“Our orgie was great fun. The Bird and I wore Arab dresses. I went in the dress of an Arab lady of Damascus, but as myself, accompanied by Khamoor in her village dress and introducing Hadji Abdullah, a Moslem shaykh of Damascus. We then spoke only Arabic to each other, and the Bird broken French to the company present. We were twenty-eight at supper. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh were there. We let them into the joke, and they much enjoyed it, but all the rest were quite taken in half the evening. Even Lord Lyons and many of our old friends. The house was perfect and the fountain part[FN#250] quite like Damascus. After supper we made Turkish coffee and narghilihis, and Khamoor handed them to the Princes on her knees, the tray on her head in Eastern fashion. They were delighted and spoke to her very kindly. They talked for long to Richard, and afterwards to me, and asked when we were going back to Syria before Lord Granville’s brother.” This letter, like most of Mrs. Burton’s letters to Miss Stisted, is signed “Z,” short for “Zoo.”
In February (1872) Mrs. Burton’s mother, who had for years been paralysed, grew rapidly worse. Says Mrs. Burton, writing to Miss Stisted (29th February), “My time is divided between her and Richard’s concerns. She did rally a little and I took advantage of it to go one to one dinner and to the Thanksgiving Day[FN#251] which we saw to perfection, and enjoyed enormously; and last night to a very large gathering at Lady Margaret Beaumont’s. .. Everybody was there and it gave me an opportunity of saying ‘How d’ye do?’ to the world after my return from Syria. .. I am working tooth and nail at the Bird’s[FN#252] case, and have got our ambassador (Elliott) to see me at twelve next Saturday.” At this time everyone was talking about Livingstone, the story of the meeting of him and Stanley being still fresh in men’s minds. It was thought that another expedition ought to be sent out with Burton to lead, and a grand luncheon was got up for the express purpose of bring Burton and a certain great personage together. When the soup was being served, the great personage, turning to Burton, said: “You are the man to go out to Livingstone. Come, consent, and I will contribute £500 to the expedition.”
Mrs. Burton, who sat next to her husband, looked up with beaming eyes, and her heart beat with joy. The object of the luncheon had been achieved, and Fortune was again bestowing her smiles; but as ill luck would have it, Burton happened just then to be in one of his contrary moods. He went on spooning up his soup, and, without troubling to turn his head, said, “I’ll save your Royal Highness that expense.”
Poor Mrs. Burton almost fainted. The Livingstone expedition was subsequently undertaken by Cameron.
67. The Tichborne Trial.
Another event of this period was the Tichborne trial, but though Burton was subpoenaed by the claimant, his evidence really assisted the other side.
“I understand,” began his interlocutor, “that you are the Central African traveller.”
“I have been to Africa,” modestly replied Burton.
“Weren’t you badly wounded?”[FN#253]
“Yes, in the back, running away.”
His identity being established, Burton gave his evidence without further word fence. “When I went out to Brazil,” he said, “I took a present from Lady Tichborne for her son, but being unable to find him,[FN#254] I sent the present back. When returning from America, I met the claimant, and I recognise him simply as the man I met. That is all.” Burton, like others, always took it for granted that the claimant obtained most of his information respecting the Tichbornes from Bogle, the black man, who had been in the service of the family.
68. Khamoor at the Theatre.
In some unpublished letters of Mrs. Burton, written about this time, we get additional references to Khamoor, and several of them are amusing. Says Mrs. Burton in one of them,[FN#255] “Khamoor was charming at the theatre. I cried at something touching, and she, not knowing why, flung herself upon my neck and howled. She nearly died with joy on seeing the clown, and said, ‘Oh, isn’t this delightful. What a lovely life!’ She was awfully shocked at the women dancing with ‘naked legs,’ and at all the rustic swains and girls embracing each other.”
In January 1872, the Burtons were at Knowsley,[FN#256] the Earl of Derby’s, whence Mrs. Burton wrote an affectionate letter to Miss Stisted. She says,[FN#257] “I hope you are taking care of yourself. Good people are scarce, and I don’t want to lose my little pet.” Later, Burton visited Lady Stisted at Edinburgh, and about that time met a Mr. Lock, who was in need of a trusty emissary to report on some sulphur mines in Iceland, for which he had a concession. The two came to terms, and it was decided that Burton should start in May. He spent the intervening time at Lord Gerard’s,[FN#258] and thence Mrs. Burton wrote to Miss Stisted[FN#259] saying why she did not accompany Burton in his visit to his relatives. She says, “I hope you all understand that no animosity keeps me from Edinburgh. I should have been quite pleased to go if Richard had been willing, but I think he still fancies that Maria (Lady Stisted) would rather not see me, and I am quite for each one doing as he or she likes. .. The Bird sends his fond love and a chirrup.”
Chapter XVI
4th June 1872-24th October 1872
In Iceland
Bibliography:
36. Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast. 2 vols., 1872. 37. Unexplored Syria. 2 vols., 1872.
38. On Human Remains, etc., from Iceland, 1872.
69. In Edinburgh Again, 4th June 1872.
In May, Burton was back again in Edinburgh, preparing for the Iceland journey. He took many walks down Princes Street and up Arthur’s Seat with Lady Stisted and his nieces, and “he was flattered,” says Miss Stisted, “by the kindness and hospitality with which he was received. The 93rd Highlanders, stationed at the Castle, entertained in genuine Highland fashion; and at our house he met most of the leading Scotch families who happened to be lingering in the northern capital.” Lord Airlie, the High Commissioner, held brilliant receptions at Holyrood. There were gay scenes–women in their smartest gowns, men wearing their medals and ribands. General Sir H. Stisted was there in his red collar and cross and star of the Bath. Burton “looked almost conspicuous in unadorned simplicity.” On 4th June[FN#260] Burton left for Iceland. The parting from his friends was, as usual, very hard. Says Miss Stisted, “His hands turned cold, his eyes filled with tears.” Sir W. H. Stisted accompanied him to Granton, whence, with new hopes and aspirations, he set sail. Spectacularly, Iceland–Ultima Thule–as he calls it–was a disappointment to him. “The giddy, rapid rivers,” were narrow brooks, Hecla seemed but “half the height of Hermon,” the Great Geyser was invisible until you were almost on the top of it. Its voice of thunder was a mere hiccough. Burton, the precise antithesis of old Sir John de Mandeville, was perhaps the only traveller who never told “travellers’ tales.” Indeed, he looked upon Sir John as a disgrace to the cloth; though he sometimes comforted himself with the reflection that most likely that very imaginative knight never existed. But he thoroughly enjoyed these Icelandic experiences, for, to use one of his own phrases, the power of the hills was upon him. With Mr. Lock he visited the concession, and on his way passed through a village where there was a fair, and where he had a very narrow escape. A little more, we are told, and a hideous, snuffy, old Icelandic woman would have kissed him. In respect to the survey, the mass of workable material was enormous. There was no lack of sulphur, and the speculation promised to be a remunerative one. Eventually, however, it was found that the obstacles were insuperable, and the scheme had to be abandoned. However, the trip had completed the cure commenced by Camoens, and at the end of it everybody said “he looked at least fifteen years younger.”
Burton had scarcely left Granton for Iceland before Mrs. Arundell died, and the letters which Mrs. Burton wrote at this time throw an interesting light on the relations between her and Burton’s family. To Miss Stisted she says (June 14th), “My darling child. My dear mother died in my arms at midnight on Wednesday 5th. It was like a child going to sleep, most happy, but quite unexpected by us, who thought, though sinking, she would last till August or October. I need not tell you, who know the love that existed between her and me, that my loss is bitter and irreparable, and will last for life. May you never know it! I have written pages full of family detail to darling Nana, and I intended to enclose it to you to read en route, but I thought perhaps our religious views and observances might seem absurd to the others, and I felt ashamed to do so. You know when so holy a woman as dear mother dies, we do not admit of any melancholy or sorrow except for ourselves Your dear little letter was truly welcome with its kind and comforting messages. I am glad that our darling [Burton] was spared all the sorrow we have gone through, and yet sorry he did not see the beauty and happiness of her holy death. .. She called for Richard twice before her death. Do write again and often, dear child. Tell me something about the Iceland visits. … Your loving Zooey.”
What with the unsatisfactory condition of their affairs, and the death of her mother, Mrs. Burton was sadly troubled; but the long lane was now to have a turning. One day, while she was kneeling with wet cheeks before her mother’s coffin, and praying that the sombrous overhanging cloud might pass away, a letter arrived from Lord Granville offering her husband the Consulate of Trieste[FN#261] with a salary of £700 a year. This was a great fall after Damascus, but in her own words, “better than nothing,” and she at once communicated with her husband, who was still in Iceland.
70. Wardour Castle, 5th July 1872.
She then made a round of country house visits, including one to Wardour Castle.[FN#262] In an unpublished letter to Miss Stisted, she says: “My pet, I came here on Tuesday… I have never cried nor slept since mother died (a month to-morrow) I go up again on Monday for final pack-up–to my convent ten days–….then back to town in hopes of Nana in August, about the 7th. Then we shall go to Spain, and to Trieste, our new appointment, if he [Burton] will take it, as all our friends and relations wish, if only as a stop-gap for the present. Arundell has done an awfully kind thing. There is a large Austrian honour in the family with some privileges, and he has desired me to assume all the family honours on arriving, and given me copies of the Patent, with all the old signatures and attested by himself. This is to present to the Herald’s College at Vienna. He had desired my cards to be printed Mrs. Richard Burton, nee Countess Isabel Arundell of Wardour of the most sacred Roman Empire. This would give us an almost royal position at Vienna or any part of Austria, and with Nana’s own importance and fame we shall (barring salary) cut out the Ambassador. She wants a quiet year to learn German and finish old writings. … I should like the tour round the world enormously, but I don’t see where the money is to come from. .. This is such a glorious old place. .. The woods and parks are splendid, and the old ruin of the castle defended by Lady Blanche is the most interesting thing possible. Half the other great places I go to are mushroom greatness, but this is the real old thing of Druid remains and the old baronial castle of knights in armour and fair Saxon-looking women, and with heavy portcullises to enter by, and dungeons and subterranean passages, etc. There is a statue of our Saviour over the door, and in Cromwell’s siege a cannon ball made a hole in the wall just behind it and never took off its head. …Your loving Zoo.”
