The Life of Sir Richard Burton
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Title: The Life of Sir Richard Burton
Author: Thomas Wright
Release date: August 1, 2003 [eBook #4315]
Most recently updated: February 19, 2010
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD BURTON ***
Produced by JC Byers and Laura Shaffer
THE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD BURTON
By Thomas Wright
Author of "The Life of Edward Fitzgerald," etc.
2 Volumes in 1
This Work is
Dedicated to
Sir Richard Burton's Kinsman
And Friend,
Major St. George Richard Burton,
The Black Watch.
Preface.
Fifteen years have elapsed since the death of Sir Richard Burton and
twelve since the appearance of the biography of Lady Burton. A deeply
pathetic interest attaches itself to that book. Lady Burton was stricken
down with an incurable disease. Death with its icy breath hung over her
as her pen flew along the paper, and the questions constantly on her
lips were "Shall I live to complete my task? Shall I live to tell
the world how great and noble a man my husband was, and to refute the
calumnies that his enemies have so industriously circulated?" She
did complete it in a sense, for the work duly appeared; but no one
recognised more clearly than herself its numerous shortcomings. Indeed,
it is little better than a huge scrap-book filled with newspaper
cuttings and citations from Sir Richard's and other books, hurriedly
selected and even more hurriedly pieced together. It gives the
impressions of Lady Burton alone, for those of Sir Richard's friends are
ignored--so we see Burton from only one point of view. Amazing to say,
it does not contain a single original anecdote [1]--though perhaps,
more amusing anecdotes could be told of Burton than of any other modern
Englishman. It will be my duty to rectify Lady Burton's mistakes and
mis-statements and to fill up the vast hiatuses that she has left.
Although it will be necessary to subject her to criticism, I shall
endeavour at the same time to keep constantly in mind the queenliness
and beauty of her character, her almost unexampled devotion to her
husband, and her anxiety that everyone should think well of him. Her
faults were all of the head. Of the heart she had absolutely none.
As the Richard Burton whom I have to pourtray differs considerably
from Lady Burton's "Earthly God," [2] I have been very careful to give
chapter and verse for all my statements. The work has been written on
the same lines as my Life of Edward FitzGerald; that is to say, without
any aim except to arrive at the precise truth. But although I have
regarded it as no concern of mine whether any particular fact tells for
or against Sir Richard Burton, I do think that when the reader rises
from the last page he will feel that he has been in the company not only
of one of the greatest, noblest and most fearless of Englishmen, but
also of one who, without making much profession of doing so, really
loved his fellow-men, and who, despite his inability to put himself in
line with religionists, fought steadily on the side of righteousness. We
are aware that there are in his books a few observations which call for
vehement and unqualified denunciation; but against them must be
placed the fundamental goodness of the man, to which all who knew him
intimately have testified. In not a few respects Sir Richard Burton's
character resembled Edward FitzGerald's. Burton, indeed, hailed the
adapter of Omar Khayyam as a "fellow Sufi."
Lady Burton, too, comes extremely well out of the fire of criticism.
The reader may object to her religious views, he may smile at her
weaknesses, he may lament her indiscretions, but he will recognise that
at bottom she was a God-fearing, noble-minded woman; and he will, we
think, find himself really in love with her almost before knowing it.
The amount of absolutely new information in this work is very large.
Thus we are telling for the first time the history of Burton's
friendships with Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, Mr. John Payne, and others; and we
are giving for the first time, too, a complete and accurate history of
the translation of The Arabian Nights, The Scented Garden, and other
works. Hundreds of new facts are recorded respecting these and other
absorbing topics, while the citations from the unpublished letters of
Burton and Lady Burton will, we are sure, receive a welcome. We are
able to give about fifty entirely new anecdotes--many of them extremely
piquant and amusing. We also tell the touching story of Burton's brother
Edward. In our accounts of Burton's travels will be found a number of
interesting facts and some anecdotes not given in Burton's works.
The new material has been derived from many sources--but from ten in
particular.
(1) From two hundred unpublished letters of Sir Richard Burton
and Lady Burton.
(2) From interviews with Mrs. E. J. Burton [3] and
Mr. F. Burton (Burton's cousins), Mr. John Payne, Mrs. Arbuthnot,
Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. W. F. Kirby, Mr. A. G. Ellis, Dr. Codrington,
Professor James F. Blumhardt, Mr. Henry R. Tedder (librarian and
secretary of The Athenaeum, Burton's club), Mrs. Baddeley (mother of
Burton's friend, St. Clair Baddeley), Madame Nicastro (sister of the
late Mr. Albert Letchford, illustrator of The Arabian Nights), Dr.
Grenfell Baker (Burton's medical attendant during the last three years
of his life), and many other ladies and gentlemen.
(3) From letters received from Major St. George Burton (to whom
I have the pleasure of dedicating this work), Lady Bancroft, Mr. D.
MacRitchie, Mr. E. S. Mostyn Pryce (representative of Miss Stisted),
Gunley Hall, Staffordshire, M. Charles Carrington, of Paris, who sent me
various notes, including an account of Burton's unfinished translation
of Apuleius's Golden Ass, the MS. of which is in his possession, the
Very Rev. J. P. Canon McCarthy, of Ilkeston, for particulars of
"The Shrine of our Lady of Dale," Mr. Segrave (son of Burton's "dear
Louisa"), Mrs. Agg (Burton's cousin), and Mr. P. P. Cautley (Burton's
colleague at Trieste). Nor must I omit reference to a kind letter
received from Mrs. Van Zeller, Lady Burton's only surviving sister. [4]
(4) From the Burton collections in the Free Libraries of
Camberwell and Kensington.
(5) From unpublished manuscripts written by Burton's friends.
(6) From the church registers of Elstree. By examination of
these and other documents I have been able to correct many mistakes.
(7) From the manuscripts of F. F. Arbuthnot and the Oriental
scholar, Edward Rehatsek. These are now in the possession of the Royal
Asiatic Society.
(8) From Mr. Arbuthnot's typewritten and unpublished Life of
Balzac now in my possession. This contains many notes throwing light on
the Burton and Arbuthnot friendship.
(9) From the Genealogical Table of the Burtons of Shap,
very kindly sent me by Mr. E. S. Mostyn Pryce.
(10) From various persons interviewed during many journeys.
One of these journeys (June 1905) took me, of course, to the Tomb of
Mortlake, and I was gratified to find that, owing to the watchfulness of
the Arundell family, it is kept in perfect repair. [5]
Let me first speak of the unpublished letters. These were lent me by Mr.
John Payne (40 letters), Mr. W. F. Kirby (50 letters), Major St. George
Burton, Mrs. E. J. Burton, Mrs. Agg, Mr. Mostyn Pryce, Dr. Tuckey, Mr.
D. MacRitchie, and Mr. A. G. Ellis. Many of the letters reveal Burton in
quite a new light. His patriotism and his courage were known of all men,
but the womanly tenderness of his nature and his intense love for his
friends will come to many as a surprise. His distress, for example, on
hearing of the death of Drake, [6] is particularly affecting.
Of the friends of Sir Richard Burton who have been interviewed I must
mention first of all Mr. John Payne. But for Mr. Payne's generous
assistance, this work I must frankly admit, could not have been written.
He, and he alone, held the keys to whole chambers of mystery. Mr. Payne
was at first extremely reluctant to give me the material required.
Indeed, in his first letter of reply to my request for information (7th
August 1904) he declined positively either to enter the lists against
Burton, with whom, he said, he had been on terms of intimate friendship,
or to discuss the matter at all. "As for what," he said, "it pleases the
public to think (save the mark!) of the relative merits of my own and
Burton's translations, I have long ceased to care a straw." But this led
me to write even more pressingly. I assured Mr. Payne that the public
had been unjust to him simply because nobody had hitherto set himself
the great task of comparing the two translations, and because the true
history of the case had never been laid before them. I assured him that
I yielded to nobody in admiration of Sir Richard Burton--that is, on
account of what he (Sir Richard) did do, not on account of what he did
not do; and I gave it as my opinion that Mr. Payne owed it both to the
public and to himself to lay bare the whole story. After several letters
and interviews I at last induced him to give way; and I think the public
will thank me for my persistency.
My revelations, which form an astonishing story, will no doubt come as
a complete surprise to almost everybody. I can imagine them, indeed,
dropping like a bombshell into some circles; but they are founded, not
only upon conversations with Mr. Payne, but upon Burton's own letters to
Mr. Payne, all of which have been in my hands, and careful study of the
two translations. The public, however, cannot possibly be more surprised
than I myself was when I compared the two translations page by page,
I could scarcely believe my own eyes; and only one conclusion was
possible. Burton, indeed, has taken from Payne at least three-quarters
of the entire work. He has transferred many hundreds of sentences and
clauses bodily. Sometimes we come upon a whole page with only a word or
two altered. [7] In short, amazing to say, the public have given Burton
credit for a gift which he did not possess [8]--that of being a great
translator. If the public are sorry, we are deeply sorry, too, but we
cannot help it. Burton's exalted position, however, as ethnologist
and anthropologist, is unassailable. He was the greatest linguist and
traveller that England ever produced. And four thrones are surely enough
for any man. I must mention that Mr. Payne gave me an absolute free
hand--nay, more than that, having placed all the documents before me,
he said--and this he repeated again and again--"Wherever there is any
doubt, give Burton the benefit of it," and I have done so.
In dealing with the fight [9] over The Arabian Nights I have endeavoured
to write in such a way as to give offence to nobody, and for that reason
have made a liberal use of asterisks. I am the more desirous of saying
this because no one is better aware than myself of the services that
some of Burton's most bitter opponents--those ten or twelve men whom
he contemptuously termed Laneites--have rendered to literature and
knowledge. In short, I regard the battle as fought and won. I am merely
writing history. No man at the present day would dream of mentioning
Lane in the same breath with Payne and Burton. In restoring to Mr. Payne
his own, I have had no desire to detract from Burton. Indeed, it is
impossible to take from a man that which he never possessed. Burton was
a very great man, Mr. Payne is a very great man, but they differ as two
stars differ in glory. Burton is the magnificent man of action and the
anthropologist, Mr. Payne the brilliant poet and prose writer. Mr. Payne
did not go to Mecca or Tanganyika, Burton did not translate The Arabian
Nights, [10] or write The Rime of Redemption and Vigil and Vision.
He did, however, produce the annotations of The Arabian Nights, and a
remarkable enough and distinct work they form.
I recall with great pleasure an evening spent with Mr. Watts-Dunton at
The Pines, Putney. The conversation ran chiefly on the Gipsies, [11]
upon whom Mr. Watts-Dunton is one of our best authorities, and the
various translations of The Arabian Nights. Both he and Mr. A. C.
Swinburne have testified to Burton's personal charm and his marvellous
powers. "He was a much valued and loved friend," wrote Mr. Swinburne to
me [12], "and I have of him none but the most delightful recollections."
Mr. Swinburne has kindly allowed me to give in full his magnificent poem
on "The Death of Richard Burton." Dr. Grenfell Baker, whom I interviewed
in London, had much to tell me respecting Sir Richard's last three
years; and he has since very kindly helped me by letter.
The great object of this book is to tell the story of Burton's life, to
delineate as vividly as possible his remarkable character--his magnetic
personality, and to defend him alike from enemy and friend. In writing
it my difficulties have been two. First, Burton himself was woefully
inaccurate as an autobiographer, and we must also add regretfully that
we have occasionally found him colouring history in order to suit his
own ends. [13] He would have put his life to the touch rather than
misrepresent if he thought any man would suffer thereby; but he seems to
have assumed that it did not matter about keeping strictly to the truth
if nobody was likely to be injured. Secondly, Lady Burton, with
haughty indifference to the opinions of everyone else, always exhibited
occurrences in the light in which she herself desired to see them.
This fact and the extreme haste with which her book was written are
sufficient to account for most of its shortcomings. She relied entirely
upon her own imperfect recollections. Church registers and all such
documents were ignored. She begins with the misstatement that Burton was
born at Elstree, she makes scarcely any reference to his most intimate
friends and even spells their names wrongly. [14] Her remarks on the
Kasidah are stultified by the most cursory glance at that poem; while
the whole of her account of the translating of The Arabian Nights is at
variance with Burton's own letters and conversations. I am assured by
several who knew Burton intimately that the untrustworthiness of the
latter part of Lady Burton's "Life" of her husband is owing mainly to
her over-anxiety to shield him from his enemies. But I think she mistook
the situation. I do not believe Burton had any enemies to speak of at
the time of his death.
If Lady Burton's treatment of her husband's unfinished works cannot be
defended, on the other hand I shall show that the loss as regards
The Scented Garden was chiefly a pecuniary one, and therefore almost
entirely her own. The publication of The Scented Garden would not--it
could not--have added to Burton's fame. However, the matter will be
fully discussed in its proper place.
It has generally been supposed that two other difficulties must confront
any conscientious biographer of Burton--the first being Burton's choice
of subjects, and the second the friction between Lady Burton and the
Stisteds. But as regards the first, surely we are justified in assuming
that Burton's studies were pursued purely for historical and scientific
purposes. He himself insisted in season and out of season that his
outlook was solely that of the student, and my researches for the
purposes of this work have thoroughly convinced me that, however much we
may deprecate some of these studies, Burton himself was sincere enough
in his pursuit of them. His nature, strange as it may seem to some
ears, was a cold one [15]; and at the time he was buried in the most
forbidding of his studies he was an old man racked with infirmities.
Yet he toiled from morning to night, year in year out, more like a navvy
than an English gentleman, with an income of L700 a year, and 10,000
"jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid," as R. L. Stevenson would have
said, in his pocket. In his hunger for the fame of an author, he forgot
to feed his body, and had to be constantly reminded of its needs by his
medical attendant and others. And then he would wolf down his food, in
order to get back quickly to his absorbing work. The study had become a
monomania with him.
I do not think there is a more pathetic story in the history of
literature than that which I have to tell of the last few weeks of
Burton's life. You are to see the old man, always ailing, sometimes in
acute pain--working twenty-five hours a day, as it were--in order to get
completed a work by which he supposed he was to live for ever. In the
same room sits the wife who dearly loves him, and whom he dearly loves
and trusts. A few days pass. He is gone. She burns, page by page, the
work at which he had toiled so long and so patiently. And here comes the
pathos of it--she was, in the circumstances, justified in so doing.
As regards Lady Burton and the Stisteds, it was natural, perhaps,
that between a staunch Protestant family such as the Stisteds, and
an uncompromising Catholic like Lady Burton there should have been
friction; but both Lady Burton and Miss Stisted are dead. Each made,
during Lady Burton's lifetime, an honest attempt to think well of the
other; each wrote to the other many sweet, sincere, and womanly letters;
but success did not follow. Death, however, is a very loving mother. She
gently hushes her little ones to sleep; and, as they drop off, the red
spot on the cheek gradually fades away, and even the tears on the pillow
soon dry.
Although Miss Stisted's book has been a help to me I cannot endorse
her opinion that Burton's recall from Damascus was the result of
Lady Burton's indiscretions. Her books give some very interesting
reminiscences of Sir Richard's childhood and early manhood, [16] but
practically it finishes with the Damascus episode. Her innocent remarks
on The Scented Garden must have made the anthropological sides
of Ashbee, Arbuthnot, and Burton's other old friends shake with
uncontrollable laughter. Unfortunately, she was as careless as Lady
Burton. Thus on page 48 she relates a story about Burton's attempt to
carry off a nun; but readers of Burton's book on Goa will find that it
had no connection with Burton whatever. It was a story someone had told
him.
In these pages Burton will be seen on his travels, among his friends,
among his books, fighting, writing, quarrelling, exploring, joking,
flying like a squib from place to place--a 19th century Lord
Peterborough, though with the world instead of a mere continent for
theatre. Even late in life, when his infirmities prevented larger
circuits, he careered about Europe in a Walpurgic style that makes the
mind giddy to dwell upon.
Of Burton's original works I have given brief summaries; but as a writer
he shines only in isolated passages. We go to him not for style but for
facts. Many of his books throw welcome light on historical portions of
the Bible. [17]
Of those of his works which are erotic in the true sense of the word I
have given a sufficient account, and one with which I am convinced even
the most captious will not find fault. [18] When necessity has obliged
me to touch upon the subject to which Sir Richard devoted his last
lustrum, I have been as brief as possible, and have written in a way
that only scholars could understand. In short I have kept steadily
in view the fact that this work is one which will lie on drawing-room
tables and be within the reach of everyone. I have nowhere mentioned the
subject by name, but I do not see how I could possible have avoided all
allusion to it. I have dwelt on Burton's bravery, his tenderness, his
probity, his marvellous industry, his encyclopaedic learning--but the
picture would not have been a true one had I entirely over-passed the
monomania of his last days. Hamlet must be shown, if not at his maddest,
at any rate mad, or he would not be Hamlet at all.
As regards Burton's letters, I have ruthlessly struck out every sentence
that might give offence. [19] While I have not hesitated to expose Sir
Richard's faults, I have endeavoured to avoid laying too much stress
upon them. I have tried, indeed, to get an idea of the mountain not only
by climbing its sides, but also by viewing it from a distance. I trust
that there will be found nothing in this book to hurt the feelings of
any living person or indeed of any body of persons. I have certainly
tried my utmost to avoid causing pain, and if the reader will kindly
bear in mind that it is as much a Christian duty to avoid taking offence
as to avoid giving offence, we shall amble along pleasantly together to
the very last page. Out of consideration for Catholics I have suppressed
a number of passages; and if I have allowed Sir Richard in one or two
instances to make a lunge at their church, I trust they will notice
that I have permitted him the same licence with regard to the Church
of England and Exeter Hall. Finally, my impartiality is proved by my
allowing him to gird at the poet Cowper.
Wherever possible, that is to say, when I could do it without ambiguity
I have also out of courtesy used the term Catholic instead of Roman
Catholic; and in order to meet what I believe to be the wishes of Lady
Burton's executors, I have omitted all mention of certain events that
occurred after Sir Richard's death.
The various works of Mr. W. H. Wilkins have been of great help to me,
and I cannot avoid paying a passing tribute to the excellent opening
passages [20] of the Preface of his edition of Lady Burton's Life of her
husband.
The illustrations in this book are of exceptional interest. They
include the Burton family portraits, the originals of which are in the
possession of Mr. Mostyn Pryce and Mrs. Agg. During the lifetime of Sir
Richard and Lady Burton they were the property of Lady and Miss Stisted;
but, owing to her difference with these ladies, Lady Burton was not able
to use them in the life of her husband; and Miss Stisted's own scheme
did not include illustrations. So they are now reproduced for the first
time. The most noticeable are the quaint picture of Burton, his brother
and sister as children, and the oil painting of Burton and Lady Stisted
made by Jacquand about 1851. Of great interest, too, is the series of
photographs taken at Trieste by Dr. Grenfell Baker; while the portraits
of Burton's friends, Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, Mr. John Payne, Major St.
George Burton, Dr. Baker, Mr. W. F. Kirby, Mr. A. G. Ellis, Professor J.
F. Blumhardt, and others, will no doubt be appreciated by the public.
The writing of this book has been a thorough pleasure to me, not only on
account of the infinite charm of the subject, but also because everyone
whom I have approached has treated me with studied kindness. The
representatives of Sir Richard Burton, of Lady Burton (through Mr. W.
H. Wilkins) and of Miss Stisted have not only helped and permitted me
to use the unpublished letters, [21] but have generously given me a
free hand. I am deeply indebted to them, and I can only trust that
these pages will prove that their confidence in my judgment has not been
misplaced.
To everyone who has assisted me I tender my sincere thanks, and I assure
them that I shall never forget their abundant kindness.
Finally, in writing this work every possible care has been taken to
ensure accuracy [22]; but that absolute perfection has been attained is
improbable. It is hoped, however,--to borrow the quaint expression of
the Persian poet Jami--"that the noble disposition of the readers will
induce them to pass over defects." [23]
My grateful thanks are due to the following ladies and gentlemen for
various services.
Arbuthnot, Mrs. F. F., 43 South Street, Park Lane, London.
Ashbee, Mr. C. G., Woolstapler Hall, Chipping Cambden,
Gloucestershire.
Agg, Mrs. Hewletts, Cheltenham.
Baddeley, Mrs., Brighton.
Baker, Dr. Grenfell, 25, Southwick Street, Hyde Park, W.
Birch, Mrs. G. M., Lympstone Grange, South Devon.
Blumhardt, Prof. James F., British Museum.
Burton, Mrs. E. J., 31, Wilbury Road, Brighton.
Burton, Major St. George, The Black Watch.
Burton, Mr. Frederick, Brighton.
Cautley, Mr. P. P., 4, Via della Zonta, Trieste.
Clayton, Mr. Arthur, South View, Ropley, Hants.
Carrington, Mr. Charles, 13, Faubourg Montmartre, Paris.
Chatto, Mr. Andrew, Hillside, Elstree.
Codrington, Dr., Royal Asiatic Society, Albemarle Street.
Committee, The, of the Central Library, Camberwell.
Eales, Rev. A. R. T., The Rectory, Elstree, Herts.
Ellis, Mr. A. G., British Museum.
Editors, The, of the following newspapers: The Times, The Daily
Telegraph, The Standard, The Daily News, The Morning Post,
The Daily Chronicle, The Daily Mail, The Athenaeum, The Saturday
Review, The Academy, for inserting letters for me at different
times. These letters put me in touch with several of Burton's
old friends.
Gardiner, Mr. C. H., 4, Montpelier Crescent, Brighton.
George, Mr. William H., 2, Highfield Terrace, Bognor.
Hector, Mr. E., Bookseller, 103, John Bright Street, Birmingham.
