despondency, this symptom of weakness and
violence, has travelled far, and has already done great damage to our
name. It has thoroughly complicated our relations with Afghanistan.
As may be proved by any old map, that turbulent land of robber-chiefs
has gained enormously, both in territory and in population, by our
intervention. Yet Shere Ali Khan sulks and pouts because Lord Lawrence
acknowledged his elder brother, the friendly Afzul Khan; because Lord
Mayo did not anticipate his every wish, and because Lord Northbrook
did not pay his subsidy--'tribute' I would rather call it--with all
the regularity he desired. Hence he refused the Kashgar Mission, under
pretext of being unable to protect the members,--'Their blood be
upon their own heads if they come to Cabul!' Hence he will admit no
English resident Agent; and the native _Aakil-i-Sarkar-i-Angriz_ is
hardly permitted to address him in Durbar. The fact is, this miserable
Highland Chief believes, and has been taught by us to believe, that he
holds 'the road to the English.' He is convinced that he has only to
offer aid to the Russians in order to drive us out of India. That he
hates us, we know: during the Sepoy Mutiny he urged in vain his wise
old father, Dost Mohammed, to invade the Punjáb--a measure deprecated
by Afzul Khan. That he despises us, we cannot fail to see; and not less
can we fail to feel that our policy has given him a right to despise
us.[12]

"What, then, should we do in this matter? The 'repose of strength' is
liable to be interpreted by the Oriental as supineness; moderation
means fear; and 'compromise,' the basis of public and private life in
England, has no synonym in the East. _De l'audace_, etc., is the only
rule of conduct in the Afghan hills. At the first opportunity--and any
day may bring one--we should break openly with Shere Ali; tread boldly
upon the coat-tail which he is trailing for a fight; withdraw that
phantom of a Native Agent, and offer the subsidy, a lakh _per mensem_,
to the successor who promises us his friendship and his confidence. The
latter measure has been characterized as a premium on rebellion. _Sit_,
so be it!

"We have nothing to fear from the Afghan chief, most of whose subjects
would right willingly exchange his barbarous sway for our civilized
rule. We have nothing to hope from him; he would take, Afghan-like,
our money with one hand, and stab us with the other. Here, if
anywhere, are the time and place to assume the tone and position of
a 'dominant race.' We have talked too long and too loudly about 'our
fellow-subjects in India' and our 'Afghan allies;' let us now change
the terms for 'conquered races' here, and for 'paid partisans' there.

"Curious to say, the latest form of Russophobia was developed by our
grand national blunder, the great artillery duel in the corner of the
Black Sea, which history will call the 'Crimean War.' After nearly
incurring national bankruptcy by our rabid hostility to Napoleon I., we
were cozened by Napoleon III. into an alliance, whose sole object was
to give his house a status amongst the old and aristocratic dynasties
of Europe. But, to do the latter justice, he proposed to take upon
himself the chief onus of the campaign.

"It was Lord Palmerston--the statesman who saddled us with the Fenian
imbroglio; the man who, believing about as much as Epicurus, never
missed a Sunday morning service; the Irishman who knew the English
public better than it knew itself--that rejected the Frenchman's offer
to send the army, whilst England supplied the fleet. Thus, upon the
obsolete principle that one Englishman can beat three _Mossoos or
Johnny Crapauds_, we were allowed to contribute a mere contingent.
Thus we were condemned to play, as is commonly said, second fiddle,
without the least hope of rising in the world; whilst the want of
ability amongst our superior officers, the normal English deficiency of
organization, and a few miserable blunders, glorious like the Balaclava
Charge, and inglorious like the run from the Mamelon, duly printed
abroad throughout the civilized world, combined to form an ample
'vengeance for Waterloo.'

"The world has not yet learned that we entered half-hearted into
that war; that we were thoroughly ashamed of our Turkish allies and
of their cause; that many of our leading statesmen determined upon
not abasing Russia; that Cronstadt was allowed to exclude us from
St. Petersburg, when the late Captain Cole's turret-ship would have
set the fortress at defiance; that Kars was given over to starvation
because the Russians refused to make peace without a set-off for the
southern half of Sebastopol, evacuated after a resistance of eighteen
months; that Napoleon insisted on coming to terms with Russia, because
his Crimean army was mutinous, and he had won his point; and lastly,
that our allies' ignoble jealousy confined us to a game at long bowls
in the Crimea, when, with the assistance of the Turks, the Kurds, and
the Persians, we might easily have driven Russia once more behind and
beyond the Caucasus.

"All this, and more, we have been told by the late Lord Strangford, in
the two volumes of his pleasant works published some years ago by the
Viscountess, whose late gigantic charitable undertakings in Bulgaria
must be the envy and admiration of every woman. But, in determining
that Russia had gained by the war as much as Great Britain lost, my
clever friend was not so happy as in the rest of his judgments: in
fact, he neglected one great item in the account which determined the
balance in our favour. The Crimean War prevented the march of the
Russian empire southwards,--the general rule of northern conquest. It
compelled her to go and grow eastward.

"This necessity of growth in the Northern Giant is treated by our
writers with a luxury of explanation. It is attributed to a steadfast
political purpose; to the preponderating impulse of irresponsible
military ambition thirsting for distinction; to a traditional creed of
the Empire, which aims at augmented power in Europe through extension
in Asia; to obeying the natural law of increase; and to all these
causes combined.

"For the anthropologist, one amply suffices. The body politic, like the
individual, must grow to attain full development; and 'earth-hunger,'
as it is called, characterizes all young peoples in the lusty prime
of life. At present the only great conquering races are the Slav,
especially Russia, and the English, especially the Anglo-Americans. The
former conquer by invasion, the latter by occupation and colonization.

"Why Great Britain, at the present moment of her history, has turned
her sword into a ploughshare, is apparently little understood by the
mass of foreign writers. The truth is, we are still in a period of
reaction. During the first quarter of the present century we meddled
with--and often, it must be confessed, we muddled--European affairs
which least concerned an insular people.

"About 1850 the counter-action set in with peculiar violence. Lord
Palmerston was rebuked by the Crown for his officious interference in
continental matters. Mr. Cobden was at the summit of his fame. The
Great Exhibition of 1851 was to inaugurate the reign of peace and good
will amongst men, and international commerce was to cement the union
of the Pan-European family. The Frenchman would never invade us. If he
attempted so obsolete a step, our touching and charitable reception of
him would melt the heart of the bearded Zouave and the Sapeur, to whom
nothing is sacred. The army should be turned into a body of navvies;
the navy was to be converted into police-ships and emigrant-ships.
Posterity will marvel at this peace mania, and perhaps will sneer at
the part which the peacemakers took in precipitating the Russian War of
1853. It reads like a tale of Bedlam, but it is not the less true. The
secondary symptoms of the dread malady still ferment in the national
constitution, and possibly we may not escape without tertiaries. But
the perfect cure must come at last.

[Sidenote: _Eastern Politics_.]

"About 1863, when Russia had recovered from the fatigues of the
Crimean campaign, her 'manifest destiny' began to show itself in what
we vaguely term 'Central Asia.' It is not my purpose to trace her
steps. England, and especially India, looked on uneasily, although a
'large portion of the thinking public, including the optimist class of
Anglo-Indian politicians to a man, declared in favour of the Russian
advance.' And no wonder. The actual civilization of the Russian Empire
may not yet be of the highest order, yet it is long centuries in
advance of the reckless barbarism which characterizes the Great Horde
and the Usbeg Khanats. Whilst annexing the barren steppes, the eastern
shores of the Caspian, the lands about the Aral, and the noble valleys
of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, Russia's mission was _terram aperire
gentibus_. She opened military roads and proposed railways; she built
forts and meditated canals. She rendered the country passable to the
traveller and to the trader. The European had no longer to fear being
plundered or reduced to slavery, or being foully murdered. She enlisted
sundry marauding tribes; she had made them disciplined soldiers and
peaceful subjects, whilst many 'bad neighbours' were converted by
example into 'good neighbours.'

"Again, the dash of Eastern blood in the veins of Russia enabled
her to curb the fanatic spirit of her new lieges. Her enemies had
predicted that she had disturbed a hornet's nest; that her lines were
now cast in unpleasant places, amongst the most violent and bigoted of
Mohammedan races. Even our latest writers dwell upon the prospects of
an anti-Russian _Jehád_, or Holy War.

"But Russia is the only European Power which can successfully abate
the evil; and we must seek the reason of her success in her despotic
rule, the only regimen which the Oriental understands. She knows how
to handle her Sáyyids and her Súfis; she 'grasps her nettle,' and this
is the only treatment to which the ecclesiastical throat, priest or
parson, Mullah or Brahmin, unconditionally submits.

"We, on the contrary, with our excess of toleration and _penchant_
for liberty, too often degenerating into licence, make the natives
subjected to our rule far more bigoted than they were when we first
conquered them. Formerly, the Hindú would allow the 'Mlenchha' to drink
out of his metal pot, which only required scouring to become pure once
more; now he pours the water into a double leaf, or into the European's
hand. Twenty-five years ago, when entering the mosques or mausolea,
we removed our hats and wore our boots; now the Moslems insist upon
our conforming to a practice which, in our case, means degradation.
At Jeddah, the guardians of Eve's tomb only laugh when a terrier runs
in and out of the doors; after a few years of British rule they would
object to admitting not only the terrier, but the terrier's master. In
her early relations with Persia, the Russian was as fanatical as the
Persian, till the murder of an envoy taught him the more prudent way
of dealing with Moslems. We have notably failed in this matter, and I
should be sorry to see the experiment tried elsewhere.

"Some six years after Russia's first decided move eastwards (1869),
she abandoned the direct Persian line, and adopted the new plan of
turning her friend's flank by annexing the Balkan or Krasnovdsk
Bay, and exploring the northern valley of the Atrek river, the road
popularly known as the 'Atok,' or hill-skirt. Thereupon the alarmist
openly denounced the annexation of the eastern coast of the Caspian,
and the subjugation of the Turkomans, as a 'violation of treaty.'
The good sense of the public refused to be scared. What sympathy,
indeed, could England have with wretched Khiva, whose main industry was
kidnapping Russians and enslaving Persians? What with hateful Bokhara,
the very focus and head-quarters of Islamitic fanaticism; the city
of barbarians, whose murderous chief, Nasr Allah, had foully put to
death Stoddart and Conolly? Could we forget that, unable to reach this
double-dyed assassin, despite the proverbial length of her arm, England
was compelled to leave the slaughter of her envoys unavenged, to sit
down and cry like an impotent crone?

"Again, the public saw no objection to the two great Powers, Russia
and England, dividing between them the Empire of the East. Not a few
of us were put to shame by the importance attached to establishing
a craven 'neutral zone' of independent native states. The 'friendly
partition of Asia, leaving no intermediate zone,' was the favourite
idea of the Russian Press and of the public, especially the powerful
and influential war party, or party of progress. Here, again, we took
theoretically lower grounds than Russia. We were afraid to meet her;
she did not fear to meet us. After all, the prize, such as it is, will
fall to the better man: _detur digniori_ will be the verdict of the
world. If we can win the day, let us do so; if we cannot, let us cease
to accumulate futile obstacles in the path of those who deserve to win.

"And we shall gain little or nothing by the strong flanking position
secured by the reoccupation of the open country of Shaul, of Kandahar,
and even of Herat. Men are ever hankering after Herat and its
'stupendous earthworks.' A still better line of outlying frontier,
namely, Khelat, Quetta, and Jelalabad, would avail us as little.
Wanting an army, English or native, we shall be driven to moral
influence, to sympathy and moral support, to moral disapprobation--a
pretentiously feeble tactic without the _gros bataillons_ to give it
_vis_. So the late Macgregor Laird defined moral influence in West
Africa as a 68-pounder worked by British seamen.

"Our present policy must be a lively trust in the chapter of accidents,
and looking forward to the day when we can place two millions of
bayonets in the field. Russia has internal dangers of her own. She
works cheaply; her invasions of Khiva cost her, we are told, £70,000,
whilst we paid £15,000,000 for our occupation of Afghanistan. Still
capitalists are beginning to inquire curiously about her budget,
and she refuses to satisfy their curiosity. 'Russians' fell two per
cent. in one day during last autumn, and a chilling report pronounced
them to be 'shaky.' The fact is, a portion of the English Press has
so long been preaching the doctrine of repudiation, that the world
of debtors begins to lend its ear to the charmer: there are so many
nations which can afford to _payer les Anglais_. South America may
be pronounced to be 'going,' Turkey to be 'gone;' and the influence
of such failures on a gigantic scale, especially when they extend to
Europe and to England,--where at the present moment nothing is safe
beyond ground-rents, railways, and three per cents.,--must sooner or
later weigh upon Russia. Even she cannot go to war without the sinews
of war; even her ingenuity will be puzzled to make _la guerre nourrir
la guerre_ amongst the impecunious peoples of Central Asia.

[Sidenote: _China_.]

"But our highest prospect of happy deliverance from this terrible
northern rival is still to be noticed; and that so little attention
has been paid to it by our writers is not a little astonishing to
the student. In Russia it must have caused a vast amount of anxious
thought; and it readily explains the cautious system of her approaches,
parallels, and encroachments in the East: her provisional system of
indirect until ready for direct rule over her new conquests; her
strategic lines of observation and demonstration; and her carefully
disposed apparatus of supports, reserves, and bases of operations.
_Nolens volens_, will-we nill-we, Russia must eventually absorb
Kashgar; she must meet China face to face, and then her serious
troubles begin.

"The dash of Tartar blood in Russian veins establishes a remote
cousinhood with China. There is something of physical, and more of
moral, likeness between the two peoples. Both are equally sturdy,
hardy, frugal, energetic, persistent, aggressive, and brave in facing
death. Both have a national speech, a peculiar alphabet, and, to go
no further, a religion which distinguishes them from the rest of the
world. Both are animated by the sturdy vigour of a newly awakened
civilization. During the war of 1842 we facetiously said that it was
rank murder to attack the Chinese troops with any missiles but oranges.
Presently the Ever-Victorious Army, led by Gordon, one of England's
noblest and best neglected sons, showed the might that was slumbering
in a nation of three hundred millions.

"And now China is preparing herself, with that slow but terrible
stedfastness of purpose which distinguishes her, to exercise her
influence upon the civilized world,--upon the other three-fourths which
compose the sum of humanity. After a hundred checks and defeats she has
utterly annihilated the intrusive Mohammedan schism which attempted
to establish its independence in Yunnan. She will do the same in
Kashgar, although the dilatoriness of her proceedings, unintelligible
to the Western mind, tends to create a false feeling of security. She
is building a fleet and is rolling her own plates. Her army is being
drilled by Europeans; the men are armed with Remingtons, and she has
six manufactories for breech-loading rifles. Securely cautious of her
coming strength, she declines all little wars with England and France
till another dozen years or so shall enable her to meet her enemies on
terms which, forecasted in 1842, would have appeared the very madness
of prophecy.

"Such is the nation which is fated to contend with Russia for the
glorious empire of Central Asia. This is the Power which our Press and
its teachers have agreed to ignore. In the coming struggle we shall see
the direct result of the Crimean War, and then, perhaps, we may reap
the reward of sacrifice and losses which hitherto have added little to
our honour or to our power.

        'Now whether he kill Cassio,
    Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
    Every way makes my gain.'

[Sidenote: _Eastern Politics_.]

"When we were at Jeddah I addressed to the _Daily Telegraph_ a letter
upon the 'Partition of Turkey.' This paper had not pronounced itself in
January, 1876, as decidedly as in January, 1877, so the missive was
published on March 7th, with the heading only changed to 'The Future of
Turkey.' I did not then know that the Duke of Wellington had put forth
exactly the same views upon the critical point, the main question, What
is to become of Constantinople? nor could I forecast that Mr. Grant
Duff, who probably glances, like other men, at the _Daily Telegraph_,
would see in a dream what I saw when wide awake,--the Kingdom of
Byzantium revived.

"During the last two years and a half of war and massacre, which
must have cost the lives of a million human beings, the situation
has shifted, but the truth remains untouched. Still the Sick Man's
constitution is breaking up fast; and the political doctors and patent
drugs have done him no good. What peace he now enjoys is accompanied
neither by honour nor by honours. Instead of removing proud flesh and
amputating gangrened limbs, the rough surgeons have cut into the very
vitals of the patient. They should have pruned the tree; they preferred
to bark it. Under such circumstances vitality is impossible. With
acephalous governments and dynastic demoralization, diminished states
and autonomous provinces, to say nothing of utter impecuniosity and of
a paper money that threatens to be cheaper than assignats, ruin is a
mere matter of time.

"Resolved to maintain the 'integrity of Turkey,' the doctors have
disintegrated it. Turkey has become, not 'a scattered Empire like
England,' but a mere 'geographical expression,' as was the Italy of
the past. And now the Sick, or rather the Dying Man, has only to look
forward to financial ruin, to Russification, to the reign of dementia,
to spoliation, to partition--

    'The dull grey close and apathetic end.'

"During the last quarter of a century the preservation of the putrid
Power has cost us forty thousand lives and four hundred millions
sterling. We are not likely to spend much more.

"The first letter was written, it will be remembered, under the reign
of Abd el Aziz, the suicided and 'forbicated' Vitellius, when the
troubles began at Podgorizza. In those days (1875-76) the general
reader knew nothing of Dalmatia, Servia, and the Herzegovina, beyond
what he had learnt from our late friends Gardner Wilkinson, Alexander
Paton, Miss Muir Mackenzie (the late Lady Sebright), and from the
present Viscountess Strangford. Mr. Arthur Evans had not published
either his brilliant book or his still more brilliant letters in the
_Manchester Examiner_. The older writers did indeed bring out the
fact, afterwards ignored by a host of 'Our Correspondents,' that the
Turk of the Slav Provinces has not one drop of Turkish blood in his
veins, that he cannot speak a word of Turkish, and that he detests the
Turk, especially the Effendi from Constantinople, with the bitterest
hate; witness the murdering of two Pashas, Mehemet Ali and Sa'ad ed
Din, by the Albanians in September, 1878. Even the dress of the Slav
'Turk,' his big turban, his tight jacket, and his bag breeches, are
those of old Slavonia, and contrast strongly with the flowing robes
of the Osmanli, whom you insult by calling a 'Toork,' _i.e._ a wild
wanderer, a nomad. He is by blood a cousin of the Russian Slavo-Finn,
an element which peoples nearly half of the great Empire, which forms
thirty-four out of seventy-one millions. In creed he is simply a
renegade Christian, an Islamized Paulicean or Bogomil, with all the
malignant animosity of a renegade, with a horror and an abomination
of the creed which he abandoned. Hence the tenacity and fury which he
displayed at Plevna and the Balkan Passes, where Russian met Russian,
where heretical Jugo-Slav struggled with orthodox Slavo-Finn. This
is the true history of the 'gentle and gallant Turk,' as far as the
Bosniac element is concerned. And that element supplied Turkey with one
hundred thousand of her best Regulars.

"Like most outsiders, I cannot see the difficulty of settling the
Eastern Question (_malè pereat!_), but I thoroughly see the danger of
leaving it, as at present, half settled. Of course, the distribution of
the spoil and the Turkish debt favour the conservation of Turkey. But
although the _haute politique_ makes all kinds of delays, ambiguities,
considerations, and mysteries, the eye of common sense can detect none.
As regards matters of finance, if the Powers that profit by annexation
will only guarantee, as in fairness they should, the liabilities of
Turkey, one prop of the rotten old pile is at once knocked away. And
even total loss is better than this chronic state of irritation now
afflicting the European system; this disturbance of trade and industry;
this fool's paradise of the gaming-table; this armed peace, which has
many of the evils and little of the good that war brings.

"Our great diplomatic triumph in the second half of the nineteenth
century has removed from us the fatal necessity of propping up
'Turkism' in Europe. The late occupation of Bosnia by the Austrians
shows what are the Bosniacs and their Beys. Savage and brutal
as Krevosjes or Cimariots, they have all the Moslem vices, none
of the simple and noble virtues which distinguish their peasant
co-religionists in Caramania, Anatolia, and other parts of Asia Minor,
where the Faithful number three to one. Their bullying tyranny was
exasperated for many a generation by the conviction that, despite
numerical inferiority of one to three (3,380,000 to 9,500,000), theirs
was the ruling class; and that the _Mudir_, the _Wali_, the Ministry,
and the Sultan himself would invariably support their iniquities,
unless compelled by the Great Powers of Europe to do simple justice
under threat of war. His temper was not improved by the aggravating
presence of the Kafir; and his habit of carrying weapons enabled him
to gratify every whim by a stab of the ready yataghan. He had never
heard of the classical policy embodied in Sultan Selim's will--_Farriku
baynhumá wa Sallitu alayhumá_ ('Breed dissensions between them both,
Moslems and Christians, and rule them both'). Selim El-Fátih (the
conqueror) left a will, you see, like Peter Velika, and their merits
were, being the expressions of hereditary racial thoughts, like Lord
Palmerston and M. Thiers. Yet he recognized the working of this
obsolete Machiavelism as it still prevails throughout the Turkish
Empire. Whenever a dispute arises between the rival religions about
a field, a woman, or a boy whose face has been slapped, the Nazarene
applies officially to the Pasha. The Pasha lends an attentive ear to
the complaint, quotes all the Hatts Sheríf, Humayoon, and so forth,
and exhorts the petitioner to remember that under a Constitutional
Government (Heaven save the mark!) men of all faiths are equal. When
the Mussulman proffers his counter-complaint, the same Pasha swears by
his beard that no earthly power can make the Infidel take rank with
True Believers. This was the tactic that caused the Syrian massacre of
1860. My theory stands proved by the fact that in the outlying villages
and hamlets, where no Turks were, the Mohammedan peasants fought
against the emissaries from Damascus, in defence of their Christian
neighbours.

"Austria has at length adopted the course prescribed to her many
years ago. Prince Eugène was the first name of note that advised
the Holy Roman Empire to abandon her worse than useless Italian
conquests, and to bring her weight to bear upon the Ottoman. Bosnia
and the Herzegovina are in these days political necessaries to her;
and the visit of the Emperor to Dalmatia was the beginning of the
present policy. It would have been carried out two years ago, only
circumstances then tied the hands of Count Andrassy, who throughout
the affair has shown himself a statesman. Without the inner regions
the stout Dalmatian kingdom cannot hold in the world the rank which it
deserves to hold. The country of Diocletian, the mother of Emperors,
was the narrowest realm of Europe, a mere masque, a face without a
head. She had the finest ports in the Mediterranean and the noblest
maritime population, while she had nothing to import, nothing to
export, nothing to transport. Meanwhile the barbarous and exclusive
policy of the Porte cut off the interior from the outer world. The
precious metals, the 'Dalmatic gold,' famed by the Romans, silver,
copper, iron, and coal remained undug, and the timber, the cattle,
and the wool never saw the sea. Building was confined to forts;
entrenchments took the place of roads, and whenever a traveller passed
through the country he carried his life in his hand.

"But things are now changed. After an occupation which has been a
campaign costing some four thousand lives, Austria, by the mandate
of Europe, has pacified Bosnia and the Herzegovina. She has taken
the first step towards becoming a great Slav power. These modern
Sarmatians and Scythians are divided by ethnologists into a multitude
of races, Slovaks, Slovenes, and so forth. I know only two halves.
The majority would be the Northern (Russo-Orthodox), the minority the
Southern (Jugo-Slavs) and Catholics. Here religion, not race, draws a
hard-and-fast line. Dual empire has now become virtually a _Triregno_,
as she would have been but for Count Beust, so much more distinguished
as an Ambassador than a Minister. The conquest of Bosnia, for such
it is, puts an end to Dualism; the Slav will now have his rights.
Austria may lose her 'better half,' Hungary, which threatens to renew
the scandals of 1849. The land of the Magyar, once the _Antemurale
Christianitatis_, the outlying bulwark of Christendom, has now become
a country of white Turks, of 'Ogres,' as Mr. Freeman calls them, of
Ugro-Altaics, more Turkish than the Turks. There is nothing to prevent
her becoming a great Jugo-Slav power, ever extending herself to the
south-eastward till she meets the Greek. Thus she will halve with
Russia the Slav world. By cultivating the Christian populations on the
Lower Danube, and by a league with Old Bulgaria (Servia, Roumania,
Roumelia, etc.), added to Bosnia, she would invest the Muscovite rival
to the south and the south-west, while Germany hems it in to the west
and north-west. Indeed, Russia declares that such a union, forming a
state of siege impossible to endure, would be a calamity second only to
the restoration of the Polish kingdom.

"Here, then, has begun the distribution of the Dying Man's estate.
The characteristic of the situation is its purely provisional
nature. No one is satisfied as matters now stand. All are, without
exception, claimants, and urgent claimants, for something more than
'administrative autonomy,' either municipal or provincial. The
'rebellious principalities,' Montenegro and Servia, have enlarged
their boundaries at the expense of Bulgaria; but both want more,
and will have more. The new 'tributary principality' of Bulgaria
Proper, as I suppose we must call her, will not be satisfied with
quasi-independence. As soon as she is strong enough she will fight
again, and, unless amalgamated with the 'Servian accession,' she will
insist upon becoming Russian. Meanwhile the Russians have not withdrawn
their armies, and they are justified in not doing so as long as
Austria holds Bosnia and England holds Cyprus. Eastern Roumelia, which
is Southern Bulgaria, will obtain her freedom only by uniting with
Bulgaria Proper and Russia.

"By the way, I must notice the notable injustice of the European Press,
that expects the wretched Bulgarians, who have been treated like wild
beasts for the last five hundred years, to show all the virtues of
freemen. There is an old prejudice against them since Pushkin sang--

    'Be a Pole, or be a Russian,
      Frenchman, Austrian, or Hungarian,
    Englishman, or Dane, or Prussian,
      Anything but base Bulgarian.'

Nothing can palliate their 'atrocities;' but what horrors have they
not to revenge? We all remember Lord Macaulay's answer when the Jews
were taunted with preferring low and immoral callings. But fair play
in English politics threatens to be a thing of the past. At least, the
Bulgarians have as yet enjoyed very little of our boasted national
quality. And Bulgaria literally has been what Turkey will be, broken
up, distributed into Roumania, Servia, and Roumelia. She is in the
world (without knowing it), a Southern Poland.

"Another sturdy claimant is Greece, not including her neighbour and
old congener Albania. The writings of Messrs. Gladstone and Freeman
have told the public of Turco-Græcia's wrongs. Since 1872, when her
independence was recognized, she has been shut up in the barren Morea
and the rocky deserts north of the financial world as a turf-defaulter;
and the massacre of Marathon is better known to our generation than
the battle of Marathon. But she now begins to see the error of her
ways. She makes roads, she proposes to pay her debt, and she puts
down brigandage. She behaved with exemplary patience during the
Russo-Turkish War; and we must excuse the irritability which presses
for the proposed concession--a miserable slice. But her turn will
come. Her manifest destiny is to divide with Austria the broad lands
between Albania and the Despoto Dagh, the Rhodope range. Meanwhile,
Albania--classic land of ruffians, hemmed in by Montenegro, Servia,
and Greece--clamours for self-rule. Let her take it and supply bath-men
to Byzantium.

"So much for Turkey in Europe. In Asia, Turkey has lost her most
valuable possessions: Kars, the great base of military operations; and
Batoum, the port which commands the Bosphorus. The Russians intend to
run their fine harbour against Trebizond, and to divert as much as
they can of the caravan-trade that enriches the latter. Hence their
obstinacy in the matter of that 'interesting tribe,' the Lazes. The
Muscovite wants nothing more at present in Western Asia, and it was a
second masterly stroke of policy, our pledging ourselves to defend that
which needs no defence. The Russian has nothing to do with the bleak
and barren mountains of Armenia, which must also count amongst the
rebellious provinces; and they are sturdy fellows, the men of Adana,
of Old Cilicia. Nor is she tempted by the rocky wastes of Kurdistan,
where every brigand 'subject' would want waiting upon by a soldier. She
may assist and laugh till she cries at the pleasant spectacle of Mrs.
Britannia performing the part of 'Reform by Moral Force,' and proposing
an honest gendarmerie, just tribunals, and tax-gathering publicans
turned to saints. If England were 'doctrinary' she would either let the
task severely alone or she would appoint to every _wilayat_ (province)
a 'Resident,' after the fashion of British India. But compromise is
her specific, her panacea for home use. She will do neither this nor
that; she will use _mezzi termini_ (half-measures), rely on the rule
of thumb, and in fact meddle and muddle her position between the two
stools. Liberal measures of reform have been freely promised, but
that stale trick now deceives nobody. It is very well to command, but
what is the use where none obey? Europe has had so much dust of this
kind thrown into her eyes, that she now endures the process without
writhing. And the Turk virtually says, 'Pay us, and we will give ear
to you; no loan, no reforms.' Which means, if you do not pay him he
won't reform; and if you do pay him, he will do ditto. The truth is,
he can't reform, and if he could he wouldn't. When Turkey assented to
the proceedings of the Berlin Congress, the credulous dreamed that she
intended to keep her treaty engagements. Not she! When Turkey promises,
suspect a lie; when she swears, be sure of a lie. What to her are
treaties, save things to be broken? Talk of a treaty between a dog and
its fleas!