A few days later Mrs. Burton received a letter from her husband, who expressed his willingness to accept Trieste. He arrived at Edinburgh again on September 5th, and his presence was the signal for a grand dinner, at which all the notables of the neighbourhood, including many people of title, were present. But, unfortunately, Burton was in one of his disagreeable moods, and by the time dinner was half over, he found that he had contradicted with acerbity every person within earshot. While, however, he was thus playing the motiveless ogre, his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Stisted, at the other end of the table, was doing his utmost to render himself agreeable, and by the extraordinary means of rolling out anecdote after anecdote that told against the Scotch character. The Mackenzies, the Murrays, the MacDonalds, the McQueens, looked black as thunder, and Stisted’s amiability gave even more offence than Burton’s ill-temper. Noticing that something was amiss opposite him, Burton stopped his own talk to listen. Then Stisted’s innocence and the ludicrousness of the whole scene dawned upon him, and leaning back in his chair he roared with uncontrollable laughter. When he met his wife again one of her first questions was about this dinner, at which she had hoped her husband would dazzle and delight the whole company, and which she supposed might lead to his promotion. He then told her the whole story, not omitting his ill-humour. She listened with dismay, and then burst into tears. “Come,” he commented, “I wasn’t so bad as Stisted, anyhow.”
71. St. George and Frederick Burton.
Upon his return to London, Burton renewed his acquaintance with his cousins Dr. and Mrs. Edward John Burton. He and Dr. Burton, whom he thought fit to call after a character in The Arabian Nights, “Abu Mohammed Lazybones,”[FN#263] had long known each other, but Dr. Burton had also for some time resided in distant lands. The notes that brought about the meeting–and they could not be briefer–now lie before me. They run:
“Athanaeum Club,
“Sept. 20 ’72
“My dear Cousin,
“When and where can I see you? Yours truly, “R. F. Burton.”
“Junior United Service Club.
“My dear Richard,
“Any day at 4 p.m.
“Yours ever,
“E. J. Burton.”
A few days later, Burton dined with Edward John, and made the acquaintance of his young cousins, St. George and Frederick. Of St. George, a dark-haired lad, who was particularly clever and had a humorous vein, Burton from the first thought highly. One day, happening to turn over some of the leaves of the boy’s exercise book, he stumbled upon the following lines:
“The map of Africa was dark as night, God said, ‘Let Burton live,’ and there was light.”
He laughed heartily and thanked his little cousin for the compliment, while the couplet became a stock quotation in the family. Later, when St. George went to a French school, he was very proud to find that the boys were conversant not only with the exploits of his famous uncle, but also with the history of the Dr. Francis Burton who had made Napoleon’s death mask. Frederick Burton was a plump, shy, fair-haired little fellow, and Burton, who loved to tease, did not spare his rotundity. In one of Frederick’s copy-books could be read, in large hand,
“Life is short.”
“I,” commented Burton, “find life very long.”
Subsequently he advised his cousin to go to the River Plate. “Well,” he would ask, when he entered the house, “has Frederick started for the River Plate yet? I see a good opening there.”
As Dr. Burton was born in the house of his father’s brother, the Bishop of Killala, Burton used to affect jealousy. “Hang it all, Edward,” he would say, “You were born in a bishop’s palace.”
Apparently it was about this time that the terrible silence of Burton’s brother was for a moment broken. Every human device had been tried to lead him to conversation, and hitherto in vain. It seems that some years previous, and before Edward’s illness, Dr. E. J. Burton had lent his cousin a small sum of money, which was duly repaid. One day Dr. Burton chose to assume the contrary, and coming upon Edward suddenly he cried:
“Edward, you might just as well have paid me that money I lent you at Margate. I call it shabby, now.”
Edward raised his head and fixing his eyes on Dr. Burton said, with great effort, and solemnly, “Cousin, I did pay you, you must remember that I gave you a cheque.”
Thrilled with joy, Dr. Burton attempted to extend the conversation, but all in vain, and to his dying day Edward Burton never uttered another word.
72. At the Athenaeum.
Of all the spots in London, none was so dear to Burton as his club, The Athenaeum. When in England, he practically lived there, and its massive portico, its classic frieze, and the helmeted statue of Minerva were always imaged on his heart. He wrote a number of his books there, and he loved to write his letters on its notepaper stamped with the little oval enclosing Minerva’s head. He used to make his way to the Athenaeum early in the day[FN#264] and go straight to the library. Having seated himself at the round table he would work with coralline industry, and without a single break until six or seven in the evening. It was a standing joke against him in Dr. Burton’s family that when at the club he was never at home to anybody except a certain Mrs. Giacometti Prodgers. This lady was of Austrian birth, and, according to rumour, there was a flavour of romance about her marriage. It was said that while the laws of certain countries regarded her as married, those of other countries insisted that she was still single. However, married or not, she concentrated all her spleen on cab-drivers, and was continually hauling some luckless driver or other before the London magistrates. Having a profound respect for Burton’s judgment, she often went to him about these cab disputes, and, oddly enough, though nobody else could get at him, he was always at the service of Mrs. Prodgers, and good-naturedly gave her the benefit of his wisdom.[FN#265] To the London magistrates the good lady was a perpetual terror, and Frederick Burton, a diligent newspaper reader, took a pleasure in following her experiences. “St. George,” he would call across the breakfast table, “Mrs. Giacometti Prodgers again: She’s had another cab-man up.”
One evening, says a London contributor to the New York Tribune[FN#266] referring to this period, “there was a smoking party given by a well-known Londoner. I went in late, and on my way upstairs, stumbled against a man sitting on the stairs, with a book and pencil in his hands, absorbed in his reading, and the notes he was making. It was Burton. When I spoke to him he woke up as if from a dream with the dazed air of one not quite sure where he is. I asked him what he was reading. It proved to be Camoens, and he told me he was translating the Portuguese poet. It seemed an odd place for such work, and I said as much. “Oh,” answered Burton, “I can read anywhere or write anywhere. And I always carry Camoens about with me. You see, he is a little book, and I have done most of my translating in these odd moments, or, as you say, in this odd fashion.” And he added, with a kind of cynical grin on his face, ‘You will find plenty of dull people in the rooms above.’ He had been bored and this was his refuge.”
73. Jane Digby Again.
Report now arrived that Jane Digby was dead; and paragraphs derogatory to her character appeared in the press. Mrs. Burton not only answered them, but endeavoured to throw a halo over her friend’s memory. She said also that as she, Mrs. Burton, had Jane Digby’s biography, nobody else had any right to make remarks. Comically enough, news then came that Jane was still alive. She had been detained in the desert by the fighting of the tribes. Says Mrs. Burton, “her relatives attacked her for having given me the biography, and she, under pressure, denied it in print, and then wrote and asked me to give it back to her; but I replied that she should have had it with the greatest pleasure, only she having ‘given me the lie’ in print, I was obliged for my own sake to keep it, and she eventually died.” This very considerate act of Jane’s saved all further trouble.
74. His Book on Zanzibar.
On his expedition with Speke to Tanganyika, Burton had already written four volumes,[FN#267] and it was now to be the subject of another work, Zanzibar, which is chiefly a description of the town and island from which the expedition started. The origin of the book was as follows. With him on his way home from Africa he had brought among other MSS. a bundle of notes relating both to his “preliminary canter” and to Zanzibar, and the adventures of these notes were almost as remarkable as those of the Little Hunchback. On the West Coast of Africa the bundle was “annexed” by a skipper. The skipper having died, the manuscripts fell into the hands of his widow, who sold them to a bookseller, who exposed them for sale. An English artillery officer bought them, and, in his turn, lost them. Finally they were picked up in the hall of a Cabinet Minister, who forwarded them to Burton. The work contains an enormous mass of geographical, anthropological and other information, and describes the town so truthfully that nobody, except under compulsion, would ever dream of going there. The climate, it seems, is bad for men, worse for women. “Why,” he asks, “should Englishmen poison or stab their wives when a few months at Zanzibar would do the business more quietly and effectually?” The expense of getting them over there may be one objection. But whoever goes to Zanzibar, teetotallers, we are told, should keep away. There it is drink or die. Burton introduces many obsolete words, makes attacks on various persons, and says fearlessly just what he thinks; but the work has both the Burtonian faults. It is far too long, and it teems with uninteresting statistics.
There also left the press this year (1871) a work in two volumes entitled Unexplored Syria, by Burton and Tyrwhitt Drake.[FN#268] It describes the archaeological discoveries made by the authors during their sojourn in Syria, and includes an article on Syrian Proverbs (Proverba Communia Syriaca) which had appeared the year before in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Some of the sayings have English analogues, thus:
“He who wants nah
Mustn’t say ah;”
“nah” being wealth or honour; “ah,” the expression of fear or doubt.[FN#269]
At one of the meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, at which Burton had been billed to speak, there were present among the audience his wife, Mr. Arundell, and several other members of the family. Considerable hostility was shown towards Burton; and Colonel Rigby[FN#270] and others flatly contradicted some of his statements respecting Zanzibar. Then Burton flew into a temper such as only he could fly into. His eyes flashed, his lips protruded with rage, and he brandished the long map pointer so wildly that the front bench became alarmed for their safety. Old Mr. Arundell, indignant at hearing his son-in-law abused, then tried to struggle on to the platform, while his sons and daughters, horrified at the prospect, hung like bull-dogs to his coat tails. Says Burton, “the old man, who had never been used to public speaking, was going to address a long oration to the public about his son-in-law, Richard Burton. As he was slow and very prolix, he would never have sat down again, and God only knows what he would have said.” The combined efforts of the Arundell family however, prevented so terrible a denouement, Burton easily proved his enemies’ statements to be erroneous, and the order was eventually restored.
Chapter XVII
24th October 1872-12th May 1875
Trieste
Bibliography:
39. Medinah and Meccah. 3 vols. in one, 1873. 40. Minas Geraes. 7th January 1873. J. A. I. 41. The Lands of the Cazembe. 1873.
42. The Captivity of Hans Stadt, 1874. 43. Articles on Rome. Macmillan’s Mag. 1874-5. 44. The Castellieri of Istria.
45. Gerber’s Province of Minas Geraes. 46. New System of Sword Exercise.
47. Ultima Thule, or a Summer in Iceland. 2 vols. 1875. 48. Two Trips to Gorilla Land. 2 vols. 1875. 49. The Inner Life of Syria. 2 vols., 1875, by Mrs. Burton. 50. The Long Wall of Salona.
