Writing on 24th June to his cousin, Dr. Edward John Burton, he says, "We returned here on the 18th inst., and the first thing I heard was the murder of my arch-enemy, Rashid Pasha. Serve the scoundrel right. He prevented my going to Constantinople and to Sana'a, in Arabia. I knew the murderous rascal too well to trust him. Maria wrote to me about poor Stisted's death. [297] A great loss for Maria and the chicks. I suppose you never see Bagshaw. [298] What news are there of him? Is Sarah (What's her name? Harrison?) [299] still to the fore. It is, I fear, useless to write anything about poor Edward [300] except to thank you most heartily for your disinterested kindness to him. I will not bother you about our journey, which was very pleasant and successful. You will see it all, including my proposals for renewed diamond digging, written in a book or books."

"United best love to my cousin and the cousinkins."

Burton made frequent enquiries after Edward, "Many thanks," he writes on a post card, "for the news of my dear brother," and all his letters contain tender and warm-hearted references to him.



87. Colonel Gordon 1877.

In July 1875, Burton heard from Colonel (afterwards General) Gordon, who wanted some information about the country south of the Victoria Nyanza; and the friendship which then commenced between these brilliant men was terminated only by death. In every letter Gordon quoted Burton's motto, "Honour, not honours," and in one he congratulated his friend on its happy choice. For several years Gordon had been occupied under the auspices of the Khedive, in continuing the work of administering the Soudan, which had been begun by Sir Samuel Baker. He had established posts along the Nile, placed steamers on the Albert Nyanza, and he nursed the hope of being able to put an end to the horrid slave trade. In January 1877, he was appointed by the Khedive Governor of the entire Soudan. There were to be three governors under him, and he wrote to Burton offering him the governor-generalship of Darfur, with L1,600 a year. Said Gordon, "You will soon have the telegraph in your capital, El Fasher.... You will do a mint of good, and benefit those poor people.... Now is the time for you to make your indelible mark in the world and in these countries." [301]

Had such an offer arrived eight years earlier, Burton might have accepted it, but he was fifty-seven, and his post at Trieste, though not an agreeable one, was a "lasting thing," which the governor-generalship of Darfur seemed unlikely to be. So the offer was declined. Gordon's next letter (27th June 1877) contains a passage that brings the man before us in very vivid colours. "I dare say," he observed, "you wonder how I can get on without an interpreter and not knowing Arabic. I do not believe in man's free will; and therefore believe all things are from God and pre-ordained. Such being the case, the judgments or decisions I give are fixed to be thus or thus, whether I have exactly hit off all the circumstances or not. This is my raft, and on it I manage to float along, thanks to God, more or less successfully." [302]

On another occasion Gordon wrote, "It is a delightful thing to be a fatalist"—meaning, commented Burton, "that the Divine direction and pre-ordination of all things saved him so much trouble of forethought and afterthought. In this tenet he was not only a Calvinist but also a Moslem." [303]



88. Jane Digby the Second.

The patent Pick-me-up having failed, and the Burtons being still in need of money, other schemes were revolved, all more or less chimerical. Lastly, Burton wondered whether it would be possible to launch an expedition to Midian with a view to searching for gold. In ancient times gold and other metals had been found there in abundance, and remains of the old furnaces still dotted the country. Forty cities had lived by the mines, and would, Burton averred, still be living by them but for the devastating wars that had for centuries spread ruin and destruction. He, reasoned, indeed, much as Balzac had done about the mines of Sardinia as worked by the Romans, and from no better premises; but several of his schemes had a distinctly Balzacian aroma, [304] as his friend Arbuthnot, who was writing a life of Balzac, might have told him. Burton himself, however, had no misgivings. His friend, Haji Wali, had indicated, it seems, in the old days, the precise spot where the wealth lay, and apparently nothing remained to be done except to go and fetch it.

Haji Wali had some excellent points. He was hospitable and good-natured, but he was also, as Burton very well knew, cunning and untrustworthy. The more, however, Burton revolved the scheme in his mind, the more feasible it seemed. That he could persuade the Khedive to support him he felt sure; that he would swell to bursting the Egyptian coffers and become a millionaire himself was also taken for granted, and he said half in earnest, half in jest, that the only title he ever coveted was Duke of Midian. There were very eager ears listening to all this castle building. At Trieste, Mrs. Burton had taken to her bosom another Jane Digby—a creature with soft eyes, "bought blushes and set smiles." One would have thought that former experiences would have made her cautious. But it was not so. Mrs. Burton though deplorably tactless, was innocence itself, and she accepted others at their own valuation. Jane Digby the Second, who went in and out of the Burton's house as if she belonged to it, was in reality one of the most abandoned women in Trieste. She was married, but had also, as it transpired, an acknowledged lover.

Like women of that class she was extravagant beyond belief, and consequently always in difficulties. Hearing the everlasting talk about Midian and its supposed gold, the depraved woman [305] made up her mind to try to detach Burton's affections from his wife and to draw them to herself. To accomplish this she relied not only on the attractions of her person, but also on glozing speeches and other feminine artifices. Having easy access to the house she purloined private letters, papers and other writings, and after all hope of recovery was over, she would put them back. She slipped love letters, purporting to be from other women, into Burton's pockets; and whenever Mrs. Burton brushed his coat or dried his clothes she was sure to come upon them. Mrs. Burton also received pseudonymous letters.

But whatever Mrs. Burton's faults, she, as we have seen, passionately loved, trusted and even worshipped her husband; and whatever Burton's faults, he thoroughly appreciated her devotion. They were quite sufficient for each other, and the idea of anyone trying to come between them seemed ludicrous. Consequently Mrs. Burton carried her letters to her husband and he brought his to her. Amazing to say, neither of them suspected the culprit, though Burton thought it must be some woman's intrigue, and that need of money was the cause of it.

The real truth of it did not come out till after Burton's death, and then the unhappy woman, who was near her end, made Lady Burton a full confession, adding, "I took a wicked pleasure in your perfect trust in me."



89. The Old Baronetcy. 18th January 1877.

Repeated enquiry now took place respecting the old baronetcy in the Burton family, and Mrs. Burton in particular made unceasing efforts, both in the columns of Notes and Queries and elsewhere, in order to obtain the missing links. Several of Burton's letters at this period relate to the subject. To Mrs. E. J. Burton, 18th January 1877, he writes: "My dear cousin, I write to you in despair: That 'party,' your husband, puts me off with a post-card to this effect, 'Have seen W——-ll, no chance for outsiders,' and does not tell me a word more. I wish you would write all you know about it. Another matter. Had the old man left me his money or any chance of it, I should have applied for permission to take up the old baronetcy. But now I shall not. Your husband is the baronet and he can if he likes assume the "Sir" at once. Why the devil doesn't he? Of course I advise him to go through the usual process, which will cost, in the case of a baronetcy, very few pounds. Neither he nor you may care for it, but think of the advantage it will be to your children. Don't blink the fact that the British public are such snobs that a baronet, even in the matrimonial market, is always worth L50,000, and it is one of the oldest baronetcies in the kingdom. Do take my advice and get it for your eldest son [St. George Burton]. As I said before, your husband might assume it even without leave, but he had better get 'the Duke' to sanction it. And don't fail to push the man, who won't even claim what is his right. Que diable! Am I the only article named Burton that has an ounce of energy in his whole composition."



Chapter XX. 31st March 1877 to 27th December 1879, Midian



Bibliography:

55. Sind Revisited. 1877. 56. The Gold Mines of Midian. 1878. 57. A.E.I. (Arabia, Egypt, India) by Isabel Burton. 1879. 58. Ogham Runes. 1879. 59. The Land of Midian Revisited. 2 vols., 1879.



90. "The New Joseph." 31st March 1877-21st April 1877. 19th October 1877-20th April 1878.



Burton now felt that the time was ripe to broach his views concerning the golden Chersonese to the Khedive (Ismail), and having easily obtained leave from the home authorities, he proceeded straight to Cairo. The Khedive, impressed with his representations and enthusiasm, promptly consented to supply funds, and "the New Joseph," as Burton was now called, began preparations for the expedition that was to make both Egypt and himself rich beyond computation. Then followed a conversation with Haji Wali, whom age—he was 77—"had only made a little fatter and a little greedier," and the specious old trickster promised to accompany the expedition. As usual Burton began with a preliminary canter, visiting Moilah, Aynunah Bay, Makna and Jebel Hassani, where he sketched, made plans, and collected metalliferous specimens. He returned to Egypt with native stories of ruined towns evidencing a formerly dense population, turquoise mines and rocks veined with gold. The Khedive in idea saw himself a second Croesus. These were the quarries, he held, whence Solomon derived the gold for the walls of the house of his God, his drinking vessels and his lion throne, but Colonel Gordon, when afterwards told of his scheme, smiled incredulously. As the hot season necessitated a delay of six months, Burton returned to Trieste, where life seemed hum-drum enough after so many excitement, and spangled visions. He spent the time writing a book The Gold Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities, and the sluggish months having at last crawled by, he again left Trieste for Cairo.



91. More Advice to "Lazybones." 8th May 1877.

In a letter to Mrs. E. J. Burton, headed "At Sea, 8th May 1877," he again touches on the old baronetcy. "Next Saturday I expect to be at Trieste, whence this letter will start. The Times has probably told you the story of my last adventure, and this will probably have explained to you why yours of March 8th has remained so long unanswered. That document informed me that 'Lazybones' was going to make himself useful. I hope he has done so. If not, he can learn all about his grandfather from papers published by the late Admiral Burton, and I do not think that Miss Eruli would object to letting him have copies. Of course, don't speak about the baronetcy. That failing, all he has to do is to put the matter (after making an agreement) into the hands of a professional man, who will visit Shap (Westmoreland) and Galway, and who will find no difficulty in establishing direct descent. Please write to me again. I shall be heard of in Trieste for some time. Many thanks to the boys, and salute 'Lazybones' according to his merits."

