Chapter XLI: Death of Lady Burton (2)

[Footnote 172: Subsequently altered to "This gloomy night, these grisly waves, etc." The stanza is really borrowed from Hafiz. See Payne's Hafiz, vol. i., p.2.]

"Dark the night and fears possess us, Of the waves and whirlpools
wild:
Of our case what know the lightly Laden on the shores that
dwell?"

[Footnote 173: The ruler, like the country, is called Kazembe.]

[Footnote 174: Dr. Lacerda died at Lunda 18th October 1798. Burton's translation, The Lands of the Cazembe, etc., appeared in 1873.]

[Footnote 175: The Beharistan. 1st Garden.]

[Footnote 176: J. A. Grant, born 1827, died 10th February, 1892.]

[Footnote 177: The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, i., 149.]

[Footnote 178: He is, of course, simply endorsing the statement of Hippocrates: De Genitura: "Women, if married, are more healthy, if not, less so."

[Footnote 179: The anecdotes in this chapter were told me by one of Burton's friends. They are not in his books.]

[Footnote 180: This letter was given by Mrs. FitzGerald (Lady Burton's sister) to Mr. Foskett of Camberwell. It is now in the library there, and I have to thank the library committee for the use of it.]

[Footnote 181: Life, i., 345.]

[Footnote 182: 1861.]

[Footnote 183: Vambery's work, The Story of my Struggles, appeared in October 1904.]

[Footnote 184: The first edition appeared in 1859. Burton's works contain scores of allusions to it. To the Gold Coast, ii., 164. Arabian Nights (many places), etc., etc.]

[Footnote 185: Life of Lord Houghton, ii., 300.]

[Footnote 186: Lord Russell was Foreign Secretary from 1859-1865.]

[Footnote 187: Wanderings in West Africa, 2 vols., 1863.]

[Footnote 188: The genuine black, not the mulatto, as he is careful to point out. Elsewhere he says the negro is always eight years old--his mind never develops. Mission to Gelele, i, 216.]

[Footnote 189: Wanderings in West Africa, vol. ii., p. 283.]

[Footnote 190: See Mission to Gelele, ii., 126.]

[Footnote 191: Although the anecdote appears in his Abeokuta it seems to belong to this visit.]

[Footnote 192: Mrs. Maclean, "L.E.L.," went out with her husband, who was Governor of Cape Coast Castle. She was found poisoned 15th October 1838, two days after her arrival. Her last letters are given in The Gentleman's Magazine, February 1839.]

[Footnote 193: See Chapter xxii.]

[Footnote 194: Lander died at Fernando Po, 16th February 1834.]

[Footnote 195: For notes on Fernando Po see Laird and Oldfield's Narrative of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa, etc. (1837), Winwood Reade's Savage Africa, and Rev. Henry Roe's West African Scenes (1874).]

[Footnote 196: Told me by the Rev. Henry Roe.]

[Footnote 197: Life, and various other works.]

[Footnote 198: See Abeokuta and the Cameroons, 2 vols., 1863.]

[Footnote 199: Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, 2 vols., 1876.]

[Footnote 200: "Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold." Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, 67.]

[Footnote 201: Incorporated subsequently with a Quarterly Journal, The Anthropological Review.]

[Footnote 202: See Chapter xxix., 140.]

[Footnote 203: Foreword to The Arabian Nights, vol. 1. The Arabian Nights, of course, was made to answer the purpose of this organ.]

[Footnote 204: See Wanderings in West Africa, vol. 2, p. 91. footnote.]

[Footnote 205: Burton.]

[Footnote 206: Afa is the messenger of fetishes and of deceased friends. Thus by the Afa diviner people communicate with the dead.]

[Footnote 207: This was Dr. Lancaster's computation.]

[Footnote 208: Communicated to me by Mr. W. H. George, son of Staff-Commander C. George, Royal Navy.]

[Footnote 209: Rev. Edward Burton, Burton's grandfather, was Rector of Tuam. Bishop Burton, of Killala, was the Rev. Edward Burton's brother.]

[Footnote 210: The copy is in the Public Library, High Street, Kensington, where most of Burton's books are preserved.]

[Footnote 211: Spanish for "little one."

[Footnote 212: The Lusiads, 2 vols., 1878. Says Aubertin, "In this city (Sao Paulo) and in the same room in which I began to read The Lusiads in 1860, the last stanza of the last canto was finished on the night of 24th February 1877."

[Footnote 213: Burton dedicated the 1st vol. of his Arabian Nights to Steinhauser.]

[Footnote 214: Dom Pedro, deposed 15th November 1889.]