"Our beloved Syria and Palestine must also be drawn from the vampire
claws of Turkey--this daughter of chaos. The Holy Land for many past
centuries has not enjoyed a gleam of prosperity, except when connected
with, or, rather, when placed under, Egypt. It was a miserable and
mistaken policy of Lord Palmerston in 1840, which, arresting the
progress of Mohammed Ali Pasha, made England the cat's-paw of Russia.
The old Bāsh-Buzzuk of Cavala, as Sultan of Turkey, would have given
fresh life to the obsolete and effete, the battered and broken empire
of the barbarian; and his ambition was, naturally enough, dreaded by
the northern pretenders to Constantinople. Let one sentence suffice to
show the difference of development between the two Pashaliks. Syria
has not one made port, Egypt has three; Egypt has a dozen railways,
Syria boasts of only one carriageable road--the Beyrout-Damascus--and
that one French. Of late years many efforts have been made to restore
the Israelites to their own; and there is, I believe, a project of
the kind--financial, not sentimental--actually in hand. The idea is
to obtain the consent and the subscriptions of the Jews in every part
of the world, and to purchase the tract between Dan and Beersheba by
means of a loan to the Porte. Jerusalem cannot, in the present state
of Europe, become the exclusive possession of any one European Power.
But already the land has been almost all bought up by the Jews, and the
City--like its holy sisters, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safet--now virtually
belongs to them.

"Moreover, Syria is fated to become in a few years most important to
England. The Euphrates Valley Line, under the surveillance of the Duke
of Sutherland, has at last fallen into shape. Instead of a Levantine
port, Alexandretta, Tripoli, or Tyre, and the great river for termini,
it will set out from Constantinople and pass, _viâ_ Baghdad, to Persia
and India. This great highway--the only means of consolidating Turkey
in Asia Minor--has hitherto been delayed only by the activity of
Muscovite agents, and by the systematic self-effacement of our own.
Before many years are past a branch of the main trunk-line will connect
it with the Syrian coast opposite Cyprus. Baalbak and Palmyra are not
yet 'played out.' These main stations, on the first and best of the
many 'overlands,' will presently hear the whistle of the railway,
and in the evening of their days they will again be made happy. The
Euphrates Valley system will be to the Suez Canal what the 'Egyptian
Bosphorus' has been to the Cape of Good Hope.

"And then we shall recognize the full value of Cyprus. After the
melancholy policy of the pedagogue-demagogue in 1862, that restored
the ruined Corfu, where some few years ago there was a popular tumult
in favour of bringing back the old masters, England must secure ports
and stations for her ironclads. The marvellous excitement caused by
our last scrap of annexation shows the way the popular wind blows.
Such a cackling over such a very small egg! We do not wish to make the
Mediterranean an English lake, but we object to its being a French lake
or a Russian lake, like the Black and Caspian Seas. Candia and Mitylene
would certainly not oppose the hoisting of the Union Jack. Of course,
those possessions will at first be unpopular--they will cost money,
soldiers will die of fever, and officers will grumble. The Turks,
after making the noble islands howling wildernesses, will propose to
raise loans upon their 'surplus revenues.' But British gold will drain
these homes of fever, ports will be laid out, and population will be
introduced. We are not justified in failing where the Crusaders and the
Knights succeeded so grandly.

"The destiny of Turkey in Africa is equally manifest. France, who
has by no means abandoned her claim to 'hegemony,' would add, if she
pleased, to her Algerine provinces the fair lands of Tunis as far east
as the plains of Jafara, where the southern bend of the coast ends in
the Gulf of Sidra. The limits are roughly east long. (G.) 8° to 12°,
a linear length of two hundred and forty direct geographical miles.
Already there is a report that the offer has been made to her, despite
the active opposition of Italy. This latter might be contented with
Tripoli, as far as the eastern shore of the Gulf of Sidra. But, since
her emancipation, she has shown a turbulent spirit, which threatens
the peace of Europe. I lately met a young Italian diplomatist, who
would hardly speak to an Englishman because we hold Malta as our
_haupt-piquet_. The occupation of Cyprus was a severe blow: the three
standards in St. Mark's Square, Venice, represent Cyprus, Candia,
and the Morea. 'Unredeemed Italy' means an Italy 'free from Etna to
Trieste.' It represents, I have shown, amongst the moderates, the
annexation of the Trentino, the duchy of Gorizia, and the peninsula of
Istria. The immoderates add the whole of Dalmatia and part of Albania;
in fact, wherever the Roman '_regiones_' reached.

"I say 'Tripoli as far as East Sidra,' the knob projecting into the
Mediterranean eastward of Sidra, and including Barca and the Cyrenaic,
should be added to Egypt, which would thus be prolonged from east long.
(G.) 24° to 20°, also about two hundred and forty direct geographical
miles. Grennah, of Old Cyrene, has a noble port, lying at a short
distance south-east of Malta, and this will be the terminus of a future
railway, connecting the glorious lands lying along the Mediterranean
with the Nile Valley. By this line passenger-traffic shall escape the
sea-voyage between Malta and Egypt, whilst the Cairo-Sioot, prolonged
to Cosseir, will save the mortification of the Suez Gulf.

"As regards Egypt, we were only beginning to take into consideration
the grand results brought about by the great Mohammed Ali Pasha and
his family. We want from her nothing but the free right of transit and
transport; we are resolved that the highway of the nations shall not
be barricaded. We may eventually be compelled to annex her, but that
measure is still distant, although lately advocated in England, and
feared in France. Meanwhile, we might be a little kinder to her. Whilst
the Turks are allowed freely to repudiate their debts, poor Egypt must
pay her usurious Christian creditors the uttermost farthing. The Powers
of Europe unwisely and wickedly compelled her to take part in the
last Russo-Turkish campaign. We have hitherto refused to set her free
from the immense 'benevolences' and other douceurs, heavier than any
tribute, which perpetually find their way into the Seraglio, and into
the ministerial pockets at Stamboul; and now that all the family income
is mortgaged, the head of the house will still be obliged to hold his
position by bribery. Surely the absolute independence or annexation of
Egypt has now become a necessity.

"Remains the real 'bone of contention'--Constantinople. Europe has
generally assumed that, with this queen of the Golden Horn added to
her dominions, the great Muscovite power would become irresistible;
men and statesmen have made it an article of faith. I am far from
believing in such results; at the same time, it would be unwise to
allow Russia the chance. The problem to be worked out is this: How,
when the Eastern half of Europe is almost wholly Slav, to exclude
the Slav from Stamboul--to create another island like Roumania,
breaking the Slavonic flood? Practically it was solved many years ago.
Volney narrowly escaped the Bastille for advocating a Franco-Russian
coalition against Turkey. When the Emperor Joseph I. of Austria had
shaken the equilibrium of Europe by his alliance with Catharine II.,
the great traveller saw the political necessity of his project,
namely, a Christian State having command of the Bosphorus. The Duke of
Wellington, as has been told, recommended it in the same words, and the
Russians have never refused to accept the measure. What says the Turk
himself? 'For Turkey, Roumelia is the Past, Anatolia is the Future.'
Pleasant prospect, by-the-by, for poor Anatolia! And what say his
serfs? 'Avoid the Turk if you can; for either he eats you out of very
love, or in his rage he tears you to pieces.'

"I would abolish the very name of Constantinople, whose hateful sound
reminds us of religious cruelty and hypocrisy. Let us substitute
a kingdom or principality of Byzantium,--a Hanse town mediatized
by Europe. Her territory would extend northwards, through Eastern
Roumelia, to the Balkans, and westwards to Rhodope, a fair and fertile
country, somewhat larger than increased Servia. Protected by the Great
Powers, she would be governed by a prince chosen from amongst the
ruling families of Europe. She would be neither Greek, nor Bulgarian,
nor Jewish, nor Armenian, nor Roumelian, nor Frank, but something of
all. The Hellene would make her illustrious by his political aptitude
and literary gifts; the Israelite and the Armenian would enrich her
by banking and commerce; the Bulgarian and the Roumelian would be her
hewers of wood and drawers of water; and, finally, the Frank would
connect her with the civilization of the West. I know nothing in Europe
which shows a finer combination of intellect and labour than this would
be. No stronger dyke could be opposed to the Muscovite flood.

"Turkey would thus be confined to Asia Minor proper, with Broussa or
Koniah, the old Iconium, for a capital. Her new frontier, bordering on
Russia and Persia, would remain untouched, and southwards she would
be barred by a line drawn from Alexandretta, _viâ_ Aleppo, to the
Euphrates. She would thus cease to be an incubus on Europe, especially
on South-Eastern Europe, whose 'neutral armaments' must last till
relieved of her hideous presence. Thus the evil effects of her extended
influence, which exists by acting upon the hates and fears of her
neighbours, would presently be abated, leaving behind them the battle
and the wrack. Thus her hopeless misgovernment and her inveterate
maladministration would at once be confined within comparatively narrow
limits. The old and venerable kingdoms, the Syria of the Seleucidæ,
for instance, which her iron heel has trodden and trampled into wastes
and deserts; where ruins are the sole remnants of a glorious and
memorious past; where even hope, man's last delusion, can hardly cheer
the prospect of the future, would soon recover a prosperity now all
but forgotten. Christendom would once more be free from the deadening
presence of that Mohammedan Mongol, whose hateful boast it ever was
that--

    'Where once the Sultan's horse has trod,
    Grass neither grows, nor shrub, nor tree.'

Ay, truly quoth Mazeppa--

                     'The year before
    A Turkish army had marched o'er;
    And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod,
    The verdure flies the bloody sod.'

"'This is a mere spoliation of Turkey,' I hear some one cry. Well, yes;
the Osmanli rose to empire by spoiling others, and it is now his turn
to be spoiled. What he won by the sword he must keep by the sword,
or the sword will snatch it from him. His presence in Europe is in
these days an anachronism; it might be tolerated for good, certainly
not for evil. He is fit only for Asia Minor, where, untrammelled by
rival Plenipotentiaries and unscrupulous Ambassadors, he can throw off
the tights that embarrass his limbs, and become once more the 'man
on horseback.' There, at least, he can clean abolish his _Irádes_,
his _Tanzimát_, and other bastard forms of constitutionalism, which,
combined with so-called reforms, have destroyed the old forms without
substituting anything new; which have weakened his material powers,
spoiled his temper, and debased his character. There he can revert to
those mediæval institutions that made the race what it was; to the
eternal '_non possumus_,' to the 'Pacha of many Tales,' to the slave
and the concubine, to the eunuch and the mute, to the bowstring, the
bastinado, and the bag for the light o' love. There _la gent qui
porte le turban_ may cultivate its mixture of childishness and senile
cunning; its levity of mind, cloaked by solemn garb and mien; its
mental indolence, with spasmodic efforts by way of change; and its
conscious weakness warring with overweening arrogance. But Europe will
no longer bear in her bosom this survival of the Unfittest. _Apage
Sathanas!_ Return, Tartar, to that Tartary whence thou earnest. These
are the words of St. Louis, and they shall be heard."

       *       *       *       *       *

[He also wrote later on--]


"THE PARTITION OF TURKEY.


"The curious are beginning to ask, Do statesmen, politicians, and
Foreign Offices really wish to settle the so-called 'Eastern Question'?
Does the trade hesitate to take it in hand from the dread vision of
half its occupation gone? And yet what a host of evils such _fainéance_
breeds! Take, for instance, the last miserable move, known to politics
as the 'Cession of Dulcigno,' a paltry village on the wild Albanian
shore. It kept the fleets of Europe at bay for a couple of months;
it kept the whole of Southeastern Europe in 'hot water;' it kept
newspapers in news while starving trade; and it supplied history with
an episode the most comical, the most absurd. Of the Turk we may say
(with Spenser)--

    'That his behaviour altogether was
      _Alla Turchesca_.'

He has adhered to his traditional policy--procrastination, promising,
non-performance. 'The friendly concert of the Great Powers' has
been sorely tried, strained to breaking point. Bulgaria, 'one and
indivisible,' has been arming and drilling instead of tilling and
earing. Greece has made it the business of her national life to raise a
loan and an army of 60,000 men. Albania has, perhaps, fared the worst.
The Porte encouraged her to resist the so-called 'will of Europe,' and
to oppose with all her might the transfer of Albanians to Montenegrins.
Then the Porte executed the normal manœuvre _volte face_; commanded,
or pretended to command, her to give up her property; and made a happy
despatch of her recusant chiefs--by means of the usual cup of coffee.
The turbulent mountain region is now between two stools; she is neither
Turkish nor Albanian, she is lost to the Porte without having gained
her independence; and, like the Libanus in the past, she has become one
of the 'tinder-boxes' of the West. Meanwhile the work of the European
world has suffered, and still suffers, from an armed peace which has
many of the evils and none of the good which war brings.

"When I last wrote (1879) the Turco-Russian campaign of two years,
which must have cost the lives of a million human beings, had
dragged itself to its weary end. It left the Sick Man weaker and
more prostrated than ever--even the political doctors with their
patent drugs could do no good to a constitution fast breaking up.
The short respite from his sufferings called peace was not a 'peace
with honour.' Resolved to maintain the 'integrity of Turkey,' the
rough surgeons dismembered, disintegrated her. She was, before that
treatment, a 'scattered Empire like England;' after it she became a
'geographical expression,' as was the Italy of the eighteenth century.
Virtually she lost all her European provinces, except Roumelia, which
took the peculiarly inconsequent title of Eastern Bulgaria. Dynastic
demoralization and despotic government; diminished territory and
autonomous provinces; national bankruptcy, with confusion of finance,
unpaid debts, and a paper money which caused disturbances wherever
it circulated, have made the Sick Man a dying man; and, instead of
soothing and syruping his last moments, the greedy heirs standing by
his bedside are wrangling and recriminating and calling one another
names over the approaching distribution of his property.

"The 'future of Turkey' was virtually settled in 1816, when
'Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington' proposed to the great Muscovite
Empire the mediatization of Constantinople. Russia saw how great a
boon this step would be to her. She may look forward to absorbing the
Queen of the Bosphorus after half a century; in the present state
of things she knows that the superb possession would be a well-nigh
unmitigated evil. It would cut her Empire in two: and the southern
would only injure the sounder and sturdier northern half. The _status
quo_ she knew to be equally detrimental; autocratic governments must
obey popular will; and an ebullition of national rage may at any moment
force on a campaign like that of 1877-78. She wants rest; and she
wishes to recruit her finances, to reorganize her armies, and to settle
conclusions with the Tartars and the Chinese. In fact, peace in Europe,
but not an armed peace, is a desideratum to her, and she can obtain
it only when Constantinople becomes a free town. She knew this half a
century ago, and she knows it still.

"Meanwhile, the partition of Turkey has been going on merrily. In the
war brought on mainly by our old enemy Rashíd Pasha, the 'rebellious
Principalities,' Montenegro and Servia, have enlarged their boundaries;
but both want more, and both will have more. For the characteristic
of the actual 'situation' is its purely provisional nature. No one is
satisfied as matters now stand; all are without exception claimants,
and urgent claimants, for something more than 'administrative
autonomy,' either municipal or provincial. The new 'tributary
principality' of Bulgaria Proper, as I suppose we must call her, will
not be satisfied with _quasi_ independence. She has spent the last two
years in preparations for a campaign; in buying arms and in drilling
under Russian officers. She waits only for Greece to begin the game;
whilst Greece says, 'Gentlemen of Bulgaria, fire first.' It is the
old story of the Earl of Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan. Eastern
Roumelia, which is Southern Bulgaria, cannot be satisfied with her
rank as a mere province, even under a nominal Christian Governor whose
ministry rules. She must conquer her freedom; and she will conquer it
by uniting with Bulgaria Proper, and by throwing herself into the arms
of Russia, if we compel her to commit this act of political suicide.

"Greece, that progressive little kingdom, which has been so much and
so unjustly abused by the sentimentalists of England, behaved with
exemplary patience during the Russo-Turkish War. She allowed herself to
be cajoled by promise after promise, and now she finds that--

    'In native swords and native ranks,
    The only hope of freedom dwells.'

Action, in fact, is thrust upon her. The two Conferences of Berlin
promised her a thin slice of enslaved Greece, which she thankfully
accepted as an earnest of more. It would weary the reader to recount
the miserable subterfuges and tergiversation of Turkey, who alternately
presents the bittock to her lips and withdraws it, proposing impossible
conditions. In this mean matter politics are complicated by something
like personal spite and racial hatred. The Turk makes it a _pundonor_
not to yield to the Greek; he would keep for his own use the right of
robbery and rape, kidnapping and murdering. The Greek will bear no more
the hateful yoke.

"The former declares with perfect untruth that the transfer of Janina,
Larissa, and other places would be the loss of a commanding strategic
line. The Greek asserts that he must also have Epirus, Thessaly, and
even Thrace, because the whole country is Greek in language, manners,
and religion. And a fresh complication has sprung up. Greece has been
making, for her, immense sacrifices, and an army of 30,000 to 40,000
men will soon eat up a State whose population is 1,500,000, and whose
revenue of £3,600,000, with a deficit of half a million and a debt of
eighteen millions; it would hardly keep her in bread and cheese. Every
day costs her more money than she can afford; the business of everyday
life is at a standstill.

"Austria has at length adopted the course prescribed to her in the
last century by the soldier and statesman, Prince Eugène of Savoy, who
advised her to abandon her worse than useless Italian conquests, and to
bring her weight to bear upon the Turk. After an 'occupation,' which
was a campaign costing some 4000 lives, she has established herself
in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which are geographical necessities to
the 'Kingdom of Dalmatia,' the old 'Mother of Emperors.' Here she has
done, despite her enemies, excellent work. A traveller writes to me,
'The improvements effected in the new protectorate during the last two
years must be seen to be believed. The military roads extending from
Brood on the Sava to Serajevo, and from Serajevo through Herzegovina,
by Mostar, to the mouth of the Narenta, do infinite honour to the
Engineer Department, and, considering the immense outlay of the
Imperial Treasury, to the forethought and generosity of the Government.
A capable police has been organized, and district courts and schools
have been established throughout the length and breadth of the land. I
found perfect order and tranquillity prevailing everywhere, and well
will it be for the best interests, social and political, of the people,
the farther Austrian rule is extended and the longer it is perpetuated.'

"Austria took formal charge of the Ottoman in South-Eastern Europe at
the Congress of Berlin--a step enthusiastically hailed by a statesman
as 'glad tidings of great joy.' The Emperor's journey to Dalmatia
(1876) was the beginning of that policy, and we have still to see the
results of the Imperial round of visits in the summer of 1880. It is
understood that the attitude of England has revived the league known
as the Dreikaiserbund, and that Germany and Austria are united in
the determination that the other third should not profit exclusively
by annexing Turkish territory. When the war breaks out, and it may
break out at any moment, Austria cannot remain passive. Under pain
of retrograding she must advance. Adrianople will become necessary
to the Dual Empire when Greece enlarges herself; when Bulgaria shall
conquer her independence, the course of events must carry Austria
forward to Salonica. There is nothing to prevent her becoming a great
Jugo-Slav (South Slavonic) power, the mainstay of the Catholic Slavs,
as Russia is of the Northern or orthodox. By cultivating the Christian
populations on the Lower Danube, and by a league with 'Old Bulgaria'
(Servia, Roumania, Roumelia, etc.), she would invest the Muscovite
rival to the south and the south-west, while Germany hems him in to the
west and the north-west. Russia declares that such a union, forming a
state of siege impossible to endure, would be a calamity second only to
the restoration of the kingdom of Poland.

"Austria has two opponents who will serve only to force her forwards.
The Land of the Magyar has become a country of 'white Turks,' of
'ogres,' as Mr. Freeman calls them, more Ottoman than the Ottomans.
Kossuth's lately published volumes explain the reason why; but the
ambitions and the passions of 1848, which brought about the unnatural
and abominable union, cannot outlast a second generation. The other
rival is Italy, whose statesmen view, with a curious mixture of rage
and spite, the aggrandizement of a quondam master. Since Italia became
_una_, her politicians have shown a turbulent spirit which menaces the
peace of Europe. _Italia Irredenta_, an old idea, but an expression
apparently coined in 1878, means much. The _Redenta_ represents an
'Italy free from Etna to Trieste.' The Moderates would be satisfied
with annexing the Trentino, the duchy of Gorizia, and the peninsula
of Istria. The 'Immoderates' add all Dalmatia and part of Albania; in
fact, wherever the Roman _regiones_ extended. But Trieste will not be
Italian. Mr. Disraeli said, 'The port of Trieste is not a mere Austrian
port; it belongs to the German Confederation; and an attack on Trieste
is not an attack on Austria alone, but also on Germany.' The managing
man, _par excellence_, of Europe has as openly declared that if the
Italians attempt to march upon the Vice-Queen of the Adriatic, they
will meet a sword-point which is not Austrian. Italy might do better
than to lay out her income upon 'bloated armaments,' a disproportionate
army which she is still increasing, and colossal ironclads, which any
torpedo-cockboat may blow up. She is one of the poorest of nations,
in the very richest of soils; her agriculture has progressed little
beyond that of the 'Georgics;' her railroads are a disgrace; so is
her post-office; her finances suffer from the good old practice of
converting a stocking into a bank; and her business is injured by
her over-'cuteness' and greed of gain. She is no longer the charming
country of the early nineteenth century. Freedom has taught her all the
roughness, but little of the virtue of the Northerner. Honesty seems to
be at its lowest ebb. The knife is king. Whatever Italy has of genius,
energy, and 'go-ahead' is now devoted to warlike preparations, and to
dreams of conquest. The awaking will be bitter.

"So much for Turkey in Europe, where, despite Mr. Redhouse, she can
hardly be said to exist. In Asia, or rather Asia Minor, her future
home, she has lost her most valuable possessions--Kars, the great base
of military operations, and Batoum, the rival of Trebizonde, and the
port that commands the Bosphorus. The Muscovite really requires nothing
more in Western Asia; and it was a masterly stroke of policy our
pledging ourselves to protect what wants no protection. It is again the
Dean's--

    'When nothing's left to need defence
        They build a magazine.'

But here again Russia is being forced forward. She has nothing to do
with the bleak and barren mountains of Armenia, an Asiatic Scotland;
but the cries of the unfortunate Christians, though peremptorily
suppressed in the Turkish papers, are exciting legitimate Muscovite
sympathies. It is the old story of the 'Bulgarian atrocities.' Armenia,
when I last wrote, was a 'rebellious province,' and she was to be put
down by slipping at her the Kurd bloodhound. This race of bandits,
fanatical as it is ferocious, has perpetrated every horror under the
sun; and the complication of a hunger-year has made the desolate
Christians ready to accept any rule. And now they are attacking in
force Persia, the neighbour and ally of Russia, so as to compel the
latter to remove.

"The 'reform by moral force,' the honest gendarmerie, the just
tribunals, and the tax-gathering publicans turned to saints, all
these choice projects of a future for Asia Minor have turned out, as
might have been expected, the merest visions, baseless as a mirage.
If England were _doctrinaire_, she would either let the task severely
alone or she would appoint to every government (_vilayet_) of Turkey a
British 'Resident,' after the fashion of Anglo-India. But compromise
is her specific; it is a panacea for home use, and, _ergo_, it is a
panacea everywhere. She has done neither this nor that; she has adopted
_mezzi termini_ (half-measures); she has again applied the rule of
thumb; she has 'meddled and muddled' once more. How perfectly she has
failed is known to every newspaper reader.

"A number of English officers, mostly ignorant of the languages and
customs of the East, have been made Consuls and Vice-Consuls in Asia
Minor. Turkey, on her side, has sent Englishmen, with high official
rank in her armies, to inspect provinces, to inquire into abuses,
and to send in long reports for instant pigeon-holing. This is again
mere dust thrown in the general eyes. As Sultan of Turkey, the old
Bāsh-Buzzuk of Cavala would have given new life to the battered and
broken empire of the 'unspeakable;' and, naturally enough, his ambition
was dreaded by the northern pretenders to Constantinople. Let one
sentence suffice to show the difference of development between the
two. Syria has not one made harbour; Egypt has three. Egypt has a
dozen railroads; Syria boasts only of one carriageable highway, and
that is French property. But Palestine grows in importance every year.
Mr. Laurence Oliphant has surveyed the land of Gilead, the eastern
frontier; and, supported by the Israelitish capitalists of Europe,
he proposes to restore that part of Judæa to her old owners. Captain
Cameron, equally well backed, has virtually begun the Euphrates Valley
line, despite the adverse forecasts of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Jerusalem, it
is true, cannot, in the present state of Europe, become the exclusive
possession of any European Power. But already almost all the land
around has been bought up by the Jews, and the Sacred City, like her
holy sisters, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safet, may be said to belong to
them. The sooner Syria is made over to Egypt the better.

"Then we shall recognize the full value of Cyprus. The marvellous
excitement, caused at home and abroad, by this latest scrap of
annexation shows the way the popular wind blows--the reaction of the
melancholy policy which restored and ruined Corfu. We do not wish to
make the Mediterranean an 'English lake;' but it is, and ever will
be, our highway to India and to Indo-China; and we reasonably object
to its becoming a French lake or a Russian lake. And England wants
secure ports and stations for her guardhouses, the ironclads. Candia
and Mitylene would not oppose the hoisting of the Union Jack. These
acquisitions must be unpopular at first--they will cost money, and men
will die of fever. The Turks, who occupied three centuries of misrule
in making the noble islands howling wildernesses, will clamour as they
now do for the 'surplus revenues' produced by British blood and gold.
Rome was not built in a day, nor will Cyprus be restored in a week.
But our energy and industry must at last prevail. We will clean out
harbours, raise cities, and drain away malaria. We are not justified in
failing where our crusading ancestors succeeded so grandly.

"As regards Egypt we are beginning only now to appreciate the grand
results brought about by the great high-minded Ali Pasha and his
successors. We want from her nothing but the free right of transit
and transport; but we are resolved that the great highway of nations
shall not be barricaded by her or by others. Meanwhile, the absolute
independence of Egypt has become a necessity. Her connection with
Turkey is an unmixed and unmitigated evil. She wants all her hands;
and yet she was compelled to send a large contingent to the last
Russo-Turkish campaign. When the Turks are freely allowed wholesale
'repudiation,' the Nile Valley must pay her usurious creditors the
uttermost farthing of a public debt individually contracted. She wants
all her money, and she should, in common justice, be freed from her
heavy tribute, and from the heavier benevolences and _douceurs_ which
perpetually find their way to the Seraglio, or rather into ministerial
pockets. And Egypt is at present, despite the rose-water reports of
officials, who take a personal pride in writing, not the truth but what
is wished to be the truth, far from comfortable. Abyssinia has placed
her between the horns of a dilemma. She must either grant or not grant
a port to the barbarous and bloodthirsty Nestorians called Christians.
In the former case, the only imports will be arms and ammunition,
especially the latter, for Johannes, the Emperor, has thousands of
breech-loaders, but no cartridges. In the latter case she will be
in a state of chronic war with her turbulent neighbour, who is ever
threatening her inland frontier.

"And Egypt has lately offended the moral sense of Europe by a
peculiarly retrograde Mohammedan measure--the systematic revival of
the import slave-trade. England has a manner of convention with her
for suppressing it: but the provisions of 1877 should be made more
stringent. She has now reached that point of civilization when she can
afford to proclaim a total abolition of compulsory labour, the full
and immediate emancipation of the 'chattel.' Slaves and eunuchs, the
latter denounced by Islamism, are mere articles of luxury for pashas
and beys. I will not deny that when the infamous revival of trade in
human beings was brought to their notice, her Ministry addressed a
circular letter to the _Mudirs_ or provincial Governors, and appointed
a director for its suppression. But this, again, was the Eastern trick
of _poudre aux yeux_. The director went up the Nile, and the slaves
came down the Red Sea. Then the director, having apparently done enough
for a rose-water report, retired to his winter quarters at Cairo,
and the slaves returned to the Nile. Meanwhile the Ministry, whilst
permitting this shameful traffic, has systematically neglected the
gold and silver placers discovered on the Midian coast, and evidently
extending far southwards; in fact, the old Ophir and Havilah. In
Turkish Arabia (the _vilayet_ province of Yemen, near Sana'a), a new
digging has been discovered, and, with true Oriental exaggeration, has
been proclaimed 'one of the richest in the world.' But in the hands
of the Turkish Government even a diamond-mine, a Golconda, would be a
losing affair; it can be worked with profit only by European heads and
hands. Meanwhile Egypt must recover her prestige by abolishing slavery
and by exploiting her mineral wealth.