In due time Burton arrived at Cairo, and the curious expedition set forth for wild, mysterious Midian. He himself knew nothing of engineering, but he had the services of a practical engineer—one M. Marie; and some artists, and a number of Egyptian officers and Soudanese soldiers accompanied the expedition. The party included neither metallurgist nor practical prospector [306] but Burton carried a divining rod, and seems really to have believed that it would be a help. The expenses, it was ascertained, would amount to one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one pounds twelve shillings and sixpence—no very extravagant sum for purchasing all the wealth of Ophir.



92. Haji Wali Again.

At Zagazig they were joined by the venerable wag and trickster, Haji Wali, and having reached Suez they embarked on the gunboat, the "Mukhbir," for Moilah, which they reached on December 19th. Burton landed with studied ceremony, his invariable plan when in the midst of savage or semi-civilised people. The gunboat saluted, the fort answered with a rattle and patter of musketry. All the notables drew up in line on the shore. To the left stood the civilians in tulip-coloured garb, next were the garrison, a dozen Bashi-Bazouks armed with matchlocks, then came Burton's quarry men; and lastly the escort—twenty-five men—held the place of honour on the right; and as Burton passed he was received with loud hurrahs. His first business was to hire three shaykhs and 106 camels and dromedaries with their drivers. The party was inclined to be disorderly, but Burton, with his usual skill in managing men, soon proved who was master.

Nothing if not authoritative, he always spoke in the commanding voice of a man who brooks no denial, and, as he showed plainly that acts would follow words, there was thenceforward but trifling trouble. He himself was in ecstasies. The Power of the Hills was upon him.



93. Graffiti.

The exploration was divided into three journeys, and between each and the next, the expedition rested at Moilah. The first or northward had scarcely begun, indeed, they had not no further than Sharma, before Haji Wali found it convenient to be troubled with indigestion in so violent a form as to oblige him to return home, which he straightway did with great alacrity. His object in accompanying the expedition even thus far is not clear, but he evidently got some payment, and that the expedition was a hopeless one he must have known from the first. The old rogue lived till 3rd August 1883, but Burton never again met him.

Even in Midian, Burton was dogged by Ovid, for when he looked round at the haggard, treeless expanse he could but exclaim, quoting the Ex Ponto,

"Rara neque haec felix in apertis eminet arvis Arbor, et in terra est altera forma maris."

["Dry land! nay call it, destitute of tree, Rather the blank, illimitable sea."]

[307] The expedition then made for Maghair Shu'ayb, the Madiama of Ptolemy and the old capital of the land. Here they spent a "silly fortnight, searching for gold," which refused to answer even to the diving rod. They saw catacombs—the Tombs of the Kings—some of which were scrawled with graffiti, laboured perhaps by some idle Nabathaean boy in the time of Christ. They found remains of furnaces, picked up some coins, and saw undoubted evidences of ancient opulence. That was all. Thence they made for Makna, passing on their way a catacombed hill called "the Praying Place of Jethro," and a shallow basin of clay known as Moses' Well. From Makna, where they found their gunboat waiting for them, they then cruised to El Akabah, the ancient Eziongeber, in whose waters had ridden the ships of Solomon laden with the merchandise of India and Sheba. They reached Moilah again on February 13th. The second journey, which took them due East as far as the arid Hisma, lasted from February 17th to March 8th. Burton considered the third journey the most important, but as they found nothing of any consequence it is difficult to understand why. First they steamed to El Wijh, in the "Sinnar," which had taken the place of the Mukhbir, and then marched inland to the ancient mines of Abul Maru. But Burton now saw the futility of attempting to proceed further. On April 10th they were back again at El Wijh, on the 18th at Moilah and on the 20th at Suez.

In the meantime, Mrs. Burton had left Trieste, in order to join her husband. She stayed a week at Cairo, where she met General Gordon, who listened smilingly to her anticipations respecting the result of the expedition, and then she went on to Suez. Writing to her nieces, the Misses Stisted, 23rd March 1878, she said: "I have taken a room looking across the Red Sea and desert towards Midian, and hope at last to finish my own book [A.E.I., Arabia, Egypt and India]. What on earth Paul is doing with Richard's Midian [308] God only knows. I have written and telegraphed till I am black in the face, and telegrams cost 2s. 6d. a word." At last on 20th April, while Mrs. Burton was in church, a slip of paper was put into her hand: "The 'Sinnar' is in sight."

Determined that the Khedive should have something for his money, Burton and his company had, to use Mrs. Burton's expression, "returned triumphantly," with twenty-five tons of minerals and numerous objects of archaeological interest. The yield of the argentiferous and cupriferous ores, proved, alas! to be but poor. They went in search of gold, and found graffiti! But was Burton really disappointed? Hardly. In reading about every one of his expeditions in anticipation of mineral wealth, the thought forces itself upon us that it was adventure rather than gold, sulphur, diamonds and silver that he really wanted. And of the lack of that he never had reason to complain.

An exhibition of the specimens, both mineralogical and archaeological, was held at the Hippodrome, and all Cairo flocked to see "La Collection," as the announcement expressed it, "rapportee par le Capitaine Burton." [309] The Khedive opened the exhibition in person, and walked round to look at the graffiti, the maps, the sketches of ruins and the twenty-five tons of rock, as nobody had more right; and Burton and M. Marie the engineer accompanied him.

"Are you sure," enquired the Khedive, pointing to some of the rocks, "that this and this contain gold?"

"Midian," replied M. Marie, blandly, "is a fine mining country."

And that information was all the return his Highness got for his little outlay of one thousand nine hundred and seventy one pounds twelve shillings and sixpence.



94. Letter to Sir Henry Gordon, 4th July 1878.

Returned to Trieste, Burton once more settled down to his old dull life. The most interesting letter of this period that has come to our hands is one written to Sir Henry Gordon, [310] brother of Colonel, afterwards General Gordon.

It runs: "Dear Sir, I am truly grateful to you for your kind note of June 30th and for the obliging expressions which it contains. Your highly distinguished brother, who met my wife at Suez, has also written me a long and interesting account of Harar. As you may imagine, the subject concerns me very nearly, and the more so as I have yet hopes of revisiting that part of Africa. It is not a little curious that although I have been in communication with Colonel Gordon for years, we have never yet managed to meet. Last spring the event seemed inevitable, and yet when I reached Suez, he had steamed south. However, he writes to me regularly, scolding me a little at times, but that is no matter. I hope to be luckier next winter. I expect to leave Trieste in a few days [311] and to make Liverpool via long sea. Both Mrs. Burton and I want a medicine of rest and roast beef as opposed to rosbif. Nothing would please me more than to meet you and talk over your brother's plans. My direction is Athenaeum Club, and Woolwich is not so difficult to explore as Harar was. Are we likely to meet at the British Association?"



95. Death of Maria Stisted, 12th November 1878.

Burton and his wife reached London on July 27th (1878). Presently we hear of them in Ireland, where they are the guests of Lord Talbot of Malahide, and later he lectured at various places on "Midian" and "Ogham Runes." Again Gordon tried to draw him to Africa, this time with the offer of L5,000 a year, but the answer was the same as before. Then came a great blow to Burton—the death of his beloved niece—"Minnie"—Maria Stisted. Mrs. Burton, who was staying at Brighton, wrote to Miss Georgiana Stisted a most kind, sympathetic and beautiful letter—a letter, however, which reveals her indiscreetness more clearly, perhaps, than any other that we have seen. Though writing a letter of condolence—the sincerity of which is beyond doubt—she must needs insert remarks which a moment's consideration would have told her were bound to give offence—remarks of the kind that had already, indeed, made a gulf between her and Burton's relations.

She says: "My poor darling Georgy, I do not know how to write or what to say to you in such poignant grief. I think this is the most terrible blow that could have happened to Maria (Lady Stisted) and you. I do not grieve for Minnie, because, as I told Dick in my letter, her pure soul has known nothing but religion and music, and is certainly in its own proper place among the angels, but I do grieve for you with all my heart.... It is no use to talk to you about 'Time healing the wound,' or 'resigning oneself to what is inevitable,' but I have so long studied the ways of God, that I know He has taken the angel of your house as He always does, that this is a crisis in your lives, there is some change about to take place, and some work or new thing you have to do in which Minnie was not to be. I can only pray for you with all my heart, as I did at communion this morning." So far, so good, but then comes: "and have masses said to create another gem upon Minnie's crown."

Yet Mrs. Burton knew that she was writing to staunch Protestants whom such a remark would make positively to writhe. Still, in spite of her indiscretions, no human being with a heart can help loving her. She then goes on: "Please know and feel that though the world looks dark, you have always a staunch friend in me. Dick feels Minnie's death fearfully. He telegraphed to me and writes every day about it. I don't think he is in a state of health to bear many shocks just now, he is so frightfully nervous. He so little expected it, he always thought it was only one of the little ailments of girls, and Maria (Lady Stisted) was over anxious; so it has come like a sledge-hammer upon him. I feel what a poor letter this is, but my heart is full, and I do not know how to express myself. Your attached and sympathising Aunt Zoo."

Burton was just then engaged upon his work The Land of Midian Revisited, and he dedicated it to the memory of his "much loved niece."