Hutchinson & Co., Messrs, for the loan of the portrait of Khamoor.
Jones, Mr. Herbert, The Library, High Street, Kensington.
Josling, Mr. A., 36, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell.
Kirby, Mr. W. F., "Hilden," Sutton Court Road, Chiswick, London.
Letchford, Miss Daisy (now Madame Nicastro), Mezellina 178, Naples.
McCarthy, The Very Rev. P. J. Canon, Ilkeston, Derbyshire.
Mendelssohn, Mr. S., 21, Kensington Court Gardens, London, W.
Murray, Mr. T. Douglas, Pyt Cottage, Tisbury, Wilts.
MacRitchie, Mr. David, 4, Archibald Place, Edinburgh.
Newcombe, Mr. C. F., 16, Champion Park, Denmark Hill, London, S. E.
Nicastro, Madame.
Payne, Mr. John.
Pelham, Dr., President of Trinity College, Oxford.
Pryce, Mr. E. S. Mostyn, Gunley Hall, Chirbury, Shropshire.
Rankin-Lloyd, Mrs., Wilne House, Pembroke.
Royal Asiatic Society (for permission to examine the Arbuthnot and
Rehatsek manuscripts).
Roe, Rev. Henry, 12, Barnoon Terrace, St. Ives, Cornwall.
Sams, Rev. G. F., The Rectory, Emberton, Bucks.
Segrave, Mr. H., Seaview, Lyme Regis, Dorset.
Snowsill, Mr. W. G., Camberwell Central Library.
Spencer, Mr. W. T., Bookseller, 27, New Oxford Street, London, W. C.
Steingass, Mrs., 36, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell.
Tussaud, Mr. John, of "Madame Tussaud's."
Tedder, Mr., The Athenaeum.
Tuckey, Dr. Charles Lloyd, 88, Park Street, Grosvenor Square,
London.
Van Zeller, Mrs. (Lady Burton's sister).
Wilkins, Mr. W. H., 3, Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W.
Wood, Mr. W. Martin, Underwood, Oatlands Avenue, Weybridge.
Wyllie, Mr. Francis R. S., 6, Montpellier Villas, Brighton.
My wife, too, upon whom devolved the heavy task of transcribing,
must also be awarded her meed of praise.
The following is a fairly complete list of the various Books and
Magazine Articles that have been laid under contribution.
Arbuthnot, F. F., "Persian Portraits." 1887
"The Mysteries of Chronology."
"Life of Balzac (in Manuscript)."
"Baily's Monthly Magazine," April 1883.
Baddeley, St. Clair (See Richards, A. B.)
Burton, Lady. "Life of Sir Richard Burton," 2 vols. 1893.
Her Works. 5 vols.
Burton, Sir Richard. His Works. 60 vols.
"Edinburgh Review," July 1886. No. 335.
Hitchman, F., "Richard R. Burton," 2 vols. 1887.
Kama Shastra Society's Publications.
Magazine Articles by or relating to Burton. Too numerous
to mention.
Payne, Mr. John, The Book of "The Thousand Nights and One Night,"
9 vols., 1882-4, and "Omar Kheyyam."
"Perfumed Garden, The." Published in 1904 by Mr. Carrington,
of Paris.
Its Preface contains letters from several of the leading Arabists
of the day, including M. Fagnan and Professor Hartwig Derenbourg,
Membre de l'Institut.
Richards (A. B.), Wilson (A.), and Baddeley (St. C.), "Sketch of the
Career of Richard F. Burton," 1886.
Rehatsek (Edward), Translations.
Roe, Rev. Henry, "West African Scenes," "Fernando Po Mission."
Stisted, Miss Georgiana, "Reminiscences of Sir Richard Burton"--
"Temple Bar," July, 1891. Vol. 92.
"The True Life of Sir Richard Burton," 1896.
"Saturday Review," "Ultima Thule," 1876, Jan. 15 (p. 82).
"Zanzibar," 1872, February 17th (p. 222).
Wilkins, W. H., "The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton," 2 vols. 1897.
Also the various works by Sir Richard Burton that have been
edited by Mr. Wilkins.
Wilson, A. (See Richards, A. B.)
Thomas Wright.
Contents of Volume I
Chapter I
19th March 1821-October 1840
Childhood and Youth
1. Torquay and Elstree, 19th March 1821
2. Tours and Elstree
3. Death of Richard Baker, 16th September 1824
4. At School, Richmond, 1829
5. The Continent Again, 1829
Chapter II
October 1840-April 1842
Oxford
6. Trinity College, Oxford, October 1840
7. Expelled, April 1842
Chapter III
April 1842-20th February 1847
Sind
8. To Bombay, 18th June 1842
9. Baroda: The Bubu
10. Narachi: Love of Disguise
11. A Dangerous Mission, 1845
12. The Persian Beauty
13. A Simian Dictionary
14. Duality
Chapter IV
20th February 1847-1849
Under the Spell of Camoens
15. Goa and Camoens
16. Would you a Sufi be?
17. Letter to Sarah Burton, 14th November 1848
18. Allahdad
Chapter V
1849-3rd April 1853
Chiefly Boulogne
19. A Motto from Ariosto
20. Isabel Arundell and "My dear Louisa," 1851
21. F. F. Arbuthnot, 1853
Chapter VI
3rd April 1853-29th October 1854
Pilgrimage to Mecca
22. The Man wants to Wander
23. Haji Wali
24. The Pilgrim Ship, 6th July 1853
25. Medina
26. Mecca
27. Burton's Delight in Shocking
28. El Islam
Chapter VII
29th October 1854-22nd April 1855
To Harar
29. The Arabian Nights, October 1854
30. From Zeila to Harar, 27th November 1854
31. At Harar, 2nd January, 1855
32. From Harar to Berbera, 13th January 1855
33. The Fight at Berbera, 22nd April 1855
Chapter VIII
34. The Crimea
35. Engaged to Isabel Arundell, August 1856
Chapter IX
22nd April 1855-December 1856
The Unveiling of Isis
36. To Fuga, January 1857
37. Zanzibar to Tanganyika, 26th June 1857-26th May 1858
38. The Return Journey, 26th May, 1858-13th February 1859
Chapter X
21st May 1859-August 1861
Mormons and Marriage
39. We Rushed into Each Other's Arms, 22nd May 1860
40. Brigham Young
41. Marriage
42. At Lord Houghton's
Chapter XI
August 1861-29th November 1863
Fernando Po
43. African Gold
44. Anecdotes
45. Fans and Gorillas
46. The Anthropological Society, 6th January 1863
Chapter XII
29th November, 1863-10th November 1865
Gelele
47. Whydah and its Deity, 29th November 1863
48. The Amazons
49. "The Customs"
50. Death of Speke, 15th September 1864
Chapter XIII
October 1865-October 1869
2nd Consulate: Santos
51. To Santos
52. Aubertin: Death of Dr. Steinhauser, 27th July 1866
53. The Facetious Cannibals
54. Up the Sao Francisco
55. In Paraguay, August 1868-April 1869
Chapter XIV
1st October 1869-16th August 1871
"Emperor and Empress of Damascus"
56. Archbishop Manning and the Odd Fish
57. 3rd Consulate: Damascus
58. Jane Digby el Mezrab
59. To Tadmor
60. Palmer and Drake, 11th July 1870
61. Khamoor
62. The Shazlis
63. The Recall, 16th August 1871
Chapter XV
16th August 1871-4th June 1872
"The Blackness of Darkness"
64. With Sir H. Stisted at Norwood
65. Reduced to L15
66. An Orgie at Lady Alford's, 2nd November 1871
67. The Tichborne Trial
68. Khamoor at the Theatre, November 1871
Chapter XVI
4th June 1872-24th October 1872
In Iceland
69. In Edinburgh Again, 4th June, 1872
70. Wardour Castle, 5th July 1872
71. St. George and Frederick Burton
72. At the Athenaeum
73. Jane Digby again
74. His Book on Zanzibar
Chapter XVII
24th October 1872-12th May 1875
4th Consulate: Trieste
75. Burton at Trieste, 24th October 1872
76. At the Vienna Exhibition, 1873
77. A Visit from Drake, June 1873
78. Khamoor returns to Syria, 4th December 1874
Chapter XVIII
12th May 1875-18th June 1876
The Trip to India
79. Visit to England, 12th May 1875
80. "Tonic Bitters"
81. A Trip to India, December 1875-18th June 1876
82. Arbuthnot again; Rehatsek
83. In Sind
84. Golconda
Chapter XIX
18th June 1876-31st March 1877
Colonel Gordon
85. Ariosto
86. Death of Rashid Pasha, June 1876
87. Colonel Gordon
88. Jane Digby the Second
89. The Old Baronetcy, 18th January 1877
Chapter XX
31st March 1877-27th December 1879
Midian
90. The New Joseph, March 1877
91. More Advice to "Lazybones"
92. Haji Wali again
93. Graffiti
94. Letter to Sir Henry Gordon, 4th July 1878
95. Death of Maria Stisted, 12th November 1878
96. Burton's "Six Senses," 2nd December 1878
97. Still thinking of Midian
Chapter XXI
27th Devember 1879-August 1881
Camoens
98. The Lusiads
99. Ober Ammergan
100. Mrs. Burton's Advice to Novelists
101. The Kasidah
102. Lisa
Chapter XXII
August 1881-20th May 1882
John Payne
103. With Cameron at Venice, August 1881
104. John Payne, November 1881
105. To the Gold Coast, 25th November 1881-20th May 1882
Chapter XXIII
July 1883-November 1883
The Meeting of Burton and Payne
106. Mrs. Grundy begins to Roar, May 1882
107. The Search for Palmer, October 1882
Chapter XXIV
July 1883-November 1883
The Palazzone
108. Anecdotes of Burton
109. Burton and Mrs. Disraeli
110. "I am an Old English Catholic"
111. Burton begins his Translation, April 1884
112. The Battle over the Nights
113. Completion of Payne's Translation
Chapter XXV
The Kama Shastra Society
114. The Azure Apollo
115. The Kama Sutra
Chapter XXVI
"The Ananga Ranga"
1885
116. The Anana Ranga
117. The Beharistan
118. The Gulistan
119. The Nigaristan
120. The "1884" Letters to Payne
121. At Sauerbrunn, 12th August, 1884
122. Burton's Circulars
123. The Book of the Sword
124. The Lyrics of Camoens
125. More Letters to John Payne
126. Death of Gordon, January 1885
127. Mr. W. F. Kirby, 25th March 1885
Chapter XXVII
May 1885-5th February 1886
A Glance Through "The Arabian Nights"
128. Slaving at the Athenaeum
129. A Visit to Mr. Arbuthnot's
130. Dr. Steingass
131. Anecdotes
132. The Pentameron: Burton and Gladstone
133. A Brief Glance through the Nights
Chapter XXVIII
The Two Translations Compared
134. The Blacksmith who, etc.
135. Abu Al-Hasen and Abu Ja'afar the Leper
136. The Summing Up
Chapter XXIX
Burton's Notes
137. Burton's Notes
138. The Terminal Essay
139. Final Summing Up
140. Mr. Swinburne on Burton
Chapter XXX
21st November 1885-18th July 1888
K.C.M.G.
141. In Morocco, 21st November 1885
142. K.C.M.G.
143. Burton at 65
144. More Anecdotes
Chapter XXXI
Burton's Religion
145. Burton's Religion
146. Burton as a Writer
Chapter XXXII
Burton and Social Questions
147. The Population Question
148. New Projects
149. Mr. A. G. Ellis and Professor Blumhardt, June 1886-April 1887
150. Dr. Leslie and Dr. Baker, April 1887; Anecdotes
151. Three Months at Abbazia, December 1887-March 1888
Chapter XXXIII
18th July 1888-15th October 1888
The Last Visit to England: "Supplemental Nights"
152. Meeting with Mr. Swinburne and others
153. H. W. Ashbee
154. Bacon causes Sparks
155. The Gipsy Lore Society, August 1888
156. The Supplemental Nights, 1st December, 1886-1st August 1888
157. Comparison
Chapter XXXIV
"The Scented Garden." November 1888
158. Naizawi
159. Origin of The Scented Garden
160. Contents of The Scented Garden
161. Burton's Translation
Chapter XXXV
15th October 1888-21st July, 1890
Working at the Catullus and the "Scented Garden"
162. In Switzerlant, 15th October 1888
163. Mr. Letchford, August and September 1889
164. To Dr. Tuckey
165. To Mr. Kirby, 15th May 1889
166. Tunis and Algiers, 20th December 1889
167. Arbuthnot in Trieste, May 1890
Chapter XXXVI
"The Priapeia"
168. The Priapeia, 1890
169. Catullus and The Last Trip, 1st July-7th Sept
170. At Maloja
171. The Golden Ass
Chapter XXXVII
Death of Sir Richard Burton, 20th October 1890
172. Death
Chapter XXXVIII
20th October 1890-Devember 1890
The Fate of the "Scented Garden"
173. "Our Dead in Rare Instances Come Back"
174. Discrepancies in Lady Burton's Story
175. The Fate of the Catullus
176. Lisa Departs, November 1890
Chapter XXXVIX
January 1891-July 1891
Lady Burton in England
177. Lady Burton arrives in England
178. The Funeral at Mortlake
179. The Scented Garden Storm, June and July 1891
Chapter XL
June 1891-27th December 1893
O Tome, O Tomb
180. A Letter to Miss Stisted
181. The Writing of the "Life"
182. The Library Edition
Chapter XLI
22nd March, 1896
Death of Lady Burton
183. Lady Burton at Eastbourne
184. Death of Lady Burton, 22nd March 1896
185. Miss Sitsted's True Life
186. Mr. Wilkins's Work
187. Burton's Friends
Verses on the Death of Richard Burton, by Mr. A. C. Swinburne
Appendices
1. Bibliography of Richard Burton
2. List of Works included in the "Memorial Edition"
3. List of Biographies of Burton
4. Extracts relating to Burton from the Index to the Publications of
the Anthropological Institute
5. Bibliography of F. F. Arbuthnot
6. Bibliography of Dr. Steingass
7. Bibliography of John Payne
8. The Beharistan
9. The Nigaristan and other unpublished Works translated by Rehatsek
10. W. F. Kirby
11. Genealogical Table. The Burtons of Shap {not included}
Chapter I. 19th March 1821-October 1840
Childhood and Youth
1. Torquay and Elstree.
Sir Richard Burton, the famous traveller, linguist, and
anthropologist--"the Arabian Knight"--"the last of the demi-gods"--has
been very generally regarded as the most picturesque figure of his
time, and one of the most heroic and illustrious men that "this blessed
plot... this England," this mother of heroes every produced.
The Burtons, a Westmoreland family [24] who had settled in Ireland,
included among their members several men of eminence, not only in the
army, which had always powerfully attracted them, but also in the navy
and the church. [25] For long there was a baronetcy in the family, but
it fell into abeyance about 1712, and all attempts of the later Burtons
to substantiate their claim to it proved ineffectual. [26]
Burton supposed himself to be descended from Louis XIV. La Belle
Montmorency, a beauty of the French court, had, it seems, a son, of
which she rather believed Louis to be the father. In any circumstances
she called the baby Louis Le Jeune, put him in a basket of flowers
and carried him to Ireland, where he became known as Louis Drelincourt
Young. Louis Young's grand-daughter married the Rev. Edward Burton,
Richard Burton's grandfather. Thus it is possible that a runnel of the
blood of "le grand monarque" tripped through Burton's veins. But
Burton is a Romany name, and as Richard Burton had certain gipsy
characteristics, some persons have credited him with gipsy lineage.
Certainly no man could have been more given to wandering. Lastly,
through his maternal grandmother, he was descended from the famous
Scotch marauder, Rob Roy.
Burton's parents were Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Netterville Burton, a
tall, handsome man with sallow skin, dark hair, and coal-black eyes,
and Martha Beckwith, the accomplished but plain daughter of Richard
and Sarah Baker, of Barham House (now "Hillside" [27]), Elstree,
Hertfordshire.
Richard Baker was an opulent country gentleman, and the most important
personage in the parish. Judging from the size of his pew at church,
"No. 19," he must also have been a man of eminent piety, for it
contained sixteen sittings. At all events he kept the parish in
admirable order, and, as churchwarden, discountenanced unreasonable
sleeping in church. Thanks to his patronage the choir made marked
progress, and eventually there was no louder in the county. In 1813,
we find him overseer with one George Olney. He took a perfunctory [28]
interest in the village school (where, by the by, Arthur Orton, the
Tichborne claimant, received his elaborate education), and was for a
time "director." He led the breezy life of a country gentleman. With his
fat acres, his thumping balance at the bank, his cellar of crusted wine,
and his horse that never refused a gate, this world seemed to him a
nether paradise. He required, he said, only one more boon to make his
happiness complete--namely, a grandson with unmistakably red hair.
A shrewd man of business, Mr. Baker tied up every farthing of his
daughter's fortune, L30,000; and this was well, for Burton's father, a
rather Quixotic gentleman, had but a child's notion of the use of
money. The Burtons resided at Torquay, and Colonel Burton busied himself
chiefly in making chemical experiments, of which he was remarkably fond;
but the other members of the household, who generally went about
holding their noses, appear not to have sympathised with his studies
and researches. He was very superstitious--nothing, for instance, could
induce him to reveal his birthday; and he fretted continually because he
was not permitted to invest his wife's money and make a second fortune;
which no doubt he would very soon have done--for somebody else.
Richard Francis Burton was born at Torquay [29] on 19th March 1821; and
to the intemperate joy of the family his hair was a fierce and fiery
red. The news flew madly to Elstree. Old Mr. Baker could scarcely
contain himself, and vowed then and there to leave the whole of his
fortune to his considerate grandson. The baby, of course, was promptly
called Richard after Mr. Baker, with Francis as an afterthought; and
a little later the Burtons went to reside at Barham House with the
grandparents. Richard was baptised in the parish church at Elstree,
2nd September 1821. In the entry his father's abode is called "Bareham
Wood," [30] the name being spelt various ways. Our illustration of the
old church is taken from an engraving made to commemorate the burial
of William Weare [31] murdered by the notorious John Thurtell; an event
that occurred in 1823, when Burton was two years old.
There was another link between the Burtons and the Bakers, for Joseph
Netterville's youngest brother, Francis, military surgeon in the 99th
regiment, married Sarah Baker, Mr. Richard Baker's eldest daughter. Dr.
Burton [32] who was in St. Helena at the time of Napoleon's death lives
in history as the man who "took a bust of the dead emperor." [33]
2. Tours and Elstree.
Being subject to asthma, Colonel Burton now left England and hired a
chateau called Beausejour situated on an eminence near Tours, where
there was an English colony. For several years the family fluctuated
between Tours and Elstree, and we hear of a great yellow chariot which
from time to time rolled into daylight. Richard's hair gradually turned
from its fiery and obtrusive red to jet black, but the violent temper
of which the former colour is supposed to be indicative, and of which he
had already many times given proofs, signalised him to the end of life.
In 1823 Mrs. Burton gave birth to a daughter, Maria Katharine Elisa, who
became the wife of General Sir Henry Stisted; and on 3rd July 1824 to a
son, Edward Joseph Netterville, both of whom were baptized at
Elstree. [34] While at Tours the children were under the care of their
Hertfordshire nurse, Mrs. Ling, a good, but obstinately English soul who
had been induced to cross the Channel only after strenuous opposition.
3. Death of Richard Baker, 16th September 1824.
Richard Burton always preserved some faint recollections of his
grandfather. "The first thing I remember," he says, "was being brought
down after dinner at Barham House to eat white currants, seated upon the
knee of a tall man with yellow hair and blue eyes." This would be in the
summer of 1824. Mr. Baker, as we have seen, had intended to leave the
whole of his property--worth about half a million--to his red-haired
grandson; and an old will, made in 1812, was to be cancelled. But
Burton's mother had a half brother--Richard Baker, junior--too whom she
was extravagantly attached, and, in order that this brother should not
lose a fortune, she did everything in her power to prevent Mr. Baker
from carrying out his purpose. Three years passed away, but at last Mr.
Baker resolved to be thwarted no longer, so he drove to his lawyer's.
It was the 16th of September 1824. He reached the door and leapt nimbly
from his carriage; but his foot had scarcely touched the ground before
he fell dead of heart disease. So the old will had to stand, and the
property, instead of going to Burton, was divided among the children
of Mr. Baker, Burton's mother taking merely her share. But for this
extraordinary good hap Richard Burton might have led the life of an
undistinguished country gentleman; ingloriously breaking his dogs,
training his horses and attending to the breed of stock. The planting of
a quincunx or the presentation of a pump to the parish might have proved
his solitary title to fame. Mr. Baker was buried at Elstree church,
where may be seen a tablet to him with the following inscription:
"Sacred to the memory of Richard Baker, Esq., late of Barham
House in this parish, who departed this life on the 16th September 1824,
aged 62 years." [35]
Soon after the death of her husband, Mrs. Baker must have left Elstree,
[36] for from 1827 to 1839, Barham House was occupied by Viscount
Northland. The Burtons continued to reside at Tours, and all went
well until cholera broke out. Old Mrs. Baker, hearing the news, and
accounting prevention better than cure, at once hurried across the
channel; nor did she breathe freely until she had plugged every nose at
Beausejour with the best Borneo camphor.
