II. INDIA…

II. INDIA

We embarked at once for India. Baron D'Alber, my husband's best friend, the local Minister of Finance in Trieste, and the Captain of the Port, came in the Government boat to take us to the Austrian-Lloyd's Calypso, Captain Bogójevich. H.R.H. the Duke of Wurtemburg, who was our Commander-in-Chief, so distinguished in the Bosnian campaign; Baron Pascotini, a kind, clever, philanthropic old gentleman of eighty-four, and all the great people, came to see us off, to do honour to Richard. How touched we were at so much kindness! We steamed down the Adriatic with a fresh breeze. The day after, Richard began to dictate to me the biography which forms the beginning of this book. We read the life of Moore and the "Veiled Prophet of Khorassán," called by Moore Mokanna, whose real name was Hassan-Sabah, or Hassan es Sayyah. When we got to Zante it blew very hard. Our chairs were lashed on deck, and we read daily "Lalla Rookh," the "Light of the Haram," and Smollett's "Adventures of Roderick Random" and "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." At Port Sáid, which is a sort of an Egyptian Wapping, we ran over the sands to see an Arab village. We met a lot of old friends, Consul and Mrs. Perceval, Mr. Buckley, F.O., Colonel Stoker, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Cave, and the grand old Baron de Lesseps, and Salih Beg, Mr. Royal, Mr. Webster, Mr. Fowler, and other gentlemen at dinner at the Consulate. We much enjoyed the Canal, seeing once more an Eastern sunrise over the desert, but it made us sad contrasting our old days with our present. We had a glorious moonlight, blue sky, clear green water, cool balmy air, golden sands to the very horizon, troops of Bedawi camels and goats. It is a wild and dangerous track.

We had the north-east monsoon dead against us the whole way after going out of the Canal, which made the ship pretty lively. In the Red Sea there is much to be seen for those who know the coasts, and my husband pointed out the far-off sites of his old Meccan journey, and the land of Midian and Akabeh, which would be a future journey. On the thirteenth day we serpentined through twenty miles of mostly hidden reefs and slabs to Jeddah, the Port of Mecca, which can only be done in broad daylight, one ship at a time, and no lighthouses. We collided with an English ironclad ship, which did us considerable damage, so we had to remain some time, before we were repaired, and our pilgrims continued to arrive from Mecca, as we were a pilgrim-ship about to carry eight or nine hundred to Bombay.

To the far east we had a gladdening glimpse of the desert, the wild waterless wilderness of Sur on the Asiatic side, which looks like snow under the moonlight. I have not enjoyed myself so much with Nature for four and a half years as now, once more smelling the desert air and the usual Eastern scenes. The Nizam (regular soldiers), negroes, Bedawi draped in usual cloak and kuffíyeh, and women in blue garments, not changed a hair since the days of Abraham, except that they now carry matchlocks instead of spears; the tawny camels squat upon the ground; the black sheep and goats huddle in knots, vainly attempting to shade their heads from the sun; the seedy dahabíyyeh rolls past, and is hustled aside by the fussy high-pressure mouche, which carries the mails daily to Ismailiyyah, a pretty mushroom town with palaces, Consulates and gardens, with telegraph and railway. It contained then two thousand souls, and hoisted nine various national flags. The land of Goshen is immediately north-west. There are plenty of foxes on the Asiatic side, and one sat like a dog on the sandbank and stared at us. We passed the village called Serapeum, which communicates with a Bedawi village in Asia. To the south and westward rise the sandy cliffs of Jebel Jeneffeh, and towering above all, Jebel Atakeh. As we got near Suez, the children run along, crying, "Bakshish!" The soldiers threw them a bit of bread, but as we threw them nothing the petition changed to the curses with which the Orientals are so familiar, "Na'al Abukum ya Kilab!" ("Drat your fathers, O ye dogs!")

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

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

[Sidenote: Jeddah.]

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

[Sidenote: Bazars of Jeddah.]

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

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

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

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

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

At sunset the crowd melts away. The bazar when they light up at dusk is wonderfully picturesque; then the wealthy pilgrim retires to his caravansarai, the middle class to their tents, the majority to their carpets and rugs and coffers, spread in the open street. By eight o'clock the bazar is as silent as the desert, the moon rises, and the prayer cry of the Muezzin charms the ear (this one is peculiar to Jeddah). Richard and I went to the khan, where he lived as one of these very pilgrims in 1853, and stood under the Minaret he sketched in his book, to hear the "call to prayer."

[Sidenote: Experiences on a Crowded Pilgrim-ship.]

I was very pleased to see that all regarded him with great favour, and though the whole story was known, the Governor and everybody else called upon him and were extremely civil. Nearly every day we rode out Meccawards; it had a great attraction for Richard. The great hospitality shown us, the unbounded kindness of our own countrymen, the courteousness of the Turkish Authorities, and the civility of the fanatical Jeddáwis will never be forgotten. We left in a Sambúk in furious southerly squalls to join our ship, anchored at least six miles away. This is the large, flat native boat, with big sail that can go close to the wind without upsetting. We found eight hundred pilgrims on board, packed like herrings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Bombay.]

Arrived in Bombay, Richard took me to see all the scenes described in the beginning of this book in the early part of his life, and he said, "It is a curious thing, that although I hated them when I was obliged to live here, now that I am not obliged I can look back upon these scenes with a certain amount of affection and interest, although I would not live here again for anything. The old recollection makes me sad and melancholy." We were under very happy auspices there, because Mr. Frederick Foster Arbuthnot, who now lives at 18, Park Lane, had been a friend of Richard's for many, many years, and mine too; he was "Collector" at Bombay, and occupied a great position, so that he used to take us out everywhere in his four-in-hand or in his boats, and we saw everything all over Bombay and its environs, which, though familiar to Richard, was entirely new to me, and we were also introduced to all the Society. The things that I found most interesting were a certain Ali Abdullah, the son of a Syrian Bedawin, of the tribe of Anazeh, who married a Christian, Europeanized himself, settled here, and keeps stables of four or five hundred horses, imports from Persia and elsewhere. We saw some perfect colts, one for £200, and some two hundred kadishi, about fourteen hands high, useful, but not pretty, worth about £12 or £14 in Syria. To the Garapooree Island we went to see the wonderful Hindoo caves, called the Elephant Caves, covered with carvings, cut out of solid blocks, of their Trinity--Shiva, Krishna, and Vishnu. There is something to see all round the Bay.

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

SIND.