"To conclude. Poets are sometimes prophets; and we have a specimen in
the forecast of Camoens, which dates from the year of grace 1572--

    'Those fierce projectiles, of our days the work,
    Murderous engines, dire artilleries,
    Against Byzantine walls, where dwells the Turk,
    Should long ago have belcht their batteries.
    Oh, hurl it back, in forest caves to lurk,
    Where Caspian crests and steppes of Scythia freeze,
    That Turkish ogre-progeny multiplied
    By potent Europe's policy and pride.'

"What also wrote Torquato Tasso, only a few years after Camoens?

    'For if the Christian Princes ever strive
      To win fair Greece out of the tyrant's hands,
    And those usurping Ismaelites deprive
      Of woeful Thrace, which now captived stands;
    You must from realms and sea the Turks forth drive,
      As Godfrey chased them from Judah's lands,' etc.

Amen, and so be it!

"R. F. B.

"Trieste."

[1] Written in 1876.

[2] Lord Beaconsfield.

[3] This was written in 1876.

[4] "This was written at the end of 1876. It would be impossible
to-day (1878) not to sympathize with and admire Austria and her brave
army struggling single-handed and manfully in the great Bosnian and
Herzegovinian difficulty, but when it is over her reward will be great.
It is a large step in the right direction; but we, who want a great
Austrian Empire, wish she had had all the nineteen million Slavs, not a
part."

[5] "This was written January, 1876."

[6] "I fear that the Future now threatens to be the Present
(1893)."--I. B.

[7] This was written in 1876.

[8] His grandson was Chancellier at Trieste in 1888.--I. B.

[9] "See 'Lettres, Journal, et Documents,' vol. ii. pp. 298-300. He
rates the mob at five thousand, and writes dramatically. The cushions
of a divan do not form an _espèce de tombeau_, where a woman can be
_ensevelie vivante_. M. de Lesseps says that he had the details from
the chief actors of the drama, but I prefer M. Sabatier's account."

[10] "Our diamond weights are as follows:--

 16 parts = 1 (diamond) grain = 4/5 grain, troy.
 4 diamond grains = 1 carat = 3 1/5 (3.174 grains, troy).

"The Indian weights are:--

 1 Dhan = 15.32 grains, troy, in round numbers half a grain.
 4 Dhary = 1 Rati = 1 2/3 grains, troy.
 8 Rati =  1 Masha = 18 grains, troy.
 12 Mashas = 1 Tola = 180 grains troy.

"The 'ounces' in the text probably represents 'tolas,' certainly not
troy ounces of 24 grains."

[11] "Mr. Maclean kindly drew my attention to the Treaty with the
Nizam (November 12th, 1766), which cedes to the E. I. Company 'the
five Circars or Provinces of Ellour (Ellore, north of Masulipatam),
Rajahmondra Siccacole (or Chicacole on the coast), and Moortizanuggur
or Gunton.' The four first named were added to the French dominions by
De Bussy. 'These Circars,' we read, 'include territory extending along
the coast from the mouths of the Kistna (Krishna) northward to near
Ganjour, and stretching some distance inland.' Article No. 11 of the
same Treaty runs thus: 'The Hon'ble E. I. Company, in consideration of
their diamond mines, with the villages appertaining thereto, having
been always dependent on H. H. the Nizam's Government, do hereby agree
that the same shall remain in possession now also.'"

[12] "All this was written two years before the late Afghan War began."




APPENDIX F.

LETTERS ON THE JEDDAH MASSACRE, AND CHOLERA--HIS WARNING TO THE
GOVERNMENT, WHICH CALLED DOWN A REPRIMAND ON HIM.


"To the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, London.

"Sir,--I have the honour to inform you that on the 1st of December,
1856, I addressed to you a letter which I hope has been duly received.
On the 2nd instant, in company with Lieutenant Speke, I left Bombay
Harbour, on board the H.E.I. Company's ship of war _Elphinstone_
(Captain Frushard, I.N., commanding), _en route_ to East Africa. I have
little to report that may be interesting to geographers; but perhaps
some account of political affairs in the Red Sea may be deemed worthy
to be transmitted by you to the Court of Directors or to the Foreign
Office.

"As regards the Expedition, copies of directions and a memorandum
on instruments and observations for our guidance have come to hand.
For observations, Lieutenant Speke and I must depend upon our own
exertions, neither serjeants nor native students being procurable
at the Bombay Observatory. The case of instruments and the mountain
barometer have not been forwarded, but may still find us at Zanzibar.
Meanwhile I have obtained from the Commanding Engineer, Bombay, one
six-inch sextant, one five and a half ditto, two prismatic compasses,
five thermometers (of which two are B.P.), a patent log, taper,
protractors, stands, etc.; also two pocket chronometers from the
Observatory, duly rated; and Dr. Buist, secretary Bombay Geographical
Society, has obliged me with a mountain barometer and various
instructions about points of interest. Lieutenant Speke has been
recommended by the local Government to the Government of India for
duty in East Africa, and the services of Dr. Steinhaüser, who is most
desirous to join us, have been applied for from the Medical Board,
Bombay. I have strong hopes that both these officers will be allowed to
accompany me, and that the Royal Geographical Society will use their
efforts to that effect.

"By the subjoined detailed account of preliminary expenses at Bombay,
it will be seen that I have expended £70 out of £250 for which I was
permitted to draw.

"Although, as before mentioned, the survey of Eastern Intertropical
Africa has for the moment been deferred, the necessity still exists.
Even in the latest editions of Horsburgh, the mass of matter relative
to Zanzibar is borrowed from the observations of Captain Bissel, who
navigated the coast in H.M.'s ships _Leopard_ and _Orestes_, about A.D.
1799. Little is known of the great current which, setting periodically
from and to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, sweeps round the Eastern
Horn of Africa. The reefs are still formidable to navigators; and
before these seas can be safely traversed by steamers from the Cape, as
is now proposed, considerable additions must be made to Captain Owen's
survey in A.D. 1823-24. Finally, operations on the coast will form the
best introduction to the geographical treasures of the interior.

"The H.E.I. Company's surveying brig _Tigris_ will shortly be out of
dock, where she has been undergoing a thorough repair, and if fitted up
with a round-house on the quarter-deck would answer the purpose well.
She might be equipped in a couple of months, and despatched to her
ground before the south-west monsoon sets in, or be usefully employed
in observing at Zanzibar instead of lying idle in Bombay Harbour.
On former surveys of the Arabian and African Coasts, a small tender
of from thirty to forty tons has always been granted, as otherwise
operations are much crippled in boisterous weather and exposed on
inhospitable shores. Should no other vessel be available, one of the
smallest of the new pilot schooners now unemployed at Bombay might be
directed to wait upon the _Tigris_. Lieutenant H. G. Fraser, I.N., has
volunteered for duty upon the African coast, and I have the honour to
transmit his letter. Nothing more would be required were some junior
officer of the Indian navy stationed at Zanzibar for the purpose of
registering tidal, barometric, and thermometric observations, in
order that something of the meteorology of this unknown region may be
accurately investigated.

"When passing through Aden I was informed that the blockade of the
Somali Coast had been raised without compensation for the losses
sustained on my last journey. This step appears, politically speaking,
a mistake. In the case of the _Mary Ann_ brig, plundered near Berberah
in A.D. 1825, due compensation was demanded and obtained. Even in
India, an officer travelling through the states not under British rule
can, if he be plundered, require an equivalent for his property. This
is, indeed, our chief protection--semi-barbarians and savages part with
money less willingly than with life. If it be determined for social
reasons at Aden that the blockade should cease and mutton become cheap,
a certain percentage could be paid upon the exports of Berberah till
such time as our losses, which, including those of Government, amount
to £1380, are made good.

"From Harar news has reached Aden that the Amir Abubakr, dying during
the last year of chronic consumption, has been succeeded by a cousin,
one Abd el Rahman, a bigoted Moslem, and a violent hater of the Gallas.
His success in feud and foray, however, has not prevented the wild
tribes from hemming him in, and unless fortune interferes, the city
must fall into their hands. The rumour prevalent at Cairo, namely,
that Harar had been besieged and taken by Mr. Bell, now serving under
'Theodorus, Emperor of Ethiopia' (the chief Cássái), appears premature.
At Aden I met in exile Sharmarkay bin Ali Salih, formerly Governor of
Zayla. He has been ejected in favour of a Dankali chief by the Ottoman
authorities of Yemen--a circumstance the more to be regretted as he has
ever been a firm friend to our interests.

"The present defenceless state of Berberah still invites our presence.
The eastern coast of the Red Sea is almost entirely under the Porte.
On the western shore, Cosseir is Egyptian; Masáwwah, Sawakin, and
Zayla, Turkish; and Berberah, the best port of all, unoccupied. I have
frequently advocated the establishment of a British agency at this
place, and venture to do so at once. This step would tend to increase
trade, to obviate accidents in case of shipwreck, and materially
assist in civilizing the Somal of the interior. The Government of
Bombay has doubtless preserved copies of my reports, plans, and
estimates concerning the proposed agency, and I would request the
Royal Geographical Society to inquire into a project peculiarly
fitted to promote their views of exploration in the Eastern Horn of
Africa. Finally, this move would checkmate any ambitious projects in
the Red Sea. The Suez Canal may be said to have commenced. It appears
impossible that the work should pay in a commercial sense. Politically
it may, if at least its object be, as announced by the Count d'Escayrac
de Lauture, at the Société de Géographie, to 'throw open the road of
India to the Mediterranean coasting trade, to democratize commerce
and navigation.' The first effect of the highway would be, as that
learned traveller justly remarks, to open a passage through Egypt to
the speronari and feluccas of the Levant, the light infantry of a more
regular force.

"The next step should be to provide ourselves with a more efficient
naval force at Aden, the head-quarters of the Red Sea squadron. I may
briefly quote, as a proof of the necessity for protection, the number
of British _protégés_ in the neighbouring ports, and the present value
of the Jeddah trade.

"Mocha now contains about twenty-five English subjects, the principal
merchants in the place. At Masáwwah, besides a few French and
Americans, there are from sixteen to twenty British _protégés_, who
trade with the interior, especially for mules required at the Mauritius
and our other colonies. Hodaydah has from fifty to sixty, and Jeddah,
besides its dozen resident merchants, annually witnesses the transit of
some hundreds of British-protected subjects, who flock to the Haj for
commerce and for devotion.

"The chief emporium of the Red Sea trade for centuries past has been
Jeddah, the port of Meccah. The custom-house reports of 1856 were
kindly furnished to me by Captain Frushard, I.N. (now commanding
the H.E.I.C.'s sloop of war _Elphinstone_), an old and experienced
officer, lately employed in blockading Berberah, and who made himself
instrumental in quelling certain recent attempts upon Turkish supremacy
in Western Arabia. According to these documents, thirty-five ships of
English build (square-rigged) arrived at and left Jeddah between the
end of September and April, from and for various places in the East,
China, Batavia, Singapore, Calcutta, Bombay, the Malabar coast, the
Persian Gulf, and Eastern Africa. Nearly all carried our colours, and
were protected, or supposed to be protected, by a British register:
only five had on board a European captain or sailing master, the rest
being commanded and officered by Arabs and Indians. Their cargoes from
India and the Eastern regions are rice, sugar, piece goods, planking,
pepper, and pilgrims; from Persia, dates, tobacco, and raw silk; and
from the Mozambique, ivory, gold dust, and similar costly articles.
These imports in 1856 are valued at £160,000. The exports for the
year, consisting of a little coffee and spice for purchase of imports,
amounts, per returns, to £120,000. In addition to these square-rigged
ships, the number of country vessels, open boats, bungalows, and
others, from the Persian Gulf and the Indian coasts, amounts to 900,
importing £550,000, and exporting about £400,000. I may remark, that
to all these sums at least one-third should be added, as speculation
abounds, and books are kept by triple entry in the Holy Land.

"The next port in importance to Jeddah is Hodaydah, where vessels touch
on their way northward, land piece and other goods, and call on the
return passage to fill with coffee. As the head-quarters of the Yemen
Pashalik, it has reduced Mocha, formerly the great coffee mart, to
insignificance, and the vicinity of Aden, a free port, has drawn off
much of the stream of trade from both these ancient emporia. On the
African coast of the Red Sea, Sawakin, opposite Jeddah, is a mere slave
mart, and Masáwwah, opposite Hodaydah, still trades in pearls, gold
dust, ivory, and mules.

"But if the value of the Red Sea traffic calls, in the present posture
of events, for increased means of protection, the slave-trade has
equal claims to our attention. At Aden energetic efforts have been
made to suppress it. It is, however, still carried on by her country
boats from Sawakin, Tajarrah, Zayla, and the Somali coast; a single
cargo sometimes consisting of two hundred head gathered from the
interior, and exported to Jeddah and the small ports lying north and
south of it. The trade is, I believe, principally in the hands of Arab
merchants at Jeddah and Hodaydah, and resident foreigners, principally
Indian Moslems, who claim our protection in case of disturbances, and
consequently carry on a thriving business. Our present squadron in the
Red Sea consisting of only two sailing-vessels, the country boats in
the African ports have only to wait till they see the ship pass up or
down, and then, knowing the passage--a matter of a day--to be clear,
to lodge the slaves at their destination. During the past year, this
trade was much injured by the revolt of the Arabs against the Turks,
and the constant presence of the _Elphinstone_, whose reported object
was to seize all vessels carrying slaves. The effect was principally
moral. Although the instructions for the guidance of the Commander
enjoined him to carry out the wishes of the Home and Indian Governments
for the suppression of slavery, yet there being no published treaty
between the Imperial Government and the Porte sanctioning to us the
right of search in Turkish bottoms, his interference would not have
been supported by the Ottoman local authorities. It may be well to
state, that after a Firman had been published in the Hejaz and Yemen
abolishing the trade, the Turkish Governments of Jeddah and Hodaydah
declared that the English Commander might do as he pleased, but that
they declined making any written request for his assistance. For its
present increased duties, for the suppression of the slave-trade,
for the protection of British subjects, and for the watching over
Turkish and English interests in the Red Sea, the Aden Squadron is
no longer sufficient. During the last two years it has numbered two
sailing-vessels--the _Elphinstone_, a sloop of war, carrying twelve
32-pounders and two 12-pounders; and the _Mahi_, a schooner armed
with one pivot gun, 32-pounder, and two 12-pounders. Nor would it be
benefited by even a considerable increase of sailing-vessels. It is
well known that, as the prevailing winds inside the sea are favourable
for proceeding upwards from September to April, so on the return,
during those months, they are strongly adverse. A fast ship, like the
_Elphinstone_, requires thirty days on the downward voyage to do the
work of four. Outside the sea, during those months, the current sets
inward from the Indian Ocean, and a ship, in event of very light winds
falling, has been detained a whole week in sight of Aden. From April to
September, on the contrary, the winds set down the Red Sea frequently
with violence, the current inside the sea also turns towards the
Indian Ocean, and outside the south-west monsoon is blowing. Finally,
sailing-ships draw too much water. In the last year the _Elphinstone_
kept the Arabs away from Jeddah till the meanness of the Sherif Abd el
Muttalib had caused his downfall. But her great depth (about from 14'6
to 15 feet) prevented her approaching the shore at Hodaydah near enough
to have injured the insurgents, who, unaware of the fact, delayed
their attack upon the town till famine and a consequent pestilence
dispersed them. With little increase of present expenditure, the Red
Sea might be effectually commanded. Two screw-steamers, small enough to
enter every harbour, and to work steadily amongst the banks on either
shore, and yet large enough to be made useful in conveying English
political officers of rank and native princes, when necessary, would
amply suffice. A vessel of the class of H.M.'s gunboat _Flying Fish_,
drawing at most nine feet of water, and carrying four 32-pounders of 25
cwt. each, as broadside, and two 32-pounders of 25 cwt. each, as pivot
guns, would probably be that selected. The crews would consist of fewer
men than those at present required, and means would easily be devised
for increasing the accommodation of officers and men, and for securing
their health and comfort during cruises that might last two months in a
hot and dangerous climate.

"By means of two such steamers we shall, I believe, be prepared for
any contingencies which may arise in the Red Sea; and if to this
squadron be added an allowance for interpreters and a slave approver
in each harbour--in fact, a few of the precautions practised by the
West African Squadron--the slave-trade in the Red Sea will soon have
received its death-blow, and Eastern Africa its regeneration at our
hands.

"I have, etc., etc.,

"R. F. B,

"Commanding East African Expedition.

"H.E.I.C. Sloop of War _Elphinstone_,

"15th December, 1856."

       *       *       *       *       *


THE OFFICIAL "JUDICIOUS" (?) REPLY.

No. 961 of 1857.


From H. L. Anderson, Esquire, Secretary to Government, Bombay, to
Captain R. F. Burton, 18th Regiment Bombay N.I.

"Dated the 23rd July, 1857.

"Sir,--With reference to your letter, dated the 15th December, 1856,
to the address of the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society
of London, communicating your views on affairs in the Red Sea, and
commenting on the political measures of the Government of India, I am
directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council to state, your
want of discretion, and due respect for the authorities to whom you are
subordinate, has been regarded with displeasure by Government.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient Servant,

"(Signed) H. L. ANDERSON,

"Secretary to Government.

"Bombay Castle, 23rd July, 1857."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Richard received by same post as above letter the account of the
Massacre at Jeddah.]


(Extracts from the _Telegraph Courier_, Overland Summary, Bombay,
August 4, 1858.)


"On the 30th of June, a massacre of nearly all the Christians took
place at Jeddah on the Red Sea. Amongst the victims were Mr. Page, the
British Consul, and the French Consul and his lady. Altogether the
Arabs succeeded in slaughtering about twenty-five.

"H.M. steamship _Cyclops_ was there at the time, and the captain landed
with a boat's crew, and attempted to bring off some of the survivors,
but he was compelled to retreat, not without having killed a number
of the Arabs. The next day, however, he succeeded in rescuing the few
remaining Christians, and conveyed them to Suez.

"Amongst those who were fortunate enough to escape was the daughter of
the French Consul; and this she succeeded in doing through the fidelity
of a native, after she had killed two men with her own hands, and
been severely wounded in the encounter. Telegraphic despatches were
transmitted to England and France, and the _Cyclops_ is waiting orders
at Suez. As it was apprehended that the news from Jeddah might excite
the Arab population of Suez to the commission of similar outrages,
H.B.M.'s Vice-Consul at that place applied to the Pasha of Egypt for
assistance, which was immediately afforded by the landing of five
hundred Turkish soldiers, under the orders of the Pasha of Suez."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Unyanyembe, Central Africa, 24th June, 1858.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official
letter, No. 961 of 1857, conveying to me the displeasure of the
Government in consequence of my having communicated certain views on
political affairs in the Red Sea to the Royal Geographical Society of
Great Britain.

"The paper in question was as is directly stated, and it was sent for
transmission to the Board of Directors, or the Foreign Office, not for
publication. I beg to express my regret that it should have contained
any passage offensive to the authorities to whom I am subordinate; and
to assure the Right Honourable the Governor in Council that nothing was
further from my intentions than to displease a Government to whose kind
consideration I have been, and am still, so much indebted.

"In conclusion, I have the honour to remind you that I have received no
reply to my official letter, sent from Zanzibar, urging our claims upon
the Somal for the plunder of our property.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient Servant,

"RICHARD F. BURTON,

"Commanding East African Expedition.

"To the Secretary to Government, Bombay."

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 2845 of 1857. Political Department.

From H. L. Anderson, Esq., Secretary to Government of Bombay, to
Captain R. F. Burton, Commanding E. A. Expedition, Zanzibar.

"Dated 13th June, 1857.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council
to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 26th April last,
soliciting compensation on behalf of yourself and other members of the
late Somalee Expedition, for losses sustained by you and them.

"2. In reply, I am desired to inform you, that under the opinion
copied in the margin [here reproduced below], expressed by the late
Governor-General of India, the Right Honourable the Governor in Council
cannot accede to the application now preferred.

"I have, etc.,

"(Signed) H. L. ANDERSON,

"Secretary to Government."

[From margin.] "Having regard to the conduct of the Expedition, his
Lordship cannot think that the officers who composed it have any just
claims on the Government for their personal losses."


END OF FIRST CORRESPONDENCE.


[Here begins the Speke and Rigby cabal.]


SECOND CORRESPONDENCE.


1.

"India Office, E.C., November 8th, 1859.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to
forward for your information, copy of a letter addressed by Captain
Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and Agent at Zanzibar, to the Government of
Bombay, respecting the non-payment of certain persons hired by you to
accompany the Expedition under your command into Equatorial Africa, and
to request that you will furnish me with any observations which you may
have to make upon the statements contained in that letter.

"Sir Charles Wood especially desires to be informed why you took no
steps to bring the services of the men who accompanied you, and your
obligations to them, to the notice of the Bombay Government.

"I am, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"(Signed) T. COSMO MELVILL.

"Captain R. Burton."

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 70 of 1859. Political Department.

From Captain C. P. Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and British Agent,
Zanzibar, to H. L. Anderson, Esquire, Secretary to Government, Bombay.

"Zanzibar, July 15th, 1859.

"Sir,--I have the honour to report, for the information of the Right
Honourable the Governor in Council, the following circumstances
connected with the late East African Expedition under the command of
Captain Burton.

"2. Upon the return of Captain Burton to Zanzibar in March last, from
the interior of Africa, he stated that, from the funds supplied him
by the Royal Geographical Society for the expenses of the Expedition,
he had only a sufficient sum left to defray the passage of himself
and Captain Speke to England, and in consequence the persons who
accompanied the Expedition from here, viz. the Kafila Bashi, the
Belooch sepoys, and the porters, received nothing whatever from him on
their return.

"3. On quitting Zanzibar for the interior of Africa, the Expedition was
accompanied by a party of Belooch soldiers, consisting of a Jemadar
and twelve armed men. I understand they were promised a monthly salary
of five dollars each; they remained with the Expedition for twenty
months, and as they received nothing from Captain Burton beyond a few
dollars each before starting, his Highness the Sultan has generously
distributed amongst them the sum of two thousand three hundred (2300)
dollars.

"4. The head clerk of the Custom House here, a Banian, by name Ramjee,
procured ten men, who accompanied the Expedition as porters. They
were promised five dollars each per mensem, and received pay for six
months, viz. thirty dollars each before starting for the interior. They
were absent for twenty months, during three of which the Banian Ramjee
states that they did not accompany the Expedition. He now claims eleven
months' pay for each of these men, as they have not been paid anything
beyond the advance before starting.

"5. The head clerk also states that, after the Expedition left
Zanzibar, he sent two men to Captain Burton with supplies, one of whom
was absent with the Expedition seventeen months, and received nothing
whatever; the other, he states, was absent fifteen months, and received
six months' pay, the pay for the remaining nine months being still due
to him. Thus his claim amounts to the following sum:--

                                                                Dollars.
 Ten men for eleven months, at five dollars per man per month   550
 One man for seventeen   "  "               "                    85
 One man for nine        "  "               "                    45
 Total                                                          680

"6. These men were slaves, belonging to 'deewans,' or petty chiefs, on
the opposite mainland. They travel far into the interior to collect and
carry down ivory to the coast, and are absent frequently for the space of
two or three years. When hired out, the pay they receive is equally
divided between the slave and the master. Captain Speke informs me,
that when these men were hired, it was agreed that one-half of their hire
should be paid to the men, and the other half to Ramjee on account of
their owners. When Ramjee asked Captain Burton for their pay, on his
return here, he declined to give him anything, saying that they had
received thirty dollars each on starting, and that he could have bought
them for a less sum.

"7. The Kafila Bashi, or chief Arab, who accompanied the Expedition,
by name Said bin Salem, was twenty-two months with Captain Burton.
He states that on the first journey to Pangany and Usumbara, he received
fifty (50) dollars from Captain Burton; and that before starting on the
last Expedition, to discover the Great Lake, the late Lieutenant-Colonel
Hamerton presented him with five hundred dollars on behalf of Government
for the maintenance of his family during his absence. He states
that he did not stipulate for any monthly pay, as Colonel Hamerton told
him that if he escorted the gentlemen to the Great Lake in the interior,
and brought them in safety back to Zanzibar, he would be handsomely
rewarded, and both Captain Speke and Mr. Apothecary Frost inform me
that Colonel Hamerton frequently promised Said bin Salem that he
should receive a thousand dollars and a gold watch if the Expedition were
successful.

"8. As it appeared to me that Colonel Hamerton had received no
authority from Government to defray any part of the expenses of this
Expedition, and probably made these promises, thinking that if the
exploration of the unknown interior were successful a great national
object would be attained, and that the chief man who conducted the
Expedition would be liberally rewarded, and as Captain Burton had been
furnished with funds to defray the expenses, I told him that I did not
feel authorized to make any payment without the previous sanction of
Government, and Said bin Salem has therefore received nothing whatever
since his return.

"9. Said bin Salem also states, that on the return of the Expedition
from Lake Tanganyika, seventy (70) natives of the country were engaged
as porters, and accompanied the Expedition for three months; and that
on arriving at a place called 'Kootoo,' a few days' journey from the
sea-coast, Captain Burton wished them to diverge from the correct route
to the coast opposite Zanzibar, to accompany him south to Keelwa; but
they refused to do so, saying that none of their people ever dared to
venture to Keelwa, where the chief slave-trade on the east coast is
carried on. No doubt their fears were well grounded. These men received
nothing in payment for their three months' journey, and, as no white
man had ever penetrated into their country previously, I fear that any
future traveller will meet with much inconvenience in consequence of
these poor people not having been paid.

"10. As I considered that my duty connected with the late Expedition
was limited to affording it all the aid and support in my power, I
have felt very reluctant to interfere with anything connected with
the non-payment of these men; but Said bin Salem and Ramjee having
appealed to me, and Captain Speke, since his departure from Zanzibar,
having written me two private letters, pointing out so forcibly the
claims of these men, the hardships they endured, and the fidelity and
perseverance they showed, conducting them safely through unexplored
countries, and stating also that the agreements with them were entered
into at the British Consulate, and that they considered they were
serving the British Government, that I deem it my duty to bring their
claims to the notice of Government; for I feel that if these men remain
unpaid, after all they have endured in the service of British officers,
our name for good faith in these countries will suffer, and that any
future traveller wishing to further explore the interesting countries
of the interior will find no persons willing to accompany them from
Zanzibar, or the opposite mainland.

"11. As there was no British agent at Zanzibar for thirteen months
after the death of Colonel Hamerton, the Expedition was entirely
dependent on Luddah Damha, the Custom-master here, for money and
supplies. He advanced considerable sums of money without any security,
forwarding all requisite supplies, and, Captain Speke says, afforded
the Expedition every assistance in the most handsome manner. Should
Government, therefore, be pleased to present him with a shawl, or some
small mark of satisfaction, I am confident he is fully deserving of it,
and it would gratify a very worthy man to find that his assistance to
the Expedition is acknowledged.

"I have, etc.,

"(Signed) C. P. RIGBY, Captain,

"H.M.'s Consul and British Agent, Zanzibar."

       *       *       *       *       *

3.

"East India United Service Club, St. James's Square,

"November 11th, 1859.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official
letter, dated the 8th of November, 1859, forwarding for my information
copy of a letter, addressed by Captain Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and
Agent at Zanzibar, to the Government of Bombay, respecting the non-payment
of certain persons hired by me to accompany the Expedition
under my command into Equatorial Africa, and apprising me that Sir
C. Wood especially desires to be informed why I took no steps to bring
the services of the men who accompanied me, and my obligations to them,
to the notice of the Bombay Government.

"In reply to Sir Charles Wood, I have the honour to state that, as
the men alluded to rendered me no service, and as I felt in no way
obliged to them, I would not report favourably of them. The Kafilah
Bashi, the _Jemadar_, and the Beloch were servants of H.H. Sayyid
Majid, in his pay and under his command. They were not hired by me,
but by the late Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, H.M.'s Consul and H.E.I.C.'s
Agent at Zanzibar, and they marched under the Arab flag. On return to
Zanzibar, I reported them as undeserving of reward to Lieut.-Colonel
Hamerton's successor, Colonel Rigby, and after return to England, when
my accounts were sent in to the Royal Geographical Society, I appended
a memorandum, that as those persons had deserved no reward, no reward
had been applied for.

"Before proceeding to reply to Captain Rigby's letter, paragraph by
paragraph, I would briefly premise with the following remarks:--

"Being ordered to report myself to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and having
been placed under his direction, I admitted his friendly interference, and
allowed him to apply to H.H. the Sultan for a guide and an escort.
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton offered to defray, from public funds, which he
understood to be at his disposal, certain expenses of the Expedition, and
he promised, as reward to the guide and escort, sums of money, to which,
had I been unfettered, I should have objected as exorbitant. But in all
cases the promises made by the late Consul were purely conditional,
depending entirely upon the satisfactory conduct of those employed.
These facts are wholly omitted in Captain Rigby's reports.