The apprehensive old lady, indeed, hovered round her grandchildren all
day like some guardian angel, resolutely determined that no conceivable
means should be spared to save them from the dreaded epidemic; and it
was not until she had seen them safely tucked in their snowy, lavendered
beds that her anxieties of the day really ceased. One night, however,
when she went, as was her custom, to look at the sleeping children
before retiring herself, she found, to her horror, that they were not
there. The whole household was roused, and there was an agonising hue
and cry; but, by and by, the culprits were seen slinking softly in at
the principal door. It seems that they had climbed down from their room
and had gone the round with the death carts and torches, to help collect
corpses; and enquiry revealed that they had worked considerably harder
than the paid men. When the cholera scare passed off Mrs. Baker took to
learning French, and with such success that in less than six months she
was able to speak several words, though she could never get hold of the
correct pronunciation. Despite, however, her knowledge of the language,
the good lady did not take kindly to France, and she often looked
wistfully northwards, quoting as she did so her favourite Cowper:
"England with all thy faults I love thee still."
She and Mrs. Ling, the old nurse, who pined for English beef and
beer, made some attempts to console each other, but with inappreciable
success, and finally the fellow-sufferers, their faces now beaming with
smiles, returned together to their England. And not even Campbell's
sailor lad was gladder to see again the "dear cliffs of Dover."
Our charmingly quaint picture of Richard, his sister and brother, in
wondrous French costumes, is from an oil painting [37] which has not
before been copied. Richard was first taught by a lame Irishman named
Clough, who kept a school at Tours; and by and by, chiefly for the
children's sake, Colonel Burton gave up Beausejour and took a house in
the Rue De L'Archeveche, the best street in the town. The little Burtons
next attended the academy of a Mr. John Gilchrist, who grounded them in
Latin and Greek. A kind-hearted man, Mr. Gilchrist often gave his
pupils little treats. Once, for instance, he took them to see a woman
guillotined. Richard and Edward were, to use Richard's expression,
"perfect devilets." Nor was the sister an angelet. The boys lied,
fought, beat their maids, generally after running at their petticoats
and upsetting them, smashed windows, stole apple puffs; and their
escapades and Richard's ungovernable temper were the talk of the
neighourhood. Their father was at this time given to boar hunting in
the neighbouring forest, but as he generally damaged himself against the
trees and returned home on a stretcher, he ultimately abandoned himself
again to the equally useful but less perilous pursuit of chemistry.
If Colonel Burton's blowpipes and retorts and his conduct in private
usually kept Mrs. Burton on tenterhooks, she was no less uneasy on his
account when they went into society. He was so apt to call things by
their right names. Thus on one occasion when the conversation ran upon
a certain lady who was known to be unfaithful to her husband, he
inexpressibly shocked a sensitive company by referring to her as "an
adulteress." In this trait, as in many others, his famous son closely
resembled him.
A youthful Stoic, Burton, in times of suffering, invariably took
infinite pains to conceal his feelings. Thus all one day he was in
frightful agony with the toothache, but nobody knew anything about it
until next morning when his cheek was swollen to the size of a peewit's
egg. He tried, too, to smother every affectionate instinct; but when
under strong emotion was not always successful. One day, throwing
stones, he cut his sister's forehead. Forgetting all his noble
resolutions he flew to her, flung his arms round her, kissed her again
and again, and then burst into a fit of crying. Mrs. Burton's way of
dressing her children had the charm of simplicity. She used to buy a
piece of yellow nankin and make up three suits as nearly as possible
alike, except for size. We looked, said Burton, "like three sticks of
barley sugar," and the little French boys who called after them in the
streets thought so too, until Richard had well punched all their heads,
when their opinions underwent a sudden change.
Another household incident that fixed itself in Burton's mind was the
loss of their "elegant and chivalrous French chef," who had rebelled
when ordered to boil a gigot. "Comment, madame," he replied to Mrs.
Burton, "un--gigot!--cuit a l'eau, jamais! Neverre!" And rather than
spoil, as he conceived it, a good leg of mutton he quitted her service.
[38] Like most boys, Burton was fond of pets, and often spent hours
trying to revive some bird or small beast that had met with misfortune,
a bias that affords a curious illustration of the permanence of
character. The boy of nine once succeeded in resuscitating a favourite
bullfinch which had nearly drowned itself in a great water jug--and
we shall find the man of sixty-nine, on the very last day of his life,
trying to revive a half-drowned robin.
4. At School, Richmond, 1829.
In 1829 the Burtons returned to England and took a house in Maids
of Honour Row, Richmond, while Richard and Edward were sent to a
preparatory school at Richmond Green--a handsome building with a paddock
which enclosed some fine old elms--kept by a "burly savage," named the
Rev. Charles Delafosse. Although the fees were high, the school was
badly conducted, and the boys were both ill-taught and ill-fed. Richard
employed himself out of school hours fighting with the other boys, and
had at one time thirty-two affairs of honour to settle. "On the first
occasion," he says, "I received a blow in the eye, which I thought most
unfair, and having got my opponent down I proceeded to hammer his head
against the ground, using his ears by way of handles. My indignation
knew no bounds when I was pulled off by the bystanders, and told to let
my enemy stand up again. 'Stand up!' I cried, 'After all the trouble
I've had to get the fellow down.'" [39]
Of the various countries he knew, Burton hated England most. Would he
ever, he asked see again his "Dear France." And then Fate, who revels in
irony, must needs set him to learn as a school task, of all the poems in
English, Goldsmith's Traveller! So the wretched boy, cursing England in
his heart, scowling and taking it out of Goldsmith by daubing his pages
with ink, sat mumbling:
"Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam
His first, best country ever is at home." [40]
By and by, to Burton's extravagant joy--and he always intemperately
loved change--measles broke out in the school, the pupils were
dispersed, and Colonel Burton, tired of Richmond, resolved to make again
for the continent. As tutor for his boys he hired an ox-like man "with a
head the shape of a pear, smaller end uppermost"--the Rev. H. R. Du
Pre afterwards rector of Shellingford; and Maria was put in charge of a
peony-faced lady named Miss Ruxton. The boys hurrahed vociferously when
they left what they called wretched little England; but subsequently
Richard held that his having been educated abroad was an incalculable
loss to him. He said the more English boys are, "even to the cut of
their hair," the better their chances in life. Moreover, that it is a
real advantage to belong to some parish. "It is a great thing when you
have won a battle, or explored Central Africa, to be welcomed home
by some little corner of the great world, which takes a pride in your
exploits, because they reflect honour on itself." [41] An English
education might have brought Burton more wealth, but for the wild and
adventurous life before him no possible training could have been better
than the varied and desultory one he had. Nor could there have been a
more suitable preparation for the great linguist and anthropologist.
From babyhood he mixed with men of many nations.
5. The Continent Again.
At first the family settled at Blois, where Colonel and Mrs. Burton gave
themselves over to the excitement of dressing three or four times a day;
and, as there was nothing whatever the matter with them, passed many
hours in feeling each other's pulses, looking at each other's tongues,
and doctoring each other. Richard and Edward devoted themselves to
fending and swimming. If the three children were wild in England they
were double wild at Blois. Pear-headed Mr. Du Pre stuck tenaciously to
his work, but Miss Ruxton gave up in despair and returned to England.
At a dancing party the boys learnt what it was to fall in love. Richard
adored an extremely tall young woman named Miss Donovan, "whose face
was truly celestial--being so far up" but she was unkind, and did not
encourage him.
After a year at Blois, Colonel and Mrs. Burton, who had at last
succeeded in persuading themselves that they were really invalids,
resolved to go in search of a more genial climate. Out came the
cumbersome old yellow chariot again, and in this and a chaise drawn
by an ugly beast called Dobbin, the family, with Colonel Burton's
blowpipes, retorts and other "notions," as his son put it, proceeded by
easy stages to Marseilles, whence chariot, chaise, horse and family were
shipped to Leghorn, and a few days later they found themselves at Pisa.
The boys became proficient in Italian and drawing, but it was not until
middle life that Richard's writing developed into that gossamer hand
which so long distinguished it. Both had a talent for music, but when
"a thing like Paganini, length without breadth" was introduced, and they
were ordered to learn the violin, Richard rebelled, flew into a towering
rage and broke his instrument on his master's head. Edward, however,
threw his whole soul into the work and became one of the finest amateur
violinists of his day. Edward, indeed, was the Greek of the family,
standing for music and song as well as for muscle. He had the finely
chiselled profile and the straight nose that characterises the faces on
Attic coins. Richard, though without the Roman features, was more of the
ancient Roman type of character: severe, doggedly brave, utilitarian;
and he was of considerably larger mould than his brother. In July 1832,
the family stayed at Siena and later at Perugia, where they visited
the tomb of Pietro Aretino. At Florence, the boys, having induced their
sister to lend them her pocket money, laid it out in a case of pistols;
while their mother went in daily terror lest they should kill each
other. The worst they did, however, was to put a bullet through a very
good hat which belonged to Mr. Du Pre. When their mother begged them not
to read Lord Chesterfield's Letters to a Son, concerning the morality of
which she had doubts, they dutifully complied and surrendered themselves
piously, and without a murmur, to the chaste pages of Paul de Kock. They
did not, however, neglect the art treasures of Florence; and at
Rome, their next stopping-place, they sauntered about with Baedeker's
predecessor, "Mrs. Starke," and peered into earthly churches and
flower-illumined ruins. Later the family journeyed to Naples, where
the boys continued their studies under Mr. Du Pre. As a clergyman, this
gentleman steadily inculcated in his pupils the beautiful principles of
the Christian religion, and took a sincere and lively interest in their
favourite pastime of cock-fighting.
Colonel Burton continued his chemical studies, and in an evil hour for
the family, purchased a copy of the quaint text book by S. Parkes:
"A Chemical Catechism... with copious notes... to which are added a
Vocabulary and a Chapter of Amusing Experiments." [42] And very amusing
they were when Colonel Burton made them. Having studied the book
closely, including the "poetry" with which it is studded, he
manufactured, at vast expense, a few cakes of a nasty-looking and
evil-smelling substance, which, he said, was soap, and ought to be put
on the market. Mrs. Burton intimated that he might put it on the market
or anywhere else as long as he did not make any more. He next, by the
aid of the same manual, prepared a mixture which he called citric acid,
though any other name would have suited it equally well; and of this, as
neither he nor anybody else had any use for it, he daily produced
large quantities. From Naples the family moved to Sorrento, where S'or
Riccardo and S'or Edwardo, as the Italians called them, surrendered
themselves to the natural and legendary influences of the neighbourhood
and to reading. The promontory on which Sorrento stands is barren
enough, but southward rise pleasant cliffs viridescent with samphire,
and beyond them purple hills dotted with white spots of houses. At no
great distance, though hidden from view, stood the classic Paestum, with
its temple to Neptune; and nothing was easier than to imagine, on his
native sea as it were, the shell-borne ocean-god and old Triton blowing
his wreathed horn. Capri, the retreat of Tiberius, was of easy access.
Eastward swept a land of myrtle and lemon orchards. While the elder
Burton was immersed in the melodious Parkes, who sang about "Oxygen,
abandoning the mass," and changing "into gas," his sons played the parts
of Anacreon and Ovid, they crowned their heads with garlands and drank
wine like Anacreon, not omitting the libation, and called to mind the
Ovid of well-nigh two thousand years previous, and his roses of Paestum.
From poetry they turned once more to pistols, again brought their
mother's heart to her mouth, and became generally ungovernable. A visit
to a house of poor reputation having been discovered, their father and
Mr. Du Pre set upon them with horsewhips, whereupon the graceless but
agile youths ran to a neighbouring house and swarmed to the top of a
stack of chimneys, whence partly by word and partly by gesticulation
they arranged terms of peace.
In 1836, the Burtons left for Pau in the South of France; and while
there Richard lost his heart to the daughter of a French baron.
Unfortunately, however, she had to go away to be married; and Richard
who loved her to desperation, wept bitterly, partly because he was to
lose her and partly because she didn't weep too. Edward and the young
lady's sister, who also understood each other, fared no better, for
Colonel Burton having got tired of Pau, the whole family had to return
to Italy. At Pisa "S'or Riccardo" and "S'or Edwardo" again "cocked their
hats and loved the ladies," Riccardo's choice being a slim, soft,
dark beauty named Caterina, Edwardo's her sister Antonia. Proposals
of marriage were made and accepted, but adieux had soon to follow, for
Colonel Burton now moved to Lucca. All four lovers gave way to tears,
and Richard was so wrung with grief that he did not become engaged
again for over a fortnight. At Lucca the precious pair ruffled it with
a number of dissolute medical students, who taught them several quite
original wickednesses. They went, however, with their parents, into more
wholesome society; and were introduced to Louis Desanges, the battle
painter, Miss Helen Croly, daughter of the author of Salathiel, and
Miss Virginia Gabriel (daughter of General, generally called Archangel
Gabriel) the lady who afterwards attained fame as a musical composer
[43] and became, as we have recently discovered, one of the friends of
Walter Pater. Says Burton "she showed her savoir faire at the earliest
age. At a ball given to the Prince, all appeared in their finest
dresses, and richest jewellery. Miss Virginia was in white, with a
single necklace of pink coral." They danced till daybreak, when Miss
Virginia "was like a rose among faded dahlias and sunflowers."
Here, as everywhere, there was more pistol practice, and the boys plumed
themselves on having discovered a new vice--that of opium-eating,
while their father made the house unendurable by the preparation
of sulphuretted hydrogen and other highly-scented compounds. It was
recognised, however, that these chemical experiments had at least
the advantage of keeping Colonel Burton employed, and consequently of
allowing everybody a little breathing time at each stopping-place. In
the spring of 1840, Colonel Burton, Mr. Du Pre and the lads set out for
Schinznach, in Switzerland, to drink the waters; and then the family
returned to England in order that Richard and Edward might have a
university education. Their father, although not quite certain as to
their future, thought they were most adapted for holy orders. Their
deportment was perfect, the ladies admired them, and their worst
enemies, it seems, had never accused them of being "unorthodox in their
views." Indeed, Mrs. Burton already pictured them mitred and croziered.
For a few weeks the budding bishops stayed with "Grandmama Baker," who
with "Aunt Sarah" and "Aunt Georgiana," and Aunt Sarah's daughters,
Sarah and Elisa, was summering at Hampstead; and filled up the
time, which hung heavy on their hands, with gambling, drinking and
love-making.
Chapter II. October 1840-April 1842, Oxford
6. Trinity College, October 1840.
Edward was then placed under a clergyman at Cambridge--The Rev. Mr.
Havergal, whose name, to that gentleman's indignation, the brothers
turned into "a peculiar form of ridicule." [44] Richard was to go to
Trinity College, Oxford. Neither, as we have seen, had been suitably
prepared for a University career. Richard, who could speak fluently
French, Italian, and modern Greek, did not know the Apostles' Creed, and
what was even more unusual in a prospective clergyman, had never heard
of the Thirty-nine Articles. He was struck with the architecture of
the colleges, and much surprised at the meanness of the houses that
surrounded them. He heretically calls the Isis 'a mere moat,' the
Cherwell 'a ditch.' The brilliant dare-devil from Italy despised alike
the raw, limitary, reputable, priggish undergraduates and the dull,
snuffling, smug-looking, fussy dons. The torpor of academic dulness,
indeed, was as irksome to Burton at Oxford as it had been to FitzGerald
and Tennyson at Cambridge. After a little coaching from Dr. Ogle and Dr.
William Alexander Greenhill [45], he in October 1840, entered Trinity,
where he has installed in "a couple of frowsy dog-holes" overlooking the
garden of old Dr. Jenkins, the Master of Balliol.
"My reception at College," says Burton, "was not pleasant. I had grown a
splendid moustache, which was the envy of all the boys abroad, and which
all the advice of Drs. Ogle and Greenhill failed to make me remove. I
declined to be shaved until formal orders were issued by the authorities
of the college. For I had already formed strong ideas upon the Shaven
Age of England, when her history, with some brilliant exceptions,
such as Marlborough, Wellington and Nelson, was at its meanest." An
undergraduate who laughed at him he challenged to fight a duel; and when
he was reminded that Oxford "men" like to visit freshmen's rooms and
play practical jokes, he stirred his fire, heated his poker red hot, and
waited impatiently for callers. "The college teaching for which one was
obliged to pay," says Burton, "was of the most worthless description.
Two hours a day were regularly wasted, and those who read for honours
were obliged to choose and pay a private coach."
Another grievance was the constant bell ringing, there being so many
churches and so many services both on week days and Sundays. Later,
however, he discovered that it is possible to study, even at Oxford, if
you plug your ears with cotton-wool soaked in glycerine. He spent his
first months, not in studying, but in rowing, fencing, shooting the
college rooks, and breaking the rules generally. Many of his pranks were
at the expense of Dr. Jenkins, for whose sturdy common sense, however,
he had sincere respect; and long after, in his Vikram and the Vampire,
in which he satirises the tutors and gerund-grinders of Oxford, he paid
him a compliment. [46]
Although he could not speak highly of the dons and undergraduates, he
was forced to admit that in one respect the University out-distanced
all other seats of learning. It produced a breed of bull-terriers of
renowned pedigree which for their "beautiful build" were a joy to think
about and a delirium to contemplate; and of one of these pugnacious
brutes he soon became the proud possessor. That he got drunk himself and
made his fellow collegians drunk he mentions quite casually, just as he
mentions his other preparations for holy orders. If he walked out with
his bull-terrier, it was generally to Bagley Wood, where a pretty,
dizened gipsy girl named Selina told fortunes; and henceforward he took
a keen interest in Selina's race.
He spent most of his time, however, in the fencing saloons of an Italian
named Angelo and a Scotchman named Maclaren; and it was at Maclaren's he
first met Alfred Bates Richards, who became a life friend. Richards,
an undergraduate of Exeter, was a man of splendid physique. A giant in
height and strength, he defeated all antagonists at boxing, but Burton
mastered him with the foil and the broad-sword. Richards, who, like
Burton, became a voluminous author [47] wrote long after, "I am sure,
though Burton was brilliant, rather wild, and very popular, none of us
foresaw his future greatness."
Another Oxford friend of Burton's was Tom Hughes, author of Tom Brown's
Schooldays; the man who, in Burton's phrase, "taught boys not to be
ashamed of being called good," [48] and he always revered the memory of
his tutor, the Rev. Thomas Short. [49] Burton naturally made enemies
as well as friends, but the most bitter was that imaginary person, Mrs.
Grundy. This lady, whom he always pictured as an exceedingly stout and
square-looking body with capacious skirts, and a look of austere piety,
had, he tells us, "just begun to reign" when he was at Oxford, although
forty years had elapsed since she first made her bow [50], and set
everybody asking, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" Mrs. Grundy had a
great deal to say against Richard Burton, and, life through, he took
a peculiar delight in affronting her. The good soul disapproved of
Burton's "foreign ways" and his "expressed dislike to school and college
life," she disapproved of much that he did in his prime, and when
he came to translate The Arabian Nights she set up, and not without
justification, a scream that is heard even to this day and in the
remotest corners of the kingdom.
If Richard was miserable at Oxford, Edward was equally so at Cambridge.
After the polish and politeness of Italy, where they had been "such
tremendous dandies and ladies' men," the "boorishness and shoppiness,"
of Oxford and Cambridge were well-nigh unendurable. Seizing an early
opportunity, Richard ran over to Cambridge to visit his brother. "What
is the matter, Edward," enquired Richard. "Why so downcast?" "Oh, Dick,"
moaned Edward, "I have fallen among epiciers. [51]"
7. Expelled, April 1842.
The dull life at Oxford was varied by the occasional visit of a mesmeric
lecturer; and one youth caused peals of canorous laughter by walking
round in a pretended mesmeric sleep and kissing the pretty daughters of
the dons.
The only preacher Burton would listen to was Newman, then Vicar of St.
Mary's; of Pusey's interminable and prosy harangues he could not bear
even to think. Although unable to bend himself to the drudgery of
Oxford, Burton was already forming vast ambitions. He longed to excel
as a linguist, and particularly in Oriental languages. Hence he began
to teach himself Arabic; and got a little assistance from the Spanish
scholar Don Pascual de Gayangos. When he asked the Regius Professor of
Arabic to teach him, he was rebuffed with the information that it was
the duty of a professor to teach a class, not an individual. He spent
the vacation with his Grandmother Baker in Great Cumberland Place, and
he and his brother amused themselves about town with other roisterers,
chiefly in gambling. Returned to Oxford he applied sedulously to the
acquisition of foreign languages. He says, "I got a simple grammar and
vocabulary, marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely
necessary, and learnt them by heart.... I never worked more than
a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the brain lost its
freshness. After learning some three hundred words, easily done in a
week, I stumbled through some easy book-work and underlined every
word that I wished to recollect.... Having finished my volume, I then
carefully worked up the grammar minutiae, and I then chose some other
book whose subject most interested me. The neck of the language was now
broken, and progress was rapid. If I came across a new sound, like the
Arabic Ghayn, I trained my tongue to it by repeating it so many thousand
times a day. When I read, I invariably read out loud, so that the ear
might aid memory. I was delighted with the most difficult characters,
Chinese and Cuneiform, because I felt that they impressed themselves
more strongly upon the eye than the eternal Roman letters." [52] Such
remarks from the man who became the first linguist of his day are well
worth remembering. For pronouncing Latin words the "Roman way" he was
ridiculed, but he lived long enough to see this pronunciation adopted in
all our schools. The long vacation of 1841 was spent at Wiesbaden with
his father and mother. Here again the chief delights of Richard and
his brother were gambling and fencing; and when tired of Wiesbaden they
wandered about the country, visiting among other places Heidelberg
and Mannheim. Once more Richard importuned his father to let him leave
Oxford and enter the army, but Colonel Burton, who still considered
his son peculiarly fitted for the church, was not to be moved. Upon his
return to England, however, Burton resolved to take the matter into
his own hands. He laid his plans, and presently--in April 1842--an
opportunity offered.