Now the Sind expedition came off. First, Bassein Dámán, Surat, the first English factory in India, with the tombs of Vaux and Tom Coryat; then Diu, a Head and Fort, Ja'afarábád, the ruins of Somanáth, the home of the famous Gates; the Dwáriká Pagoda, Kachh (Cutch), Mandavi, and the Indus mouths. We called upon the village Chiefs; we chatted with the villagers; we learnt much about the country, and we taught the country something about ourselves. Gujarat was the next place--Káthiawár and Junágarh, better known as Gírnár. And then to Manhóra, where the British arms first showed the vaunting Sindi and the blustering Beloch what the British lion can do when disposed to be carnivorous, and thence to Karáchi town. There we visited every part of the Unhappy Valley, and particularly the Belochis of the hills (with whom Richard had so much to do when under Sir Walter Scott). He writes indignantly about the way Mirza Ali Akbar Kahn Bahadúr was treated by the Government, being removed from the service, and his pension refused in 1847--it is said to annoy Sir Charles Napier, Richard's Chief.

Everywhere he goes (as he recounts in "Sind Revisited," which he wrote from our journal on return) he visits the old scenes of his former life, saluting them, letting the changes sink into his mind, and taking an everlasting farewell of them. He was very apt to do this in places where he had lived. He notices the ruin of the Indian army--the great difference between his time and now. He said, "Were I a woman, I would have sat down and had a good cry." There was only one of his joyous crew still breathing. The buildings had grown magnificent, but everything else had changed for the worse; the old hospitality was gone; there was no more jollity, no more larking boys; everything so painfully respectable, and so degenerated. He went to visit the old alligator tanks, where they used to go and worry them with their bull-terriers, and the boys used to jump on them and ride them. "No such skylarking now," he remarked. Then he waxes sentimental at the place where he had a serious flirtation with a Persian girl. There is the shop where he used to write with phosphorus on the wall. He had three shops in Karáchi, where he appeared in different disguises, and was considered a saint when he was so disguised and appeared in such or such a character. Then we went back to Baroda, where he was quartered so long, and to see the Goanese church, to which he transferred himself in 1843, and to Gharra, where he had to live so miserably. He traces the foundation of the lines of his old regiment, where he says, "None of us died, because we were young and strong; but we led the life of salamanders." He says, "There lies the old village, which saw so many of our 'little games;' a cluster of clay hovels, with its garnishing of dry thorns, as artlessly disposed as the home of the nest-building ape. How little it has changed; how much have we!" He next goes to Nagar (everywhere pronounced Nangar), and to Thathá, and Kalyan Kot, and the Mekli Hills (holy places), where he composed the following poem:--

"LEGEND OF THE LAKKÍ HILLS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Travelling in Sind.]

We go to Sundan, to Jarak, to the Phuleli river, where he spent some time in his early days with a moonshee, and make a pilgrimage to the Indus river, and eventually to Hyderabad (Sind) and to Kotri the Fort, where, as he says, for the sake of "auld lang syne," he visits every place to right and left on his way, even the Agency and the old road. He says the changes take away his breath.

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

On arriving he says--

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

We go on from Hyderabad to Sakhar and Shikárpúr, but first he recognizes the old artillery lines, the billiard-room, and John Jacob's house built on a graveyard, and then goes to the Tombs of the Kings at Kalhóra and Talpúr, which are very like those of Golconda (Jaypur marble, which the Rajput artists seem to handle like wax). The flutings of the open work are delicate in the extreme, and the general effect is a lacery of stone. We then visit New Hyderabad, and he is surprised at all the new buildings. He is very much distressed at the state of the Army; the Beloch element has gone out, and the Pathán, or Afghan, is taking its place. The men are no longer what they were, and the military authorities have only to thank their own folly. He says--

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

He dives into the Eastern mind, and shows you that the moment you begin to intrigue with an Oriental, he has you on his own ground, he beats you with your own weapons, and that the only way that you have the Oriental at your mercy is by being perfectly straightforward and honest. He shows you what value they set on good manners. Then we visit the field of Meanee. He describes the brisk way that Sir Charles Napier fought--a fierce mêlée, no quarter asked or given. He said the way to fight an Indian battle is to shake the enemy's line with a hot fire of artillery, charge home with infantry, and when a slight hesitation begins, to throw all your cavalry at the opposing ranks, and the battle is ended. Such was the battle of Meanee, when our 2800 thrashed 22,000 men. He greatly blames the yielding up of Afghanistan. Then we go to Husri, where, in old days, he surveyed and amused himself with cock-fighting--the scene of the death of "Bhujang," his favourite cock--and from thence to Sudderan Column, from whence he visited Mir Ibrahim Khan Talpur's village;[3] and then he goes on to the "Jats" country (the Gypsies), with whom he affiliated himself, and where he worked with the camel-men, levelling canals in the old days. Then we go on to Badhá and Unarpúr, Lakrá, and Sibt, wells in the desert, and here he translated the tale of Bári and Isa (Jesus). Whilst among the Belochs he wrote--

"THE TALE OF BÁRI AND ISA.

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

Leaving Unarpúr, we pass out of the Unhappy Valley into Sindia Felix, beginning at Gopang, Májhand, Sann, and Amiri, and here in 1876 rails have been laid and trollies were working. Thence we go to Lakkí, where he composed the poem on the "Legends of the Lakkí Hills," given above, and then to Séhwan. The road was a precipitous corniche, very narrow, with camels marching in Indian file. Séhwan is an important military and religious place, commanding the passage of the Indus, but intensely hot, with deleterious and deadly climate. This was the place where Richard in old days buried an old Athenæum sauce-pot, which he had painted like an Etruscan vase. He treated it with fire and acid, smashed it, and buried it in the ground, and took in a lot of antiquaries, who never forgave him; and when he was travelling in the land of the Turanian Brahúis, he drew up a grammar and a vocabulary, with barbaric terminations, and the Presidency rang for nine days with the wondrous discovery. That was in his boyhood, and he writes, "I now repent me in sackcloth and ashes, and my trembling hand indites 'Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.'"

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

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

THE INDIAN ARMY.

[Sidenote: Richard's Remarks on Changes in Indian Army.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: The Indian Army.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He continues--

[Sidenote: And Sind.]

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

Then we came to Hyderabad, and he discusses the Indus Valley Railway. He finds it silly that the Government continued to march its troops between Karáchi and Kotri in ten days, including a single halt, rather than take the rail for four or five hours; expensive economy, he remarks, as the baggage camels cost far more than a few additional cars.

He says that we have improved the climate of the Indus Valley; we have learned to subdue its wildness by the increased comforts of a more civilized life. Many abuses of the olden time have disappeared; formerly, it was a feat to live five years in Indus-land, but now you find men who have weathered their twenty years.

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

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

[Sidenote: The Muhárram.]

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

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

This was the tragedy represented there:--

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Richard's old Persian Moonshee.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Mátherán.]

