XIV. CHANGES
Dr. Baker had a most unpleasant journey. Not having done it before, he came with full confidence, without a greatcoat, without a brandy flask, without food, and as soon as he arrived on the Karso, he found a Bora that nearly upset his train. After fifteen hours of this, though the house was well built with immensely thick walls, the Bora sounded as if it too was just going to be carried away, and two earthquakes were not a pleasant greeting; but a warm welcome, a comfortable room, a good supper and hot grog, soon restored him. It was quite winter, and there was snow on the Risano. A number of friends and acquaintances, old and new, flocked through Trieste, which somewhat enlivened the dull season. Amongst others, Sir Cecil Domville, naval attaché; and an epoch was made by a visit likewise from Dr. and Mrs. Schlieman, of Troy. Princess Wrede also arrived at nine a.m. to take her coffee in a rush from Graz to Trieste.
We were very sorry to lose Dr. Leslie, he was so genial and good-humoured--one of the best-hearted men that ever lived. I may say a man who would go twenty miles out of his way to do you a service, and--great praise--he never said a word against anybody; above all, he had a true reverence for Richard.
[Sidenote: Programme of our Day.]
Our days at Trieste, after Richard got ill, were passed in the following way:--Instead of getting up, as we used to do, at any time from three to half-past five, we rose at seven, had a breakfast of tea, bread and butter, and fruit on a little table near a window, where he used to feed the sparrows and other garden-birds on the window-sill, so that an almond tree which brushed up to the window was covered with them waiting, and, as he remarked, "they were quite imperious in their manners if he did not attend to them at once." He then wrote his journals--two sets, one private, which was kept in a drawer in my room, and one public ephemeris of notes, quotations, remarks, news, and weather memoranda; then he would fall to to his literature. At nine o'clock the doctor would come in, and as I, being ill, could no longer stoop to help with his bath and toilette, Dr. Leslie, and afterwards Dr. Baker, superintended the bath and the electric foot-bath; but he shaved himself and dressed himself. During the bath he would frequently read out to them passages from what he was writing. The toilette finished, he resumed his literature till half-past ten, when, if the weather permitted, he would go out for a good walk with the doctor.
At twelve o'clock we had breakfast, which was really luncheon, after which he smoked (always the tobacco of the country--those long, thin, black cigars with a straw down the middle), and played with the kitten, and talked. He was very cheerful and enjoyed his meals. He would then lie on his bed with a book, and sleep perhaps for an hour, and then get up and do more literature. A little after three, if it was winter, he would go for another walk in the garden, or, if bad weather, into the hall, or in the summer-time, at about five o'clock, for a good long drive, or very often an excursion in the neighbourhood, and was always accompanied by the doctor or me, or both of us. Tea was at four, a sit-down tea, which was purposely made into a meal of all sorts of fruits, cake, sweets, and jam, because it was the hour for our intimates to pour in, and he enjoyed it. If any friends, English or other, were passing through Trieste, they lunched and dined with us. He liked company, and it did him a great deal of good; and he always used to say "that he liked to see his fellow-creatures, at hotels and public places, for instance, even if he did not want to mix with them;" but generally all the nice men in the hotel collected round him, smoking and listening to his conversation. After tea and talk and walk were over, he went to his room and worked steadily till seven, or half-past, when we had dinner.
He enjoyed his dinner, after which he sat in an armchair and smoked and talked. Glorious talk and sweet musical voice that we shall never hear again on earth--a perfect education to those who had the boon of hearing him! Sometimes, if the nights were fine, we used to sit on our verandah overlooking the sea and mountains, and watch the moon and stars through a telescope planted there for the purpose. At nine o'clock at night he retired; the doctor again helped him to undress, and then left for the night; and I said night prayers with him, and we talked awhile. He would ask me for a novel--he always said "he cooled his head with a novel when the day's work was done"--and we went to bed, he reading himself to sleep. Sometimes he did not sleep well and was restless, and sometimes very well; but in all cases far better than he had ever done before he was an invalid. We had an electric bell between our beds, so that if he was restless it woke me.
On the 30th of October he mourns the death of Mr. Henry Levick, the first European to take up his abode at Suez, where he lived forty-one years. He pioneered the Mail Service through Egypt, assisted in arranging the Overland route, often accompanying the mails across the desert. He was the first English Consul at Suez, was packet-agent and postmaster to her Majesty, and agent for the late Government of India. The widow and numerous children have been left to starve for the last six years. She is now head of the English Hospital for Trained Nurses in Paris, 34, Rue de Prony Parc Monceau, and sadly in need of kindness and patronage.
On the 31st of October we were inundated with anonymous letters, which made us angry (I thought then that it was only a Triestine amusement, but I found out, twenty-three months ago, that it was equally common in England, and twice as coarse); the object then being to make us clear out our house of everybody in it that we wanted.
On November 17th he deplores the death of Colonel Valentine Baker.
The Empress now arrived at Miramar for a little rest and seclusion.
[Sidenote: Abbazia.]
His journal continues:--
"On the 1st of December my wife and I, accompanied by Dr. Grenfell Baker, returned to Abbazia to avoid the fearful Boras of Trieste, and to shelter in the supposed mild climate of the Austrian Riviera. It is only a few hours' rail distant, but you must rise at four a.m., though with a decent train it could be done in two hours. We were, however, doomed to disappointment. On December 7th the snow began and lasted two months; the earth was covered, and the pine and bay trees, the local boast of the place, were so broken and bent under its weight, that many of the undergrowths did not recover. There are two sorts of cur-orts (health resorts); the first is when everything is planned out for the comfort and cheeriness of the invalid, as in Switzerland and the Riviera, and the second one is when ambition upstarts barely out of its swaddling clothes, unformed and without a prospect of ever becoming better. Then they are expensive, uncomfortable, and are merely traps laid by money-grubbers for unhappy invalids, who ought never to go where they cannot rough it, but where healthy people may manage to live in dullness and discomfort, and of this category are Abbazia and Hammám R'irha in N. W. Africa.
"At Abbazia you rise early, drink coffee, walk, breakfast at twelve in the restaurant, siesta, walk or drive, dine at 7.30, and retire to your bedroom. There is no public room or meeting-place, no newspapers, except in a tiny room. There is charming society, the Austrian and Hungarian cousinhood, some of which we enjoyed very much; but it is a clique. The Jews and Americans doré theirs. The harmless and inoffensive people who go there for imaginary baths and waters creep in to meals and out again and disappear. Hence a serious occupation or a study is a necessity. I got Father Josef Janc, the Catholic priest, to come and read German with me in the evenings, and I had my literature--my two last volumes of supplemental 'Arabian Nights;' my wife the same. We varied our time by driving to Castua, Moschenizza, Ika, Sovrana, and to Fiume to see the Count and Countess Hoyos and family and Mr. and Mrs. Whitehead (whose father gave us an occasional field-day with the torpedos), and our colleague, the English Consul Mr. Faber and his family. We walked, drove, lounged about smoking in the grounds. The views are beautiful. The winds are not boisterous, as at Trieste. Fiume is an hour away, and the boundary between my jurisdiction and Faber's lies halfway--Abbazia being in my jurisdiction. Fiume is as dull as ditchwater, with one fifth-class hotel. Your room in the hotel at Abbazia may be comfortable, but the food becomes worse and worse as the visitors increase, and the sanitary arrangements, the bread and water, are fearfully bad.
"To give some idea of its primitive state in 1887-88, although I had been Consul here for fifteen years, they refused to take my cheque, because 'they did not know who "Coutts" was.' There is no promenoir, no wandelbahn, no kur-salon, in fact no public rooms. There is a fine large dining-room, where, unless you are an archduke, you may not smoke for fear of spoiling the gilding; consequently you are driven into a kind of estaminet, where at 8.30 you can cut the reek of tobacco and food with a knife. A head director often visits Abbazia, but he is never at home to strangers, knowing that they only seek him to make complaints. The management is under an Austrian, not a Swiss. The appointment is always given to an employé of the Südbahn, which owns the place, and not to a hôtelier, therefore he naturally does not know his work. And Austria in such matters is fifty years behind Switzerland. The British grumbler (who has made Switzerland) is still more almost unknown in the dual kingdom. The dullness of life is almost incredible, and what gaieties there are--the Christmas tree, the New Year's Day ball, the concert of Tyrolians, and the gypsy band--as in all irregulated establishments, turned everything topsy-turvy, and converted stagnation into utter misery."
We had a visit at Abbazia from the Dowager Lady Galway, and Richard had an attack of gout when the snow came on, and on the 19th we had an earthquake.
On the 14th he got another slight attack of gout in both feet. Gout now became a trimestral attack, which the doctor considered to be a safety-valve for the head and general health, provided it was a healthy gout in the feet. The thermometer was at zero, and we had almost perpetually such awful snow for two months, and the comforts were so primitive, that we disliked it, and we wrote together a little pamphlet on it.
On the 9th of January, 1888, we were made very unhappy by reading Lady Marian Alford's death in the papers, which we felt very badly. She was the kindest friend we had in London, and Richard said, "I believe by the time we get back to London nearly all our old friends will be dead."
It is a custom here on Shrove Tuesday night to ring all the church bells at eleven o'clock, to make the rich people leave off eating meat preparatory to Ash Wednesday (Lent), and to give the poor time to eat up the refuse before midnight.
Richard was gouty off and on all this snow-time. On the 18th the Crown Prince, poor Prince Rudolf, came to the hotel and stayed forty-eight hours; on the 21st we were further put in sorrow by the news of the death, at the early age of forty-one, of dear Anna Kingsford. She was a lady doctor, Anti-vivisectionist, advocate of vegetarianism, President of the Theosophical Society, and founder of the Hermetic Society for the study of religion and philosophy. Both Richard and I became very nervous as the 26th came round, the anniversary of his fit, but it passed off without any trouble.
On the 19th of February, 1888, he deplores the death of the Rev. George Percy Badger, D.C.L., the eminent Oriental scholar, at seventy-three.
[Sidenote: We return to Trieste.]
On the 5th of March we bade adieu to all the charming friends we had made there, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we drove to Mattuglie to take the train for Trieste. The superintendent of the railway, our friend Mr. Thomas, made a charming arrangement for us. From Mattuglie to St. Peter's is only two or three hours, but St. Peter's, on an elevation, is an ice-bound place in winter; there you have to stand about for an hour or more in a miserable little station, waiting for the night-mail for Trieste. I coaxed him into giving us a large saloon with tables and beds most luxuriously fitted up, a carriage behind for the servants, and a compartment behind for the baggage, so that when we got into the train, Dr. Baker and I had nothing to do but to put Richard to bed, and we congratulated ourselves warmly on the arrangement, because, as we neared St. Peter's, the train passed through walls of snow much higher than itself, down which a howling wind came as through a funnel, whilst our saloon was perfectly warm. When we got to St. Peter's we were detached and shunted, a nice hot dinner was served to us in the carriage, and we got Richard into Trieste without the slightest hurt.
We were now reading "Mohammed Benoni," the work of Mr. Pedicaris, of Marocco.
On the 12th of March, 1888, he notices "the first swallows over the sea at sunset."
Mr. Thayer wrote to the Tribune from Trieste, under date of March 17--
"Lady Burton's expurgated edition of 'The Thousand Nights and One Night' is now complete in six handsome volumes. The last of the copy for Sir Richard's supplementary volumes of the 'Nights' will be sent to England next week. His motto has been for forty years, 'Without haste, without rest,' and as soon as the 'Nights' are ended, he will begin in earnest, what must prove to be a work of remarkable interest, his autobiography. His life, detailed by himself, if his conversation affords the means of judging, must be as fascinating as a romance. Its scenes range from the jungles of India to the tropical swamps of South America, from the snows of Iceland to the mephitic moraines of Central and Western Africa. Two years ago, his health was so broken that his friends feared he might not be able even to complete the 'Nights,' and we quite despaired of ever enjoying his autobiography; but now the case is happily altered, for, though still far from well, through the care and solicitude of his noble wife and his excellent physician, we have every reason to hope that his enormous power of continuous mental labour will carry him through the work."
On the 19th of March, 1888, his sixty-seventh birthday, Richard finished his last volume of the supplemental "Nights" (the sixteenth volume), but it did not come out till the 13th of November, 1888, and during the intervening months he corrected proofs, and began writing what he called "chow-chow"--odds and ends that he had been waiting to finish up. We were exceedingly relieved, because he had always had such a fear of not living to keep his engagements, and we had received money for it.
On the 2nd of April we began a second "reviewers reviewed" on the "Arabian Nights" critics (the first one was on the "Lusiads;" Richard having been roughly handled, had raised our ire).
On the 7th of April we had to deplore the loss of our good kind friend, R. Mackay Smith, of Edinburgh, and on the same date of Lady Margaret Beaumont, another of our kindest friends.
On the 9th of April he was rather agitated about some lost papers. I have spoken at length of a peculiarity he had of hiding things, and latterly especially he could not remember where he put them. Then he had to call me, and I was frequently several hours hunting for them. I have a particular prayer that I always say when I cannot find anything, and it has occasionally happened that the lost thing was found immediately, so he used to call me in an agitated way, saying, "Come here, I want that prayer directly; I have lost such and such." On the 11th of May we had the pleasure of a visit from our old friend, Frederick Foster Arbuthnot, of 18, Park Lane, who stayed with us some days.
[Sidenote: His Notes on his Swiss Summer.]
Richard's journal runs as follows:--
"After four months of snow, alternating with the Scirocco, the damp, depressing, and ozone-wanting gift of Northern Africa, we left Abbazia on the 5th of March, 1888, disappointed in the hope of staying there till the end of the month. The train which conveyed us passed through walls of snow ten or twelve feet high on either side. Passing friends made the stay in Trieste in spring very delightful, but unusual heat set in on the 9th of May, and gave the signal for departure. In consideration of the state of my health, the Foreign Office, though it would not release me, was kind enough to let me judge of when I could or could not stay at Trieste; in fact, an informal sick certificate. As the summer was premature and I could not stay, I thought I might as well go back to England and see my supplemental 'Nights' brought out, so on May 16th we went to Venice, Milan--where we called, on the 20th, on the Emperor and Empress of Brazil (who had been most truly kind to us during our four years' stay in their country; the Emperor was then thought to be dying, so we did not see them, nor did we ever see them again), and we arrived at Varese. Under Signor Marini and his English wife this was an exceptional place, the centre of a charming country, geographically a neutral ground between the uplands of Swiss Ticino, pretty, pleasant, and picturesque, and the lowlands of the Italian-Milanese flats, which are flat and admirably fertile.
"Varese is a charming place; a beautiful hotel with lovely grounds, scenery, and splendid spring and autumn climate, and easily got at, where we met many friends. Hence during the spring and autumn, it attracted a host of English, who all, save a very few, took flight in summer and winter; but the management soon changed, and what became of the Hôtel Excelsior under the Italian committee I could not say. I only know that the Marinis have opened an hotel, and are doing very well, in Via Tritone, Rome. The interests of the place were private theatricals in the evening, and the procession of Corpus Christi in the picturesque little town. There was also much interest in prehistoric villages and collections. The departure was not comfortable to Lucerne. Most travellers would have returned to Milan, and started direct by the St. Gothard Railway. We, wanting to see the country, determined to drive to Chiasso, a horrid little frontier town where we were to pick up the train, and where one wishes a glad adieu to Italy.
"The drive from Varese to Chiasso on the 1st of June was delightful. A beautiful country of deep-wooded hill and vale, abounding with acacia and yellow broom, and peopled with cuckoos and hoopoes. We dined at the buffet in the open. We were directed not to the buffet at Chiasso, which is excellent in food and wine, and can supply bedrooms, but to a wretched soi-disant hotel, St. Michele, fit only for the roughest of peasants, with the prices of milords. The wonderful mountain scenery at St. Gothard, with its rich valley and snow peaks, its long tunnel under the venerable well-known hospice, Mont St. Bernard, and its marvellously engineered line, whose windings look on paper like sundry pairs of spectacles, with its green hills, glaciers, rockery, and waterfalls, and rushing river below in the depths, is too familiar to the general public to bear description, but the glorious mountain air, the kindly ways of the people, and the contrast of the Swiss frontier custom-house with the horrors of Italy, left a most grateful impression.
"On the evening of the 2nd of June we found rooms at the Schweizer-hof, Herren Haüser, who have made this the model establishment of Switzerland, and one may say of the world. I had not seen Lucerne since 1840--when I was a boy, and my tutor took me to drink the waters of Schinznach, en route to Oxford--so to me it was quite a new world. Herr Haüser could, however, show me the remains of the three humble inns, belonging to that proto-historic period since the Lake country has become the playground of Europe, and art has assisted nature in making it like the transformation scene of an opera--un décor de théâtre. Here everything is done for the comfort and delectation of the travelling idler. Under the crispy air and bluest of skies grand piles of hotel rise from the margin of the blue lake, looking upon semicircles of forest and mountain crowned by snow peaks, nestling villages and villas in groves of pink chestnut blossom, steamers flying gaudy flags, which are illuminated at night with coloured lamps. On the left a dwarf eminence is crowned by the Cathedral, which contains a remarkable life-size crucifix and an alto relievo of the death of the Blessed Virgin.
"On the right towers the naked and jagged cone of the cloud-capped mountain Piliatus, which has become Pilatus, has bred a host of grisly legends which the gaunt rock and its lakelet on the summit have suggested. Behind the town still runs the enceinte of mediæval wall, with its picturesque towers surmounted here and there by grotesque figures. Lucerne is essentially a three-days' place. Next day there was a procession of virgins in white and soldiers saluting, etc. The first things you visit are the two quaint wooden bridges and paintings of Holbein's 'Dance of Death.' Then you climb the Drei Linden hill for a panorama of the place; you must ascend in the funicular railway the Gat hill, and wander through the pine forests. You perhaps visit the public library, which contains not books but musty fusty documents, and you walk through the absurd museum, which does not even boast of a catalogue. On the second day you take the steamer to Vitznau, and ascend the Rigi by the far-famed railway. We always compare the engines of these lift-railways to a huge praying mantis. The panorama is worth seeing; the land lies below your feet in the shape of an embossed map. Rigi Staffel has the best climate.