The Oxford races of that year were being looked forward to with
exceptional interest because of the anticipated presence of a noted
steeplechaser named Oliver, but at the last moment the college
authorities forbade the undergraduates to attend them.
Burton, however, and some other lawless spirits resolved to go all the
same, and a tandem conveyed them from the rear of Worcester College
to the race meeting. Next morning the culprits were brought before
the college dignitaries; but the dons having lectured Burton, he began
lecturing them--concluding with the observation that young men ought not
to be treated like children. As a consequence, while the other offenders
were merely rusticated, Burton was expelled. [53] He made a ceremonious
bow, and retired "stung with a sense of injustice," though where the
injustice comes in, it is difficult to see. His departure from
Oxford was characteristic. He and Anderson of Oriel, one of the other
offenders, hired a tandem in which they placed their luggage, and then
with "a cantering leader and a high-trotting shaft horse" they rode
through the High Street, and so on to London, Burton artistically
performing upon a yard of tin trumpet, waving adieux to his friends and
kissing his hands to the shop girls. About the same time Edward, also
for insubordination, had to leave Cambridge. Thus Burton got his own
way, but he long afterwards told his sister, Lady Stisted, that beneath
all his bravado there lay a deep sense of regret that such a course had
been necessary.
Chapter III. April 1842-20th February 1847, Sind
8. To Bombay, 18th June 1842.
On his arrival in London, Burton, in order to have an hour or two of
peace, coolly told his people that he had been given an extra vacation,
"as a reward for winning a double first." Then occurred a quite
un-looked-for sequel. His father insisted on giving a dinner in honour
of the success, and Burton, unwillingly enough, became the hero of the
moment. At table, however, a remark from one of the guests revealed the
precise truth--with the result of an unpleasant scene; but eventually
it was deemed advisable to let Burton have his own way and exchange
the surplice for the sword. The Indian Service having been selected, a
commission was purchased for L500, and Burton presently found himself
Ensign to the 18th Regiment, Bombay Native Infantry. Delirious with joy,
he applied himself vigorously to Hindustani under a dirty, smoky
Scotch linguist, named Duncan Forbes. While thus employed he made
the acquaintance of two persons who just them enjoyed a remarkable
reputation, namely John Varley [54], the water colour painter and
occultist, and the Rev. Robert Montgomery. [55] An artist of undoubted
genius, Varley usually got fair prices for his pictures, but the
expenses of a numerous family kept him miserably poor. Then he took
to "judicial astrology," and eventually made it a kind of second
profession. Curious to say, some of his predictions came true, and
thanks to this freak of fate he obtained more fame from his horoscopes
than from his canvasses. He "prognosticated," says Burton, "that I was
to become a great astrologer." Straightway Burton buried himself in
astrological and cabalistic books [56], studied the uncanny arts, and
became learned in "dark spells and devilish enginery," but his own
prophecies generally proved to be of the Moseilima type; that is to say,
the opposite invariably happened--a fatality that pursued him to the
end of life. The Rev. Robert Montgomery, with whom also he became
acquainted, was the fashionable preacher and author whom Macaulay
cudgelled so pitilessly in the Edinburgh Review. Burton's aunts, Sarah
and Georgiana, [57] who went with the crowd to his chapel, ranked the
author of "Satan, a Poem," rather above Shakespeare, and probably few
men have received higher encomiums or a greater number of wool-work
slippers.
Having been sworn in at the East India House, Burton went down to
Greenwich, whence on 18th June, 1842, after being "duly wept over," he,
in company with his beautifully built bull-terrier of renowned pedigree,
set sail for Bombay. He divided his time during the voyage, which lasted
four months, between studying Hindustani and taking part in the quarrels
of the crew. This was the year of the murder of Sir William Macnaughten
by the Afghans and the disastrous retreat of the British from Cabul;
consequently the first request of the voyagers on reaching Bombay (28th
October 1842) was for news about Afghanistan. They learnt that the
prestige of the British arms had been restored by Pollack, and that the
campaign was ended.
To Burton, who had counted on being sent to the front, this was a
burning disappointment. He found Bombay marvellously picturesque, with
its crowds of people from all parts of the world, but before many days
had passed he fell ill and had to be transferred to the Sanitarium,
where he made the acquaintance of an old Parsee priest who assisted
him in his Hindustani. Even in these early days we find him collecting
material of the kind that was to be utilised in his Arabian Nights. He
was struck, for example, with the fine hedges of henna whose powerful
and distinctive odour loaded the atmosphere; and with the immense
numbers of ravenous kites and grey-headed crows that swooped down on
dead and even dying animals.
9. Baroda. The Bubu.
After six weeks' rest, having received orders to join his regiment,
which was then stationed at Baroda, he engaged some Goanese servants
and made the voyage thither in a small vessel called a pattymar. It took
them four days to march from the Tankaria-Bunder mudbank, where they
landed, to Baroda; and Burton thus graphically describes the scenery
through which they passed. "The ground, rich black earth... was covered
with vivid, leek-like, verdigris green. The little villages, with their
leafy huts, were surrounded and protected by hedge milk bush, the
colour of emeralds. A light veil, as of Damascene silver, hung over each
settlement, and the magnificent trees were tipped by peacocks screaming
their good-night to the son." The sharp bark of the monkey mingled
with the bray of the conch. Arrived at Baroda, he lodged himself in a
bungalow, and spent his time alternately there with his books and on the
drill ground. He threw himself into his studies with an ardour scarcely
credible--devoting twelve hours a day to Hindustani, and outwearying two
munshis.
At that time it was quite the custom for the officers, married as
well as single, to form irregular unions with the Hindu women. Every
individual had his Bubu; consequently half-caste children were not
uncommon; but Burton was of opinion that this manner of life had
advantages as well as disadvantages. It connected, he says, "the white
stranger with the country and its people, gave him an interest in their
manners and customs, and taught him thoroughly well their language."
Like the rest, Burton had his Bubu. Still, he was no voluptuary.
Towering ambition, enthusiasm, and passion for hard work trampled down
all meaner instincts. Languages, not amours, were his aspiration, and
his mind ran on grammar books rather than ghazels; though he confesses
to having given whole days and nights to the tender pages of Euclid.
Indeed, he was of a cold nature, and Plutarch's remark about Alexander
applies equally to him: "For though otherwise he was very hot and hasty,
yet was he hardly moved with lust or pleasure of the body." When the
officers were not on the drill ground or philandering with their dusky
loves, they amused themselves shooting the black buck, tigers, and the
countless birds with which the neighbourhood abounded. The dances of
the aphish-looking Nautch girls, dressed though they were in magnificent
brocades, gave Burton disgust rather than pleasure. The Gaikwar, whose
state processions were gorgeous to a wonder, occasionally inaugurated
spectacles like those of the old Roman arena, and we hear of fights
between various wild animals. "Cocking" was universal, and Burton,
who as a lad had patronised this cruel sport, himself kept a
fighter--"Bhujang"--of which he speaks affectionately, as one might of
an only child. The account of the great fight between Bhujang and the
fancy of a certain Mr. Ahmed Khan, which took place one evening "after
prayers," may be read by those who have a taste for such matters in
Burton's book Sind Revisited. [58] When Bhujang died, Burton gave it
almost Christian burial near his bungalow, and the facetious enquired
whether the little mound was not "a baby's grave."
His hero was the eagle-faced little veteran and despot, Sir Charles
Napier, generally known from his Jewish look as "Fagin," and from his
irascibility as "The Devil's Brother," and after the war with Sind, the
chief event of which was the battle of Meeanee (February 21st), where
Sir Charles and Major Outram defeated the Ameer, his admiration grew
almost to worship; though he did not actually see his hero till some
months later. According to Punch the news of the battle was transmitted
to headquarters in one word: "Peccavi." A quarrel then broke out between
the great English leaders, and Western India was divided into the two
opposing camps of Outramists and Napierists, Burton, of course, siding
with the latter. In April, Burton returned to Bombay to present himself
for examination in Hindustani, and having passed with honour [59]
he returned to Baroda, where he experienced all the inconveniences
attendant on the south-west monsoon. The rain fell in cataracts. Night
and day he lay or sat in a wet skin; the air was alive with ants and
other winged horrors, which settled on both food and drink, while the
dust storms were so dense that candles had to be burned in mid-day.
However he applied himself vigorously to Gujarati [60], the language of
the country, and also took lessons in Sanskrit.
"I soon," he says, "became as well acquainted as a stranger can with
the practice of Hinduism. I carefully read up Ward, Moor, and the
publications of the Asiatic Society... and eventually my Hindu teacher
officially allowed me to wear the Brahminical thread." He learnt some
of the Hindu text books by heart, including the Tota-kahani [61],
which gave him a taste for "parrot books," [62] on which he became an
authority; while the study of the Baital-Pachisi led to his writing
Vikram and the Vampire. [63] All this application caused his fellow
officers to call him "The White Nigger."
Although, in after years, Burton often made bitter attacks on
Christianity, and wrote most scathingly against the Roman Catholic
priesthood, and the cenobitic life of the monks, yet at times he had
certain sympathies with Roman Catholicism. Thus at Baroda, instead
of attending the services of the garrison chaplain, he sat under the
pleasant Goanese priest who preached to the camp servants; but he did
not call himself a Catholic. In August he visited Bombay to be examined
in Gujarati; and having passed with distinction, he once more returned
to Baroda--just in time to join in the farewell revels of his regiment,
which was ordered to Sind.
10. Karachi. Love of Disguise.
On board the Semiramis, in which the voyage was performed, he made the
acquaintance of Captain Scott, nephew of the novelist--a handsome man
"with yellow hair and beard," and friendship followed. Both were fond
of ancient history and romance, and Burton, who could speak Italian
fluently and had knowledge of the canalization of the Po Valley, was
able to render Scott, whose business was the surveyal of Sind,
the precise assistance he just then required. Burton also formed a
friendship with Dr. John Steinhauser, afterwards surgeon at Aden. Then,
too, it was at Karachi that he first saw his hero, Sir Charles Napier.
Though his ferocious temper repelled some, and his Rabelaisisms and
kindred witticisms others, Sir Charles won the admiration and esteem of
almost all who knew him. It was from him, to some extent, that Burton
acquired the taste, afterwards so extraordinarily developed for erotic,
esoteric and other curious knowledge. Napier intensely hated the East
India Company, as the champions of his detested rival, Major Outram, and
customarily spoke of them contemptuously as the "Twenty-four kings of
Leadenhall Street," while Burton on his part felt little respect for the
effete and maundering body whose uniform he wore and whose pay he drew.
Karachi [64], then not much better than a big village, was surrounded
by walls which were perforated with "nostril holes," for pouring
boiling water through in times of siege. There were narrow lanes, but
no streets--the only open place being a miserable bazaar; while owing to
the absence of sewers the stench was at times unendurable. Near the
town was a great shallow artificial pond which abounded in huge sleepy
crocodiles, sacred animals which were tended by a holy fakir, and one of
Burton's amusements was to worry these creatures with his bull terrier.
Tired of that pastime, he would muzzle a crocodile by means of a fowl
fastened to a hook at the end of a rope, and then jump on to its
back and take a zig-zag ride. [65] The feat of his friend, Lieutenant
Beresford, of the 86th, however, was more daring even than that. Here
and there in the pond were islets of rank grass, and one day noticing
that the crocodiles and islets made a line across the pond, he took a
run and hopped from one crocodile's back on to another or an islet until
he reached the opposite side, though many a pair of huge jaws snapped
angrily as he passed.
Burton presently found himself gazetted as Captain Scott's assistant;
and having learnt the use of the theodolite and the spirit level, he
went on December 10th (1844) with a surveying party to Hyderbad [66] and
the Guni River. The work was trying, but he varied it with hawking; and
collected material for a work which he published eight years later
with the title of Falconry in the Valley of the Indus. He then made
the acquaintance of three natives, all of whom assisted him in his
linguistic studies, Mirza Ali Akhbar [67], Mirza Daud, and Mirza
Mohammed Musayn. Helped by the last he opened covertly at Karachi
several shops with the object, however, not of making profit, but of
obtaining intimate knowledge of the people and their secret customs.
Then he put on long hair and a venerable beard, stained his limbs with
henna, and called himself Abdullah of Bushire, a half-Arab. In this
disguise, with spear in hand and pistols in holsters, he travelled the
country with a little pack of nick-knacks. In order to display his stock
he boldly entered private houses, for he found that if the master wanted
to eject him, the mistress would be sure to oppose such a measure.
All his life he loved to disguise himself. We shall see him later as a
Greek doctor, a Pathan Hakim, and an Arab shaykh. His shops had plenty
of customers, for he was in the habit of giving the ladies, especially
if they were pretty, "the heaviest possible weight for their money,"
though sometimes he would charge too much in order to induce them to
chaffer with him. He learnt most, however, from the garrulity of a
decayed beauty named Khanum Jan, who in her springtide had married a
handsome tailor. Her husband having lost the graces of his person, she
generally alluded to him affectionately as "that old hyena." This couple
proved a Golconda for information. Burton had not long studied these and
other persons before coming to the conclusion that the Eastern mind is
always in extremes, that it ignores what is meant by the "golden mean,"
and that it delights to range in flights limited only by the ne plus
ultra of Nature herself. He picked up miscellaneous information about
magic, white and black, Yoga [68], local manners and customs such as
circumcision, both female and male, and other subjects, all of which
he utilised when he came to write his Notes and Terminal Essay to The
Arabian Nights, particularly the articles on Al Islam and woman. Then,
too, when at Bombay and other large towns he used to ransack the bazaars
for rare books and manuscripts, whether ancient or contemporaneous.
Still, the most valuable portion of his knowledge was acquired orally.
11. A Dangerous Mission, 1845.
About this time it was reported to Sir Charles Napier that Karachi,
though a town of only 2,000 souls, supported no fewer than three houses
which were devoted to a particular and unspeakable vice [69] which is
said to be common in the East. Sir Charles, whose custom it was to worm
out the truth respecting anything and everything, at once looked round
for someone willing to make enquiries and to report upon the subject.
Burton being then the only British officer who could speak Sindi,
the choice naturally fell upon him, and he undertook the task, only,
however, on the express condition that his report should not be
forwarded to the Bombay Government, from whom supporters of Napier's
policy "could expect scant favour, mercy, or justice." Accompanied by
his Munshi, Mirza Mohammed Hosayn Shiraz, and disguised as a merchant,
Burton passed many evenings in the town, made the required visits, and
obtained the fullest details, which were duly dispatched to Government
House. But in 1847, when Napier quitted Sind "he left in his office
Burton's unfortunate official." "This," says Burton, "found its way
with sundry other reports to Bombay, and produced the expected result. A
friend in the secretariat informed me that my summary dismissal had been
formally proposed by one of Sir Charles Napier's successors, but this
excess of outraged modesty was not allowed." [70] A little later,
however, Burton had to suffer very severely for this unfortunate
occurrence. Of course he heard regularly from home. His father was still
immersed in blow-pipes and retorts, his mother still mildly protesting.
His sister, who had won to herself for her loveliness the name of "the
Moss Rose," was married to General Sir Henry Stisted [71], his brother
Edward was practising as an army doctor; his Grandmother Baker was dead.
[72]
12. The Persian Beauty.
During one of his rambles he formed the acquaintance of a beautiful
olive, oval-faced Persian girl of high descent. We are told that her
"eyes were narcissi, her cheeks sweet basil," her personal charms
together with her siren voice and sweet disposition caused him to
fall in love with her; but he had scarcely learnt that his passion was
reciprocated before she died. We are told also that for many years he
could never think of her without pain; and that when, some time after,
he narrated the story to his sister he revealed considerable emotion.
Miss Stisted thought she could see references to this episode in
Burton's poem The Kasidah, portions of which were written some three
years later: "Mine eyes, my brain, my heart are sad--sad is the
very core of me." This may be so, but the birth of a litter of pups,
presented to him by his beloved bull terrier, seems to have taken the
edge off his grief; and his tribute to one of these pups, which received
the name of Bachhun, is really affecting.
The "Acting Commissioner" of the time was General Jacob of the Sind
Horse, who wore a helmet of silver and a sabre-tache studded with
diamonds. This, however, was not from pride or love of display, but
because he held it policy in those who have to deal with Hindus not
to neglect show and splendour. "In the eyes of Orientals," he used to
remark, and Burton endorsed the saying, "no man is great unless he is
also superbly dressed." As Jacob stuttered, one of his correspondents
thought his name was J. J. J. J. J. Jacob, and terribly offended
the testy General by writing it so. A brave and self-confident, but
rancorous old man, Jacob by his senseless regulations brought the Indian
army to the verge of ruin. This peccadillo was passed over, but a more
serious offence, his inability to play whist, was remembered against him
by his brother officers right to the day of his death. [73]
13. A Simian Dictionary.
When the Sikh war broke out Burton resigned his post under Scott in
order to take part in the campaign in the Punjab, but peace being
proclaimed a few weeks later, after the battle of Sobraon, Burton had no
opportunities of distinguishing himself. So he returned to his studies,
and now became ambitious to understand not only the people but also the
monkeys of India. Consequently he collected some forty of them, made
them live and eat after the manner of humans; and studies them as they
mowed and gibbered. He would then talk to them and pronounce the
sounds they made, until at last they could conduct quite a conversation
together. Burton never divulged this talk, which, of course, may have
been of a confidential nature, but he compiled a Simian Dictionary,
and thus to some extent anticipated the work of Mr. R. L. Garner.
Unfortunately the dictionary was some years later destroyed by fire.
14. Duality.
We shall often notice in Burton's life what Burton himself called his
dual nature. In the tale of Janshah in The Arabian Nights we read of a
race of split men who separated longitudinally, each half hopping
about contentedly on its own account, and reuniting with its fellow at
pleasure. If Burton in a pre-existent state--and he half believed in
the Pre-existence of Souls--belonged to this race, and one of his halves
became accidentally united to one of the halves of somebody else, the
condition of affairs would be explicable. In any circumstances, he was
always insisting on his duality. For example--a kind-hearted man, who
detested cruelty to animals, nevertheless he delighted, as we have seen,
in the sport of cocking; an ambitious man, who wore himself out with his
studies yet he neutralised all his efforts to rise by giving way to an
ungovernable temper. He would say just what he thought, and no man could
have exhibited less tact. Thus he managed to give offence, and quite
unnecessarily, to his superior officer, Colonel Henry Corsellis, and
they were henceforth at handgrips.
Among his favourite books was Jami's Beharistan. The only pity is that
he did not take the advice proffered in the Third Garden:
"If Alexander's realm you want, to work adroitly go, Make friends more
friendly still, and make a friend of every foe."
Other instances of opposing qualities will be noticed as this work
proceeds. Late in life, when he took to glasses, Burton used to say
"My duality is proved by my eyes alone. My right eye requires a No. 50
convex lens, my left a No. 14." His assiduous application to his
studies now brought about an illness, and, having returned to Bombay, he
obtained two years' leave of absence to the salubrious Neilgherries.
Chapter IV. 20th February 1847-1849. Under the Spell of Camoens
Bibliography:
1. Grammar of the Jataki Dialect, 1849. 2. Remarks on Dr. Dorn's
Chrestomathy of the Afghan Tongue, 1849. 3. Reports on Sind addressed to
the Bombay Government. 4. Grammar of the Mooltanee Language.
15. Goa and Camoens.
He left Goa on 20th February 1847, taking as usual a pattymar, his mind
vibrant with thoughts of his great hero, the "Portingall" Camoens, with
whose noble epic all Western India, from Narsinga and Diu to Calicut
is intimately associated. Passages from Camoens were frequently in his
mouth, and in bitterest moments, in the times of profoundest defection,
he could always find relief in the pages of him whom he reverently calls
"my master." Later in life he could see a parallel between the thorny
and chequered career of Camoens and his own. Each spent his early
manhood on the West Coast of India [74], each did his country an
incalculable service: Camoens by enriching Portugal with The Lusiads,
Burton by his travels and by presenting to England vast stores of
Oriental lore. Each received insult and ill-treatment, Camoens by
imprisonment at Goa, Burton by the recall from Damascus. There was also
a temperamental likeness between the two men. The passion for travel,
the love of poetry and adventure, the daring, the patriotism of Camoens
all find their counterpart in his most painstaking English translator.
Arrived at Panjim, Burton obtained lodgings and then set out by
moonlight in a canoe for old Goa. The ruins of churches and monasteries
fascinated him, but he grieved to find the once populous and opulent
capital of Portuguese India absolutely a city of the dead. The
historicity of the tale of Julnar the Sea Born and her son King Badr
[75] seemed established, Queen Lab and her forbidding escort might have
appeared at any moment. On all sides were bowing walls and tenantless
houses. Poisonous plants covered the site of the Viceregal Palace, and
monster bats hung by their heels at the corners of tombs. Thoughts of
Camoens continued to impinge on his mind, and in imagination he saw his
hero dungeoned and laid in iron writing his Lusiads. A visit to the tomb
of St. Francis Xavier also deeply moved him. To pathos succeeded comedy.
There was in Panjim an institution called the Caza da Misericordia,
where young ladies, for the most part orphans, remained until they
received suitable offers of marriage The description of this place
piqued Burton's curiosity, and hearing that it was not unusual for
persons to propose themselves as suitors with a view to inspecting the
curiosities of the establishment, he and some companions repaired to the
Caza. Having seen the chapel and the other sights he mentioned that he
wanted a wife. A very inquisitive duenna cross-examined him, and then
he was allowed to interview one of the young ladies through a grating,
while several persons, who refused to understand that they were not
wanted, stood listening. Burton at once perceived that it would be an
exhausting ordeal to make love in such circumstances, but he resolved to
try, and a dialogue commenced as follows:
"Should you like to be married, senorita?"