We then went up to Mátherán, the most easily got at hill-station, or sanitarium, passing through the villages Byculla, Chinchoogly, Parell, Dadur, Sion, Coorla, Bhandoop, Tannah, and Derwa. Tannah is a big village, an unhealthy-looking place, with two crumbling forts in the river. Long, long ago there were five thousand velvet weavers here. They also used to cure large quantities of bacon. In the thirteenth century four friars went to dispute with the Moslem Kadi, and told him Mohammed was in hell with his father the Devil, on which he executed them with such tortures that his own King banished him, and the Portuguese took signal revenge. Our third halt was Kalyan junction. This poor village port was, in A.D. 200, the far-famed Kalliénapolis, which shipped dry goods and precious woods to the outer west. We are also now on classic ground, near the northern extremity of the Shurpáraka, or winnow-shaped region, the Greek Limyrica, where some have placed Ophir of Solomon. The Konkan lowland is like the Arabian desert, tawny, not with sand, but black patched with fire. Here we turn down towards Madras, joining the Calcutta Railway, and pass Budapoor. We catch the Deccan hot winds, and alight at Narel, a little Maharatta village at the eastern base of Mátherán, which will be noted afterwards as the birthplace of the infamous Nana Sahib.

Here we mount ponies. We had to climb up four plateaux, and we arrived at the Alexandra Hotel, Mátherán, a very comfortable bungalow. The wooded lanes, the wild flowers, the pure atmosphere, the light and shadows playing on the big foliage, and the birds rustling and singing in it, were delightful to us. We were standing on a table-land of eight square miles covered with bungalows in lovely woods, seamed with riding-paths--regular leafy screens, whose ends lead to famous points, each one showing a magnificent view. We looked down splendid ravines amongst buttress-shaped mountains, light and shade sharply defined, burnt yellow grass, green trees and black basalt. The fresh vivid verdure of the woods is a repose to the eyes, weary by tawny lowlands and fœtid jungly undergrowth. We enjoy bright green grove, black rock, red-yellow laterite, a luxuriance of fernery, after so much palm and bamboo, aloe and cactus. We have got a patch of virgin forest and plenty of the gigantic anjun, whose pink-and-lilac bloom look like patches of morning sky through the foliage, and you hear everywhere the bark of the Wánúrú monkey, which is something like that of the wolf.

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

I think I said to leave Mátherán one has to get back to Narel. The railway makes a tour like a V. We came down one side, and we go up the other to Lanauli. On our road down from Mátherán we passed a procession of Brínjaris for about two miles. This wild tribe intermarry only amongst themselves, and have their own laws. They are a strong race; men, women, and children are good looking. They grow their own corn, have their own bullocks, spin their own sacks, and have huge dogs for guard. They dress picturesquely, and are very defiant. The women carry the babies in a basket on their heads. They have been described, as have also the Nats, as being one with the Gypsies, to whom they bear some resemblance; but it is a mistake. My husband made up his mind on this point whilst he was working with the camel-men, and lived with the "Jats" in India, in his early days. He said the Romany are an Indine people from the great valley of the Indus.

We passed another overhanging rock covered with monkeys, some as big as a man, and some of a small species; they do not associate or intermarry. There are two Maharatta forts in this part of the world, on the way to Lanauli, called Rao Machi, the scene of one of our great fights in 1846. The conductor on our brake had been a soldier fighting in it, and gave my husband, who was at that time on Sir Charles Napier's staff in Sind, a spirited account of it.

With the English mistaken notion of clemency, that always scotches its snake, but is too generous or holds it too much in contempt to kill it, and lets it run about to sting ad libitum, instead of being hanged, Bajee Ráo was pensioned with 80,000 rupees a year, and retired to Bithoor on the Ganges, where he rewarded British clemency by adopting a child born in the village of Narel, at the foot of Mátherán, who lived to be the infamous Nana Sahib, the same that afterwards tortured and killed so many of our people.

[Sidenote: Karla Caves.]

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

To get to Poonah the way is through the Indrauni River valley, through the station of Kurkulla, Tulligaum, Chinchwud, and Kirkee, a large European military station and very pretty. We eventually reached Poonah, the scene of all the Peshwa intrigues against the English, and our great battles with the Maharattas. Their dynasty lasted over seventy years, but Bajee Ráo and his successors might always have been there, if they had not quarrelled with the English. This was in Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone's time, with whom at that time was Grant Duff, the historian. The great names connected with that period and business were Sir Arthur Wellesley (Wellington), General Sir Harry Smith, Lieut.-Colonel Burr, Captains Ford and Staunton, General Pritzler, Sir Thomas Munro, and Colonel Prother. We went to Párbati, the Maharattas' chief palace and stronghold, from which the last Peshwa, Bajee Ráo, who sat on the rocky brow, saw his troops defeated by the English on the plain, fled on horseback down the other side, and was hunted about the country for months, till he gave himself up to Sir John Malcolm.

There are three pagodas in Bajee Ráo's palace, dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva, and Wittoba, and one small temple particularly to Kalee or Bhowanee, wife of Shiva, and patroness of the Thugs. Being sunset, the wild, mournful, bizarre sound of tomtom, kettle, cymbal, and reed suddenly struck up. We shut our eyes, and fancied ourselves in camp again in the desert, wild sword-dances being performed by the Arabs. We had a remarkable dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Petersen's, meeting Captain Yates and Dr. Machonochie. Next morning we visited the Kharekwasla tanks or lakes, laid out by Mr. Joyner, C.E.--a wonderfully clever work--and he made a water-party for us.

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

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

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

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

[5] "The Creator."

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

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

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

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

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

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III. THE DECCAN

"His fine wit Makes such a wound the knife is lost in it: A strain too learned for a shallow age, Too wise for selfish bigots. Let his page, Which charms the chosen spirits of the time, Fold itself up for a serener clime Of years to come, and find its recompense In that just expectation." ----SHELLEY.

Now came the journey that pleased us most of all; it was as new to Richard as it was to me--to Hyderabad in the Deccan. We passed Soonee, Oroolee, Kheirgaum, Patus, Dhond, Deeksal, Bheegwan, Poomulwaree, Schwoor, Keim, Barsee-Road, Marheh, Unger, Mohol, Packney, Sholapoor, Haodgee, Kurrubgaum, Doodneh, Goodoor, Goolburga, and then Sháhabád. I give the names of the stations because it shows a reader on the map, or reminds one who knows India, what country we passed through.

Here we changed the Great Indian Peninsular for the Nizam's State Railway. After this we passed through Wadi Junction, and seven stations more--Chitapore, Seram, Hepore, Tandur, Dharur, Illampallee, Pattapore, Singampallee, into Hyderabad. Sháhabád, a large and very pretty station, was our last before entering the Nizam's territory and railway. The change impressed us in favour of the Nizam's government. Ours looked so poor and taxed, the Nizam's comfortable and prosperous, and so we thought throughout all the parts of India we visited. In English Society people say, "Nonsense! India poor? Why, it was never richer!"

[Sidenote: Hyderabad in the Deccan.]

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

[Sidenote: Elephant Riding.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Ostrich Race.]

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

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

[Sidenote: Hospitality.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Eastern Hospitality at Hyderabad.]