[Footnote 215: This anecdote differs considerably from Mrs. Burton's version, Life, i., 438. I give it, however, as told by Burton to his friends.]

[Footnote 216: Lusiads, canto 6, stanza 95. Burton subsequently altered and spoilt it. The stanza as given will be found on the opening page of the Brazil book.]

[Footnote 217: He describes his experiences in his work The Battlefields of Paraguay.]

[Footnote 218: Unpublished. Told me by Mrs. E. J. Burton. Manning was made a cardinal in 1875.]

[Footnote 219: Mr. John Payne, however, proves to us that the old Rashi'd, though a lover of the arts, was also a sensual and bloodthirsty tyrant. See Terminal Essay to his Arabian Nights, vol. ix.]

[Footnote 220: She thus signed herself after her very last marriage.]

[Footnote 221: Mrs. Burton's words.]

[Footnote 222: Life i., p. 486.]

[Footnote 223: Arabian Nights. Lib. Ed, i., 215.]

[Footnote 224: Burton generally writes Bedawi and Bedawin. Bedawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Bedawi. Pilgrimage to Meccah, vol. ii., p. 80.]

[Footnote 225: 1870. Three months after Mrs. Burton's arrival.]

[Footnote 226: It contained, among other treasures, a Greek manuscript of the Bible with the Epistle of Barnabas and a portion of the Shepherd of Hermas.]

[Footnote 227: 1 Kings, xix., 15; 2 Kings, viii., 15.]

[Footnote 228: The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 386.]

[Footnote 229: 11th July 1870.]

[Footnote 230: E. H. Palmer (1840-1882). In 1871 he was appointed Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge. He was murdered at Wady Sudr, 11th August 1882. See Chapter xxiii.]

[Footnote 231: Renan. See, too, Paradise Lost, Bk. 1. Isaiah (xvii., 10) alludes to the portable "Adonis Gardens" which the women used to carry to the bier of the god.]

[Footnote 232: The Hamath of Scripture. 2. Sam., viii., 9; Amos, vi., 2.]

[Footnote 233: See illustrations in Unexplored Syria, by Burton and Drake.]

[Footnote 234: The Land of Midian Revisited, ii., 73.]

[Footnote 235: Life of Edward H. Palmer, p. 109.]

[Footnote 236: Chica is the feminine of Chico (Spanish).]

[Footnote 237: Mrs. Burton's expression.]

[Footnote 238: District east of the Sea of Galilee.]

[Footnote 239: Job, chapter xxx. "But now they that are younger than I have me in derision... who cut up mallows by the bushes and juniper roots for their meat."

[Footnote 240: Greek Geographer. 250 B.C.]

[Footnote 241: Burton's words.]

[Footnote 242: Published in 1898.]

[Footnote 243: Life, i., 572.]

[Footnote 244: The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 504.]

[Footnote 245: The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 505.]

[Footnote 246: Temple Bar, vol. xcii., p. 339.]

[Footnote 247: Near St. Helens, Lancs.]

[Footnote 248: Life of Sir Richard Burton, by Lady Burton, i., 591.]

[Footnote 249: 2nd November 1871.]

[Footnote 250: The fountain was sculptured by Miss Hosmer.]

[Footnote 251: 27th February 1871. Celebration of the Prince of Wales's recovery from a six weeks' attack of typhoid fever.]

[Footnote 252: Her husband's case.]

[Footnote 253: Of course, this was an unnecessary question, for there was no mistaking the great scar on Burton's cheek; and Burton's name was a household word.]

[Footnote 254: February 1854. Sir Roger had sailed from Valparaiso to Rio Janeiro. He left Rio in the "Bella," which was lost at sea.]

[Footnote 255: Undated.]

[Footnote 256: Knowsley is close to Garswood, Lord Gerard's seat.]

[Footnote 257: Letter, 4th January 1872.]

[Footnote 258: Garswood, Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.]

[Footnote 259: Unpublished letter.]

[Footnote 260: The True Life, p. 336.]

[Footnote 261: It had just been vacated by the death of Charles Lever, the novelist. Lever had been Consul at Trieste from 1867 to 1872. He died at Trieste, 1st June 1872.]

[Footnote 262: Near Salisbury.]

[Footnote 263: Burton's A.N. iv. Lib. Ed., iii., 282. Payne's A.N. iii., 10.]

[Footnote 264: Told me by Mr. Henry Richard Tedder, librarian at the Athenaeum from 1874.]

[Footnote 265: Burton, who was himself always having disputes with cab-drivers and everybody else, probably sympathised with Mrs. Prodgers' crusade.]