"Yes, very much, senor."
"And why, if you would satisfy my curiosity?"
"I don't know."
The rest of the conversation proved equally wooden and unsatisfactory,
and quotations from poets were also wasted.
"The maid, unused to flowers of eloquence,
Smiled at the words, but could not guess their sense."
Burton then informed the duenna that he thought he could get on better
if he were allowed to go on the other side of the grating, and be left
alone with the demure senorita. But at that the old lady suddenly became
majestic. She informed him that before he could be admitted to so marked
a privilege he would have to address an official letter to the mesa or
board explaining his intentions, and requesting the desired permission.
So Burton politely tendered his thanks, "scraped the ground thrice,"
departed with gravity, and in ten minutes forgot all about the belle
behind the grille. It was while at Panhim, that, dissatisfied with
the versions of Camoens by Strangford [76], Mickle and others, Burton
commenced a translation of his own, but it did not reach the press for
thirty-three years. [77]
We next find him at Panany, whence he proceeded to Ootacamund, the
sanitarium on the Neilgherries, where he devoted himself to the
acquisition of Telugu, Toda, Persian and Arabic, though often
interrupted by attacks of ophthalmia. While he was thus engaged, Sir
Charles Napier returned to England (1847) [78] and Sind was placed under
the Bombay Government "at that time the very sink of iniquity." [79]
In September Burton visited Calicut--the city above all others
associated with Camoens, and here he had the pleasure of studying on
the spot the scenes connected with the momentous landing of Da Gama
as described in the seventh and most famous book of the Lusiads. In
imagination, like Da Gama and his brave "Portingalls," he greeted the
Moor Monzaida, interviewed the Zamorim, and circumvented the sinister
designs of the sordid Catual; while his followers trafficked for strange
webs and odoriferous gums. On his return to Bombay, reached on October
15th, Burton offered himself for examination in Persian, and gaining
the first place, was presented by the Court of Directors with a thousand
rupees. In the meantime his brother Edward, now more Greek-looking than
ever, had risen to be Surgeon-Major, and had proceeded to Ceylon, where
he was quartered with his regiment, the 37th.
16. "Would you a Sufi be?"
Upon his return to Sind, Burton at first applied himself sedulously to
Sindi, and then, having conceived the idea of visiting Mecca, studied
Moslem divinity, learnt much of the Koran by heart and made himself
a "proficient at prayer." It would be unjust to regard this as mere
acting. Truth to say, he was gradually becoming disillusioned. He was
finding out in youth, or rather in early manhood, what it took Koheleth
a lifetime to discover, namely, that "all is vanity." This being the
state of his mind it is not surprising that he drifted into Sufism.
He fasted, complied with the rules and performed all the exercises
conscientiously. The idea of the height which he strove to attain, and
the steps by which he mounted towards it, may be fathered from the Sufic
poet Jami. Health, says Jami, is the best relish. A worshipper will
never realise the pure love of the Lord unless he despises the whole
world. Dalliance with women is a kind of mental derangement. Days are
like pages in the book of life. You must record upon them only the best
acts and memories.
"Would you a Sufi be, you must
Subdue your passions; banish lust
And anger; be of none afraid,
A hundred wounds take undismayed." [80]
In time, by dint of plain living, high thinking, and stifling generally
the impulses of his nature, Burton became a Master Sufi, and all his
life he sympathised with, and to some extent practised Sufism. Being
prevented by the weakness of his eyes from continuing his survey
work, he made a number of reports of the country and its people, which
eventually drifted into print. Then came the stirring news that another
campaign was imminent in Mooltan, his heart leaped with joy, and he
begged to be allowed to accompany the force as interpreter. As he had
passed examinations in six native languages and had studied others
nobody was better qualified for the post or seemed to be more likely to
get it.
17. Letter to Sarah Burton, 14th Nov. 1848.
It was while his fate thus hung in the balance that he wrote to his
cousin Sarah [81] daughter of Dr. Francis Burton, who had just lost her
mother. [82] His letter, which is headed Karachi, 14th November 1848,
runs as follows:--"My dear cousin, I lose no time in replying to your
note which conveyed to me the mournful tidings of our mutual loss. The
letter took me quite by surprise. I was aware of my poor aunt's health
having suffered, but never imagined that it was her last illness. You
may be certain that I join with you in lamenting the event. Your mother
had always been one of my best relations and kindest friends; indeed she
was the only one with whom I kept up a constant correspondence during
the last six years. I have every reason to regret her loss; and you,
of course, much more. Your kind letter contained much matter of a
consolatory nature; it was a melancholy satisfaction to hear that my
excellent aunt's death-bed was such a peaceful one--a fit conclusion to
so good and useful a life as hers was. You, too, must derive no small
happiness from the reflection that both you and your sister [83] have
always been dutiful daughters, and as such have contributed so much
towards your departed mother's felicity in this life. In my father's
last letter from Italy he alludes to the sad event, but wishes me not to
mention it to my mother, adding that he has fears for her mind if it be
abruptly alluded to.
"At the distance of some 1,500 [84] miles all we can do is resign
ourselves to calamities, and I confess to you that judging from the
number of losses that our family has sustained during the last six years
I fear that when able to return home I shall find no place capable of
bearing that name. I hope, however, dear cousin, that you or your
sister will occasionally send me a line, informing me of your plans and
movements, as I shall never leave to take the greatest interest in your
proceedings. You may be certain that I shall never neglect to answer
your letters and shall always look forward to them with the greatest
pleasure. Stisted [85] is not yet out: his regiment is at Belgaum [86],
but I shall do my best to see him as soon as possible. Edward [87] is
still in Ceylon and the war [88] has ceased there. I keep this letter
open for ten or twelve days longer, as that time will decide my fate.
A furious affair has broken out in Mooltan and the Punjaub and I have
applied to the General commanding to go up with him on his personal
staff. A few days more will decide the business--and I am not a little
anxious about it, for though still suffering a little from my old
complaint--ophthalmia--yet these opportunities are too far between to be
lost."
Unfortunately for Burton, his official respecting his investigations at
Karachi in 1845 was produced against him [89], and he was passed over
[90] in favour of a man who knew but one language besides English. His
theory that the most strenuous exertions lead to the most conspicuous
successes now thoroughly broke down, and the scarlet and gold of his
life, which had already become dulled, gave place to the "blackness of
darkness." It was in the midst of this gloom and dejection that he wrote
the postscript which he had promised to his cousin Sarah. The date
is 25th November, 1848. He says, "I am not going up to the siege of
Mooltan, as the General with whom I had expected to be sent is recalled.
Pray be kind enough to send on the enclosed to my father. I was afraid
to direct it to him in Italy as it contains papers of some importance.
You are welcome to the perusal, if you think it worth the trouble. I
have also put in a short note for Aunt Georgiana. Kindly give my
best love to your sister, and believe me, my dear cousin, your most
affectionate R. Burton."
Chagrin and anger, combined with his old trouble, ophthalmia, had by
this time sapped Burton's strength, a serious illness followed, and the
world lost all interest for him.
18. Allahdad.
He returned to Bombay a complete wreck, with shrunken, tottering frame,
sunken eyes, and a voice that had lost its sonority. "It is written,"
said his friends, "that your days are numbered, take our advice and go
home to die." They carried him to his ship, "The Elisa," and as there
seemed little hope of his reaching England, he at once wrote a farewell
letter to his mother. With him as servant, however, he had brought
away a morose but attentive and good-hearted native named Allahdad, and
thanks in part to Allahdad's good nursing, and in part to the bland and
health-giving breezes of the ocean, he gradually regained his former
health, strength, and vitality. At the time he regarded these seven
years spent in Sind as simply seven years wasted, and certainly his
rewards were incommensurate with his exertions. Still, it was in Sind
that the future became written on his forehead; in Sind that he began to
collect that mass of amazing material which made possible his edition of
The Arabian Nights.
Chapter V. 1849 to 3rd April, 1853, Chiefly Boulogne
Bibliography:
5. Goa and the Blue Mountains, 1851. 6. Scinde; or the Unhappy Valley,
2 vols., 1851. 7. Sindh, and the Races that Inhabit the Valley of
the Indus, 1851. 8. Falconry in the Valley of the Indus, 1852. 9.
Commencement with Dr. Steinhauser of The Arabian Nights, 1852. 10. A
complete System of Bayonet Exercise, 1853.
19. A Motto from Ariosto.
When "The Elisa" approached Plymouth, with its "turfy hills, wooded
parks and pretty seats," Allahdad opened his eyes in wonderment. "What
manner of men must you English be," he said, "to leave such a paradise
and travel to such a pandemonium as ours without compulsion?" On
arriving in London, Burton called on his Aunt Georgiana, [91] flirted
with his pretty cousins Sarah and Elisa, attended to business of various
kinds, and then, in company with Allahdad, set out for Italy to see his
father and mother, who were still wandering aimlessly about Europe, and
inhaling now the breath of vineyard and garden and now the odours of
the laboratory. He found them, his sister, and her two little daughters,
Georgiana and Maria (Minnie) at Pisa, and the meeting was a very
happy one. Burton's deep affection for his parents, his sister and his
brother, is forced upon our notice at every turn; and later he came to
regard his nieces just as tenderly. Quoting Coleridge, he used to say:
"To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love I love indeed." [92]
If Burton was thus drawn to those nearest of kin to him, so also his
warm heart welled with affection for his friends, and for those who
did him kindnesses. "If you value a man or his work," he said, "don't
conceal your feelings." The warmth of his affection for his friends
Drake, Arbuthnot, and others, will be noticed as this book proceeds. On
one occasion, after a spontaneous outburst of appreciation, he said
in palliation of his enthusiasm, "Pardon me, but this is an asthenic
age--and true-hearted men are rare." Presently we find him revisiting
some of his old haunts. In his youth he had explored Italy almost from
end to end; but the literary associations of the various towns were
their principal charm. To him, Verona stood for Catullus, Brindisi for
Virgil, Sorrento for Tasso, Florence for "the all Etruscan three," [93]
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, Reggio and Ferrara for Ariosto. It was
from Ariosto, perhaps through Camoens, who adopted it, that he took his
life motto, "Honour, not honours"--
"'Tis honour, lovely lady, that calls me to the field,
And not a painted eagle upon a painted shield." [94]
All the Burton servants obtained some knowledge of Italian, even
Allahdad being soon able to swear fluently in it, and his aptitude,
joined to a quarrelsome temper and an illogical prejudice against all
Italians, caused innumerable broils.
By and by the family returned to England and Miss Stisted thus describes
the progress: "One of the earliest pictures in my memory is of a
travelling carriage crossing snow-covered Alps. A carriage containing my
mother and uncle, sister and self, and English maid, and a romantic
but surly Asiatic named Allahdad. Richard Burton, handsome, tall and
broad-shouldered, was oftener outside the carriage than in it, as the
noise made by his two small nieces rendered pedestrian exercise, even
in the snow, an agreeable and almost necessary variety." Now and then he
gave them bits of snow to taste, which they hoped might be sugar. [95]
On reaching England he sent Allahdad back to Bombay.
Much of the year 1850 was spent at Leamington and Dover, and in 1851,
Burton, accompanied by his brother Edward, crossed to Boulogne, where he
prepared for publication his books, Goa, Scinde, Falconry in the
Valley of the Indus, and Bayonet Exercise. Love of a sort mingled
with literature, for he continued various flirtations, but without any
thought of marriage; for he was still only a lieutenant in the service
of John Company, and his prospects were not rosy. We said "love of a
sort," and advisedly, for we cannot bring ourselves to believe that
Burton was ever frenziedly in love with any woman. He was, to use his
own expression, no "hot amortist." Of his views on polygamy, to which
he had distinct leanings, we shall speak later. He said he required two,
and only two qualities in a woman, namely beauty and affection. It
was the Eastern idea. The Hindu Angelina might be vacuous, vain,
papilionaceous, silly, or even a mere doll, but if her hair hung down
"like the tail of a Tartary cow," [96] if her eyes were "like the stones
of unripe mangoes," and her nose resembled the beak of a parrot, the
Hindu Edwin was more than satisfied. Dr. Johnson's "unidead girl" would
have done as well as the blue-stocking Tawaddud. [97]
20. Isabel Arundell & "My Dear Louisa." 1851.
It was during Burton's stay at Boulogne that he saw the handsome girl
who ten years later became his wife--Isabel, daughter of Mr. Henry
Raymond Arundell. She was the eldest of a very large family. Just
twenty, fair, "with yards of golden hair," dark blue eyes and a queenly
manner, Isabel Arundell everywhere attracted attention. No portrait, it
was said, ever did justice to her virginal beauty. "When she was in any
company you could look at no one else," the charm of her manner exceeded
even the graces of her person, but her education was defective, and she
was amusingly superstitious. She could be heard saying at every turn:
"This is a good omen; that a bad one; oh, shocking! the spoons are
crossed;
By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes."
Though not themselves wealthy, the Arundells were of noble lineage, and
had rich and influential relations who prided themselves on being "old
English Catholics." Among Miss Arundell's ancestors was Henry, 6th Lord
Arundell of Wardour; her grandfather and the 9th Lord were brothers; and
her mother was sister to Lord Gerard.
Isabel Arundell and Burton could have conducted their first conversation
just as well had they been deaf and dumb. Strolling on the ramparts he
noticed a bevy of handsome girls, one of whom, owing to her exceptional
looks, particularly fired him, and having managed to attract her
attention, he chalked on a wall, "May I speak to you," and left the
piece of chalk at the end of the sentence. She took it up and wrote
under it, "No, mother will be angry."
She had, however, long pictured to herself an ideal husband, and on
seeing Burton, she exclaimed under her breath: "That is the man!" She
describes him as "five feet eleven inches in height, very broad, thin
and muscular, with very dark hair, black, clearly defined, sagacious
eyebrows, a brown, weather-beaten complexion, straight Arab features,
a determined-looking mouth and chin, nearly covered by an enormous
moustache; two large, black, flashing eyes, with long lashes," and a
"fierce, proud, melancholy expression." [98] In the words of one of his
friends, he had the eye of an angel, the jaw of a devil. Also staying
at Boulogne was a young lady for whom Burton entertained a sincere
affection, and whom he would probably have married but for the poorness
of his outlook. "My dear Louisa," [99] as he called her, was a relative
of Miss Arundell, and hearing what had occurred, she did Burton and Miss
Arundell the kindness of formally introducing them to each other, Miss
Arundell never tried to attract Burton's attention--we have her word
for that--but wherever he went she went too; and she never lost an
opportunity of accidentally crossing his path. She considered sacred
a sash which she wore when dancing with him, and she remembered him
specially in her prayers. Henceforward, one devouring desire occupied
her mind. She wished--and praiseworthily--to be Burton's wife. To him,
on the other hand, she was but an ephemeral fancy--one of the hundred
and fifty women--his fair cousins in England and the softer and darker
beauties of France and Italy--to whom he had said tender nothings.
Later, when Miss Arundell saw him flirting with another girl, a certain
"Louise" [100] (not to be confused with "my dear Louisa"), she bridled
up, coloured to her brow-locks, called "Louise" "fast" and Louise's
mother "vulgar." Naturally they would be. [101] With "myosotis eyes,"
peachy cheeks and auburn hair, rolling over ivory shoulders [102],
"Louise" was progressing admirably, when, unfortunately for her, there
came in view a fleshy, vinous matron of elephantine proportions, whom
she addressed as "mother." The sight of this caricature of the "Thing
Divine," to use Burton's expression, and the thought that to this the
"Thing Divine" would some day come, instantly quenched his fires, and
when the mother tried to bring him to a decision, by inquiring his
intentions regarding her daughter, he horrified her by replying:
"Strictly dishonourable, madam." "Englishmen," he reflected, "who are
restricted to one wife, cannot be too careful." Miss Arundell was
also jealous of "My dear Louisa," though unwarrantably, for that lady
presently became Mrs. Segrave; but she and Burton long preserved for
each other a reminiscitory attachment, and we shall get several more
glimpses of her as this book proceeds. [103]
Isabel Arundell was herself somewhat cheered by the prophecy of a gipsy
of her acquaintance--one Hagar Burton--who with couched eyes and solemn
voice not only prognosticated darkly her whole career, but persistently
declared that the romance would end in marriage; still, she fretted
a good deal, and at last, as persons in love sometimes do, became
seriously indisposed. Without loss of time her parents called in a
skilful physician, who, with his experienced eye, saw at once that it
was indigestion, and prescribed accordingly. Residing at Boulogne in
1851, was a French painter named Francois Jacquand, who had obtained
distinction by his pictures of monks, and "a large historical tableau
representing the death chamber of the Duc d'Orleans." In an oil painting
which he made of Burton and his sister, and which is here reproduced for
the first time, Burton appears as a pallid young military man, heavily
moustached, with large brown eyes [104]; and his worn and somewhat
melancholy face is a striking contrast to the bright and cheerful looks
of his comely sister. Our portraits of the Misses Stisted are also from
paintings by Jacquand. Burton's habit of concealing his ailments which
we noticed as a feature of his boyhood was as conspicuous in later life.
"On one occasion," says Miss Stisted, "when seized with inflammation of
the bladder, a fact he tried to keep to himself, he continued to joke
and laugh as much as usual, and went on with his reading and writing as
if little were the matter. At last the agony became too atrocious, and
he remarked in a fit of absence 'If I don't get better before night, I
shall be an angel.' Questions followed, consternation reigned around,
and the doctor was instantly summoned."
21. Forster FitzGerald Arbuthnot 1853.
When Burton first became acquainted with Forster FitzGerald Arbuthnot is
uncertain; but by 1853, they were on terms of intimacy. Burton was
then 32, Arbuthnot 20. Of this enormously important fact in Burton's
life--his friendship with Arbuthnot--no previous writer has said a
single word, except Lady Burton, and she dismisses the matter with a few
careless sentences, though admitting that Arbuthnot was her husband's
most intimate friend. Of the strength of the bond that united the two
men, and the admiration felt by Arbuthnot for Burton, she had little
idea. F. F. Arbuthnot, born in 1833, was second son of Sir Robert
Keith Arbuthnot and Anne, daughter of Field-Marshal Sir John Forster
FitzGerald, G.C.B. Educated at Haileybury, he entered in 1852 the
Bombay Civil Service, and rose subsequently to the important position of
"collector." A man of a quiet and amiable disposition, Arbuthnot
never said an unkind word either to or about anyone. The sweetness and
serenity of his manner were commented upon by all his friends; but like
so many of your quiet men, he had a determination--a steady heroism,
which made everything give way. Oppose Burton, and you would instantly
receive a blow aimed straight from the shoulder, oppose Arbuthnot
and you would be pushed quietly and amiably aside--but pushed aside
nevertheless. A great idea had early possessed him. He wanted to see as
much attention paid to the literatures of India, Persia and Arabia as to
those of ancient Greece and Rome. All the famous books of the East,
he said, should be translated into English--even the erotic, and he
insisted that if proper precautions were taken so that none but scholars
could obtain them, no possible harm could ensue. [105]
"England," he wrote long after (1887), "has greater interests in the
East than any other country in Europe, and ought to lead the way in
keeping the world informed on all subjects connected with Oriental
literature. Surely the time has not arrived for her to take a back seat
on that coach, and to let other nations do a work which she ought to do
herself." [106] The expression "on that coach," by the by, was eminently
characteristic of a man who plumed himself on being a Jehu of Jehus.
Hundreds of invaluable manuscripts written by poets and sages, he said,
require to be translated into English, and the need of the day is an
Oriental Translation Fund. A man of means, Arbuthnot was sometime later
to apply his money to the cause he had at heart; and year in, year out,
we shall find him and Burton striking at the self-same anvil. Though
there was a considerable difference in their ages, and though thousands
of miles often separated them, their minds were ever united, and they
went down the stream of life together like two brothers.
Chapter VI. 3rd April 1853 to 29th October 1854, Pilgrimage to Mecca
Bibliography:
11. The Kasidah (commenced). 12. El Islam (commenced).
22. The Man Wants to Wander.
Much of his time at Boulogne Burton devoted to fencing; and to his
instructor, M. Constantin, he paid glowing tributes. He thoroughly
mastered the art, defeated all antagonists, whether English or French,
earned his "brevet de pointe for the excellence of his swordsmanship,
and became a Maitre d' Armes." As horseman, swordsman, and marksman,
no soldier of his day surpassed him, and very few equalled him. But of
fencing, flirting and book-writing, he soon got heartily tired. Like
his putative ancestors, the gipsies, he could never be happy long in one
place. He says, "The thoroughbred wanderer's idiosyncrasy, I presume to
be a composition of what phrenologists call inhabitiveness and locality
equally and largely developed. After a long and toilsome march, weary
of the way, he drops into the nearest place of rest to become the most
domestic of men. For a while he smokes the pipe of permanence with an
infinite zest, he delights in various siestas during the day, relishing
withal a long sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour,
and wonders at the demoralisation of the mind which cannot find means
of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a newspaper. But
soon the passive fit has passed away; again a paroxysm on ennui coming
on by slow degrees, viator loses appetite, he walks bout his room
all night, he yawns at conversations, and a book acts upon his as a
narcotic. The man wants to wander, and he must do so, or he shall die."