75. Burton at Trieste, 24th October 1872.
Burton left England for Trieste 24th October 1872,[FN#271] but the popular belief that he entered the town with a fighting cock under his arm and a bull-terrier at his heels lacks foundation. He was fifty-one, the age of the banished Ovid, to whom he often compared himself, and though the independent and haughty Burton bears no resemblance to the sycophantic and lachrymose yet seductive Sulmoan, nevertheless his letters from Trieste are a sort of Tristia–or as the flippant would put it–Triestia. Indeed, he read and re-read with an almost morbid interest both the Tristia and the Ex Ponto.[FN#272] Ovid’s images seemed applicable to himself. “I, too,” he said, “am a neglected book gnawed by the moth,” “a stream dammed up with mud,” “a Phalaris, clapped, for nothing in particular, into the belly of a brazen bull.” Like Ovid, too, he could and did pronounce his invective against the Ibis, the cause of all his troubles, that is to say, Rashid Pasha, whose very name was as gall and wormwood. His fate, indeed, was a hard one. The first linguist of his day, for he spoke twenty-eight languages and dialects, he found himself relegated to a third-rate port, where his attainments were absolutely valueless to anybody. The greatest of travellers, the most indefatigable of anthropologists, the man who understood the East as no other Englishman had understood it–was set to do work that could in those days have been accomplished with ease by any raw and untravelled government official possessed of a smattering of German and Italian. But the truth is, Burton’s brilliant requirements were really a hindrance to him. The morbid distrust of genius which has ever been incidental to ordinary Government officialism, was at that time particularly prevalent. The only fault to be found with Burton’s conduct at Damascus, was that, instead of serving his own interest, he had attempted to serve the interests of his country and humanity. By trimming, temporizing, shutting his eyes to enormities, and touching bribes, he might have retained his post, or have been passed on to Constantinople.
When time after time he saw incompetent men advanced to positions of importance, his anger was unrestrainable, “Why,” he asked bitterly, “are the Egyptian donkey-boys so favourable to the English?” Answer, “Because we hire more asses than any other nation.”
Trieste is a white splash between high wooded mountains and a dark precipice rising from a sea intense as the blue of the gentian. The population was about 140,000, mostly Italian speaking. Nominally they were Catholics, and of genuine Catholics there might have been 20,000, chiefly women. “Trieste,” said Burton, “is a town of threes–three quarters, three races (Italian, Slav and Austrian), and three winds (Sirocco, Bora, and Contraste).” One brilliant man of letters had been connected with the town, namely Marie-Henry Beyle, better known by his pen name, Stendhal,[FN#273] who, while he was French Counul here, pumice polished and prepared for the press his masterpiece, La Chartreuse de Parme, which he had written at Padua in 1830. To the minor luminary, Charles Lever, we have already alluded. Such was the town in which the British Hercules was set to card wool. The Burtons occupied ten rooms at the top of a block of buildings situated near the railway station. The corridor was adorned with a picture of our Saviour, and statuettes of St. Joseph and the Madonna with votive lights burning before them. This, in Burton’s facetious phrase, was “Mrs. Burton’s joss house;” and occasionally, when they had differences, he threatened “to throw her joss house out of the window.” Burton in a rage, indeed, was the signal for the dispersal of everybody. Furniture fell, knick-knacks flew from the table, and like Jupiter he tumbled gods on gods. If, however, he and his wife did not always symphonize, still, on the whole, they continued to work together amicably, for Mrs. Burton took considerable pains to accommodate herself to the peculiarities of her husband’s temperament, and both were blessed with that invaluable oil for troubled waters–the gift of humour. “Laughter,” Burton used to say, and he had “a curious feline laugh,” “animates the brain and stimulates the lungs.” To his wife’s assumption of the possession of knowledge, of being a linguist, of being the intellectual equal of every living person, saving himself, he had no objection; and the pertinacity with which she sustained this role imposed sometimes even on him. He got to think that she was really a genius in a way, and saw merit even in the verbiage and rhodomontade of her books. But whatever Isabel Burton’s faults, they are all drowned and forgotten in her devotion to her husband. It was more than love– it was unreasoning worship. “You and Mrs. Burton seem to jog along pretty well together,” said a friend. “Yes,” followed Burton, “I am a spoilt twin, and she is the missing fragment.”
Burton, of course, never really took to Trieste, his Tomi, as he called it. He was too apt to contrast it with Damascus: the wind-swept Istrian hills with the zephyr-ruffled Lebanon, the dull red plains of the Austrian sea-board with the saffron of the desert, the pre-historic castellieri or hill-forts, in which, nevertheless, he took some pleasure, with the columned glories of Baalbak and Palmyra. “Did you like Damascus?” somebody once carelessly asked Mrs. Burton.
“Like it!” she exclaimed, quivering with emotion, “My eyes fill, and my heart throbs even at the thought of it.”
Indeed, they always looked back with wistful, melancholy regret upon the two intercalary years of happiness by the crystalline Chrysorrhoa, and Mrs. Burton could never forget that last sad ride through the beloved Plain of Zebedani. Among those who visited the Burtons at Trieste, was Alfred Bates Richards. After describing Mrs. Burton’s sanctuary, he says: “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. These rooms, opening one into another, are bright with Oriental hangings, with trays and dishes of gold and burnished silver, fantastic goblets, chibouques with great amber mouth-pieces, and Eastern treasure made of odorous woods.” Burton liked to know that everything about him was hand-made. “It is so much better,” he used to say, than the “poor, dull work of machinery.” In one of the book-cases was Mrs. Burton’s set of her husband’s works, some fifty volumes.[FN#274]
Mr. Richards thus describes Burton himself, “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 distinctly Arab look of the man is made more pronounced by prominent cheek-bones (across one of which is the scar of a javelin cut), by closely-cropped black hair, just tinged with grey, and a pair of piercing, black, gipsy-looking eyes.” Out of doors, in summer, Burton wore a spotlessly white suit, a tie-pin shaped like a sword, a pair of fashionable, sharply-pointed shoes, and the shabbiest old white beaver hat that he could lay his hands upon. On his finger glittered a gold ring, engraved with the word “Tanganyika.”[FN#275] In appearance, indeed, he was a compound of the dandy, the swash-buckler and the literary man. He led Mr. Richards through the house. Every odd corner displayed weapons–guns, pistols, boar-spears, swords of every shape and make. On one cupboard was written “The Pharmacy.” It contained the innocuous medicines for Mrs. Burton’s poor–for she still continued to manufacture those pills and drenches that had given her a reputation in the Holy Land. “Why,” asked Richards, “do you live in a flat and so high up?” “To begin with,” was the reply, “we are in good condition, and run up and down the stairs like squirrels. If I had a great establishment, I should feel tied and weighed down. With a flat and two or three servants one has only to lock the door and go out.” The most noticeable objects in the rooms were eleven rough deal tables, each covered with writing materials.[FN#276] At one sat Mrs. Burton in morning neglige, a grey choga–the long, loose Indian dressing-gown of soft camel’s hair–topped by a smoking cap of the same material. She observed, “I see you are looking at our tables. Dick likes a separate table for each book, and when he is tired of one he goes to another.” He never, it seems, wrote more than eleven books at a time, unless stout pamphlets come under that category. Their life was a peaceful one, except on Fridays, when Mrs. Burton received seventy bosom and particular friends, and talked to them at the top of her voice in faulty German, Italian, which she spoke fluently, or slangy English.[FN#277] In the insipid conversation of this “magpie sanhedrin,” “these hen parties,” as he called them, Burton did not join, but went on with his work as if no one was present. Indeed, far from complaining, he remarked philosophically that if the rooms had been lower down probably 140 visitors instead of 70 would have looked in. The Burtons usually rose at 4 or 5, and after tea, bread and fruit, gave their morning to study. At noon they drank a cup of soup, fenced, and went for a swim in the sea. Burton then took up a heavy iron stick with a silver knob[FN#278] and walked to the Consulate, which was situated in the heart of the town, while Mrs. Burton, with her pockets bulging with medicines, and a flask of water ready for baptism emergencies hanging to her girdle, busied herself with charitable work, including the promotion of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They generally dined at the table d’hote of the Hotel de la Ville, and dined well, for, as Burton says used to “Only fools and young ladies care nothing for the carte.”[FN#279] Having finished their coffee, cigarettes, and kirsch, outside the hotel, they went home to bed, where, conscious of a good day’s work done, they took their rest merrily. Sometimes they interrupted the routine with excursions into the surrounding country, of which they both knew every stock and stone, pre-historic or modern. Of business ability, Burton had never possessed one iota, and his private affairs were constantly mis-managed. As at Fernando Po, Santos and Damascus, he promptly looked out for a sanitarium, his choice finally resting upon a loftily-situated village called Opcina.
Reviewing Burton’s career, Mr. Alfred Bates Richards says: “He has done more than any other six men, 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 civilisation 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.”
If Trieste was not an ideal post for him, still it had the patent advantage of being practically a sinecure. He and his wife seem to have been able to get away almost at any time. They sometimes travelled together, but often went in different directions, and as Burton was as restless as a hyena, he never stayed in any one place many hours. Occasionally they met unexpectedly. Upon one of these meetings in a Swiss hotel, Burton burst out affectionately with, “And what the devil brought you here?” To which she replied, promptly but sweetly, “Ditto, brother.” For study, Burton had almost unlimited time, and nothing came amiss to him. He lost himself in old sacramentaries, Oriental manuscripts, works on the prehistoric remains of Istria, Camoens, Catullus, The Arabian Nights, Boccaccio. His knowledge was encyclopaedic.
76. At the Vienna Exhibition, 1873.
Early in 1873 the Burtons visited Vienna chiefly in order to see the great Exhibition. The beauty of the buildings excited their constant admiration, but the dearness of everything at the hotels made Burton use forcible language. On one occasion he demanded– he never asked for anything–a beefsteak, and a waiter hurried up with an absurdly small piece of meat on a plate. Picking it up with the fork he examined it critically, and then said, quite amiably for him, “Yaas, yaas,[FN#280] that’s it, bring me some.” Next he required coffee. The coffee arrived in what might have been either a cup or a thimble. “What’s this?” demanded Burton. The waiter said it was coffee for one. “Then,” roared Burton, with several expletives, “bring me coffee for twenty.” Their bill at this hotel came to £163 for the three weeks.
77. A Visit from Drake, June 1873.
On their return from Vienna, they had the pleasure of meeting again Lady Marion Alford, Aubertin, and that “true-hearted Englishman, staunch to the backbone,” Charles Tyrwhitt Drake, who “brought with him a breath from the desert and stayed several weeks.” The three friends went to a fete held in the stalactite caverns of Adelsberg, from which Burton, who called them the eighth wonder of the world, always assumed that Dante got his ideas of the Inferno. Lighted by a million candles, and crowded with peasants in their picturesque costumes, which made wondrous arabesques of moving shadows, the caves presented a weird and unearthly appearance, which the music and dancing subsequently intensified. Shortly afterwards Drake left for Palestine. In May (1874), Burton was struck down by a sudden pain, which proved to arise from a tumour. An operation was necessary, and all was going on well when a letter brought the sad news of Drake’s death. He had succumbed, at Jerusalem, to typhoid fever, at the early age of twenty-eight.[FN#281] Burton took the news so heavily, that, at Mrs. Burton says,[FN#282] it “caused the wound to open afresh; he loved Drake like a brother, and few know what a tender heart Richard has.” To use Dr. Baker’s[FN#283] phrase, he had “the heart of a beautiful woman.”