[Footnote 266: Of 2nd November 1891.]

[Footnote 267: Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa (2 vols. 1860). Vol. 33 of the Royal Geographical Society, 1860, and The Nile Basin, 1864.]

[Footnote 268: A portion was written by Mrs. Burton.]

[Footnote 269: These are words used by children. Unexplored Syria, i., 288. Nah really means sweetstuff.]

[Footnote 270: Afterwards Major-General. He died in April 1887. See Chapter ix., 38.]

[Footnote 271: Mrs. Burton and Khamoor followed on Nov. 18th.]

[Footnote 272: Burton's works contain many citations from Ovid. Thus there are two in Etruscan Bologna, pp. 55 and 69, one being from the Ars Amandi and the other from The Fasti.]

[Footnote 273: Stendhal, born 1783. Consul at Trieste and Civita Vecchia from 1830 to 1839. Died in Paris, 23rd March 1842. Burton refers to him in a footnote to his Terminal Essay in the Nights on "Al Islam."

[Footnote 274: These are all preserved now at the Central Library, Camberwell.]

[Footnote 275: Now in the possession of Mrs. St. George Burton.]

[Footnote 276: In later times Dr. Baker never saw more than three tables.]

[Footnote 277: Mrs. Burton, was, of course, no worse than many other society women of her day. Her books bristle with slang.]

[Footnote 278: It is now in the possession of Mrs. E. J. Burton, 31, Whilbury Road, Brighton.]

[Footnote 279: Later Burton was himself a sad sinner in this respect. His studies made him forget his meals.]

[Footnote 280: His usual pronunciation of the word.]

[Footnote 281: 12th August 1874.]

[Footnote 282: Letter to Lord Houghton.]

[Footnote 283: Dr. Grenfell Baker, afterwards Burton's medical attendant.]

[Footnote 284: Hell.]

[Footnote 285: A.E.I. (Arabia, Egypt, Indian).]

[Footnote 286: Burton's A. N., v., 304. Lib. Ed., vol. 4., p. 251.]

[Footnote 287: About driving four horses.]

[Footnote 288: I do not know to what this alludes.]

[Footnote 289: See Chapter i.]

[Footnote 290: Its population is now 80,000.]

[Footnote 291: Sind Revisited, i., 82.]

[Footnote 292: See Sind Revisited, vol. ii., pp. 109 to 149.]

[Footnote 293: Where Napier with 2,800 men defeated 22,000.]

[Footnote 294: Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 584.]

[Footnote 295: Dr. Da Cunha, who was educated at Panjim, spent several years in England, and qualified at the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. He built up a large practice in Goa.]

[Footnote 296: There are many English translations, from Harrington's, 1607, to Hoole's, 1783, and Rose's, 1823. The last is the best.]

[Footnote 297: Sir Henry Stisted died of consumption in 1876.]

[Footnote 298: Robert Bagshaw, he married Burton's aunt, Georgiana Baker.]

[Footnote 299: His cousin Sarah, who married Col. T. Pryce Harrison. See Chapter iv. and Chapter xix.]

[Footnote 300: Burton's brother.]

[Footnote 301: Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 656.]

[Footnote 302: Romance of Isabel Lady Burton.]

[Footnote 303: Burton's A.N., Suppl., ii., 61. Lib. Ed. ix., p. 286, note.]

[Footnote 304: Thus, Balzac, tried to discover perpetual motion, proposed to grow pineapples which were to yield enormous profits, and to make opium the staple of Corsica, and he studied mathematical calculations in order to break the banks at Baden-Baden.]

[Footnote 305: We are telling the tale much as Mrs. Burton told it, but we warn the reader that it was one of Mrs. Burton's characteristics to be particularly hard on her own sex and also that she was given to embroidering.]

[Footnote 306: Preface to Midian Revisited, xxxiv.]

[Footnote 307: Ex Ponto III., i., 19.]

[Footnote 308: The Gold Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities (C. Kegan Paul and Co.) It appeared in 1878.]

[Footnote 309: The Land of Midian Revisited, ii., 254.]

[Footnote 310: Kindly copied for me by Miss Gordon, his daughter.]

[Footnote 311: They left on July 6th (1878) and touched at Venice, Brindisi, Palermo and Gibraltar.]

[Footnote 312: November 1876.]

[Footnote 313: From the then unpublished Kasidah.]

[Footnote 314: The famous Yogis. Their blood is dried up by the scorching sun of India, they pass their time in mediation, prayer and religious abstinence, until their body is wasted, and they fancy themselves favoured with divine revelations.]

[Footnote 315: The Spiritualist. 13th December 1878.]