[107]
23. Haji Wali, 1853.
As we have seen, Burton, even before he had left Sind, had burned to
visit Mecca. Four years had since elapsed, and his eyes still turned
towards "Allah's holy house." Having obtained another twelve months'
furlough, in order that he "might pursue his Arabic studies in lands
where the language is best learned," he formed the bold plan of crossing
Arabia from Mecca to the Persian Gulf. Ultimately, however, he decided,
in emulation of Burckhardt, the great traveler, to visit Medina
and Mecca in the disguise of a pilgrim, a feat that only the most
temerarious of men would have dared even to dream of. He made every
conceivable preparation, learning among other usefulnesses how to forge
horse shoes and to shoe a horse. To his parents and Lady Stisted and her
daughters, who were then residing at Bath, he paid several visits, but
when he last parted from them with his usual "Adieu, sans adieu," it
did not occur to them that he was about to leave for good; for he
could not--he never could--muster up sufficient courage to say a final
"Good-bye." Shortly after his departure his mother found a letter
addressed to her and in his handwriting. It contained, besides an
outline of his dangerous plans, the instruction that, in case he should
be killed, his "small stock of valuables" was to be divided between her
and his sister.
Once more Burton had the keen pleasure of putting on disguise. Richard
F. Burton ceased to be, and a muscular and powerful Mirza Abdullah, of
Bushire, took his place. "I have always wished to see," he explained to
a friend, "what others have been content to hear of." He wore long hair
and Oriental costume, and his face and limbs were stained with henna.
Accompanied by Captain Henry Grindlay of the Bengal Cavalry, he left
London for Southampton, 3rd April 1853, and thence took steamer for
Egypt, without ever a thought of Isabel Arundell's blue eye or Rapunzel
hair, and utterly unconscious of the sighs he had evoked. At Alexandria
he was the guest of Mr. John Thurburn and his son-in-law, Mr. John
Larking [108], at their residence "The Sycamores," but he slept in an
outhouse in order the better to delude the servants. He read the Koran
sedulously, howled his prayers with a local shaykh who imparted to
him the niceties of the faith, purified himself, made an ostentatious
display of piety, and gave out that he was a hakim or doctor preparing
to be a dervish. As he had some knowledge of medicine, this role was
an easy one, and his keen sense of humour made the experience enjoyable
enough. On the steamer that carried him to Cairo, he fraternized
with two of his fellow-passengers, a Hindu named Khudabakhsh and an
Alexandrian merchant named Haji Wali. Haji Wali, whose connection with
Burton lasted some thirty years [109], was a middle-aged man with a
large round head closely shaven, a bull neck, a thin red beard, handsome
features which beamed with benevolence, and a reputation for wiliness
and cupidity. Upon their arrival at Boulak, the port of Cairo.
Khudabakhsh, who lived there, invited Burton to stay with him.
Hindu-like, Khudabakhsh wanted his guest to sit, talk, smoke, and sip
sherbet all day. But this Burton could not endure. Nothing, as he
says, suits the English less than perpetual society, "an utter want of
solitude, when one cannot retire into one self an instant without being
asked some puerile questions by a companion, or look into a book without
a servant peering over one's shoulder." At last, losing all patience, he
left his host and went to a khan, where he once more met Haji Wali.
They smoked together the forbidden weed hashish, and grew confidential.
Following Haji Wali's advice, Burton, having changed his dress, now
posed as an Afghan doctor, and by giving his patients plenty for their
money and by prescribing rough measures which acted beneficially upon
their imaginations, he gained a coveted reputation. He always
commenced his prescriptions piously with: "In the name of Allah, the
compassionate, the merciful, and blessings and peace be upon our
Lord the Apostle"; and Haji Wali vaunted him as "the very phoenix of
physicians." According to his wont, he never lost an opportunity of
learning the ways and customs of the various people among whom he was
thrown, or of foisting himself on any company in which he thought he
could increase his knowledge. His whole life indeed was a preparation
for "The Arabian Nights." Thus at Cairo he had the good fortune to
cure some Abyssinian slave-girls of various complaints, including the
"price-lowering habit of snoring," and in return he made the slave
dealer take him about the town and unfold the mysteries of his craft. He
also visited the resting-place of his hero, Burckhardt; [110] indeed, in
whatever town he sojourned, he sought out the places associated with the
illustrious dead. It was now the Ramazan, and he observed it by fasting,
reading the Koran, and saying countless prayers with his face turned
devoutly to the Kiblah. [111] He heartily rejoiced, however, with
the multitude when the dreary month was over, and he describes [112]
amusingly the scenes on the first day following it: "Most people," he
says, "were in fresh suits of finery; and so strong is personal vanity
in the breast of Orientals... that from Cairo to Calcutta it would be
difficult to find a sad heart under a handsome coat. The men swaggered,
the women minced their steps, rolled their eyes, and were eternally
arranging, and coquetting with their head-veils." In the house of a
friend he saw an Armenian wedding. For servant he now took a cowardly
and thievish lad named Nur, and, subsequently, he made the acquaintance
of a Meccan youth, Mohammed, who was to become his companion throughout
the pilgrimage. Mohammed was 18, chocolate brown, short, obese,
hypocritical, cowardly, astute, selfish and affectionate. Burton
not only purchased the ordinary pilgrim garb, but he also took the
precaution to attach to his person "a star sapphire," the sight of which
inspired his companions with "an almost reverential awe," and even
led them to ascribe to him thaumaturgic power. [113] His further
preparations for the sacred pilgrimage reads rather like a page out of
Charles Lever, for the rollicking Irishman was as much in evidence as
the holy devotee. They culminated in a drinking bout with an Albanian
captain, whom he left, so to speak, under the table; and this having got
noised abroad, Burton, with his reputation for sanctity forfeited, found
it expedient to set off at once for Mecca. He sent the boy Nur on to
Suez with his baggage and followed him soon after on a camel through a
"haggard land infested with wild beasts and wilder men." At Suez he
made the acquaintance of some Medina and Mecca folk, who were to be
his fellow-travellers; including "Sa'ad the Demon," a negro who had two
boxes of handsome apparel for his three Medina wives and was resolved
to "travel free;" and Shaykh Hamid, a "lank Arab foul with sweat," who
never said his prayers because of the trouble of taking clean clothes
out of his box. "All these persons," says Burton, "lost no time in
opening the question of a loan. It was a lesson in Oriental metaphysics
to see their condition. They had a twelve days' voyage and a four days'
journey before them; boxes to carry, custom houses to face, and stomachs
to fill; yet the whole party could scarcely, I believe, muster two
dollars of ready money. Their boxes were full of valuables, arms,
clothes, pipes, slippers, sweetmeats, and other 'notions,' but nothing
short of starvation would have induced them to pledge the smallest
article." [114] Foreseeing the advantage of their company, Burton
sagaciously lent each of them a little money at high interest, not for
the sake of profit, but with a view to becoming a Hatim Tai, [115] by a
"never mind" on settling day. This piece of policy made "the Father
of Moustaches," as they called him, a person of importance among
them. During the delay before starting, he employed himself first in
doctoring, and then in flirting with a party of Egyptian women the most
seductive of whom was one Fattumah, [116] a plump lady of thirty "fond
of flattery and possessing, like all her people, a voluble tongue." The
refrain of every conversation was "Marry me, O Fattumah! O daughter!
O female pilgrim." To which the lady would reply coquettishly, "with a
toss of the head and a flirting manipulation of her head veil," "I
am mated, O young man." Sometimes he imitated her Egyptian accent and
deprecated her country women, causing her to get angry and bid him
begone. Then, instead of "marry me, O Fattumah," he would say, "O old
woman and decrepit, fit only to carry wood to market." This would bring
a torrent of angry words, but when they met again all was forgotten and
the flirtations of the day before were repeated.
24. The Pilgrim Ship, 6th July 1853.
Burton and his party now embarked on the sambuk which was to take them
to Yambu, the port of Medina. As ninety-seven pilgrims were crowded on
a vessel constructed to carry only sixty, most extraordinary scenes
occurred. Thanks to the exertions of Sa'ad the Demon, Burton and his
friends secured places on the poop, the most eligible part of the
vessel. They would not be very comfortable anywhere, Sa'ad explained,
but "Allah makes all things easy." Sa'ad himself, who was blessed with
a doggedness that always succeeds, managed to get his passage free by
declaring himself an able seaman. Disturbances soon commenced. The chief
offenders were some Maghrabis, "fine looking animals from the deserts
about Tripoli," the leader of whom, one Maula Ali, "a burly savage,"
struck Burton as ridiculously like his old Richmond schoolmaster, the
Rev. Charles Delafosse. These gentry tried to force their way on to the
poop, but Sa'ad distributed among his party a number of ash staves six
feet long, and thick as a man's wrist. "He shouted to us," says Burton,
"'Defend yourself if you don't wish to be the meat of the Maghrabis!'
and to the enemy 'Dogs and sons of dogs! now shall you see what the
children of the Arab are.' 'I am Omar of Daghistan!' 'I am Abdullah
the son of Joseph!' 'I am Sa'ad the Demon! [117]' we exclaimed." And,
Burton, with his turbulent blood well stirred, found himself in the
seventh heaven. "To do our enemies justice," he continues, "they showed
no sign of flinching; they swarmed towards the poop like angry hornets,
and encouraged each other with cries of 'Allaho Akbar!' But we had a
vantage ground about four feet above them, and their short daggers could
do nothing against our terrible quarter staves. Presently a thought
struck me. A large earthen jar full of drinking water, in its heavy
frame of wood stood upon the edge of the poop. Seeing an opportunity, I
crept up to the jar and rolled it down upon the swarm of assailants. Its
fall caused a shriller shriek to rise above the ordinary din, for heads,
limbs and bodies were sorely bruised by the weight, scratched by
the broken potsherds, and wetted by the sudden discharge. [118] The
Maghrabis then slunk off towards the end of the vessel, and presently
solicited peace."
The beauties of the sunrise baffled description. The vessel sailed over
a violet sea, and under a sky dappled with agate-coloured clouds.
At noon the heat was terrible and all colour melted away, "with the
canescence from above." The passengers were sympathetic with one
another, notwithstanding their recent factiousness, and were especially
kind to a poor little brown baby, which they handed round and nursed
by turns, but the heat, the filth, and the stench of the ship defied
description. At Mahar, one of the places where they landed, Burton
injured his foot with a poisonous thorn, which made him lame for the
rest of the pilgrimage. Presently the welcome profile of Radhwa came
in view, the mountain of which the unfortunate Antar [119] sang so
plaintively:
"Did Radhwa strive to support my woes,
Radhwa itself would be crushed by the weight,"
and on July 17th, after twelve days of purgatory, Burton sprang on shore
at Yambu.
25. Medina.
He now dressed himself as an Arab, that is to say, he covered his head
with a red kerchief bordered with yellow, his body with a cotton
shirt and a camel's hair cloak, while a red sash, a spear and a dagger
completed the outfit. Then, having hired some camels, he joined a
caravan, consisting of several hundred men and beasts, which was bound
for Medina; but his injured foot still incommoded him. Determined,
however, to allow nobody to exceed him in piety, he thrice a day or
oftener pounded the sand with his forehead like a true Mussulman.
While passing through one of the mountain gorges the pilgrims were
attacked by a number of predatory Bedouin, led by a ferocious chief
named Saad, who fired upon them from the rocks with deadly effect, but,
at last, after a journey of 130 miles, they reached Medina, with the
great sun-scorched Mount Ohod towering behind it--the holy city where,
according to repute, the coffin of Mohammed swung between heaven and
earth. [120] Medina consisted of three parts, a walled town, a large
suburb, with ruinous defences, and a fort. Minarets shot up above the
numerous flat roofs, and above all flashed the pride of the city, the
green dome that covered the tomb of Mohammed. Burton became the guest of
the dilatory and dirty Shaykh Hamid. The children of the household, he
says, ran about in a half nude state, but he never once set eyes upon
the face of woman, "unless the African slave girls be allowed the title.
Even these at first attempted to draw their ragged veils over their
sable charms." Having dressed themselves in white, Burton and Hamid
sallied out for the Prophet's Tomb, Burton riding on a donkey because of
his lameness. He found the approach to the Mosque choked up by ignoble
buildings, and declares that as a whole it had neither beauty nor
dignity. Upon entering, he was also disillusioned, for its interior
was both mean and tawdry. After various prayers they visited first
the "Hujrah," where they saw the tombs of Mohammed, Abu Bakr, Omar
and Fatimah; and afterwards El Rauzah, the Garden situated between the
Hujrah and the Prophet's Pulpit, both very celebrated spots. Of the
latter, Mohammed said: "Between my house and my pulpit is a garden of
the gardens of paradise." [121] After more prayers they wandered round
to the other sights, including the fine Gate of Salvation, the five
minarets, and the three celebrated pillars, called respectively,
Al-Mukhallak, the Pillar of Ayishah, and the Pillar of Repentance. They
then made their way to the Mosque of Kuba, some two miles out of the
town, and witnessed the entry into Medina of the great caravan from
Damascus, numbering 7,000 souls--grandees in gorgeous litters of green
and gold, huge white Syrian dromedaries, richly caparisoned horses and
mules, devout Hajis, sherbet sellers, water carriers, and a multitude of
camels, sheep and goats. [122] Lastly Burton and his friends pilgrimaged
to the holy Mount Ohod with its graves of "the martyrs;" and to the
celebrated Al-Bakia, or Saints' Cemetery, where lie ten thousand of the
Prophet's companions. On entering the latter they repeated the usual
salutation: "Peace be upon ye, O People of Al-Bakia," and then sought
out the principal tombs--namely those of the Caliph Othman, [123] "Our
Lady Halimah," [124] the Infant Ibrahim, [125] and about fourteen of
Mohammed's wives. [126] The cemetery swarmed with clamorous beggars, who
squatted with dirty cotton napkins spread on the ground before them for
the reception of coins. Some of the women promised to recite Fatihahs
for the donors, and the most audacious seized the visitors by their
skirts. Burton laid out three dollars in this way, but though the
recipients promised loudly to supplicate Allah in behalf of his lame
foot, it did not perceptibly benefit. Burton's companions hinted that he
might do worse than settle in Medina. "Why not," said one, "open a shop
somewhere near the Prophet's Mosque? There thou wilt eat bread by thy
skill, and thy soul will have the blessing of being on holy ground."
Burton, however, wanted to be going forward.
26. Mecca.
On 31st August, after praying "a two-bow prayer," he bade adieu to
Shaykh Hamid, and with Nur and the boy Mohammed, joined the caravan
bound for Mecca, the route taken being the celebrated road through the
arid Nejd made by Zubaydah, wife of Harun al Rashid. The events of the
journey were not remarkable, though Mohammed very nearly killed himself
by feeding too liberally on clarified butter and dates mashed with
flour. Sometimes Burton cheered the way and delighted his companions by
singing the song of Maysunah, the Arab girl who longed to get back from
the Caliph's palace to the black tents of her tribe. Everybody got into
good humour when he began:
"Oh take these purple robes away,
Give back my cloak of camel's hair,"
and they laughed till they fell on their backs when he came to the
line where the desert beauty calls her Royal husband a "fatted ass." In
truth, they needed something to cheer them, for the sky was burnished
brass, and their goats died like flies. Simoon and sand-pillar threw
down the camels, and loathsome vultures ready for either beast or man
hovered above or squabbled around them. To crown their discomforts they
were again attached by the Bedouin, whom they dispersed only after a
stubborn fight and with the loss of several dromedaries. After passing
the classic Wady Laymun, sung by the Arab poet Labid [127] in lines
suggestive of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, they very piously shaved
their heads and donned the conventional attire, namely two new cotton
cloths with narrow red stripes and fringes; and when the Holy City came
in view, the whole caravan raised the cry, "Mecca! Mecca! the Sanctuary!
O the Sanctuary! Labbayk! Labbayk!" [128] the voices being not
infrequently broken by sobs.
On entering the gates, Burton and Nur crossed the famous hill Safa and
took up their abode with the lad Mohammed. Early next morning they rose,
bathed, and made their way with the crowd to the Prophet's Mosque in
order to worship at the huge bier-like erection called the Kaaba, and
the adjacent semi-circular Hatim's wall. The famous Kaaba, which is
in the middle of the great court-yard, looked at a distance like an
enormous cube, covered with a black curtain, but its plan is really
trapeziform. "There at last it lay," cries Burton, "the bourn of my long
and weary pilgrimage, realising the plans and hopes of many and many
a year,"--the Kaaba, the place of answered prayer, above which in the
heaven of heavens Allah himself sits and draws his pen through people's
sins. "The mirage of fancy invested the huge catafalque and its gloomy
pall with peculiar charms." Of all the worshippers who clung weeping
to the curtain, [129] or who pressed their beating hearts to the sacred
black stone built into the Kaaba, none, thought Burton, felt for the
moment a deeper emotion than he. But he had to confess the humbling
truth that while theirs was the high feeling of religious enthusiasm,
his was but the ecstasy of gratified pride. Bare-headed and footed and
in company with Mohammed, he first proceeded to the holy well, Zem-Zem,
said to be the same that was shown by God to Hagar. [130] They found the
water extremely unpleasant to the taste, and Burton noticed that nobody
drank it without making a wry face. It was impossible at first to get
near the Black Stone owing to the crush of pilgrims. However, they
occupied the time in various prayers, blessed the Prophet, and kissed
the finger tips of the right hand. They then made the seven Ashwat or
circuits, and from time to time raised their hands to their ears, and
exclaimed, "In the name of Allah and Allah is omnipotent!" The circuits
finished, and it was deemed advisable to kiss the Black Stone. For some
minutes Burton stood looking in despair at the swarming crowd of Bedouin
and other pilgrims that besieged it. But Mohammed was equal to the
occasion. Noticing that most of those near the Stone were Persians,
against whom the Arabs have an antipathy, he interpolated his prayers
with insults directed against them--one of the mildest being "O hog
and brother of a hoggess." This having small effect he collected
half-a-dozen stalwart Meccans, "with whose assistance," says Burton, "by
sheer strength, we wedged our way into the thin and light-legged crowd.
...After reaching the stone, despite popular indignation testified by
impatient shouts, we monopolised the use of it for at least ten minutes.
While kissing it and rubbing hands and forehead upon it, I narrowly
observed it, and came away persuaded that it was an aerolite." Burton
and his friends next shouldered and fought their way to the part of the
Kaaba called Al Multazem, at which they asked for themselves all that
their souls most desired. Arrived again at the well Zem-Zem, Burton had
to take another nauseous draught and was deluged with two skinfuls of
the water dashed over his head. This causes sins to fall from the spirit
like dust. He also said the customary prayers at the Makam Ibrahim or
Praying Place of Abraham [131] and other shrines. At last, thoroughly
worn out, with scorched feet and a burning head, he worked his way out
of the Mosque, but he was supremely happy for he had now seen:
"Safa, Zem-Zem, Hatim's wall,
And holy Kaaba's night-black pall." [132]
The next day he journeyed to the sacred Mount of Arafat, familiar to
readers of The Arabian Nights from the touching story of Abu Hasan and
Abu Ja'afar the Leper and [133] he estimated that he was but one of
50,000 pilgrims. The mountain was alive with people, and the huge camp
at its foot had booths, huts and bazaars stocked with all manner of
Eastern delicacies, and crowded with purchasers. Instead, however, of
listening to the sermons, Burton got flirting with a Meccan girl with
citrine skin and liquescent eyes.
On the third day, mounted on an ass, he made for Muna and took part in
the ceremony called Stoning the Devil. He was, however, but one of a
multitude, and, in order to get to the stoned pillar a good deal
of shouldering and fighting was necessary. Both Burton and the boy
Mohammed, however, gained their end, and like the rest of the people,
vigorously pelted the devil, saying as they did so, "In the name of
Allah--Allah is Almighty." To get out of the crowd was as difficult
as it had been to get in. Mohammed received a blow in the face which
brought the blood from his nose, and Burton was knocked down; but by
"the judicious use of the knife" he gradually worked his way into the
open again, and piously went once more to have his head shaved and
his nails cut, repeating prayers incessantly. Soon after his return to
Mecca, Mohammed ran up to him in intense excitement. "Rise, Effendi,"
he cried, "dress and follow me; the Kaaba is open." The pair then made
their way thither with alacrity, and, replies to the officials in charge
being satisfactory, Mohammed was authoritatively ordered to conduct
Burton round the building. They entered. It was a perilous moment; and
when Burton looked at the windowless walls and at the officials at the
door, and thought of the serried mass of excited fanatics outside, he
felt like a trapped rat. However safe a Christian might have been at
Mecca, nothing could have preserved him from the ready knives of the
faithful if detected in the Kaaba. The very idea was pollution to a
Moslem. "Nothing," says Burton, "is more simple than the interior of
this sacred building. The pavement is composed of slabs of fine and
various coloured marbles. The upper part of the walls, together with the
ceiling, are covered with handsome red damask, flowered over with gold.
The flat roof is upheld by three cross beams, supported in the centre
by three columns. Between the columns ran bars of metal supporting many
lamps said to be of gold." The total expense was eight dollars, and when
they got away, the boy Mohammed said, "Wallah, Effendi! thou has escaped
well! some men have left their skins behind."