"On the third day you are in local honour bound to hire a two-horse carriage, and to drive about the environs to see the scenery; and then you must railway up to Pilatus. We all differed in our estimate of the lake. I could not admire it. As a piece of water, it is cut into various sections by projecting points, and reminded me of some large river of the upper Mississippi. My wife, on the contrary, was enchanted with the Lucerne end of it, and found a great delight in lazing up and down in the steamers. With Dr. Baker everything Swiss is sacred; it is his Eden, and must not be touched by hand profane. Lucerne must, however, be seen during the season; at other times it is like the inside of a theatre at early morning. We went back to it in March, 1889, and saw it at its worst, when deep snow covered the ground, and the roads were slushy and uncared for, when the streets were deserted, when the people showed homely faces, and their ugly German did not sound so unmusical. The local aristocracy of hotel-keepers and shop-keepers seemed hurt by the presence of strangers, and applying for entrance to a public building was looked upon almost as a grievance. The moral was, avoid Lucerne when not in gala dress.
"We left on the 9th of June, and remarked the meanness of the station; and at the first sight, which subsequent experience confirmed, the Swiss railways generally, for accommodation and convenience, have not kept pace with the hotels and all their other luxuries. The Anglo-Americans especially are full of gibes at the crawling trains. Arrived at Berne, we found the Berne station (Swiss capital) the worst of any metropolis in Europe, an Inferno in the hot, and a well in the cold season; a cave of the winds, at all times damp, draughty, and dangerous. It reminded us of York a quarter of a century ago. We returned from Berne to Ouchy through a charming country of vineyards, orchards, and smiling fields. Thirty years ago my wife was here as a girl with a married brother and sister, when it was the smallest of places, and a little inn, which then stood on the borders of the lake, was the best accommodation. Now the large Beau Rivage, with its fine grounds, ought to attract many travellers, but it is said not to pay its expenses, the reason probably being that it is managed by a company.
[Sidenote: Aigle.]
"Reserving Lausanne for future inspection, we went on to Aigle, passing through mountains, and skirting the south-east horn of the lake. This favourite summering-place showed itself at its worst. The rains were unceasing, and the muddiness of the roads made driving and walking equally unpleasant. Despite the weather, we managed, however, a few of the nearest trips. We drove up the valley of the Rhone, went to Bex, Trocadero, Villar, Bouvret, Diableret, and by rail to Montreux. We walked up to the Roman tower, at the St. Triphon-Ollon quarries, famed for its black marble, and inspected the Gorge de Trient, which twenty years ago was not a show place, and has now become a wonder, and yet no wonder; for it is a most impressive sight, with narrow-planked bridges, lining the steep sides of a perpendicular cliff six hundred feet high, with two hundred and forty feet of boiling, swirling torrent rushing beneath you, and it is a fifteen minutes' walk through this more or less dark place to the roaring waterfalls. My wife thought it a grand sight, and was very much impressed, and said she felt so small, and that she would not go in there by herself for anything. I must say I thought but little of it, but it is a dreadful place for nervous people, and a dizzy one for the bilious. There were Americans photographing, and guides firing pistols to show the echo. The annual receipts from visitors is eight thousand francs.
"We visited the Augustinian monastery of St. Maurice, which will be alluded to later on. The weather, instead of behaving better, became worse, and as the house suddenly filled with people, it by no means improved the service or the cuisine. After a month's stay, we determined to take sudden leave, and on the 12th of July departed to Geneva. A delightful change of climate--for here summer had set in. We put up at the Continental, and I enjoyed breakfasting with Professor Karl Vogt. But I could not stand a fearful automatic grind-organ, the size of an average clothes-press, which raised its abominable voice immediately after dinner, and never ceased till it had run down. This was explained by the Continental being an American institution, and after all the grind-organ, like the street band, is kept up by the suffrages of the majority. We will speak again of Geneva on our return."
I must remark about Aigle that there is besides the village a large hotel situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, and where the Dent du Midi was so clear that it seems as if you could touch it. It was a very amusing place, and we met a number of very nice people; we stayed a month because Dr. Baker's mother and very charming sister came there to meet him. Here we were reading "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and Richard was perfectly delighted with it, and afterwards we had a contrast in Rénan's "Apôtres."
I need not say that wherever we were, and Switzerland was no exception to the rule, that every excursion that was possible to make was made, and everything that could be seen was seen--it did not matter if it was mushroom-growing, cigarette-making, or Swiss milk condensed. We not only stayed at our head-quarters, but we knew the country pretty well all round.
One of the most delightful excursions was driving up the Valley of the Rhône to St. Maurice. We used to get a capital little breakfast and a good bottle of Dole du Valais at a hotel pension, kept by a Dalmatian at Aigle. We had a very nice Curé at Aigle, the Abbé Stercky, who became a friend of Richard's.
Richard enjoyed all these things very much. Part of the time, however, it rained, and then he used to get melancholy and ill. On the 12th of July we had had enough of it, and went to Geneva, where his delight was to go and take a huge middle-day dinner with the old Professor Karl Vogt and his numerous family, without either the doctor or me. The Professor was a very jovial person, and his jolly fat laugh used to sound all over house and garden, and the dinner lasted from at least twelve till four. They were simple and kind-hearted people, and they thoroughly appreciated Richard.
[Sidenote: Our Last Visit to England.]
On the 15th we left for Paris, and had a very shaky journey, but it did not hurt him. Our great friend Professor Zotenberg met him, and dined with us. On the 18th we left Paris for Folkestone, where we stopped one day to see his sister Lady Stisted and her daughter, and the following day, the 19th of July, 1888, we arrived at the St. James's Hotel in London. We had not been in London for two years, and we had naturally an immense quantity of people to see and business to transact. About ten days after, Richard got very ill, and kept us in a great fright; but it lasted a very short time, as he was at his club next day.
One could imagine what a delight it was to him to return to the club. He used to like to be dropped there at about half-past eleven, or twelve. He would lunch there, take a siesta after, and read and write and see his men-friends, and then either Dr. Baker or I used to call for him at six. It was the only free time he had from our surveillance, the whole three years and a half of his illness, and it was an immense relief to him. I do not mean to say that he could not be alone in his room as much as ever he liked, but we never let him walk or drive out by himself, lest a return of the attack should occur, and he would have no assistance, and we always carried restoratives in our pockets.
Here we had the pleasure of seeing our friend H. H. Johnston, Consul in West Africa and artist, one of the most charming and sympathetic of men. St. James's was too noisy, although Richard thought the situation quite perfect. His central point of the world was Apsley House, and he despised everything between that and the desert. Dr. Baker now went for a holiday, and Dr. Leslie came back to us.
However, Richard took it into his head that as Ramsgate has such a reputation for air, we would go and try it; so on the 3rd of August we went to the Granville, where we stopped for a week, taking drives to Margate, to St. Peter's, and Westgate, to see Admiral Beamish, or to Deal, Sandgate, where we tried to see Mr. Clarke Russell, and Broadstairs, in each of which we found friends or cousins. We did not think much of the Granville Hotel, having been thoroughly spoiled by the best hotels abroad; but our great amusement was that, having lived so much away from home, we knew nothing about Bank Holiday, and found ourselves landed in a hundred and fifty thousand of the people for four days, and Richard's delight was to go and sit on the sands and watch them--the Salvation Army, the niggers, the performers with ventriloquist-heads stuck on poles; but we were immensely edified, for although here and there there was a little rough play, there was not a single case of drunkenness. After a week the air proved too strong for Richard, and we went back, this time to the Langham Hotel.
Here we had a most pleasant time, for, in spite of its being August, old friends and relatives came and lunched and dined with us every day, which cheered Richard up immensely; and our friend F. F. Arbuthnot joined us, and passed a week in the hotel, and amongst others were Mr. John Payne, Du Chaillu, Mr. Henry Irving, Swinburne, Mr. Theodore Watts, and others. Dr. Baker came back eventually, and we went off to Oxford, where Richard delighted in driving round to all the Colleges, and where we met numbers of old friends--Mr. Arthur Evans and his wife, Mr. Chandler, Professor Sayce, etc. From there we went to the Queen's Hotel, Norwood, to be near Richard's sister and niece for a fortnight, and enjoy the Crystal Palace.
A Norwood treat was having a clairvoyante down from London, who pronounced on our health. She told Richard that he was bad in the head, eyes, down the back of neck, stomach, feet, and legs; that I had cancer; that I had healing powers, powerful light from heaven, a red cross above me, a large protection and light from above, with troops of friends and patrons. The cancer prophecy made Richard unhappy, till he saw how little I believed in it. The drives were to Dulwich and to Croydon, to see Commander Cameron and his wife. One particular treat we had was going to Colonel Goureaud's, who gave us a field-day with the Eddison phonograph, which we had seen in its infancy in 1878 in Dublin. Richard thought that it opened a wonderful future in science. He offered to do the muezzin's call to prayer, "Allahu Akbar," into a phonograph; somehow it was not done. What a treasure it would be now!
After a fortnight we went back to the Langham, which we liked thoroughly. We saw our last of Lawrence Oliphant about the 1st of September. In London Dr. Baker had several consultations for Richard with Dr. Mortimer Granville, who took infinite pains with him, and gave him a long and careful examination. Dr. Mortimer Granville said he was as sound as a bell, barring the gout. And that day, the 23rd of September, he insisted on going to the club by himself, and he did so several times whilst he remained in London. It was a relief to him to feel that he could do something of former times.
It would seem as if we were always changing our abode; and so it was. His magnetism was so immense, his brain travelled so fast, absorbed so quickly, that he sucked dry all his surroundings, whether place, scenery, people, or facts, before the rest of us had settled down to realize whether we liked a place or not. When he arrived at this stage everything was flat to him, and he would anxiously say, "Do you think I shall live to get out of this, and to see another place?" And I used regularly to say, "Of course you will. Let us go to-day, if you feel like that;" and that would quiet him so far that he would say, "Oh no; say next Monday or Tuesday;" and then we went. During the latter days of his life, this restlessness became absolutely part of his complaint, and we used to seem to be moving on every week. One of his peculiarities was that he never would remain one moment in the hotel behind me. We used to plan to divide our work. I did all the courier's work, and the doctor took care of my husband. I used to go down to the stations or the steamers, with Lisa, a full hour before time, to take the tickets, weigh the baggage, procure a compartment for our party alone, telegraph forward for carriage, for rooms, and meals, so that his journey might go on oiled wheels, and Dr. Baker was to follow with him to save fatigue, getting him in five minutes before the start. We never could manage this; he would not let me go away one single instant before him, but used to jump into the same carriage.
The chief things Richard notes on this visit were as follows:--
"But on the 15th we left Geneva for Paris--when Zotenberg dined with us (at Folkestone I saw my sister)--and London, which we reached on the 20th of July, after nearly two years' absence, and lodged at the St. James's Hotel, Piccadilly. Literary work awaited us both, and I was again obliged to run the risk and dangers of the Bodleian at Oxford; but this time I had my wife and Dr. Baker with me, and I escaped all the evil results.
"During the time we were in London we had luncheons and dinners every day for our friends. It is no use giving a long list of names, but most of them were the most interesting people in London. We were also asked out immensely into Society, and in the daytime we accepted; but we made a rule now, on account of my health, never to accept a dinner or evening invitation, because I was obliged to dine at 7.30 and go to bed at 9.30, and my wife would not leave me. Amongst others, we had the pleasure at Lady Henry Gordon Lennox's of meeting Mr. Villiers, a brilliant relic of the old school, and my wife was fortunate enough to be taken in to lunch by him.
"On the 21st of August we went down to Bromley Holwood to see Lord and Lady Derby; they showed us Pitt's old house, the oak under which Pitt organized the abolition of slavery, Pitt's writing table, and a doll which the Queen gave to Lady Derby when she was Lady Mary West."
He writes on the 22nd of September:--
"To-day my wife was sent for to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy to receive from Count Lützow a very beautiful portrait of the Empress of Austria, in approval of her life and works. This has made me very proud and her very happy."
In October we went down to Newmarket, to see my cousins Lord and Lady Gerard, where we met some very pleasant people, and where Richard was very much interested going to the training ground, and saw hundreds of racehorses taking their gallops, and Captain Machell and Colonel Oliver Montagu explained everything to us.
[Sidenote: Richard leaves it for ever.]
On the 15th of October, 1888, Richard left London. Little did we think he would never return to it more alive. We stayed at Folkestone ten days to be near his sister and niece, and had some charming country drives. We crossed on the 26th of October--his last sight of Old England. Two years later he was gone.
We stayed at Boulogne. He was very fond of it; it agreed with him, and he liked to go over all the old haunts where we had met as young people, and his old fencing school too. He writes: "My old fencing-master Constantin is eighty, with a young bright eye." On the 29th of October, 1888, we went to Paris, also for the last time, and here at breakfast and dinner we generally had Professor Zotenberg (who gave us an always-remembered breakfast at the Lion d'Or), or Professor Houdas, or Mr. Barnard of the New York Herald--all who knew things that were interesting to him. We went on from there to Geneva by the train de luxe to the Hôtel Nationale, which was as nice as could be. On the 19th of November, after dinner, the chandelier fell on the dinner-table, the gas rushed out, and waiters went to fetch a lamp. This happened to us two winters running. Geneva is a charming place in winter, and agreed well with Richard, who was again enabled to enjoy his days with Karl Vogt. We got to know very pleasant society and had delightful drives--one to Ferney (château of Voltaire) and the Voirons. After he left England in 1888, his health got ever so much better, and I had confident hopes that he would last for many years. Here Richard made his last public lecture. The Geneva Geographical Society asked him to speak, and he had a regular ovation. At first he was very nervous and tired, but he wound up as he went on, and, like our Society, at the end he was asked to sit down, and everybody who felt inclined got up and asked him questions, which he answered. The meeting was very cordial. There are some very distinguished men in Geneva, and all the best Society, when you have pierced the outer crust, tends to serious life, study, and acquiring information. On the 1st of December we went on to Vevey, where we found Madame Nubar Pasha. Monsieur Albert de Montêt, a member of one of the great families--a young man, but learned--came frequently to breakfast. We stopped at the Hôtel du Lac on the Lake, but it was too damp, so we went up to Mooser's, which was delightful. Here I was asked to lecture at the house of the great family of the place--the De Couvreurs, and it was just a repetition of the one at the Geographical Society in Geneva.
[Sidenote: His Advice about Suákin.]
From here Richard wrote:
"THE POSITION AT SUÁKIN.
"To the Editor of the Times.
"Sir,--The decisive defeat of the dervish invader unsieges Suákin, but the chronic difficulties of our false position are by no means diminished. We cannot evacuate the unhealthy, wretched slave port, because it would immediately be occupied by rivals or enemies, and our unwritten compact with the Egyptian Government binds us to retain it. But occupation under the existing circumstances means simply a protracted state of petty warfare, and troubles will recur at regular intervals, until one party or the other will prefer to give way.
"The grievance of the Soudanese tribes is most reasonable. They have a racial and inherited hate and dread of the Egyptian and of the Turk, and they will never rest until they rid 'Blackland' of them. I found the same feeling prevalent throughout the Somali country, and at Harar, where my greatest danger was of being mistaken for an Osmanli.
"To make the game worth the candle, we must clear Suákin of its Egyptian clique, and re-embark the last Egyptian soldier en route for the Nile Valley. I would not expose British troops to the abominable climate of the Red Sea littoral; but I think that, after the fighting is fought, the Indian sepoy could resist the exile till such time as we can make peace with the tribes, raise, arm, and discipline a native Soudanese contingent, and settle the country on the firm basis of commerce and friendly intercourse. And note that the sepoy is more feared in Egypt than the British soldier; the latter has a scornful dislike to shed black blood, whereas the former shows no such weakness.
"I see that the 'basest of kingdoms'--for such Egypt has become once more--officially objects to the return of Mr. Wylde, and that our authorities have, as usual, admitted the preposterous demand. Mr. Wylde has committed the unpardonable sin of publishing two volumes of home-truths. He has shown up the wild Suákin clique; he has accounted for our military failures; he has unsparingly denounced the jobbery and corruption which disgrace our petty district wars. He is loved neither by civil administrators nor by military incapables, and he is the bête noir of railroad contractors and others of the same genus. But he has shown us the way out of our difficulties--that is, if we choose to adopt the results of his long and extensive experience. But the Soudan question is becoming, like its Eastern kinsfolk, easy enough to be settled, whenever settlement shall become necessary; and, meanwhile, it is a permanent malady most profitable to the faculty. Without it what would become of the diplomatists and the host of little nationalities and individuals who delight to fish in troubled waters, and who would starve in the calm of peace and quiet?
"To my countrymen I would say, 'Englishmen, at least be humane. The Soudanese tribes never had any quarrel with you. They knew you only as the folk who came among them to shoot big game. They entertained you hospitably, and they freely lent themselves to all your fads. With indescribable levity you attacked these gallant and noble Negroids, who were doing battle for liberty, for their hearths and homes, and for freedom from the Egyptian tax-gatherer and from the Turkish despoiler. You threw yourselves, unlike your forefathers, who dearly loved fair play, on the strongest side, and you aided in oppressing the weak by a most unholy war. You have cast an indelible blot upon the fair fame of England. With your breech-loading rifles and Gatling guns you attacked these gallant races; but Allah sometimes defends the right, and you have had more than once to flee before men armed with a miserable spear and a bit of limp leather by way of a shield. Your errors were those of ignorance. Do not persist in them now that you have learnt the truth. After dispersing the dervishes, seize the earliest opportunity of showing your magnanimity, and come to terms with the gallant enemy, upon the express condition that no Egyptian official, civil or military, shall ever pollute the land with his presence. And if this step fail (but it will not fail) to restore peace, you will at least have offered the best atonement for the bloody misdeeds of the past.
"In advocating this treatment of the Suákin affairs, I presume that the public is no longer blinded about our occupation of Egypt. We entered the country for a purpose which, as all experts know, was perfectly Utopian. We shall not teach the Moslems of the Nile Valley our civilization, nor shall we Christianize even the Christian Copts. We shall remain among them upon sufferance. We shall even be welcome, after a fashion, to the Fellah so long as we half tax him, and abate the nuisance of the Pasha and the Bey and the Greek village usurer. But this means that we must continue there for an indefinite time. The embarkation of the last British soldier will be followed by horrors far surpassing the worst 'plagues of Egypt' in the olden days.
"I am, sir, yours faithfully,
"RICHARD F BURTON.
"(Vevey,) December 21st, 1888."
Extract from a cutting.
"We have had enough of these sickening massacres. Sir Richard Burton, who knows the Egyptian to the bone, and who is a second Gordon in his knowledge of the Soudan and its people, has declared that it is folly to expect Fellah troops, officered by Europeans, to fight against any Mahdi. He foresaw the present disaster when he wrote that nothing that Sir Evelyn Wood or Baker Pacha might do 'could prevail against Fellah superstition.'"