"2. Captain Rigby appears to mean that the Kafila Bashi, the Beloch
sepoys, and the porters received nothing whatever on my return to
Zanzibar, in March last, from the interior of Africa because the funds
supplied to me by the Royal Geographical Society for the expenditure
of the Expedition, had been exhausted, besides the sum of one thousand
pounds (£1000) granted by the Foreign Office. I had expended from my
own private resources nearly fourteen hundred pounds (£1400), and I was
ready to expend more had the expenditure been called for. But, though
prepared on these occasions to reward liberally for good service,
I cannot see the necessity, or rather I see the unadvisability, of
offering a premium to notorious misconduct. This was fully explained by
me to Captain Rigby on my return to Zanzibar.

"3. Captain Rigby '_understands_' that the party of Beloch sepoys,
consisting of a _Jemadar_ and twelve armed men, were promised
a monthly salary of five dollars each. This was not the case.
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton advanced to the _Jemadar_ twenty-five, and
to each sepoy twenty dollars for an outfit; he agreed that I should
provide them with daily rations, and he promised them an ample reward
from the public funds in case of good behaviour. These men deserved
nothing; I ignore their 'fidelity' and 'perseverance,' and I assert
that if I passed safely through an unexplored country, it was in no
wise by their efforts. On hearing of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton's death,
they mutinied in a body. At the Tanganyika Lake they refused to escort
me during the period of navigation, a month of danger and difficulty.
When Captain Speke proposed to explore the Nyanza Lake, they would
not march without a present of a hundred dollars' worth of cloth. On
every possible occasion they clamoured for _bakshish_, which, under
pain of endangering the success of the Expedition, could not always
be withheld. They were often warned by me that they were forfeiting
all hopes of a future reward, and, indeed, they ended by thinking
so themselves. They returned to Zanzibar with a number of slaves,
purchased by them with money procured from the Expedition. I would not
present either guide or escort to the Consul; but I did not think it
my duty to oppose a large reward, said to be 2300 dollars, given to
them by H.H. the Sultan, and I reported his liberality and other acts
of kindness to the Bombay Government on my arrival at Aden. This fact
will, I trust, exonerate me from any charge of wishing to suppress my
obligations.

"4. The Banyan Ramjee, head clerk of the Custom House, did not, as
is stated by Captain Rigby, procure me ten (10) men who accompanied the
Expedition as porters; nor were these men, as is asserted (in par. 6),
'slaves belonging to deewans or petty chiefs on the opposite mainland.'
It is a notorious fact that these men were private slaves, belonging to the
Banyan Ramjee, who hired them to me direct, and received from me as
their pay, for six months, thirty dollars each; a sum for which, as I told
him, he might have bought them in the bazaar. At the end of six months
I was obliged to dismiss these slaves, who, as is usually the case with the
slaves of Indian subjects at Zanzibar, were mutinous in the extreme. At
the same time, I supplied them with cloth, to enable them to rejoin their
patron. On my return from the Tanganyika Lake, they requested leave
to accompany me back to Zanzibar, which I permitted, with the express
warning that they were not to consider themselves re-engaged. The
Banyan, their proprietor, had, in fact, sent them on a trading trip into
the interior under my escort, and I found them the most troublesome of
the party. When Ramjee applied for additional pay, after my return to
Zanzibar, I told him that I had engaged them for six months; that I had
dismissed them at the end of six months, as was left optional to me; and
that he had already received an unusual sum for their services. This
conversation appears in a distorted form and improperly represented in
the concluding sentence of Captain Rigby's 6th paragraph.

"5 and 6. With respect to the two men sent on with supplies after the
Expedition had left Zanzibar, they were not paid, on account of the
prodigious disappearance of the goods entrusted to their charge, as I
am prepared to prove from the original journals in my possession. They
were dismissed with their comrades, and never afterwards, to the best
of my remembrance, did a day's work.

"7 and 8. The Kafilah Bashi received from me for the first journey to
Usumbara fifty (50) dollars. Before my departure in the second Expedition
he was presented by Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton with five hundred (500)
dollars, almost double what he had expected. He was also promised, in
case of good conduct, a gold watch, and an ample reward, which, however,
was to be left to the discretion of his employers. I could not recommend
him through Captain Rigby to the Government for remuneration. His
only object seemed to be that of wasting our resources and of collecting
slaves in return for the heavy presents made to the native chiefs by the
Expedition, and the consequence of his carelessness or dishonesty was,
that the expenditure on the whole march, until we had learnt sufficient to
supervise him, was inordinate. When the Kafilah Bashi at last refused
to accompany Captain Speke to the Nyanza Lake, he was warned that
he also was forfeiting all claim to future reward, and when I mentioned
this circumstance to Captain Rigby at Zanzibar, he then agreed with me
that the 500 dollars originally advanced were sufficient.

"9. With regard to the statement of Said bin Salim concerning the
non-payment of the seventy-three porters, I have to remark that
it was mainly owing to his own fault. The men did not refuse to
accompany me because I wished to diverge from the 'correct route,'
nor was I so unreasonable as to expect them to venture into the jaws
of the slave-trade. Several caravans that had accompanied us on the
down-march, as well as the porters attached to the Expedition, were
persuaded by the slaves of Ramjee (because Zanzibar was a nearer way to
their homes) not to make Kilwa. The pretext of the porters was simply
that they would be obliged to march back for three days. An extra
remuneration was offered to them; they refused it, and left in a body.
Shortly before their departure Captain Speke proposed to pay them for
their services, but being convinced that they might be prevented from
desertion, I did not judge it advisable by paying them, to do what
would be virtually dismissing them. After they had proceeded a few
miles, Said bin Salim was sent to recall them, on conditions which they
would have accepted; he delayed, lost time, and ended by declaring that
he could not travel without his dinner. Another party was instantly
sent; they also loitered on the way, and thus the porters reached the
coast and dispersed. Before their departure I rewarded the Kirangozi,
or chief man of the caravan, who had behaved well in exhorting his
followers to remain with us. I was delayed in a most unhealthy region
for the arrival of some down porters, who consented to carry our goods
to the coast; and to prove to them that money was not my object, I paid
the newly engaged gang as if they had marched the whole way. Their
willingness to accompany me is the best proof that I had not lost the
confidence of the people. Finally, on arrival at the coast, I inquired
concerning those porters who had deserted us, and was informed by the
Diwan and headman of the village that they had returned to their homes
in the interior, after a stay of a few days on the seaboard. This was
a regrettable occurrence, but such events are common on the slave-path
in Eastern Africa, and the established custom of the Arabs and other
merchants, whom I had consulted upon the subject before leaving the
interior, is not to encourage desertion by paying part of the hire, or
by settling for porterage before arriving at the coasts. Of the seven
gangs of porters engaged on this journey, _only one_, an unusually
small proportion, left me without being fully satisfied.

"10. That Said bin Salim, and Ramjee, the Banyan, should have appealed
to Captain Rigby, according to the fashion of Orientals, after my
departure from Zanzibar, for claims which they should have advanced
when I refused to admit them, I am not astonished. But I must express
my extreme surprise that Captain Speke should have written two private
letters, forcibly pointing out the claims of these men to Captain
Rigby, without having communicated the circumstance in any way to me,
the chief of the Expedition. I have been in continued correspondence
with that officer since my departure from Zanzibar, and until this
moment I have been impressed with the conviction that Captain Speke's
opinion as to the claims of the guide and escort above alluded to was
identical with my own.

"11. With respect to the last paragraph of Captain Rigby's letter,
proposing that a shawl or some small mark of satisfaction should be
presented by Government to Ladha Damha, the Custom-master at Zanzibar,
for his assistance to the Expedition, I distinctly deny the gratuitous
assertions that I was entirely dependent on him for money and supplies;
that he advanced considerable sums of money without any security; that
he forwarded all requisite supplies, or, as Captain Speke affirms,
that he afforded the Expedition every assistance in the most handsome
manner. Before quitting Zanzibar for inner Africa, I settled all
accounts with him, and left a small balance in his hands, and I gave,
for all subsequent supplies, an order upon Messrs. Forbes, my agent
in Bombay. He, like the other Hindus at Zanzibar, utterly neglected
me after the death of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton; and Captain Rigby has
probably seen some of the letters of complaint which were sent by me
from the interior. In fact, my principal merit in having conducted
the Expedition to a successful issue is in having contended against
the utter neglect of the Hindus at Zanzibar (who had promised to
Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, in return for his many good offices, their
interest and assistance), and against the carelessness and dishonesty,
the mutinous spirit, and the active opposition of the guide and escort.

"I admit that I was careful that these men should suffer for their
misconduct. On the other hand, I was equally determined that those who
did their duty should be adequately rewarded--a fact which nowhere
appears in Captain Rigby's letter. The Portuguese servants, the negro
gun-carriers, the several African gangs of porters, with their leaders,
and all other claimants, were fully satisfied. The bills drawn in the
interior, from the Arab merchants, were duly paid at Zanzibar, and on
departure I left orders that if anything had been neglected it should
be forwarded to me in Europe. I regret that Captain Rigby, without
thoroughly ascertaining the merits of the case (which he evidently has
not done), should not have permitted me to record any remarks which I
might wish to offer before making it a matter of appeal to the Bombay
Government.

"Finally, I venture to hope that Captain Rigby has forwarded the
complaints of those who have appealed to him without endorsing their
validity; and I trust that these observations upon the statements were
based upon no foundation of fact.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"R. F. BURTON,

"Bombay Army."

       *       *       *       *       *

4.

"India Office, E.C., 14th January, 1860.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council,
to inform you that, having taken into consideration the explanations
afforded by you in your letter of the 11th of November, together with
the information on the same subject furnished by Captain Speke, he is
of opinion that it was your duty, knowing, as you did, that demands for
wages, on the part of certain Belochs and others who accompanied you
into Equatorial Africa, existed against you, not to have left Zanzibar
without bringing these claims before the Consul there, with a view to
their being adjudicated on their own merits, the more especially as
the men had been originally engaged through the intervention or the
influence of the British authorities, whom, therefore, it was your duty
to satisfy before leaving the country. Had this course been followed,
the character of the British Government would not have suffered, and
the adjustment of the dispute would, in all probability, have been
effected at a comparatively small outlay.

"Your letter, and that of Captain Speke, will be forwarded to the
Government of Bombay, with whom it will rest to determine whether you
shall be held pecuniarily responsible for the amount which has been paid
in liquidation of the claims against you.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"(Signed)  J. COSMO MELVILL."

       *       *       *       *       *

5.

"January, 1860.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official
letter of the 14th of January, 1860.

"In reply, I have the honour to observe that, not having been favoured
with a copy of the information on the same subject furnished to you by
Captain Speke, I am not in a position to understand on what grounds
the Secretary of State for India in Council should have arrived at so
unexpected a decision as regards the alleged non-payment of certain
claims made by certain persons sent with me into the African interior.

"I have the honour to observe that I did not know that demands for
wages existed against me on the part of those persons, and that I
believed I had satisfactorily explained the circumstance of their
dismissal without payment in my official letter of the 11th of
November, 1859.

"Although impaired health and its consequence prevented me from
proceeding in an official form to the adjudication of the supposed
claims in the presence of the Consular authority, I represented the
whole question to Captain Rigby, who, had he then--at that time--deemed
it his duty to interfere, might have insisted upon adjudicating the
affair with me, or with Captain Speke, before we left Zanzibar.

"I have the honour to remark that the character of the British
Government has _not_, and cannot (in my humble opinion) have suffered
in any way by my withholding a purely conditional reward when forfeited
by gross neglect and misconduct; and I venture to suggest that by
encouraging such abuses serious obstacles will be thrown in the way of
future exploration, and that the liberality of the British Government
will be more esteemed by the native than its character for sound sense.

"In conclusion, I venture to express my surprise, that all my labours
and long services in the cause of African Exploration should have
won for me no other reward than the prospect of being mulcted in a
pecuniary liability incurred by my late lamented friend, Lieut.-Colonel
Hamerton, and settled without reference to me by his successor, Captain
Rigby.

"I have the honour, etc., etc.,

"RICHARD F. BURTON,

"Capt. Bombay Army.

"The Under-Secretary of State for India."

       *       *       *       *       *

6.

"14, St. James's Square, London,

"16th January, 1861.

"Sir,--I have been indebted to the kindness and consideration of my
friend Dr. Shaw, for a sight of your letter addressed to him the 10th
of October last from Zanzibar. I shall not attempt to characterize
it in the terms that best befit it. To do so, indeed, I should be
compelled to resort to language 'vile' and unseemly as your own. Nor
can there be any necessity for this. A person who could act as you
have acted must be held by every one to be beneath the notice of
any honourable man. You have addressed a virulent attack on me, to
a quarter in which you had hoped it would prove deeply injurious to
me; and this not in the discharge of any public duty, but for the
gratification of a long-standing private pique. You sent me no copy of
this attack, you gave me no opportunity of meeting it; the slander was
propagated, as slanders generally are, in secret and behind my back.
You took a method of disseminating it which made the ordinary mode of
dealing with such libels impossible, while your distance from England
puts you in a position to be perfectly secure from any consequence of a
nature personal to yourself. Such being the case, there remains to me
but one manner of treating your letter, and that is with the contempt
it merits. My qualifications as a traveller are, I hope, sufficiently
established to render your criticisms innocuous, and the medals of
the English and French Geographical Societies may console me for the
non-appreciation of my labours by so eminent an authority as yourself.
As regards my method of dealing with the natives, the complete success
of all my explorations, except that which started under the auspices
of Brigadier Coghlan, will perhaps be accepted as a better criterion
of its correctness than the carpings of the wretched sycophants whom
you make to pander to your malignity at Zanzibar. Where the question
between us is one of personal veracity, I can hardly think that your
statements will have much weight with those who are aware of the
cognomen acquired by you at Addiscombe, and which, to judge from your
letter now under notice, I think you most entirely, richly deserve. I
have only to add, in conclusion, that I shall forward a copy of this
letter to Dr. Shaw, as well as to my publishers, and to Government--you
mention your intention of writing to them--and that I shall at all
times, in all companies, even in print if it suits me, use the same
freedom in discussing your character and conduct that you have presumed
to exercise in discussing mine.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"RICHARD F. BURTON.

"Captain C. P. Rigby."

       *       *       *       *       *

7.

"India Office, 21st April, 1860.

"Sir,--I am directed by Sir Charles Wood to inform you that your
letter of the 12th ultimo having been considered by him in Council, he
cannot, with reference to the circumstances under which the expedition
into Central Africa under your charge was undertaken, comply with your
request to be reimbursed the amount of expenditure incurred by you over
and above the Government allowance of £1000.

"I am, etc.,

"J. COSMO MELVILL.

"Captain R. Burton, 14, St. James's Square."

       *       *       *       *       *

8.

[Here there was evidently another letter received during Richard's nine
months' absence in N. America, but I have not yet found it amongst his
papers.]


(In answer to J. Cosmo Melvill's letter.)


"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official
letter of the 18th of July, 1861, with enclosure.

"I am wholly at a loss to understand what may be the 'circumstances'
('under which the expedition into Central Africa under my charge was
undertaken') that have prevented the Secretary of State for India in
Council complying with my request to be refunded. Captain Speke and
I have received the medals of the Geographical Societies of England and
France for that expedition, and the Royal Geographical Society of London
has officially expressed its opinion of the economy with which it was
conducted by me.

"I can but conclude that the representations, or rather the
misrepresentations of those whose interest it has been to prolong my
absence from Zanzibar, have led to a conclusion by which I feel deeply
aggrieved--namely, the non-recognition of my services by the Secretary
of State for India in Council. And I venture to express a hope that
when the Civil proceedings which are now being instituted by me against
Captain (local Lieut.-Colonel) Rigby, British Consul at Zanzibar,
come on for trial, this correspondence may be adduced to show how
successfully this officer has exerted his malice against me.

"R. F. BURTON."




APPENDIX G.

DESCRIPTION OF AFRICAN CHARACTER--THE RAW
MATERIAL IN 1856-59.


"The East African, like other barbarians, is a strange mixture of good
and evil: by the nature of barbarous society, however, the good element
has not, whilst the evil has, been carefully cultured.

"As a rule, the civilized or highest type of man owns the sway of
intellect, of reason; the semi-civilized--as are still the great
nations of the East--are guided by sentiment and propensity in a degree
incomprehensible to more advanced races; and the barbarian is the slave
of impulse, passion, and instinct, faintly modified by sentiment, but
ignorant of intellectual discipline. He appears, therefore, to the
civilized man a paralogic being,--a mere mass of contradictions; his
ways are not our ways, his reason is not our reason. He deduces effects
from causes which we ignore; he compasses his ends by contrivances
which we cannot comprehend; and his artifices and polity excite, by
their shallowness and 'inconsequence,' our surprise and our contempt.
Like that Hindú race that has puzzled the plain-witted Englishman
for the century closing with the massacres of Delhi and Cawnpore, he
is calculated to perplex those who make conscience an instinct which
elevates man to the highest ground of human intelligence. He is at
once very good-tempered and hard-hearted, combative and cautious;
kind at one moment, cruel, pitiless, and violent at another; sociable
and unaffectionate; superstitious and grossly irreverent; brave and
cowardly, servile and oppressive; obstinate, yet fickle and fond of
changes; with points of honour, but without a trace of honesty in word
or in deed; a lover of life, though addicted to suicide; covetous and
parsimonious, yet thoughtless and improvident; somewhat conscious
of inferiority, withal unimprovable. In fact, he appears an embryo
of the two superior races. He is inferior to the active-minded and
objective, and analytic and perceptive European, and to the ideal and
subjective, the synthetic and reflective Asiatic. He partakes largely
of the worst characteristics of the lower Oriental types--stagnation of
mind, indolence of body, moral deficiency, superstition, and childish
passion; hence the Egyptians aptly termed the Berbers and negroes the
'perverse race of Kush.'

"The main characteristic of this people is the selfishness which the
civilized man strives to conceal, because publishing it would obstruct
its gratification. The barbarian, on the other hand, displays his
inordinate egotism openly and recklessly; his every action discloses
those unworthy traits which in more polished races chiefly appear on
public occasions, when each man thinks solely of self-gratification.
Gratitude with him is not even a sense of prospective favours; he
looks upon a benefit as the weakness of his benefactor and as his own
strength; consequently, he will not recognize even the hand that feeds
him. He will, perhaps, lament for a night the death of a parent or of a
child, but the morrow will find him thoroughly comforted. The name of
hospitality, except for interested motives, is unknown to him. 'What
will you give me?' is his first question. To a stranger entering a
village the worst hut is assigned, and, if he complains, the answer is
that he can find encamping ground outside. Instead of treating him like
a guest, which the Arab Bedouin would hold to be a point of pride, of
honour, his host compels him to pay and prepay every article, otherwise
he might starve in the midst of plenty. Nothing, in fact, renders the
stranger's life safe in this land, except the timid shrinking of the
natives from the 'hot-mouthed weapon' and the necessity of trade, which
induces the chiefs to restrain the atrocities of their subjects. To
travellers the African is, of course, less civil than to merchants,
from whom he expects to gain something. He will refuse a mouthful
of water out of his abundance to a man dying of thirst; utterly
unsympathizing, he will not stretch out a hand to save another's
goods, though worth thousands of dollars. Of his own property, if
a ragged cloth or a lame slave be lost, his violent excitement is
ridiculous to behold. His egotism renders him parsimonious even in
self-gratification; the wretched curs, which he loves as much as his
children, seldom receive a mouthful of food, and the sight of an Arab's
ass feeding on grain elicits a prolonged 'Hi! hi!' of extreme surprise.
He is exceedingly improvident, taking no thought for the morrow--not
from faith, but rather from carelessness as to what may betide him;
yet so greedy of gain is he that he will refuse information about a
country or about the direction of a path without a present of beads. He
also invariably demands prepayment: no one keeps a promise or adheres
to an agreement, and, if credit be demanded for an hour, his answer
would be, 'There is nothing in my hand.' Yet even greed of gain cannot
overcome the levity and laxity of his mind. Despite his best interests,
he will indulge the mania for desertion caused by that mischievous
love of change and whimsical desire for novelty that characterize the
European sailor. Nor can even lucre prevail against the ingrained
indolence of the race--an indolence the more hopeless as it is the
growth of the climate. In these temperate and abundant lands Nature has
cursed mankind with the abundance of her gifts; his wants still await
creation, and he is contented with such necessaries as roots and herbs,
game, and a few handfuls of grain--consequently improvement has no hold
upon him.

"In this stage of society truth is no virtue. The 'mixture of a lie' may
'add to pleasure' amongst Europeans; in Africa it enters where neither
pleasure nor profit can arise from the deception. If a Mnyamwezi guide
informs the traveller that the stage is short, he may make up his mind
for a long and weary march, and _vice versâ_. Of course, falsehood is
used as a defence by the weak and oppressed; but beyond that, the
African desires to be lied to, and one of his proverbs is, ''Tis better
to be deceived than to be undeceived.' The European thus qualifies the
assertion--

    'For sure the pleasure is as great
    In being cheated as to cheat.'

Like the generality of barbarous races, the East Africans are wilful,
headstrong, and undisciplinable; in point of stubbornness and
restiveness they resemble the lower animals. If they cannot obtain
the very article of barter upon which they have set their mind, they
will carry home things useless to them; any attempt at bargaining
is settled by the seller turning his back, and they ask according
to their wants and wishes, without regard to the value of goods.
Grumbling and dissatisfied, they never do business without a grievance.
Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars
that have prevailed between kindred clans, even for a generation,
prove. Retaliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of
moral control. Judged by the test of death, the East African is a
hard-hearted man, who seems to ignore all the charities of father, son,
and brother. A tear is rarely shed, except by the women, for departed
parent, relative, or friend, and the voice of the mourner is seldom
heard in their abodes. It is most painful to witness the complete
inhumanity with which a porter seized with small-pox is allowed by his
friends, comrades, and brethren to fall behind in the jungle, with
several days' life in him. No inducement--even beads--can persuade a
soul to attend him. Every village will drive him from its doors; no
one will risk taking, at any price, death into his bosom. If strong
enough, the sufferer builds a little bough-hut away from the camp, and,
provided with his rations--a pound of grain and a gourdful of water--he
quietly expects his doom,--to feed the hyæna and the raven of the wild.
The people are remarkable for the readiness with which they yield to
fits of sudden fury; on these occasions they will, like children, vent
their rage upon any object, animate or inanimate, that presents itself.
Their temper is characterized by a nervous, futile impatience; under
delay or disappointment they become madmen. In their own country, where
such displays are safe, they are remarkable for a presumptuousness and
a violence of manner which elsewhere disappear. As the Arabs say, there
they are lions, here they become curs. Their squabbling and clamour
pass description; they are never happy except when in dispute. After
a rapid plunge into excitement, the brawlers alternately advance and
recede, pointing the finger of threat, howling and screaming, cursing
and using terms of insult which an inferior ingenuity--not want of
will--causes to fall short of the Asiatic's model vituperation. After
abusing each other to their fill, both 'parties' usually burst into a
loud laugh or a burst of sobs. Their tears lie high: they weep like
Goanese. After a cuff, a man will cover his face with his hands and cry
as if his heart would break. More furious shrews than the women are
nowhere met with. Here it is a great truth that 'the tongues of women
cannot be governed.' They work off excitement by scolding, and they
weep little compared with the men. Both sexes delight in 'argument,'
which here, as elsewhere, means two fools talking foolishly. They
will weary out of patience the most loquacious of the Arabs. This
development is characteristic of the East African race, and '_maneno
marefu!_'--long words!--will occur as a useless reproof half a dozen
times in the course of a single conversation. When drunk, the East
African is easily irritated; with the screams and excited gestures
of a maniac he strides about, frantically flourishing his spear and
agitating his bow, probably with notched arrow; the spear-point and the
arrow-head are often brought perilously near, but rarely allowed to
draw blood. The real combat is by pushing, pulling hair, and slapping
with a will, and a pair thus engaged require to be torn asunder by half
a dozen friends. The settled tribes are, for the most part, feeble
and unwarlike barbarians; even the bravest East African, though, like
all men, a combative entity, has a valour tempered by discretion and
cooled by a high development of cautiousness. His tactics are of the
Fabian order: he loves surprises and safe ambuscades; and in common
frays and forays the loss of one per cent. justifies a _sauve qui
peut_. This people, childlike, is ever in extremes. A man will hang
himself from a rafter in his tent, and kick away from under him the
large wooden mortar upon which he has stood at the beginning of the
operation, with as much _sang-froid_ as an Anglo-Saxon in the gloomy
month of November; yet he regards annihilation, as all savages do, with
loathing and ineffable horror. 'He fears death,' to quote Bacon, 'as
children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children
is increased with tales, so is the other.' The African mind must change
radically before it can 'think upon death, and find it the least of
all evils.' All the thoughts of these negroids are connected with this
life. 'Ah!' they exclaim, 'it is bad to die; to leave off eating and
drinking; to wear a fine cloth!' As in the negro race generally, their
destructiveness is prominent; a slave never breaks a thing without an
instinctive laugh of pleasure; and however careful he may be of his own
life, he does not value that of another, even of a relative, at the
price of a goat. During fires in the town of Zanzibar, the blacks have
been seen adding fuel, and singing and dancing, wild with delight. On
such occasions they are shot down by the Arabs like dogs.

"It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilized
'social evil' is not recognized as an evil. In the economy of the
affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that
rude stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now
enlightened man. Marriage with these people, as amongst all barbarians,
and even the lower classes of civilized races, is a mere affair of
buying and selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his
comfort; consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her
father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brasswire bracelets
as the suitor can afford. He thus virtually sells her, and she belongs
to the buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell
his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her
value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A
strong inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in
Europe, is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family;
a large progeny enriches them. The African, like all barbarians, and,
indeed, semi-civilized people, ignores the dowry by which, inverting
nature's order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband
buying the wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and
an event with Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent
recurrence. Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves
upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred.
It is no disgrace for an unmarried woman to become a mother of a
family; after marriage there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni, or
adulterer, if detected, is punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor
and weak, he is sold into slavery. Husbands seldom, however, resort
to such severities; the offence, which is considered to be against
vested property, being held to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the
influence of jealousy, murders and mutilations have been committed;
but they are rare and exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by
turning the spouse out of doors, and the children become the father's
property. Attachment to home is powerful in the African race; but it
regards rather the comforts and pleasures of the house, and the unity
of relations and friends, than the fondness of the family. Husband,
wife, and children have through life divided interests, and live
together with scant appearance of affection. Love of offspring can
have but little power amongst a people who have no preventive for
illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time. The children
appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the Somal. Some
attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward indications, but
by surprise, as it were. 'Mamá! mamá!'--'Mother! mother!'--is a common
exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is passed, the father
and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts. Yet
they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of relatives sometimes,
but rarely, leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity, resulting
from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain. It is
probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the Widad,
or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the Koran,
becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To this
over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always
shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The 'ukosa,' or transgression,
is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving
the worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, 'Mbáyá
we!'--'Thou art bad!'--a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and
uneffective to European ears.

"The social position of the women--the unerring test of progress
towards civilization--is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more
highly organized tribes of the South. Few of the country own the rule
of female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their
wives; but the opinion of a brother or a friend usually prevail over
that of a woman.

"The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already
been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his
hemisphere of boughs, or his hide-acting tent, he hates, and has a
truly savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the
'Madeleine,' but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many
Wanyamwezi, when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a
house.

"The East African is greedy and voracious. He seems, however, to
prefer light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the
civilized Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and
supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can
exist and work with a small quantity of food; but he is unaccustomed,
and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter
is one kubabah (= 1.5 lbs.) of grain. He can, with the assistance of
edible herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the
least likely places, eke out this allowance for several days, though
generally, upon the barbarian's impulsive principles of mortgaging the
future for the present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him
the grand end of life is eating. His love of feeding is inferior only
to his propensity for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer
stand, lies down to sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts
are solemn things, to which the most important business must yield
precedence. They celebrate with beer every event--the traveller's
return, the birth of a child, and the death of an elephant. A labourer
will not work unless beer is provided for him. The highest order
rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing. The
proper diet for a king is much beer and little meat. If a Wanyamwezi be
asked, after eating, whether he is hungry, he will reply 'Yea,' meaning
that he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The
East African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance,
or quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these
occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The
favourite hour for drinking is after dawn--a time as distasteful to the
European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved
by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The
civilized man avoids early potations, because they incapacitate him for
necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by
stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilized, on the other hand,
prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and
they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when
they awake, they have something to think of. The habit, once acquired,
is never broken; it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and
unoccupied barbarian.