96. Burton's "Six Senses."

On 2nd December 1878, Burton lectured at 38, Great Russell Street before the British National Association of Spiritualists—taking as his subject, "Spiritualism in Foreign Lands." His ideas on Spiritualism had been roughly outlined some time previous in a letter to The Times. [312] He said that the experience of twenty years had convinced him: (1) that perception is possible without the ordinary channels of the senses, and (2) that he had been in the presence of some force or power which he could not understand. Yet he did not believe that any spirits were subject to our calls and caprices, or that the dead could be communicated with at all. He concluded, "I must be contented to be at best a spiritualist without the spirits." The letter excited interest. The press commented on it, and street boys shouted to one another, "Take care what you're doing! You haven't got Captain Burton's six senses." At Great Russell Street, Burton commenced by defending materialism. He could not see with Guizot that the pursuit of psychology is as elevating as that of materialism is degrading. What right, he asked, had the theologian to limit the power of the Creator. "Is not the highest honour His who from the worst can draw the best?" [313] He then quoted his letter to The Times, and declared that he still held the same opinions. The fact that thunder is in the air, and the presence of a cat may be known even though one cannot see, hear, taste, smell or feel thunder or the cat. He called this force—this sixth sense—zoo-electricity. He then gave an account of spiritualism, thaumaturgy, and wizardry, as practised in the East, concluding with a reference to his Vikram and the Vampire. "There," said he, "I have related under a facetious form of narrative many of the so-called supernaturalisms and preternaturalisms familiar to the Hindus." [314] These studies will show the terrible 'training,' the ascetic tortures, whereby men either lose their senses, or attain the highest powers of magic, that is, of commanding nature by mastering the force, whatever it may be, here called zoo-electric, which conquers and controls every modification of matter. [315] His lecture concluded with an account of a Moorish necromancer, which reminds us of the Maghrabi incident in "the Story of Judar." When Burton sat down, Mrs. Burton asked to be allowed to speak. Indeed, she never hesitated to speak upon any subject under the sun, whether she did not understand it, as was almost invariably the case, or whether she did; and she always spoke agreeably. [316] She pointed out to the spiritualists that they had no grounds to suppose that her husband was one of their number, and stated her belief that the theory of zoo-electricity would suit both spiritualists and non-spiritualists. Then, as a matter of course, she deftly introduced the "one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" to which it was her "glory to belong," and which this theory of Burton's "did not exactly offend." As regards the yogis and the necromancers she insisted that her husband had expressed no belief, but simply recounted what is practised in the East, and she concluded with the remark, "Captain Burton is certainly not a spiritualist." Some good-humoured comments by various speakers terminated the proceedings. It is quite certain, however, that Burton was more of a spiritualist than Mrs. Burton would allow, and of Mrs. Burton herself in this connection, we shall later have a curious story to tell. [317]

During the rest of her holiday Mrs. Burton's thoughts ran chiefly on philanthropic work, and she arranged gatherings at country houses in support of the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. These were well attended and some enthusiasm was shown, except when there happened to be a meet of the fox hounds in the district, or when rabbit coursing was going on.



97. Still thinking of Midian. April-December 1879.

The Burtons remained in London until after the publication of Mrs. Burton's book "A.E.I.," [318] and then Burton set out alone on a tour through Germany. Mrs. Burton, who was to meet him at Trieste, left London 27th April; and then followed a chapter of accidents. First she fell with influenza, and next, at Paris, when descending the stairs, which had been waxed, she "took one header from the top to the bottom," and so damaged herself that she had to be removed in a coupe lit. [319] She reached Trieste after "an agonizing sixty hours" and was seriously ill for several weeks. All the while, Burton, whose purse, like that of one of his favourite poets, Catullus, was "full of cobwebs," had been turning his thoughts to Midian again. He still asseverated that it was a land of gold, and he believed that if he could get to Egypt the rest would be easy. Says Mrs. Burton, writing to Miss Stisted, 12th December 1879: "Darling Dick started on Friday 5th, a week ago, in high spirits. My position is singular, no child, no relative, and all new servants." She then speaks of her Christmas book, which had just gone to the publishers. She says, "It is for boys from 12 to 16, culled from ten volumes: Dick's three books on Sind, his Goa, Falconry, Vikram, Bayonet and Sword Exercise, and my A.E.I." and she was in hopes it would revive her husband's earliest works, which by that time were forgotten. The fate of this work was a melancholy one, for the publisher to whom the manuscript was entrusted went bankrupt, and no more was every heard of it. [320] Burton's hope that he would be able to lead another expedition to Midian was not realised. Ismail was no longer Khedive, and Tewfik, his successor, who regarded the idea as chimerical, declined to be bound by any promise of his father's. His Excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha [321] and others of Burton's Egyptian friends expressed sympathy and tried to expedite matters, but nothing could be done. To make matters worse, Burton when passing through Alexandria was attacked by thieves, who hit him on the head from behind. He defended himself stoutly, and got away, covered however, with bruises and blood.



Chapter XXI. 27th December 1879-August 1881, Camoens

Bibliography

60. Camoens, 6 vols. 1 and 2, the Lusiads. 1880. 3 and 4, Life of Camoens and Commentary. 1882. 5 and 6, The Lyrics. 1884. 61. The Kasidah. 1880. 62. Visit to Lissa and Pelagoza. 1880. 63. A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881. 64. How to deal with the Slave Trade in Egypt. 1881. 65. Thermae of Montfalcone. 1881.



98. The Lusiads.

Burton had brought with him to Egypt his translation of The Lusiads, which had been commenced as early as 1847, and at which, as we have seen, he had, from that time onward, intermittently laboured. At Cairo he gave his work the finishing touches, and on his return to Trieste in May it was ready for the press. There have been many English translators of Camoens, from Fanshawe, the first, to Burton and Aubertin; and Burton likens them to the Simoniacal Popes in Dante's Malebolge-pit—each one struggling to trample down his elder brother. [322] Burton's work, which appeared in 1882, was presently followed by two other volumes consisting of a Life of Camoens and a Commentary on The Lusiads, but his version of The Lyrics did not appear till 1884.

Regarded as a faithful rendering, the book was a success, for Burton had drunk The Lusiads till he was super-saturated with it. Alone among the translators, he had visited every spot alluded to in the poem, and his geographical and other studies had enabled him to elucidate many passages that had baffled his predecessors. Then, too, he had the assistance of Aubertin, Da Cunha and other able Portuguese scholars and Camoens enthusiasts. Regarded, however, as poetry, the book was a failure, and for the simple reason that Burton was not a poet. Like his Kasidah, it contains noble lines, but on every page we are reminded of the translator's defective ear, annoyed by the unnecessary use of obsolete words, and disappointed by his lack of what Poe called "ethericity." The following stanza, which expresses ideas that Burton heartily endorsed, may be regarded as a fair sample of the whole:

"Elegant Phormion's philosophick store see how the practised Hannibal derided when lectured he with wealth of bellick lore and on big words and books himself he prided. Senhor! the soldier's discipline is more than men may learn by mother-fancy guided; Not musing, dreaming, reading what they write; 'tis seeing, doing, fighting; teach to fight." [323]

The first six lines contain nothing remarkable, still, they are workmanlike and pleasant to read; but the two concluding lines are atrocious, and almost every stanza has similar blemishes. A little more labour, even without much poetic skill, could easily have produced a better result. But Burton was a Hannibal, not a Phormion, and no man can be both. He is happiest, perhaps, in the stanzas containing the legend of St. Thomas, [324] or Thome, as he calls him,

"the Missioner sanctified Who thrust his finger in Lord Jesu's side."

According to Camoens, while Thorme was preaching to the potent Hindu city Meleapor, in Narsinga land [325] a huge forest tree floated down the Ganges, but all the king's elephants and all the king's men were incompetent to haul it ashore.

"Now was that lumber of such vasty size, no jot it moves, however hard they bear; when lo! th' Apostle of Christ's verities wastes in the business less of toil and care: His trailing waistcord to the tree he ties, raises and sans an effort hales it where A sumptuous Temple he would rear sublime, a fit example for all future time."

This excites the jealousy and hatred of the Brahmins, for

"There be no hatred fell and fere, and curst As by false virtue for true virtue nurst."

The chief Brahmin then kills his own son, and tries to saddle the crime on Thome, who promptly restores the dead youth to life again and "names the father as the man who slew." Ultimately, Thome, who is unable to circumvent the further machinations of his enemies, is pierced to the heart by a spear; and the apostle in glory is thus apostrophised:

"Wept Gange and Indus, true Thome! thy fate, wept thee whatever lands thy foot had trod; yet weep thee more the souls in blissful state thou led'st to don the robes of Holy Rood. But angels waiting at the Paradise-gate meet thee with smiling faces, hymning God. We pray thee, pray that still vouchsafe thy Lord unto thy Lusians His good aid afford."

In a stanza presented as a footnote and described as "not in Camoens," Burton gives vent to his own disappointments, and expends a sigh for the fate of his old friend and enemy, John Hanning Speke. As regards himself, had he not, despite his services to his country, been relegated to a third-rate seaport, where his twenty-nine languages were quite useless, except for fulminating against the government! The fate of poor Speke had been still more lamentable:

"And see you twain from Britain's foggy shore set forth to span dark Africk's jungle-plain; thy furthest fount, O Nilus! they explore, and where Zaire springs to seek the Main, The Veil of Isis hides thy land no more, whose secrets open to the world are lain. They deem, vain fools! to win fair Honour's prize: This exiled lives, and that untimely dies."

Burton, however, still nursed the fallacious hope that his merits would in time be recognised, that perhaps he would be re-instated in Damascus or appointed to Ispahan or Constantinople.



99. At Ober Ammergau, August 1880.

In August (1880) the Burtons paid a visit to Ober Ammergau, which was just then attracting all eyes on account of its Passion Play. Burton's object in going was "the wish to compare, haply to trace some affinity between, this survival of the Christian 'Mystery' and the living scenes of El Islam at Mecca," while Mrs. Burton's object may be gauged by the following prayer which she wrote previous to their departure from Trieste: "O Sweet Jesu... Grant that I, all unworthy though I be, may so witness this holy memorial of thy sacrificial love, Thy glorious victory over death and hell, that I may be drawn nearer to Thee and hold Thee in everlasting remembrance. Let the representation of Thy bitter sufferings on the cross renew my love for Thee, strengthen my faith, and ennoble my life, and not mine only, but all who witness it." Then follows a prayer for the players.

Burton found no affinity between the scenes at Ober Ammergau and those at Mecca, and he was glad to get away from "a pandemonium of noise and confusion," while Mrs. Burton, who was told to mind her own business by a carter with whom she remonstrated for cruelly treating a horse, discovered that even Ober Ammergau was not all holiness. Both Burton and his wife recorded their impressions in print, but though his volume [326] appeared in 1881, hers [327] was not published till 1900.