78. Khamoor returns to Syria, 4th December 1874.
In the meantime Mrs. Burton was reaping the fruits of her injudicious treatment of Khamoor. Thoroughly spoilt, the girl now gave herself ridiculous airs, put herself on a level with her mistress, and would do nothing she was told. As there was no other remedy, Mrs. Burton resolved philanthropically to send her back to Syria, “in order that she might get married and settled in life.” So Khamoor was put on board a ship going to Beyrout, with nine boxes of clothes and a purse of gold. “It was to me,” says Mrs. Burton, “a great wrench.” Khamoor’s father met her, the nine boxes, and the purse of gold at Beyrout, and by and by came to the news that she was married and settled down in the Buka’a. Such was the end of Chico the Second.
Chapter XVIII
12th May 1875-18th June 1876
The Trip to India
Bibliography:
51. The Port of Trieste.
52. The Gypsy. Written in 1875.
53. Etruscan Bologna. 1876.
54. New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry. 1876.
79. Visit to England, 12th May 1875.
On 8th December 1874, Burton sent his wife to England to arrange for the publication of various of his works, and in May 1875, having obtained leave, he followed her, arriving in London on the 12th. He took with him “a ton or so of books” in an enormous trunk painted one half black the other white–“the magpie chest” which henceforth always accompanied him on his travels. At the various stations in England there were lively scenes, the company demanding for luggage excess, and Burton vigorously protesting but finally paying. He then took the value out by reeling off a spirited address to the railway clerk, punctuated with expletives in twenty odd African or Asiatic languages, on the meanness of the clerk’s employers.
80. Tonic Bitters.
Always suffering from impecuniosity, the Burtons were perpetually revolving schemes for increasing their income. One was to put on the market a patent pick-me-up, good also for the liver, to be called, “Captain Burton’s Tonic Bitters,” the recipe of which had been “acquired from a Franciscan monk.” “Its object,” observed Burton facetiously, to a friend, “is to make John Bull eat more beef and drink more beer.” Mrs. Burton imagined naively that if it were put into a pretty bottle the demand would exceed the supply. They had hopes, too, for the Camoens, which had taken many years of close application and was now approaching completion. Still, it was argued that a Translation of Camoens, however well done, could not hope for the success of a well-advertised liver tonic, seeing that while most people have a liver, it is only here and there one who has a taste for Camoens. The tonic was placed on the market, but the scheme, like so many others, proved a fiasco. Nobody seemed to want to be picked up, and the indifference of a Christian nation to the state of its liver, was to Burton extremely painful. So he abandoned philanthropy, and took to lecturing before the Anthropological and other societies, dining out, and calling on old friends. One Sunday he visited the Zoo; but when he asked for a glass of beer at the refreshment bar, the girl declined to serve him because he was “not a bona-fide traveller!”
In 1875, Burton’s portrait, painted by the late Lord Leighton, was exhibited in the Academy; and on July 6th of the same year, Burton started off on a second trip to Iceland, which occupied him six weeks, but he and his wife did not meet again till October 6th. On December 4th (1875) they left London for the Continent. The morning was black as midnight. Over the thick snow hung a dense, murky fog, while “a dull red gleam just rendered the darkness visible.”
“It looks,” said Burton, “as if London were in mourning for some great national crime.”
To which Mrs. Burton replied, “Let us try to think, darling, that our country wears mourning for our departure into exile.”
On reaching Boulogne they sought out some of their old acquaintances, including M. Constantin, Burton’s fencing master. After a brief stay in Paris, they proceeded to Trieste, ate their Christmas dinner, and then set out for India, partly for pleasure and partly for the purpose of collecting information about the abandoned diamond mines of Golconda.
81. A Trip to India, December 1875, 18th June 1876.
The Suez Canal, which had been finished some five years previous, gave them much pleasure, and it was like living life over again to see the camels, the Bedawin in cloak and kuffiyyah, the women in blue garments, and to smell the pure air of the desert. On reaching Yambu, Burton enquired whether Sa’ad the robber chief, who had attacked the caravan in the journey to Mecca days, still lived; and was told that the dog long since made his last foray, and was now safe in Jehannum.[FN#284] They landed at Jiddah, where Burton was well received, although everyone knew the story of his journey to Mecca, and on rejoining their ship they found on board eight hundred pilgrims of a score of nationalities. Then a storm came on. The pilgrims howled with fright, and during the voyage twenty-three died of privation, vermin, hunger and thirst. Says Mrs. Burton:[FN#285] “They won’t ask, but if they see a kind face they speak with their eyes as an animal does.” At Aden Burton enquired after his old Harar companions. Shahrazad was still in Aden, the coquettish Dunyazad in Somaliland, the Kalandar had been murdered by the Isa tribe, and The End of Time had “died a natural death”–that is to say, somebody had struck a spear into him.[FN#286] Bombay was reached on February 2nd.
82. Arbuthnot Again. Rehatsek.
The first person Burton called on was his old friend, Forster FitzGerald Arbuthnot, who now occupied there the important position of “Collector.” Arbuthnot, like other people, had got older, but his character had not changed a tittle. Business-like and shrewd, yet he continued to be kindly, and would go out of his way to do a philanthropic action, and without fuss of parade. A friend describes him as “a man of the world, but quite untainted by it.” He used to spend the winter in Bombay, and the summer in his charming bungalow at Bandora. In a previous chapter we referred to him as a Jehu. He now had a private coach and team–rather a wonder in that part of the world, and drove it himself. Of his skill with the ribbons he was always proud, and no man could have known more about horses. Some of the fruits of his experience may be seen in an article[FN#287] which he contributed to Baily’s Magazine (April 1883) in which he ranks driving with such accomplishments as drawing, painting and music. His interest in the languages and literatures of the East was as keen as ever, but though he had already collected material for several books he does not seem to have published anything prior to 1881. He took his friends out everywhere in his four-in-hand, and they saw to advantage some of the sights of Burton’s younger days. With the bungalow Mrs. Burton was in raptures. On the eve of the Tabut feast, she tells us, the Duke of Sutherland (formerly Lord Stafford) joined the party; and a number of boys dressed like tigers came and performed some native dancing with gestures of fighting and clawing one another, “which,” she adds oddly, “was exceedingly graceful.”
The principal event of this visit, however, was Burton’s introduction to that extraordinary and Diogenes-like scholar, Edward Rehatsek. Lady Burton does not even mention Rehatsek’s name, and cyclopaedias are silent concerning him; yet he was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and henceforward Burton was in constant communication with him. Born on 3rd July 1819, at Illack, in Austria, Edward Rehatsek was educated at Buda Pesth, and in 1847 proceeded to Bombay, where he settled down as Professor of Latin and mathematics at Wilson College. He retired from his professorship in 1871, and settled in a reed-built native house, not so very much bigger than his prototype’s tub, at Khetwadi. Though he had amassed money he kept no servants, but went every morning to the bazaar, and purchased his provisions, which he cooked with his own hand. He lived frugally, and his dress was mean and threadbare, nevertheless, this strange, austere, unpretentious man was one of the greatest linguists of his time. Not only could he speak most of the languages of the East, including Arabic and Persian, but he wrote good idiomatic English. To his translations, and his connection with the Kama Shastra Society, we shall refer later. He was visited in his humble home only by his principal friend, Mr. Arbuthnot, and a few others, including Hari Madhay Parangpe, editor of Native Opinion, to which he was a contributor. The conversation of Rehatsek, Burton, and Arbuthnot ran chiefly on Arbuthnot’s scheme for the revival of the Royal Asiatic Translation fund, and the translation of the more important Eastern works into English; but some years were to elapse before it took shape.
On February 4th, Burton wrote to his cousin, St. George Burton– addressing his letter, as he was continually on the move, from Trieste. He says:
“My Dear Cousin,
“You need not call me ‘Captain Burton.’ I am very sorry that you missed Woolwich–and can only say, don’t miss the Line. I don’t think much of Holy Orders, however, chacun a son gout. Many thanks for the details about the will. Assist your mother in drawing up a list of the persons who are heirs, should the girl die without a will.[FN#288] Let ‘the party’ wash his hands as often as he pleases–cleanliness is next to godliness. As the heir to a baronetcy[FN#289] you would be worth ten times more than heir to an Esquireship–in snobby England. Write to me whenever you think that I can be of any service and let me be
“Yr. aff. cousin,
“R. F. Burton.”
83. In Sind.
From Bombay, the Burtons journeyed to Karachi, which had grown from 3,000 to 45,000[FN#290] and could now boast fine streets and noble houses. Here Burton regaled his eyes with the sights familiar to his youth; the walks he had taken with his bull-terrier, the tank or pond where he used to charioteer the “ghastly” crocodile,[FN#291] the spot where he had met the beautiful Persian, and the shops which had once been his own; while he recalled the old familiar figures of hook-nosed Sir Charles Napier, yellow-bearded Captain Scott, and gorgeously-accoutred General J-J-J-J-J-J-Jacob. His most amusing experience was with a Beloch chief, one Ibrahim Khan, on whom he called and whom he subsequently entertained at dinner spread in a tent.[FN#292] The guests, Sind fashion, prepared for the meal by getting drunk. He thoroughly enjoyed it, however, and, except that he made impressions with his thumb in the salt, upset his food on the tablecloth, and scratched his head with the corkscrew, behaved with noticeable propriety. Having transferred from the table to his pocket a wine-glass and some other little articles that took his fancy, he told his stock stories, including the account of his valour at the battle of Meeanee, where at imminent risk of his life, he ran away. Tea he had never before tasted, and on sampling a cup, he made a wry face. This, however, was because it was too strong, for having diluted it with an equal quantity of brandy, he drank it with relish.
After a visit to the battlefield of Meeanee[FN#293] the Burtons returned to Bombay in time for the feast of Muharram, and saw the Moslem miracle play representing the martyrdom and death of Hassan and Hossein, the sons of Ali. Then Mirza Ali Akbar, Burton’s old munshi, called on them. As his visiting card had been printed Mirza Ally Akbar, Burton enquired insultingly whether his old friend claimed kin with Ally Sloper. In explanation the Mirza said that the English were accustomed to spell his name so, and as he did not in the least mind what he was called, he had fallen in with the alteration.