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

[Sidenote: Golconda.]

The cream of all was going to Golconda--a most interesting place, which in 1876 no European had ever been permitted to enter, and as Sir Salar Jung and the Nizam himself had never done so, we could not ask or hope for such a favour. We supposed that this great event happened when the Nizam came of age.

We dismounted and remained there for a long time, inspecting everything outside the walls. The prevailing style of the Golconda tomb is a dome standing upon a square; the cupola of a steeple is of the orange shape, and is arabesqued. The finials are of silver; they are single-storied and double-storied; some have floriated crenelles like spear-heads, and balustraded balconies. The lower portions are arcades of pointed arches, resting on a terrace of cut stone, ascended by four flights of steps. The colours are white, picked out with green; each has its little mosque flanked by minarets. We were very sorry when it was time to leave the Tombs of the Kings. It is a high and healthy site; the wind is strong and cold. A sanitarium would do well there, and we wished that picnickers from the European services would have the grace to erect a travellers' bungalow, and cease to desecrate poor Thana Shah's tomb.

The tombs are the prettiest toys in the world; the material is the waxlike Jaypur marble. They look as if carved in ivory, some Giant's Dieppe, ready to be placed under a glass case; the fretted and open work is lovely lacery in stone, and the sharp shadows of the dark green trees set off their snowy whiteness.

Golconda is the first and the most famous of the six independent Moslem kingdoms, which, in A.D. 1399, rose on the extinction of the Toghlak Delhi dynasty, and it survived till 1688, when Aurungzeb brought all India under one sceptre. In it is the state prison in which the sons of the Nizam used to be confined. We found all the works which we had read upon it very unsatisfying, but we read the "French in India" (London, Longmans, 1868) with pleasure and profit. The four white domes denote the Tombs of the Kings, are visible from most parts of Hyderabad, and form the main body of a line here scattered, there grouped, which begins immediately beyond the faubourgs, and runs up the left side of the river valley.

THE MAIN BUILDING OF GOLCONDA.

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

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

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

[Sidenote: The Famous Koh-i-noor.]

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

"THE KOH-I-NOOR.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Regret at leaving the Deccan.]

Our last recollections of Hyderabad are brilliant. Sir Salar Jung gave a magnificent evening fête, which was like a scene in the "Arabian Nights." One of the large courts of the palace is a quadrangle, the centre of which is occupied by a huge basin of water as big as a small lake full of fountains. The salámliks all open out into it with flights of marble stairs. The starlight was above us, and a blaze of wax lights and chandeliers lit up every hall, and coloured lamps and flowers spangled the whole centre. The company consisted of the Nizam's Court and Ministers, and about thirty-six picked Europeans. It began by a Nach; then a beautiful dinner of about fifty-six covers was served in the principal salámlik by retainers in wild picturesque costumes. The band played; we afterwards walked about and conversed, and were presented with attar of roses. We were very sorry to be obliged to leave before we could accept an invitation from the Nizam's 3rd Lancers to witness their Holee Tamasha in their lines at Assuf Nagur, which answers very much to our Carnival, but the day after this we were bound to go to Secunderabad, a prosperous European station with three regiments, which, however, is not the least interesting.

BACK TO BOMBAY.

[Sidenote: Towers of Silence.]

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Sects.]

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

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

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

[Sidenote: The Hindú Smáshán.]

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

[Sidenote: The Pinjrapole.]

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

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

[Sidenote: Bhendi Bazar.]

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

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

MÁHÁBÁLESHWAR.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOA.

[Sidenote: Goa and West India.]

As soon as we arrived in Bombay we caught the "British Indian steamer" going down south, coasting along. They are middle-sized steamers, beautifully clean, good table, excellent wine, airy cabins, great civility, and fairly steady ships--which they have need to be in such a sea as is often on. The fares are extravagantly dear--£10 for a thirty-six hours' passage; but there is no opposition.

Richard had always such ready, sparkling wit, and it was never offensive nor hurtful. One day, as we were on board a ship, going to a rather uncivilized place, a Catholic Archbishop, and a Bishop with a Catholic party, stepped on board. My husband whispered, "Introduce me." I did so, and they became very friendly, and sat down to chat. The Archbishop was a very clever man, but no match for Richard. My husband began to chaff, and said, "My wife is the Jesuit of the family." "What a capital thing for you!" answered the Archbishop. Presently some apes were jumping about the rigging, so the Archbishop looked up and said playfully, "Well, Captain Burton, there are some of your ancestors." Richard was delighted; he pulled his moustache quietly, looking very amused and a little shy and apologetic, and said with that cool drawl of his, "Well, my lord, I at least have made a little progress, but--what about your lordship, who is descended from the angels?" The Archbishop roared; he was delighted with the retort, and treasures it up as a good story till this day.[1]

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

Arrived opposite Goa, we were cast adrift in the open sea, as is usual, on account of an unbuoyed and doubtful shoal, and we had eight miles to row before we could reach Goa. You may imagine what that means in a storm. The mail agents must do this, monsoon weather as well, once a fortnight all the year through, and the return ships are in the dead of the night, besides living in a fœtid hole, where they get none of the comforts of life, and never see a soul.

The Portuguese manage to make every place look like Lisbon; actually the features of the country grow the same. There is the same abrupt entrance to the sea between mountainous cliffs, up a broad winding river or sea arm, with wooded rising banks, with the same white town perched on its banks, a perfect Santos in Brazil, which is 24º south of the Equator. We rowed a mile and a half of open sea, five miles of bay, and one and a half of winding river, to a little stone pier landing at Panjim (New Goa).

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

[Sidenote: Life there.]

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

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

In Panjim are the barest necessaries of life; there is no inn, no travellers' bungalow, no tents, and you must sleep in your filthy open boat and have fever. Kind-hearted Samaritans (Mr. and Mrs. Major) gave us their only small spare room and spare single bed. I had, luckily, one of those large straw Pondicherry reclining chairs and a rug, so we took the bed in turns, night about, the other in the chair. It is the worst climate we were ever in, and we know pretty bad ones. The thirst was agonizing. All the drinks were hot (no ice); the more you drank the more you wanted. The depression was fearful, and never a breath of air even at night. The blazing sun poured into our little room all day, and baked it quite red-hot for the night. I used to look upon the people who lived there as miracles--a truly purgatorial preparation for death.

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: What to see.]

Richard had to revisit old scenes, and I had my work to do amongst the old Portuguese manuscripts at Old Goa. This must have been once a very extensive City, and you are deluded by its magnificent appearance, until you find yourself wandering in utter desolation in a City of the Dead, amongst Churches and old Monasteries; the very rustling of the trees, the murmur of the waves, sounded like a dirge for the departed grandeur of the City. The Church and House of the Bom Jesus belonged to the Society of Jesus, was dedicated to Xavier, and given to the Jesuits in 1584, till they were expelled in 1761, when it was given to the Lazarists. The Jesuits were the first to pioneer civilization to all lands, to choose healthy sites, to build tanks, to teach the people, and how badly they have been rewarded! Here the new Governors are invested, and here they are buried if they die during the term of office.