100. Mrs. Burton's Advice to Novelists. 4th September 1880.

The following letter from Mrs. Burton to Miss Stisted, who had just written a novel, A Fireside King, [328] gives welcome glimpses of the Burtons and touches on matters that are interesting in the light of subsequent events. "My dearest Georgie, On leaving you I came on to Trieste, arriving 29th May, and found Dick just attacked by a virulent gout. We went up to the mountains directly without waiting even to unpack my things or rest, and as thirty-one days did not relieve him, I took him to Monfalcone for mud baths, where we passed three weeks, and that did him good. We then returned home to change our baggage and start for Ober Ammergau, which I thought glorious, so impressive, simple, natural. Dick rather criticises it. However, we are back.... I read your book through on the journey to England. Of course I recognised your father, Minnie, [329] and many others, but you should never let your heroine die so miserably, because the reader goes away with a void in his heart, and you must never put all your repugnances in the first volume, for you choke off your reader.... You don't mind my telling the truth, do you, because I hope you will write another, and if you like you may stand in the first class of novelists and make money and do good too, but put your beasts a little further in towards the end of the first volume. I read all the reviews that fell in my way, but though some were spiteful that need not discourage... Believe me, dearest G., your affectionate Zookins."

Miss Stisted's novel was her first and last, but she did write another book some considerable time later, which, however, would not have won Mrs. Burton's approval. [330]



101. The Kasidah, 1880.

This year, Burton, emulous of fame as an original poet, published The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, A Lay of the Higher Law, which treats of the great questions of Life, Death and Immortality, and has certain resemblances to that brilliant poem which is the actual father of it, Edward FitzGerald's rendering of The Rubaiyat of Oman Khayyam. Lady Burton tells us that The Kasidah was written about 1853, or six years before the appearance of FitzGerald's poem. Nothing, however, is more certain than that, with the exception of a few verses, it was written after FitzGerald's poem. The veriest tyro in literature, by comparing the two productions, would easily understand their relationship. [331] The facts are these. About 1853, Burton, in a time of dejection, caused by the injustice done him in India, planned a poem of this nature, wrote a few stanzas, and then put it by and forgot all about it. FitzGerald's version of Omar Khayyam appeared in 1859, and Burton no sooner read than he burned to rival it. So he drew from the pigeon-hole what he called his Lay, furbished up the few old verses, made a number of new ones, reconstructed the whole, and lo, The Kasidah! Burton calls it a translation of a poem by a certain Haji Abdu. There may have been a Haji Abdu who supplied thoughts, and even verses, but the production is really a collection of ideas gathered from all quarters. Confucius, Longfellow, Plato, the FitzGeraldian Oman Khayyam, Aristotle, Pope, Das Kabir and the Pulambal are drawn upon; the world is placed under tribute from Pekin to the Salt Lake City. A more careless "borrower" to use Emerson's expression, never lifted poetry. Some of his lines are transferred bodily, and without acknowledgment, from Hafiz; [332] and, no doubt, if anybody were to take the trouble to investigate, it would be found that many other lines are not original. It is really not very much to anyone's credit to play the John Ferriar to so careless a Sterne. He doesn't steal the material for his brooms, he steals the brooms ready-made. Later, as we shall see, he "borrowed" with a ruthlessness that was surpassed only by Alexandre Dumas. Let us say, then, that The Kasidah is tesselated work done in Burton's usual way, and not very coherently, with a liberal sprinkling of obsolete works. At first it positively swarmed with them, but subsequently, by the advice of a friend, a considerable number such as "wox" and "pight" was removed. If the marquetry of The Kasidah compares but feebly with the compendious splendours of FitzGerald's quatrains; and if the poem [333] has undoubted wastes of sand, nevertheless, the diligent may here and there pick up amber. But it is only fair to bear in mind that the Lay is less a poem than an enchiridion, a sort of Emersonian guide to the conduct of life rather than an exquisitely-presented summary of the thoughts of an Eastern pessimist. FitzGerald's poem is an unbroken lament. Burton, a more robust soul than the Woodbridge eremite, also has his misgivings. He passes in review the great religious teachers, and systems and comes to the conclusion that men make gods and Gods after their own likeness and that conscience is a geographical accident; but if, like FitzGerald, he is puzzled when he ponders the great questions of life and afterlife, he finds comfort in the fact that probity and charity are their own reward, that we have no need to be anxious about the future, seeing that, in the words of Pope, "He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right." He insists that self-cultivation, with due regard for others, is the sole and sufficient object of human life, and he regards the affections and the "divine gift of Pity" as man's highest enjoyments. As in FitzGerald's poem there is talk of the False Dawn or Wolf's Tail, "Thee and Me," Pot and Potter, and here and there are couplets which are simply FitzGerald's quatrains paraphrased [334]—as, for example, the one in which Heaven and Hell are declared to be mere tools of "the Wily Fetisheer." [335] Like Omar Khayyam, Haji Abdu loses patience with the "dizzied faiths" and their disputatious exponents; like Omar Khayyam too, Haji Abdu is not averse from Jamshid's bowl, but he is far less vinous than the old Persian.

Two of the couplets flash with auroral splendour, and of all the vast amount of metrical work that Burton accomplished, these are the only lines that can be pronounced imperishable. Once only—and only momentarily—did the seraph of the sanctuary touch his lips with the live coal.

"Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws."

and

"All other life is living death, a world where none but phantoms dwell A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell."

We are also bidden to be noble, genuine and charitable.

"To seek the true, to glad the heart, such is of life the Higher Law."

Neglecting the four really brilliant lines, the principal attraction of The Kasidah is its redolence of the saffron, immeasurable desert. We snuff at every turn its invigorating air; and the tinkle of the camel's bell is its sole and perpetual music.

At first Burton made some attempt to create the impression that there was actually a Haji Abdu, and that the verses were merely a translation. Indeed, he quotes him, at the end of his Supplemental Nights, vol. ii., and elsewhere, as an independent author. Later, however, the mask which deceived nobody was removed. Not only was The Kasidah written in emulation of FitzGerald's Omar, but Burton made no secret that such was the case. To further this end Mr. Schutz Wilson, who had done so much for the Rubaiyat, was approached by one of Burton's friends; and the following letter written to Burton after the interview will be read with some amusement. "Dear Richard," it runs, "'Wox' made me shudder! If you give more specimens do be good and be sparing of the 'pights,' 'ceres' and 'woxes.' I showed the Lay to Schutz Wilson. He seemed absorbed in the idea of Omar, and said 'Oh! I am the cause of its going through five editions.' I told him this was even more striking than Omar, but he didn't seem able to take in the new idea! When you want people's minds they are always thinking of something else." [336] Although the critics as a body fell foul of The Kasidah, still there were not wanting appreciators, and its four great lines have often been quoted.



102. Lisa.

By this time Mrs. Burton had provided herself with another Chico. Chico the Third (or Chica the Second) was a tall and lank, but well-built Italian girl, daughter of a baron. Lisa had Khamoor's ungovernable temper, but to the Burtons she at first exhibited the faithfulness of a dog. Her father lived formerly at Verona, but in the war of 1866, having sided with Austria, [337] he fell upon evil days; and retired to Trieste on a trifling pension. Mrs. Burton and Lisa had not been long acquainted before Lisa became a member of the Burton household as a kind of lady's maid, although she retained her title of Baroness, and Mrs. Burton at once set about Anglicising her new friend, though her attempt, as in Khamoor's case, was only partially successful. For instance, Lisa, would never wear a hat, "for fear of losing caste." She was willing, however, to hang out her stocking on Christmas eve; and on finding it full next morning said, "Oh, I like this game. Shall we play it every night!" Just however, as a petted Khamoor had made a spoilt Khamoor; so a petted Lisa very soon made a spoilt Lisa.

With Mrs. Burton, her Jane Digbys, her Chicos, and her servants, Burton rarely interfered, and when he did interfere, it was only to make matters worse; for his judgment was weaker even than hers. On one occasion, however, he took upon himself to dismiss the cook and to introduce another of his own finding. On being requested to prepare the dinner the new acquisition set about it by drinking two bottles of wine, knocking down the housemaid, and beating the kitchenmaid with the saucepan. Burton, who flew to their rescue, thought he must be in Somali-land once more.



Chapter XXII. August 1881-May 1882, John Payne



103. With Cameron at Venice, August 1881.

Burton had for several years been acquainted with the African traveller V. Lovett Cameron, [338] and in August 1881 they met accidentally at Venice. A geographical conference was being held in the city and representatives from all nations were assembled; but, naturally, the first geographer of the day, Captain Burton, was not invited either to speak or even to be present. On the morning of the conference, Burton, Mrs. Burton and Cameron gave themselves the treat of going over to the Lido for bathing and breakfast; and being in puckish mood, the two men, notwithstanding the great crowd of pleasure seekers, took off their shoes and stockings, turned up their trousers, and made sand castles. "Look, nurse," bawled Burton to his wife, "see what Cammy and I have done!" "If you please, nursey," whined Cameron, "Dick's snatched away my spade." At that moment Lord Aberdeen, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and a party of grave antiquaries and geographers, mostly run to nose, spectacles, and forehead, arrived on the scene; with the result of infinite laughter, in which Burton and Cameron joined heartily; and henceforward Mrs. Burton answered to no name but "Nursey." Burton, however, was justly indignant on account of his not having been invited to the conference, and his revenge took the shape of a pungent squib which he wrote on his card and left in the Congress Room. Next day, while Burton and Cameron were strolling in front of St. Mark's, a Portuguese gentleman came up and saluted them. To Burton's delight it was his old friend Da Cunha, the Camoens enthusiast; and then ensued a long argument, conducted in Portuguese, concerning Burton's rendering of one of Camoens' sonnets, Burton in the end convincing his friend of its correctness. Having parted from Da Cunha, they ran against an Egyptian officer who had just visited Mecca and brought back a series of photographs. The conversation this time was conducted in Arabic, and Burton explained to the Egyptian the meaning of much of the ritual of the pilgrimage. "As a cicerone," says Cameron, "Burton was invaluable. His inexhaustible stock of historical and legendary lore furnished him with something to relate about even the meanest and commonest buildings." [339] There were trips about the green canals in a long black gondola on the day and night of the regatta, when the Grand Canal and St. Mark's were illuminated, all of which Burton enjoyed thoroughly, for round him had gathered the elite of Venice, and his brilliant personality, as usual, dazzled and dominated all who listened to him.