On Christmas Eve, 1888, we amused ourselves with putting our stockings outside the door, like the children, for Santa Claus, and we all filled each other's with little presents; but the two greatest amusements were that my contribution to my husband's stocking was only a birch-rod, i.e. a bonbonnière made exactly like a birch-rod, the goodies being in the handle. He was delighted with this, and I found it amongst his treasures after his death. The other was that (of course) we all filled Lisa's stocking to repletion, and she got some very pretty things. So she said, "Oh, I like this game! I never saw it before; I shall put my stocking out every night." She thought they would always come. On Christmas Day we had egg-nogg with the Montgomerys, our ex-American Consul of Trieste.
"RICHARD'S NOTES FROM VEVEY.
"Montreux, January 10th, 1889.
"I noticed, like all tourists, two inscriptions, public and modern, and was informed by my hospitable Veveysan friends that both are based upon erroneous 'Factology.'
"No. 1, placed behind the Halle aux Blés, to the north of the Place du Marché, runs:--
'Ici Jean Jacques Rousseau logea en 1732.'
"No. 2, which has more interest for Englishmen, runs thus:--
"'Ici habitait Edmund Ludlow, Lieut.-Général, Membre du Parlement Anglais, Défenseur des Libertés de son Pays. L'illustre Proscrit avait fait placer cette Inscription sur la Porte de sa Demeure, "omne solum forti patria quia patris." Energiquement protégé par les Autorités et accueilli avec sympathie par les habitants de Vevey, Edmund Ludlow a vécu dans cette ville de 1662 à 1693, année de sa mort.'
[Sidenote: Discussing about Ludlow.]
"The place pointed out to me is No. 49, Rue du Lac, occupied by the Imprimérie Loertscher et Fils, which still prints the famous Messager Noiteux, an almanack dating from 1707. The alley setting off to the north, and called 'Ruelle des Anciens Fossés de la Ville,' shows that the exiles were then lodged outside the town, and consequently a strict guard was necessary for their safety. Lausanne failing in this matter, Mr. John Lisle, M.P., another of the gallant band, was there shot in the back by a hired assassin.
"Ludlow returned to England in 1689, before the accession of Charles II., risked his life for nearly two years, and finally hurried back to Vevey in 1690, or three years before his death (aged seventy-two). Possibly he may then have lodged at the place noted by the epigraph. There is a local legend known to all--even to the guide-books--that early in the present century an English couple introduced themselves as 'Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow' to M. Grenier, who had bought the house from M. Cottier, the successor of M. Dubois. While the lady remained pleasantly chatting with the ancient proprietor, the gentleman slipped out of the room and carried off the wooden tablet bearing the epigraph, 'Omne solum,' etc.
"Vevey behaved with characteristic hospitality and the true Switzer's love of liberty in protecting the 'regicides' against the bravos of Savoy, paid with English gold by the Merry (and most unchivalrous) Monarch. She should take more pride in this one heroic action than in having harboured a host of royalties and quasi-royalties--the Empress Maria Federowna, the Kings of Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and the Netherlands, Princes Alexander and George of Prussia, Princess de Lignitz, the Grand-Duchess Anne of Russia, and many a minor star. She also, at the instance of Mistress Ludlow, gave to her guests their last homes under her most honoured roof--the church of St. Martin (built in A.D. 1498). The five rest side by side in the northern aisle--Andrew Boughton and John Phelps (clerks to the Court, who read out the death-sentence), Gawler, Love, and Ludlow. The latter has a memorial tablet on the northern wall over his grave, surmounted by a most un-Puritan crest--a lion rampant--and (therein) he 'winged his way to the eternal mansions.' Phelps has also a brand-new slab of black marble facing eastwards, set up by two Anglo-American kinsmen of the same name. Broughton, who 'slept in the Lord,' was placed under the aisle-pavement, and all the other gravestones are hidden by a boarding which we hope to see removed as soon as the fine old pile, whose massive masonry is splitting, and whose western portal and huge belfry with turreted angles are palpably sloping northwards, shall have found certain funds for repairs now necessary. The view from the church terrace is inimitable. Here no art can equal nature, and it is a sufficient illustration of Mendelssohn's dictum (Lady Wallace, p. 96), 'The Swiss can paint no beautiful scenery, precisely because they have it the whole day before their eyes.'
"R. F. BURTON.
"P.S.--In reading Ludlow's memoirs we must beware of his truly British cacography--e.g. Baron de Chatteler (for Chattelard, vol. iii. p. 153), Tunno (for Thonon, in Chablais, p. 157), and Ouches (for Ouchy, port of Lausanne, p. 158).
"Correction (which he notes in journal).--Several correspondents have written to point out some manifest errors of date in Sir R. F. Burton's 'Notes from Vevey,' in the Academy of last week. In the Ludlow inscription, the date of his arrival at Vevey should clearly be '1662,' and not 1642; and the passage, 'Ludlow returned to England in 1689, before the accession of Charles II.,' should apparently run--'Ludlow returned to England in 1688, before the accession of William and Mary.'"
"NOTES FROM LAUSANNE.
"Lausanne, February 24th, 1889.
"The Academy of February 2 contains two corrections of my 'Notes from Vevey,' one error being typographical, and the other an infelix culpa, the result of inordinate carelessness. As your correspondent remarks, 1642 should be 1662; and I find, by inspection, the date so recorded upon Ludlow's tablet. The second passage should be read, 'Ludlow returned to England about mid 1689, shortly after the accession of William and Mary.' Your correspondent proposes, 'Ludlow returned to England in 1688;' but the following official letter, kindly furnished by M. Albert de Montêt, shows this also to be an error. The General's report of his intended journey, addressed to their Excellencies the Seigneurs de Berne, with its queer French, quaintly Anglicized and Roundheaded, may perhaps interest some of your readers.
"'Lettre de Ludlow au Conseil de Vevey, du 2 Juin, 1689, "Manuaux de la Ville, L.," p. 103.
"'Mes très honnorés Seigneurs! Le Seigneur qui m'a pourveu (sic), avec plusieurs autres de mes compagnons en mes souffrances et exil pour la parolle et le témoignage de Jésus, d'un asile très favorable: en nous conduisant par la colonne de feu sous votre bénin et equitable government, m'appelant aujourd'huy pour faire un tour dans mon pays d'Etat pour y faire mon possible pour fortifier les mains de notre Gédéon, qui est miraculeusement suscité pour nous retirer de la maison de servitude et démolir l'autel de Baal contre ceux qui prennent la querelle pour luy (soi?) et choisissent plustôt de se mettre soubs l'arbre de l'Espine que soubs l'équitable domination du roy de la justice et du prince de paix. Ayant par la grande bonté de Dieu depuis plusieurs années, entre autres providences signalées et spéciales, amplement et pleinement expérimenté les effets de la très gracieuse réception à notre première arrivée en cette ville, qu'il vous a plu de nous signiffier par feu M. le Banderent De Montet de votre part, comme membre du même corps avec yous auquel Christ et (est?) le chef, je me trouve obligé devant que je parte pour l'Angleterre, ignorant les choses qui m'y doivent arriver, de vous en témoigner ma très humble recognoissance vous suppliant de l'accepter jusqu'à ce que l'occasion se présente pour le manifester plus réelement, vous asseurant que je ne manqueray pass de s'en (m'en?) préveloir pour vous faire voir à tous en général et à chacun en particulier que je seray tenu ma vie comme obligé d'estre, Très honnorés Seigneurs Votre très humble, très fidelle et très obéissant serviteur.
"'(Signed) EDM. LUDLOWE (sic).'
[Sidenote: Richard's Remarks on Lausanne.]
"To an Englishman at Lausanne, Gibbon is still the prime subject of local interest. I had also been assured that many imprinted autographs remain in private hands, despite the mass of correspondence published in the 'Life and Letters,' pp. 178-356, by Mr. W. J. Day, London, F. Warne (undated). But I repeat that the traveller must as often discover what there is not as determine what there is.
"An introduction to M. William de Charrière de Sévery (the grandson of M. Wilhelm de Sévery, Gibbon's familiar and legatee) convinced me that rumour had exaggerated. He has a few notes, a single bundle, mostly private, if not confidential; and the same is the case with Mdme. Grenier-Bourgeois. The 'relics' are most interesting. We were shown the favourite writing-paper, letter-sized, gilt-edged, and rough, fit only for the goose-quill, of which a few ink-stained specimens are preserved; the cards, playing and others, upon which notes to intimates were generally written in a schoolboy hand, stiff and tall; a long list of linen for bedding, etc., proving business habits; and the last will and testament (October 1, 1791), covering three pages foolscap-sized--of the latter Mr. Day (p. 176) prints an abstract. The cellar still contains a few bottles of the 'Malmsey-Madeira' which Gibbon sent for in 1789 (p. 123), and which he had probably to thank for a frightful attack of gout. We were favoured with a sight of the portraits: one the usual Kit-cat in pastels--Lausanne then containing sundry famous pastellistes--a cameo-bust on wedgwood (much idealized), and an aquarelle of 'The Historian' (hideous exceedingly), sitting before the façade of his house at Lausanne, afterwards removed to make way for the Hôtel Gibbon. This, by the way, is a fraud, boasting that its garden contains the identical chestnut tree under which the last lines of a twenty-years' work were written. Unfortunately, the oft-quoted passage describing that event (p. 103) assigns it to 'a summer-house in my garden,' near a berceau, or covered walk of acacias; all of which have long disappeared to make way for the Rue du Midi. Upon the strength of this being 'Gibbon Castle,' we are somewhat overcharged and underfed; and we are convinced that Lausanne wants an establishment, like the admirable 'National' of Geneva, half-way between the City and Ouchy, her port, and not far from 'Christ Church' Square.
"Voltaire is so forgotten by the general world at Lausanne, that even an educational professor ignored his 'philosophical' exile in Switzerland. He left Vaud after a dispute with the ecclesiastical authorities. Yet there are still three places that belong to him: Monrepos, a villa to the north-east, where tradition says the première of 'Zaire' was acted; Maison Gaulis, in the Grand Chêne Street; and Maison Mont-Riond (Round Hill) Dapples (Gibbon's 'D'Apples'). The latter rises east of the historic hillock, crowned with two trees, described in every guide-book. The house, whilom infamous for damp, was drained dry by the Funicular Railway, and is now let to Dr. Niven, whom we last met at Matharan (Bombay). The chief room in the two-storied block is traditionally the theatre. A few yards to the north-west there is also the half of a cottage under an inordinate tile roof, capping clay walls with wooden beams, three stories high at the Lake front. La Casquette, as the artists call their favourite, is, or rather was, a kind of snuggery, whereto Voltaire retired for study in solitude; and yet it is mistermed by sundry of the folk Laboratoire de Rousseau. It is now occupied by a gardener, whose family of twelve, despite overcrowding and bad air, shows signs of exceptional health and strength. I only hope that the Municipality will buy it and rail it round, and preserve it as a relic.
"RICHARD F BURTON.
"N.B. to all who 'undigest'--Avoid any but distilled water at Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux, and throughout the limestone regions of Switzerland."
XV. AT MONTREUX
On the 2nd of January, 1889, we moved ourselves to the Hôtel des Alpes at Montreux. The journey is only an hour. It was bitterly cold, but the temperature rose fourteen degrees on the way. Here we had a delightful time, excursioning to the Château de Chillon, to Hôtel Biron, to Villeneuve, les Avants, three thousand feet high, Mont-Fleurie, Glion, etc. But our favourite place seemed to be St. Maurice, where we had several delightful days in the valley of the Rhone, but one particularly to be remembered. Abbé Stercky went with us. He is one of the monks, was Curé of Aigle, and Richard liked him. The little inn is cosy, with its good Dalmatian proprietor, who kept a cheerful room, a blazing wood fire, a capital good breakfast, and a good bottle of Dôle de Valais. We passed a good deal of time in the monastery.
It is the oldest Augustinian monastery in the world, and having Abbé Stercky with us, we saw all the treasures--gold, silver, gems, and onyx treasures from Charlemagne and St. Louis of France; they, and also manuscripts and old books, were shown to us by a gentlemanly and polished monk, Père Bourbord, otherwise they are generally shown by a surly monk, who does not let you see anything. There were a number of very charming people stopping at the hotel, which was crowded for the winter. We all fraternized, and we had extensive afternoon receptions and tea-fights, and in the evenings we all used to contribute something to the amusements--who could sing, sang; who could recite, recited; who could tell stories of foreign lands, did so, and also ghost-stories; and there was music and dancing and acting galore, also theatricals and a musical drill beautifully performed. It was a charming hotel, with every accommodation, plenty of places for smoking, and Richard used to enjoy it thoroughly, parties of men flocking around him.
On the 22nd, our wedding-day, everybody was so good to us; there were presents, and flowers, and little speeches. I got quite choky, and Richard ran away and locked himself up. The next day we gave a big tea-fight, and enjoyed it very much. Richard had now a little return of the gout attack, but it passed off in a few days. The evenings were lovely. I can remember one, nay, many evenings, with a clear sky, the mountain of snow standing out like a vision, lit by a lovely crescent moon and large evening star.
At Chillon we saw the room where Miss Sterling, of the Salvation Army, was imprisoned for talking religion to the children. She had written on the walls, and we often revisited the chapel where so many have suffered.
On the 28th (January) Richard got a letter announcing the death of one of our friends, Mr. Paul Bird; and on the 29th, Carlo Pellegrini.
On the 5th of February came Mr. Lorie, painter, from Egypt.
We were very disappointed to find the Archbishop Mermillod had left for Cannes, being very ill, as I had known him since 1858.
[Sidenote: M. Elisée Réclus.]
Here we had the pleasure of a visit from the famous Elisée Réclus: homme de lettres and geographer is, perhaps, his right description, but as an Agnostic he stands out a little far; even the Sacrament of Matrimony is, they say, prohibited in his family. I was very anxious to give him a cordial reception, as he interested Richard and all of us immensely. His opinions coincided with the following, taken from Mrs. Bennett-Edwards' "Unwritten Law"--
"'Legalized marriage is tyranny--the tyranny of the Law and of the Church over the privacy of the individual. I will have no son and no daughter of mine a slave. If the result of a man's or a woman's life be moral--if it produce good, not evil, to the society--by what right does any Law or any Church interfere to regulate it? Wait,' he said to us; 'do nothing hastily that you may repent later. Wait until your characters and tastes be formed by your experience; and then, if you find them suitable one with the other, take up your lives together, that together you may reach the goal which I have set you--to the bettering, by example, of your fellow-men. Teach them that love, which means unity, is stronger to bind man to woman than any law; that a man's or a woman's honour is stronger to compel faith than any religious superstitions.'"
At the hour appointed the door was thrown open, and an announcement was made, which I did not hear, but I immediately left my armchair and my book, and walked over with both hands extended, saying, "Dear Monsieur Réclus, I am so delighted to make your acquaintance; such a pleasure to know such a distinguished man." He received my little speech with profuse bows and cordial thanks, and then pulling a key out of his pocket, he proceeded to wind the clocks. I felt a little surprised, but I thought it was perhaps another of the great man's peculiarities, so I went on talking to him the while, telling him how glad my husband would be to talk geography and science over with him, when the door opened, and a loud voice announced Monsieur Elisée Réclus. I picked myself up in a minute, and immediately performed the same ceremony as before. The clock-winder behaved so beautifully; he never moved a muscle of his face, and when he had finished his work, went out with a lovely bow. This episode delighted Richard and Dr. Baker.
On the 31st of January we had the report of poor Prince Rudolf's death; it threw a gloom over everything. On the 13th arrived Mr. Gustave Oppenheim, an old friend.
[Sidenote: Our Swiss Outing.]
When Richard had had enough of Montreux, we moved on to Lausanne. All came to see us off, and we wondered how many of us would meet again. Here we found Colonel Abbadie, Dr. Baker's mother and sister, Marc Dufour, a celebrated oculist and philanthropist, and Abbé Deruaz. We drove about immensely, sometimes to Ouchy, and a very interesting excursion was going to see Voltaire's house, Mont Morion, occupied by Dr. and Mrs. Niven, whom we knew at Matharan, in India. We also had the pleasure of meeting there the Rev. H. B. Chapman, Father Damien's friend.
On the 25th we went off to Berne to see Mr. and Mrs. Scott, our Minister. It was looking very picturesque and beautiful; the Hôtel Belle Vue comfortable, with lovely views. It was very cold, covered with snow, and the air dry and crisp; in fact, everything was a "Snow Hell." The weather did not hurt Richard; he completely changed. Since Richard had been ill, he was quite a different man to what he had been previously in tastes and feelings. Whereas before he was always cold, and would have fires in the height of summer, now in the bitterest weather a fire in his room made him sick. He would now eat sweet things and drink milk, which in his stronger days he could not look at. He slept, instead of whole nights of insomnia, though often not as well as one could wish. He liked the world and company, whereas before he had shunned the general run of society, and in many other ways was quite different.
At Berne he saw a unique Swiss sword. Swords were looked for at every place, so we went straight to an antiquarian, who showed us some iron blades, metal scabbards, and arabesque spear-heads. Monsieur de Montêt's brother, Emanuel, a banker, called and showed us the lions. We were now reading the "Service of Man" by James Carter Morison.
It was now that we returned, 1st of March, 1889, to Lucerne, which was another "Snow Hell." We went to the Hôtel Nationale, the only place open, had lovely rooms and good fires, but the rest of it deserved all Richard said of it a while ago.
On the 4th we rose early, quite well, and made all ready to go, and having an hour to wait, sat down to enjoy the fire, when all of a sudden I got an aching in every bone, a bad rash came out, and faint, cold down the spine, hot and cold, nausea; could do nothing but rock and groan, and groaned and rocked the whole eight hours to Milan. I did not know it then, but I know it now, by three subsequent experiences, that I had a sharp attack of influenza, but we did not talk so much about this epidemic in 1889. It was a great mortification that I had to be several days in bed, as one of my cousins and some others were waiting to do a very nice expedition, which I should have thoroughly enjoyed, and had to let them go without me. There was one fortunate thing, that when I was ill, Richard was well; and if he was down, I was always perfectly well and able.
On the 10th we went down to Venice, to the Hôtel Victoria, where we were put in big, damp, dark rooms like catacombs; and on the 12th arrived at Trieste, where I was very weak for a long time.
[Sidenote: Trieste again.]
On the 30th we accompanied Prince and Princess Victor Von Hohenlöhe and daughter to the Ungaria for Corfú.
On the 22nd of March, he regrets the death of Lady Arnold, on March the 15th--"grieved for the poet's sake;" and also Miss Whately, of Egypt, whom we knew.