"In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the
East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little
veneration--the negro race is ever irreverent--and, though his cranium
rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being
firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The
authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him
represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from
his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake's sake. The
accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a
treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the
dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his
calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the
moments not devoted to intoxication.

"The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African.
The body politic consists of two great members--masters and slaves.
Ignoring distinction of society, he treats all men, except his chief,
as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he
enters a stranger's house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever
the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak;
his address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and
his look bold. He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and
tattered goatskin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand
for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When
travelling, he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut:
the chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempts
to dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of
mules--as the Arabs say, they 'have no shame.' The curiosity of these
people is at times most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at;
total apathy is the only remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or
attempt to dislodge them, he will find it like disturbing a swarm of
bees. They will come for miles to 'sow gape-seed:' if the tent-fly
be closed, they will peer and peep from below, complaining loudly
against the occupant, and, if further prevented, they may proceed to
violence. On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and
girls--will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive
spectacle--these uncouth figures, running at a 'gymnastic pace,' half
clothed except with grease, with pendant bosoms shaking in the air,
and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of
human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles
of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by
the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek,
is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first appeared in
the country they were received with respect and deference. They soon,
however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with the
people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the Africans
found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil has
become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that
between the manners of an Indian ryot and an East African Mshenzi.

"In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently
unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilized generally,
he observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his
perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that
of an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond
which apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is
stationary, but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his
love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle:
his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights
in singing, yet he has no metrical songs: he contents himself with
improvising a few words without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till
they nauseate: the long, drawling recitative generally ends in 'Ah!
ha!' or some such strongly nasalized sound. Like the Somal, he has
tunes appropriated to particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or
the harvest-home. When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar
form: women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will
break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which
concludes with its own particular groan or wail: after venting a
little distress in a natural sound, the long, long improvisation,
in the highest falsetto key, continues as before. As in Europe the
'laughing-song' is an imitation of hilarity somewhat distressing to
the spirits of the audience, so the 'weeping-song' of the African only
tends to risibility. His wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue
have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence; though, like
most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content himself with
squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some meaningless word
in every different tone of voice during the weary length of a day's
march. His language is highly artificial and musical: the reader will
have observed that the names which occur often consist entirely of
liquids and vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word,
and that they never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of
a syllabarium seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally,
though the East African delights in the dance, and is an excellent
timist--a thousand heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like
one--his performance is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man.
He delights in a joke, which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his
efforts in wit are of the feeblest that can be conceived.

"'Use savages justly and graciously, with sufficient guard
nevertheless.' They must be held as foes; and the prudent stranger will
never put himself in their power, especially where life is concerned.
The safety of a caravan will often depend upon the barbarian's fear of
beginning the fray: if the onset takes place, the numbers, the fierce
looks, the violent gestures, and the confidence of the assailants upon
their own ground will probably prevail.

"They may be managed as the Indian saw directs, by a judicious mixture
of the _Narm_ and _Garm_--the soft and hot. Thus the old traders
remarked in Guinea, that the best way to treat a black man was to hold
out one hand to shake with him, while the other is doubled ready to
knock him down. In trading with, or even when dwelling amongst these
people, all display of wealth must be avoided. A man who would purchase
the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its equivalent.

"Much of this moral degradation must be attributed to the working,
through centuries, of the slave-trade: the tribes are no longer as
nature made them; and from their connection with strangers they have
derived nothing but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous type,
they have been varnished with the semi-civilization of trade and
commerce, which sits ridiculously upon their minds as a rich garment
would upon their persons.

"Nature, in these regions really sublime or beautiful, more often
terrible and desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle,
the tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly
inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a
vague and nameless awe. Untaught to recommend himself for protection to
a Superior Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of his
reverence and awe: he prostrates himself before the sentiment within
him, hoping to propitiate it as he would satisfy a fellow-man. The
grand mysteries of life and death, to him unrevealed and unexplained,
the want of a true interpretation of the admirable phenomena of
creation, and the vagaries and misconceptions of his own degraded
imagination, awaken in him ideas of horror, and people the invisible
world with ghost and goblin, demon and spectrum, the incarnations,
as it were, of his own childish fears. Deepened by the dread of
destruction, ever strong in the barbarian breast, his terror causes him
to look with suspicion upon all around him: 'How,' inquires the dying
African, 'can I alone be ill when others are well, unless I have been
bewitched?'

"Some missionaries have detected in the habit, which prevails
throughout Eastern and Western Africa, of burying slaves with the
deceased, of carrying provisions to graves, and of lighting fires
on cold nights near the last resting-places of the departed, a
continuation of relations between the quick and the dead which points
to a belief in a future state of existence. The wish is father to
that thought: the doctrine of the soul, of immortality, belongs to
a superior order of mind, to a more advanced stage of society. The
belief, as its operations show, is in presentity, materialism, not in
futurity, spiritualism.

"When the savage and the barbarian are asked what has become of the
'old people' (their ancestors), they only smile and reply, 'They are
ended.' It proves the inferior organization of the race. Some races
have decided that man hath a future, since even Indian corn is vivified
and rises again. The East African has created of his fears a ghost
which never attains the perfect form of a soul.

"The East African's _Credenda_ are based upon two main articles. The
first is demonology, or rather, the spectra of the dead; the second,
witchcraft or black magic. Few, and only the tribes adjacent to the
maritime regions, have derived from El Islam a faint conception of the
One Supreme.

"He has not, like the Kafir, a holiday at the epoch of new moon: like
the Moslem, however, on first seeing it, he raises and claps his hands
in token of obeisance. In his Fetish hut upon the ground, or suspended
from the roof, are handfuls of grain and small pots full of beer,
placed there to propitiate the ghosts, and to defend the crops from
injury.

"The African temperament has strong susceptibilities, combined with
what appears to be a weakness of brain, and great excitability of
the nervous system, as is proved by the prevalence of epilepsy,
convulsions, and hysteric disease.

"The negroid is, therefore, peculiarly liable to the epidemical mania
called 'Phantasmata,' which, according to history, has at times of
great mental agitation and popular disturbance broken out in different
parts of Europe, and which, even in this our day, forms the basework of
'revivals.'

"Salim bin Rashíd, a half-caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar,
avers, and his companions bear witness to his words, that on one
occasion, when travelling northwards from Unyanyembe, the possession
occurred to himself. During the night two female slaves, his
companions, of whom one was a child, fell, without apparent cause, into
fits which denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously, the master
became as one intoxicated; a dark mass, material, not spiritual,
entered the tent, and he felt himself pulled and pushed by a number of
black figures, whom he had never seen before. He called aloud to his
companions and slaves, who, vainly attempting to enter the tent, threw
it down, and presently found him in a state of stupor, from which he
did not recover till the morning. The same merchant circumstantially
related, and called witnesses to prove, that a small slave-boy, who
was produced on the occasion, had been frequently carried off by
possession even when confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door
carefully bolted and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found,
although the chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was met
in the jungle, wandering absently like an idiot, and with speech too
incoherent to explain what had happened to him.

"For ordeal the people of Usumbara thrust a red-hot hatchet into the
mouth of the accused. Among the south-eastern tribes a heated iron
spike, driven into some tender part of the person, is twice struck
with a log of wood. The Wazaramo dip the hand into boiling water,
the Waganda into seething oil, and the Wazegura prick the ear with
the stiffest bristle of a gnu's tail. The Wakwafi have an ordeal of
meat that chokes the guilty. The Wanyamwezi pound with water between
two stones, and infuse a poisonous bark called 'Mwavi:' it is first
administered by the _Mganga_ to a hen, who, for the nonce, represents
the suspected. If, however, all parties be not satisfied with such
trial, it is duly adhibited to the accused.

"The _Mganga_ (medicine man) aids his tribe by magical arts in wars, by
catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it
in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an
army of its fellows and disperse a host, however numerous. This belief
well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the supernatural.
The land being full of swarms, and man's body being wholly exposed,
many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff before the wind by a bevy
of swarming bees. Similarly, in South Africa the magician kicks an
ant-hill and starts wasps which put the enemy to flight. And in the
Books of the Hebrews we read that the hornet sent before the children
of Israel against the Amorite was more terrible than sword or bow
(Joshua xxiv.).

"On the coast and in the island of Zanzibar the slaves are of two
kinds--the _Muwallid_ or domestic, born in captivity, and the wild
slave imported from the interior.

"In the former case the slave is treated as one of the family, because
the master's comfort depends upon the man being contented; often also
his sister occupies the dignified position of concubine to the head of
the house. These slaves vary greatly in conduct.

"The Arabs spoil them by kinder usage; few employ the stick, the
_salib_, or cross--a forked pole to which the neck and ankles are
lashed--and the _makantale_, or stocks, for fear or desertion. Yet
the slave, if dissatisfied, silently leaves the house, lets himself
to another master, and returns after perhaps two years' absence as if
nothing had occurred. Thus he combines the advantages of freedom and
slavery.

"Full-grown serfs are bought for predial purposes; they continue
indocile, and alter little by domestication. When not used by the
master they are left to plunder or let themselves out for food and
raiment, and when dead they are cast into the sea or into the nearest
pit. These men are the scourge of society; no one is safe from their
violence; and to preserve a garden or an orchard from the depredations
of the half-starved wretches, a guard of musketeers would be required.
They are never armed, yet, as has been recounted, they have caused at
Zanzibar servile wars, deadly and lasting as those of ancient Rome.

"Arabs declare that the barbarians are improved by captivity--a
partial theory open to doubt. The _servum pecus_ retain in thraldom
that wildness and obstinacy which distinguish the people and the lower
animals of their native lands; they are trapped, but not tamed; they
become captives, but not civilized. However trained, they are probably
the worst servants in the world; a slave-household is a model of
discomfort.

"The old definition of a slave still holds good--'an animal that eats
as much and does as little as possible.' A whole gang will barely do
the work of a single servant. He must deceive, for fraud and foxship
are his force; when detected in some prodigious act of rascality, he
pathetically pleads, 'Am I not a slave?' He will run away from the
semblance of danger; yet on a journey he will tie his pipe to a leaky
keg of gunpowder, and smoke it in that position rather than take the
trouble to undo it. A slave belonging to Musa, the Indian merchant
at Kazeh, unwilling to rise and fetch a pipe, opened the pan of his
musket, filled it with tobacco and fire, and beginning to inhale it
from the muzzle blew out his brains. Growing confident and impudent
from the knowledge of how far he may safely go, the slave presumes to
the utmost. He steals instinctively, like a magpie: a case is quoted
in which the gold spangles were stripped from an officer's sword-belt
whilst dining with the Prince of Zanzibar.

"The brutishness of negroid nature is brought out by the cheap and
readily attainable pleasures of semi-civilization. Whenever on
moonlight nights the tapping of the tomtom responds to the vile
squeaking of the fife, it is impossible to keep either male or female
slave within doors. All rendezvous at the place, and, having howled and
danced themselves into happiness, conclude with a singularly disorderly
scene.

"The negroid slaves greatly improve by exportation: they lose much of
the surliness and violence which distinguish them at Zanzibar, and are
disciplined into a kind of respect for superiors.

"In the present day the Persians and other Asiatics are careful, when
bound on distant or dangerous journeys, to mix white servants with
black slaves; they hold the African to be full of strange caprices, and
to be ever at heart a treacherous and bloodthirsty barbarian.

"According to the Arabs there is another servile republic about Gulwen,
near Brava. Travellers speak with horror of the rudeness, violence,
and cruelty of these self-emancipated slaves; they are said to be more
dangerous even than the Somal, who for wanton mischief and malice can
be compared with nothing but the naughtiest schoolboys in England.

"The serviles at Zanzibar have played their Arab masters some notable
tricks. Many a severe lord has perished by the hand of a slave. Several
have lost their eyes by the dagger's point during sleep. Curious
tales are told of ingenious servile conspiracy. Mohammed bin Sayf,
a Zanzibar Arab, remarkable for household discipline, was brought to
grief by Kombo, his slave, who stole a basket of nutmegs from the
Prince, and, hiding them in his master's house, denounced him of theft.
Fahl bin Nasr, a travelling merchant, when passing through Ugogo,
nearly lost his life in consequence of a slave having privily informed
the people that his patron had been killing crocodiles and preserving
their fat for poison. In both these cases the slaves were not punished;
they had acted, it was believed, according to the true instincts of
servile nature, and chastisement would have caused desertion, not
improvement.

"Prices of slaves range from six feet of unbleached domestics, or a few
pounds of grain in time of famine, to seventy dollars, equal to £15.
The slaves are cheapest in the interior, on account of the frequency of
desertion: about Unyamwezi they are dearer, and most expensive in the
island of Zanzibar.

"At Zanzibar the price of a boy under puberty is from fifteen to thirty
dollars. A youth till the age of fifteen is worth a little less. A
man in the prime of life, from twenty-five to forty, fetches from
thirteen to twenty dollars; after that age he may be bought from ten
to thirteen. Educated slaves, fitted for the work of factors, are sold
from twenty-five to seventy dollars and at fancy prices. The price of
females is everywhere about one-third higher than that of males. At
Zanzibar the _ushur_, or custom-dues, vary according to the race of the
slave: the Wahiao, Wangindo, and other serviles imported from Kilwa pay
one dollar per head, from the Mrima or maritime regions two dollars,
and from Unyamwezi, Ujiji, and the rest of the interior three dollars.
At the central depôt, Unyanyembe, where slaves are considered neither
cheap nor dear, the value of a boy ranges between eight and ten _doti_,
or double cloths; a youth, from nine to eleven; a man in prime, from
five to ten, and past his prime from four to six. In some parts of the
interior men are dearer than children under puberty. In the cheapest
places, as in Karagwah and Urori, a boy costs three _shukkahs_ of
cloth, and three _fundo_ or thirty strings of coral beads; a youth,
from ten to fifteen _fundo_; a man in prime, from eight to ten; and no
one will purchase an old man. These general notes must not, however,
be applied to particular tribes: as with ivory and other valuable
commodities, the amount and the description of the circulating medium
vary at almost every march.

"The average of yearly import into the island of Zanzibar was fourteen
thousand head of slaves, the extremes being nine thousand and twenty
thousand. The loss by mortality and desertion is thirty per cent. per
annum; thus, the whole gang must be renewed between the third and
fourth year.

"By a stretch of power slavery might readily be abolished in the island
of Zanzibar, and in due time, after the first confusion, the measure
would doubtless be found as profitable as it is now unpalatable to
the landed proprietors and to the commercial body. A 'sentimental
squadron,' like the West African, would easily, by means of steam,
prevent any regular exportation to the Asiatic continent. But these
measures would deal only with effects, leaving the causes in full
vigour; they would strike at the bole and branches, the root retaining
sufficient vitality to resume its functions as soon as relieved of the
pressure from without. Neither treaty nor fleet would avail permanently
to arrest the course of slavery upon the seaboard, much less would it
act in the far realms of the interior. At present the African will not
work; the purchase of predial slaves to till the harvest for him, is
the great aim of his life. When a more extensive intercourse with the
maritime regions shall beget wants which compel the barbarian, now
contented with doing nothing and having nothing, to that individual
exertion and that mutual dependency which render serfdom a moral
impossibility in the more advanced stages of human society--when man,
now valueless except to himself, shall become more precious by his
labour than by his sale, in fact an article so expensive that strangers
cannot afford to buy him--then we may expect to witness the extinction
of the evil. Thus, and thus only, can 'Rachel, still weeping for her
children,' in the evening of her days, be made happy.

"Meanwhile, the philanthropist, who after sowing the good seed has
sense and patience to consign the gathering of the crop to posterity,
will hear with pleasure that the extinction of slavery would be hailed
with delight by the great mass throughout the length and breadth of
Eastern Africa. This people, 'robbed and spoiled' by their oppressors,
who are legionary, call themselves 'the meat,' and the slave-dealers
'the knife:' they hate and fear their own demon Moloch, but they lack
unanimity to free their necks from his yoke. Africa still 'lies in her
blood,' but the progress of human society, and the straiter bonds which
unite man with man, shall eventually rescue her from her old pitiable
fate."




APPENDIX H.

REPORT AFTER GOING TO SEARCH FOR PALMER.

"_It is said to be generally believed in official quarters that the
whole of the troops forming the army of occupation in Egypt will have
been withdrawn by the end of the financial year_ (Daily Papers).


"'Many will consider the following statement sensational and
exaggerated, while it is distinctly, confessedly realistic. There is no
second opinion upon the subject amongst foreigners in Egypt, whatever
Egyptians may say, not think. When the last English soldier leaves
Alexandria, the last European had better embark with him. Shortly after
the final eclipse of our Redcoats and our Bluejackets the Nile Valley
will witness a human hurricane which its lively annals have not yet
chronicled. As we are here so here we must perforce rest. It is our
second conquest of the glorious land which--all know--was offered in
gift to England some years before its final fall. We honestly declined
the "Protectorate," or whatever it may be called. Now, the tyranny of
circumstance forces--nay! has forced--it upon us.'

"These lines were written in early 1883, and time has brought with it
no change. Our occupation of Egypt is compulsory as ever. We only have
made matters worse by those 'extra-parliamentary utterances,' those
pledges for withdrawal which have kept the Nile Valley in a state of
chronic excitement. As for our newly raised 'Army' and Police force,
these men would be the first to turn upon Europeans and to rend them.

"A few words concerning the voyage.

"Nothing can be pleasanter, if aught of the kind can please, than
a steamer-trip from Trieste to Alexandria. This, too, despite
the _visages patibulaires_ of a First Class which should travel
Second Class, of a Second which ever intrudes into the domains and
dominions of a First Class, and despite the terrible infantry which
makes an irritable Italian exclaim aloud, '_Sancte Herode ora pro
nobis!_' The weather is sometimes perfect even in gloomy November,
boisterous December, and roaring January. The scene-shifting of the
five days, which may be six, is ever various and ever picturesque.
The first, which begins at noon, is the Trieste-Dalmatian, showing
the many-featured and historic shores of Trieste, vice-queen of the
Adriatic and the Istrian coasts, which want only a secret something
to make them thoroughly classical and Italian. It ends as morning
rises splendid over the snowy crest and the bold seafront of the
Dinarian Alps; and forenoon and afternoon are spent in gazing at the
grey archipelago sharply thrown out from the Mediterranean blue;
the rock-stuck Pomo; 'piscous' Sant' Andrea; romantic Lissa, whose
Egypto-Greek art-remains make the fortune of the Spalato Museum; Cazza,
the 'spoon' with bulging handle and bowl; broken Lagosta; the Sabbion
cello Promontory, tossed and towering in azure air; and Pelagosa, the
last remnant of a volcanic rim where lightning is deadly and where
wind-storms are unknown.

"No. 2, the Albanian-Corfu day, opens with a near prospect of the
grand and grandly named Akrokeraunian (Cimariot) Rocks. Whatever
gales, Tramontana or Scirocco, may roar outside, the basin of Korkyra,
forty-eight hours from Trieste and seventy-two from Alexandria, is a
haven of rest tranquil as a dry dock. We have time to land and to note
that transfer from England to Greece has by no means ruined the city,
and to hear Mr. Gladstone roundly abused for what was done by Lord
Palmerston.

"At Corfu we shipped for Egypt 245 Arnauts, the sweepings of the
Albanian hills. These men, who were popularly described as 'Bathmen
(Hammámjís) in Stambul and Pharaohs in Cairo,' are now returning to
Nile-land, whence they were expelled by Said Pasha. We know them
a mile off by their broad brows and long straight uncombed locks;
their cats' moustachios and peaky chins; their felt caps and 'shaggy
capotes;' their foul _fustanella_-skirts, girt with leather-belts for
the nonce void of weapons; their archaic leggings (_knemides_) and
their barbarous hide-sandals, the Slav _upanke_. These savages would
doubtless train to good light infantry; but they are engaged as police.
Set a thief to catch a thief may be true, but when the latter is caught
how does the former occupy himself?

"Six hours beyond Corfu we draw inshore, but not too near on account
of a lately found shoal, the deposit of a supposed submarine volcano.
Hard by us to port a tall white precipice, Leucatos, in inverted
bow-window-shape, breaks the seaward front of Leukadia Island, _alias_
Sta. Maura; and a long red streak shows 'Sappho's Leap.' Like Abel,
whose slaughter-place is near Damascus, the poetess must have contained
more 'curious juice' than a school of whales. A narrow strait separates
Leukadia from Theaki (Ithaca), and we see distinctly the cause why
Ulysses could not rest from travel. A double lump of grey-red limestone
patched with dwarf evergreens, a few olives, and fewer cypresses; here
and there a slip of field-slope no larger than a courtyard; sundry
windmills on the hill-tops and rude tenements on the lower levels; a
road gashed on the scaur-side leading to a 'port,' that consists of
a covelet and one house and the general look of a place fit only for
convicts, could have offered few charms to the crafty one who had seen
the manners of many men and their cities. Cefalonia, the opposite
feature, shows more fertility, because we see her landward face, and
her tall cones Georgio and Elato, which make sunset about three p.m.,
condense the vapours and water her with 'Scotch mist.'

"Then comes the Zante-Morea day, the fair island fronted by the Skopo
block with its white-walled monastery. Its huge old citadel overhanging
the town, which stretches herself lazily upon the sunny slope, is still
desert; not so the inner valley, 'O Kampos,' bounded by a hill-range
which Zantiotes compare with the Jura line. On the fronting mainland
south of grey Cape Glarenza (Clarence?) rises the once doughty pile
Kastro Tornesi. Leaving the Zante-Channel we run near enough to
distinguish the features of Pylus Bay, now Navarino ('of the Avars'),
with its natural breakwater, Sphacteria, _hodie_ Sphagia, Island,
where the Spartans were made captives. Then Methone (Modon) Port and
Town, sister of Pylus,[1] whence the Mekhitaris Fathers spread through
Upper Italy and Lower Austria; Cervera Islet, with its lighthouse; and
Matapan, where Southern Europe ends. A very bad name has this terminal
point, Tænorum, the Matapan (forehead) amongst Moderns as amongst
Ancients, despite the good auspices of Poseidon, Herakles, and Orion.
A western in-draught through the Sicilian and Gibraltar Straits or the
return current of the same blows up high side-seas. The Corinth cut
is intended for a cure, but will it ever be cut? Dim in haze beyond
Matapan we see the long outlines of Malta or St. Angelo Promontory,
distinguished only by a hermitage which is never vacant.

"Despite frequent disillusions we open our eyes at the sight of
Cerigo and Cerigotto. What dull, commonplace, miserable lumps of
limestone to represent poetic Cythera! Did Greek fancy go mad when
it chose such a home for lovely Cytheræa? During the night we run by
Candia, Crete, a huge front of calcareous wall, with green-flecked
sides and copings snow-powdered and mist-feathered. The last land we
shall see (thirty-six hours from Corfu) is the Gavdo or Gozzo Islet,
distinguished only by its French lighthouse. And now patience after
Gavdo day (No. 4); we shall have nothing in view but air and water, and
look forward to Alexandria on the morrow.

"At length a passenger, with eyes glued to his binoculars, screams that
he sees _le Phare_ or Eunostus light. All crowd around him, striving
to see as much. Presently it stands up distinct, a white thimble-top
capping the sheet of indigo. Running in we note the effects of the
bombardment. Far to starboard rise the Marabút works, all knocked to
pieces. Meks, over the bow, shows as much light through it as the
shell of bulbous palace which it guarded: only one high flank now
stands upright. Eastward lie the battered mainland batteries, between
the harbour and Mareotis, the lake basin which we attempted, and this
time failed, to flood. On the seaward side of the port are the works
of Ras el-Tín, the headland (not 'of figs,' but) of clay, where rude
potteries were once made. The walls are smashed, the big guns point
wildly in all directions, and a white patch upon the tall light-tower
marks where one of the heaviest bolts struck. The interior was found in
fragments, but the sailors soon rigged up the apparatus. Further east
Adda stands disconsolate, a series of breaches. Towered Fort Pharos,
traditional site of the World's Wonder, at the heel of the Alexandrian
sock, also shows huge chasms in the masonry. Picnics visit the ruins,
but the artists of the various 'Illustrateds' have made the scene
perfectly familiar to us. There has, however, been treasure-trove among
the _débris_, such as stones with hieroglyphs, and a Latin inscription
built up in the ashlar.

"A good result of this 'knocking about' will be to abolish the
Alexandrian bar, which has kept thousands of tall ships rolling in the
dangerous offing through livelong nights. The City of Zu'l-Karnayu
(Alexander of the Two Horns) has built for herself a fine house,
neglecting only the doorway, even as Balzac forgot only his villa
staircase. The object of retaining the obstacle was to prevent the
entrance of a fleet in war-time--incredible; but such was the policy
of modern Egypt's short-sighted sons! The Bughaz, or Central Passage,
flanked by Corvette Passage east, and west by Marabút Passage, is
the main line, marked by buoys invisible at night--hence the delays.
The scattered reefs of coralline must be blown up and the fragments
removed, otherwise bad will wax worse. The work should be entrusted
to an English contractor of repute, say Sir G. Elliot: a host of
Levantines, Greeks and others, are proposing to do the job cheaply and
badly. I heard £40,000 as the inadequate sum proposed.

"Very gay and lively is the glorious new Harbour, where warships of
all nations, even Turkish, are alive with martial sounds. Steamers are
puffing in and out, tugs are plying, and small craft under sail and oar
are dotting the broad expanse. Three transports embark homeward-bound.
The much-abused hospital ship _Carthage_, a whited sepulchre,
lies apart, sulking as it were. Colliers and merchantmen line the
landing-places, and even the Dry Dock is at work. Near the inner Mole
stand the old Egyptian men-of-war, suggesting Greenwich pensioners; the
sooner they are sold and broken up for building material the better.
Presently appears the ubiquitous Cook's boat, as we learn from white
calico letters sewn upon raiment red as the mediæval Headsman's. We
surrender at discretion, leave a card at the custom-house, and take
carriage at the Marina or quay.

"The burnings begin at once in the Darb el-Gumruk (Custom-house
Street). A 'house of refreshment' was fired by the mob because
frequented by the hated Frank, and the flames spread, but not far.
Reaching the Darb Ras el-Tín, which connects the sea-palace with the
main square, the ruins show in force, and extend in lines and patches
through the Place to the walls that defend the city on the south and
east.

"The Place des Consuls, or de Mahomet Ali, now shows its third phase.
That of utter bareness and barrenness was described by the Pilgrim in
1852.[2] Then came the polished epoch of tall trees, round tanks and
flower-plots, heavy chains, band-stand, and gravelled walks, which
attracted hosts of nursery-maids and their sallow charges. The Great
Old Man of Cavala still sits his bronze steed, but since 1882 he looks
upon a Fair, a Kermesse, or rather a brand-new mining city in the Far
West, set in a framework of ruins, an unburied Pompeii.

"On the west side of the square the huge Okem (Wakálat) Gharbi and
its large _café_ have bodily disappeared. Its northern neighbour,
the Palazzo Zizinia, is reduced to a mere shell eight feet high. The
northern houses between the main square and the old or eastern harbour
are burnt in blocks, but the Club and Penasson's Library show no
damage: the English church also escaped; and, as a rule, little harm
was done to places of worship, Giaour or Moslem. More 'loot' was to be
had out of the laity. The fire began, they say, with the English and
French Consulates, a kind of poetic justice for the _Condominium_. At
the east end of the square the large building labelled 'Tribunal and
Police Office' is wholly unhurt, and the Redcoats on guard are good to
see. The long block to the south of the square, and dividing it from
Place Sainte Cathérine, formerly the fine property of Prince Ibrahim
Pasha, displays the typical scene of destruction. The bases have been
piled up to clear the thoroughfares. The midway heights show shells of
painted and papered chambers, with here and there a scorched chair or
bedstead still standing on the airy edge of the precipice; there are
_débris_ of archways and balconies, charred timbers and fragments of
furniture, windows, doors, and shutters; iron work curiously twisted by
the fire, toasted inscriptions and blistered advertisements, and fallen
blocks of limestone burnt to lime. The sky-line of broken and blackened
wall forms points and pinnacles of chimney and coping, thrown well out
by the gold and azure of sun and air; many of these frets have fallen,
and the first high wind after the first heavy rains will bring down
showers of stones upon workmen's heads. The latter, however, are few.
Little or nothing has been done, or will be done, till 'indemnity' is
forthcoming. But--

    'Wait: my faith is large--in Fire,'

as in Time. Cities gain by being burnt. Several companies have
submitted plans for rebuilding; and now the only want is a
Town-architect to regulate the façades, and to see that the masonry is
good and solid. Only let him avoid arcades which shelter damp and Greek
coffee-houses.