The body of St. Francis Xavier is in a magnificently carved silver sarcophagus placed on a splendid base of black marble. On the sarcophagus are beautifully cast alto-relievi, representing the various acts of his life and death, all surmounted by a gold and silver top. The actual body of the saint is inside, in a gold shell, and is shown to the people once in a century on the 3rd of December. The last time was in 1878; the body was found in its normal state of freshness. There is a real old portrait of him in oils outside his chapel, done in 1552. A print found in rags in a convent dusthole is so like it, that I put it together, brought it home, and had it copied.

We used always to leave our vehicle here, and have the pony taken out and fed, watered, and rested, whilst we scrambled all the day over the hills, looking at the different remnants of Churches and Monasteries.

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: The Inquisition.]

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

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

[Sidenote: Xavier's Death.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: The Inquisition perishes.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Sea Journey to Suez.]

At last the time came round for us to leave Goa. The steamers are due once a fortnight, but this one was long past her time. At last we had a telegram to say, "The steamer would pass Goa at midnight." We started in a large open boat in the evening with Mr. Major, his secretary, four men to row and one to steer. We rowed down the river in the evening, and then across the bay for three hours against wind and tide to open sea, bow on to heavy rollers, and at last reached the mouth of the bay, where is the fort. We remained bobbing about in the sea, in the trough of the big waves, for a considerable time. A violent storm of rain, thunder, and lightning came on, and Mr. Major proposed we should put back to the fort, at the entrance of the bay, and take shelter under some arches, which we did. Then we went to sleep, leaving the secretary and the boatwála to watch for the steamer.

At 1.30 I was awoke by the sound of a gun booming across the water. I sprang up and roused the others; but the storm was so heavy we could see no lights, and returned to sleep. We ought to have gone off when the gun fired; the ship had been laying to for us for three-quarters of an hour. If the ship went without us, we should have lost our passage to Europe, we should have been caught in the monsoon, we should have had to return another fortnight to Goa, of which we were heartily tired, and knew by heart, only to renew the same a fortnight hence. We were soon under way again, and by-and-by saw the lights of the steamer about three miles off. Knowing the independence of these captains, the monopoly, and the futility of complaints, and seeing that my husband and Mr. Major slept, I began to be very disagreeable with the boat-hook. I got the secretary to stand in the bows and wave a lamp on a pole. I urged the boatwálas with perpetual promises of bakshish. Everybody else was leaving it to Kismet. Our kind host had been holloaing at the boatwálas the whole evening because the boat was dirty, and making them bale out the horrid-smelling bilge water, and now we wanted him, he was sound asleep and as good as gold. "Can't you shout?" I cried to him; "they might hear you. You can shout loud enough when nobody wants you to." At last, after an hour's anxiety, we reached the ship, and heavy seas kept washing us away from the ladder. No one had the energy to hold on to the rope, or to take the boat-hook to keep us to her, so at last I did it myself; my husband roaring with laughter at their supineness, and at me making myself so disagreeably officious and energetic. An English sailor threw me a rope. "Thanks," I said, as I took advantage of an enormous wave to spring on to the ladder. "I am the only man in the boat to-night." All came on board with us, and we had a parting stirrup-cup, and said farewell, and often after, our good host and his wife used to write to me, and call me the "only man in the boat."

We had been six months in India, and had made the most of it, and the day of departure came round. We were glad and sorry--glad to leave the intolerable heat, to escape the coming monsoon; sorry to leave the ever-increasing interest and the daily accumulating friends. We generally chose Austrian-Lloyd's steamers. They owned at that time a fleet of sixty-nine keel, covering twenty-two different lines, reasonable in charges. An Italian cuisine, everything clean, with a certain style and refinement. They are safe ships, and their sailors, mostly Dalmatians, are a brave seafaring race, quiet, docile, and sober, stalwart, honest, and civil, and mind their ship in a storm.

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: After a Stay in Egypt, to Trieste.]

After stopping some time at Cairo, Alexandria, and Ramleh, we embarked for Trieste on another Lloyd's, which carried Jamrach and his menagerie. During our stay in Cairo, we saw a great deal of poor Marquis de Compiègne (afterwards shot in a duel), Dr. Schweinfürth, and Marietta Bey and the Bulak Museum; poor John Wallis, legal Consul, once editor of the Tablet; Baron de Kremer, our old Austrian colleague at Damascus, afterwards Minister of Finance at Vienna (now dead). We found the voyage very cold, even in July, after India. We first went to Candia, passing Gavdo, Cape Spaltra, the two islands Cerigotto and Cerigo.

We glide by Cape Matapan on the Greek coast. We passed Cabrera and Sapienza. We leave the lighthouse on Strophades to the left, and reach Zante, which is a lovely island, with a large picturesque town, and where mareschino is made. We run between Cephalonia and Ithaca (of Ulysses); then we change the Greek coast for Acarnania, and pass Santa Maura, or Leucadia, with "Sappho's Leap." We changed then to the Albanian coast, gloriously green to the water's edge, with, cliff and cave, with the Cimariote hills, and its wild people and their lawless legends behind them. We passed two islands, Anti Paxo and Paxo, to Corfú. After we leave Corfú, we coast along Albania, passing Capo Linguetta and Isole Sasseno; then we changed to the Dalmatian coast, to Bocca di Cattaro and Ragusa, afterwards the islands of Lagosta and Cazza; then Lissa, where two great battles were fought, one 13th of March, 1811, and the other 20th of July, 1866. Then we passed the islands of Spalmadore, Lesina, Incoronati, and Grossa; then Punta Biancha, and the island of Sansego. Here we changed to Istria, and are upon our own ground, beginning with Punta di Promontore and Pola, our great Austrian naval station, with its Coliseum and interesting ruins. Then Rovigno and Parenzo, harbour towns on the coast. At Punto Salvore we enter our own "Gulf of Trieste," passing Pirano, which we can see from our own windows, and finally Trieste. The coming into Trieste is very sweet from the sea. The beautiful little City, nestled in its corner in the mountains at the very top of the Adriatic, seemed to us the greenest and most beautiful spot we had ever beheld, after hot India and barren Egypt and Arabia. The hills plumaged to the sea, dotted with white villages and villas; Miramar standing well out to sea in the warm haze; the splendid Carniola Mountains on the opposite side, still slightly tipped with snow, were most refreshing to our eyes, and we settled down in our little home with a feeling of rest, and enjoyed our ever-warm reception from our Trieste friends after our sea voyage.