We now had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Jokai, the Hungarian novelist, who came to Miramar to consult the Archduchess Stephanie about Prince Rudolf's work, which was to come out in fifteen volumes for the people.
On the 13th of April I wrote a petition for the children of the Orphanage of St. Joseph (the one that Richard and I were interested in), and we put down our names for a hundred florins, and promised them a life-sized statue of their patron saint.
We had, as usual, our servants' party, which they keep very much as they would in England, only they are very witty when drinking toasts in improvising verses on names.
On the 10th of April he remarks the death of Father Damien.
Though I little contemplated the great catastrophe and break-up of my life in 1890, but with a view to leaving Trieste in July, 1891, I began to wish to collect all possible reminiscences of the home I loved so well. One of the visitors to our Trieste home wrote me: "I think of you so very often, and your lovely home on the shores of the Adriatic, with its rich treasures of mind and heart. It stands out before me like a lighthouse on the sea of life, pointing onwards, upwards, to a higher, nobler state of existence, to which I shall try to reach." These words, which have been differently expressed to me in many different languages, and in this particular case coming from one "who had almost," she says, "lost faith in God," inspire me with great gratitude to God, and make me wish to perpetuate it in oil-painting reminiscences, that it may become part of our lives in our future more prosaic London home.
I now selected from among other artists Mr. Albert Letchford, a young painter of great talent, who had studied in Paris and painted in Egypt, and who began to paint for me, on the 10th of May, the four views from our windows, nine of our favourite "interiors" of rooms, including Richard studying in his bedroom. After that he painted my husband for the Stanley Exhibition, and one life-size, fencing, which I now exhibit in the Grosvenor Gallery.
At this time there occurred the strikes in Austrian-Lloyd's which agitated the country very much, and we expected a revolution, which did not happen. We had also a visit from Count Téleki, who had made his splendid African journey, which was most interesting. On the 12th of May we had a delightful sea-trip to Parenzo with friends (Baron Marco Morpurgo, the then great banker and Director of Lloyd's, and his wife, the best friends Richard and I ever had in Trieste). The object was to visit the old Cathedral of Parenzo, a complicated mixture of most ancient Byzantine, Roman, Grecian, and Venetian. It has three depths of old floors quite distinct. We went over to Duino to stay with the Princess Hohenlöhe and Princess Taxis, a two hours' drive from Trieste, which was our favourite visit in the neighbourhood. We had the pleasure of receiving Count von Würmbrandt, the Governor of Styria, Baron Spaun, and Admiral Sterneck; this was followed by festivities for the Archduke Otto and the Archduchess, and Archduke Leopold. On that occasion Richard was allowed to go out in the evening to the Morpurgos' fête.
Sometimes our drives were varied by delightful little sea-trips.
On the 13th of June, going up to Opçina, our horses enacted the same scene as that which happened at Sauerbrunn in 1887. On the 29th of June we were very sorry to lose our nicest English neighbours and friends, Mr. and Mrs. Craig. In June also Richard felt sadly the death of Professor Chandler.
On the 1st of July, 1889, we went back to Adelsburg, where the air was cold, and it was delightful to have no mosquitoes. General Buckle accompanied us on this excursion. On the 2nd we had frightful storms, the lightning striking seven or eight times just about the house. The Caves by this time were quite spoiled by the electric light. We were able to save a poor dog that had been shot into an abyss by some cruel people, and Richard moralizes in his journal, "What had that dog done to be saved? It was ten thousand chances to one, against any one caring for his cries, and getting him out of that abyss by lowering men with ropes, which seemed impossible."[1]
We had a delightful drive to Planina. As usual, in spite of all evidences of a most healthy place, we got very sick, and so we went on, on the 8th to Graz, a delightful central place in Austria, the paradise of poor aristocracy, and retired military and naval "swells." From here we went over to Tobelbad, where we found some very dear Austrian friends; but Tobelbad is in a hole, and we found it so unhealthy, that we were glad to get to the top of a hill to breathe, and drove back to Graz. A Baron von Ponte Reno, one of our young friends, just about to be married, died a few days later. Here we had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of Professor Schuhardt; it was so hot we could not breathe. After a great many excursions we went on to Mürzüschlag, which is the station at the bottom of the Semmering, on the Südbahn line in Austria. It was a curious season. The heat, or reports of cholera, had driven every soul out of the towns to the mountains, and one could not get a bed for love nor money, and so the Erzherzog Johann Hotel was what the Austrians, with their delicacy and kindness, called Sehr Primitif, which meant "devoid of all the necessaries of life;" but the air was delicious. We looked everywhere, at Spital two hours away, and up and down the Semmering, at all the hotels, first the station, then Stephanie Gast-Haus, then Johann, and Panhaus the highest, then the Südbahn's Semmering, and two dependencies, one of which we liked the best. We reposed on a turf full of ants, and got back to the station to Mürzüschlag.
I immediately took a carriage, and drove up to Lambach Hotel, on an eminence above the town. It was delightfully situated, only it was full. Splendid air, beautiful views, only all the rooms were occupied except one; so I put Richard and Dr. Baker into that, and Lisa and I went down to a sort of outhouse, where we had a little room leading out of the carriage stable, which was bounded on one side by the pigs, another side by the wash-house, and so on; but even these discomforts, and some of them were very ludicrous, had their compensations. Baron Kremer (and his wife), one time Finance Minister at Vienna and homme de lettres, and Sir Arthur and Lady Nicholson were in the hotel. From here we made an excursion to Reichenau. On the 31st we went to Neuberg, and visited the old Cistercian Monastery and Cathedral, and the Emperor's shooting-box. It is a romantic little wayside inn, with a running stream and a mill-wheel. On the 2nd we had a delightful journey from Neuberg, past Frein and Fohenwerk, to Maria-Zell, which is the Lourdes of Austria.
[Sidenote: Maria-Zell--Austrian Lourdes.]
Maria-Zell is placed on a mountain-side--not in a valley, as Murray has it--and the Church and Monastery are on an elevated plateau in its midst. It is 2900 feet high by the aneroid. The air is delicious, the climate is dry; there is a feeling of elevation, of being able to breathe, and of looking on an equality with the mountain-tops on all sides--where the clouds, storms, and winds would meet in bad weather. It is an eight hours' drive--and even a difficult and dangerous drive--from any town. You must not want society; you must not fret your heart out after your letters, nor expect to find books or papers; your resources must be within yourself, and whatever you want you may bring with you. You may even bring your tub. There are no doctors; but there is an apothecary's shop, which I suspect must be a gift of the Emperor to the pilgrims, as it is a miniature copy of the Hof-Apotheke at Vienna. The town itself is not a town, and not a village; but, if I may say so, a religious market town. Here we found the sword of Ludwig the Great, first King of Hungary. This is the Lourdes of Austria, and the Cathedral and Monastery are everything. The shops and the houses and the forty-six inns of various degrees are to serve it.
We lodged in the best, close to the church, the Goldenen Löwen, kept by a very dear old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman, of seventy and seventy-five years of age, who have known much better days, and are patronized by the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy, as they once owned the Erzherzog Karl Hotel in Vienna; but they lost £40,000 in the krach at the Vienna Exhibition, and came here. They are most attentive and kind, and treated us with the old chivalrous politeness of bygone days. Everything was the pink of cleanliness; she knew so well what one wanted, and how to make one comfortable. The holy shops run in a horseshoe circle round the Cathedral, where you buy all kinds of religious bric-à-brac, and get it blessed. The Church is very large, and would take too long to describe; there is a special inner sanctuary for the celebrated Madonna and Child, whose history is long. Our great amusement was watching the processions of pilgrims, which interests you very much for a time; there were endless streams flowing from every part of Austria, and many of them would begin at the bottom step, and go all round the church on their knees--a most exhausting process.
It is a charming place, and we stayed here a fortnight. It seemed to be the only place where one could get beds. We had delightful drives to Erlach, Grimau, and Sigismund's Chapel. At first Richard was not very well, which made one anxious, but afterwards it passed off. There is a Calvary to ascend, and a spring for sore eyes. But I do not describe Maria-Zell at length, because the descriptions at Lourdes must fully explain it; only that, ours being in the wilds, the processions and the people were of a far more picturesque nature, and that of Lourdes is well regulated, everything being cut and dried for the pilgrims.
[Sidenote: Semmering.]
At last we heard there was room on the Semmering, so we left Maria-Zell at eight a.m. There are no trains; the roads are like footpaths over rugged mountains, with precipices here and there. In four hours we reached Frein, where we found food, and Richard slept for two hours; then we had two hours' more driving, and reached Neuberg. But our former picturesque little post-hotel was full, Lady Nicholson and her children occupying a great part of it, so we got primitive accommodation at a little public-house, where, however, we were consoled by Lady Nicholson's coming over to dine with us; and of the beds, the less I say the better. To get at the promised accommodation at the Semmering, we had to pass two pleasant hours at Mürzüschlag station, where we had a capital breakfast, and again met the Baron von Kremer, who accompanied us to the Semmering on his way to Vienna. We never saw him again. He died shortly after, and left a desolate wife.
We found this place delightful, a dépendance of the Südbahn Hotel, Semmering, with glorious views, delicious air, very fair food, and, above all, quiet; full of Austrians, Hungarians, and Jews. Here we got a startling letter from the Foreign Office to Richard, wanting to know why he had had so much leave, although they had told him to take it. It agitated him, and hurt him. Our delightful drives here were to Maria-Schütze, another smaller pilgrimage place, like Maria-Zell, but with only a small village, one shop and one inn. Snow fell upon the Schneeberg--this was always a signal for Richard not being very well; but these little attacks of gout came and passed quickly. He did not get on well here, so we made up our minds to leave on the twelfth day. The fact is, the Foreign Office letter had worried him, and made him anxious to get back to Trieste; so we went up to Vienna.
Sir Augustus and Lady Paget were absent, but the secretaries, Mr. Phipps, Lord Royston, and Mr. Maude, dined with us, where we soon had a nice little society round us, and of literary people, Dr. and Madame de Griez, Mr. Brinsley Richards and his wife, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Lavino of the Daily Telegraph, and, last but not least, Major and Mrs. Keith Fraser. We drove to Karlenberg, and that evening Richard broke out with gout. Dr. Baker telegraphed to England for some particular medicines, and they arrived by immediate post; but we were not allowed by law to have them, for the protection of the native chemist, so we had them sent back to Trieste. Disheartened, we determined to leave; but first we visited the tomb of Prince Rudolf. Many were passing down into the vaulted chamber where the sarcophagus lies. It was very, very cold and dark, and it made us so melancholy to think what he had thrown away in one moment.
[Sidenote: Home again.]
The next evening we left by the night express, and arrived at Trieste at ten next morning. How nice it is to arrive at home!
On the 8th of September he deplores the death of Wilkie Collins; and on Friday, the 13th, the death of George Elliott Ranken, and Lady Holland, at seventy-eight.
Here Richard got well very quick. Mr. Joyner, C.E., from Poonah, India, paid us a visit, whom we had not seen for thirteen years. He was not in the least changed. We had a fearful storm, of rain, hail, thunder, lightning, and wind, which smashed twelve of our windows. H.M.S. Scout came in, Captain Conybeare, Lieutenants Torlesse and Carr; and we had the pleasure of receiving some of the officers for a few days. It always did Richard so much good seeing his countrymen from home. He had to have a small operation performed on the 7th of October, after which we went up to the mountains for quiet and rest. The Scout steamed out on the 10th, and we waved a flag from the roof, which they could see with glasses. We all got rheumatism, and went down again shortly. On the 22nd of October Richard had to be worried with another second small operation. I told the operator to be as gentle as he could, as Richard was in a very nervous state, and he would hardly believe me, he looked so well and strong; but he told me afterwards that he found out that it was so. Dr. Baker found him a very clever man, and what he had to do, was done as painlessly and as quickly as possible; and Richard was well enough to entertain our dear friend Alexander Thayer, ex-Consul-General of the United States (who dined with us regularly once a week), on his seventy-second birthday, which occurred the same evening, a few hours after the operation. We had several friends, who each had their day to either breakfast or dine with us. It was a custom always kept up.
On the 25th of October he got a second curious official letter from the Foreign Office about not giving his Vice-Consul sufficient money. (He was giving him £350 a year, and the Embassy would have sent down anybody for that.) He was very angry, and reduced it in consequence. A third time the Foreign Office worried Richard with writing that he had been in England, which he had not, and was again angry. In fact, there seemed to be a dead set against him during August and October, 1889.
On the 15th of November we embarked for Brindisi in the Austrian-Lloyd Ettore. Crowds of friends came to see us off, with flowers. She was a long, narrow ship, powerful screw, and very much lumbered up; but there was no Austrian-Lloyd's on which we should not have found ourselves at home. There was a heavy ground swell later on, and a good wind. A moorhen was blown on board, and I kept her till the ship was close to the marshes. We landed the next night at Brindisi, after thirty-one hours' passage, and heavy gales came on, and we had to stay there several days for our steamer on to Malta. However, Captain Osborne, mail-agent, and Mr. David Low, P. and O. agent, kept us alive. We saw everything there was to be seen all around. At Brindisi we visited Virgil's house, upon which they are building a new one.
We visited the Churches, the Column, and the Castle. The Cathedral has a silver altar behind the boards, and dates from earliest Christianity: the priests say that St. Peter was here, but not St. Paul. The town reminds us of Tangier--it has something Spanish, Moorish, and Venetian about it; but with all that it is common. There are two Calvaries, and there is a little old Basilica of San Giovanni, the oldest church here, which belonged to the Templars, and is now a little locked-up museum of antiquities. It contains antique stones and inscriptions. The marble column near the Cathedral was set up by one Lupus Propaspata, of the eleventh century; it is fifty feet high, and the capital decorated with sea-monsters. The broken one near it seems to have formed part of a Roman temple.
The Great East India Hotel is like a caravanserai; the harbour is full of steamers, of which the P. and O.'s are kings, and are always in-pouring and out-pouring their wonderful and amusing contents into the hotel, for a few hours. We got off on the 24th in the P. and O. Rosetta, had a beautiful passage, arriving at Malta next day, after a twenty-nine hours' passage. I was glad to find that Richard was never the worse for the sea. We were afraid lest the shaking might affect his head, but providentially the whole of that winter, unlike the last sea voyage, we were only five hours in heavy weather.
MALTA.
Richard knew Malta well, but neither Dr. Baker nor I had ever seen it. We went to the Royal Hotel, "Cini's," where we remained twenty-three days. During this November, we were greatly interested in, and dreadfully shocked at the conduct of the Brazilians to their Emperor. We passed here a most enjoyable month, and found a very charming society, receiving the hospitality of Admiral Sir Anthony and Lady Hoskins (the Admiral of the station), and Admiral and Mrs. Buller (Port-Admiral), Lady Dingli, Mrs. Walter Strickland (whose husband was my cousin), father and mother of Count Strickland, also another cousin, Father Hornyold, S.J., the Provincial of the Jesuit College, and no end of friends in the Navy. We thought both Valetta and Sliema were very romantic. This is not the place certainly to describe Malta at great length, firstly, because it would take too much space away from Richard, and secondly, because most people know it. Mrs. Strickland gave a big lunch in our honour, to make us acquainted with all the great Maltese families. We had the honour of a visit from Prince Louis of Battenberg, and, I think, not the most uninteresting morning was one that we passed with Mr. Harry of "The Palms," an Englishman who has been settled there for a long time, and who is a wonderful collector of curios, and passionately attached to his flowers. Once, when I made a visit, there was a little hesitation, so I said to the servant, "Oh, don't go up; I am afraid ---- may be taking a siesta." "Oh no, my lady!" he said, looking quite shocked, as if he thought it was something to drink.
Richard was writing his Catullus at this time.
During our twenty-three days we got quite a large acquaintance--General and Mrs. Wilkie, Acting-Governor (Sir Henry Torrens, the Governor, died in England at this time), Mr. and Mrs. Worthington, a very charming Miss Fanny Portelli Carbone, Lieutenant Carr of the Scout, Archdeacon Hardy and his family, Mr. Mandeville-Ellis, whom we had known before, and no end of officers of the army and navy, who were also kind and hospitable. Lieutenant Carr and Lieutenant Savory gave us a charming lunch on board the Hibernia. It is hardly necessary to say that we visited the Barracca and the Armoury, under Richard's guidance, who knew Malta so well. Richard went to the Armoury, and longed to rearrange the whole hall. He inspected all the swords very rigidly, saw Dragut's blade, battle-axes--said all the swords were mixed, and were mostly Toledos with no dates to them. He said, "I am much disgusted by the quantity of 'rot,' and they have very probably thrown away their best specimens." Dr. Baker kodak'd one hilt for him. Then we passed a great deal of time in St. John's, the great Templars' Church.
The most interesting thing of all is Fort St. Elmo, with its chapel, its views, and its guns. It was in this chapel that the last little remnant of the starving, emaciated Templars, who knew they could hold out no longer against the besiegers, assembled to hear Mass and receive Communion before their last fight. The ossuario is at the Capucini; there are forty embalmed monks, and one chapel all of bones and skulls, which was very interesting. The Governor's palace is also worth seeing. At Citta Vecchia is a very interesting visit to St. Paul's, and the grotto of St. Paul's, where you see a statue life-size in the middle of the cave, carved of marble, and for a moment looking almost real: also a new Roman villa, quite Pompeian, but with coarser mosaics: the view, and the gateway, where is an old statue of Juno; last, and not least, a Maltese woman named Farujea, who makes gaudy mule-cloths, and, if you give her a large enough order, will make them at seven shillings a pair, three yards long, for which you give a much larger price in Malta. At a church called Santa Maria di Gesù, in Valetta, there is a crucifix, which has a legend that the poor man who made it did not know how to carve the face, and that an angel carved it for him; but I think the work was too bad to have been the angel's. There are any amount of churches. There is Vittoria, a very old Templar church, and the Canonesses of St. Ursula, which is evidently a sister house of our Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, Essex. There is the Jesuit College with about six hundred boys. Father Hornyold shows you what good little Englishmen they are training. There is the big 110-gun at Sliema.
On one drive Richard descended to Marsa; found women fishing and rowing, and men mending nets. There he found one Phœnician tank, and one Phœnician temple.