84. Golconda.
On February 21st the Burtons left Bombay and journeyed by way of Poona to Hyderabad, where they were hospitably entreated by Major Nevill, the Commander-in-Chief of the Nizam’s troops, and Sir Salar Jung, the Prime Minister. They rode through the town on elephants, saw the Nizam’s palace, which was “a mile long and covered with delicate tracery,” an ostrich race, an assault-at-arms, and fights between cocks and other creatures. At “Hyderabad,” says Mrs. Burton, “they fight every kind of animal.” “A nautch,” which Sir Salah gave in their honour, Mrs. Burton found tame, for the girls did nothing but eat sweetmeats and occasionally run forward and twirl round for a moment with a half-bold, semi-conscious look.[FN#294]
Then followed the visit to Golconda and its tombs of wax-like Jaypur marble, with their arabesqued cupolas and lacery in stone. Here Burton accumulated a good deal of miscellaneous information about diamond mining, and came to the conclusion that the industry in India generally, and especially in Golconda, had been prematurely abandoned; and endeavoured by means of letters to the press and in other ways to enlist the sympathies of the British capitalists. But everything that he wrote on the subject, as on kindred subjects, has a distinctly quixotic ring, and we fear he would not have been a very substantial pillar for the British capitalist to lean against. He was always, in such matters, the theorist rather than the practical man–in other words, the true son of his own father.
The Burtons then returned to Bombay, which they reached in time to take part in the celebrations in honour of the Prince of Wales, who had just finished his Indian tour. Honouring the Guebres– the grand old Guebres, as he used to call them–and their modern representatives, the Parsees, Burton paid a visit to the Parsee “burying place”–the high tower where the dead are left to be picked by vultures, and then he and his wife left for Goa, where they enjoyed the hospitality and company of Dr. Gerson Da Cunha,[FN#295] the Camoens student and enthusiast.
Mrs. Burton was as disgusted with Goa as she had been charmed with Dr. Da Cunha. She says, “Of all the God-forgotten, deserted holes, one thousand years behind the rest of creation, I have never seen anything equal it.” They left India at the end of April, and were back again at Trieste on June 18th.
Chapter XIX
18th June 1876-31st March 1877
Colonel Gordon
85. Ariosto.
Shortly after his return from India, Burton commenced a translation of the Orlando Furioso[FN#296] of Ariosto, a poet, to whom, as we have seen, he had been drawn ever since those far-off days when with his father and the rest of the family he had meandered about Italy in the great yellow chariot. Reggio, the poet’s birthplace, and Ferrara, where the Orlando Furioso was written and Ariosto died, were sacred spots to him; while the terrific madness of the hero, the loves of Ruggiero and Bradamante and the enchanted gardens with their Arabian Nights atmosphere, lapped him in bliss much as they had done in the old days. Only a small portion of this translation was ever finished, but he had it in mind all the rest of his life, and talked about it during his last visit to England.
86. Death of Rashid Pasha, 24th June 1876.
In June came the news of the murder of Rashid Pasha; and a thousand memories, sweet and bitter, thrilled the Burtons. Mrs. Burton recalled that “cool and aromatic housetop,” the jewel-blue Chrysorrhoa, the saffron desert, and then it was “Oh, Rashid Pasha! Oh, Rashid Pasha!” Still she found it in her woman’s heart to forgive the detested old enemy, now that he was gone, but Burton could not restrain a howl of triumph such as might have become some particularly vindictive Bible hero.
Writing on 24th June to his cousin, Dr. Edward John Burton, he says, “We returned here on the 18th inst., and the first thing I heard was the murder of my arch-enemy, Rashid Pasha. Serve the scoundrel right. He prevented my going to Constantinople and to Sana’a, in Arabia. I knew the murderous rascal too well to trust him. Maria wrote to me about poor Stisted’s death.[FN#297] A great loss for Maria and the chicks. I suppose you never see Bagshaw.[FN#298] What news are there of him? Is Sarah (What’s her name? Harrison?)[FN#299] still to the fore. It is, I fear, useless to write anything about poor Edward[FN#300] except to thank you most heartily for your disinterested kindness to him. I will not bother you about our journey, which was very pleasant and successful. You will see it all, including my proposals for renewed diamond digging, written in a book or books.”
“United best love to my cousin and the cousinkins.”
Burton made frequent enquiries after Edward, “Many thanks,” he writes on a post card, “for the news of my dear brother,” and all his letters contain tender and warm-hearted references to him.
87. Colonel Gordon 1877.
In July 1875, Burton heard from Colonel (afterwards General) Gordon, who wanted some information about the country south of the Victoria Nyanza; and the friendship which then commenced between these brilliant men was terminated only by death. In every letter Gordon quoted Burton’s motto, “Honour, not honours,” and in one he congratulated his friend on its happy choice. For several years Gordon had been occupied under the auspices of the Khedive, in continuing the work of administering the Soudan, which had been begun by Sir Samuel Baker. He had established posts along the Nile, placed steamers on the Albert Nyanza, and he nursed the hope of being able to put an end to the horrid slave trade. In January 1877, he was appointed by the Khedive Governor of the entire Soudan. There were to be three governors under him, and he wrote to Burton offering him the governor-generalship of Darfur, with £1,600 a year. Said Gordon, “You will soon have the telegraph in your capital, El Fasher. … You will do a mint of good, and benefit those poor people. … Now is the time for you to make your indelible mark in the world and in these countries.”[FN#301]
Had such an offer arrived eight years earlier, Burton might have accepted it, but he was fifty-seven, and his post at Trieste, though not an agreeable one, was a “lasting thing,” which the governor-generalship of Darfur seemed unlikely to be. So the offer was declined. Gordon’s next letter (27th June 1877) contains a passage that brings the man before us in very vivid colours. “I dare say,” he observed, “you wonder how I can get on without an interpreter and not knowing Arabic. I do not believe in man’s free will; and therefore believe all things are from God and pre-ordained. Such being the case, the judgments or decisions I give are fixed to be thus or thus, whether I have exactly hit off all the circumstances or not. This is my raft, and on it I manage to float along, thanks to God, more or less successfully.”[FN#302]
On another occasion Gordon wrote, “It is a delightful thing to be a fatalist”–meaning, commented Burton, “that the Divine direction and pre-ordination of all things saved him so much trouble of forethought and afterthought. In this tenet he was not only a Calvinist but also a Moslem.”[FN#303]
88. Jane Digby the Second.
The patent Pick-me-up having failed, and the Burtons being still in need of money, other schemes were revolved, all more or less chimerical. Lastly, Burton wondered whether it would be possible to launch an expedition to Midian with a view to searching for gold. In ancient times gold and other metals had been found there in abundance, and remains of the old furnaces still dotted the country. Forty cities had lived by the mines, and would, Burton averred, still be living by them but for the devastating wars that had for centuries spread ruin and destruction. He, reasoned, indeed, much as Balzac had done about the mines of Sardinia as worked by the Romans, and from no better premises; but several of his schemes had a distinctly Balzacian aroma,[FN#304] as his friend Arbuthnot, who was writing a life of Balzac, might have told him. Burton himself, however, had no misgivings. His friend, Haji Wali, had indicated, it seems, in the old days, the precise spot where the wealth lay, and apparently nothing remained to be done except to go and fetch it.
Haji Wali had some excellent points. He was hospitable and good-natured, but he was also, as Burton very well knew, cunning and untrustworthy. The more, however, Burton revolved the scheme in his mind, the more feasible it seemed. That he could persuade the Khedive to support him he felt sure; that he would swell to bursting the Egyptian coffers and become a millionaire himself was also taken for granted, and he said half in earnest, half in jest, that the only title he ever coveted was Duke of Midian. There were very eager ears listening to all this castle building. At Trieste, Mrs. Burton had taken to her bosom another Jane Digby–a creature with soft eyes, “bought blushes and set smiles.” One would have thought that former experiences would have made her cautious. But it was not so. Mrs. Burton though deplorably tactless, was innocence itself, and she accepted others at their own valuation. Jane Digby the Second, who went in and out of the Burton’s house as if she belonged to it, was in reality one of the most abandoned women in Trieste. She was married, but had also, as it transpired, an acknowledged lover.
Like women of that class she was extravagant beyond belief, and consequently always in difficulties. Hearing the everlasting talk about Midian and its supposed gold, the depraved woman[FN#305] made up her mind to try to detach Burton’s affections from his wife and to draw them to herself. To accomplish this she relied not only on the attractions of her person, but also on glozing speeches and other feminine artifices. Having easy access to the house she purloined private letters, papers and other writings, and after all hope of recovery was over, she would put them back. She slipped love letters, purporting to be from other women, into Burton’s pockets; and whenever Mrs. Burton brushed his coat or dried his clothes she was sure to come upon them. Mrs. Burton also received pseudonymous letters.
But whatever Mrs. Burton’s faults, she, as we have seen, passionately loved, trusted and even worshipped her husband; and whatever Burton’s faults, he thoroughly appreciated her devotion. They were quite sufficient for each other, and the idea of anyone trying to come between them seemed ludicrous. Consequently Mrs. Burton carried her letters to her husband and he brought his to her. Amazing to say, neither of them suspected the culprit, though Burton thought it must be some woman’s intrigue, and that need of money was the cause of it.
The real truth of it did not come out till after Burton’s death, and then the unhappy woman, who was near her end, made Lady Burton a full confession, adding, “I took a wicked pleasure in your perfect trust in me.”
89. The Old Baronetcy. 18th January 1877.
Repeated enquiry now took place respecting the old baronetcy in the Burton family, and Mrs. Burton in particular made unceasing efforts, both in the columns of Notes and Queries and elsewhere, in order to obtain the missing links. Several of Burton’s letters at this period relate to the subject. To Mrs. E. J. Burton, 18th January 1877, he writes: “My dear cousin, I write to you in despair: That ‘party,’ your husband, puts me off with a post-card to this effect, ‘Have seen W—–ll, no chance for outsiders,’ and does not tell me a word more. I wish you would write all you know about it. Another matter. Had the old man left me his money or any chance of it, I should have applied for permission to take up the old baronetcy. But now I shall not. Your husband is the baronet and he can if he likes assume the “Sir” at once. Why the devil doesn’t he? Of course I advise him to go through the usual process, which will cost, in the case of a baronetcy, very few pounds. Neither he nor you may care for it, but think of the advantage it will be to your children. Don’t blink the fact that the British public are such snobs that a baronet, even in the matrimonial market, is always worth £50,000, and it is one of the oldest baronetcies in the kingdom. Do take my advice and get it for your eldest son [St. George Burton]. As I said before, your husband might assume it even without leave, but he had better get ‘the Duke’ to sanction it. And don’t fail to push the man, who won’t even claim what is his right. Que diable! Am I the only article named Burton that has an ounce of energy in his whole composition.”