The fifty-five other wonders of the city having been visited, Burton
sent on Nur with his heavy boxed to Jeddah, the port of Mecca, and he
himself followed soon after with Mohammed. At Jeddah he saw its one
sight, the tomb of Eve, and then bade adieu to Mohammed, who returned to
Mecca. Having boarded the "Dwarka," an English ship, he descended to his
cabin and after a while emerged with all his colouring washed off and in
the dress of an English gentleman. Mirza Abdullah of Bushire, "Father
of Moustaches," was once more Richard Francis Burton. This extraordinary
exploit made Burton's name a household word throughout the world, and
turned it into a synonym for daring; while his book, the Pigrimage
to Al-Madinah and Meccah, which appeared the following year, was read
everywhere with wonder and delight. Had he been worldly-wise he would
have proceeded straight to England, where, the lion of the hour, he
might have obtained a reward more substantial than mere praise. But he
did not show himself until the commotion caused by his exploit had been
half-forgotten, and we shall find him making a similar mistake some
years later, after his return from Tanganyika. [134]
It seems that Burton was known in the army as "Ruffian Dick"--not by way
of disparagement, but because of this demonic ferocity as a fighter, and
because he had "fought in single combat more enemies than perhaps any
other man of his time." One evening soon after his return from Mecca,
a party of officers, including a friend of Burton's named Hawkins, were
lounging outside Shepherd's Hotel at Cairo. As they sat talking and
smoking, there passed repeatedly in front of them, an Arab, in his loose
flowing robes, with head proudly erect, and the peculiar swinging stride
of those sons of the desert. As he strode backwards and forwards he drew
nearer and nearer to the little knot of officers, till at last, as he
swept by, the flying folds of his burnous brushed against one of the
officers. "D---- that nigger's impudence!" said the officer; "if he does
that again, I'll kick him." To his surprise the dignified Arab suddenly
halted, wheeled round, and exclaimed, "Well, d---- it, Hawkins, that's
a fine way to welcome a fellow after two year's absence." "It's Ruffian
Dick!" cried the astonished officer. [135]
Perhaps to this period must be assigned the bastinado incident. Burton
used to tell the tale [136] as follows: "Once, in Egypt, another man
and I were out duck shooting, and we got separated. When I next came in
sight of the other man some Turkish soldiers had tied him up and were
preparing to administer the bastinado. As I hurried to his assistance he
said something to the Turks which I could not catch, and pointed to me.
Instantly they untied him and pouncing upon me, tried to put me in his
place, while my companion took to his heels. As they were six to one,
they succeeded, and I had the very unpleasant experience of being
bastinadoed. The first dozen or two strokes I didn't mind much, but at
about the ninetieth the pain was too excruciating for description. When
they had finished with me I naturally enquired what it was all for. It
seems that my companion when firing at a duck had accidentally shot an
Egyptian woman, the wife of one of the soldiers. Upon my appearance he
had called out in Turkish to the soldiers: 'It was not I who fired the
shot, it was that other fellow,' pointing to me. The blackguard has
taken good care to keep out of my way ever since."
27. Burton's Delight in Shocking.
The story of Burton's adventures having spread abroad, people now took
the trouble to invent many incidents that were untrue. They circulated,
for example, a grisly tale of a murder which he was understood to have
committed on a man who had penetrated his disguise, [137] and, the
tale continuing to roll, the murder became eventually two murders.
Unfortunately, Burton was cursed with a very foolish habit, and one that
later did him considerable harm. Like Lord Byron, he delighted to shock.
His sister had often reproved him for it after his return from India,
but without effecting a change. Kindly listeners hardly knew how to take
him, while the malicious made mischief. One day, in England, when, in
the presence of his sister and a lady friend, he had thought fit to
enlarge on a number of purely fictitious misdeeds, he was put to some
shame. His sister having in vain tried by signs to stop him, the friend
at last cut him short with: "Am I to admire you, Mr. Burton?" And he
accepted the reproof. Still, he never broke himself of this dangerous
habit; indeed, when the murder report spread abroad he seems to have
been rather gratified than not; and he certainly took no trouble to
refute the calumny.
On another occasion he boasted of his supposed descent from Louis XIV.
"I should have thought," exclaimed a listener, "that you who have such
good Irish blood in your veins would be glad to forget your descent from
a dishonourable union."
"Oh, no," replied Burton vehemently, "I would rather be the bastard of a
king than the son of an honest man."
Though this was at the time simply intended to shock, nevertheless
it illustrated in a sense his real views. He used to insist that the
offspring of illicit or unholy unions were in no way to be pitied if
they inherited, as if often the case, the culture or splendid physique
of the father and the comeliness of the mother; and instanced King
Solomon, Falconbridge, in whose "large composition," could be read
tokens of King Richard, [138] and the list of notables from Homer to
"Pedro's son," as catalogued by Camoens [139] who said:
"The meed of valour Bastards aye have claimed
By arts or arms, or haply both conjoined."
The real persons to be pitied, he said, were the mentally or physically
weak, whatever their parentage.
28. El Islam.
Burton now commenced to write a work to be called El Islam, or the
History of Mohammedanism; which, however, he never finished. It opens
with an account of the rise of Christianity, his attitude to which
resembled that of Renan. [140] Of Christ he says: "He had given an
impetus to the progress of mankind by systematizing a religion of the
highest moral loveliness, showing what an imperfect race can and may
become." He then dilates on St. Paul, who with a daring hand "rent
asunder the ties connecting Christianity with Judaism." "He offered to
the great family of man a Church with a Diety at its head and a religion
peculiarly of principles. He left the moral code of Christianity
untouched in its loveliness. After the death of St. Paul," continues
Burton, "Christianity sank into a species of idolatry. The acme of
stupidity was attained by the Stylites, who conceived that mankind had
no nobler end than to live and die upon the capital of a column. When
things were at their worst Mohammed first appeared upon the stage of
life." The work was published in its unfinished state after Burton's
death.
With The Kasidah we shall deal in a later chapter, for though Burton
wrote a few couplets at this time, the poem did not take its present
shape till after the appearance of FitzGerald's adaptation of The
Rubaiyat Oman Khayyam.
Having spent a few weeks in Egypt, Burton returned to Bombay, travelling
in his Arab dress. Among those on board was an English gentleman, Mr.
James Grant Lumsden, senior member of the Council, Bombay, who being
struck by Burton's appearance, said to a friend, "What a clever,
intellectual face that Arab has!" Burton, overhearing the remark,
made some humorous comment in English, and thus commenced a pleasant
friendship.
Chapter VII. 29th October 1854--9th February, 1855 To Harar
Bibliography: 13. Pilgrimage to Al-Madimah and Meccah. 3 vols.
1855-1856.
29. At Aden. The Arabian Nights. Oct. 1854.
It was while staying at Bombay as Mr. Lumsden's guest that Burton,
already cloyed with civilization, conceived the idea of journeying, via
Zeila in Somaliland, to the forbidden and therefore almost unknown
city of Harar, and thence to Zanzibar. His application to the
Bombay Government for permission and assistance having been received
favourably, he at once set out for Aden, where he stayed with his "old
and dear friend," Dr. John Steinhauser, who had been appointed civil
surgeon there. Steinhauser, a stolid man, whose face might have been
carved out of wood, was, like Burton, an enthusiastic student of The
Arabian Nights, and their conversation naturally drifted into this
subject. Both came to the conclusion that while the name of this
wondrous repertory of Moslem folk-lore was familiar to almost every
English child, no general reader could form any idea of its treasures.
Moreover, that the door would not open to any but Arabists. But even at
the present day, and notwithstanding the editions of Payne and Burton,
there are still persons who imagine that The Arabian Nights is simply a
book for the nursery. Familiar only with some inferior rendering, they
are absolutely ignorant of the wealth of wisdom, humour, pathos and
poetry to be found in its pages. [141] Writing in 1856, Burton says:
"The most familiar book in England, next to the Bible, it is one of the
least known, the reason being that about one-fifth is utterly unfit for
translation, and the most sanguine Orientalist would not dare to render
more than three-quarters of the remainder, [142] consequently the reader
loses the contrast--the very essence of the book--between its brilliancy
and dulness, its moral putrefaction and such pearls as:
'Cast the seed of good works on the least fit soil;
Good is never wasted, however it may be laid out.'
And in a page or two after such divine sentiment, the ladies of Baghdad
sit in the porter's lay, and indulge in a facetiousness which would have
killed Pietro Aretino before his time." [143] When the work entitled
A Thousand Nights and a Night was commenced, no man knows. There were
Eastern collections with that title four centuries ago, laboured by the
bronzed fingers of Arab scribes; but the framework and some of the tales
must have existed prior even to the Moslem conquest. It has been noticed
that there are resemblances between the story of Shahryar and that of
Ahasuerus as recorded in Esther. In both narratives the King is offended
with his Queen and chooses a new wife daily. Shahryar has recourse to
the scimitar, Ahasuerus consigns wife after wife to the seclusion of his
harem. Shahryar finds a model consort in Shahrazad, Ahasuerus in Esther.
Each queen saves a multitude from death, each king lies awake half
the night listening to stories. [144] While many of the stories in
The Arabian Nights are ancient, some, as internal evidence proves, are
comparatively recent. Thus those of Kamar-al-Zaman II. and Ma'aruf the
Cobbler belong to the 16th century; and no manuscript appears to be
older than 1548. The most important editions are the Calcutta, the
Boulac [145] and the Breslau, all of which differ both in text and the
order of the stories. The Nights were first introduced into Europe by
Antoine Galland, whose French translation appeared between 1704 and
1717. Of the Nights proper, Galland presented the public with about a
quarter, and he added ten tales [146] from other Eastern manuscripts.
An anonymous English edition appeared within a few years. The edition
published in 1811 by Jonathan Scott is Galland with omissions and
additions, the new tales being from the Wortley Montague MS. now in the
Bodleian. In 1838, Henry Torrens began a translation direct from the
Arabic, of which, however, he completed only one volume, and in 1838-40
appeared the translation direct from the Arabic, of which, however, he
completed only one volume, and in 1838-40 appeared the translation of
Edward William Lane, [147] made direct from the Boulac edition. This
work, which contains about one third of the entire Arabian Nights, was
a great step forward, but unfortunately, Lane, who afterwards became an
excellent Arabic scholar, was but a poor writer, and having no gift
of verse, he rendered the poetical portions, that is to say, some ten
thousand lines "in the baldest and most prosaic of English." [148]
So Burton and Steinhauser said to themselves, As the public have
never had more than one-third of the Nights, and that translated
indifferently, we will see what we can do. "We agreed," says Burton, "to
collaborate and produce a full, complete, unvarnished, uncastrated, copy
of the great original, my friend taking the prose and I the metrical
part; and we corresponded upon the subject for years." [149] They told
each other that, having completed their task, they would look out for a
retreat as a preparation for senility, some country cottage, perhaps,
in the South of France, where, remote from books, papers, pens, ink
and telegrams, they could spend their nights in bed and their days in
hammocks. Beyond planning the translation, however, nothing was done.
Steinhauser died fourteen years later (1866), and whatever notes he made
were dispersed, while Burton, even as late as 1883, had done nothing
beyond making a syllabus of the Boulac edition. [150] Still, the
scheme was never for very long absent from his thoughts, and during his
wanderings in Somaliland, the Tanganyika country and elsewhere, he often
delighted the natives by reciting or reading some of the tales. The
history of Burton's translation of The Arabian Nights is, as we shall
subsequently show, curiously analogous to that of The Kasidah.
30. From Zeila to Harar, 27th November 1854 to 2nd January 1855.
Burton now found that, as regards the projected expedition, his plans
would have to be modified, and he finally decided to confine his
explorations to "the great parched horn" of Somaliland. His plan was now
to visit Harar via Zeila, and then make for Berbera, in order to join
Lieutenant Speke, Herne and Stroyan, who had been authorised to assist
him and had arranged to await him there. The presence at Berbera of
Speke and his companions, would, it was supposed, "produce a friendly
feeling on the part of Somali," and facilitate Burton's egress from
Harar, should he ever, as was by no means certain, enter alive that
dangerous and avoided city. Sir James Outram, then Political Resident at
Aden, called the expedition a tempting of Providence, and tried hard to
stop it, but in vain. Burton left Aden for Zeila on October 29th,
taking with him a managing man called "The Hammal," a long, lean Aden
policeman, nicknamed "Long Gulad" and a suave but rascally Moslem priest
dubbed "The End of Time." [151] They landed on October 31st, and found
Zeila a town of white-washed houses and minaretted mosques, surrounded
by a low brown wall with round towers. Burton, who called himself
a Moslem merchant, spent three weeks buying camels and mules and
interviewing guides, while he kept up his reputation for piety with the
customary devotions. According to his wont, he carefully studied the
customs of the people. "One of the peculiar charms," he says, of the
Somali girls, is "a soft, low and plaintive voice," and he notices
that "in muscular strength and endurance the women of the Somal are far
superior to their lords." The country teems with poets, who praise the
persons of the belles very much in the style of Canticles, declaring
prettily, for example, that their legs are as straight as the "Libi
Tree," and that their hips swell out "like boiled rice." The marriage
ceremonies, he tells us, are conducted with feasting, music and
flogging. On first entering the nuptial hut the bridegroom draws forth
his horsewhip and inflicts chastisement upon his bride, with the view
of taming any lurking propensity to shrewishness. As it is no uncommon
event to take four wives at once, this horsewhipping is naturally
rather exhausting for the husband. Burton considered polygamy to be
indispensable in countries like Somaliland, "where children are the
principal wealth;" but he saw less necessity for it "among highly
civilised races where the sexes are nearly equal, and where reproduction
becomes a minor duty." However, he would have been glad to see polygamy
allowed even in England, "if only to get rid of all the old maids,"
a class that he regarded with unbounded pity. He longed "to see these
poor, cankered, angular ladies transformed into cheerful, amiable wives
with something really to live for." "Man," it was a favourite saying
with him, "is by nature polygamic, whereas woman, as a rule, is
monogamic, and polyandrous only when tired of her lover. The man loves
the woman, but the love of the woman is for the love of the man."
He also agreed with the 18th century Rev. Martin Madan, author of
Thelyphthora, a treatise on female ruin, who insisted that polygamy
would go far to remove one of the great reproaches of the streets
of London and other large cities. "Except in books," says Burton,
"seduction in Mohammedan countries is almost unknown, adultery
difficult." That polygamy, however, is no panacea, the following remarks
will show. "Both sexes," he says, speaking of the Somali, "are temperate
from necessity." Drunkenness is unknown. Still, the place is not Arcady.
"After much wandering," he continues, "we are almost tempted to believe
that morality is a matter of geography; [152] that nations and races
have, like individuals, a pet vice; and that by restraining one,
you only exasperate another. As a general rule Somali women prefer
flirtations with strangers, following the well-known Arabian proverb,
'The new comer filleth the eye.'" Burton was thoroughly at home in Zeila
"with the melodious chant of the muezzin" and the loudly intoned "Amin"
and "Allaho Akbar" daily ringing in his ear. He often went into the
Mosque, and with a sword and a rosary before him, read the "cow chapter"
[153] in a loud twanging voice. Indeed, he had played the role of devout
Mohammedan so long, that he had almost become one. The people of Zeila
tried to persuade him to abandon his project. "If," said they, "you
escape the desert hordes it will only be to fall by the hands of
the truculent Amir of Harar." Nothing, however, could dash Burton's
confidence in his star, and like Dante, he applied to Fear no epithets
but "vile" and "base."
One Raghi, a petty Eesa chief, having been procured as protector of the
party, and other arrangements having been made, Burton on November 27th
(1854) set out for his destination by a circuitous route. Raghi rode
in front. Next, leading camels, walked two enormously fat Somali women;
while by the side of the camels rode Burton's three attendants, the
Hammal, Long Gulad, and "The End of Time," "their frizzled wigs radiant
with grease," and their robes splendidly white with borders dazzlingly
red. Burton brought up the rear on a fine white mule with a gold fringed
Arab pad and wrapper-cloth, a double-barrelled gun across his lap, and
in this manner the little caravan pursued its sinuous course over the
desert. At halting places he told his company tales from The Arabian
Nights; they laughed immoderately at the adventures of the little
Hunchback; tears filled their eyes as they listened to the sad fate
of Azizah; [154] and the two fat Somali women were promptly dubbed
Shahrazad and Dunyazad. Dunyazad had been as far as Aden and was
coquettish. Her little black eyes never met Burton's, and frequently
with affected confusion she turned her sable cheek the clean contrary
way. Attendant on the women was a Zeila lad, who, being one-eyed, was
pitilessly called "The Kalandar." At their first halting place, Burton
astonished the natives by shooting a vulture on the wing. "Lo!" cried
the women, "he bringeth down the birds from heaven." On their way
through an ochreish Goban, or maritime plain, they passed huge hills
made by white ants, Gallas graves planted with aloe, [155] and saw
in the distance troops of gazelles. They were now in the Isa country,
"Traitorous as an Isa" being a Zeila proverb. Though the people were
robbers and murderers, Burton, by tact, got on excellently with them,
and they good-naturedly offered him wives. At every settlement the whole
population flocked to see him, the female portion loudly expressing
their admiration for him. "Come girls," they cried one to another, "come
and look at this white stranger." According to Raghi, the fair face of a
French lady who had recently landed at Berbera, "made every man hate his
wife, and every wife hate herself." Once they were attacked by Bedouin,
who, however, on hearing the report of Burton's revolver, declared that
they were only in fun. Others who tried to stop them were shown the star
sapphire, and threatened with "sorcery, death, wild beasts," and other
unpleasantnesses. At a place called Aububah, Raghi relinquished the
charge of the caravan to some men of the Gudabirsi tribe, who led
the way to the village of Wilensi, where they were the guests of the
household of a powerful chief called Jirad Adan. Here Burton left
Shahrazad, Dunyazad and the Kalandar, and proceeded to Sagharrah, where
he met and formed a friendship with Jirad Adan. For several days he was
prostrated by fever, and some Harar men who looked in tried to obtain
him as a prisoner. The Jirad acted honourably, but he declined to escort
Burton to Harar. "No one," he said, "is safe in the Amir's clutches, and
I would as soon walk into a crocodile's mouth as set foot in the city."
"Nothing then remained," says Burton, "but payer d'audace, [156] and,
throwing all forethought to the dogs, to rely upon what has made many
a small man great, the good star. I addressed my companions in a set
speech, advising a mount without delay." [157] The End of Time, having
shown the white feather, was left behind, but the rest courageously
consented to accompany their leader. "At 10 a.m. on the 2nd January,"
says Burton, "all the villagers assembled, and recited the Fatihah,
consoling us with the information that we were dead men." The little
company, carrying their lives in their hands, then set forward, and
presently came in sight of Harar, "a dark speck upon a tawny sheet of
stubble." Arrived at the gate of the town, they accosted the warder,
sent their salaams to the Amir, and requested the honour of audience.
31. At Harar.
They were conducted to the palace, a long, single-storied, windowless
barn of rough stone and reddish clay. Says Burton: "I walked into a vast
hall between two long rows of Galla spearmen, between whose lines I had
to pass. They were large, half-naked savages, standing like statues with
fierce, movable eyes, each one holding, with its butt end on the ground,
a huge spear, with a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered
down them coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their
dangerous-looking faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt,
and determined, at the first show of excitement, to run up to the Amir,
and put it to his head, if it were necessary, to save my own life." The
Amir was an etiolated young man of twenty-four or twenty-five, plain and
thin-bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows and protruding
eyes. He wore a flowing robe of crimson cloth, edged with snowy fur, and
a narrow white turban tightly twisted round a tall, conical cap of red
velvet. On being asked his errand, Burton replied politely in Arabic
that he had come from Aden in order to bear the compliments of the
governor, and to see the light of his highness's countenance. On the
whole, the Amir was gracious, but for some days Burton and his party
were in jeopardy, and when he reflected that he was under the roof of a
bigoted and sanguinary prince, whose filthy dungeons resounded with
the moans of heavily ironed, half-starved prisoners; among a people
who detested foreigners; he, the only European who had ever passed over
their inhospitable threshold, naturally felt uncomfortable. The Amir,
it seems, had four principal wives, and an army of 200 men armed chiefly
with daggers. Burton describes the streets of Harar as dirty narrow
lanes heaped with garbage, and the houses as situated at the bottom of
courtyards, closed by gates of holcus stalks. The town was proud of its
learning and sanctity, and venerated the memory of several very holy and
verminous saints. Neither sex possessed personal attractions, and the
head-dresses of the women seen from behind resembled a pawnbroker's
sign, except that they were blue instead of gilt. The people lived
chiefly on holcus, and a narcotic called "jat," made by pounding the
tender twigs of a tree of the same name. "It produced in them," says
Burton, "a manner of dreamy enjoyment, which exaggerated by time and
distance, may have given rise to that splendid myth the Lotos and the
Lotophagi. [158] Their chief commodity was coffee, their favourite drink
an aphrodisiac made of honey dissolved in hot water, and strained and
fermented with the bark of a tree called kudidah." Although unmolested,
Burton had no wish to remain long at Harar, and when on 13th January
he and his party took their departure it was with a distinct feeling of
relief.
32. From Harar to Berbera. 13th Jan. 1855-5th Feb. 1855.
At Sagharrah they found again the pusillanimous "End of Time," and
at Wilensi they were rejoined by Shahrazad, Dunyazad and the one-eyed
Kalandar. Persons who met Burton and his friends enquired Irish-like
if they were the party who had been put to death by the Amir of Harar.
Everyone, indeed, was amazed to see them not only alive, but uninjured,
and the Frank's temerity became the talk of the desert. Burton now put
the two women, the Kalandar, the camels, and the baggage, under the care
of a guide, and sent them to Zeila, while he himself and the men made
straight for Berbera. The journey, which led them past Moga's tooth
[159] and Gogaysa, was a terrible one, for the party suffered tortures
from thirst, and at one time it seemed as though all must perish. By
good fortune, however, they ultimately came upon some pools. Any fear
that might have haunted them, lest the water should be poisonous, was
soon dispelled, for it contained a vast number of tadpoles and insects,
and was therefore considered quite harmless and suitable for drinking.