Though everything here, between the walls, looks like rock and ivory, on a slight coating of fertile soil grow fruit and flowers, and world-wide-famed potatoes. The streets are lively; the vehicles are very small, very high up, very uncomfortable, on four wheels, and are called carrozzellas. They are covered with an ornamented tarpaulin, and curtains for need. Their drivers look ruffians. The horses are small and strong, and though their lives appear to be of the hardest, they look mostly fat and well-kept. Many come seven miles into town with a lot of peasants, work all day, and go back with their load at night. The streets are all the steepest possible, up and down hill; they have no break, and if you stop at a house, the horse has to keep the full carriage back with his body. They ought to wear out very soon. The horse gets dry clover in the morning, a midday meal of bread, which the driver pulls out from under the seat and cuts up for him, and at night beans. The only real cruelty I saw was, that as they dare not flog or maltreat, they have sharp-pointed things concealed in their hands, and when no one is looking they drive them into tender places, chiefly to the beasts of burden and under the harness, and the loads look large.
Our hotel, Michael Cini, Royal Hotel, had good clean rooms, baths, good food and wine, reasonable prices, very attentive, and the best situation. I thought all the other hotels horrid. The women of the higher class wear a black silk dress, and a black silk mantle called faldetta, stiffened round the head, caught up at one side in pleats like a fan or shell; they look very pretty in it, and like coquettish nuns. The lower orders go barefoot, with their shabby dress short in front, and a train sweeping the street behind, and a shabby faldetta. Valetta is the centre, but Malta is divided into several suburbs with other towns, or dependencies--Floriana, Vittoriosa, and Senglea across the harbour, Sliema and Citta Vecchia; four smaller ones are Crendi, Macluba, Hagiar-Khem, Mniadra; and Gozo, a separate but smaller island. The most impressive thing that I saw to my mind in Malta was a military funeral--the reversed arms; the "Dead March" by the band; the slow swaying march of the soldiers; the respectful salute of every soldier as it passed the ramparts crowded with red-coats; the body on a gun-carriage, covered with the Union Jack, so solemn, so respectful as it should be, so different to Continental funerals.
We had been intending to go on Thursday, the 12th of December, and I here got a slight return of the sickness that I had in Lucerne last year, but nothing like so heavy, and Richard also had a little gout. There was only a ship once a week to take us to Tunis, so Richard was anxious to go all weathers, the sailing-time eleven o'clock. That morning the gales were dreadful, the sea mountains high; he called out to me, "It is fine enough to go." "Very well," I said, with an eternal quake, feeling so ill. Presently a message was sent up from the office to say that the weather was as bad as could be. There was a little hesitation on his part; still preparations went on. About an hour later came a second message from the agents, "The steamer had broken her moorings and had gone aground; no passengers were going, the hurricane was bad; should we mind transferring our tickets?" Richard looked out, and saw the sea was mountains high, wind howling, the rain like buckets. I shall never forget the joy with which I bolted into bed to nurse my sickness.
On Friday, the 13th of December, he deplores the death of Robert Browning.
Having taken leave of all our kind friends, we embarked on the 19th of December on the good ship St. Augustine, a French trans-atlantique. The going out was exceedingly interesting, and very rough. Malta seems to collect round it a regular swirl of bad weather, wind, rain, mist, steam, fog-clouds, and heavy swell round her like a mantle, but you have to stand out to sea to perceive it. Richard and I planted ourselves against a mast, to get the last view of Malta, but our feet were so frequently up in the air, and the stern of the boat hiding all view, that after a while we had to give it up. It gives you the impression of a huge sand-coloured rock rising out of the sea, and being covered with houses of the same colour. It might be a huge ivory toy carved for a museum. You are impressed by the immense ramparts, bastions, and guns everywhere; by the deep moats--one 950 yards long, 55 deep, and 30 wide--and its drawbridges. You feel its immense strength, its English solidity, the difficulty an enemy would have to take it. If you are an exile, your heart is cheered by the sight of the dozen men-of-war in harbour, and the five or six regiments, and the heights covered with the red-coats of our own nation. The natives have a superstition that Malta is like a large mushroom in the sea, and the waves perpetually beating against the stem will one day break it, and Malta will sink. We had a nineteen hours' run to Tunis, and the sea slowed down after five or six hours.
[Sidenote: Tunis.]
We had a merry dinner with the French officers, and a quiet night. The cabins were unendurable as to size--beds four feet nothing and very hard, no sitting or lounging places. If we had had very bad weather, I am afraid we should have suffered very much. The next day we were also fortunate, for, arriving at Tunis--landing at Tunis is not a delight--ships lie out half a mile distant, and in heavy weather I should think it would be very difficult; a steam-launch comes off and takes you and your little traps and puts you down in a shed, then goes off once or twice more for big baggage and goods; then you go to the custom-house to be examined. Here we hire two carriages and put all our baggage, great and small, in it, and tell them to drive it into Tunis. Then proceed ourselves to the little station, and wait one hour for a train, and a half-hour does the eight miles into Tunis station; then you go in a 'bus to the Grand Hôtel. Never go to the Grand Hôtel, only fit for commercial travellers, but go to the Grand Hôtel de Paris--nice rooms, quiet, civil people, reasonable prices. Thus it took five hours from the time of casting anchor to getting housed. I think we enjoyed Tunis the most of all, as it was decidedly the most Oriental.
On December 27th Richard deplores the death of our friend Baron Von Kremer, one of Austria's best Oriental scholars, which reached him on the 1st of January.
Richard got another slight attack of gout, and was a little shaky about the legs, but it soon passed. As soon as Richard improved, we saw everything that was to be seen, made excursions, and passed much time in the bazars. We did not think, however, that Tunis was either as grand or as wild as Damascus, although the French having possessed it for so short a time, it is not quite spoiled as is Algiers.
There are some little Sisters of the Poor, who have a large house a mile out of town over dreadful roads. They are of all nations; there was one American and one English nun. There is the best view of the town and surrounding country, which pleased Richard very much. They keep sixty-five old men and women, mostly incurables. We often went there.
One of our most favourite excursions was to Marsa, to our Consul-General and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Drummond-Hay, son of old Sir John Hay of Marocco. You drive through Napoleonic endless straight roads, through brackish swamps for miles and miles, till you come to the aqueduct and ruins of old Carthage. Large masonry works are still standing; the stones and mortar are very poor. The villa where they live was Sir Richard Wood's; it is semi-Moorish, semi-European, and stands just beyond the ruins. They were just beginning it, and have now made it perfectly beautiful. They are charming people; he quiet and reserved, she affectionate, clever, and lively.
We found here some genial people--Commandant Coyne, a French Arabist; Mr. Seton-Karr, author and traveller; Mr. and Mrs. Pitner, the Austrian Consul-General; and Count Bathyani. We had delightful drives, and Dr. Baker photographed Bedawi in their tents. We often went to Dar el Bey; and the Kasbah, the former palace, has beautiful Moorish rooms, but they are dark and melancholy. The bazars are very nice, but, excepting one or two shops, are not a patch upon Damascus. Our favourite drives were generally round the Arab and the Jewish quarters. We had drives also to Belvedere, where is the military hospital, Ariana, Bardo, and Mamlíf.
Here we were reading "Salammbó," and Mr. Broadley's two excellent volumes on "Tunis and its Conquest."
The most interesting thing was to pass through the Jewish and Mohammedan quarters, so narrow, such types, such smells and sights. Lisa and I used to go to the harems and learn to make Arab dishes. We were also cheered by the arrival of Mr. Terence Bourke, brother of Lord Mayo, who has a delightful Moorish house in the Mohammedan quarter, where he gave us much hospitality. We had charming Arab breakfasts with him. Poor Lisa got the influenza. Influenza was not so much known then--it was only talked of at a distance.
CARTHAGE.
Carthage must be divided into two parts--1. Commercial; 2. Military. The cisterns are Roman, not Punic. There are two roads from Marsa to Carthage. The upper, which we went, a mere track and dangerous, leads to Sidi bin Sa'id, an old church excavated, and the chapel of St. Louis; the lower road is the highway to Goletta. On a bit of ascent to the left, on the Goletta coast, is the palace of Cardinal Lavigérie. Cardinal Lavigérie was trying to make a small Rome at old Carthage; his new Cathedral was of Maltese build--another al Melláhah, surrounded by gardens, with inscriptions on the walls: some five hundred are not yet published. Statues and fragments and everything were plastered on or about the walls, the columns below; a large building underground, temple of Ashman, has very fine masonry. The chapel of St. Louis is small and circular, stands alone, and has one high altar. It contains the tomb of Count de Lesseps, Baron Ferdinand de Lesseps' father, with a big inscription. In the great hall, where you are received, there are numbers of modern pictures; there is a splendid view of the sea, and Cape Bon and Tunis.
The flat below is a mine of antiquities. Old Carthage port, now the quarantine, is much like a natural dock, the entrance silted up. Indeed, it is a beautiful panorama. The museum begins with Italian art, with Bible subjects on one side. On the opposite wall--Pagan subjects--there is a fine collection. Three skeletons are disposed as if in the tomb, and six or seven pots at the head--fatuæ on the right side--and pots at feet sometimes. There are Pagan and Christian mosaics. All the land belongs to the Cardinal, who was the Pope of Carthage. No foreigner could excavate anywhere. There is a huge convent. The monks are all in white, with a big rosary and fez, and are called "Les Pères blancs de la Mission Africaine." There is a convent of Carmelite nuns close by. Carthage runs all along Tania, where mosaics are found. The old sea-walls of the port are behind the present Goletta.
The Fathers were delightful, and showed us everything. The Cardinal, who we were dying to see, was absent. The Cathedral will be very nice when it has toned down; it was at present too gaudy.
There is a big stone near Tunis, very long and slanting; ladies who wish to be pregnant slide down it, so it is worn quite smooth. We made as many excursions into the interior as it was possible, considering the state of Richard's health, but the most difficult thing was how to get from Tunis to Algiers, which, considering the accommodation, was a frightful dilemma. The little coast-steamers are wretched; the weather was very cold, the sea was exceedingly rough, and the possibility of landing, when you do arrive at a port, is always extremely uncertain, on account of the heavy rollers. Hence, should the heavy sea have affected Richard's head by the shaking, we should have had no redress. There was no possible stopping-place for any one by train, who from health motives ought not to rough it. There is, indeed, Souk el Arba, after six hours' train, where there is a tramps' hut (but nothing to eat), at about half-past ten in the day--twenty-four hours to wait for next day's train. There is Ghardimau at 11.45 (the frontier where they visit baggage). There is Souk-Ahras at 2.13, where the country becomes wild and bold. People in health may stop here for the next day's train, but we determined that none of this would do, especially as the carriages are made for hardy Arabs, and not for luxury.
Now, through the immense kindness of the railway director, M. Kœly, I was fortunate enough to secure a saloon, with two benches mattressed and cushioned, where, with railway rugs, four could lie feet to feet, a small but clean toilette, and a curtained terrace, where we put all our little baggage, and Africano, our good dragoman. We left our hotel, and conveyed Richard to the train at 8.30 p.m. overnight, and established ourselves on board our train, because it started at 5.15 in the morning (and a cold January morning), and our hot coffee was brought to us inside by the kindness of the same director. We had all our meals in the train, as we were provided with an ample basket of food, drink, smoke, and books. Richard enjoyed the terrace and watching the country; the air was most exhilarating, and he felt quite well. We should not perhaps have thought so much of the scenery in Austria, but still it was very beautiful. Then it must be remembered that Tunis has only had the advantage, or disadvantage, of eight years of civilization. The difficulties of engineering must have been great, but the train was very well driven, prudently on bad places, and always true to time.
[Sidenote: Constantine.]
At Duvivier we were shunted from the Bona to the Kroubs train. It began to get dark. We dined on board, and had a bottle of champagne we had brought with us, and got fearfully tired about eight o'clock in the evening, and lay down. At 8.20 we were shifted from the Kroubs train to the Constantine train, where we arrived at 12.15 in the night, having been out twenty-eight hours and running nineteen; but Richard was the strongest of us all, and none the worse. We drove to the Hôtel du Louvre, and were glad to tumble into bed. We would willingly have stayed here a long time; the hotel was not so bad as its entrance makes you think. It was the healthiest and the most interesting town we had seen. We had to celebrate here our twenty-ninth, and, alas! our last, wedding-day. We passed it in inspecting our surroundings. It is of a peculiar gorgy character, and must have been impregnable in old days. The Devil's Bridge and hot springs are most picturesque. The Arab tents are made of straw, thatch, and dirty rags, and look as if all the rubbish of the world were heaped upon them. The Arabs in this part of the world are big, magnificent-looking men, who make everybody else look small, with white burnous, and have beautiful white teeth. The French very sensibly swagger about, and the troops make a great fanfare of trumpets. The people here are cruel to their donkeys, who seem born to carry loads of stone upon their backs.
[Sidenote: Sétif.]
The difficulty now was how to get on from Constantine, which was only halfway to Algiers; for though I did all my best, there were races going on at Biskrah. There was but one saloon, and it was taking the directors down; so as we could only go by the common train, we knew that Richard could not bear anything but a short journey, which would be at first about an eight hours' run to Sétif. The country was a large continuous undulation, and although quite flat in appearance, we rose gradually from 2000 to 3500 feet above sea-level, with distant mountains. There were plenty of Bedawi tents and flocks, and two or three buildings shortly after leaving Constantine that looked like a palace in a plain, on a little eminence bare of trees or garden, and two square, large, ugly houses. The Spahis are very picturesque with their many-coloured garments and red cloaks, and have, as well as the Kabyles, beautiful teeth. At Sétif we found the Hôtel de la France comfortable, with fair food. The town is not much to look at, the usual undulating country with good soil, and we passed an agreeable day, chiefly in the market, which was full of picturesque Berbers, who had also some curious things to buy.
[Sidenote: Bouira.]
The next day (after forty-eight hours' rest) we did another six hours to Bouira, which is a very picturesque part of the country, especially going through the Gates or Gorges. The little Hôtel de la Poste is no better than a small public-house, but the food was fit for Paris; we always said that that cook must have committed some crime, to go and hide himself in such an awful hole as that. The next day we had a very pleasant journey of eight hours to Algiers. The entry at night reminded us so much of Trieste. From the station to the Hôtel St. George's, Mustafa Supérieure, was an immense long way, but delightful when one got there.
[Sidenote: Algiers.]
Algiers is an ideal place to look at; at first Richard was delighted with it, and thought he would end his days there, but in about three weeks he began to change his mind, and said nothing would induce him to have "our cottage" there. For myself, I thought it was the dampest, most neuralgic place I ever was in; but it is very beautiful, superior to Trieste in beauty, the town more elevated, and looking like ivory, as Eastern towns do, but yet like Trieste; and the country green, and picturesque with palms. Here we found delightful society--Sir Lambert and Lady Playfair, Count Bathyani, Mrs. Campbell Praed, the Marquise de Beaufort, Lady Clementina and Mr. Mitford, Lord Carbery, Mrs. and Miss Newton, the Rev. Colin Campbell, Colonel Preston, and a very nice and clever Miss Florence Shakespeare Owens, and many other charming people. Here for the second time a huge glass chandelier fell, nearly cutting the table in two just as we had left our places.
Richard was now invited to the Stanley Exhibition.
Daily Chronicle, February 20th.
"SIR RICHARD BURTON AND MR. STANLEY.
"Sir Edward Lee, hon. secretary of the Stanley and African Exhibition to be opened at the Victoria Gallery, has received the following letter from Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, the African Explorer, and her Majesty's Consul at Trieste:--
"Hammam R'irha, February 17th, 1890.
"DEAR SIR EDWARD LEE,
"Your kind invitation to be present at the general meeting for the Stanley and African Exhibition has only just reached me, and the direction will explain the cause of delay. I cannot say how great is my regret at being absent on such an occasion. I should have wished at this and at every other opportunity to express my hearty admiration of all that Stanley has dared and done. He is to me, and always will be, the prince of African travellers.
"I am, dear Sir Edward Lee,
"Yours faithfully,
"RICHARD F BURTON."
[Sidenote: Hammám R'irha.]
On the 16th of February we started for one of the greatest humbugs in the world, the baths at Hammám R'irha, passing Blidah, where there is a wonderful gorge, and archæological remains. There is a wretched little station called Bou Medfa, where a tumbledown little 'bus, only good enough for luggage, awaits passengers; but fortunately we got a calèche, two good horses, and a pleasant Jehu, and we had a long drive through cold, raw, snowy air (in February). At first we had a glorious day, splendid weather, and a beautiful view for distance. We stayed here a week, during which it did nothing afterwards but pour with rain, and a walk put you almost knee-deep in thick red clay. We visited the gurbi or hut of Suleiman, the Arab guardian of the hotel, and sat with his wife. We should not call him an Arab or a Bedawin at Damascus, but in all these kind of places they generally have these protectors, even at Alexandria, but not in Syria. It would have puzzled any one to live in that gurbi, except people used to living in very small tents.
Richard got gouty here, and we were glad to return to Algiers at the end of the week; but we did not go back to the same sort of life, of which there are two. One life is to live up at Mustafa Supérieure and take care of your health, and the other is to live in town and see something of native life. You cannot do both, because getting up and down from Mustafa to town occupies all day; so we now went to the Hotel de la Régence, where we stayed a fortnight in order to see something of Algiers. Here we read "Mosállam," by Laurence Oliphant, which explains so much of his life.
We went all over the City, seeing the most interesting things--the Cardinal's Moorish Palace, the Cardinal's Cathedral, the Museum, where is shown poor Geronimo's body. He lived in 1540, was taken prisoner and baptized, but his relations caught him again, and kept him as a Mohammedan till he was twenty-five; then he returned to Oran, where he renewed his Christianity, but he was caught again by a Moorish corsair and brought to Algiers, where he was ordered again to become a Mohammedan; and as he would not, he was sentenced to be thrown alive into a mould, with his feet and hands tied with cords, and the block of concrete containing his body was built into an angle of the fort. In 1853 it was destroyed, and on the 27th of December the skeleton was found enclosed in the block. The bones were carefully removed, and interred with great pomp in the Cathedral, built on the site of the Mosque of Hassan. Liquid plaster of Paris was run into the mould left by his body; they thus obtained a perfect model, even of his features, the cords which bound him, and the texture of his clothing, and this you see in the museum. We wandered about the Mosques and about the bazars to buy curios, and although Algiers is now only a French town on Arab foundations, the Arab part of the town, that remains untouched, was as interesting as anything we had ever seen. Take, for instance, the Mosque or Zaouia of Sidi Abd er Rahman Eth-Thalebi, which contains his tomb and its surroundings; there are numbers of tombs around him, and the usual drapery, lamps, banners, and ostrich eggs. Take the Arab town with its close, dark, steep streets, and its dark holes and shops, the ways of which are like climbing a wall of steps. One is ascended by 497 steps; they are mostly alleys just wide enough to pass through, and is a labyrinth in which you might easily lose yourself. The Kasbah, or Citadel, is also well worth a visit. We made as many excursions as was possible in the interior, considering the state of Richard's health, and when he was not well enough for a walk or a drive, he received African Professors. Some of our party went to see one of the fanatical religious meetings of the Assaouwiyeh, the religious confraternity of Sidi Mohammed bin Aissa, which take place sometimes in the native quarter. I have seen many of these sort of things, but never carried to the extent that I am told they are carried here, where they mutilate themselves, and sometimes a sheep is thrown amongst them which they devour alive. I could not sleep that night for knowing it was going on, but our party comforted me by telling me next day that nothing of the sort had taken place.