"A stroll through the Place des Consuls shows a parallel line of
board-booths along the northern and southern faces. Gaps were left
where men caught red-handed had been carefully shot and carelessly
buried. Now tables are spread, and people dine merrily over the dead.
This is essentially Egyptian, the mummy at the feast. The booths supply
everything, from a needle to a ready-made suit: the staples, however,
are bad liquor and worse women. The names mostly appeal to the fighting
class; for instance, 'Admiral Seymour's Bazar,' 'Crocforde's,' 'Duke
of Connaught's Rest,' and the 'Hole in the Wall.' Here and there are
Birrerie, generally next door to the coiffeur's; καφφενεῑα, _a cucina
economica alla Triestina_, and unclean card-tables, domino-tables, and
billiard-tables. The number of tobacco-shops is a study.

"During my thirty years' experience I never saw Alexandria look so
picturesque or so happy. The magic word INDEMNITY has much to
do with her high spirits, and the indemnistists jauntily fixed their
figure somewhere between four and five millions sterling. Life swarms
and surges through the burnt thoroughfares. All are bustling about,
busy as bees, except those who are eating and drinking, smoking and
fighting. It is a _Pays de Cocagne_, where money seems to be a drug.
About mid-September, 1882, not a carriage was to be seen; before the
year ended they were everywhere; and the 'bus, a new introduction,
heralds the advent of the tramway. Donkey-boys, never more free and
easy than now, group, grin, and chatter at every corner. Cheeky
shoeblacks, here the unerring test of well-doing, assail you like
swarms of Nile-flies. The Redcoats give points of light, and riders
in brown with M.P. (military police) on the arm afford a sense of
security. The topboot-and-revolver period of invasion soon passed away,
but the military tailor soon came well to the fore; and not a few
uniforms reminded old hands of a Volunteer Review in London after the
Crimean War.

"Alexandria is ordered to be in bed before twelve, but she enjoys her
evenings. The Café Paradiso offers a hall full of billiard-tables
('balyards far unfit'), like bagatelle-boards, and music in the
normal shape of a masculine and feminine Austrian band. The
demoiselles-violinists are bound by contract to the best of behaviour
during engagements. In descending scale is the Café Bel Ain, and a
host of estaminets, groggeries, and beereries, till you touch bottom
at depôts for Greek dancing and native music. Of the Teatro Rossini
the less we say the better. The Theatre Zizinia opened with an
Anglo-American troupe, distinguished by _Le Cabinet infernal, Le Negre
Paganini,_ and _Le Jolly Coons, excentriques et high Kickers_. It
finally rose to _Madame Angot_ in Italian.

"Standing before the ruins, we ponder over the events of June and
July 11th, which confounded all 'old Egyptians'--myself included. The
universal belief was that Alexandria had everything to fear, not from
her Moslems, but from her mean white Christians--Italians, Greeks, and
Levantines. Numerically they had the advantage, and all were more or
less armed with long pistols and longer knives.

"How then came they to show such utter poltroonery? The only
explanation is that they were surprised, scared, demoralized, by the
soldiery and the murderous police taking part with a mob, dastardly,
fanatic, and bloodthirsty as it was in the days of Hypatia. Whenever
and wherever a knot of Europeans combined to defend themselves against
the _canaille_, they fled like a flock of sheep. It is well to note and
remember the fact, especially in the country parts of Egypt, where bad
days may still be coming. Men who run are rarely merciful; after order
was restored they would be cruel as they were cowardly. It was a sight
to see their hangdog looks when they learnt that Arábi and Co. were not
to be _sus. per coll._, or even shot.[3]

"For the English garrison of Alexandria much remained to be done. Of
two thousand men (round numbers), four were buried per diem, at the
yearly rate of 1460, and at an expense of £20,000, against £3200 per
mensem. This excessive mortality of last autumn did not extend to
the officers. The men died because fed with over-driven beef where
mutton should have been preferred, and the horses were killed by
rations of heating oats, where the natives use only cooling barley.
The chief scourge, enteric fever, was attributed to 'bad water,'
for which I should read 'strong waters.' It was the same in the
time of Abercrombie. Men of both services might be seen at midday
'half-seas over' amongst the poison-selling booths. A Maltese lately
convicted of 'hocussing' (vending drugged coffee) was let off without
a flogging--_-pour encourager les autres_. It is to be feared that in
a land where the rod only is respected, we shall govern too little,
and thus distinguish ourselves from our French 'friends' who govern
too much. The prime want was a Soldiers' Home in addition to canteens,
where good liquor is to be bought. Men must leave their barracks for
change of air and scene, but they should be ordered to walk about in
knots, not singly, and they should be under agreement to drink nothing
stronger than tea or coffee in the booths.

"The Police has been another serious consideration. The new
'Gendarmerie,' as it was called, consisted of a mongrel lot--jödelling
Swiss, chestnut-sellers from Friuli, veteran soldiers from Dalmatia
and Bosnia, Albanian shepherd-brigands, and a scatter of cosmopolitan
mongrels. Far better to raise a brigade of three thousand 'Bobbies,'
officered, drilled, and dressed (with due modification) after our
London fashion. These men, who would not speak a word of any language
but English, should be stationed in the port and capital, with
detachments, relieved every quarter, at the six important towns,
Damanhúr and Tantah, Zagázíg and Mansúrah, Port Said and Suez. Those
who object forget that Swiss and Italians, Dalmatians and Arnauts, are
as ignorant of Arabic as Englishmen are. The difference is, the latter
are to be trusted; the former proved that they were not: some mutinied,
others deserted, and all were dismissed.

"The environs of Alexandria had escaped any damage. The fair gardens
and villas on 'the Canal' are as they were. Sídi Gábir was presently
altered for better and for worse. The race-course served only to tether
mules: the grand stand stood nodding to its fall, and 'Effendina's'
palace and outhouses afforded shelter to the 18th Royal Irish. The
fane of the old Maroccan Saint looks fresher and more flourishing than
before. On the other side of the city the Boulevard de Ramleh suffered
severely as its neighbours, Sherif Pasha and Tewfík[4] Streets: the
station however remains, and the rails were not injured. As we issue
from the land-fortifications we see them still crested by sand-bags. At
that ticklish time, when Alexandria was left defended by few men and
fewer cannon, Arábi might have attacked, and, aided by the half-cowed
mob inside, might have driven us to extremes. Fortunately for Egypt,
nothing less heroic than this hero. Ramleh, the 'Sand-heap' suburb, had
nothing to complain of save the felling of trees and the plundering of
gardens. The only changes we note there are the field-works near the
water-tower thrown up to exchange long shots with the Rebels at Kafr
Dawár. Here Abercrombie had his head-quarters before he was carried
dying into the nearest mosque. Also the gypsy-like Bedawi who claimed
the land have struck their foul black tents; and it will be the fault
of the Ramleyites if the mean thieves are allowed to return.

"Leaving picturesque Alexandria behind us, we take the rail to
Cairo. This, the main artery as well as the minor veins, so far from
progressing under English management, of late years has distinctly
retrograded. The rails are looser, the carriages dirtier, the
_employés_ less civil and obliging; the prices higher and the danger
greater than under Egyptian direction. All that can be said for this
trunk line is that it appears somewhat less risky than its dependents.
One of Egypt's latest curses is the rule of superannuated Anglo-Indian
officials, who, with some notable exceptions, draw large salaries for
doing little work. Their early training is worse than useless, as we
saw in the Crimea, where Sepoy officers were sent to command Turks,
_because_, forsooth, they had commanded Hindí Moslems and Hindú Pagans.
For the Egyptian services I should prefer to these seniors, juveniles,
even clerks, fresh and direct from England.

"The main interest of the railway-trip is the aspect of Kafr Dawár,
the 'village of tent-encampments,' which I last saw in the guise
of a sleepy little hamlet-station. The outer and inner lines of
Rebel-earthworks, with rude batteries commanding the iron road, and
resting upon Lake Mareotis and the Mahmudiyah Canal, contrast with the
heap of beehive huts and the white villas embosomed in tree-mottes.
The framework of the picture is a glorious sky and a flat fatiguing to
the eyes as the South American Pampas. The reason for our declining
this line of attack is obvious: the land is a bog, cut moreover by deep
ditches and drains. Here Arábi made his first fatal mistake. Instead of
keeping his half-disciplined troops well in hand, and cuddling their
courage for the decisive day, he separated them and allowed detachments
to be beaten in detail. But he had neglected the studies of a military
college, and his staff did not contain a single officer versed in
strategic science. It was a child playing against a master of chess.
May the British Army enjoy few such easy triumphs; similar Algerian
victories spoilt the French soldiers for European service.

"The main stations, Damanhúr, Kafr Zayyát, and Tantah, all made
themselves infamous in the late Rebellion. The 'mild Fellah' and
his milder wife tied the limbs of murdered Franks to dogs' tails,
poured petroleum upon the poor brutes, and set them on fire. These
horrors have sunk a great gulf between native and stranger which will
not be bridged over during this generation. One regrets not to see
a detachment of Redcoats, or at least a body of British policemen,
holding fortified barracks in these three old centres of furious
bigotry. The jails of Tantah were long crammed, but the contents were
paupers, not rich culprits.

"The villages improve as we approach the capital, and square houses
take the place of round African clay huts. The land is the same
everywhere--a virgin-mother younger only than the hills. Black ants,
brown ants, and white ants crawl over her ample bosom, come and go, are
born to work and fight and die, but the Nile flows and floods for ever.

"Cairo promises ruins, but shows none beyond the railway-station.
Nizr el-Kahíreh, the city of (planet) Mars, is still rejoicing over
her narrow escape: she was saved one day before death by the gallant
march of the British cavalry: the mean foreigners jealously suggest the
'horseman of St. George,' which is the golden sovereign. She is gay
as Alexandria. The Shubra road that showed in 1879-80 some half-dozen
_shandridans_ is now a line of Arab riders and neat equipages, of
uniforms, un-uniforms, and of Parisian toilettes. Dinner-parties are
the rule; balls are in prospect; Giroflé Giroflá is rehearsing at the
Opera-house, and even that abomination the grind-organ has found its
way into the city of the Mamelukes.

"Yet good old 'Shepherd's' is half-empty, and the New Hotel
quasi-desert. Despite bogus lists and vamped-up reports this year will
be, touristically speaking, a failure. And tourists are right. The
tone of the population is disagreeable; the situation is unpleasant if
not dangerous. Next season will be a success, on two conditions--the
absence of cholera, and the non-withdrawal of the occupying army. But
Cairo has suffered greatly in the loss of Lord Dufferin. It takes away
one's breath (so rare is the sight) to see the right man in the right
place; to miss the square peg in the round hole; to meet, for instance,
General Feilding (a Hapsburg) at the Austro-Hungarian manœuvres, and to
find Earl Dufferin sent to Egypt. The diplomat is a host in himself.
His personal experience of 'the East' began nearly a quarter-century
ago, when he organized the Libanus. He is a hard and conscientious
worker; he has a priest's will with the 'courage of his opinions,' and
he owns the gift of common sense which does not always characterize
his profession. With one reservation (to err is human) we may hold
_primâ facie_ that what Lord Dufferin determines is right will be
rightly done. If he fail it will be from being ordered to attempt the
impossible, to make an England of Egypt. Meanwhile we ardently wish he
would abate the plague of locust-strangers that flock to batten upon
the land. They are reviving all the conditions which led to the late
troubles; and they will lead to a repetition of the drama with only the
part of Arábi left out.

"One of Cairo's marvellous escapes is the unique Bulak Museum. It was
offered for sale to a commercial house, _they say_; but here we must
now believe little of what we see and less of what we hear. The old
station-house is rebuilt, and may now be pronounced safe. MM. Maspero
and Brugsch Bey are doing their best, but slowly: they want more
assistance, which means money; and their revised catalogue will not
be ready for this season. Their recovery of the old Pharaohs reads a
lesson not only to the antiquary but to the political. How little the
Egyptian has changed from what he was under the Double Crown may be
seen in Brugsch Bey's report. The Fellah women ran bare-headed and
dishevelled along the Nile-banks, keening the death-cry, as it were,
for their husbands or brothers, when they heard that the mummies of
their olden kings were being boated down stream by the French. The
corpses were pickled some three thousand years ago, but what is that in
the land of Kemi?

"Sunday, November 12th, corresponded with the first Muharram A.H.
1300. No Moslem, however, could or would tell me whether A.H. 1299
was, or 1300 is to be, the _Annus Mirabilis_ of Mohammedanism; even
the comet had complicated the question by living too long. The popular
expectation was a general uprising of the Moslem world, which, however,
shows no sign; a kind of 'Battle of Armageddon;' the universal
conquest of El-Islam and a general preparation for the end of time
(_Akhir el-Zamán_), which is to follow in the fourteenth century. The
superstitious noted a terrible omen. The Mahmal-litter, in which
Rogers Bey finds a survival of the Covenant-ark (why not go back to
Osiris?), was torn off its dromedary by a telegraph wire opposite the
British camp, Suez, and (horrible to relate!) was mended by a Káfir,
Mr. Campbell, engineer to the Compagnie Khédiviale.

"We wished the compliments of the season, _Kull ám antum bi'l-Khayr!_
(may every year find you fair!), to all our Egyptian friends who were
not in durance or under surveillance. Every second man seemed to be
in trouble, and with rare exceptions none from Caliph to churl would
have come out with clean hands. Even the little black and whity-brown
Beys, who haunted English dames and demoiselles at Shepherd's, found
it advisable to make themselves 'scarce.' A very few words will resume
the long story. Political imbecility, financial mismanagement, and the
greed of bourgeois-shareholders raised up a powerful party against
Europeans, and it found a fitting leader in Arábi, the Fellah-pasha.
The Porte, hoping once more to conduct into shrunken and impoverished
Constantinople a Nile flowing _lire_ and piastres, resolved that the
Khedivial family should, in Napoleonic phrase, 'cease to reign.' Grand
old Mohammed Ali was to be succeeded by a mere Pasha, or general,
removable at will and retainable only whilst douceurs, _avances_, and
tributes were regular. Hence the scandalous gift of the Medjidiah
decoration to a palpable rebel. But the Fellah is _né malin_. He
countered the Turkish project by transferring his allegiance from
a 'Caliph' (successor), whose claims rest upon no legal base, to
the Sheríf (Prince) of Meccah, the lineal descendant of the Apostle
of Allah, whose right to succeed, if he choose to assert it, is
indefeasible. How England was left to hack at, and lastly to cut, the
Gordian knot need hardly be told.

"Finishing my work at the capital, I 'hardened my heart' to face the
dangers of the Cairo-Suez railway. It is reported that the old direct
line _viâ_ the Desert, where Burckhardt saw ostriches in 1816, will
be relaid, and that a section of twenty-one miles is almost ready.
Despite the expense and the waste of coin in carrying water, at the
rate of three waggons to one full of passengers, our occupation will
require this move. Nor must we forget the artesian wells, of which the
old Olympiodorus thus speaks when describing the Lybian waste: 'In
this oasis the people used to scoop out excavations one hundred to
two hundred and fifty feet deep, when jets of pure water rose in tall
columns.'

"At the still Burnt Station we found a trainful of half-uniformed
peasants, bearing bag and baggage, including Remingtons. They will be
mustered to the tune of ten thousand at Suez, and sent to the Sudan or
Upper Nile Provinces with the view of putting down the long-standing
insurrection. They look already beaten, and I do not envy the man who
is to command. The Arch-enemy is the Mahdí, the 'False Prophet' of the
European Press, a title which describes exactly enough what he is not.
D'Herbelot has told the world that the twelfth Imam, or Antistes, the
lineal blood-descendant of the Apostle of Allah and the legal religious
head of El-Islam, was born in A.H. 255 (= A.D. 868), was named Abu 'l
Kásim Mohammed, and assumed the style of El-Mahdí, or the Director,
_i.e._ in the path of the True Faith. He mysteriously disappeared
(probably murdered) under the rule of the Abbaside, El Mohtade, the
fourteenth of the Baghdad House. Hence his title El-Mutabattan--the
Concealed; but of the many _Redivivi_ noticed in history, he declared
that he would return before the Last Day and lead a reformed Islamism
to universal dominion in preparation for certain other Second Comings.
Consequently every great political heave of Mohammedanism, in Africa
as in Asia, has thrown up and still throws up one or more Mahdís.
Of the latest 'Director' I could learn little, save that he is an
inspired Carpenter: Cairo ignored even his real name. 'Mohammed Ahmed'
of Dongola means nothing. Great men, religious or laical, always on
promotion prefix to their own names 'Mohammed' or some variant. Thus
Tewfík is Mohammed Tewfík, and Arábi is Ahmed Arábi. This Mahdí will,
probably, like most of his predecessors, meet his death at the hands
of his fanatical and infuriated mob of followers. Meanwhile, despite
recurring reports of his being beaten, he is still formidable, and he
will give trouble during the coming winter. The one only remedy will be
an English expedition--costly, but not so costly as doing nothing.

"We detrained at Zagázíg after two hours and a half of dusting, which
seemed to begin the process of burying alive. The modern town is
the successor of Bubastis, Pi-Pasht, city of Pasht, Isis with the
tabby-cat's head. Its position--a central point where roads, railways,
and canals meet--has made it a Cottonopolis, and its factories, with
tall stacks and huge warehouses, have entitled it the 'Manchester of
Egypt.' It is the military key of the Delta; Napoleon Buonaparte, at
the beginning of the century, drew his base from Bilbays to Sálihíyah,
and the Arabists intended to do the same.

"I passed a day in the house of my friend M. Vetter, for the purpose
of consulting with Mr. Charles Clarke, Chef des Télégraphes. He had
been the managing man during my two expeditions to the Gold Lands of
Midian; and his topographical and linguistic knowledge had enabled
him to render the army valuable service during the late campaign. His
house was carefully looted by English soldiers, who may have thought it
belonged to some employé of M. de Lesseps, and by Indian sepoys, who
tore up his wife's dresses to adorn their turbans, and his comfortable
rooms were still bare and desolate. He had been invited to join the
Palmer Expedition, but although on friendly terms with the powerful
Bedawin chief, Sulayman Pasha El-Abázeh, he had declined. The game
was not worth the candle. On my next visit I hope to find Mr. Clarke
travelling Director of Telegraphs, a post which will suit him and which
he will suit down to the ground. As yet he has received only the barren
honour of a C.M.G., and H.H. the Khedive has shirked conferring any
distinction to show that Mr. Clarke acted in his interest.

"The Zagázítes showed a peculiar, independent, free-and-easy bearing,
and the resident Europeans, who lately begged two English officers in
uniform to walk through the town, do not hold themselves safe without
the protection of a detachment, British soldiers or policemen. For
many reasons this should be granted to them. The adjoining villagers
absolutely refuse to believe that Arábi has been fairly beaten:
his defeat and capture are known in Southern Syria, but not within
cannon-shot of Tel el-Kebir. Here, too, the Fellahs are ready to rise
again at any given moment. They differ in blood from the inhabitants
of the Nile Valley proper, but they are no improvement upon their
neighbours.

"Prodigious is the iteration of books concerning the 'poor down-trodden
Fellah,' serving sentimentality to contrast him with his Pharaohs, the
Pashas and Beys who oppress him and his. This philanthropic and most
ignorant twaddle began (not honestly) with the French invasion, endured
through the age of Lane and Gardner Wilkinson, and is repeated in the
old stock phrases by the latest writers, Baron de Mahortié and Dicey.
Foreigners mostly know the city folk; their 'manners and customs of the
modern Egyptians' should be called the 'manners and customs of Cairo.'
Ask Mr. Charles Clarke of Zagázíg, or Mr. Curzon Tompson of Cairo, men
who, never holding high official positions, could study the Fellah in
his own home. They will confirm my statement that there is nowhere
a more dogged and determined, turbulent and refractory, furious and
fanatical, cruel and bloodthirsty race than these clowns of the 'Black
Land.' Compared with them the 'finest pisantry' are a weak and violent
race; nor do they produce, like the Felláhin, typical and remarkable
men. This generation has seen the Mufattish, a son of the soil, who
could hold his own against the ablest financiers of Europe, and who had
amassed millions of money, when one fine night he was tumbled into the
Nile. It has produced Arábi the Reb., who, despite his notorious want
of physical pluck, has graved his name upon the memorial tablets of his
native valley. Aided by the weakness of his opponents, he placed the
captor between the horns of an exceptional dilemma. If put to death he
would have become a _Shahíd_ or martyr. If allowed to live, even in
exile, it was because the Káfir feared to slay him, and because it will
soon be found advisable to recall him.

"A few words concerning the early career of this modern Prætorian may
be acceptable; his later career is known to all. Arábi, not Ourabi, and
mispronounced Arăby, probably an echo of 'Araby the blest,' is neither
a Frenchman, nor a Spaniard, nor an Irishman, nor a green-turban'd
Sayyid. His father, an honest Fellah, ploughed the old paternal
fields about Kafr el-Taur ('Bull village'), between Tantah and Birkat
el-Saba', stations on the Alexandria-Cairo railway. His mother, who
has been interviewed by more than one Englishwoman, and who is now
living at El-Hurríyyah ('Liberty'), her son's proprietary village near
Zagázíg, sent her three boys as volunteers to serve and die for Said
Pasha. This remarkable step, for the Egyptian parent invariably did
and does the reverse, attracted the ruler's attention to the lads. He
placed them in the military college, and he was heard to say, according
to his widow, an honest Anglophobe, that he expected great things from
Arábi.

"But Arábi preferred studying theology, which means bigotry, at
El-Azhar, the University-mosque of Cairo, where professors are numbered
by hundreds, and pupils by thousands. He had risen to be _Kaimmakám_
(Major), when his patron died. Ismail Khedive would have nothing to
do with him: 'the man,' he said, 'has the eye of a _Hayyeh_' (snake).
So he was kept on outpost duty till circumstances brought him to the
fore, especially on February 1st, 1881, when his Azhar training proved
peculiarly valuable. In 1882 he became the pivot of the situation. His
right was that of being, after a fashion, the representative man; his
claim was having posed before Egypt, England, and Europe as the Leader
of the National Party.

"Returning to the Fellah, I would note that this race stands aloof from
and above all its neighbours. As hair, features, and figure prove, the
Nilote is of African not of Asiatic provenance, partly white-washed by
foreign innervation. Mr. Lane dubbed him an 'Arab,' and derived him
from the invading soldiery of Amru and other early Moslem conquerors,
a handful whose nationality would be at once absorbed, would disappear
in the next generation. You have only to place the Bedawi by the side
of the Fellah, and the fallacy of the theory becomes palpable. The
Fellah's half-brother is the Copt, who has kept his blood freer from
'miscegenation.' Both are perforce peculiar peoples. The climate of the
Nile Valley allows no foreign-born to be viable; in its media neither
Greek nor Roman, Persian, Turk, nor Circassian, German, Italian,
Frenchman, nor Englishman, can permanently increase and multiply. It
has thus an atmosphere of perfect conservatism. From the days of the
monuments and of Herodotus, the Fellah has altered little but his
faith: he preserves all the good and every bad and bitter quality of
his forbears.

"The Home Press, when commenting upon the bloodshed and arson of June
11th, asked with wonder, how these 'lambs had suddenly turned wolves?'
Lambs, indeed! why, no fighting ram is more obstinate and pugnacious,
or less open to pity and mercy, than an Egyptian Fellah. And if the
men are brutal and barbarous, the women are, if possible, worse; as
mostly happens in hot damp climates, their morals are abominable, and,
as Mr. Lane and the 'Arabian Nights' show, their modes of murdering are
unutterably horrible. The account of these bestial beings, promenading
the streets of Alexandria with the legs and arms of slaughtered
Europeans, borne like flags on long staves, should open eyes that can
be opened.

"The morbid philanthropy and the mawkish humanitarianism of modern
days have created a theoretical, an ideal, Fellah; the factual man
would start to see his own portrait. They must deserve compassion who
have anything to do with him. There is hardly a European in Egypt who
has frequented the villages as a sportsman or antiquary without being
assaulted by the villagers, while several of my friends have been
nearly killed. The peasants also act as their own police and 'ministers
of high justice,' trying and punishing all criminal cases within their
mud walls. If man or woman break the law, especially that of _Rasm_,
or immemorial custom, the offence is kept from the guardians of
society--policemen and magistrates, the worst robbers in the land. If
certain 'commandments' be violated, he, she, or it, is carefully tied
and trussed up, gagged, and thrown into the Great River. Father Nilus
could tell more tales of murder than all the streams in the United
Kingdom.

"Among the Fellah's good qualities we must not neglect his persistence
and his bravery. A drive to the Pyramids will show you troops of
half-naked urchins running a mile in the forlorn hope of a copper;
and in this point the boy is the father of the man. The adult will be
bastinado'd within an inch of his life before he pays his lawful rent,
and his wife praises him as she dresses his wounds. Under Sesostris,
who invented the phalanx, the Fellah-soldier overran the nearer East.
Under Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas he beat the Arabs at Bissel and
the Turks at Nezíb. Even a Moltke could not then save the Ottoman,
and the late General Jochmus told me that he escaped defeat, when
commanding the Tartar cavalry, only by systematically declining battle
with Ibrahim Pasha and his Nilotic armies.

"The dogged pluck of the gunners at the Alexandrian forts and at Tel
el-Kebir proves, that the stock has not degenerated; the easy final
defeat is readily explained. There was treachery in the air, and the
best and bravest men will not stand firm when they suspect that their
right-hand, or left-hand neighbours, have been paid to leave them in
the lurch. Had the rebels been disciplined, and led by English or
French Officers, there would have been a very different tale. As a rule
the sight of blood does not excite or terrify the Egyptian; it only
makes him an 'uglier customer.'

"Such is the Fellah, the peculiar growth of long centuries. There are
races, says M. Gambetta bluntly and truly, which want the rule of the
rod. 'The green wand,' declares the Arab proverb, 'is from the trees of
Paradise.' The abolition of the Kurbáj, or cowhide, had something to do
with the late movement. The hill-peasant must either be beaten or beat;
be tyrannized over or tyrannize: in the latter case, like the beggar
on horseback, he beats to the death. Here it is no mercy to spare the
stick; all forbearance is attributed to the ignoblest motive, craven
fear; and the fancy that he is 'funked' makes even the coward brave. It
is bad to bastinado, but it is better than to hang and shoot.

"From Zagázíg to Suez is one of the most rickety and dangerous bits
of railway travelled over by Europeans. I have seen a single train
catch fire twice in one day. You are pretty sure to be told of one
which, a few hours ago, 'derailed' and made the hapless passengers
pass a cold and hungry night in the waste. The only interest of the
dangerous line is the casualty of running through the theatre of our
latest campaign. War which, they say, teaches the British Public its
geography, also brings into prominence and ennobles names known only to
a local peasantry. Such are Kassásín, a lock-bridge over the Sweetwater
Canal; Tel el-Mahútah, a mean ground-swell, where the Campaign and Mr.
Neville have brought to life certain marvellous Pharaohnic remains;
Mahsamah, an outpost station on the edge of Wady Tumilát, southern
limit of the Land of Goshen; and Tel el-Kebír, which minor poets are
invited to pronounce Keb-eer, not Kee-ber. The latter in 1878 was a
mean village, distinguished only by tumble-down cavalry barracks of the
Khedivial age, the Age of Modern Ruins. The name 'great mound' (Tel)
alludes to a rubbish-heap which was removed for building-ground. There
is a brother-hamlet, Tel el-Sagher (Little-mound) hard by, and it has
suffered sorely in the maps.

"Amongst other _on dits_ the papers report that Sir Garnet Wolseley,
before leaving London and Richmond, not only determined mid-September
as the term of the campaign, but also, placing his finger upon Tel
el-Kebír, predicted that the decisive action would be fought there. Is
this possible? The rebels intended their field-works to be a simple
outpost, a first line of trenches dug in the desert; the main defence
was to be near Zagázíg, where the hoe'd and irrigated ground, cut by a
network of small canals, would have been ugly to cross, as that about
Kafr Dawár. But with an inconsequence, which denoted all their actions,
Arábi and his Arábists wholly neglected to lay out a second line.
Thus the battle was fought at the outer and provisional trenches, on
open ground, with gentle rises and falls, where half-disciplined and
unofficered men had no chance against regular troops, and the admirable
arrangements of their General.

"Messrs. Cook, who took charge of the Commander-in-Chief and the
head-quarter staff on their homeward journey--right sensibly they
ignored those twin pests, the Courier and the Dragoman--and who
will personally conduct the future Princes of the West to the
'Morning-Land,' soon advertised a 'trip to Tel el-Kebír,' where a
large Dahabíyeh-barge, moored in the Sweetwater Canal, acted hotel.
Here sundry sight-seers 'detrain,' each provided with Major Ardagh's
'lithographic sketch showing the attack.' They may find donkeys, but
they prefer a four miles' trudge, over sand and gravel, in the November
sun, hotter than an August semi-sun in England, to the British right,
where the Highlanders attacked. The battle-field was long unpleasant;
the dead might have been buried deeper; and the Bedawi took to
'resurrecting' the Egyptians for loot. Spoils presently disappeared and
mementoes became rare, chiefly confined to water-bottles and old hats,
bundles of cartridges, and fragments of weapons and missiles.