104. John Payne, November 1881.

We now come to that absorbing period of Burton's life which is connected principally with The Arabian Nights. Amazing as the statement may seem, we feel ourselves compelled to say at once, though regretfully, that Burton's own account of the history of the translation, given in his Translator's Foreword to the Arabian Nights, and Lady Burton's account, given in her life of her husband, do not tally with the facts as revealed in his letters. In matters relating to his own history Burton often spoke with amazing recklessness, [340] and perhaps he considered he was justified in stating that his translation of The Arabian Nights was well advanced by November 1881, seeing that it had for thirty years intermittently occupied his thoughts. As regards Lady Burton, no doubt, of some of the facts presently to be given, she was unaware. But she was one who easily deceived herself. Whatever she wished, she was apt to believe. The actual facts compiled from existing documentary evidence—including Burton's own letters—will now be revealed for the first time; and it will be found, as is generally the case, that the unembroidered truth is more interesting than the romance. The story is strangely paralleled by that of the writing of The Kasidah; or in other words it recalls traits that were eminently characteristic of Burton. As early as 1854, as we have seen, Burton and Steinhauser had planned a translation of The Arabian Nights, Steinhauser was to furnish the prose, Burton the poetry. They corresponded on the subject, but made only trifling progress. Steinhauser died in 1866, his manuscripts were scattered, and Burton never heard of them again. Absolutely nothing more was done, for Burton was occupied with other matters—travelling all over the world and writing piles of voluminous books on other subjects. Still, he had hoards of Eastern manuscripts, and notes of his own on Eastern manners and customs, which had for years been accumulating and an even greater mass of curious information had been stored in his brain. Again and again he had promised himself to proceed, but something every time hindered.

In November 1881, Burton, who was then at Trieste, noticed a paragraph in The Athenaeum [341] to the effect that Mr. John Payne, the well-known author of The Masque of Shadows and of a famous rendering of The Poems of Francois Villon, was about to issue a Translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and one Nights. Burton, who was an enthusiastic admirer of the Villon and who, moreover, had not relinquished his own scheme, though it had lain so long quiescent, wrote at once to The Athenaeum a letter which appeared on 26th November 1881. He said: "Many years ago, in collaboration with my old and lamented friend, Dr. F. Steinhauser, of the Bombay Army, I began to translate the whole [342] of The Thousand Nights and a Night. The book, mutilated in Europe to a collection of fairy tales, and miscalled the Arabian Nights, is unique as a study of anthropology. It is a marvellous picture of Oriental life; its shiftings are those of the kaleidoscope. Its alternation of pathos and bathos—of the boldest poetry (the diction of Job) with the baldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day) and finally, its contrast of the highest and purest morality with the orgies of Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter, take away the reader's breath. I determined to render every word with the literalism of Urquhart's Rabelais, and to save the publisher trouble by printing my translation at Brussels.

"Not non omnia possumus. Although a host of friends has been eager to subscribe, my work is still unfinished, nor could it be finished without a year's hard labour. I rejoice, therefore, to see that Mr. John Payne, under the Villon Society, has addressed himself to a realistic translation without 'abridgments or suppressions.' I have only to wish him success, and to express a hope that he is resolved verbum reddere verbo, without deference to any prejudice which would prevent his being perfectly truthful to the original. I want to see that the book has fair play; and if it is not treated as it deserves, I shall still have to print my own version. [343] 'Villon,' however, makes me hope for the best."

In this letter Burton oddly enough speaks of his own work as "still unfinished." This was quite true, seeing that it was not even begun, unless two or three pages which he once showed to Mr. Watts-Dunton, [344] and the pigeon-holing of notes be regarded as a commencement. Still, the announcement of Mr. Payne's edition—the first volume of which was actually in the press—must have caused him a pang; and the sincere good wishes for his rival's success testify to the nobility, unselfishness and magnanimity of his character.

Mr. Payne, supposing from his letter that Burton had made considerable progress with his translation, wrote on November 28th to Burton, and, using the words Tantus labor non sit cassus, suggested collaboration. Thus commenced one of the most interesting friendships in the annals of literature. Before relating the story, however, it will be helpful to set down some particulars of the career of Mr. Payne. John Payne was born in 1842 of a Devonshire family, descended from that breezy old sea-dog, Sir John Hawkins. Mr. Payne, indeed, resembles Hawkins in appearance. He is an Elizabethan transferred bodily into the 19th and 20th centuries, his ruff lost in transit. Yet he not infrequently has a ruff even—a live one, for it is no uncommon event to see his favourite Angora leap on to his shoulders and coil himself half round his master's neck, looking not unlike a lady's boa—and its name, Parthenopaeus, is long enough even for that. For years Mr. Payne followed the law, and with success, but his heart was with the Muses and the odorous East. From a boy he had loved and studied the old English, Scotch and Welsh writers, with the result that all his productions have a mediaeval aroma. The Faerie Queene, Chaucer and his successors—the Scottish poets of the 15th and 16th Centuries, The Morte d'Arthur, the authorised version of the Bible and North's Plutarch have always lain at his elbow. Then, too, with Dante, Shakespeare and Heine's poems he is supersaturated; but the authorised version of the Bible has had more influence on him than any other book, and he has so loved and studied it from boyhood that he had assimilated its processes and learned the secrets of the interior mechanism of its style. It is not surprising that his first publication should have been a book of poetry. The merits of The Masque of Shadows and other Poems were acknowledged on all sides. It was seen that the art of ballad writing—which Goethe calls the most difficult of arts—was not, as some averred, a forgotten one. The Masque of Shadows itself is melodious and vivid from the first line to the end, but the captain jewel is the necromantic and thrilling Rime of Redemption—the story of a woman who erred and of a man who prayed and wrestled with God in prayer for her, and ultimately wrung her salvation by self-sacrifice from Divine Justice. Here and there are passages that we could have wished modified, but surely such a terrific fantasy was never before penned! It is as harrowing as The Ancient Mariner, and appeals to one more forcibly than Coleridge's "Rime," because it seems actual truth. Other volumes, containing impassioned ballads, lyrics, narrative poems and sonnets, came from Mr. Payne's pen. His poems have the rush and bound of a Scotch waterfall. This is explained by the fact that they are written in moments of physical and mental exaltation. Only a mind in a quasi-delirious state, to be likened to that of the pythoness on the tripod, could have evolved the Rime of Redemption [345] or Thorgerda [346]. No subject comes amiss to him. His chemic power turns everything to gold. "He sees everything," as Mr. Watts-Dunton once said to the writer—"through the gauze of poetry." His love for beautiful words and phrases leads him to express his thoughts in the choicest language. He puts his costliest wine in myrrhine vases; he builds his temple with the lordliest cedars. Mr. Payne does not write for the multitude, but few poets of the day have a more devoted band of admirers. Some readers will express a preference for The Building of the Dream, [347] others for Lautrec [348] or Salvestra [349], and others for the dazzling and mellifluous Prelude to Hafiz. Mr. A. C. Swinburne eulogised the "exquisite and clear cut Intaglios." [350] D. G. Rossetti revelled in the Sonnets; Theodore de Banville, "roi des rimes," in the Songs of Life and Death, whose beauties blend like the tints in jewels. [351]

Mr. Payne first took up the work of a translator in 1878, his earliest achievement in the new province being his admirable rendering of Villon, in which he gives the music of the thief poet, and all his humour, and this reminds us that Mr. Payne, unlike most poets, is a skilled musician. Of his life, indeed, music, in its most advanced and audacious manifestations had always been as much an essential a part as literature, hence the wonderful melodic effects of the more remarkable of his poems. Already an excellent Arabic scholar, he had as early as 1875 resolved upon a translation of The Arabian Nights, and he commenced the task in earnest on 5th February 1877. He worked with exhausting sedulity and expended upon it all the gifts in his power, with the result that his work has taken its places as a classic. The price was nine guineas. Imagining that the demand for so expensive a work would not be large, Mr. Payne, unfortunately, limited himself to the publication of only 500 copies. The demand exceeded 2,000, so 1,500 persons were disappointed.

It was at this moment that Mr. Payne became acquainted with Burton. Mr. Payne admired Burton as a traveller, an explorer, and a linguist, and recognised the fact that no man had a more intimate knowledge of the manners and customs of the East; and Burton on his part paid high tribute to Mr. Payne's gifts as a translator and a poet. [352]



105. To the Gold Coast, 25th November 1881-20th May 1882.

When Mr. Payne's letter reached Trieste, Burton had just started off, with Commander Verney Lovett Cameron, on an expedition to the Gold Coast. In his Fernando Po period he had, as we have seen, been deeply interested in the gold digging and gold washing industries, [353] had himself, indeed, to use his own words, "discovered several gold mines on that coast." For years his mind had turned wistfully towards those regions, and at last, early in 1881, he was able to enter into an arrangement with a private speculator concerning the supposed mines. He and Cameron were to have all their expenses paid, and certain shares upon the formulation of the company. The travellers left Trieste on November 18th, being accompanied as far as Fiume by Mrs. Burton and Lisa, who on the 25th returned to Trieste; and on December 17th they reached Lisbon, whither Mr. Payne's letter followed them. Burton, who replied cordially, said "In April, at the latest, I hope to have the pleasure of shaking hands with you in London, and then we will talk over the 1,000 Nights and a Night. At present it is useless to say anything more than this—I shall be most happy to collaborate with you..... Do you know the Rev. G. Percy Badger (of the Dictionary)? If not, you should make his acquaintance, as he is familiar with the Persian and to a certain extent with the Egyptian terms of the Nights. He is very obliging and ready to assist Arabists [354]..... I am an immense admirer of your Villon."

Writing to Burton early in the year Payne observed that as his first volume was in type, apparently it should at once go to press, but that he would be pleased to submit subsequent volumes to Burton. Terms were also suggested.