Chapter XX
31st March 1877 to 27th December 1879 Midian
Bibliography:
55. Sind Revisited. 1877.
56. The Gold Mines of Midian. 1878. 57. A.E.I. (Arabia, Egypt, India) by Isabel Burton. 1879. 58. Ogham Runes. 1879.
59. The Land of Midian Revisited. 2 vols., 1879.
90. “The New Joseph.” 31st March 1877-21st April 1877. 19th October 1877-20th April 1878.
Burton now felt that the time was ripe to broach his views concerning the golden Chersonese to the Khedive (Ismail), and having easily obtained leave from the home authorities, he proceeded straight to Cairo. The Khedive, impressed with his representations and enthusiasm, promptly consented to supply funds, and “the New Joseph,” as Burton was now called, began preparations for the expedition that was to make both Egypt and himself rich beyond computation. Then followed a conversation with Haji Wali, whom age–he was 77–“had only made a little fatter and a little greedier,” and the specious old trickster promised to accompany the expedition. As usual Burton began with a preliminary canter, visiting Moilah, Aynunah Bay, Makna and Jebel Hassani, where he sketched, made plans, and collected metalliferous specimens. He returned to Egypt with native stories of ruined towns evidencing a formerly dense population, turquoise mines and rocks veined with gold. The Khedive in idea saw himself a second Croesus. These were the quarries, he held, whence Solomon derived the gold for the walls of the house of his God, his drinking vessels and his lion throne, but Colonel Gordon, when afterwards told of his scheme, smiled incredulously. As the hot season necessitated a delay of six months, Burton returned to Trieste, where life seemed hum-drum enough after so many excitement, and spangled visions. He spent the time writing a book The Gold Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities, and the sluggish months having at last crawled by, he again left Trieste for Cairo.
91. More Advice to “Lazybones.” 8th May 1877.
In a letter to Mrs. E. J. Burton, headed “At Sea, 8th May 1877,” he again touches on the old baronetcy. “Next Saturday I expect to be at Trieste, whence this letter will start. The Times has probably told you the story of my last adventure, and this will probably have explained to you why yours of March 8th has remained so long unanswered. That document informed me that ‘Lazybones’ was going to make himself useful. I hope he has done so. If not, he can learn all about his grandfather from papers published by the late Admiral Burton, and I do not think that Miss Eruli would object to letting him have copies. Of course, don’t speak about the baronetcy. That failing, all he has to do is to put the matter (after making an agreement) into the hands of a professional man, who will visit Shap (Westmoreland) and Galway, and who will find no difficulty in establishing direct descent. Please write to me again. I shall be heard of in Trieste for some time. Many thanks to the boys, and salute ‘Lazybones’ according to his merits.”
In due time Burton arrived at Cairo, and the curious expedition set forth for wild, mysterious Midian. He himself knew nothing of engineering, but he had the services of a practical engineer– one M. Marie; and some artists, and a number of Egyptian officers and Soudanese soldiers accompanied the expedition. The party included neither metallurgist nor practical prospector[FN#306] but Burton carried a divining rod, and seems really to have believed that it would be a help. The expenses, it was ascertained, would amount to one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one pounds twelve shillings and sixpence–no very extravagant sum for purchasing all the wealth of Ophir.
92. Haji Wali Again.
At Zagazig they were joined by the venerable wag and trickster, Haji Wali, and having reached Suez they embarked on the gunboat, the “Mukhbir,” for Moilah, which they reached on December 19th. Burton landed with studied ceremony, his invariable plan when in the midst of savage or semi-civilised people. The gunboat saluted, the fort answered with a rattle and patter of musketry. All the notables drew up in line on the shore. To the left stood the civilians in tulip-coloured garb, next were the garrison, a dozen Bashi-Bazouks armed with matchlocks, then came Burton’s quarry men; and lastly the escort–twenty-five men–held the place of honour on the right; and as Burton passed he was received with loud hurrahs. His first business was to hire three shaykhs and 106 camels and dromedaries with their drivers. The party was inclined to be disorderly, but Burton, with his usual skill in managing men, soon proved who was master.
Nothing if not authoritative, he always spoke in the commanding voice of a man who brooks no denial, and, as he showed plainly that acts would follow words, there was thenceforward but trifling trouble. He himself was in ecstasies. The Power of the Hills was upon him.
93. Graffiti.
The exploration was divided into three journeys, and between each and the next, the expedition rested at Moilah. The first or northward had scarcely begun, indeed, they had not no further than Sharma, before Haji Wali found it convenient to be troubled with indigestion in so violent a form as to oblige him to return home, which he straightway did with great alacrity. His object in accompanying the expedition even thus far is not clear, but he evidently got some payment, and that the expedition was a hopeless one he must have known from the first. The old rogue lived till 3rd August 1883, but Burton never again met him.
Even in Midian, Burton was dogged by Ovid, for when he looked round at the haggard, treeless expanse he could but exclaim, quoting the Ex Ponto,
“Rara neque haec felix in apertis eminet arvis Arbor, et in terra est altera forma maris.”
[“Dry land! nay call it, destitute of tree, Rather the blank, illimitable sea.”][FN#307]
The expedition then made for Maghair Shu’ayb, the Madiama of Ptolemy and the old capital of the land. Here they spent a “silly fortnight, searching for gold,” which refused to answer even to the diving rod. They saw catacombs–the Tombs of the Kings–some of which were scrawled with graffiti, laboured perhaps by some idle Nabathaean boy in the time of Christ. They found remains of furnaces, picked up some coins, and saw undoubted evidences of ancient opulence. That was all. Thence they made for Makna, passing on their way a catacombed hill called “the Praying Place of Jethro,” and a shallow basin of clay known as Moses’ Well. From Makna, where they found their gunboat waiting for them, they then cruised to El Akabah, the ancient Eziongeber, in whose waters had ridden the ships of Solomon laden with the merchandise of India and Sheba. They reached Moilah again on February 13th. The second journey, which took them due East as far as the arid Hisma, lasted from February 17th to March 8th. Burton considered the third journey the most important, but as they found nothing of any consequence it is difficult to understand why. First they steamed to El Wijh, in the “Sinnar,” which had taken the place of the Mukhbir, and then marched inland to the ancient mines of Abul Maru. But Burton now saw the futility of attempting to proceed further. On April 10th they were back again at El Wijh, on the 18th at Moilah and on the 20th at Suez.
In the meantime, Mrs. Burton had left Trieste, in order to join her husband. She stayed a week at Cairo, where she met General Gordon, who listened smilingly to her anticipations respecting the result of the expedition, and then she went on to Suez. Writing to her nieces, the Misses Stisted, 23rd March 1878, she said: “I have taken a room looking across the Red Sea and desert towards Midian, and hope at last to finish my own book [A.E.I., Arabia, Egypt and India]. What on earth Paul is doing with Richard’s Midian[FN#308] God only knows. I have written and telegraphed till I am black in the face, and telegrams cost 2s. 6d. a word.” At last on 20th April, while Mrs. Burton was in church, a slip of paper was put into her hand: “The ‘Sinnar’ is in sight.”
Determined that the Khedive should have something for his money, Burton and his company had, to use Mrs. Burton’s expression, “returned triumphantly,” with twenty-five tons of minerals and numerous objects of archaeological interest. The yield of the argentiferous and cupriferous ores, proved, alas! to be but poor. They went in search of gold, and found graffiti! But was Burton really disappointed? Hardly. In reading about every one of his expeditions in anticipation of mineral wealth, the thought forces itself upon us that it was adventure rather than gold, sulphur, diamonds and silver that he really wanted. And of the lack of that he never had reason to complain.
An exhibition of the specimens, both mineralogical and archaeological, was held at the Hippodrome, and all Cairo flocked to see “La Collection,” as the announcement expressed it, “rapportee par le Capitaine Burton.”[FN#309] The Khedive opened the exhibition in person, and walked round to look at the graffiti, the maps, the sketches of ruins and the twenty-five tons of rock, as nobody had more right; and Burton and M. Marie the engineer accompanied him.
“Are you sure,” enquired the Khedive, pointing to some of the rocks, “that this and this contain gold?”
“Midian,” replied M. Marie, blandly, “is a fine mining country.”
And that information was all the return his Highness got for his little outlay of one thousand nine hundred and seventy one pounds twelve shillings and sixpence.
94. Letter to Sir Henry Gordon, 4th July 1878.
Returned to Trieste, Burton once more settled down to his old dull life. The most interesting letter of this period that has come to our hands is one written to Sir Henry Gordon,[FN#310] brother of Colonel, afterwards General Gordon.
It runs: “Dear Sir, I am truly grateful to you for your kind note of June 30th and for the obliging expressions which it contains. Your highly distinguished brother, who met my wife at Suez, has also written me a long and interesting account of Harar. As you may imagine, the subject concerns me very nearly, and the more so as I have yet hopes of revisiting that part of Africa. It is not a little curious that although I have been in communication with Colonel Gordon for years, we have never yet managed to meet. Last spring the event seemed inevitable, and yet when I reached Suez, he had steamed south. However, he writes to me regularly, scolding me a little at times, but that is no matter. I hope to be luckier next winter. I expect to leave Trieste in a few days[FN#311] and to make Liverpool via long sea. Both Mrs. Burton and I want a medicine of rest and roast beef as opposed to rosbif. Nothing would please me more than to meet you and talk over your brother’s plans. My direction is Athenaeum Club, and Woolwich is not so difficult to explore as Harar was. Are we likely to meet at the British Association?”
95. Death of Maria Stisted, 12th November 1878.
Burton and his wife reached London on July 27th (1878). Presently we hear of them in Ireland, where they are the guests of Lord Talbot of Malahide, and later he lectured at various places on “Midian” and “Ogham Runes.” Again Gordon tried to draw him to Africa, this time with the offer of £5,000 a year, but the answer was the same as before. Then came a great blow to Burton–the death of his beloved niece–“Minnie”–Maria Stisted. Mrs. Burton, who was staying at Brighton, wrote to Miss Georgiana Stisted a most kind, sympathetic and beautiful letter–a letter, however, which reveals her indiscreetness more clearly, perhaps, than any other that we have seen. Though writing a letter of condolence–the sincerity of which is beyond doubt–she must needs insert remarks which a moment’s consideration would have told her were bound to give offence– remarks of the kind that had already, indeed, made a gulf between her and Burton’s relations.