"A shaky stretch of twenty-six miles places us at ill-fated Ismailíyeh.
When I first saw the pretty station in 1869, it boasted a delicious
climate, combining the perfume of flowers and trees with the ozone
and the 'champagne air' of the Desert. In 1878 the Ismailíyeh Canal,
carrying Nile-water which sank into the loose gravelly ground, had bred
dangerous malaria-fevers; and now the place is pestilential, hardly
inhabitable. Worse still, no one knows what manner of sanitation it
requires.

"Here the 'great engineer,' as our scribes will style M. F. de Lesseps,
a retired Consul, innocent of all engineering but the amateur's, did
us, unconsciously and right unwillingly, the best of good turns. His
open patronizing of the arch-rebel, his phrasing, his posing, and his
promises of immunity from attack, kept the Canal open, although all
arrangements had been made for closing it. This is not to be done by
shovelling in earth and sand, which can be shovelled out almost as
fast. The best way is to lash together two or three ships or dredgers
and simply to scuttle them: the obstruction would require blowing
up, and even dynamite wastes valuable time. During future troubles
merchant-craft should be convoyed with all precaution up and down the
line, each convoy headed and followed by a gunboat. But the real want
is a second waterway running parallel with the present. The cost need
hardly exceed one-third of the first; and the lessons of the past will
make the work easy as well as economical. This subject would require an
article for itself: it has already appeared before the public, rather
unpleasantly, and it will appear again. The pompous claim to monopoly
of the Isthmus, the preposterous demands for millions, and the general
tone of the Gallic chanticleers, followed by a loud gobbling from the
bubbly-jock of Stamboul, rather amused than offended England. But it is
no laughing matter, and some measure is the more necessary as the days
of the Euphrates Valley Railway are either done or have not yet dawned.
With the Russian at Kars, ready to march ten thousand men down south,
we should be building a road for the especial benefit of the invader.
Ten years ago it would have served to check the enemy; now it can only
facilitate his attack. Not that we have any cause for alarm in the
final result, whatever the Russophobe may think or say. Chinese armies,
led by English officers, will occupy Moscow before the Muscovite
reaches Calcutta.

"From Ismailíyeh we enter the wilderness; we are already in Arabia
Deserta. The features are familiar, but they are ever fresh and they
never pall. On our left, beyond the bush-green, rushy line of the
_rigolle_, lies the chain of indigo-coloured lakelets, Timsah and the
'Waters of Marah;' and ships upraised by refraction course over the
dry land. To our right rise the cliffy prolongations of Cairo's Jebel
Mukattam, fading away into the distance-dwarfened mounds of Jebel
Atákah and Abu Diráj beyond Suez. The broken plain around us, uniformly
tawny as a lion's fell, dons ethereal tints as day is about to die,
and borrows from the evening skies every colour of the rainbow. It
has none of the charms of earthly landscape, grassy hill and wooded
dale and park-like plain. All its beauties are reflected from the air
and are assimilated till they become its own. No rose can be rosier
than its blush-tints; no verdure delicater than its green glazing, the
blend of chrome with lilac and cobalt; no yellow more golden than its
foreground, no Tyrian purple more gorgeous than its middle distances;
no azure more soothing and gracious than what clothes its horizon; no
shift of scenery more pronounced than its rippling of alternate light
and shade, flushing and paling under the acuter angles of the slanting
sun-rays. Presently the giant grey shadow, or wall of night, rises
slowly in the east; the blazonry of evening waxes faint and wan in the
west, and without a shade of 'gloaming;' for here night comes on with
a single stride, earth looks old and pallid and cold--_alt, kalt und
ungestalt_--the spectre of her former self. Then follows the final
transformation scene. The mysterious Zodiacal light, a pyramid whose
base is the region of the setting sun, and whose apex towers towards
the zenith, stands distinctly out of the black-blue velvety darkness,
made visible by the golden lamps of star, planet, and constellation.

                 '--Contentez-vous mes yeux
    Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle!'

"Poor Suez is the sole exception to the general rule of gaiety and
merry-making in Egypt. She is actually in the throes of house-changing.
She knows that the flitting must be done, but she has no heart to
do it. This will be her third remove: even as Heroöpolis on the
Bitter Lakes shifted to Arsinoë and Arsinoë migrated to Suez, so
Suez must transfer herself to the New Docks--Waghorntown. She must
rebuild herself, hotel and inns, Consulates and offices, agencies and
counting-houses, leaving the-present tenement to Egyptian officials
and native population. The causeway run out to the New Harbour, has
so swallowed the bays on either side of it, like the Alexandrian
Heptastadium, that even light-draft steamers find shoal water, and in a
few years there will be dry ground where the wave still rolls. Medieval
Suez, like Sandwich, will presently become an inland town.

"And yet another change for the worse awaits her. We shall in a few
years land from Malta at Gurnah, the famous old Cyrene south-east
of the island which did _not_ shelter St. Paul. Lying near the
north-eastern shore of the Sidra Gulf (Syrtis Major), with a safe port
distant ten miles, it was famous in Roman days as the Capital of the
Cyreniaca, one of the granaries of the Empire; and the splendour of its
ruins shows a high degree of civilization. Through this ancient land,
Pentapolis, where there are no mechanical difficulties, a railroad will
carry us to Alexandria. We shall then run up _viâ_ Cairo to Keneh, turn
eastward, and embark at El-Kusayr (Cosseir). This line, proposed about
a decade ago, is sure to be built. It will spare us the mortification
of the disagreeable and dangerous Suez-gulf, which is ever too stormy
or too still; moreover, it will be a gain of three clear days, and in
this section of the nineteenth century the shortest line surely wins. I
say nothing about the proposed 'Jordan Canal,' which proposes to deluge
half the 'Holy Land,' beyond an expression of admiration that men in
their senses can be induced to listen to it. The next move will be for
the Man in the Moon to apply for a railway.

"And Suez has been for some time _en petite santé!_ She has suffered
from Dengué fever, which she calls _Abú rukab_, or 'Father of Knees,'
because those articulations make themselves prominently felt. The
complaint, unpleasant though not perilous, used to rage in Syrian
Bayrút, and of late years Cairo suffered from it severely. The locally
learned attribute its origin to impure drinking-water; if so, Suez has
to blame herself for not cleaning her Canal. Perhaps her constitutional
delicacy has prevented, during the Rebellion, her normal display of
uproarious temper. All 'old Egyptians' were notably deceived in their
forecasts about Suez as about Alexandria. The so-called National
Movement never made head here, and yet with certain remarkable
exceptions Englishmen and Europeans showed the normal poltroonery.
It moves laughter to hear of men armed to the teeth sneaking home at
night to find all the world peacefully asleep. It would be invidious
to mention the names of those who manfully stood their ground, and who
won the respect of the natives whilst the runaways fell into the utmost
contempt. But it is to be hoped that their services in keeping the
peace will be duly recognized by either Government.

"Before Suez can settle down in her fourth home she has hard work to
do. The apparently solid masonry of the north and south basins in
the French Docks is being washed away by mètres: the walls resemble
the bombarded Alexandrian Forts; and here we have another fine study
of modern ruins compared with the ancient which were built with the
express purpose of defying Time. The only remedy will be to fill up
both areas and fit them for building-ground. There is already space
enough to begin with; but Suez No. 4 must have room to grow. The
Harbour of the future will be formed, like Port Saíd, by the broad
space between the Canal piers, where dredging and deepening are the
only things needful. It is to be hoped that modern Suez will be laid
out on a regular plan and with due attention to drainage. Moria Pasha
should look to this.

"The Suez Caravanserai, whose cloistered court has received so many
generations of Thelemi monks, is now occupationless as Othello--

    'A dismal hostel in a dismal land.'

Like the Town, it must fare south with bag and baggage, and the fine
old building will become warehouses--possibly an _usine_ when the
gold mines of Midian come to be worked. For some years, however,
it will accommodate travellers to 'Sinai,' Petra, and long Desert.
Moreover, there is now no climate in Lower Egypt like that of 'Suez
the Sanitarium;' it has none of the wet reeking heat of Alexandria, or
the raw rheumatic damp of Cairo, which tree-planting, street-flooding,
and irrigation have so soon changed from good to bad. It is a treat to
breathe the ozoned air of Gulf and Desert, a sensation _sui generis_
like the flavour of Nile-water. Those who seek the Cairo-climate of
1852 must find it at Thebes or at Philæ.

"At the Suez Hôtel I found Colonel (now Sir Charles) Warren and his
party. They had lately arrived from Ismailíyeh, whither they had been
driven by the illness of one of the subalterns; a fiery march of a
hundred and twenty miles without water had caused a sunstroke. Here,
too, were Mr. and Miss Charrington, and Messieurs Gill and Houndle,
and Captain Stephenson of H.M.S. _Carysfort_ occasionally put in an
appearance. Having all one and the same occupation and preoccupation,
we discussed the chances _pro_ and _con_ most anxiously. The general
conclusion was that the deaths were 'not proven.' At the same time the
cumulative circumstantial evidence was strong against hope of saving
life; also the negative proof that of the many Bedawi witnesses daily
examined not one could state that he had heard of a survivor. And yet
there was still a bare chance. For some weeks a white man had been
reported to be wandering about the wilderness. At Ghazzah (Gaza), the
turbulent, half-Bedawi town in Southern Syria, a Fellah, Mohammed bin
Khaysh, had mentioned the rumour to some Christian acquaintances as
lately as November 10th. He refused to communicate with the Rev. Mr.
Schapira, the Church Missionary there stationed; but his story appeared
credible enough. The white man, looking _talkhán_ (sick and sorry), had
fallen in with a wandering tribe (name not specified) near El-'Akabah,
and had accosted one of them, saying after Arab-fashion, '_Ana fi
'irzak_'--'I am under thy protection!' When the search became hot, the
white man, who may have been the dragoman or the servant, was carried
inland, but where, deponent could not specify. Also at Ghazzah an
English-made gun had been brought in, showing direct communication with
the plunderers.

"And here it may be well to note that the original and universally
accepted account of the murder was a mere fabrication. It stated
that the captives 'had been led by the Governor of Nakhil' (the
Fort El-Nakhl, midway between Suez and El-'Akabah) 'to the edge of
a precipice, and had there been offered the alternative of throwing
themselves over or of being shot. Professor Palmer covered his eyes
with his hand and leapt, and Messieurs Gill and Charrington chose the
other alternative, and were shot.' This romance, which utterly ignored
the two servants, dragoman and cook, was the invention of some 'Own
Correspondent,' telegraphed from Cairo on October 26th. Being of the
category circumstantial and picturesque, it at once found its way into
the newspapers of the civilized world; and it caused sore doubts to
rise in the minds of all experts. No wonder that Colonel Warren was
displeased by the publication of the silly tale.

"The next account appeared in El-Ahrám (_Les Pyramides_) of November
8th. The details were literally correct; it mentioned the guide Abú
Sufíh; the attack in the Wady Sadr; the destruction of the whole party,
including the servants, and the disappearance of the £3000 in gold. I
had hoped to see the extract reprinted by the _Egyptian Gazette_, but
_Le Phare_ had been beforehand, and professional sensitiveness left the
public in ignorance.

"Mr. Walter Besant, in his biographical sketch of Professor Palmer
(_Athenæum_, November 11th) preceding his detailed memoir, declared
that he would be grateful for any information likely to make it more
complete. I therefore make no apology for intruding my few personal
reminiscences upon the reader.

"On July 11, 1870, when we were in summer quarters at Bludán,
Anti-Libanus, I suddenly found two Englishmen camping with a gypsy-tent
below the garden. These were Palmer and C. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake, brown
and sunburnt by travel in the service of the 'Sinai Survey Expedition'
led by Captain (now Sir Charles) Wilson. They proved the most pleasant
of companions during a trip to Ba'albak, to the sources of the Litani
(_not_ Leontes), and to the unvisited crests of the northern Lebanon.
We parted at the Cedars, promising ourselves to meet again, and we did
live and travel together often afterwards. How little we thought that
within four years one would find a grave at Jerusalem, the victim of
its fatal climate; and that the other would return to seek death on the
scene of his old labours!

"Of Palmer I remarked that he was a born linguist, a rarity among all
races except, perhaps, the Armenian. He had the linguistic instinct,
an insight which required only to hear or to be shown a tongue. He
mastered it as a musical genius learns an instrument; he picked up
words, sentences, and idioms like a clever child with the least
possible study of grammar and syntax. The truth is, he was _supra
grammaticans_. During his energetic winter wanderings he had collected
a whole vocabulary of Bedawi words, and he evidently revelled, like
the late Percy Smythe, Lord Strangford, in his exceptional power of
appreciating dialectic differences. He read and wrote Arabic like
English, and he took delight in surprising the people by out-of-the-way
phrases, by peculiar forms of blessing and unblessing, and by the
rhymed prose of the 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' He kept also for
times of need a vocabulary which terrified the superstitious: this
served his turn amongst the vagrant bandits of Petra and the Nejeb,
or South Country. He then knew something of Hindostani, which he
afterwards cultivated, and which assisted him in so mastering the
Romani (Gypsy) dialect, that he printed metrical translations in
Mr. Leland's volume. Although he had learned Persian in London and
at Cambridge, he spoke it as well as I could, and he had acquired
the pure Shirázi twang. Lamenting his ignorance of German and the
Scandinavian tongues, which he mastered at a later period, he proposed
to devote three years to Arabia, Persia, and Egypt. _Diis aliter
visum!_ His last volume, 'Hindūstāni, Persian, and Arabic,' one of
'Trübner's Collection of Simplified Grammars,' a series which will
suffer by his loss, lies before me; and I note with sorrow that his
translation of Háfiz, a taste for which he had carefully trained
himself, will lack the delicate final touches.

"Returning to England in the summer of 1870, Palmer published his
valuable reports, memoirs, and papers in the organ of the Palestine
Exploration Fund. He also printed, in two volumes (Bell and Daldy,
1871), 'The Desert of the Exodus,' a popular account of his two walking
journeys, in company with Tyrwhitt-Drake, and without dragoman or
servants, which occupied parts of 1869 and 1870. He had not then learnt
that the so-called 'Sinai' is simply a modern forgery, dating probably
after the second century A.D.; that the Jewish nation never knew where
the true 'Mountain of the Law' was; that it is differently placed by
St. Paul and his contemporary Josephus, who describes it after the
fashion of Sinbad the Sailor; that the first Mount Sinai (Jebel Sarbál)
was invented by the Copts, the second (Jebel Musa) by the Greeks, the
third (also Jebel Musa) by the Moslems, and the fourth (Jebel Safsáfeh)
by Dr. Robinson the American; that the Exodists would naturally travel
by the present Haj highway from Suez to El-'Akabah; and that learned
Jews now incline to the belief that the real Tor Síná lay somewhere in
the Tíh Desert north of the great Pilgrimage-line. Jebel Aráif has,
as far as we know, the strongest claims. Moreover, Palmer insisted
upon translating, with the vulgar, 'Tíh' by 'Wilderness of _the_
Wanderings,' when it means a wilderness where man may wander. Much
friendly banter upon these points passed between us as often as we met
in Syria and London, and, finally, he seemed to agree in opinion with
me. I may note that his details concerning the Bedawi of the 'Phárán
Peninsula,' as it is called by my late friend, Dr. Charles Beke,
require copious revision; and it is to be hoped that Colonel Warren
will correct them and supply the deficiencies.

"Professor Palmer spent twelve years in England, chiefly at Cambridge,
working most energetically the professional, literary, and especially
the Oriental veins. His friends lamented that he devoted so much
valuable time to what Sir W. Jones calls the 'avenues and porticoes
of learning,' dictionaries and vocabularies, grammars and manuals,
instead of cultivating his high gifts of fancy and imagination. Yet
he found time for a spirited metrical version of the Arab poet Buhá
El Dín of Egypt, for a romantic life of Harún El-Rashíd, and for the
charming 'Song of the Reed,' a title redolent of Persian mysticism.
His Biography told his various gifts, as a traveller, a professor,
a University lecturer and examiner, an improvisatore and rhymer, a
barrister, an actor, a conjurer and thought-reader, a draughtsman and
caricaturist, a writer of many books, and lastly, a politician and
journalist.

"About the end of last June, when the troubles in Egypt became serious,
'The Palmer' resolved to make practical use of his linguistic studies,
and gallantly volunteered to take part in putting down the rebellion.
His project was to dissuade the Bedawi from attacking the Suez Canal,
to collect camels for transport, and to raise the Wild Men of the Tíh
against the Rebels. He was duly warned, I believe, that in case of
capture he would be treated as a prisoner of war, perhaps as a spy; but
no consideration of personal danger had any weight with his gallant
spirit.

"The brave heart landed at Jaffa in the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's.
During his few days of preparation he became immensely popular; three
months afterwards I found every one full of his praises. Mr. Besant
is right: 'Perhaps it would not be too much to assert that he had no
business or private relations with any man who did not straightway
become his friend.' He engaged a dragoman, a Christian pupil of the
American College, Bayrút; and as servant a young Jew of Jaffa, who,
by-the-by, has left a large family utterly destitute. He then visited
the Rev. Mr. Schapira at Ghazzah, and set out by 'Short Desert,' as
older travellers called it, for Suez. An obituary article in the
_Academy_ (November 18th) declares that he 'turned back a Bedawy
invasion of the Suez Canal.' I could hear nothing of this exploit on
the spot. He might, and perhaps he would, have done it had he had the
opportunity; but he also had grossly exaggerated in his own mind the
numbers and the importance of the Tíh tribes. For his thousands we must
read hundreds.

"On August 1st Shaykh Abdullah El Shámi (the Syrian) met at Suez his
future companions, Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington, R.N. The
former was a well-known and admirable traveller, who had spent the
last winter studying Arabic in North Africa, and who had already done
good service by cutting the telegraphic wires connecting Egypt with
Syria. The latter was a young officer of great promise, burning to win
his spurs. And now the fatal series of mistakes seems to have begun. I
cannot but think that, after so many quiet, peaceful years in England,
the laborious Desert march through the fiery heats of July must have
affected, to a certain extent, Palmer's strong clear brain.

"Before entering the Arabian wastes, strangers always hire and pay a
_Ghafír_--guide and protector. He ought to be a powerful chief, who
can defend his 'guests' by the prestige of his name, and if necessary
by the number of his matchlocks. Palmer may have preserved some
sentimental reminiscences of his Bedawi friends and acquaintances; and
may even have trusted to the exploded prestige of 'bread and salt.' The
old chivalrous idea has gradually weakened till it has well-nigh died
out. It may linger amongst the highest and noblest clans of the Anazeh,
but it no longer extends beyond El-Nejd. The partial modification
consists of feeding the Bedawi every day; otherwise, if you plead
_Nahnu málihín!_ ('We are salt-fellows'), they rejoin, 'The salt is not
in my belly.' The great majority of these 'sons of 'Antar,' who '_have_
ceased to be gentlemen,' ignore or rather deride the rococo practice of
their forefathers. And there are scoundrels who will offer you a bowl
with one hand and stab you with the other.

"Palmer engaged as his _Ghafír_ one Matr (Abú) Nassár, so named after
his son; his family name is Abú Safíh. The man is not, and never
was, a 'Bedouin Sheik,' but a mere hirer of camels to pilgrims and
travellers. He had quarrelled with, and parted from, his kinsmen the
Lahiyát, to take refuge with the Dabbúr, a clan or sub-tribe of the
Huwaytát. This Matr, moreover, was judged by those who knew him best to
be light-headed and half-witted. His proceedings with Colonel Warren
and his conduct on board the _Carysfort_, where he was detained for
his own safety, confirm the suspicion. Yet he and his nephew--the
camel-men do not count--were the only defence of an expedition which
carried, amongst other valuables, the sum of £3000 in gold. Travellers
in Bedawi-land never even name the noble metal, and the venerable Arab
proverb says, '_Ikhfi zahab-ak, wa mazhab-ak wa Ziháb-ak_'--'Hide thy
gold, thy God-faith, and thy goings forth.' It has been asserted that
the Englishmen had no firearms. This is an absurdity at first sight,
and it is disproved by the gun produced at Ghazzah.

"The ill-starred party left Suez on August 8th, and passed the first
night upon the sea-sands. On the 9th they marched _viâ_ 'Moses' Wells'
to the Wady Kahabín, and next day, leaving their luggage in the rear,
they entered the Wady Sadr, which heads near El-Nakhl. On the right jaw
of this fiumara rises the Tel el-Sadr, _alias_ Tel Bishr, the 'Barn
Hill' of our Hydrographic Charts, a broken tabular block within sight
of the Suez Hotel.

"About midnight on August 10th, the expedition was surprised by a large
body of the Terábín, or Bedawi of the Tíh, who trade with Ghazzah, and
the Huwaytát, a mongrel tribe of Egypto-Arabs who are settled upon the
Nile banks, nomads in the 'Sinaitic' peninsula and semi-nomads in the
Land of Midian.[5] Palmer, they say, was the only one of the little
party who fired and wounded a Bedawin in the foot.

"I pass rapidly over the deplorable scene which followed the attack.
Palmer, seeing the extreme danger, expostulated with the horde of
hired assassins; but all his sympathetic faculty, his appeals to Arab
honour and superstition, his threats, his denunciations, and the gift
of eloquence which had so often prevailed with the Wild Men, were
unheeded. As vainly, Matr covered his _protégés_ with his _'abá_
(cloak), thus making them part of his own family. On the evening of
August 11th, the captives were led, according to the general voice of
the Bedawi informants, to the high bank of the Wady Sadr, where it
receives another and a smaller fiumara yet unnamed. Here they were
slaughtered in cold blood and thrown down the height. The object of
not burying the bodies, according to-Bedawi practice, was the dread
lest they should afterwards be discovered by means known to the Frank.
It was thought safer to leave them to the birds and beasts of the
wilderness. Moreover, the first rain-torrent would sweep away all
traces of the foul deed.

"And here let me note that on this occasion the Bedawi behaved as
Bedawi never behaved before. The Wild Men will attack strangers for the
smallest inducement. They will plunder their captives, strip, beat, and
even wound them. They will shoot the enemy when maddened by fight; but
their almost superstitious terror of the _Dam_, or _Thár_ (Vendetta,
blood-feud) prevents their taking life in cold blood. Nor have I ever
heard of their keeping prisoners for a whole day and then deliberately
massacring them after the fury of battle had cooled down. The whole
conduct of the crime evidently suggests the far-seeing iniquity of
civilized men; nor is it hard to divine whence came the suggestion.

"The evil report soon spread far and wide, and the public mind grew
more and more excited. This mishap was the only black spot in the
bright roll of continued successes. Colonel Warren, R.E., was directed
to conduct the search for the missing expedition. He does not speak
Arabic, nor had he any personal acquaintance with the Terábín and the
Huwaytát. But he had taken a notable part in the Palestine Exploration,
which necessarily brought him into frequent and familiar contact with
the Bedawi. He is a man of unusual energy and tenacity, and he has
shown great tact and _savoir faire_ in his dealings with the Wild Men.
After a preliminary visit to Tor, in company with Mr. Consul West, on
September 6th, he had some hopes of rescuing the captives, and he took
the properest measures to secure success. In company with Lieutenants
Burton and Haynes, and provided with an escort of some hundred and
fifty friendly Bedawi, by the chiefs Salám El-Shadíd of Cairo and
Musá Nasr of Tir, he scoured the Desert in all directions and made
some important captures, which will lead to satisfactory results.
On October 23rd he reached the reported scene of the murders; but
it was too late to find the remains of his countrymen. The expected
rain-torrent had swept them away. He picked up a truss belonging to
Palmer--no conclusive proof of death; a traveller would carry more
than one article of the kind. A sock bearing Captain Gill's name, and
containing the fragment of a foot, seemed to forbid hope in this case.
Lieutenant Charrington's overalls, marked 'Bombay,' and a caoutchouc
tobacco-pouch, showed clear evidence of plunder, but nothing more. The
other articles found in the neighbourhood were torn books, letters, and
papers. All were temporarily deposited in the Egyptian fort El-Nakhl,
whose garrison at first turned out to attack the search-party. Of the
burial in Westminster Abbey nothing need be said.

"That all the culprits, even those still at large, will eventually
be surrendered I have no doubt. It is a mere question of time. And
until justice is thoroughly done there will be no safety for English
or European travellers in the 'Sinaitic' Peninsula. No more hanging
will be required, but all concerned in the foul deed should undergo
imprisonment _in terrorem_ at Cairo. But it is sad to punish these poor
tools when the guiding hands escape even blame.

"Of my proceedings after leaving Suez I need say nothing: they were
disconnected with Egypt. Let me briefly resume the results of my three
weeks' observations.

"The occupation of the Nile Valley has been thrust upon us by _force
majeure_--the force of events. France was similarly circumstanced with
respect to Tunis, Italy will be in the case of Tripoli: the rotten old
fabric of the Porte is surely though slowly falling to pieces, and the
fragments are being fitted into their right places.

"What form our Protectorate of the Nile Valley will eventually assume
has not yet been determined; but if we can only come to a decision, the
Public may rest assured that our tenure of the Nile Valley will be a
success. At present it is not, and by the very condition of things it
cannot be. Egypt hardly deserves a 'caravan government;' what it wants
is stability, repose, and the training of a child to the way it should
go. The unnatural excitement of looking forward to a complete change,
which will mean anarchy, disorder, and violence, is doing immense and
lasting damage. It interferes with revenue, _the_ difficulty of the
present hour, a problem which seems to be puzzling even the experienced
Sir Evelyn Baring. With diminished floating power and the millstone of
debt ever weighing him down, his friends can only wish him well out of
the scrape.

"The first to be considered are the sons of the soil. They have the
strongest right to fair play, and they should at least share the
goods of which the stranger has once more spoiled them. The ring of
foreigners, who would exclude all except their own small cliques, must
be broken up, and the monopoly of highly paid employments be exchanged
for free selection and for competition amongst Egyptian candidates.
But this is a work of time. 'Egypt for the Egyptians' as much as
you please; but at present the Egyptians must be trained for Egypt.
Meanwhile the supervision of imperial questions, matters of finance,
and those involving income and outcome, the magistracy and the Police,
cannot but remain under English surveillance.

"The _Condominium_, or Joint Control, has done in its day excellent
work, but its work and day are alike done. It has tabulated the
resources of the Nile Valley, and has introduced order into the chaos
of native revenue. Moreover, during the last few centuries the Fellah
has never been so happy or so well-to-do as under its administration.
But a rule by the representatives of only two great creditors, to the
neglect of all others, was an invidious measure irritating the rest of
Europe. Nor would it be possible to govern by means of a board: the
more votes the more discord. The old _Condominium_ must be modified to
suit a permanent Protectorate.

"Modern Egypt has suffered severely from the _latifundia_ which,
according to Pliny, _perdidere Italiani_. What Egypt especially
requires is the maintenance of that class of peasant proprietors to
which she owed all her ancient prosperity. This is the institution
for which the Gracchi 'sedition'd' in vain; which modern Italy has
attempted in Apulia; which Russia holds in view, and which Ireland
must and _will_ have--the only Land Act that can ever satisfy her. The
most fertile of countries has been sorely injured by the absorption
of small properties into immense Khedivial domains, monopolizing
one-fifth of the area, and into the large tracts belonging to 'the
Pashas.' The sooner these model 'landed estates' are redistributed the
better. However, as a trip to the Helwán les Bains will show, there is
still a large proportion of waste ground--Nile mud buried in shallow
sand-sheets--which can be fertilized by canals drawn from up-stream.
The Great Valley can still support ten millions, and even more when a
system of damming shall be applied to her river. In the mean time all
attention should be given to the Cadastre, or Revenue Survey, which
wants a radical reform. The dawdling, feckless system of General Stone
would have carried it well into the twentieth century. Better pension
off 'hard bargains' than pay and retain them as standing obstructions.

"Egypt no longer wants the disproportionate armies and fleets with
which Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas conquered their neighbours. But
she must have a small body of Regulars--not less than ten thousand--to
defend her against Abyssinian raids, and to protect her Equatorial
Provinces, where (Chinese) Gordon (Pasha) did such noble work. As
regards the harbour on the Red Sea, proposed for the acceptance
of the 'king of kings,' Johannes, I may say that the measure is
theoretically good and practically evil. The port would serve only for
the importation of arms and ammunition, and would make the troublesome
'Highlanders of Æthiopia,' ever a nest of hornets, more dangerous
than at any time of their turbid history. As it is, the Egyptians
cannot fight in the mountains nor the Abyssinians in the plains, a
consideration which tends to keeping the peace. But the breech-loader
and the magazine-gun, when provided with cartridges, will wholly change
the condition of the Æthiopian. It is to be hoped that the Egyptian
army of the future, composed of Fellahs and negroes from the Súdán, and
officered by Englishmen and natives, will be built on the lines of the
old East India Company's force, a return to which is one of the crying
wants of India. The management may safely be left in the experienced
hands of (Val.) Baker Pasha, unless he has to work in the chains of
home orders.