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

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

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

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IV. A QUIET TIME AT TRIESTE

On our return from India, Richard produced "Sind Revisited" (2 vols., 1877) and "Etruscan Bologna" (1 vol.), which had been some time in preparation, but had not found a publisher.

After this, Richard and I pursued a quiet, literary life, and I studied very hard. We began to translate Ariosto. It was summer, so we swam a great deal, and then we went up to the village inn at Opçina, of which I have already spoken. And we took a great interest in the Slav school-children--about two hundred and twenty boys and girls. We used to amuse ourselves with going in the evening to look at a Sagra (the peasants' dances at one or other of the villages in the Karso), where they dance, and sing, and drink, and play games. On the 1st of August I had a great sorrow, in which Richard participated. I had taken out to Syria a couple of Yarborough fox-terriers. "Nip" was one of their offspring (one of five, born on the 24th of June, 1871, in Syria). She accompanied me to England, and then through France, Italy, Germany, to Trieste; then again all over Italy and Germany, back to England, to Arabia, India, and Egypt. In India (in April, 1876) she suddenly lost her eyesight from the heat. We nursed her for over three months, and tried everything. She had four doctors, but she died on the 1st of August, 1876, and is buried in Mr. Brock's garden, Campagna Hill, viâ St. Vito, Trieste. She had to be chloroformed, as she was in such pain, and there was no hope for her. I put up a little tombstone to her memory, much to the rage of the peasants, who were also very angry at her little sealskin coat in winter, and her cradle to sleep in; they considering that I treated her like a Christian, which was true. The cradle had its mattress and pillow, sheets, blankets, and curtain; and God help anybody who ventured to touch that cradle, except to make it, like our beds, with the utmost respect.

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

[Sidenote: Delightful Trieste Life.]

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

An amusing little incident happened in connection with my learning Italian. I wanted very much to go through the Italian classics with a professor. My professor was a Tuscan, a gentleman, a Christian, and a celebrated Dantesque scholar, but a priest who had unhappily fallen away from his vocation. He gained great fame and applause amongst litterati for his declamations of Dante. I used to read beforehand the canto for the night, in Bohn's English translation; then he would declaim it to me in Italian, acting it unconsciously all the while; then I used to read it aloud in Italian, to catch his pronunciation, and as I read he stopped me and explained every shade of Dante's thoughts and meaning. When he came to that part where the souls in hell are crying out and scratching themselves, he also kept crying out and scratching himself. It was evening, as he had only that time to spare. Richard had gone to bed, and I had left the door open between us. All of a sudden he called out loudly, "What the devil is that noise--what is the matter?" "Oh," I said in English, "it is only Rossi acting the damned souls in hell for me." Peals of laughter came from the bed. The master naturally asked what was the matter, and he was so shy after that, that it spoilt my lessons. I could never get him to act any more, as he had been doing it quite unconsciously.[1] Richard was also very fond of a good opera, and we often went if there was a new piece.

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

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

We went a trip to Fiume and Agram, and to Gorizia, two hours' express from Trieste in the Karso, as I wanted to make a "spiritual retreat" at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, but under a Dalmatian Jesuit. Gorizia is a pretty, striking, picturesque cathedral town. It covers a hill, some hillocks, and a part of a fertile plateau in the heart of the Carniola Mountains, surrounded by ranges of wooded Istrian mountains, which are also encircled by a higher snow-capped range (the Carniola range). It is small, cheerful, primitive, with salubrious air, especially good for nerves and chest complaints; it is composed entirely of Churches, Monasteries, and Convents, church dignitaries, and all sorts of ecclesiastics and nuns--a Prince Archbishop being the Chief--and a few pious old ladies--a resident local aristocracy. The river Isonzo, the boundary between Austria and Italy, glides through the valley, making the sea green with its outflow, sometimes as far as Duino. It is a magnificent scene in the sunset, when it lights up the snow, bathing it in purple, red, and gold, till the whole panorama seems on fire. There is a great pilgrimage place called Monte-Santo on a grizly top, with church and monastery, where Richard and I have often been together. This Deaf and Dumb Institution is a large Convent with a garden. It has a little chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart, seven sisters of Notre Dame, a padre who is Director, a second priest, and a professor who is an aspirant for the priesthood, a number of servants, and a hundred and fifty children, deaf and dumb boys and girls. Everything is done by signs; the prayers, the studies, the sermon; even plays are acted in signs. The education is reading, writing, arithmetic, catechism, plain work, fancy work, drawing, illustrating, church work; the boys help in the garden, and the padre keeps fish, rabbits, and bees. They call him "papa." He is quite devoted to his bees, and being a highly educated man, Richard used to pass a great deal of time with him and the bees.

[Sidenote: Henri V. of France.]

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

[Sidenote: Bertoldstein.]

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

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

MIDIAN.

In his old Arab days, wandering about with his Korán, forty years ago, Richard came upon a gold land in that part of Arabia belonging to Egypt. He was a romantic youth, with a chivalrous contempt for filthy lucre, and only thought of "winning his spurs;" so, setting a mark upon the place, he turned away and passed on. After twenty-five years, seeing Egypt distressed for gold, he asked for "leave," and he went back to Cairo, and imparted his secret to the Khedive. Uncle Gerard furnished him with the means of going. His Highness equipped an Expedition in a few days, and sent him there to rediscover the land (end of 1876). He has given an account of that trip in the "Gold Mines of Midian" and the "Ruined Midianite Cities," 1878.

The Khedive engaged him to come back the following winter, 1877, with a view to learning every item concerning this rich old country, and applied to the Foreign Office for the loan of him for the winter, which being granted, he set out in October, 1877, in command of a new Expedition, on a much larger scale, and was out seven months in the desert of Arabia, doing hard work. He discovered a region of gold and silver, zinc, antimony, sulphur, tin, copper, porphyry, turquoise, agate, lead, and six or seven commoner metals, extending some hundreds of miles either way, and pearls on the coast, a Roman temple, and thirty-two mining Cities. The Expedition mapped and planned and sketched the whole country, and brought back abundance of the various metals for assay or analysis. The ancients had only worked forty feet, whereas with our appliances we might have gone down twelve hundred.

The Khedive was charmed; he made splendid contracts with my husband, so that, with the commonest luck, not only Egypt would have become rich, but my husband would have been a millionaire in a very few years, and he used to say jokingly that he would be Duke of Midian, the only title he had ever wished for. To our great misfortune Ismail Khedive abdicated just as the third Expedition was about to come off, in 1878-9. The new Khedive, Tewfik, did not consider himself bound by any act of his father's; the English Government (it is hardly worth while to remark) was not likely to give Richard a chance of anything good, and instead of being able to carry out the enterprise, he lost all the money which we had advanced and partly borrowed for paying expenses which we were sure would be refunded.[3] His second interesting work on this expedition was the "Land of Midian Revisited" (2 vols., 1879).

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

[Sidenote: Akkas.]

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

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

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

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

ON RETURN.