For many hours they again plodded on beneath a brazen sky. Again thirst
assailed them; and, like Ishmael in the desert of Zin, they were ready
to cast themselves down and die. This time they were saved by a bird, a
katta or sand grouse, which they saw making for some hills; and having
followed it, they found, as they had anticipated, a spring of water, at
which they frenziedly slaked their thirst. Many other difficulties and
troubles confronted them in their subsequent march, but at last they
heard (delightful sound!) the murmur of the distant sea. Every man was
worn out, with the exception of the Hammal, who, to Burton's delight,
not only talked, but sang and shouted. Finally they reached Berbera,
where they found Speke, Herne and Stroyan, and on 5th February, Burton
in company with the Hammal, Long Gulad, and The End of Time, set sail
for Aden, calling on their way at Siyaro and Anterad, east of Berbera.
The first news Burton had on arriving there was of the death of his
mother, which had occurred 18th December 1854, at the time he lay ill
at Sagharrah. Always immersed in him, she used to say, when he left her,
"It seems as if the sun itself has disappeared." He, on his part,
often bore witness to the unselfishness and blamelessness of her life,
generally adding, "It is very pleasant to be able to feel proud of one's
parents."
33. The Fight at Berbera, 22nd April, 1855.
Unable to let well alone, Burton now wanted to make a new expedition,
this time to the Nile, via Berbera and Harar, and on a larger and more
imposing scale. On 7th April he was back again at Berbera, taking with
him Speke, Stroyan, Herne and 42 assistants, and his first care was to
establish an agency on the coast, so as to have the protection of the
English gunboat, the "Mahi," which had brought them. Unfortunately, the
Government drew off the gunboat, and this had scarcely been done before
Burton and his party were attacked by 300 natives, who swarmed round
them during the night, and tried to entrap and entangle them by throwing
down the tents. A desperate hand-to-hand fight then ensued. Javelins
hissed, war-clubs crashed. The forty-two coloured auxiliaries promptly
took to their heels, leaving the four Englishmen to do as they could.
Stroyan fell early in the fight. Burton, who had nothing but a sabre,
fought like a demon; Speke, on his left near the entrance of the tent,
did deadly execution with a pair of revolvers; Herne on his right
emptied into the enemy a sixshooter, and then hammered it with the butt
end. Burton, while sabreing his way towards the sea, was struck by a
javelin, which pierced both cheeks, and struck out four of his teeth.
Speke received eleven wounds, from which, however, he took no harm--a
touching proof, comments Burton, of how difficult it is to kill a man
in sound health. Eventually the survivors, stained with blood, and
fearfully exhausted, but carrying, nevertheless, the corpse of poor
Stroyan, managed to reach a friendly native craft, which straightway
took them back to Aden. [160]
Chapter VIII. 9th February 1855-October 1856, The Crimea
Bibliography:
14. First Footsteps in East Africa, 1856.
34. The Crimea.
Owing to his wounds Burton had to return to England, and, on his first
opportunity, he gave an account of his explorations before the Royal
Geographical Society. Little, however, was now talked of except the
Crimean War, which had commenced, it will be remembered in March 1854.
The Allies landed in the Crimea in September, Inkermann was fought on
the 5th of November, and then followed the tedious siege of Sebastopol.
Burton had not long been home before he applied for and obtained leave
to join the besieging army; and his brother Edward also went out as
surgeon, about the same time. Emulous of the deeds of Napier and Outram,
Burton now thought he saw a career of military glory awaiting him. Soon
after his arrival at the seat of war he was appointed chief of the staff
to General Beatson, and in his "gorgeous uniform blazing with gold"
he set vigorously to work to re-organize and drill his contingent of
Bashi-Bazouks. He had great difficulties with Beatson, a brave, but
passionate and undiplomatic old warrior; but he succeeded marvellously
with his men, and his hope of winning fame rose higher than ever. The
war, however, was crawling to an end, and the troops he had drilled
so patiently had little to do beside look on. At this conjuncture he
thought he saw a road to success in the relief of Kars, which had been
persistently besieged by the Russians. Elated at the prospect of taking
part in a great military feat, he hurried to Constantinople, obtained an
interview with the British Ambassador, Lord Stratford, and submitted
a plan for approval. To his amazement, Lord Stratford broke into a
towering passion, and called him "the most impudent man in the Bombay
Army." Later Burton understood in what way he had transgressed. As the
war was closing, it had been arranged by the Allies that Kars should be
allowed to fall as a peace offering to Russia.
Burton now began to suffer from the untrue tales that were told about
him, still he never troubled to disprove them. Some were circulated by
a fellow officer of his--an unmitigated scoundrel whose life had been
sullied by every species of vice; who not only invented calumniating
stories but inserted particulars that gave them a verisimilitude. Two of
this man's misdeeds may be mentioned. First he robbed the Post Office
at Alexandria, and later he unblushingly unfolded to Lord Stanley of
Alderley his plan of marrying an heiress and of divorcing her some
months later with a view to keeping, under a Greek law, a large portion
of her income. He seemed so certain of being able to do it that Lord
Stanley consulted a lady friend, and the two together succeeded in
frustrating the infamous design. This sordid and callous rascal tried
hard to lead people to suppose that he and Burton were hand and glove in
various kinds of devilry, and a favourite phrase in his mouth was "I and
Burton are great scamps." Percy Smythe [161] then an official under Lord
Stratford, commented on hearing the saying: "No, that won't do, ---- is
a real scamp, but Burton is only wild." One story put abroad apparently
by the same scoundrel is still in circulation. We are told that Burton
was once caught in a Turkish harem, and allowed to escape only after
suffering the usual indescribable penalty. As this was the solitary
story that really annoyed Burton, we think it our duty to say that
conclusive documentary evidence exists proving that, whether or not he
ever broke into a harem, he most certainly underwent no deprivation.
Other slanders of an even more offensive nature got abroad. Pious
English mothers loathed Burton's name, and even men of the world
mentioned it apologetically. In time, it is true, he lived all this
down, still he was never--he is not now--generally regarded as a saint
worthy of canonization.
With the suspension of General Beatson--for the machinations of enemies
ultimately accomplished the old hero's fall--Burton's connection with
the Crimean army abruptly ceased. Having sent in his resignation,
he returned to England and arrived here just in time to miss, to his
disappointment, his brother Edward, who had again left for Ceylon.
Edward's after career was sad enough to draw tears from adamant. During
an elephant hunt a number of natives set upon him and beat him brutally
about the head. Brain trouble ensued, and he returned home, but
henceforth, though he attained a green old age, he lived a life of utter
silence. Except on one solitary occasion he never after--and that is to
say for forty years--uttered a single word. Always resembling a Greek
statue, there was now added to him the characteristic of all statues,
rigid and solemn silence. From a man he had become aching marble. To
Burton, with his great, warm, affectionate heart, Edward's affliction
was an unceasing grief. In all his letters he enquires tenderly after
his "dear brother," and could truly say, with the enemy of his boyhood,
Oliver Goldsmith:
"Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee:
Still to my Brother turns." [162]
Arrived in England, General Beatson promptly instituted civil
proceedings against his enemies; and Burton was in constant expectation
of being subpoenaed. He thoroughly sympathized with Beatson, but he had
no wish to be forced to remain in London, just as he had no wish at
any time in his life to be mewed up anywhere. Consequently he disguised
himself by wearing green spectacles and tying a pillow over his stomach
to simulate corpulence. To one friend who met him, he made himself
known. "Are you really Burton?" inquired his friend. "I shall be,"
replied Burton, "but just now I'm a Greek doctor." Burton's conscience,
however, finally had the mastery. He did attend the trial and he
corroborated the statements of his late chief. The verdict of the jury
went against Beatson, but it was generally felt that the old war dog had
fully vindicated his character.
35. Engaged to Isabel Arundell, August 1856.
In August, after a lapse of four years, Burton renewed acquaintance
with Isabel Arundell, who one day met him, quite by accident, in the
Botanical Gardens, and she kept meeting him there quite by accident
every day for a fortnight. He had carried his life in his hand to
Mecca and to Harar, he had kept at bay 200 Somalis, but like the man in
Camoens, he finally fell by "a pair of eyes." [163] According to Lady
Burton, [164] it was Burton who made the actual proposal; and it is just
possible.
"You won't chalk up 'Mother will be angry' now I hope," said Burton.
"Perhaps not," replied Miss Arundell, "but she will be all the same."
Mrs. Arundell, indeed, like so many other English mothers, was violently
prejudiced against Burton. When her daughter broached the subject
she replied fiercely: "He is not an old English Catholic, or even a
Catholic, he has neither money nor prospects." She might also have added
that he was apt to respect mere men of intellect more than men of wealth
and rank, an un-English trait which would be sure to militate against
his advancement.
Miss Arundell bravely defended her lover, but without effect. A few days
later she again met her old gipsy crone Hagar Burton, who repeated her
sibylline declaration. As Miss Arundell never, by any chance, talked
about anything or anybody except Burton, and as she paid liberally for
consulting the Fates, this declaration necessarily points to peculiar
acumen on the part of the gipsy.
At one of their meetings Miss Arundell put round Burton's neck a steel
chain with a medal of the Virgin Mary and begged him to wear it all his
life. Possessing a very accommodating temperament in matters that
seemed to himself of no vital importance, he consented; so it joined the
star-sapphire and other amulets, holy and unholy, which, for different
purposes, he carried about the world.
That this medal had often acted as a preservative to Burton she was in
after life thoroughly convinced.
Chapter IX. December 1856-21st May 1859, The Unveiling of Isis
Bibliography:
15. Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa. 16. Vol. 33 of the Royal
Geographical Society.
36. To Fuga. January to March 1857.
The fame of a soldier having been denied him, Burton now turned his
thoughts once more to exploration; and his eagerness for renown is
revealed conspicuously in some verses written about this time. They
commence:
"I wore thine image, Fame,
Within a heart well fit to be thy shrine!
Others a thousand boons may gain;
One wish was mine."
He hoped to obtain one of its smiles and then die. A glorious hand
seemed to beckon him to Africa. There he was to go and find his destiny.
The last stanza runs:
"Mine ear will hear no other sound,
No other thought my heart will know.
Is this a sin? Oh, pardon, Lord!
Thou mad'st me so."
He would obtain the fame of a great traveller; the earth should roll up
for him as a carpet. Happy indeed was Isabel Arundell when he placed the
verses in her hand, but melancholy to relate, he also presented copies
to his "dear Louisa," and several other dears.
He now read greedily all the great geographers, ancient and modern,
and all the other important books bearing on African exploration. If he
became an authority on Herodotus, Pliny, Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pomponious
Mela, he became equally an authority on Bruce, Sonnini, Lacerda, the
Pombeiros, Monteiro and Gamitto.
From Ptolemy downwards writers and travellers had prayed for the
unveiling of Isis, that is to say, the discovery of the sources of the
Nile; but for two thousand years every effort had proved fruitless.
Burning to immortalize himself by wresting from the mysterious river its
immemorial secret, Burton now planned an expedition for that purpose.
Thanks to the good offices of Lord Clarendon, Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, the Royal Geographical Society promised him the
necessary funds; while Cardinal Wiseman, ever his sincere friend, gave
him a passport to all Catholic missionaries. [165] To Burton, as we have
seen, partings were always distressing, and in order to avoid bidding
adieu to Miss Arundell he adopted his usual course, leaving a letter
which mentioned love and that he was gone.
He quitted England for Bombay in October 1856, and crossed to Zanzibar
in the Elphinstone sloop of war, Speke, who was to be his companion in
the expedition, sailing with him. Burton was in the highest spirits.
"One of the gladdest moments in human life," he wrote, "is the departing
upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one effort
the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the slavery of
civilisation, [166] man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the
fast circulation of youth, excitement gives a new vigour to the muscles
and a sense of sudden freedom adds an inch to the stature." Among the
crew was a midshipman, C. R. Low, who became a life-long friend of
Burton. Says Mr. Low, "We used to have bouts of single-stick in the
pleasant evening sin the poop, and many's the time he has blacked my
arms and legs with his weapons.... Though a dangerous enemy, he was a
warm and constant friend." [167] On reaching Zanzibar, Burton,
finding the season an unsuitable one for the commencement of his great
expedition, resolved to make what he called "a preliminary canter." So
he and Speke set out on a cruise northward in a crazy old Arab "beden"
with ragged sails and worm-eaten timbers. They carried with them,
however, a galvanised iron life-boat, "The Louisa," named after Burton's
old love, and so felt no fear.
They passed the Island of Pemba, and on the 22nd reached Mombasa, which
Burton was glad to visit on account of its associations with Camoens,
who wrote
So near that islet lay along the land,
Nought save a narrow channel stood atween;
And rose a city throned on the strand,
Which from the margent of the seas was seen;
Fair built with lordly buildings tall and grand
As from its offing showed all its sheen,
Here ruled a monarch for long years high famed,
Islet and city are Mombasa named. [168]
Indeed he never missed an opportunity of seeing spots associated with
his beloved "Master." Then they turned southward and on February 3rd
reached Pangany, whence, in company with a facetious fellow named Sudy
Bombay, they set out on a canoe and foot journey to Fuga, which they
found to be "an unfenced heap of hay cock huts." Though a forbidden city
to strangers they managed to get admittance by announcing themselves
as "European wizards and Waganga of peculiar power over the moon, the
stars, the wind and the rain." They found the sultan of the place, an
old man named Kimwere, sick, emaciated and leprous. He required, he
said, an elixir which would restore him to health, strength, and youth.
This, however, despite his very respectable knowledge of medicine,
Burton was not able to compound, so after staying two days he took his
leave. "It made me sad," says Burton, "to see the wistful, lingering
look with which the poor old king accompanied the word Kuahery!
(Farewell!)" On the return journey Speke shot a hippopotamus which he
presented to the natives, who promptly ate it. By the time Pangany was
again reached both travellers were in a high fever; but regarding it
simply as a seasoning, they felt gratified rather than not. When the
Zanzibar boat arrived Speke was well enough to walk to the shore, but
Burton "had to be supported like a bedridden old woman."
37. Zanzibar to Tanganyika, 26th June 1857 to 26th May 1858.
Burton left Zanzibar on his great expedition at the end of June,
carrying with him various letters of introduction from the Sultan of
Zanzibar, a diploma signed by the Shaykh El Islam of Mecca, and the
passport already mentioned of Cardinal Wiseman. To his star-sapphire
he added some little canvas bags containing horse chestnuts which
he carried about "against the Evil Eye, and as a charm to ward off
sickness." [169] Beside Burton and Speke, the party consisted of two Goa
boys, two negro gun-carriers, Sudy Bombay, and ten Zanzibar mercenaries.
Dr. Steinhauser, who had hoped to join them, was restrained by illness.
"My desire," says Burton, "was to ascertain the limits of Tanganyika
Lake, to learn the ethnography of its tribes, and to determine the
export of the produce of the interior." He held the streams that fed
Tanganyika to be the ultimate sources of the Nile; and believed that the
glory of their discovery would be his. Fortune, however, the most fickle
of goddesses, thought fit to deprive him of this ardently coveted boon.
The explorers landed at Wale Point on June 26th, and on July 14th
reached K'hutu. At Dug'humi Burton, despite his bags of chestnuts, fell
with marsh fever, and in his fits he imagined himself to be "two persons
who were inimical to each other," an idea very suitable for a man
nursing the "duality" theory. When he recovered, fresh misfortunes
followed, and finally all the riding asses died. Burton, however,
amid it all, managed to do one very humane action. He headed a little
expedition against a slave raider, and had the satisfaction of restoring
five poor creatures to their homes.
The tropical vegetation and the pleasant streams afforded delightful
vistas both by daylight and moonlight, but every mile the travellers
were saddened by the sight of clean-picked skeletons or swollen corpses.
Sometimes they met companies of haggard, heavy-gaited men and women half
blind with small-pox--the mothers carrying on their backs infants as
loathsome as themselves. Near every kraal stood detached huts built for
the diseased to die in. They passed from this God-forsaken land to a
district of springs welling with sweet water, calabashes and tamarinds,
and circlets of deep, dew-fed verdure. The air was spicy, and zebras
and antelopes browsed in the distance. Then the scene again changed, and
they were in a slimy, malarious swamp. They were bitten by pismires
an inch long, and by the unmerciful tzetze fly. The mercenaries, who
threatened to desert, rendered no assistance, and the leader, one Said
bin Salim, actually refused to give Burton a piece of canvas to make a
tent. Sudy Bombay then made a memorable speech, "O Said," he said, "if
you are not ashamed of your master, be at least ashamed of his servant,"
a rebuke that had the effect of causing the man to surrender at once the
whole awning. At other times the star-sapphire which Burton carried
on his person proved a valuable auxiliary--and convinced where words
failed. But the mercenaries, mistaking Burton's forbearance for
weakness, became daily bolder and more insolent, and they now only
awaited a convenient opportunity to kill him. One day as he was marching
along, gun over shoulder and dagger in hand, he became conscious that
two of his men were unpleasantly near, and after a while one of them,
unaware that Burton understood his language, urged the other to strike.
Burton did not hesitate a moment. Without looking round, he thrust back
his dagger, and stabbed the man dead on the spot. [170] The other, who
fell on his knees and prayed for mercy, was spared. This, however, did
not cure his followers of their murderous instincts, and a little later
he discovered another plot. The prospective assassins having piled a
little wood where they intended to kindle a fire, went off to search for
more. While they were gone Burton made a hole under the wood and buried
a canister of gunpowder in it. On their return the assassins lighted the
fire, seated themselves comfortably round, and presently there weren't
any assassins. We tell these tales just as Burton told them to his
intimate friends. The first may have been true, the second, we believe,
simply illustrates his inveterate habit of telling tales against himself
with the desire to shock. In any circumstances, his life was in constant
peril; but he and the majority of the party, after unexampled tortures
from thirst, arrived footsore and jaded in a veritable land of
Goshen--Kazeh or Unyanyembe, where they met some kindly Arab merchants.
"What a contrast," exclaims Burton, "between the open-handed hospitality
and the hearty good-will of this noble race--the Arabs--and the
niggardliness of the savage and selfish African. It was heart of
flesh after heart of stone." Burton found the Arabs of Kazeh living
comfortably and even sybaritically. They had large, substantial houses,
fine gardens, luxuries from the coast and "troops of concubines and
slaves." Burton gallantly gives the ladies their due. "Among the fair
of Yombo," he says, "there were no fewer than three beauties--women who
would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. Their faces were
purely Grecian; they had laughing eyes their figures were models for an
artist with--
"Turgide, brune, e ritondette mamme."
like the 'bending statue' that delights the world. The dress--a short
kilt of calabash fibre--rather set off than concealed their charms, and
though destitute of petticoat they were wholly unconscious of indecorum.
These beautiful domestic animals graciously smiled when in my best
Kenyamwezi I did my devoir to the sex; and the present of a little
tobacco always secured for me a seat in the undress circle."
Of the native races of West Africa Burton gave a graphic account when he
came to write the history of this expedition. [171] All, it seems, had
certain customs in common. Every man drank heavily, ate to repletion and
gambled. They would hazard first their property and then themselves.
A negro would stake his aged mother against a cow. As for morality,
neither the word nor the thing existed among them. Their idea of perfect
bliss was total intoxication. When ill, they applied to a medicine man,
who having received a fee used it for the purpose of getting drunk, but
upon his return to sobriety, he always, unless, of course, the patient
took upon himself to die, instead of waiting, attended conscientiously
to his duties. No self-respecting chief was ever sober after mid-day.
Women were fattened for marriage just as pigs are fattened for
market--beauty and obesity being interchangeable terms. The wearisome
proceedings in England necessary to a divorce, observes Burton, are
there unknown. You turn your wife out of doors, and the thing is done.
The chief trouble at Kazeh, as elsewhere, arose from the green scorpion,
but there were also lizards and gargantuan spiders. Vermin under an inch
in length, such as fleas, ants, and mosquitoes, were deemed unworthy
of notice. The march soon began again, but they had not proceeded many
miles before Burton fell with partial paralysis brought on my malaria;
and Speke, whom Burton always called "Jack," became partially blind.
Thoughts of the elmy fields and the bistre furrows of Elstree and the
tasselled coppices of Tours crowded Burton's brain; and he wrote:
"I hear the sound I used to hear,
The laugh of joy, the groan of pain,
The sounds of childhood sound again
Death must be near."
At last, on the 13th February they saw before them a long streak of
light. "Look, master, look," cried Burton's Arab guide, "behold the
great water!" They advanced a few yards, and then an enormous expanse
of blue burst into sight. There, in the lap of its steel-coloured
mountains, basking in the gorgeous tropical sunshine, lay the great lake
Tanganyika. The goal had been reached; by his daring, shrewdness and
resolution he had overcome all difficulties. Like the soldiers in
Tacitus, in victory he found all things--health, vigour, abundance.
No wonder Burton felt a marvellous exultation of spirits when he viewed
this great expanse of waters. Here, he thought, are the sources of that
ancient river--the Nile. Now are fulfilled the longing of two thousand
years. I am the heir of the ages! Having hired "a solid built Arab
craft," the explorers made their way first to Ujiji and then to Uvira,
the northernmost point of the lake, which they reached on April 26th.
On their return voyage they were caught in a terrible storm, from which
they did not expect to be saved, and while the wild tumbling waves
threatened momentarily to engulf them a couplet from his fragmentary
Kasidah kept running in Burton's mind:
"This collied night, these horrid waves, these gusts that sweep
the whirling deep;
What reck they of our evil plight, who on the shore securely
sleep?" [172]
However, they came out of this peril, just as the
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