She says: “My poor darling Georgy, I do not know how to write or what to say to you in such poignant grief. I think this is the most terrible blow that could have happened to Maria (Lady Stisted) and you. I do not grieve for Minnie, because, as I told Dick in my letter, her pure soul has known nothing but religion and music, and is certainly in its own proper place among the angels, but I do grieve for you with all my heart. … It is no use to talk to you about ‘Time healing the wound,’ or ‘resigning oneself to what is inevitable,’ but I have so long studied the ways of God, that I know He has taken the angel of your house as He always does, that this is a crisis in your lives, there is some change about to take place, and some work or new thing you have to do in which Minnie was not to be. I can only pray for you with all my heart, as I did at communion this morning.” So far, so good, but then comes: “and have masses said to create another gem upon Minnie’s crown.”
Yet Mrs. Burton knew that she was writing to staunch Protestants whom such a remark would make positively to writhe. Still, in spite of her indiscretions, no human being with a heart can help loving her. She then goes on: “Please know and feel that though the world looks dark, you have always a staunch friend in me. Dick feels Minnie’s death fearfully. He telegraphed to me and writes every day about it. I don’t think he is in a state of health to bear many shocks just now, he is so frightfully nervous. He so little expected it, he always thought it was only one of the little ailments of girls, and Maria (Lady Stisted) was over anxious; so it has come like a sledge-hammer upon him. I feel what a poor letter this is, but my heart is full, and I do not know how to express myself. Your attached and sympathising Aunt Zoo.”
Burton was just then engaged upon his work The Land of Midian Revisited, and he dedicated it to the memory of his “much loved niece.”
96. Burton’s “Six Senses.”
On 2nd December 1878, Burton lectured at 38, Great Russell Street before the British National Association of Spiritualists–taking as his subject, “Spiritualism in Foreign Lands.” His ideas on Spiritualism had been roughly outlined some time previous in a letter to The Times.[FN#312] He said that the experience of twenty years had convinced him: (1) that perception is possible without the ordinary channels of the senses, and (2) that he had been in the presence of some force or power which he could not understand. Yet he did not believe that any spirits were subject to our calls and caprices, or that the dead could be communicated with at all. He concluded, “I must be contented to be at best a spiritualist without the spirits.” The letter excited interest. The press commented on it, and street boys shouted to one another, “Take care what you’re doing! You haven’t got Captain Burton’s six senses.” At Great Russell Street, Burton commenced by defending materialism. He could not see with Guizot that the pursuit of psychology is as elevating as that of materialism is degrading. What right, he asked, had the theologian to limit the power of the Creator. “Is not the highest honour His who from the worst can draw the best?”[FN#313] He then quoted his letter to The Times, and declared that he still held the same opinions. The fact that thunder is in the air, and the presence of a cat may be known even though one cannot see, hear, taste, smell or feel thunder or the cat. He called this force–this sixth sense–zoo-electricity. He then gave an account of spiritualism, thaumaturgy, and wizardry, as practised in the East, concluding with a reference to his Vikram and the Vampire. “There,” said he, “I have related under a facetious form of narrative many of the so-called supernaturalisms and preternaturalisms familiar to the Hindus.”[FN#314] These studies will show the terrible ‘training,’ the ascetic tortures, whereby men either lose their senses, or attain the highest powers of magic, that is, of commanding nature by mastering the force, whatever it may be, here called zoo-electric, which conquers and controls every modification of matter.[FN#315] His lecture concluded with an account of a Moorish necromancer, which reminds us of the Maghrabi incident in “the Story of Judar.” When Burton sat down, Mrs. Burton asked to be allowed to speak. Indeed, she never hesitated to speak upon any subject under the sun, whether she did not understand it, as was almost invariably the case, or whether she did; and she always spoke agreeably.[FN#316] She pointed out to the spiritualists that they had no grounds to suppose that her husband was one of their number, and stated her belief that the theory of zoo-electricity would suit both spiritualists and non-spiritualists. Then, as a matter of course, she deftly introduced the “one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” to which it was her “glory to belong,” and which this theory of Burton’s “did not exactly offend.” As regards the yogis and the necromancers she insisted that her husband had expressed no belief, but simply recounted what is practised in the East, and she concluded with the remark, “Captain Burton is certainly not a spiritualist.” Some good-humoured comments by various speakers terminated the proceedings. It is quite certain, however, that Burton was more of a spiritualist than Mrs. Burton would allow, and of Mrs. Burton herself in this connection, we shall later have a curious story to tell.[FN#317]
During the rest of her holiday Mrs. Burton’s thoughts ran chiefly on philanthropic work, and she arranged gatherings at country houses in support of the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. These were well attended and some enthusiasm was shown, except when there happened to be a meet of the fox hounds in the district, or when rabbit coursing was going on.
97. Still thinking of Midian. April-December 1879.
The Burtons remained in London until after the publication of Mrs. Burton’s book “A.E.I.,” [FN#318] and then Burton set out alone on a tour through Germany. Mrs. Burton, who was to meet him at Trieste, left London 27th April; and then followed a chapter of accidents. First she fell with influenza, and next, at Paris, when descending the stairs, which had been waxed, she “took one header from the top to the bottom,” and so damaged herself that she had to be removed in a coupe lit.[FN#319] She reached Trieste after “an agonizing sixty hours” and was seriously ill for several weeks. All the while, Burton, whose purse, like that of one of his favourite poets, Catullus, was “full of cobwebs,” had been turning his thoughts to Midian again. He still asseverated that it was a land of gold, and he believed that if he could get to Egypt the rest would be easy. Says Mrs. Burton, writing to Miss Stisted, 12th December 1879: “Darling Dick started on Friday 5th, a week ago, in high spirits. My position is singular, no child, no relative, and all new servants.” She then speaks of her Christmas book, which had just gone to the publishers. She says, “It is for boys from 12 to 16, culled from ten volumes: Dick’s three books on Sind, his Goa, Falconry, Vikram, Bayonet and Sword Exercise, and my A.E.I.” and she was in hopes it would revive her husband’s earliest works, which by that time were forgotten. The fate of this work was a melancholy one, for the publisher to whom the manuscript was entrusted went bankrupt, and no more was every heard of it.[FN#320] Burton’s hope that he would be able to lead another expedition to Midian was not realised. Ismail was no longer Khedive, and Tewfik, his successor, who regarded the idea as chimerical, declined to be bound by any promise of his father’s. His Excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha[FN#321] and others of Burton’s Egyptian friends expressed sympathy and tried to expedite matters, but nothing could be done. To make matters worse, Burton when passing through Alexandria was attacked by thieves, who hit him on the head from behind. He defended himself stoutly, and got away, covered however, with bruises and blood.
Chapter XXI
27th December 1879-August 1881
Camoens
Bibliography
60. Camoens, 6 vols. 1 and 2, the Lusiads. 1880. 3 and 4, Life of Camoens and Commentary. 1882. 5 and 6, The Lyrics. 1884. 61. The Kasidah. 1880.
62. Visit to Lissa and Pelagoza. 1880. 63. A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881.
64. How to deal with the Slave Trade in Egypt. 1881. 65. Thermae of Montfalcone. 1881.
98. The Lusiads.
Burton had brought with him to Egypt his translation of The Lusiads, which had been commenced as early as 1847, and at which, as we have seen, he had, from that time onward, intermittently laboured. At Cairo he gave his work the finishing touches, and on his return to Trieste in May it was ready for the press. There have been many English translators of Camoens, from Fanshawe, the first, to Burton and Aubertin; and Burton likens them to the Simoniacal Popes in Dante’s Malebolge-pit–each one struggling to trample down his elder brother.[FN#322] Burton’s work, which appeared in 1882, was presently followed by two other volumes consisting of a Life of Camoens and a Commentary on The Lusiads, but his version of The Lyrics did not appear till 1884.
Regarded as a faithful rendering, the book was a success, for Burton had drunk The Lusiads till he was super-saturated with it. Alone among the translators, he had visited every spot alluded to in the poem, and his geographical and other studies had enabled him to elucidate many passages that had baffled his predecessors. Then, too, he had the assistance of Aubertin, Da Cunha and other able Portuguese scholars and Camoens enthusiasts. Regarded, however, as poetry, the book was a failure, and for the simple reason that Burton was not a poet. Like his Kasidah, it contains noble lines, but on every page we are reminded of the translator’s defective ear, annoyed by the unnecessary use of obsolete words, and disappointed by his lack of what Poe called “ethericity.” The following stanza, which expresses ideas that Burton heartily endorsed, may be regarded as a fair sample of the whole:
“Elegant Phormion’s philosophick store see how the practised Hannibal derided when lectured he with wealth of bellick lore and on big words and books himself he prided. Senhor! the soldier’s discipline is more than men may learn by mother-fancy guided; Not musing, dreaming, reading what they write; ’tis seeing, doing, fighting; teach to fight.”[FN#323]
The first six lines contain nothing remarkable, still, they are workmanlike and pleasant to read; but the two concluding lines are atrocious, and almost every stanza has similar blemishes. A little more labour, even without much poetic skill, could easily have produced a better result. But Burton was a Hannibal, not a Phormion, and no man can be both. He is happiest, perhaps, in the stanzas containing the legend of St. Thomas,[FN#324] or Thome, as he calls him,
“the Missioner sanctified
Who thrust his finger in Lord Jesu’s side.”
According to Camoens, while Thorme was preaching to the potent Hindu city Meleapor, in Narsinga land[FN#325] a huge forest tree floated down the Ganges, but all the king’s elephants and all the king’s men were incompetent to haul it ashore.
“Now was that lumber of such vasty size, no jot it moves, however hard they bear; when lo! th’ Apostle of Christ’s verities wastes in the business less of toil and care: His trailing waistcord to the tree he ties, raises and sans an effort hales it where A sumptuous Temple he would rear sublime, a fit example for all future time.”
This excites the jealousy and hatred of the Brahmins, for
“There be no hatred fell and fere, and curst As by false virtue for true virtue nurst.”
The chief Brahmin then kills his own son, and tries to saddle the crime on Thome, who promptly restores the dead youth to life again and “names the father as the man who slew.” Ultimately, Thome, who is unable to circumvent the further machinations of his enemies, is pierced to the heart by a spear; and the apostle in glory is thus apostrophised:
“Wept Gange and Indus, true Thome! thy fate, wept thee whatever lands thy foot had trod; yet weep thee more the souls in blissful state thou led’st to don the robes of Holy Rood. But angels waiting at the Paradise-gate meet thee with smiling faces, hymning God. We pray thee, pray that still vouchsafe thy Lord unto thy Lusians His good aid afford.”