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

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

Midian means the district which in the Bible covers the peninsula of Sinai, and the country east of the Gulf of Akabah, east of the river Jordan, into which the Midianites fled before the Three Hundred, and comprises that great desert south and east of the Euphrates, through which the modern Midianites, who are the present Bedawi, with their cattle and black tents still wander. Their manners and customs are just the same, only guns have taken the place of the bow, coffee and tobacco have been brought in; a sort of veneer of Mohammedan doctrine is added to the ancient patriarchal faith, still keeping its own traditions.

Richard's Midian was an utterly unknown country along the east coast of the Gulf of Akabah, one of the two narrow inlets in which the Red Sea ends. When I say unknown, it has been practically unvisited and its shores unexplored until now. There is abundant evidence of a former population and a cultivated period; there are ruins of large towns, of solid masonry, roads cut in the rock, aqueducts five miles long; remains of massive fortresses with artificial reservoirs, all the signs of a busy and a prosperous period, when fleets with richly laden cargoes came to and fro. The rocks are full of mineral wealth--gold, silver, tin, antimony, and many other rich things, just as in the gold districts elsewhere. The sands of the streams yield gold, and the ancient mining works lie destroyed round every town, heaps of ashes close to the mineral furnaces. There are mines of turquoises. This hoard of possible wealth would have set up Ismail Khedive and Egypt for ever, if she could only have worked it. Richard began to be called in fun the "new Pharaoh's new Joseph."

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

Richard went first to Moilah, thence to Aynunah Bay. Every ruined town had its mining works, dams for washing of sand and crushed rock, and gold-washing vessels. Then they went to Makna, written "Mugua" in the maps, the Capital of the land, as far as Jebel Hassani, and he found it much like ancient California. These gold and precious stones producing parts of Arabia were closed up four thousand years ago, and present the appearance of having been suddenly left, in consequence of earthquake or some great volcanic evolution. They found a black sand containing a very clear oxide of tin, and a large stone engraved with antique inscriptions, which they copied.

[Sidenote: Waiting and working.]

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

On the 19th we went on board the Espero, the Khedive having summoned him to Egypt, where the work of organization went on, and they landed at Tur (where he had landed in 1853), and went to Arafat, and to El Muwáylah and Shermá, to Jebel el Abyaz, and innumerable other places.

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: I go out to join him.]

On the second Expedition it was arranged that as soon as I had corrected the last proof of his "Midian," I should make my way out to Cairo and Suez, and get the Khedive to send me on. I had been restless with impatience to start ever since he had been gone, and I was on board an Austrian-Lloyd's as soon as the last proof was out of my hand and I was free. About seventy of my friends came to see me off, and as it was heavy weather, the passengers were all very sick, and I had the ship pretty well to myself. At Corfú we had full moon and the water like oil, but on steaming out there was a rough sea, and deluges of rain and darkness all through the Ionian Islands, which did not better itself till we had passed Gozo. Landing at Alexandria, I immediately found my letters and instructions, which did not please me much, as "I was not to attempt to join unless I could do so in proper order;" it remained to be seen what "proper order" meant. I always wonder when people sleep in Alexandria, for the whole night long there is a perfect pandemonium of clogs, carriages, cracking of whips, and pleasure-parties.

I went off at once to Cairo, and I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of our Consul-General, Mr. and Mrs. Vivian. I also had the worry of learning that the last Sambúk (or open boat) had gone the day before. Not that I could have gone in her, because that would decidedly not have been "going properly," but I should have sent loads of things by it. I did not want to stop for the gaieties of Cairo; I wanted to get as near as I could to the opposite side of the water, and watch my chance of going. So I made my way up to Zagazíg, and visited poor Mrs. Clarke, who was just as unhappy as myself because her husband was gone with mine as secretary. I do not know that we did each other very much good. At Suez lived the Levick family (he was the Postmaster-General, and did good service to the State for something like forty-seven years, though his widow and children are now left to starve), and they were awfully kind to me. At last I was informed that a ship was going to be sent out, and that I was to have the offer of going in her, though it was intimated to me privately that the Khedive and the Governor, Said Bey, were very much in hopes that I should refuse. It was an Egyptian man-of-war, the Senaar, that was to anchor off the coast till the expedition emerged from the desert, and to bring them back. The Captain received me with all honour. All hands were piped on deck, and a guard and everything provided for me. They were most courteous, said that they would like to take me, and would do everything in their power to make me comfortable, but I saw at once that the accommodation was of too public a nature; in short, that it would be impossible for any woman to embark without her husband on an Egyptian man-of-war. It would lower her in their eyes, and hurt his dignity. Besides turning them out of their only quarters, when my husband came to embark the men of his Staff, I should be excessively in the way; so, thanking them exceedingly for their courteousness, I returned to the town, to the immense relief of all concerned, took some small rooms at the Suez Hotel, and started my literary work. To have crossed the Red Sea in an open Sambúk, with head winds blowing, and then to fight my way across the desert alone upon a camel, would have been dangerous to me and infra dig. for my husband's position; and the Khedive was just in that critical state that I could not have asked him to organize a second Expedition, to send me out with no definite object, save my own pleasure, although I am sure that he would have done it in former prosperous years.

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Richard's Triumphant Return.]

During my stay in Suez a remarkable event occurred, of dumb madness in dogs. It was an epidemic in the air, as dogs separately confined and well cared for died just the same. I lost two of Richard's. The pariahs had it very bad. I have seen them running into the sea to drown themselves, and out of three thousand, there were only about forty left. At last, on the 20th of April, 1878, whilst I was in the church during the "Office" for Holy Saturday, a messenger from the Governor put a slip of paper into my hand--"The Senaar is in sight, the Emetic will await you later on to meet the ship." I found Richard looking ill and tired. Before the ship had been anchored half an hour, every soul had deserted, and he was left in sole charge, and could not come off till the following morning. The Khedive sent a special train for him and the Expedition, which left at eight in the morning. Halfway, at Zagazíg, a beautiful dinner had been prepared for us by Monsieur Camille Vetter, a French cotton-merchant from Ettlingen, the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany. We dined in an arbour, and there was a profusion of champagne and delicacies galore. Our train caught fire four times, and we had to get out and pour buckets of sand over it, there being no water.

An Englishman who happened to be at Suez wrote to the Home News, June 1st, 1878: "I had occasion to be at Suez on the return of Haji Abdullah (Dick Burton) from Midian last month, and I noted the sensation his arrival created. His name is as well known amongst the natives in Egypt as if he had passed all his days amongst them. Pashas and other great personages from Europe are continually passing to and fro almost unheeded. How different was the case when it became known that Haji Abdullah was leaving for Cairo! The platform was crowded with Europeans and natives. The rumour had got abroad that 'that wonderful man' was at Suez on his return from the exploring trip to Midian."