We now took our departure from Algiers.
Richard said that one of his great pleasures in leaving North Africa, and especially Algiers, was the intense cruelty to animals. It was no pleasure to walk or drive, and some people felt it so much, that they walked by back ways, and only looked forward to giving up their villas altogether, since there was no one to stop it. The Rev. Colin Campbell and I did what we could all the time we were there.
At last the day came for leaving. The day before the sea had been frightful, and, though it was fine this day, we had the heavy swell of yesterday's storm. It was a capital boat, the only good steamer on this coast, all new appliances, electric light, corky in the water like our Irish boats (the Duc de Braganza). Mrs. Campbell Praed, who had been with us all along, accompanied us to Marseilles, and it was delightful to have her society.
[Sidenote: Things one would rather have left unsaid.]
We enjoyed our passage exceedingly on the 7th of March, the only fine day amongst a series of gales. In the evening Richard and Dr. Baker went into the smoking-cabin, and there a young man, a travelled passenger, was holding forth to the others with regard to African travellers, and Richard Burton in particular, having no idea that the said Richard Burton was part of his audience. It became exceedingly amusing when he began to relate the tale of "how Richard Burton had murdered two men on his Meccan journey, because they had suspected him of being a Frank and a Christian." Richard then said quietly to him, "What traveller did you say did this deed?" "Oh, Burton, the famous Mecca-man!" "Have you seen him?" "Oh yes, of course I have." "Well, then," said Richard, "I am that man, and I assure you that I never did this deed; that I had no cause to, for I never was suspected. I have been told that such a tale was rife about me, but I thought it was a joke, and it has never come face to face with me as a serious thing till to-night. There were two Englishmen travelling about the desert at this time; they were put into a great difficulty, and I believe they had to do it in self-defence, and in consequence of this misfortune, their travels never appeared before the public; but it did not happen to me." This reminds me of dining out one night long before; it was a very large dinner-party, in London, and the gentleman opposite to me bent forward and said, "I heard you talking a great deal about the East; did you ever chance to meet Burton the traveller?" I saw his agitated neighbour nudging him, so I laughed, and said, "Rather! I have the honour of being his wife." On another occasion--it was at the British Association for Science in 1878--we were stopping with Lord Talbot of Malahide; it was a show place, and the Association came over in the afternoon, and were being lionized about. Richard had given a lecture the day before in Dublin, and a little crowd were collected around us. Suddenly a middle-aged lady, not knowing who I was, walked up to me, by way of saying something pleasant, and said, "I did not think much of the lecture of Burton the traveller, did you?" Richard and I were ready to split, but I was so sorry for her, that I said cheerfully, "Oh yes! I liked it very much indeed; but, you know, it was a very abstruse subject, and one which people in general are not likely to understand." (It was on the Ogham-Runes, the tree-language of ancient Ireland, as compared with El Mushajjar, the tree-language of ancient Arabs.) Meantime her friends, who had been tugging at her mantle in agonies, had got her off, and then we had a good laugh.
[Sidenote: Marseilles--Hyères--Nice--Home.]
The following day it darkened, and looked rainy and cloudy, and the sea inkier as we approached the Gulf of Lyons. The approach by sea to Château d'If and the Isle d'Hyères, with their little rocky islands, the solitary lighthouse, and Notre Dame de la Garde towering the town on a white rocky eminence, was exceedingly pretty and effective. You cannot have a prettier drive than going by La Plage, and the lovely Corniche road to Notre Dame de la Garde, and returning by the Prado. The City is magnificent; it lies in a basin surrounded by hills, and fringed with pine-woods of every family of the race, stunted and tall, blown into weird shapes by the wind, dotted with country villas and fine buildings, and all this is ring-fenced by immense bare limestone rock.
The digue, or breakwater, is built in a triangular shape so as to throw off the canalization. You enter a series of new docks, the old port running to the bottom of the finest street, perhaps the finest in the world--Rue Cannébière and Noailles.
After staying here one day, we went on to Toulon, and on to the Hôtel Continental at Hyères, which we thought delightful. We had a delicious drive to Carquerain, and down to the sea. Between this and Nice we met Admiral Seymour of the Iris, and travelled in the same train, and went on to the Isles Britanniques at Nice. The French Squadron was in; their manœuvres were very pretty, and they looked "fit." The Bataille des Fleurs was going on. Sir Richard Wood and Mrs. Campbell Praed came to breakfast, and he took us to see all the fun. He was looking very well and fresh. We were exceedingly pleased to meet him, as he was the one Consul held in honour before Richard Burton at Damascus. After one whole day there, we took the train for Genoa, and we had rather an unpleasant journey, as Richard was a little ailing, and could not enjoy the motions of the Italian train curving round the coast. One must admit that the district of the Riviera is beautiful, the English type (after you pass Monte Carlo, Mentone, Bordighera, and San Remo) changing to poor picturesque Italy, when it becomes defiled by its vulgar, petty officialdom. We hated Genoa from our sad remembrance in 1887, so, instead of going to our old hotel, we went to the Hôtel de la Ville on the Port, and disliked it very much, and felt that we had left civilization. We wandered about, and went to the beautiful Campo Santo and bought things; and next day went on to Milan, where we also changed our hotel, and went to the Cavour, which we liked exceedingly. Next day we got on to Venice, to the Grand Hôtel, but we only stayed one day, as Richard was suffering from hotel food, and so we reached home on his birthday, the 19th of March (his last birthday, sixty-ninth), having been out rather more than four months.
HOME AGAIN, 19TH MARCH, 1890.
On the 20th he notices with regret the death of General Sir Thomas Steele.
From this time I got very ill with peritonitis, and was laid up for some little time, and Richard and Dr. Baker took care of me.
We had two earthquakes, which shook the walls.
On the 7th of April he notices the death of Miss Mary Boyle.
I went out for the first time on the 9th of April, and the day before that we recommenced our evening writing together, which continued during the remaining seven months of his life; and we made rough notes of most of the things which are in this biography, though perhaps in different words. We had a visit from an old friend, Miss Maria Gordon-Duff, and a friend of hers, Miss Jean Grieve, which we enjoyed very much.
On the 19th of April the Bishop consecrated the little Church which we had helped to start less than a year ago. He said Mass, with the Chief Authorities and many of the Benefactors present, and the life-size statue that Richard and I had promised them, which was quite a work of art, from Messrs. Mayer of Munich, was the centre-piece of the altar. Colonel and Mrs. Adams arrived, who were interested about the animals like myself, and I took her all over my public stables and other arrangements, with which she was much pleased.
On the 21st of April our friend Mr. Frank James, African traveller, was killed by a wounded elephant in the Gaboon country.
On the 9th of May, Mr. Letchford's picture of Richard was finished and sent to the Stanley Exhibition. Our old friend Mr. Arbuthnot arrived on the 11th, and stayed several days with us, which cheered Richard up immensely.
Captain Melfort Campbell, of Gibraltar, died on May 12th, and with him the Vigo Bay scheme.
On the 17th I had another attack of peritonitis, and Lisa was ill in bed with erysipelas; and Richard expressed a wish to leave Trieste for good, which I heartily coincided in, thinking it would save him much illness, but he afterwards changed his mind.
On the 11th of June we had storms of thunder and lightning like a bombardment for twelve hours. It was very fatiguing to the nerves.
On the 13th we had a large tea-party from Duino--Princess Taxis, Prince Hohenlöhe, Prince Eric, and the Duchess della Grazia.
We now had a great annoyance in receiving the following paragraph:--
"ILLNESS OF SIR RICHARD BURTON.
"While all England, says the London correspondent of the Liverpool Mercury, is continuing to fêté Mr. Stanley, it is not pleasant to reflect that his great predecessor in African exploration, Sir Richard Burton, is lying very dangerously ill, neglected and alone, in London lodgings. Yet in his time and in his own way the elder traveller accomplished even more remarkable feats than the hero of the hour. His romantic pilgrimage to Mecca and El-Medinah in the disguise of a Moslem devotee, his journey through Berbera to the Sacred City of Harar, where no other infidel foot has ever trodden, were but preliminaries to the great achievement of his life, the discovery of Lake Tanganyika--the credit for which had been claimed for Captain Speke. This discovery paved the way for all that has since been done in Central Africa."
This hurt me very much, and it annoyed my husband as much as it did me, and I returned the following answer:--
"SIR RICHARD BURTON.
"To the Editor of the Morning Post.
"Sir,--My relations have startled me with a cutting from a 'London Correspondent' saying that 'Sir Richard Burton is lying very dangerously ill, neglected and alone, in a London lodging, whilst Stanley is being fêtéd.' If the love and devotion of a wife may count for anything, Sir Richard will never be neglected nor alone whilst I am alive. I have been married to him for nearly thirty years, besides a five years' engagement, and during all those thirty-five years I have never been absent from him one day that I was allowed to be with him--in other words, I have never been absent except to execute his orders. For the last seven years we have hardly been a day apart, and for the last three and a half years that he has been ailing, never one hour away out of the twenty-four. During these three and a half years we have, in consequence of the weakness of his health, sacrificed everything to have a resident English doctor (who was looking for such a berth) living and travelling with us. And instead of a London lodging, we have a beautiful and romantic home (with every comfort for him that our means allow) at the very head of the Adriatic. Next year his term of service expires (forty-nine years' actual service), and then we shall both be, if alive, 'in a London lodging, neglected and alone.' But to state that now is what the Americans would call 'a little previous.' On the other hand, I am very grateful to the correspondent for the truth of his statement about my husband's career, showing that in the midst of this fêting and rejoicings for the great traveller Stanley, the pioneer who opened up the way without money or help or applause, enduring the severest hardships and perils, and cold receptions on his return, is not forgotten at home, and that they know that it is to him first that they owe the fact that many of these desolate regions have now trade and schools and missions, and the beginning of civilization. I feel confident that God will make up to him more than he has missed of this world's honours.
"Yours, etc.,
"ISABEL BURTON.
"Trieste, June 15."
We had at this time six days of continuous violent storms, which made his health less good. We had one more charming outing; to Duino, to attend the Gypsy fair, where, as usual, we were after Romany and Gypsy lore. I tried to buy up some of their skeleton horses, but they wanted £5 a piece. We had a very delightful and memorable evening there on the 24th of June (all the family of Duino dining with us at the inn).
On the 30th we were honoured by a visit from Archduke Ludwig Salvator.
OUR LAST TRIP.
On the 1st of July we went for our summer trip, as July and August in Trieste are almost insupportable. We went first to Gorizia before described. The next day we made the usual interesting pilgrimage of Monte-Santo on a peak, which is a small Maria-Zell, the local Lourdes, which occupies about six hours to go and see everything and return. We dined out of doors in the evening at Gorizia, and next morning went on to Tarvis. It was a long day, and Richard was very tired. Tarvis is very beautiful, but we could not enjoy it, because we were none of us well; so we only stopped for a day or two, and then we went on to Villach and to Lienz, where we had always been longing to stay.
The Post Hotel is a charming, comfortable, old-fashioned inn. There we used to sit out under the eaves, feed the pigeons, make the boys scramble for pennies, and buy things from passing pedlars, and Richard decided, that though it is an old village, it is not "dry rot," and that the mountain air was beautiful. We had an uncomfortable train to Franzensfeste, but there we got a delightful aussichts-wagen to run over the Brenner, which, though it was our fourth time, we enjoyed immensely. The Tyrol Hof in Innsbrück where we stopped was good, but very dear. There we met Mrs. Crawford, the widow of the M.P. who had been kind to us years ago. We were just in time to catch our old friends the Von Puthons, who were transferred to Linz. There was a delightful zither-player in the evening. No one knows what sounds, what soft passionate music, can be got out of those instruments till one hears them in their native land. Here people should buy rough but picturesque parures of black garnets, which is a specialty.
From Innsbrück we made a four hours' run to Feldkirch over the Arlberg, which was really dangerous, as Richard had before foretold. There had been landslips, and some places were planked over so that you could see the precipices under the carriage, the train going very slow. There were several bad places, and one unpleasant bridge. The next train to ours could not come over. I heard a gentleman, who I was told was one of the engineers of the line, say in German to some other gentlemen, "We thought it would last for ever when we put it up, but now I would not let my own family cross in spring after the rains." We stopped to see my nephew Bertie Pigott, who was in college here. The Jesuits have a large college, which is the principal thing in the town, very much on the same principle as that of Sliema Malta, and have their playground, athletic exercises, museum, library, good church, etc. In the Cathedral there is an Holbein's altar to see.
[Sidenote: Switzerland.]
We left after two days, and arrived at Zurich in time for the great Schiefs-Stätte fête, or Federal Rifle Association, which takes place every other year. It dates from the sixteenth century, assumed its present rifle form in 1830, and consequently was the first known to Europe. It used to be the great political event that drew all the Cantons together. It is the focus which cements that simplicity, equality, and independence which go to make up the sturdy Swiss character, and is the secret of the union which makes their strength. It always takes place in a different town, and numbers 220,000 members out of two millions and a quarter--more than the regular army. This year it was at Frauenfeld, and the great people assembled at the Hôtel Baur au Lac where we were staying. One hundred and fifty Minnesingers were singing their national songs on the lawn, some hidden in boats on the canal by the side. There was a sort of illumination, and fireworks, not only on shore, but on the lake, which you might have mistaken for Venice.
The next day we were all away to Frauenfeld. Seven thousand pounds are given in prizes. The number of people on the ground, besides shooters, was 40,000. There was a huge wooden marquee for dining 6000 people, and 3000 sat down at a time. Every Swiss is ambitious to be a good marksman, and it is thought to be a disgrace to be a bad shot. The Roman Catholic priest gave us hospitality. He had passed the last sixteen years of his life in making an exquisite collection of enamels on copper, silver, and gold--religious subjects, selected with great care and judgment. Two-thirds are early seventeenth century, and he wanted to sell them.
Mr. Angst, the English Consul, is a very great man, and it was a fine thing to be a friend of his in Switzerland. He and his wife showed us a great deal of hospitality, and we passed many pleasant days enjoying his collection of curios, swords, and china, which are all Swiss, for he is a patriot. A delightful excursion is by boat to Rapperswyl, calling at fifteen or sixteen stations down the lake on the left. There is a little hotel Der See, one of eight fronting the little quay. We had a delightful breakfast, after which we re-embarked and came up on the other bank. Next day there was a great Consular dinner, which lasted from twelve to six, at which Richard and Dr. Baker attended. Here we met a very nice Mr. and Mrs. Chippendale. We had a charming excursion to Uetliberg, and another to Einsiedeln up in the mountains; it is the Swiss Lourdes. The scenery was lovely, the air beautiful. We had a good dinner of blue mountain trout at the Pfau. We went all over the Cathedral, and the circle of pious shops, and drank from the fountain of fourteen spouts. We bought pious things, and the monks came in at three o'clock and sang the "Ave Maria." Our return was on a beautiful summer evening; the lake glowed in colours, there was a gentle mist and a full moon, but we arrived very, very tired.
During this Swiss trip, Richard always brought Catullus to table d'hôte, and whenever he was bored he used to pull it out and write his notes upon his Latin copy.
I did all I could to persuade him to go from Zurich to Bâle, from Bâle to England, to leave the Service and to stay in England till he was thoroughly rested and well; then we would go back and pick up our things, or let them be sent after us; but he would not hear of it. I tried this twice during this Swiss journey when we were halfway, for I saw that the frequent attacks of indigestion and nervousness and gases round the heart were on the increase, and it did not seem that any climate, or any staying still, nor yet travelling, improved them. Still he persevered in saying that he would keep on till next March, when he would be free, and be home the following September.
During the last six months of his life (to show how tired he was getting of everything), he used frequently to say to me, "Do you know, I am in a very bad way; I have got to hate everybody except you and myself, and it frightens me, because I know perfectly well that next year I shall get to hate you, and the year after that I shall get to hate myself, and then I don't know what will become of me. We are always wandering, and the places that delight you I say to myself, 'Dry rot,' and the next place I say, 'Dry rotter,' and the third place I say, 'Dry rottest,' and then da capo."
[Sidenote: Davos-Platz--Ragatz.]
About the 20th of July Richard had a small attack of gout which passed away, and again slightly at Davos.
We went on to Ragatz, Mr. Angst accompanying us. The Quellenhof Hotel is as big as a village, but it was too full to be comfortable. Lady Taunton and Lady Elizabeth Grey were there, and we met them in several places--two interesting sisters with lovely silver hair. Here you drive to the waterfall and Meienfeld, and to Pfäfersbad, where there is a quelle and gorge like that of Trient, the same swirling river under you, darkness, weirdness, the same tiny planks to walk along next to the rocky wall, and the mountains meeting overhead. Another drive is to Wartenstein, and Pfäfers village, where an old Convent is turned into a large Lunatic Asylum.
Wartenstein is a châlet-restaurant which holds about thirty visitors, and there is a lovely view. We left Ragatz when we had seen everything, and went on a new line of railway only opened a fortnight before, up to Davos-Platz, six thousand feet high. The scenery is always nice and sometimes grand. We were lodged in a fine large hotel, the Belvedere, which was not finished. The centre of the scene is a plateau swamp in the middle. The roots of the surrounding hills are covered with hotels, villas, and pines, and above them again are high mountains with snowy peaks and fine air. In winter it is dry and covered with snow; it is the great consumption focus, and people say it is full of germs. Here we met five people we knew, amongst them Father Graham, a priest from London. We had come here on purpose to make acquaintance with Mr. John Addington Symonds, but he was gone away, and he only came back on the evening before our departure, and we saw him for about an hour, which was better than nothing.