Burton's reply, addressed Axim, Gold Coast, and received by Mr. Payne, 20th March, 1882, runs as follows: "I received your welcome letter by the steamer of yesterday, and to-morrow morning my companion Cameron and I again proceed to the 'bush.' Of course you must go to press at once. I deeply regret it, but on arriving in England my time will be so completely taken up by the Gold Coast that I shall not have a moment's leisure. It would be a useless expense to keep up the type. Your terms about the royalty," he said, "are more than liberal. I cannot accept them, however, except for value received, and it remains to be seen what time is at my disposal. I am working out a scheme for Chinese immigration to the West African coast, and this may take me next winter to China. I can only say that I shall be most happy to render you any assistance in my power; at the same time I must warn you that I am a rolling stone. If I cannot find time you must apply in the matter of the introductory essay to the Rev. Percy Badger, Professor Robertson Smith (Glasgow) and Professor Palmer (Trinity, Cambridge). I have booked your private address and have now only to reciprocate your good wishes."

On April 18th Mrs. Burton and Lisa set out for England in order to rejoin Burton—Lisa, as usual, without any headgear—a condition of affairs which in every church they entered caused friction with the officials. When this began Mrs. Burton would explain the position; and the officials, when they came to find that nothing they could say or do make the slightest difference to Lisa, invariably expressed themselves satisfied with the explanation.

Burton and Cameron reached Liverpool on May 20th, and were able to report both "that there was plenty of gold, and that the mines could easily be worked." The expedition, however, was unproductive of all anticipated results and no profit accrued to Burton. Indeed it was Iceland and Midian over again. "I ought," he says in one of his letters to Payne, "to go down to history as the man who rediscovered one Gold Country and rehabilitated a second, and yet lost heavily by the discoveries." [355]



Chapter XXIII. 20th May 1882-July 1883, The Meeting of Burton and Payne



Bibliography

66. Lord Beaconsfield. 67. To the Gold Coast for Gold. 2 vols. 1883. 68. Stone Implements from the Gold Coast. Burton and Cameron.



106. Mrs. Grundy begins to roar. May 1882.

In May 1882, Burton called on Mr. Payne, and the matter of The Arabian Nights was fully discussed. It then transpired that Burton's project was still entirely in nubibus. He told Mr. Payne that he had no manuscript of any kind beyond "a sheet or two of notes," [356] and it was afterwards gathered from his words that these notes were a mere syllabus of the contents of the Boulac edition of the Nights—the only one of the four printed texts (Calcutta, Macnaghten, Boulac and Breslau) used and combined by Mr. Payne with which Burton was then acquainted. [357] Mr. Payne's first volume was completely in type and had for some weeks been held over for Burton's return to England. Of the remaining volumes three were ready for press, and the rest only awaited fair copying. Burton's thoughts, however, were then completely occupied with the Gold Coast, consequently the whole project of collaboration fell through. Mr. Payne's first volume duly appeared; and as the result of further conversations it was arranged that Burton should read Mr. Payne's subsequent proofs, though he declined to accept any remuneration unless it should turn out that his assistance was necessary. In June, Mr. Payne submitted the first proofs of Vol. ii. to Burton. Meantime the literalism of Mr. Payne's translation had created extraordinary stir, and Burton wrote thus forcefully on the matter (June 3rd): "Please send me a lot of advertisements. [358] I can place a multitude of copies. Mrs. Grundy is beginning to roar; already I hear the voice of her. And I know her to be an arrant w—— and tell her so, and don't care a ——- for her."

The event at Trieste that summer was the opening of a Grand International Exhibition—the hobby of the Governor of the town—Baron de Pretis, and Burton thus refers to it in a letter written to Mr. Payne, 5th August (1882). "We arrived here just in time for the opening of the Exhibition, August 1st. Everything went off well, but next evening an Orsini shell was thrown which killed one and wounded five, including my friend Dr. Dorn, Editor of the Triester Zeitung. The object, of course, was to injure the Exhibition, and the effect will be ruinous. I expect more to come and dare not leave my post. So while my wife goes to Marienbad, I must content myself with the Baths at Monfalcone, [359] distant only one hour by rail" In the next letter (August 14th) Burton refers to a proposed special quarto (large paper) edition of Mr. Payne's Nights, the scheme for which, however, fell through. "I am delighted with the idea," he says, "for though not a bibliophile in practice (L s. d. preventing) I am entirely in theory." There is also an amusing reference to a clergyman who after giving his name for a copy withdrew it. Says Burton, "If the Rev. A. miss this opportunity of grace he can blame only himself. It is very sad but not to be helped.... And now good luck to the venture." Later he observes, "The fair sex appears wild to get at the Nights. [360] I have received notes from two upon the nice subject, with no end of complaints about stern parients, brothers and brothers-in-law."

In September Burton asks for the loan of Payne's copy of the Calcutta Edition (Macnaghten) and enquires after Vol. i. He says "What news of Vol. i.? I am very anxious to see it, and so are many female correspondents. I look forward with great pleasure to the work."

It was now understood that an attack was to be made on Payne's volume in the press. Says Burton, September 29th (1882). "Perhaps it will be best to let ———- [361] sing his song. ———— has no end of enemies, and I can stir up a small wasp's nest without once appearing in the matter. The best answer will be showing up a few of Lane's mistakes, but this must be done with the greatest care, so that no hole can be picked in the critique. [362] I enclose three sonnets, a specimen of my next volume of Camoens, and should much like any suggestions from you. They are line for line and mostly word for word. But that is nothing; the question is, are they readable English? They'll be printed at my own expense, so they will ruin nobody. Switzerland has set you up and don't let the solicitor's office pull you down."

On October 2nd he says: "Glad to hear of a new edition of Lane: it will draw attention to the subject. I must see what can be done with reviewers. Saturday and I are at drawn daggers, and ————of ——— is such a stiff young she-prig that I hardly know what to do about him. However, I shall begin work at once by writing and collecting the vulnerable points of the clique. ——- is a very much hated man, and there will be no difficulty." On the 8th, in reference to the opposing "clique," Burton writes: "In my own case I should encourage a row with this bete noire; but I can readily understand your having reasons for wishing to keep it quiet." Naturally, considering the tactics that were being employed against them, the Villon Society, which published Mr. Payne's works, had no wish to draw the attention of the authorities to the moral question. Indeed, of the possible action of the authorities, as instigated by the clique, the Society stood in some fear.

Burton goes on: "I shall write to-day to T——- to know how —— is best hit. T——- hates me—so do most people. Meanwhile, you must (either yourself or by proxy) get a list of Lane's laches. I regret to say my copy of his Modern Egyptians has been lost or stolen, and with it are gone the lists of his errata I had drawn up many years ago. Of course I don't know Arabic, but who does? One may know a part of it, a corner of the field, but all! Bah! Many thanks for the notes on the three sonnets [Camoens]. Most hearty thanks for the trouble you have taken. The remarks are those of a scholar and a translator."

Later, Burton sent Payne other Camoens sonnets to look over. Writing on 29th October 1882, he says, "Many thanks for the sonnet. Your version is right good, but it is yourself, not me. In such a matter each man expresses his own individuality. I shall follow your advice about the quatrains and tercets. No. 19 is one of the darkest on account of its extreme simplicity. I shall trouble you again."

The first proofs (pp. 1-144) of Vol. ii. were read by Burton in October 1882, and returned by him October 21st. In his letter to Mr. Payne of that date he says, "It will only be prudent to prepare for an attack. I am perfectly ready to justify a complete translation of the book. And if I am obliged to say what I think about Lane's Edition there will be hard hitting. Of course I wish to leave his bones in peace, but —- may make that impossible. Curious to see three editions of the 1,000 Nights advertised at the same time, not to speak of the bastard. [363] I return you nine sheets [of proofs] by parcels post registered. You have done your work very well, and my part is confined to a very small amount of scribble which you will rub out at discretion."

Subsequently Burton observed that Mr. Payne required no assistance of any kind; and therefore he re-refused to accept remuneration for reading the proofs. Naturally, they differed, as Arabists all do, upon certain points, but on all subjects save two Burton allowed that Mr. Payne's opinion was as good as his own.

The first concerned the jingles in the prose portions of the Nights, such as "The trees are growing and the waters flowing and Allah all good bestowing." Burton wanted them to be preserved, but to this Mr. Payne could not consent, and he gives the reasons in his Terminal Essay. The second exception was the treatment of the passages referring to a particular subject; and this indicates to us clearly the difference in the ideas and aims of the two men. Of artistry, of what FitzGerald calls "sinking and reducing," Burton had no notion. "If anything is in any redaction of the original, in it should go," he said. "Never mind how shocking it may be to modern and western minds. If I sin, I sin in good company—in the company of the authors of the Authorised Version of the Bible, who did not hesitate to render literatim certain passages which persons aiming simply at artistic effect would certainly have omitted."

Payne on the other hand was inclined to minimise these passages as much as possible. Though determined that his translation should be a complete one, yet he entirely omitted coarsenesses whenever he could find excuse to do so—that is to say, when they did not appear in all the texts. If no such excuse existed he clothed the idea in skilful language. [364] Nothing is omitted; but it is of course within the resources of literary art to say anything without real offence. Burton, who had no aptitude for the task; who, moreover, had other aims, constantly disagreed with Payne upon this point.

Thus, writing 12th May 1883, he says: "You are drawing it very mild. Has there been any unpleasantness about plain speaking? Poor Abu Nuwas [365] is (as it were) castrated. I should say 'Be bold or audace,' &c., only you know better than I do how far you can go and cannot go. I should simply translate every word."

"What I meant by literalism," he says, 1st October 1883, "is literally translating each noun (in the long lists which so often occur) in its turn, so that the student can use the translation."

This formed no part of Mr. Payne's scheme, in fact was directly opposed to the spirit of his work, which was to make the translation, while quite faithful to the original, a monument of noble English prose and verse.