[Footnote 316: In short, she had considerable natural gifts, which were never properly cultivated.]

[Footnote 317: See Chapter xxxviii.]

[Footnote 318: Arabia, Egypt, India.]

[Footnote 319: Letter to Miss Stisted.]

[Footnote 320: She says, I left my Indian Christmas Book with Mr. Bogue on 7th July 1882, and never saw it after.]

[Footnote 321: Burton dedicated to Yacoub Pasha Vol. x. of his Arabian Nights. They had then been friends for 12 years.]

[Footnote 322: Inferno, xix.]

[Footnote 323: Canto x., stanza 153.]

[Footnote 324: Canto x., stanzas 108-118.]

[Footnote 325: Between the Indus and the Ganges.]

[Footnote 326: A Glance at the Passion Play, 1881.]

[Footnote 327: The Passion Play at Ober Ammergau, 1900.]

[Footnote 328: A Fireside King, 3 vol., Tinsley 1880. Brit. Mus. 12640 i. 7.]

[Footnote 329: See Chapter xx., 96. Maria Stisted died 12th November 1878.]

[Footnote 330: See Chapter xli.]

[Footnote 331: Only an admirer of Omar Khayyam could have written The Kasidah, observes Mr. Justin McCarthy, junior; but the only Omar Khayyam that Burton knew previous to 1859, was Edward FitzGerald. I am positive that Burton never read Omar Khayyam before 1859, and I doubt whether he ever read the original at all.]

[Footnote 332: For example:-- "That eve so gay, so bright, so glad, this morn
so dim and sad and grey;
Strange that life's Register should write this day a day, that
day a day."

Amusingly enough, he himself quotes this as from Hafiz in a letter to Sir Walter Besant. See Literary Remains of Tyrwhitt Drake, p. 16. See also Chapter ix.]

[Footnote 333: We use the word by courtesy.]

[Footnote 334: See Life, ii., 467, and end of 1st volume of Supplemental Nights. Burton makes no secret of this. There is no suggestion that they are founded upon the original of Omar Khayyam. Indeed, it is probable that Burton had never, before the publication of The Kasidah, even heard of the original, for he imagined like J. A. Symonds and others, that FitzGerald's version was a fairly literal translation. When, therefore, he speaks of Omar Khayyam he means Edward FitzGerald. I have dealt with this subject exhaustively in my Life of Edward FitzGerald.]

[Footnote 335: Couplet 186.]

[Footnote 336: Preserved in the Museum at Camberwell. It is inserted in a copy of Camoens.]

[Footnote 337: Italy having sided with Prussia in the war of 1866 received as her reward the long coveted territory of Venice.]

[Footnote 338: Born 1844. Appointed to the command of an East Coast expedition to relieve Livingstone, 1872. Crossed Africa 1875.]

[Footnote 339: "Burton as I knew him," by V. L. Cameron.]

[Footnote 340: Nearly all his friends noticed this feature in his character and have remarked it to me.]

[Footnote 341: The number is dated 5th November 1881. Mr. Payne had published specimens of his proposed Translation, anonymously, in the New Quarterly Review for January and April, 1879.]

[Footnote 342: This was a mistake. Burton thought he had texts of the whole, but, as we shall presently show, there were several texts which up to this time he had not seen. His attention, as his letters indicate, was first drawn to them by Mr. Payne.]

[Footnote 343: In the light of what follows, this remark is amusing.]

[Footnote 344: See Chapter xxiii, 107.]

[Footnote 345: In the Masque of Shadows.]

[Footnote 346: New Poems, p. 19.]

[Footnote 347: The Masque of Shadows, p. 59.]

[Footnote 348: Published 1878.]

[Footnote 349: New Poems, p. 179.]

[Footnote 350: Published 1871.]

[Footnote 351: Mr. Watts-Dunton, the Earl of Crewe, and Dr. Richard Garnett have also written enthusiastically of Mr. Payne's poetry.]

[Footnote 352: Of "The John Payne Society" (founded in 1905) and its publications particulars can be obtained from The Secretary, Cowper School, Olney. It has no connection with the "Villon Society," which publishes Mr. Payne's works.]

[Footnote 353: See Chapter xi., 43.]

[Footnote 354: Dr. Badger died 19th February, 1888, aged 73.]

[Footnote 355: To Payne. 20th August 1883.]

[Footnote 356: No doubt the "two or three pages" which he showed to Mr. Watts-Dunton.]

[Footnote 357: This is a very important fact. It is almost incredible, and yet it is certainly true.]

[Footnote 358: Prospectuses.]