In a stanza presented as a footnote and described as “not in Camoens,” Burton gives vent to his own disappointments, and expends a sigh for the fate of his old friend and enemy, John Hanning Speke. As regards himself, had he not, despite his services to his country, been relegated to a third-rate seaport, where his twenty-nine languages were quite useless, except for fulminating against the government! The fate of poor Speke had been still more lamentable:
“And see you twain from Britain’s foggy shore set forth to span dark Africk’s jungle-plain; thy furthest fount, O Nilus! they explore, and where Zaire springs to seek the Main, The Veil of Isis hides thy land no more, whose secrets open to the world are lain. They deem, vain fools! to win fair Honour’s prize: This exiled lives, and that untimely dies.”
Burton, however, still nursed the fallacious hope that his merits would in time be recognised, that perhaps he would be re-instated in Damascus or appointed to Ispahan or Constantinople.
99. At Ober Ammergau, August 1880.
In August (1880) the Burtons paid a visit to Ober Ammergau, which was just then attracting all eyes on account of its Passion Play. Burton’s object in going was “the wish to compare, haply to trace some affinity between, this survival of the Christian ‘Mystery’ and the living scenes of El Islam at Mecca,” while Mrs. Burton’s object may be gauged by the following prayer which she wrote previous to their departure from Trieste: “O Sweet Jesu. .. Grant that I, all unworthy though I be, may so witness this holy memorial of thy sacrificial love, Thy glorious victory over death and hell, that I may be drawn nearer to Thee and hold Thee in everlasting remembrance. Let the representation of Thy bitter sufferings on the cross renew my love for Thee, strengthen my faith, and ennoble my life, and not mine only, but all who witness it.” Then follows a prayer for the players.
Burton found no affinity between the scenes at Ober Ammergau and those at Mecca, and he was glad to get away from “a pandemonium of noise and confusion,” while Mrs. Burton, who was told to mind her own business by a carter with whom she remonstrated for cruelly treating a horse, discovered that even Ober Ammergau was not all holiness. Both Burton and his wife recorded their impressions in print, but though his volume[FN#326] appeared in 1881, hers[FN#327] was not published till 1900.
100. Mrs. Burton’s Advice to Novelists. 4th September 1880.
The following letter from Mrs. Burton to Miss Stisted, who had just written a novel, A Fireside King,[FN#328] gives welcome glimpses of the Burtons and touches on matters that are interesting in the light of subsequent events. “My dearest Georgie, On leaving you I came on to Trieste, arriving 29th May, and found Dick just attacked by a virulent gout. We went up to the mountains directly without waiting even to unpack my things or rest, and as thirty-one days did not relieve him, I took him to Monfalcone for mud baths, where we passed three weeks, and that did him good. We then returned home to change our baggage and start for Ober Ammergau, which I thought glorious, so impressive, simple, natural. Dick rather criticises it. However, we are back. … I read your book through on the journey to England. Of course I recognised your father, Minnie,[FN#329] and many others, but you should never let your heroine die so miserably, because the reader goes away with a void in his heart, and you must never put all your repugnances in the first volume, for you choke off your reader. … You don’t mind my telling the truth, do you, because I hope you will write another, and if you like you may stand in the first class of novelists and make money and do good too, but put your beasts a little further in towards the end of the first volume. I read all the reviews that fell in my way, but though some were spiteful that need not discourage … Believe me, dearest G., your affectionate Zookins.”
Miss Stisted’s novel was her first and last, but she did write another book some considerable time later, which, however, would not have won Mrs. Burton’s approval.[FN#330]
101. The Kasidah, 1880.
This year, Burton, emulous of fame as an original poet, published The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, A Lay of the Higher Law, which treats of the great questions of Life, Death and Immortality, and has certain resemblances to that brilliant poem which is the actual father of it, Edward FitzGerald’s rendering of The Rubaiyat of Oman Khayyam. Lady Burton tells us that The Kasidah was written about 1853, or six years before the appearance of FitzGerald’s poem. Nothing, however, is more certain than that, with the exception of a few verses, it was written after FitzGerald’s poem. The veriest tyro in literature, by comparing the two productions, would easily understand their relationship.[FN#331] The facts are these. About 1853, Burton, in a time of dejection, caused by the injustice done him in India, planned a poem of this nature, wrote a few stanzas, and then put it by and forgot all about it. FitzGerald’s version of Omar Khayyam appeared in 1859, and Burton no sooner read than he burned to rival it. So he drew from the pigeon-hole what he called his Lay, furbished up the few old verses, made a number of new ones, reconstructed the whole, and lo, The Kasidah! Burton calls it a translation of a poem by a certain Haji Abdu. There may have been a Haji Abdu who supplied thoughts, and even verses, but the production is really a collection of ideas gathered from all quarters. Confucius, Longfellow, Plato, the FitzGeraldian Oman Khayyam, Aristotle, Pope, Das Kabir and the Pulambal are drawn upon; the world is placed under tribute from Pekin to the Salt Lake City. A more careless “borrower” to use Emerson’s expression, never lifted poetry. Some of his lines are transferred bodily, and without acknowledgment, from Hafiz;[FN#332] and, no doubt, if anybody were to take the trouble to investigate, it would be found that many other lines are not original. It is really not very much to anyone’s credit to play the John Ferriar to so careless a Sterne. He doesn’t steal the material for his brooms, he steals the brooms ready-made. Later, as we shall see, he “borrowed” with a ruthlessness that was surpassed only by Alexandre Dumas. Let us say, then, that The Kasidah is tesselated work done in Burton’s usual way, and not very coherently, with a liberal sprinkling of obsolete works. At first it positively swarmed with them, but subsequently, by the advice of a friend, a considerable number such as “wox” and “pight” was removed. If the marquetry of The Kasidah compares but feebly with the compendious splendours of FitzGerald’s quatrains; and if the poem[FN#333] has undoubted wastes of sand, nevertheless, the diligent may here and there pick up amber. But it is only fair to bear in mind that the Lay is less a poem than an enchiridion, a sort of Emersonian guide to the conduct of life rather than an exquisitely-presented summary of the thoughts of an Eastern pessimist. FitzGerald’s poem is an unbroken lament. Burton, a more robust soul than the Woodbridge eremite, also has his misgivings. He passes in review the great religious teachers, and systems and comes to the conclusion that men make gods and Gods after their own likeness and that conscience is a geographical accident; but if, like FitzGerald, he is puzzled when he ponders the great questions of life and afterlife, he finds comfort in the fact that probity and charity are their own reward, that we have no need to be anxious about the future, seeing that, in the words of Pope, “He can’t be wrong, whose life is in the right.” He insists that self-cultivation, with due regard for others, is the sole and sufficient object of human life, and he regards the affections and the “divine gift of Pity” as man’s highest enjoyments. As in FitzGerald’s poem there is talk of the False Dawn or Wolf’s Tail, “Thee and Me,” Pot and Potter, and here and there are couplets which are simply FitzGerald’s quatrains paraphrased[FN#334]–as, for example, the one in which Heaven and Hell are declared to be mere tools of “the Wily Fetisheer.”[FN#335] Like Omar Khayyam, Haji Abdu loses patience with the “dizzied faiths” and their disputatious exponents; like Omar Khayyam too, Haji Abdu is not averse from Jamshid’s bowl, but he is far less vinous than the old Persian.
Two of the couplets flash with auroral splendour, and of all the vast amount of metrical work that Burton accomplished, these are the only lines that can be pronounced imperishable. Once only–and only momentarily–did the seraph of the sanctuary touch his lips with the live coal.
“Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.”
and
“All other life is living death, a world where none but phantoms dwell
A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.”
We are also bidden to be noble, genuine and charitable.
“To seek the true, to glad the heart, such is of life the Higher Law.”
Neglecting the four really brilliant lines, the principal attraction of The Kasidah is its redolence of the saffron, immeasurable desert. We snuff at every turn its invigorating air; and the tinkle of the camel’s bell is its sole and perpetual music.
At first Burton made some attempt to create the impression that there was actually a Haji Abdu, and that the verses were merely a translation. Indeed, he quotes him, at the end of his Supplemental Nights, vol. ii., and elsewhere, as an independent author. Later, however, the mask which deceived nobody was removed. Not only was The Kasidah written in emulation of FitzGerald’s Omar, but Burton made no secret that such was the case. To further this end Mr. Schutz Wilson, who had done so much for the Rubaiyat, was approached by one of Burton’s friends; and the following letter written to Burton after the interview will be read with some amusement. “Dear Richard,” it runs, “‘Wox’ made me shudder! If you give more specimens do be good and be sparing of the ‘pights,’ ‘ceres’ and ‘woxes.’ I showed the Lay to Schutz Wilson. He seemed absorbed in the idea of Omar, and said ‘Oh! I am the cause of its going through five editions.’ I told him this was even more striking than Omar, but he didn’t seem able to take in the new idea! When you want people’s minds they are always thinking of something else.”[FN#336] Although the critics as a body fell foul of The Kasidah, still there were not wanting appreciators, and its four great lines have often been quoted.
102. Lisa.
By this time Mrs. Burton had provided herself with another Chico. Chico the Third (or Chica the Second) was a tall and lank, but well-built Italian girl, daughter of a baron. Lisa had Khamoor’s ungovernable temper, but to the Burtons she at first exhibited the faithfulness of a dog. Her father lived formerly at Verona, but in the war of 1866, having sided with Austria,[FN#337] he fell upon evil days; and retired to Trieste on a trifling pension. Mrs. Burton and Lisa had not been long acquainted before Lisa became a member of the Burton household as a kind of lady’s maid, although she retained her title of Baroness, and Mrs. Burton at once set about Anglicising her new friend, though her attempt, as in Khamoor’s case, was only partially successful. For instance, Lisa, would never wear a hat, “for fear of losing caste.” She was willing, however, to hang out her stocking on Christmas eve; and on finding it full next morning said, “Oh, I like this game. Shall we play it every night!” Just however, as a petted Khamoor had made a spoilt Khamoor; so a petted Lisa very soon made a spoilt Lisa.
With Mrs. Burton, her Jane Digbys, her Chicos, and her servants, Burton rarely interfered, and when he did interfere, it was only to make matters worse; for his judgment was weaker even than hers. On one occasion, however, he took upon himself to dismiss the cook and to introduce another of his own finding. On being requested to prepare the dinner the new acquisition set about it by drinking two bottles of wine, knocking down the housemaid, and beating the kitchenmaid with the saucepan. Burton, who flew to their rescue, thought he must be in Somali-land once more.
Chapter XXII
August 1881-May 1882
John Payne