Richard was received with great distinction by the Khedive; it was a sort of triumphal entry. The Khedive wished for an exhibition of the minerals, which he opened in person, Richard and Mr. Frederick Smart attending him, and I attended a good deal upon the harem. We had three weeks of that sort of work, and writing reports in French and English, made excursions to the Pyramids, and received a great deal of hospitality from our friends, Mr. Frederick Smart, the Michells, General Purday, the Romaines, the Bairds, the Barings, Abate Bey, Artin Yakoob Pasha, the Tennants, the Vivians, the Lesseps, Barrot Bey, General and Mrs. Stone, the Kremers, and very pleasant were the dinners by moonlight on the Bairds' dahabeeyah, enhanced by the stillness, the view, the distant singing. The Khedive made a contract that Richard should have the concession of the discoveries, or to have five per cent. upon the whole gross profits.

[Sidenote: We go Home.]

We left on the 10th of May for Alexandria, dined out at Ramleh, and left on the 12th in the "Austria," Captain Rossol. We were eighty-five passengers in a small steamer, so we were not very comfortable; but we were very merry, and we had with us Mr. Frederick Smart, Safvet Pasha, Mohammed Bey, Baronne de Saurmà, née Comtesse de Hatzfeldt, Lord Talbot de Malahide and his daughter Frances, and General Stranz. At Corfú we saw Sir Charles Sebright, and dined all together at St. George's Hotel. We had one man ill with typhus, who was shut away for fear the passengers should know, and I got awfully scolded for going in to nurse him, and as two sharks followed under our bows, they made an unpleasant impression. When we arrived at nine o'clock at night, as we steamed in, our faithful friends, the Governor, Baron Pino, and his wife, rowed up to the side of the vessel, and sent a man to tell Captain and Mrs. Burton to come to their boat directly; and they took us away in less than two minutes, fearing the steamer would be sent in quarantine, and afterwards our belongings followed us. The man died two days after landing in his own home, but no harm resulted to any one. An untoward and melancholy incident also occurred. A poor lady was coming to Austria to see which of the baths would make her a little more blood, as she was anæmic. The exertion of landing from the ship to the hotel caused her to faint; a young doctor was called in, who, mistaking her case, bled her, taking out the little drop she had, and she died that night.

We now went up to Opçina to rest. Richard was detained at his post on account of the then expected war, but was released in a few weeks and allowed to come to London to arrange matters for the further working of Midian. We embarked on the 6th of July in a Cunard steamer which occupies from twenty-one to twenty-six days from Trieste to Liverpool, going first to Venice. On the way we read Dellon's "Inquisition" in Portuguese. We touched at Brindisi; went through the Straits of Messina to Palermo, where we found it very, very hot. We landed, and went to see everything worth seeing, not forgetting the Capuchins, who have large underground crypts, where the dead monks are not buried, but tied up, as if drying. It is very curious, but rather gruesome. I went to visit a relation there, who had been one of the members. The Capuchins gave me a huge blue pottery jar, with a tap, which the priests used to wash their fingers after Mass, and for which I had taken an immense fancy; it bears the Franciscan arms. Richard had gout very badly a great part of the way, but not gout in the exaggerated sense of later years. We landed again at Gibraltar, and had bad weather across the Bay, and all the way home, reaching London on the 27th of July, 1878.

[Sidenote: The British Association for Science.]

On the 12th of August we left by the night mail for Dublin, where we joined the British Association for Science, which opened on the 14th. We were asked to spend the time at Malahide with Lord Talbot and his family, and a delightful time we had, meeting old friends, and making many charming acquaintances--Lord and Lady Gough, and Dr. Lloyd, Provost of Trinity, a charming, venerable, and distinguished man. The Duchess of Marlborough, who was then reigning, was very kind to us. We met again our old friend, the philanthropist Lentaigne, and Mr. Spottiswoode. The excursionists came over to see Malahide Castle, and Lord Talbot and Richard dined at the Lord Mayor's to meet the Lord Lieutenant. Richard's lecture (Section E, Geographical) came off on the 19th, and his first lecture at the Anthropological (on Midian) took place next day, the Vice-Regal party being present, and we then went back to make tea for the "Association." At his third lecture (on Midian, Anthropological), the Vice-Royalties were also present, and there was a great party that evening.

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

[Sidenote: Society and Amusement.]

All during our present stay in London we were on a visit to my father. We saw a good deal of Society--luncheon-parties and dinner-parties several times a week. We had a great treat in visits to Mr. Frank Dillon's Damascus room (his studio) at 11, Durham Villas, Campden Hill, which we always left with regret. About this time Mr. Alfred Levick, son of the Postmaster-General of Suez, came home dreadfully ill, and went into the University Hospital, and in gratitude for past kindnesses from his father, we were very assiduous in attending on him all the time of his illness. We went up to Lancashire in October to stay with Uncle Gerard, and to Knowsley, where Lady Derby had a large house-party. At Garswood, amongst other visitors, came Sir Julius Benedict. From Garswood we went to some more cousins at Carlton Towers, Yorkshire, where Lord Beaumont gave a large house-warming, and thence to Lord Houghton's at Frystone--all these houses had big parties--and then back to London. We then went to Hatfield to Lady Salisbury's, where we had the pleasure of being again in the same house with Lord Beaconsfield, and the present Lord Rowton, his secretary. A very nice second cousin of mine (Everard Primrose) was staying there, and an amusing little event occurred. He was (to those who did not know him) a cold, serious, rather prim young man, and very punctilious. He suddenly one evening felt en train, went out of the room, and disordering his tie and pulling one arm out of his coat, and a hat on the back of his head, he came into the room with an assumed stagger, and sang "The Marseillaise" furiously, just like a tipsy Frenchman at the barricades. Lord Beaconsfield was delighted. I think it was the only time I ever saw him laugh downright heartily. When it was over, Colonel Primrose went out of the room and came back quite quiet, and looking as if he had done nothing. He often said afterwards to me at Vienna (and various places abroad), when there was a very stiff party at an Embassy or Foreign party, "I wish to gracious I could do the 'Marseillaise' now, but those things are obliged to come by inspiration." A pity such a man should have perished, in that useless fight in the Soudan, of fever. We had the pleasure of a very pleasant dinner at Lady Ashburton's, where we met several delightful people, notably Mr. Augustus Hare, Swinburne, and Miss Hatty Hosmar, the famous sculptress. It was remarkably interesting, and Mr. Hare told us delightful ghost stories. We then went to Ashridge to Lady Marian Alford, who was the best friend we have had in London, except Lord Houghton. Then I went to Brighton (where we saw a good deal of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Sassoon) for the purpose of helping at a bazaar in behalf of humanity to animals. Richard brought out his second Midian book, called "The Land of Midian Revisited" (2 vols., 1879).

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

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

THE LITERARY B'S OF 1878.[5]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[5] I think from Punch.

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