We had a delightful drive from Davos to Maloja, with a comfortable landau, two good steady grey horses, and a nice coachman; it was a truly delicious day, which I shall always remember amongst my mental treasures. We ascended the Fluela Pass through gorgeous scenery, starting at ten o'clock. In an hour and a half we stopped to give bread to the horses, and then in another hour and a half we came to the highest point, 6700 feet, where we were in deep snow; a lake was covered with ice, and two Mount St. Bernard dogs greeted us. Here we baited the horses with bread and wine, and lunched from our basket. The Schwarzhorn, 13,000 feet high, was to our right; there were glaciers and chamois, gorges and grand ravines. When we started again we descended to Süs, a large village, where we rested, had tea, and baited our horses for a couple of hours, and then we drove on two hours more to Quoz. I think Quoz one of the prettiest places I ever saw, and should like to have stayed there longer. It is a beautiful, romantic, Romansch village; the scenery is lovely, the hotel is civilized. We put up there for the night, starting at ten o'clock the next morning, and arrived at Samäden, where we were very badly treated by the landlord, who made us pay sixty-six francs for three-quarters of an hour's entertainment.
[Sidenote: St Moritz--Maloja.]
Three-quarters of an hour further we arrived at St. Moritz-Kulm, stopped our carriage, got out for a moment, and in opening the door ran up against Canon Wenham, of Mortlake, who is our spiritual pastor where I now live, and whom I had known for at least thirty-five years. He was very glad to see Richard, and we frequently met during our stay in Switzerland. Canon Wenham has since told me that when he first saw Richard at St. Moritz, that he kept saying to himself, "I wonder whether you or I will be the first to go?" Richard died two months after that, and ten months later he performed his funeral service at Mortlake. The baths and the village are below in the valley. We soon started again for Maloja, but did not get in till 4.30, owing to an accident. For the third time our horses suddenly behaved queerly; they were steady, plodding brutes, but one sprang over a low stone wall, leaving the carriage on the other side, and the other stood trembling, sweating, and sobbing as if it was going to have a fit. It was a narrow road with a sharp precipice into the lake, and very little would have sent us rolling into it. We were some time extricating ourselves. We all got out, and the horses were unharnessed and taken into a neighbouring field, where they recovered themselves. I was dreadfully frightened, but Richard was quite cool. On all these three occasions the coachman and Lisa and I thought that the horses saw something we did not see, but Richard and the doctor opined that there was some natural cause, such as a snake crossing the path. The gypsies passed, and stopped and helped us.
Maloja hotel is a luxurious palace at the head of the lake, looking down the lake on one side, and on the other down into Italy. It is the last of the Engadine plateaux, has glorious scenery and air, snow mountains, and blue sky and lake. We found here Mr. and Mrs. Stanley, accompanied by their faithful Captain Jephson, and Mr. Stanley's black boy Saleh, Dean Carington, Mr. Oscar Browning, and Mr. Welldon (Headmaster of Harrow), Sir John and Lady Hawkins, the Duchess of Leinster, Lady Mabel Fitzgerald, and Lord Elcho, Mrs. Main (lately Mrs. Fred Burnaby), Miss Emily Blair Oliphant, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft and son, Lord Dunraven, and other pleasant people.
There were all sorts of amusements--a large ball-room, beautiful band, theatricals, concerts, alpining, fishing, and kodaking, picnics, glee-singing by a chorus of workmen, who sang at the church in the morning--everything that could be desired, but our chief amusement was driving. We used to go over to St. Moritz Kulm, where we met Mr. Strickland, who edited the St. Moritz news, and Father Wenham.
At Maloja Richard talked to me a great deal about the possibilities of what might happen in case of his death--"Not," he said, "that I am thinking of dying;" and I told him that I thought he should leave literary executors. I mentioned four people who I thought would expect to have a "finger in the pie," so to speak, in case of his death, but he absolutely declined to let anybody but myself search into his papers, and desired me to see to it if any necessity arose. He said, "No one has helped me but you during thirty--I may say thirty-five--years; who is likely to know so well now? Besides, I know that you will do everything for me, body and soul--that you would wish done for yourself." A little while after this he called me into his room and said, "I may very likely live for years, but I should like to leave three papers, which I am now going to sign in your presence." The first concerned religion, the second his private papers and manuscripts, and the third his money and mining affairs, and I have carried them all out to the very letter from the day he died till now.
The lake was very grand in a storm, black, green, and yellow, with lowering black clouds, enveloping mountain and lake, lit up by dark red lightning. We had great fun in being photographed by the Rev. Mr. Stewart, who was here with two charming sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley, Richard and myself, and Saleh the black boy, and Mrs. Bancroft placed us. Mrs. Bancroft made us all laugh just as we were going to be taken, by seizing up a long broom-handle and poising it as a lance, saying, "Won't you have me as Tippoo Tib?" Mrs. Stanley did a very amusing thing; she got a piece of paper, and turning part of it down, said to my husband, "Will you give me your autograph, Sir Richard?" which he readily did, in English and Arabic. She then turned up the back of the paper, on which she had written, "I promise to put aside all other literature, and as soon as I return to Trieste, to write my own autobiography." So we all signed underneath him, and since I have had it framed.
On the 31st of August he deplores the death of his friend, General Studholm Hodgson.
[Sidenote: We descend into Italy homewards.]
The two or three last days of August the snow was so dreadful that we only longed to get down into Italy, and on the 1st of September, wishing good-bye to our friends, we started at two o'clock, and had a delightful drive of three hours and a quarter through the snow down the mountains. The snow was so bad that it was doubtful whether we could manage it, but we did without accident. We passed several picturesque places, amongst others Castasegna, where I got out of the carriage, while they were refreshing the horses, to look at the tombs in the little church, and walking up to one, I saw on it "Richard Vaughan Simpson, died in 1834, aged 23." I said a prayer for him--perhaps I was the first countrywoman that had passed and done so. As we passed the frontier we were lightly examined, and we got into Italian picturesqueness, passing one or two fine waterfalls. Chiavenna looked most picturesque in the distance, as we descended to the good little Hôtel Conradi. There was a blue shade over the snow mountains as the sun was setting.
The next day we left Conradi's to get to Como. The train was an hour late; we had to go in the third-class with forty-eight people, and the boat was late too. The lake was looking lovely, with its villages, especially Gravedona, Varenna, and Bellagio, which reminded us of Madeira. We were about seven hours doing twenty miles. We had delightful drives through the trees above the Villa Lervelloni to the ruined castle which overlooks Como with all its three arms of the lake, and listened to the bees and the birds, smelled the forest, and were glad we were alive. We also went to Como itself. In the evening we met Sir Frederick Napier Broome, late Governor of Western Australia. We were now reading Sinnett's "Kârma." We left Bellagio early, a couple of days later, and went down the other side of the lake (Lago di Lecco) on a very pleasant morning. You take a branch railway, and join the main line (Milan to Venice) at Rovato for Venice. We went to the Grand Hôtel, but soon left, as the gondola music used to drive Richard wild. There is one man, if he still exists, who sings as if he would burst, like the cicala.
On the 7th of September we left for Trieste, sauntering down the Gran Canale in gondola the last thing. We had a comfortable journey, and were glad to get home that evening after ten weeks out, which we had thoroughly enjoyed, except on the occasions when Richard was suffering. But how sorrowful it would have been, could we but have foreseen that it was the last journey we should ever take together in this life! If we could but look forward, we should not be able to bear it.
HOME FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS.
The few following weeks at Trieste we continued to write together in the evening, he being engaged all day with his "Scented Garden," his "Catullus," "Ausonius," "Apuleius, or the Golden Ass," and other things, as he had been since his last Supplementals came out (November 13th, 1888); and in early morning we used to take a list of all the manuscripts published and unpublished, their destinations when packed for England, and sorting the correspondence into years; and Dr. Baker took a great many photographs, as he had done all this year in the garden, of us and the views and friends, which I am having formed into two lamp-shades on gelatine.
These last few weeks Richard kept saying to me, "When the swallows form a dado round the house, when they are crowding on the windows, in thousands, preparatory to flight, call me;" and he would watch them long and sadly. Strange to say, after his death seven of them took up their abode at his window, and only departed in December. They are building again at "our cottage" at Mortlake. It seems as if he were watching.
On the 11th of September he deplores in his journal the death of Sir William Hardman, of the Morning Post.
On the 20th of September, a month before he died, in his diary he writes, "I feel too well," and another paragraph, "The house covered with swallows;" and then he says that night, "Sat on balcony--perfect evening, perfect day." He was then taking papaine for his gout.
On the 27th we had gentle earthquakes late at night, but which were prolonged till dawn.
In October he complains of liver and biliousness in his journal, but remarks that his cure was working well.
On the 15th of October we paid together our official visit to the Governor and his wife, and we had friends to breakfast at the Hôtel de la Ville, where he was very gay. He was not very well in the evening, but nothing particular, and a glass of hot brandy and water seemed to set him quite right. I had begun partly to dismantle the house, and to put away things to make it easier for packing on return, in order to hurry matters when we came back, previous to leaving for good. We were going to start on the 15th of November for Greece and Constantinople, and we were already sorting out what we would take, having our saddlery looked to, and writing letters to the Ministers of these countries to ask their advice on certain points, and getting letters of introduction.
On the 18th of October, Dr. Baker photographed us in the garden. Richard was always better when he first got home, and then got tired of it after. When he first arrived, 8th of September, he only weighed 70 kilos, but by the 2nd of October he had increased to 72.5 kilos.
On the 18th of October he was a little inclined to gout, and complained that he had no pleasure in walking.
On the 19th (the day before he died) he complains of a little lumbago.
[1] In the same way, a house near us had a large monkey in a little room with bars just above ground, and the boys used to poke at him with sticks, and shy pebbles at him. I would go over to him with fruit and cake, and Richard used to say to him, "What crime did you commit in some other world, Jocko, that you are caged for now, and tormented, and going through your purgatory?" And he would walk off muttering, "I wonder what he did--I wonder what he did?"
XVI. WE RETURN HOME FOR THE LAST TIME
"Oh, call it by some better name, For Friendship is too cold; And Love is now a worldly flame, Whose shrine is made of gold; And Passion, like the sun at noon, Who burns up all he sees Alike, as warm, will set as soon-- Oh, call it by none of these.
"Imagine something purer far, More free from stain of clay, Than Friendship, Love, and Passion are, Yet human still as they. And if thy lips, for love like this, No mortal word can frame. Go, ask of angels what it is. And call it by that name!"
The good air in Switzerland, and especially Maloja, had set Richard up completely. We returned on the 7th of September, little thinking he had but six weeks to live.
The day before he died, though he was unusually well and cheerful, he said, "I am beginning to lose the good I got in Switzerland, and to feel the corroding climate of Trieste again. I count the hours till the 15th of November."
This was the day that we were to have sailed for Greece, but, alas! for human foresight, human misery, it was the day of the third and the last great Church ceremonial or dirge for the repose of his soul. Some circumstances that were unavoidable, not important but irritating, for the past few months had annoyed him, and he was always saying, "What a blessing it would be, and that he could hardly wait for the moment, when we two would be settled quietly in England together again, and independent of the Government, and of all the world besides!" And it will always comfort me to remember that during spring and summer, after our return from Algiers, I begged of him to throw up the Service, and instead of going any farther on small travels, to let us at once set to, pack up and return to England for good, and to defer Greece and Constantinople till we had settled ourselves in England. Also that during our Swiss tour, when we got to Zurich in August, and were so near Bâle, I said, "We are halfway to England; let us go on, let the things go; we will send back a trusty person to bring them on;" but he said, "No, he should like to brave it out till the end." Little did we think that--
"The cast-off shape that, years since, we called 'I' Shall sudden into nothingness Let out that something rare which could conceive A Universe and its God."[1]
We had occasion sometimes to go into the English Protestant burial-ground at Trieste--poor Charles Lever lies buried there, and by him is a cold, melancholy corner which at that particular time seemed to be a sort of rubbish corner of stray papers and old tin pots. He shuddered at it, and said, as he had often said before, "If I die here, don't bury me there. They will insist on it; will you be strong and fight against it?" I said, "Yes; I think I shall be strong enough to fight against that for your sake! Where would you like to be buried?" He said, "I think I should like you to take my body out to sea in a boat, and throw me into the water; I don't like the ground, nor a vault, nor cremation." And I said, "Oh, I could not do that; won't anything else do?" "Yes," he said; "I should like us both to lie in a tent side by side."
He was very fond of kittens, and always had one on his shoulder. When he lay dead, his kitten would not leave him, and fought and spat to be allowed to remain. Three days before he died, he told me that a bird had been tapping at his window all the morning, saying, "That is a bad omen, you know?" I said I could not agree with him, because he had the habit of feeding the birds of the garden on his window-sill at seven every morning. He replied, "Ah, it was not that window, but another." And I found afterwards this little verse scribbled on the margin of his journal--
"Swallow, pilgrim swallow, Beautiful bird with purple plume, That, sitting upon my window-sill, Repeating each morn at the dawn of day That mournful ditty so wild and shrill,-- Swallow, lovely swallow, what would'st thou say, On my casement-sill at the break of day?"
[Sidenote: Our Last Happy Day.]
The day before his death (Sunday afternoon), the 19th of October, the last walk he ever took, he saw a little robin drowning in a tank in the garden. Crowds of birds were sitting around it on the trees, watching it drown, and doing nothing for it. He got Dr. Baker to get it out, and warmed it in his own hands, and put it in his fur coat, and made a fuss till it was quite restored, then put it in a cage to be kept and tended till well enough to fly away again.
The last night, the chief talk at dinner was about General Booth's article--the first that came out in the Pall Mall Budget--of "How to relieve the Millions." He took the greatest possible interest in it, because (as he said) they could get at people that no clergyman of any Church could get at, and it sounded such a sensible plan. He said to me, "When you and I get to London, and are quite free and settled, we will give all our spare time to that." This is the man who is supposed to have killed and crushed everything as he went about in triumph over the world.
In point of fact, the "Richard Burton" described by part of the press, notably by the Saturday Review--the Richard Burton quoted by a great portion of the people who professed to know him so well, and really hardly knew him at all, never existed--was a man I never knew and never saw.
To the last breath, there was never a saner, or a sounder, or a truer judgment in any man who walked this earth. He saw and knew all the recesses of men's minds and actions.
All those six weeks I was very uneasy to hear him talking more than ever agnostically at the table, and to our surroundings, and to witness the conflict going on within himself in the privacy of our own rooms, because I had been warned by people who have experience in these matters, that it would be the case the nearer he was to death; and yet his health seemed so well. It never struck me that death could be so near. He said once to me, after an unusual burst at tea, which had made me sad, "Do I hurt you when I talk like that?" And I smiled, and said rather sadly, "Well, yes; it always appears to me like speaking against our very best friend." He got a little pale, and said, "Well, I promise you that, after I am free from the Government and from our present surroundings, I won't talk like that any more." And I said, "How I long for that time to come!" And he answered, "So do I."
I realized the following quotation about prayer:--
"The time may be delayed, the manner may be unexpected, but the answer is sure to come. Nor a tear of sacred sorrow, not a breath of holy desire poured out in prayer to God, will ever be lost; but in God's own time and way it will be wafted back again, in clouds of mercy, and fall in showers of blessings on you, and those for whom you pray."
The nightingales were very beautiful in our garden at Trieste, and after dinner, it being unusually fine weather in September and October, we used to sit out on our verandah smoking, taking our coffee, looking at the beautiful moonlit sea and mountains, and the moon and stars through a large telescope that stood there for the purpose, And one day I found the following on the margin of his journal:--
"THE NIGHTINGALE.
"'Sweet minstrel of the younger year, Small Orpheus of the woody hill, Say why far more delight my soul That artless note, that untaught trill, Than all that tuneful art can find To charm the senses of mankind?'
"'Listen!' the Nightingale replied. 'The notes which thus thy feelings move By perfect Nature were supplied, To praise the Lord and sing of love. Hath Art ne'er taught mankind to sing High praises of a meaner thing?'"
THE END.
Let me recall the last happy day of my life. It was Sunday, the 19th of October, 1890. I went out to Communion and Mass at eight o'clock, came back and kissed my husband at his writing. He was engaged on the last page of the "Scented Garden," which had occupied him seriously only six actual months, not thirty years, as the Press said. He said to me, "To-morrow I shall have finished this, and I promise you that I will never write another book on this subject. I will take to our biography." And I said, "What a happiness that will be!" He took his usual walk of nearly two hours in the morning, breakfasting well. People came to tea; he had another walk in the garden, when the robin incident occurred.
"How oft we've wandered by the stream, Or in the garden's bound, Our hands and hearts together join'd; Pure happiness have found! But now we linger there no more, Beside the woods or burn, And all that I can utter now Is, 'When wilt thou return?'"
That afternoon we sat together writing an immense number of letters, which, when we had finished, I put on the hall table to be posted on Monday morning. Each letter breathed of life and hope and happiness, for we were making our preparations for a delightful voyage to Greece and Constantinople, which was to last from the 15th of November to the 15th of March. We were to return to Trieste from the 15th of March till the 1st of July. He would be a free man on the 19th of March, and those three months and a half we were to pack up, make our preparations, wind up all our affairs, send our heavy baggage to England, and, bidding adieu to Trieste, we were to pass July and August in Switzerland, arrive in England in September, 1891, look for a little flat and a little cottage, unpack and settle ourselves to live in England.
We had now been back in Trieste six weeks from Maloja, in the Engadine, and during those six weeks my husband did several things, with a difference that would have struck me, except for his improved health and spirits. How we should break our hearts could we see ahead, and yet how one regrets not seeing!
"What part has death or has time in him Who rode life's lists as a God might ride?" ----SWINBURNE.
During this time, in spite of his having his Agnostic-talking tendencies worse upon him than ever, at table and in company, in privacy he used to lock our outer doors for a short while twice daily and pray. Our six rooms ran round in a square, cut off from the rest of the house, and as his bedroom and mine were corner rooms, I had, quite accidentally, a large full-length mirror in my corner, that gave me command of three rooms, including the chapel, so that though he was alone I could see him. And I did not alter it, lest he might have a seizure of any sort. In the chapel was a large crucifix, and he would at times come in, and remain before it for half an hour together, and go away with moist, sad eyes, and sometimes look over the books or papers.
The only difference remarkable on this particular Sunday, 19th of October, was, that whereas my husband was dreadfully punctual, and with military precision as the clock struck we had to be in our places at the table, at half past seven he seemed to dawdle about the room, putting things away. He said to me, "You had better go in to table;" and I answered, "No, darling, I will wait for you;" and we went in together. He dined well, but sparingly; he laughed, talked, and joked. We discussed our future plans and preparations, and he desired me on the morrow to write to Sir Edmund Monson, and several other letters, to forward the preparations. We talked of our future life in London, and so on. About half-past nine he got up and went to his bedroom, accompanied by the doctor and myself, and we assisted him at his toilette. I then said the night prayers to him, and whilst I was saying them, a dog began that dreadful howl which the superstitious say denotes a death. It disturbed me so dreadfully, that I got up from the prayers, went out of the room, and called the porter to go out and see what was the matter with the dog. I then returned, and finished the prayers, after which he asked me for a novel. I gave him Robert Buchanan's "Martyrdom of Madeline." I kissed him, and got into bed, and he was reading in bed.