[Footnote 359: Its baths were good for gout and rheumatism. Mrs. Burton returned to Trieste on September 11th.]

[Footnote 360: This is, of course, a jest. He repeats the jest, with variation, in subsequent letters.]

[Footnote 361: The author wishes to say that the names of several persons are hidden by the dashes in these chapters, and he has taken every care to render it impossible for the public to know who in any particular instance is intended.]

[Footnote 362: Of course, in his heart, Burton respected Lane as a scholar.]

[Footnote 363: Apparently Galland's.]

[Footnote 364: Mr. Payne's system is fully explained in the Introductory Note to Vol. i. and is consistently followed through the 13 volumes (Arabian Nights, 9 vols.; Tales from the Arabic, 3 vols.; Alaeddin and Zein-ul-Asnam, i vol.).]

[Footnote 365: One of the poets of The Arabian Nights.]

[Footnote 366: See Chapter iii. 11.]

[Footnote 367: He published some of this information in his Terminal Essay.]

[Footnote 368: Perhaps we ought again to state most emphatically that Burton's outlook was strictly that of the student. He was angry because he had, as he believed, certain great truths to tell concerning the geographical limits of certain vices, and an endeavour was being made to prevent him from publishing them.]

[Footnote 369: Burton's A. N. vi., 180; Lib. Ed. v., 91, The Three Wishes, or the Man who longed to see the Night of Power.]

[Footnote 370: The Lady and her Five Suitors, Burton's A. N., vi., 172; Lib. Ed., v., 83; Payne's A. N., v., 306. Of course Mr. Payne declined to do this.]

[Footnote 371: Possibly this was merely pantomime. Besant, in his Life of Palmer, p. 322, assumes that Matr Nassar, or Meter, as he calls him, was a traitor.]

[Footnote 372: Cloak.]

[Footnote 373: Cursing is with Orientals a powerful weapon of defence. Palmer was driven to it as his last resource. If he could not deter his enemies in this way he could do no more.]

[Footnote 374: Burton's Report and Besant's Life of Palmer, p. 328.]

[Footnote 375: See Chapter vi., 22.]

[Footnote 376: Palmer translated only a few songs in Hafiz. Two will be found in that well-known Bibelot, Persian Love Songs.]

[Footnote 377: There were two editions of Mr. Payne's Villon. Burton is referring to the first.]

[Footnote 378: Augmentative of palazzo, a gentleman's house.]

[Footnote 379: We have altered this anecdote a little so as to prevent the possibility of the blanks being filled up.]

[Footnote 380: That which is knowable.]

[Footnote 381: Let it be remembered that the edition was (to quote the title-page) printed by private subscription and for private circulation only and was limited to 500 copies at a high price. Consequently the work was never in the hands of the general public.]

[Footnote 382: This was a favourite saying of Burton's. We shall run against it elsewhere. See Chapter xxxiv., 159. Curiously enough, there is a similar remark in Mr. Payne's Study of Rabelais written eighteen years previous, and still unpublished.]

[Footnote 383: Practically there was only the wearisome, garbled, incomplete and incorrect translation by Dr. Weil.]

[Footnote 384: The Love of Jubayr and the Lady Budur, Burton's A. N. iv., 234; Lib. Ed., iii., 350; Payne's A. N., iv., 82.]

[Footnote 385: Three vols., 1884.]

[Footnote 386: The public were to some extent justified in their attitude. They feared that these books would find their way into the hands of others than bona fide students. Their fears, however, had no foundation. In all the libraries visited by me extreme care was taken that none but the genuine student should see these books; and, of course, they are not purchasable anywhere except at prices which none but a student, obliged to have them, would dream of giving.]

[Footnote 387: He married in 1879, Ellinor, widow of James Alexander Guthrie, Esp., of Craigie, Forfarshire, and daughter of Admiral Sir James Stirling.]

[Footnote 388: Early Ideas by an Aryan, 1881. Alluded to by Burton in A. N., Lib. Ed., ix., 209, note.]

[Footnote 389: Persian Portraits, 1887. "My friend Arbuthnot's pleasant booklet, Persian Portraits," A. N. Lib. Ed. x., 190.]

[Footnote 390: Arabic Authors, 1890.]

[Footnote 391: In Kalidasa's Megha Duta he is referred to as riding on a peacock.]

[Footnote 392: Sir William Jones. The Gopia correspond with the Roman Muses.]

[Footnote 393: The reader will recall Mr. Andrew Lang's witty remark in the preface to his edition of the Arabian Nights.]

[Footnote 394: Kalyana Mull.]

[Footnote 395: The hand of Burton betrays itself every here and there. Thus in