"And as with the army, so with the Egyptian fleet--a mere show, an
article of luxury, costly moreover as it was useless. The country wants
only a few heavily armed gunboats to guard her African coast, to put
down the slave-export, and to prevent Arab piracy. Subsidized lines
of steamers, the more the better, suffice to connect her with Asia as
well as with Africa. The old doddering Egyptian men-o'-war which rot in
Alexandria and Suez harbours, melancholy remnants of past power, may be
carted away as soon as possible.

"Part of the duty of the Police force will be to suppress that cruelty
to animals which is one of Egypt's many abominations. The want of some
active measure has long been felt, and during the last ten years a
succession of _dilettanti_ has attempted to take the matter in hand.
The Khedive has been interviewed; a Princess or two has been secured
as patroness, and even subscription-lists have been opened. But the
work is too serious, too continuous, for amateurs. Here we require an
experienced delegate from the parent society in London, who, in concert
with a local committee, will lay down the lines of work, and will
determine what ought not to be done as well as what ought to be done.
But the 'sinews of war' must also be forthcoming; and they can readily
be supplied by military and naval economies.

"Lastly of the slave, who, theoretically free, is as much a bondsman
as ever. Egypt yielded with her usual good grace, the moment serious
pressure was brought to bear upon her. This is her way, the way of
the universal East. She grants every demand, and takes especial care
that nothing be granted. Pashas were appointed to issue certificates
of freedom and to inquire into the case of runaways, whom the masters
invariably denounced to the police as criminals, and proved their
crimes by false witnesses--a drug in the market. As soon as the first
excitement was over, a reaction set in and action slumbered: this was
all the Government wanted. The one thing needful is still needed--a
standing mixed committee of Europeans and Egyptians, presided over by a
responsible English official. Its duties will be to make the abolition
of slavery generally known throughout the length of the land, and to
see that emancipation is fairly worked. As for that other abomination,
the neutral, penalty of death should be unflinchingly inflicted upon
those with whom it originates. All their names are well known, yet it
causes us no surprise that the law has been and still is impudently
broken, while the law-breakers have invariably escaped punishment.

"Egypt is now virtually independent of Turkey: during the court-martial
of the Rebels not an allusion was made to the 'Suzerain.' It is
unfair that she should continue to transmit money which is wanted for
public works and internal improvements, because the so-called Tribute
has been mortgaged to Frankish creditors of Turkey. The Porte is
still rich enough to pay her debts, and, if she chooses again to be
bankrupt, shareholders must put up with the losses which, for a high
consideration, they have so long risked. Egypt now expects a complete
disruption of the injurious tie: the living land must no longer be
bound, in Mezentiaes-fashion, to the Ottoman corpse. She will have a
fair field, and favour enough, under an English Protectorate if we only
govern like men, not like Philanthropes and Humanitarians.

"RICHARD F BURTON."

[1] "Mekhitar the Armenian, nat. 1676 at Sebastia in ancient Media,
est. a congregation confirmed by Clement IX. in 1712, and ob. in the
island of S. Lazzaro, Venice, 1749. The Mekhitarists have educational
establishments in Paris, Vienna and Rome, Constantinople, Venice,
Trieste, etc."

[2] Richard Burton whilst preparing for Mecca.--I. B.

[3] Native Christians mingled with Moslems are generally cowardly.
They do not unite to make a stand; if they did, they would never be
attacked.--I. B.

[4] "The word should be Taufík, but we have adopted an ugly Gallicism
derived from Turkish, in which it would be pronounced Tewfík."

[5] "I spent some months amongst the Huwaytát, and have described
them in three volumes ('The Gold Mines of Midian,' 1878, and 'Midian
Revisited,' 1880), besides a number of detached papers."




APPENDIX I.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS AND OF SCHOLARS ON THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS."


"To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.

"Sir,--Your correspondent 'Sigma' has forgotten the considerable number
of 'students' who will buy Captain Burton's translation as the only
literal one, needing it to help them in what has become necessary to
many--a masterly knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. The so-called 'Arabian
Nights' are about the only written halfway house between the literary
Arabic and the colloquial Arabic, both of which they need, and need
introductions to. I venture to say that its largest use will be as a
grown-up school book, and that it is not coarser than the classics in
which we soak all our boys' minds at school.

"ANGLO-EGYPTIAN.

"September 14th, 1885."

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Bat_, September 29th, 1885.

"Captain Burton, in his way, renders a gigantic service to all students
of literature who are not profound Orientalists, and to many who are,
by giving them a literal, honest, and accurate translation of the
'Arabian Nights.'

"The blatant buffoons who have spoken of Captain Burton's work
indifferently only show their own ignorance of the literature of the
East. Captain Burton's work is well worth the price he charges for it
to students of Eastern literatures and Eastern manners, and Eastern
customs; but the misguided lunatic who invests in it in the hope of
getting hold of a good thing, in the Holywell Street sense of the term,
will find indeed that the fool and his money are soon parted."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Morning Advertiser_, September 15th.

"There is one work not entered in the publishers' announcements of 'new
books,' though for years scholars and others have looked forward to it
with an eagerness which has left far behind the ordinary curiosity
which is bestowed on the greatest of contributions to current
literature, and to-day the new fortunate possessors are examining it
with an interest proportionate to the long toil which has been bestowed
on its preparation. We refer to Captain Burton's 'Arabian Nights.'
Hitherto all the editions have been imperfect, and more or less
colourless versions of the original. They throw a flood of light on
hundreds of features of Oriental life on which the student has failed
to be informed. But the work only a few limited students can ever see,
and is simply priceless to any one thus interested in the subject,
and may be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental
translation. Burton writes: 'Many a time and oft, after the day's
journey was over, I gathered the Arabs around me and read or recited
these tales to them, until the tears trickled down their cheeks and
they rolled on the sand in uncontrollable delight. Nor was it only in
Arabia that the immortal "Nights" did me such notable service. I found
the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to their discipline; no
one was deaf to the charm, and the two women workers of my caravan on
its way to Harar were incontinently dubbed by my men Shehrazade and
Deenarzade.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Lincoln Gazette_, October 10th, 1885.

"Captain Burton's first volume in sombre black and dazzling gold--the
livery of the Abassides--made its appearance three weeks ago, and
divided attention with the newly discovered star. It is the first
volume of ten, the set issued solely to subscribers. And already, as in
the case of Mr. Payne's edition, there has been a scramble to secure
it, and it is no longer to be had for love or money. The fact is, it
fills a void; the world has been waiting for this _chef d'œuvre_, and
all lovers of the 'Arabian Nights' wonder how they have got on without
it."

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Lincoln Gazette_, October 10th, 1885.

"Another speciality of Captain Burton's edition is the notes. He
is celebrated for sowing the bottom of his pages with curiously
illuminating remarks, and he has here carried out his custom in a way
to astonish. He tells us that those who peruse his notes in addition
to those of Lane would be complete proficients in the knowledge of
Oriental practices and customs. Lane begins with Islam, from Creation
to the present day, and has deservedly won for his notes the honour of
a separate reprint. Captain Burton's object in his annotations is to
treat of subjects which are completely concealed from the multitude.
They are utterly and entirely esoteric, and deal with matters of
which books usually know nothing. Indeed, he has been assured by an
Indian officer who had been forty years in the East, that he was
entirely ignorant of the matters revealed in these notes. Without these
marvellous elucidations, the 'Arabian Nights' would remain only half
understood, but by their aid we may know as much of the Moslems as the
Moslems know of themselves."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Whitehall Review_, September 17th, 1885.

"The publication of the first volume of Captain Burton's translation
of the 'Alf Layla' enriches the world of Oriental investigation with
a monument of labour and scholarship and of research. The book is
advisedly, and even inevitably, printed for private circulation, and is
intended, as Captain Burton says in his preface, only for the eyes of
such persons as are seriously students of Oriental life and manners,
and are desirous of making a more complete acquaintance with the great
masterpieces of Eastern literature than has hitherto been possible,
except to finished Arabic scholars. In the name of the whole world of
Oriental scholarship, we offer our heartfelt thanks and congratulations
to Captain Burton upon the appearance of this first volume; and we look
forward with the keenest interest for its successors."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Nottingham Journal_, September 19th, 1885.

"To scholars and men who have sufficient love of the soul of these
sweet stories to discern the form in its true proportions, the new
edition will be welcome. From an Oriental point of view the work is
masterly to a degree. The quatrains and couplets, reading like verses
from Elizabethan mantels, and forming a perfect rosary of Eastern love,
the constant succession of brilliant pictures, and the pleasure of
meeting again our dear old friend Shahrázád, all these combine to give
a unique charm and interest to this 'perfect expositor' of the mediæval
Moslem mind."

       *       *       *       *       *

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, Am Hof, Davos Platz, Switzerland.

_Academy_, October 3rd, 1885.

"The real question is whether a word-for-word version of the 'Arabian
Nights,' executed with peculiar literary vigour, exact scholarship, and
rare insight into Oriental modes of thought and feeling can, under any
shadow of pretence, be ignored."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Lincoln Gazette_, November 2nd, 1885.

"In announcing the issue of the first volume of Captain Burton's
long-expected edition of the 'Arabian Nights,' the _Standard_ reminds
its readers that the book is printed for subscribers only, and is sold
at a price which is not likely to be paid by any save the scholars and
students for whose instruction it is intended. Many of those who know
the ordinary epitome prepared for the nursery and drawing-room have
little idea of the nature of the original. Galland's abridgment was a
mere shadow of the Arabic. Even the editions of Lane, and Habricht,
and Torrens, and Payne, represented but imperfectly the great corpus
of Eastern folklore, which Captain Burton has undertaken to render
into English. To Captain Burton the preparation of these volumes must
have been a labour of love. He began them in conjunction with his
friend, Steinhaüser, soon after his return from the Mecca pilgrimage,
more than thirty years ago, and he has been doing something to them
ever since. In no other work of the same nature is Eastern life so
vividly portrayed. We see the Arab knight, his prowess and his passion
for adventure, his love and his revenge, the craft of his wives and
the hypocrisy of his priests, as plainly as if we had lived among
them. Gilded palaces, charming women, lovely gardens, caves full of
jewels, and exquisite repasts, captivate the senses and give variety
to the panorama which is passing before our eyes. Indeed there is a
tinge of melancholy pervading the preface in which the Editor refers
to his 'unsuccessful professional life,' and to the knowledge of
which his country has cared so little to avail itself. When the great
explorer discovered the African lakes he was a captain. He is a captain
still. No University has thought fit to make him a Doctor; and while
knighthoods have been distributed with a profusion which has gone far
to lower the value of these distinctions, the foremost of English
travellers and the greatest of European Arabists is still untitled.[1]
Even in the recent Egyptian troubles--which are referred to somewhat
bitterly--his wisdom was not utilized, though after the death of Major
Morrice, there was not an English official in the camps before Suakin
capable of speaking Arabic. On this scandal, and on the ignorance of
Oriental customs which was everywhere displayed, Captain Burton is
deservedly severe.

"There is only one 'Arabian Nights' in the world, and only one Captain
Burton. The general tone of the London Press has been distinctly
favourable, the _Standard_ leading the way and other journals following
suit. The 'Thousand Nights and a Night' offers a complete picture of
Eastern peoples. But the English reader must be prepared to find that
the manners of Arabs and Moslems differ from his own. Eastern people
look at things from a more natural and primitive point of view, and
they say what they think with the unrestraint of children. At times
their plain speaking is formidable; it is their nature to be downright,
and to be communicative on subjects about which the Saxon is shy or
silent, and it must be remembered that the separation of the sexes adds
considerably to this freedom of expression.

"It is only knowledge that knows how to observe; and it is satisfactory
that Captain Burton's amazing insight into Eastern peculiarities has
been put to its best use in giving a true idea of the people of the Sun
and a veritable version of their book of books. The labour expended on
this edition has been enormous. The work could only have been completed
by the most excessive and pertinacious application. All the same we
are told it has been 'a labour of love,' a task that has brought its
exceeding great reward. There is only one regret, the circulation is
limited. We cannot help hoping, at some future time, a selection may be
made from the ten volumes. If the public cannot have the whole work,
at least it might have a part, and not be entirely shut out from a
masterpiece unparalleled."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Home News_, September 18th, 1885.

"Captain Burton has begun to issue the volumes of his subscription
translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' and its fortunate possessors
will now be able to realize the full flavour of Oriental feeling.
They will now have the great storehouse of Eastern folklore opened to
them, and Captain Burton's minute acquaintance with Eastern life makes
his comments invaluable. In this respect, as well as in the freeness
of the translation, the version will be distinguished from its many
predecessors. Captain Burton's preface, it may be observed, bears
traces of soreness at official neglect. Indeed it seems curious that
his services could not have been utilized in the Soudan, when the want
of competent Arabic scholars was so severely felt."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Daily Exchange_, September 19th, 1883.

"The first volume of Captain Burton's 'Thousand Nights and a Night,'
printed at Benares by the Kamashastra Society, for private subscribers
only, has been delivered to the latter. If the other nine portions
equal the first, English literature will be the richer by a work the
like of which is rare. The English is strong and vitally idiomatic.
It is the English of Shakespeare and Jeremy Taylor, the English of
Robert Browning, with a curiously varied admixture of modern colloquial
phraseology. I confess that I was not prepared, familiar as I was with
Captain Burton's other work, to find so perfect a command of clear and
vigorous style on the part of the great traveller and Oriental scholar.
I must say that the tone of the work is singularly robust and healthy.
What a treasurehouse Captain Burton has opened! Until he turned the key
we knew little or nothing of the 'Nights,' and the notes which he has
added to the work have a value that is simply unique."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Standard_, September 12th.

"The first volume of Captain Burton's long-expected edition of the
'Arabian Nights' was issued yesterday to those who are in a position
to avail themselves of the wealth of learning contained in this
monumental labour of the famous Eastern traveller. The book is printed
for subscribers only, and is sold at a price which is not likely to be
paid by any save the scholars and students for whose instruction it is
intended.

"Moreover, no previous editor--not even Lane himself--had a tithe of
Captain Burton's acquaintance with the manners and customs of the
Moslem East. Hence, not unfrequently, they made ludicrous blunders,
and in no instance did they supply anything like the explanatory notes
which have added so greatly to the value of this issue of 'Alf Laylah
wa Laylah.'

"On the other hand, apart from the language, the general tone of the
'Nights' is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour, as
Captain Burton justly claims, often rises to the boiling point of
fanaticism, and the pathos is sweet and deep, genuine and tender,
simple and true. Its life--strong, splendid, and multitudinous--is
everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional
melancholy which strikes deepest root under the brightest skies.
The Kazi administers poetical justice with exemplary impartiality;
and so healthy is the morale that at times we descry vistas of a
transcendental morality--the morality of Socrates and Plato.

"In no other work is Eastern life so vividly pourtrayed. This work,
illuminated with notes so full of learning, should give the nation an
opportunity for wiping away that reproach of neglect which Captain
Burton seems to feel more keenly than he cares to express."

       *       *       *       *       *

_St. James's Gazette_, September 12th.

"One of the most important translations to which a great English
scholar has ever devoted himself is now in the press. For three decades
Captain Burton has been more or less engaged on his translation of the
'Arabian Nights,' the latest of the many versions of that extraordinary
story which has been made into English, the only one at all worthy of a
great original."

       *       *       *       *       *

_South Eastern Herald_, October 31st.

"At Mr. Quaritch's trade sale the other day, Captain Burton made an
interesting speech regarding the 'Thousand and One Nights,' of which
the gist was to show that his translation performs a double office.
It is not only a faithful and racy version of the true original, but
it also represents a better text than any which has been hitherto
accessible in print or manuscript. He, in fact, produced for his own
use, and by collation of the existing materials, a careful, critical
recension of the original; and his rendering may, therefore, claim to
stand towards the 'Alf Laylah' in the same manner as the Latin version
of Plato, by Marsilius Ficinus, towards the Greek text."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Morning Advertiser_.

"Captain Burton, thirty-three years ago, went in the disguise of an
Indian pilgrim to Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no one capable of giving
the world the result of his experience has so minute, so exhaustive
a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life generally. Hence the work now
begun--only a limited number of students can ever see--which is simply
priceless to any one who concerns himself with such subjects, and may
be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Whitehall Review_, October 29th, 1885.

"The second volume of Captain Burton's translation of the 'Arabian
Nights' has just been issued to the subscribers, who had already
become impatient for a second instalment of this great and fascinating
contribution to literature. The new volume is, if possible, of even
greater interest than the first. It contains the whole of the
fantastic semi-chivalrous story of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and his
sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, a knowledge of which has hitherto been
confined chiefly to Oriental scholars, as Lane only admitted an episode
from it into his version of 'Alif Laila.' Some of Sharrkan's adventures
will remind students of other Eastern stories of some of the adventures
recorded of the hero of Persian romance, Hatim Taī. As usual, Captain
Burton's notes are rich, varied, and copious, of the greatest service
to all serious students of Arabic manners and customs, and of Oriental
life in general."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Montreal Daily Herald_, September 21st, 1885.

"Captain Burton has translated the 'Arabian Nights,' but will only
publish it for private distribution. A correspondent says that 'all
these years we have been reading Lane's turgid emasculated selections
we have been kept in the dark as to their singular beauty and vitally
human strength. I have been amazed at the "Nights" as Englished by
Captain Burton in strong, vital, picturesque prose. The stories,
instead of being pieces of wild extravagance, unreal and theatrically
tinselly, with the limelight instead of daylight, and paste instead of
diamonds, are full of abounding life.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

"JEHU JUNIOR," _Vanity Fair_, October 24th, 1885.

"As a bold, astute traveller, courting danger, despising hardship,
and compelling fortune, Captain Burton has few equals; as a master of
Oriental languages, manners, and customs he has none. He is still very
young, very vigorous, very full of anecdote and playful humour, and,
what is remarkable in a linguist, he has not disdained even his own
mother tongue, which he handles with a precision and a power that few
can approach. He has recently crowned his literary labours by the most
complete, laborious, uncompromising, and perfect translation of that
collection of stories known to us as the 'Arabian Nights,' but more
correctly called 'A Thousand Nights and a Night.' He is a wonderful
man."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Morning Post_, January 19th, 1886.

"Everything comes to him who waits--even the long-promised, eagerly
expected 'Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights,'
by Richard F. Burton. It is a whole quarter of a century since
this translation of one of the most famous books of the world was
contemplated, and we are told it is the natural outcome of the
well-known pilgrimage to Medinah and Mecca. Of Captain Burton's fitness
for the task who can doubt? It was during that celebrated journey to
the Tomb of the Prophet that he proved himself to be an Arab--indeed,
he says, in a previous state of existence he was a Bedouin. Did he
not for months at a stretch lead the life of a Son of the Faithful,
eat, drink, sleep, dress, speak, pray, like his brother devotees, the
sharpest eyes failing to pierce his disguise? He knows the ways of
Eastern men--and women--as he does the society of London or Trieste.
How completely at home he is with his adopted brethren he showed at
Cairo, when, to the amazement of some English friends who were looking
on at the noisy devotions of some 'howling' Dervishes, he suddenly
joined the shouting, gesticulating circle, and behaved as if to the
manner born. He has qualified as a 'howler,' he holds a diploma as a
master Dervish, and he can initiate disciples. Clearly, to use a phrase
of Arabian story, it was decreed by Allah from the beginning--and
fate and fortune have arranged--that Captain Burton should be the one
of all others to confer upon his countrymen the boon of the genuine
unsophisticated 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' In the whole of our
literature no book is more widely known. It is spread broadcast like
the Bible, Bunyan, and Shakespeare: yet although it is in every house,
and every soul in the kingdom knows something about it, nobody knows
it as it really exists. We have only had what translators have chosen
to give--selected, diluted, and abridged transcripts. And of late some
so-called 'original' books have been published, containing minor tales
purloined bodily from the 'Nights.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

_Whitehall Review_, May 24th, 1886.

"The sixth volume of Sir Richard Burton's 'Arabian Nights,' which
has just been issued to subscribers, is one of the most interesting
of the series to Anglo-Orientalists. For it contains that story--or
set of stories--which is, perhaps, of all the tales of the 'Arabian
Nights,' the dearest to legend-loving mankind, whether Oriental or
Occidental--the story of the voyages of 'Sindbad the Sailor,' or of
'Sindbad the Seaman,' as Sir Richard Burton prefers to call him.
Perhaps the only tale which at all competes in popularity with the
wandering record of the 'Eastern Odysseus' is the story of 'Ali Baba,'
and that, unfortunately, does not belong to the 'Arabian Nights' at
all, and can only, as far as we know, be traced to a modern Greek
origin. Lovers of the story of 'Sindbad the Sailor' will be pleased to
learn that their old friend remains to all intents and purposes the
same in Sir Richard's literal Translation as he was in the fanciful
adaptation of Galland, and the more accurate rendering of Lane. He
does not 'suffer a sea change,' but remains, what he has always been,
the most wonderful wanderer in the whole range and region of romance.
Sir Richard Burton's sixth volume contains, besides, that story of
the 'Seven Viziers,' which in so many forms is a favourite in all the
languages of the East."

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Bat_, July 7th, 1886.

"As regards his translation, however, Captain Burton is certainly
felicitous in the manner in which he has Englished the picturesque
turns of the original. One great improvement in this version over
that of Mr. Lane will be found in the fact that the verses so freely
interspersed throughout the 'Nights' are here rendered in metre, and
that an attempt also has often been made to preserve the assonants and
the monorhyme of the Arabic. Mr. Lane frankly stated that he omitted
the greater part of the poetry as tedious, and, through the loss of
measure and rhyme, 'generally intolerable to the reader,' as, in truth,
the specimens inserted mostly proved to be on account of the bald
literalism of the rendering. Captain Burton has naturally inserted
the poetry with the rest; and has often shown much skill in doing
into English verse the rippling couplets of the original. Take as an
instance, the verses which Mr. Lane renders:--

    'Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety that anxiety will not last.
    As happiness passeth away, so passeth away anxiety.'

"Almost equally literal, and certainly more poetical, is Captain
Burton, who gracefully turns this:--

    'Tell whoso hath sorrow, Grief never shall last;
    E'en as Joy hath no morrow, so Woe shall go past.'

"And since, in proverbs and epigrams, so much depends on the form, the
spirit of the original is well observed, when, for instance, we read in
a certain chronicle the lines of one Ibn al Sumam:--

    'Hold fast thy secret, and to none unfold:
    Lost is a secret when that secret's told.
    And fail thy breast thy secret to conceal,
    How canst thou hope another's breast shall hold?'

"Doubtless, too--and in this not following Mr. Lane--Captain Burton
is right in retaining the original division into Nights: for, as he
justly observes, 'Without the Nights, no Arabian Nights!' And, besides
this being a prime feature of the original, a grateful pause is thereby
introduced into these intricate and interminable stories. In the
translation, Captain Burton's English is generally picturesque and
always fluent. As it is frankly stated, too, he has 'never hesitated to
coin a word when wanted.' Captain Burton, who has passed the greater
portion of his life in Arab-speaking countries, mixing freely in
Moslem society, and often passing--as during his pilgrimage--himself
for a True Believer, is naturally well qualified to translate this
'Great Eastern Saga Book.' Also, since the scene of the stories is
laid successively in every country of Islam, from Tangier to India,
and beyond, the translator's intimate acquaintance, made during his
wanderings, with all these peoples and places, stands him in good stead
in elucidating peculiar manners and customs, and in this gives him the
advantage over Mr. Lane, who had only seen Islam as domiciled in Egypt."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Court Society_, March 4th, 1886.

"Not a little disgust has been excited by the vulgar sneer which a
morning paper has indulged in at the expense of Sir Richard Burton.
Long neglected by successive Governments, Captain Burton received,
after forty-four years, a tardy recognition of his services.
Straightway, it was suggested that he is made a knight because he
translated the 'Arabian Nights.' It need scarcely be said that his
translation has nothing to do with the distinction conferred upon him;
but, as it is the habit in a certain quarter to denounce the literal
translation of the 'Nights,' it cannot be too distinctly understood
that Captain Burton never meant his work to fall into any hands save
those of a thousand students."

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Sporting Life_, July 17th, 1886.

"The more I see of this splendid translation, the more do I feel that
we are indebted to the translator for the first real idea in English
of the immortal original, and to him alone, for a complete reflection
of the 'Arabian Nights.' The lustre and vigour of the English compel
one's admiration at every step.... It is palpable enough that, until
Sir Richard Burton's wonderful work first saw the light, _we had no
'Arabian Nights_.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Bat_, July 7th, 1886.

"Book-lovers will be glad to learn that Sir Richard Burton's 'Thousand
and One Nights' will shortly be reprinted, and that also with
revision which will remove it from the top shelf of a library to the
drawing-room. Lady Burton is to be congratulated on her enterprise in
taking up the matter, for, unquestionably, so admirable, and, indeed,
instructive a work should be placed within the reach of all. A copy of
the privately printed edition is now worth £25, and undoubtedly its
reappearance as revised will be hailed with satisfaction by all lovers
of Orientalism."

       *       *       *       *       *


LETTERS FROM SCHOLARS.


_Mr. Floyer, at the Telegraphic Conference, has secured Egypt
telegraphic independence, and an annual gain of_ £7000.

"Government Telegraphs, Berlin, September 16th, 1885.

"MY DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

"I cannot tell you how delighted I am with the translation. The
language is wonderful. Only you in the world could have written it. How
did you find out 'ensorcelled,' instead of the vulgar 'bewitched'? And
how did you find out a hundred other words equally graceful and exact?
It is the most wonderful translation in the whole of literature. In
accuracy, in swing, it breathes Egypt to me. I could take it and read
it straight out to my Effendis almost word for word. But the language
is wonderful. As compared with Eastwick's _Anw'ar i Suhayli_ it is
Tennyson to Gladstone. My sense of the feelings inspired by the first
pages of the Foreword it is impossible to express, and I congratulate
you most sincerely on your absolutely unique achievement.

"Yours very truly,

"(Signed) ERNEST A. FLOYER."

       *       *       *       *       *

"October 24th.

"DEAR SIR,

"I do not know whether a letter which I wrote to the _Academy_ about
your 'Arabian Nights' has come under your notice. If so, I beg you to
excuse the chary words I used in commendation of a work which now,
from the literary point of view, I regard as one of great original
excellence."

       *       *       *       *       *

"November 13th.

"I wish you _had_ issued more numbers of your book, as you well deserve
to be rewarded for such an admirable work. I delight in the vigour and
Oriental character of the language. Even a few months in India were
enough to make me appreciate and perhaps better understand the charm of
the 'Arabian Nights.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

"DEAR CAPTAIN,

"The joy which your volume has occasioned me I will not attempt to
express in a short letter. Let us meet soon, and talk of nothing else."

       *       *       *       *       *

"DEAR BURTON,

"This is merely a line of greeting in appreciation of your first
volume, which I have been reading, just to say how pleased I am with
everything--intrinsic and extrinsic."

       *       *       *       *       *

"September 25th.

"DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

"I have received the first volume of the 'Nights,' and beg you to
accept my most heartfelt and sincere thanks for the valuable gift. I
cannot express the pleasure which it affords me to see this wonderful
book reproduced in a form which is as faithful a rendering of the
original as it will remain an admirable '_monumentum aere perennius_'
of the English language.

"Moreover, I am not ashamed to acknowledge that in reading again the
text, together with your translation, I have learned more Arabic in a
few months than in as many years of former toilsome study."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I want to tell you how thoroughly I have enjoyed your 'Arabian
Nights,' and how greatly they have contributed to making life endurable
during these months. Your 'Arabian Nights' is a revelation of
Orientalism, and the finest study of words that I have ever met with.
It will remain a literary text-book as long as the English language
lasts."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Volume I. awaiting me.

"I congratulate Captain Burton heartily. The book looks very handsome,
and the notes are most valuable. Altogether a great success."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Your 'Nights' are admirable, fascinating--the true thing at last! I
delight in my volume.

"I can hardly express to you how highly I appreciate the 'Nights,' the
first two volumes of which are at hand. The work is interesting, too,
and permits another edition."

       *       *       *       *       *

"September 26th.

"I have been devouring your first volume of the 'Nights,' and cannot
tell you how much I enjoyed the book, and how anxiously I am looking
for the next volume."

       *       *       *       *       *

EDWARD PEACOCK, Bottesford Manor, Brigg, October 3rd, 1885.

"I have read every word of the first volume of Captain Burton's
'Arabian Nights,' and, as I am not an Arabic scholar, _am very grateful
to him for having given us_ an English version."

[1] This was written some weeks before the author was made a K.C.M.G.




THE END







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