"I hold the Nights," continues Burton, the best of class books, and when a man knows it, he can get on with Arabs everywhere. He thus comments on Payne's Vol. iv., some of the tales of which, translate them as you will, cannot be other than shocking. "Unfortunately it is these offences (which come so naturally in Greece and Persia, and which belong strictly to their fervid age) that give the book much of its ethnological value. I don't know if I ever mentioned to you a paper (unpublished) of mine showing the geographical limits of the evil. [366] I shall publish it some day and surprise the world. [367] I don't live in England, and I don't care an asterisk for Public Opinion. [368] I would rather tread on Mrs. Grundy's pet corn than not, she may howl on her *** *** to her heart's content." On August 24th (1883) Burton says, "Please keep up in Vol. v. this literality in which you began. My test is that every Arab word should have its equivalent English. ...Pity we can't manage to end every volume with a tidbit! Would it be dishonest to transfer a tale from one night or nights to another or others? I fancy not, as this is done in various editions. A glorious ending for Vol. iv. Would have been The Three Wishes or the Night of Power [369] and The Cabinet with Five Shelves." [370]



107. The Search for Palmer, October 1882.

Burton was now to make what proved to be his last expedition. All the year Egypt had been ablaze with the rebellion of Arabi Pasha. Alexandria was bombarded by the English on July 11th, Arabi suffered defeat at Tell-el-Kebir three months later. On the commencement of the rebellion the British Government sent out Burton's old friend Professor Palmer to the Sinaitic peninsula with a view to winning the tribes in that part of the British side, and so preventing the destruction of the Suez Canal. The expedition was atrociously planned, and the fatal mistake was also made of providing it with L3,000 in gold. Palmer landed at Jaffa at the end of June, and then set out via Gaza across the "Short Desert," for Suez, where he was joined by Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington. In fancy one hears him as he enters on his perilous journey asking himself that question, which was so absurdly frequent in his lips, "I wonder what will happen?"

It is customary for travellers, before entering the Arabian wastes, to hire a Ghafir, that is, a guide and protector. Palmer, instead of securing a powerful chief, as the case required, selected a man of small account named Matr Nassar, and this petty shaykh and his nephew were the expedition's only defence.

The doomed party left Suez on August 8th. On the 10th at midnight they were attacked by the Bedawin. "Palmer expostulated with his assassins; but all his sympathetic facility, his appeals to Arab honour and superstition, his threats, his denunciations, and the gift of eloquence which had so often prevailed with the wild men, were unheeded." As vainly, Matr Nassar [371] covered his proteges with his aba [372] thus making them part of his own family. On the evening of August 11th the captives were led to the high bank of the Wady Sudr, where it received another and smaller fiumara yet unnamed, and bidden to prepare for death. Boldly facing his enemies, Palmer cursed them [373] in Biblical language, and in the name of the Lord. But while the words were in his mouth, a bullet struck him and he fell. His companions also fell in cold blood, and the bodies of all three were thrown down the height [374]—a piteous denouement—and one that has features in common with the tragic death scene of another heroic character of this drama—General Gordon.

The English Government still believed and hoped that Palmer has escaped; and on October 17th it sent a telegram to Burton bidding him go and assist in the search for his old friend.

Like the war horse in the Bible, the veteran traveller shouted "Aha!" and he shot across the Mediterranean like a projectile from a cannon. But he had no sooner reached Suez than he heard—his usual luck—that Sir Charles Warren, with 200 picked men, was scouring the peninsula, and that consequently his own services would not be required. In six weeks he was back again at Trieste and so ended Viator's [375] last expedition. The remains of Palmer and his two companions were discovered by Sir Charles and sent to England to be interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. To Palmer's merits as a man Burton paid glowing tributes; and he praised, too, Palmer's works, especially The Life of Harun Al Raschid and the translations of Hafiz, [376] Zoheir and the Koran. Of the last Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole says finely: It "has the true desert ring in it;.. the translator has carried us among the Bedawin tents, and breathed into us the strong air of the desert, till we fancy we can hear the rich voice of the Blessed Prophet himself as he spoke to the pilgrims on Akabah."

In his letter to Payne of 23rd December 1882, Burton adumbrates a visit eastward. "After January," he says, "I shall run to the Greek Islands, and pick up my forgotten modern Greek." He was unable, however, to carry out his plans in their entirety. On January 15th he thanks Payne for the loan of the "Uncastrated Villon," [377] and the Calcutta and Breslau editions of the Nights, and says "Your two vols. of Breslau and last proofs reached me yesterday. I had written to old Quaritch for a loan of the Breslau edition. He very sensibly replied by ignoring the loan and sending me a list of his prices. So then the thing dropped. What is the use of paying L3 odd for a work that would be perfectly useless to me.... But he waxes cannier every year."



Chapter XXIV. July 1883-November 1883, The Palazzone



108. Anecdotes of Burton.

In 1883 the Burtons removed from their eyrie near the Railway Station and took up their abode in a palazzone [378]—"the Palazzo Gosleth"—situated in a large garden, on the wooded promontory that divides the city from the Bay of Muggia. It was one of the best houses in Trieste, and boasted an entrance so wide that one could have driven a carriage into the hall, a polished marble staircase and twenty large rooms commanding extensive and delightful views. The garden, however, was the principal amenity. Here, in fez and dressing-gown, Burton used to sit and write for hours with nothing to disturb him except the song of birds and the rustle of leaves. In the Palazzo Gosleth he spent the last eight years of his life, and wrote most of his later works.

Perhaps this is the best place to introduce a sheaf of miscellaneous unpublished anecdotes which have been drawn together from various sources. We are uncertain as to their dates, but all are authentic. To the ladies Burton was generally charming, but sometimes he behaved execrably. Once when he was returning alone to Trieste, a lady past her prime, being destined for the same place, asked whether she might accompany him. Burton, who hated taking care of anyone, frowned and shook his head. "There can be no scandal, Captain Burton," pleaded the lady, "because I am old."

"Madame," replied Burton, "while fully appreciating your kindness, I must decline. Had you been young and good-looking I would have considered the matter."



109. Burton and Mrs. Disraeli.

But Burton could be agreeable enough even to plain ladies when he wished. In one of his books or pamphlets he had said "There is no difference except civilization between a very old woman and an ape." Some time after its publication, when he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli, Mrs. Disraeli, herself both elderly and very plain, laid a plan to disconcert him. She seated herself close to a low mirror, in the hopes that Burton would presently join her. He soon fell into the trap and was observed a few minutes later leaning over her and "doing the amiable."

"Captain Burton," said Mrs. Disraeli, with affected annoyance, and pointing to her reflection, "There must be an ape in the glass. Do you not see it?"

Burton instantly recalled the remark in his book, but without exhibiting the least disconcertion, he replied, "Yaas, yaas, Madam, quite plainly; I see myself."

It was altogether impossible for Burton to do anything or to be in anything without causing a commotion of some kind. Generally it was his own fault, but sometimes the Fates were to blame. Few scenes at that period could have been more disgraceful than those at the official receptions held in London by the Prime Minister. Far too many persons were invited and numbers behaved more like untutored Zulus than civilised human beings.

"Now darling," said Mrs. Burton to her husband, just before one of these functions, "You are to be amiable, remember, and not lose your temper." Burton readily promised compliance, but that day, unfortunately, the crush on the staircase was particular disgraceful. Apparently Burton, his wife on arm, was pushed on to the train of a lady in front of him, but whatever he was doing the crush had rendered him helpless.

"Oh dear!" cried the lady, "this horrid man is choking me."

"It's that blackguard of a Burton!" followed the lady's husband.

Burton's eyes flashed and his lips went livid, "I'll have you out for this," he cried, "and if you won't fight I'll thrash you like a dog."

"That's how you keep your promise," said Mrs. Burton to him, when they got home. "You don't get half a dozen steps up the staircase before you have a row with someone." Then he burst out with his "pebble on ice" laughter.

For Burton to overhear remarks uncomplimentary to himself was no uncommon occurrence, but he rarely troubled to notice them. Now and again, however, as the previous anecdote shows, he broke his rule. Once at a public gathering a lady said, loudly, to a companion, "There is that infamous Captain Burton, I should like to know that he was down with some lingering and incurable illness."

Burton turned round, and fixing his eyes upon her, said with gravity: "Madame, I have never in all my life done anything so wicked as to express so shocking a wish as that."

The next anecdote shows how dangerous Burton could be to those who offended him. When the Sultan of Zanzibar was paying a visit to England, Burton and the Rev. Percy Badger were singled out to act as interpreters. But Burton had quarrelled with Badger about something or other; so when they approached the Sultan, Burton began addressing him, not in Arabic, but in the Zanzibar patois. The Sultan, after some conversation, turned to Badger, who, poor man, not being conversant with the patois, could only stand still in the dunce's cap which Burton, as it were, had clapped on him and look extremely foolish; while the bystanders nodded to each other and said, "Look at that fellow. He can't say two words. He's a fraud." Burton revelled in Badger's discomfiture; but a little later the two men were on good terms again; and when Badger died he was, of course, Burton's "late lamented friend."

Another of Burton's aversions was "any old woman made up to look very young." "Good gracious," he said, one day to a painted lady of that category. "You haven't changed since I saw you forty years ago. You're like the British flag that has braved a thousand years of the battle and the breeze." But the lady heaped coals of fire on his head.

"Oh, Captain Burton," she cried, "how could you, with that musical—that lovely voice of yours—make such very unpleasant remarks."



110. "I am an Old English Catholic."

In England, whatever objections Protestants may make to Roman Catholic services, they admit that everything is done decently and in order. The laxity, however, in the Italian churches is, or was until recently, beyond belief, and every traveller brought home some queer tale. Mrs. Burton, who prided herself on being "an old English Catholic," was frequently distressed by these irregularities, and she never hesitated to reprove the offending priests. One day a priest who had called at Burton's house was requested to conduct a brief service in Mrs. Burton's private chapel. But the way in which he went through the various ceremonies so displeased Mrs. Burton that she called out to him, "Stop! stop! pardon me, I am an old English Catholic—and therefore particular. You are not doing it right—Stand aside, please, and let me show you." So the astonished priest stood aside, and Mrs. Burton went through all the gesticulations, genuflexions, etcetera, in the most approved style. Burton, who was standing by, regarded the scene with suppressed amusement. When all was over, he touched the priest on the shoulder and said gravely and slowly, pointing to Mrs. Burton: "Do you know who this is? It is my wife. And you know she will some day die—We all must die—And she will be judged—we must all be judged—and there's a very long and black list against her. But when the sentence is being pronounced she will jump up and say: 'Stop! stop! please pardon my interruption, but I am an old English Catholic.'"

To one house, the hostess of which was one of the most fashionable women in London, Burton, no matter how much pressed, had never been prevailed upon to go. He disliked the lady and that was enough. "Here's an invitation for all of us to Lady ——'s," said Mrs. Burton to him one day in honied tones. "Now, Dick, darling, this time you must go just for Lisa's sake. It's a shame she should lose so excellent a chance of going into good society. Other people go, why shouldn't we? Eh, darling?"

"What won't people do," growled Burton, "for the sake of a dinner!"

Eventually, however, after an explosion, and he'd be asterisked if he would, and might the lady herself be asterisked, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, "Dick Darling" was coaxed over, and he, Mrs. Burton and Lisa at the appointed time sallied forth in all the glory of war paint, and in due course were ushered into the detested house.

As he approached the hostess she looked steadily at him through her lorgnon, and then, turning to a companion, said with a drawl: "Isn't it horrid, my dear! Every Dick, Tom and Harry's here to-night."

"That's what comes of being amiable," said Burton to his wife, when they got home again—and he'd be asterisked, and might everybody else be asterisked, if he'd enter that asterisked house again. Then the humour of it all appealed to him; and his anger dissolved into the usual hearty laughter.

One very marked feature of Burton's character was that, like his father, he always endeavoured to do and say what he thought was right, quite regardless of appearances and consequences. And we may give one anecdote to illustrate our meaning.

On one occasion [379] he and another Englishman who was known by Burton to have degraded himself unspeakably, were the guests at a country house. "Allow me, Captain Burton," said the host, "to introduce you to the other principal guest of the evening, Mr. ——" Looking Mr. —— in the face, Burton said: "When I am in Persia I am a Persian, when in India a Hindu, but when in England I am an English gentleman," and then he turned his back on Mr. ——and left him. As Mr. ——'s record was not at the time generally known, those who were present at the scene merely shrugged their shoulders and said: "Only another of Burton's eccentricities." A few months, later, however, Mr. —-'s record received publicity, and Burton's conduct and words were understood.

One of Burton's lady relations being about to marry a gentleman who was not only needy but also brainless, somebody asked him what he thought of the bridegroom-elect.

"Not much," replied Burton, drily, "he has no furniture inside or out."

To "old maids" Burton was almost invariably cruel. He found something in them that roused all the most devilish rancours in his nature; and he used to tell them tales till the poor ladies did not know where to tuck their heads. When reproved afterwards by Mrs. Burton, he would say: "Yaas, yaas, no doubt; but they shouldn't be old maids; besides, it's no good telling the truth, for nobody ever believes you." He did, however, once refer complimentarily to a maiden lady—a certain Saint Apollonia who leaped into a fire prepared for her by the heathen Alexandrians. He called her "This admirable old maid." Her chief virtue in his eyes, however, seems to have been not her fidelity to her principles, but the fact that she got rid of herself, and so made one old maid fewer.

"What shall we do with our old maids?" he would ask, and then answer the question himself—"Oh, enlist them. With a little training they would make first-rate soldiers." He was also prejudiced against saints, and said of one, "I presume she was so called because of the enormity of her crimes."

Although Mrs. Burton often reproved her husband for his barbed and irritating remarks, her own tongue had, incontestibly, a very beautiful edge on it. Witness her reply to Mrs. X., who declared that when she met Burton she was inexpressibly shocked by his Chaucerian conversation and Canopic wit.

"I can quite believe," commented Mrs. Burton, sweetly, "that on occasions when no lady was present Richard's conversation might have been startling."

How tasteful is this anecdote, as they say in The Nights, "and how enjoyable and delectable."



111. Burton begins his Translation, April 1884.

As we have already observed, Mr. Payne's 500 copies of the Thousand Nights and a Night were promptly snapped up by the public and 1,500 persons had to endure disappointment. "You should at once," urged Burton, "bring out a new edition." "I have pledged myself," replied Mr. Payne, "not to reproduce the book in an unexpurgated form."

"Then," said Burton, "Let me publish a new edition in my own name and account to you for the profits—it seems a pity to lose these 1,500 subscribers." This was a most generous and kind-hearted, but, from a literary point of view, immoral proposition; and Mr. Payne at once rejected it, declaring that he could not be a party to a breach of faith with the subscribers in any shape or form. Mr. Payne's virtue was, pecuniarily and otherwise, its punishment. Still, he has had the pleasure of a clear conscience. Burton, however, being, as always, short of money, felt deeply for these 1,500 disappointed subscribers, who were holding out their nine-guinea cheques in vain; and he then said "Should you object to my making an entirely new translation?" To which, of course, Mr. Payne replied that he could have no objection whatever. Burton then set to work in earnest. This was in April, 1884. As we pointed out in Chapter xxii., Lady Burton's account of the inception and progress of the work and Burton's own story in the Translator's Foreword (which precedes his first volume) bristle with misstatements and inaccuracies. He evidently wished it to be thought that his work was well under weigh long before he had heard of Mr. Payne's undertaking, for he says, "At length in the spring of 1879 the tedious process of copying began and the book commenced to take finished form." Yet he told Mr. Payne in 1881 that beyond notes and a syllabus of titles nothing had been done; and in 1883 he says in a letter, "I find my translation is a mere summary," that is to say, of the Boulac edition, which was the only one familiar to him till he met Mr. Payne. He admits having made ample use of the three principal versions that preceded his, namely, those of Jonathan Scott, Lane and Payne, "the whole being blended by a callida junctura into a homogeneous mass." But as a matter of fact his obligations to Scott and Lane, both of whom left much of the Nights untranslated, and whose versions of it were extremely clumsy and incorrect, were infinitesimal; whereas, as we shall presently prove, practically the whole of Burton is founded on the whole of Payne. We trust, however, that it will continually be borne in mind that the warm friendship which existed between Burton and Payne was never for a moment interrupted. Each did the other services in different ways, and each for different reasons respected and honoured the other. In a letter to Mr. Payne of 12th August, 1884, Burton gave an idea of his plan. He says "I am going in for notes where they did not suit your scheme and shall make the book a perfect repertoire of Eastern knowledge in its most esoteric form." A paper on these subjects which Burton offered to the British Association was, we need scarcely say, courteously declined.

Writing to Payne on September 9th (1884) he says, "As you have been chary of notes my version must by way of raison d'etre (amongst others) abound in esoteric lore, such as female circumcision and excision, etc. I answer all my friends that reading it will be a liberal education, and assure them that with such a repertory of esotericism at their finger ends they will know all the Scibile [380] requisite to salvation. My conviction is that all the women in England will read it and half the men will cut me."



112. The Battle over the Nights.

Although, as we have seen, Burton's service to Mr. Payne's translation was almost too slight to be mentioned, Burton was to Mr. Payne in another way a tower of strength. Professional spite, jealousy and other causes had ranged against his Nights whole platoons of men of more or less weight. Jealousy, folly and ignorance made common cause against the new translation—the most formidable coterie being the group of influential men who for various reasons made it their business to cry up the commonplace translation of E. W. Lane, published in 1840, and subsequently reprinted—a translation which bears to Payne's the relation of a glow-worm to the meridian sun. The clique at first prepared to make a professional attack on the work, but the appearance of Volume i. proved it to be from a literary, artistic and philological point of view quite unassailable. This tactic having failed, some of these gentlemen, in their meanness, and we fear we must add, malevolence, then tried to stir up the authorities to take action against Mr. Payne on the ground of public morality. [381] Burton had long been spoiling for a fight—and now was his opportunity. In season and out of season he defended Payne. He fell upon the Lane-ites like Samson upon the Philistines. He gloried in the hurly-burly. He wallowed, as it were, in blood. Fortunately, too, at that time he had friends in the Government—straightforward, commonsense men—who were above all pettinesses. Lord Houghton, F. F. Arbuthnot, and others, also ranged themselves on the same side and hit out manfully.

Before starting on the Palmer expedition, Burton, in a letter of October 29th, had written to Mr. Payne: "The more I read your translation the more I like it. You have no need to fear the Lane clique; that is to say, you can give them as good as they can give you. I am quite ready to justify the moral point. Of course we must not attack Lane till he is made the cheval de bataille against us. But peace and quiet are not in my way, and if they want a fight, they can have it." The battle was hot while it lasted, but it was soon over. The Lane-ites were cowed and gradually subsided into silence. Mr. Payne took the matter more coolly than Burton, but he, too, struck out when occasion required. For example, among the enemy was a certain reverend Professor of Semitic languages, who held advanced opinions on religious matters. He had fought a good fight, had suffered persecution on that account, and is honoured accordingly. "It is usual," observed Burton, "with the weak, after being persecuted to become persecutors." [382] Mr. ——- had the folly to put it about that Payne's translation was made not direct from the Arabic but from German translations. How he came to make so amazing a statement, seeing that at the time no important German translation of the Nights existed, [383] it is difficult to say; but Mr. Payne sent him the following words from the Nights, written in the Arabic character: "I and thou and the slanderer, there shall be for us an awful day and a place of standing up to judgment." [384] After this Mr. ——- sheathed his sword and the Villon Society heard no more of him.



113. Completion of Mr. Payne's Translation.

Mr. Payne's first volume appeared as we have seen in 1882. The last left the press in 1884. The work was dedicated to Burton, who writes, "I cannot but feel proud that he has honoured me with the dedication of 'The Book of the Thousand Nights and one Night.' ...He succeeds admirably in the most difficult passages, and he often hits upon choice and special terms and the exact vernacular equivalent of the foreign word so happily and so picturesquely that all future translators must perforce use the same expression under pain of falling far short."