"I hear a voice you cannot hear, Which says I must not stay; I see a hand you cannot see, Which beckons me away." ----THOS. TICKELL.
"Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea.
"But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
"Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark.
"For tho' from out our bourne of Time and place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar." ----TENNYSON.
[Sidenote: The Sword falls--He is called away.]
At twelve o'clock midnight he began to grow uneasy. I asked him what ailed him, and he said, "I have a gouty pain in my foot. When did I have my last attack?" I referred to our journals, and found it was three months previously that he had had a real gout, and I said, "You know that the doctor considers it a safety-valve that you should have a healthy gout in your feet every three months for your head, and your general health. Your last attack was three months ago at Zurich, and your next will be due next January." He was then quite content, and though he moaned and was restless, he tried to sleep, and I sat by him magnetizing the foot locally, as I had the habit of doing to soothe the pain, and it gave him so much relief that he dozed a little, and said, "I dreamt I saw our little flat in London, and it had quite a nice large room in it." Betweenwhiles he laughed and talked and spoke of our future plans, and even joked.
At four o'clock he got more uneasy, and I said I should go for the doctor. He said, "Oh no, don't disturb him; he cannot do anything." And I answered, "What is the use of keeping a doctor if he is not to be called when you are suffering?" The doctor was there in a few moments, felt his heart and pulse, found him in perfect order--that the gout was healthy. He gave him some medicine, and went back to bed. About half-past four he complained that there was no air. I flew back for the doctor, who came and found him in danger. I went at once, called up all the servants, sent in five directions for a priest, according to the directions I had received, hoping to get one, and the doctor, and I and Lisa under the doctor's orders, tried every remedy and restorative, but in vain.
What harasses my memory, what I cannot bear to think of, what wakes me with horror every morning from four till seven, when I get up, is that for a minute or two he kept on crying, "Oh, Puss, chloroform--ether--or I am a dead man!" My God! I would have given him the blood out of my veins, if it would have saved him, but I had to answer, "My darling, the doctor says it will kill you; he is doing all he knows." I was holding him in my arms, when he got heavier and heavier, and more insensible, and we laid him on the bed. The doctor said he was quite insensible, and assured me he did not suffer. I trust not; I believe it was a clot of blood to the heart.
My one endeavour was to be useful to the doctor, and not impede his actions by my own feelings. The doctor applied the electric battery to the heart, and kept it there till seven o'clock, and I knelt down at his left side, holding his hand and pulse, and prayed my heart out to God to keep his soul there (though he might be dead in appearance) till the priest arrived. I should say that he was insensible in thirty minutes from the time he said there was no air.
It was a country Slav priest, lately promoted to be our parish priest, who came. He called me aside, and told me that he could not give Extreme Unction to my husband, because he had not declared himself, but I besought him not to lose a moment in giving the Sacrament, for the soul was passing away, and that I had the means of satisfying him. He looked at us all three, and asked if he was dead, and we all said no. God was good, for had he had to go back for the holy materials it would have been too late, but he had them in his pocket, and he immediately administered Extreme Unction--"Si vivis," or "Si es capax"--"If thou art alive"--and said the prayers for the dying and the departing soul. The doctor still kept the battery to the heart all the time, and I still held the left hand with my finger on the pulse. By the clasp of the hand, and a little trickle of blood running under the finger, I judged there was a little life until seven, and then I knew that, unless that happened which had happened to me,[2] that I was alone and desolate for ever.
[Sidenote: The Sixty Hours between Death and Funeral.]
I sat all day by Richard, watching him, and praying and expecting him also to come to. I thought the mouth and left eye moved, but the doctor told me it was imagination. But what was no imagination, was that the brain lived after the heart and pulse were gone;[3] that on lifting up the eyelids, the eyes were as bright and intelligent as in life, with the brilliancy of a man who saw something unexpected and wonderful and happy; and that light remained in them till near sunset, and I believe that soul went forth with the setting sun, though it had set for me for ever. I was so convinced of his happiness, that I lifted up my heart to God in a fervent thanksgiving for him, and I knelt down with my broken heart and said my "Fiat voluntas tua," and when I rose up I said, "Let the world rain fire and brimstone on me now." It has!
"So nigh is glory unto dust, So near is God to man, When Christ whispers low, 'Thou must,' The heart replies, 'I can.'"
Before twelve o'clock that morning, eight Masses were said for him in the churches. My confessor came to pray by his side. Burials here take place very soon, but I had sixty hours conceded to me; and there were prayers going on in that room, offered up by priests, pious people, and the orphans from our orphanage, who passed the night by him from eight p.m. till six a.m., watching and praying and reciting the office for the dead, the rosary, and singing hymns; and all day there were good people doing the same, and myself always. It was I who closed his eyes and who bound up the jaw, and the doctor who straightened the limbs. He looked in a peaceful sleep, with adorable dignity and repose--a very majesty in his death--every inch a man, a soldier, and a gentleman.
"Weep no more about my bed; Weep no more, be comforted. Where I am ye soon shall come; This, this only, is our home. I am only gone before, Just a moment's little space; Soon upon the painless shore You shall see me face to face; Then will smile and wonder why You should weep that I should die." ----CHARLES A. READE.
"Jesus, I have not loved Thee best, Nor given my heart to Thee; But let my truant bosom rest On meaner things than Thee. 'Twas love that led Thy hand to part, That cherished idol from my heart."
Mr. Albert Letchford, sculptor and artist, who had been working in our house for nearly a year, painted a most striking picture (natural size) of my husband after death, which is now my dearest treasure. He also took a plaster bust, and his hand and foot, which were beautifully formed and small. The hand and foot are mine; the bust was purchased by Richard's friend, F. F. Arbuthnot, but broke in the casting. All day friends flocked in, as the custom is, to say a prayer, and to sprinkle the body with holy water--not counting those who stayed there. The idea was suggested to me that I need not bury him at Trieste, and so exile myself from home for the remainder of my days; that the Austrian Government in its great kindness and delicacy would make a way open for me; and when I reflected how he longed to reach England, and to lay his bones in his native land, I determined that it should be so, though not in the manner we had hoped and wished, and that my home should still be "our cottage." For a sure test of real death, I requested that the left ulnar vein should be opened, and a strong charge of electricity should be applied for two hours; and then the embalmers came, and I was turned out of the room.
There are two ways of embalming. The one is disembowelling, and filling with spices as in the old days, but that would have necessitated the body being removed from the house. The other, a more modern way, is the injection of some substance in the veins, which, if a success, makes the body look like white marble. This latter was the one chosen. Only I was not allowed to kiss him after, and everything in the room that was used, even to the mattress, had to be burnt. The embalming was done by the Protofisico, Dr. Constantini, and Dr. Merlato, with three assistants, our doctor and Mr. Letchford being present. Our ritual enjoins the observance of the customs of the country in which we live; he was therefore laid out in full uniform, the room dressed like a chapelle ardente, surrounded with candles, and covered with wreaths sent by friends.
"His dews drop mutely on the hill, His cloud above it saileth still, Though on its slopes men sow and reap: More softly than the dew is shed, Or cloud is floated overhead, 'He giveth His belovèd sleep.'" ----MRS. BROWNING.
I find something so horrible, so repulsive, in the people who frequently abandon the dead, because they cannot bear to see them die, and leave them alone; who leave the corpse in its winding-sheet in a darkened chamber, which the household and family rush by, as if some dreadful horror was there; where no prayers or sacrifices follow to help the soul, which sees its abandonment by those whom it held dear. It seems to me that the consignment of the body to a low dark place, and the glad flying away from it, is something fearful. It makes one think of the Saviour when He descended to the Garden of Gethsemane, when Time was over for Him, and all whom He loved and trusted fled from Him. Judas betrayed, Peter denied, Thomas disbelieved, they all slept, they all hid, they all ran away from Him; and whilst He sweated blood for us, not one watched and prayed with Him. So with the soul.
"When from the trammels of this life terrestrial The Glorifier, Death, shall set us free, The pure expansion of a love celestial Shall bind me closer, O my love, to thee."
The Protestant clergyman, a most charming gentleman, earnest in his profession, and a staunch friend, soon came in. I asked him if he would like to do anything, but he said, "No, there was nothing to be done." But he himself knelt down and said a very beautiful prayer.
[Sidenote: The Funeral at Trieste.]
I can never forget what Austria in general, and Trieste in particular, did in Richard's honour, nor could I ever say enough of the kindness, delicacy, courteousness, affection, and esteem shown to me, his desolate widow. I asked for nothing, for I felt how difficult was the question. I only asked that he might not be put in the ground, but into some chapelle ardente, from whence I might take him home as soon as I could arrange to leave. To my great contentment and lasting gratitude, I found that the Bishop had conceded to him all the greatest ceremonies of the Church, and the authorities a gorgeous military funeral, such as is only accorded to Royalty--an honour never before accorded to a foreigner. One half-Englishman came and made some objections on behalf of a small section of English, and claimed him for the much-abhorred place in the little English Protestant cemetery, and said that they would not come to the Funeral or the Church if it was to be Catholic. But Dr. Baker gallantly took our part, and told this person in very plain terms what he thought about it, and that they had better stay away, so that I never even heard of the annoyance till it was over.
The coffin was covered with the Union Jack and his sword; his insignia and medals were borne on a cushion, and a second hearse was hid in garlands and flowers. The Consular corps for the first time suspended their rule, and in full uniform surrounded and walked on each side of the hearse as pall-bearers. At their own special request, a company representing the crew of a large English ship, which had just arrived in port, made a conspicuous part of the cortège. I came next, but I was too stunned to notice details; but they tell me that no funeral has been equal to it in the memory of any one living, not even Maria Theresa's, ex-Queen of Spain, in 1873. It was not, as in England, a case of six or eight hundred attending; there are one hundred and fifty thousand in Trieste, and every one who could drive or walk, from the highest authorities to the poorest, turned out. The Governor with his Staff, the principal Military and Naval officers, Civil Authorities and Consular corps, were all in uniform, and every flag in the town and harbour was at half-mast.
If I were to live to be a hundred years old, to my dying day there will be photographed on my mind, the sun setting red in the sea over the burial-ground; the short, beautiful oration of his friend Attilio Hortis, who was commissioned by the local Government to speak, but whose voice was broken. The orphanage children then sang, with sweet tremulous voices, the hymn "Dies ira, dies illa," and sobs were heard all around. I alone was tearless; I felt turned to stone. The coffin was placed in a small chapel in the burial-ground, where I remained behind the rest.
"Ellati Zaujuhá ma'ahá b'tadir el Ramar b'asbiha." "(The woman who has her husband with her (i.e. at her back) can turn the moon with her finger.")
"El Maraa min ghayr Zaujuhá mislahá tayarán maksús el Jenáhh." ("The woman without her husband is like a bird with one wing.")
I can never forget--but all unhappy widows will understand me--my horrible return to my empty shell, the house, leaving him in the burial-ground, which but sixty-three hours before had been a beautiful and much-loved home. Two days later the guardian of the cemetery had his own bedroom draped, adorned, and consecrated as a chapelle ardente, and the coffin was conveyed there, the other chapel being too public. It was always decorated with lights and flowers, and I had free access to go and pray by him, and I was allowed to keep him there for the three months I was preparing to leave Trieste. Everything possible was done in consideration of my feelings, everything possible was spared me, and when an Austrian official proceeding was necessary, it was done with the delicacy and nobility which is the stamp of that country.
On the Thursday after his death, a eulogy of Richard was delivered in the Diet of Trieste by Dr. Cambon, who praised him as "an intrepid explorer, a gallant soldier, an honour to the town of Trieste, which is especially indebted to him for his researches into the history of the province of Istria." The House adjourned as a mark of respect for the deceased hero.
[Sidenote: The Dreadful Time that followed.]
I do not like to think of those first three weeks, so full of the depth of woe. It is impossible for me to tell how kind every one was, how all Trieste combined with goodness and tenderness and attention that nothing might hurt. Meanwhile the press was full of him. How I wish he could have known--but he did know and see--all the appreciation and the regret for him, as shown by notices in the press, of which I have books full, the flowers, the telegrams, the cards, the letters, and calls, all showing how truly he really was appreciated, except by the handful who could have made his life happy by Success. The City had three great funeral requiems with Mass sung, and all the obsequies. One took place at the Capuchins, one at the parish church, one at the Orphanage of St. Joseph.
I now ascertained, through friends who spoke to the Dean, what the intentions were about Westminster Abbey, and the Dean replied that it would be impossible to bury any more people at the Abbey; nor can I say that I was very sorry. Neither did St. Paul's offer. I saved our dignity by taking the initiative, following a line of our own, and refused before I was asked. It might have pleased a few people, but I know he would not have cared about it, neither did I. In these churches a showman would have occasionally earned a sixpence by pointing out a cold dark slab to trippers, and saying, "There lies Burton, Speke, Livingstone," etc., etc., and many others, some of whom were not fit to tie the latchet of his shoe--his name in a common list of theirs.
He and I had our peculiar ideas, and I was determined, if I could, to carry them out. He hated darkness so much that he never would have the blind down, lest he might lose a glimpse of light from twilight to dawn. He has got the very thing he wanted, only of stone and marble instead of canvas--to be buried in a tent above ground; to have sun, and light, and air, trees, birds, and flowers; and he has love, tears, prayers, and companionship even in the grave. His tent is the only one in the world, and it is by far the most beautiful, most romantic, most undeathlike resting-place in the wide world.
Cutting from Black and White, June 20th, 1891.
"A tomb shaped like an Eastern tent stands amidst alien palms in a little corner of English earth beside the Thames. Within that tomb, in the churchyard at Mortlake on Monday last, one of the greatest Englishmen of the reign was laid to rest. Under happier conditions and in a freer age Richard Burton might have founded an Empire; had his life been passed in the service of some great Continental Power, Richard Burton would have received much honour from the State while he lived, much honour from the State at his death. It is somewhat disheartening to think that, because he lived in our time and gave his services to the Government, he died a Consul at Trieste--a desert eagle in a cage--with his genius almost unrecognized by the State; to think that after his death it was left to his widow and his friends to bear him to his grave with such ceremony as they deemed fitting. He was placed in his tomb with the most solemn rites of the Catholic faith, in the presence of many of those who knew him best and loved him most--and no one knew him well, who did not love him. The great career is over; the life of endless adventure, tireless enterprise, unfading courage, is done, and Mortlake earth holds the bones of the hero."
"Rapt though he be from us, Virgil salutes him, and Theocritus; Catullus, mightiest-brained Lucretius, each Greets him, their brother, on the Stygian beach; Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante reach; Milton and Wordsworth bid him welcome home; Bright Keats to touch his raiment doth beseech; Coleridge, his locks aspersed with fairy foam, Calm Spencer, Chaucer suave, His equal friendship crave: And godlike spirits hail him guest, in speech Of Athens, Florence, Weimar, Stratford, Rome. ----"WILLIAM WATSON.
"October 15, 1892."
Finding my purse would be too slender to carry it out, and as friends started subscriptions for me,[4] I secured my ground, made my design, and set sculptors at work in the cemetery in which, for the last forty years, most of my people have been buried, and which he himself had chosen.
"Beautiful rest where the willows weep, Beautiful couch where the moss lies deep, Beautiful life that earns beautiful sleep."
My desire was to embody the beautiful idea found in the tombs of Lydia and Lycia, and which is enshrined in the Taj Mahal at Agra. The early tomb-builders had doubtless some connection with Nomads, and embodied the conception that the home in death should be like that of the home on earth. For this reason I feel, the public have not quite understood the beauty of my mausoleum-tent. I wished to embody the poetry contained in my husband's "Kasîdah," with the religion he wished to die in. I have sent to the desert for strings of camel-bells, which will hang across the tent, and like an Æolian harp when the wind blows, the tinkle of the camel-bells may still sound near him. I have asked Major J. B. Keith, in his "Monograph on Indian Architecture," which will include tentage and tombs, to explain my meaning in his "Great Tents of Antiquity" better than I have done for myself.
I felt the necessity, in my altered circumstances, of trying to arouse myself, that I might do what I knew he would wish me to do--to leave Trieste, and carry out all that we should have done had he been alive. I lost all at once; my beautiful home had been my pride--it had to be given up. The money, except a little patrimony, died with my husband. I had to say good-bye to all the friends I had loved for eighteen years. Lisa, my confidential maid upon whom I entirely depended, to whom I owed all my personal comfort, who managed everything for me, and who alone knew all my belongings, I had to part with, for reasons which I do not wish to mention here. We had always had what was playfully called a very large "staff" in our house in my husband's life. The Master being dead--if I had been a sensible woman--I should have cleared my house out directly after the funeral; but I was too absorbed with the horrors of my now desolate position, and I had neither sense nor heart enough to make any changes. From this arose complications, misunderstandings, and heart-burnings enough to make life still more unbearable. We all know what one bad bit of yeast does to a loaf of bread. I shut myself up entirely alone in my husband's rooms for sixteen days, sorting and classifying his manuscripts, packing and arranging his books, and carrying out all his last wishes and written instructions. What a terrible time it was I passed in the midst of these relics, shutting myself away in solitude, and rejecting all offers of assistance, as I could not bear any one to witness what I had to go through, and also there were many private papers which I knew nobody ought to see but myself, and much that he particularly desired me to burn if anything happened to him.
The only letters Richard had not yet answered, and which would have been answered the following Thursday, were--A. Jameson, of Riverbank, Newmilns, Ayrshire, Scotland; Miss Bird, 49, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square; John Addington Symonds, Am Hof, Davos-Platz, Switzerland; M. Zotenberg, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Lady Stisted, Grazeley, Gypsy Hill, S.E.; Dr. F. Steingass, 6, Gairloch Road, Camberwell, S.E.; George Faber, our English Consul at Fiume; J. J. Aubertin, 33, Duke Street, St. James's.
[Sidenote: Colonel Grant attacks Richard after his Death.]
My husband died on the 20th of October, 1890, and on the 25th of October Colonel Grant ventured to attack him for the first time in print, and the following letter appeared in the Times of the 28th of October, 1890:--
"BURTON AND SPEKE.
"To the Editor of the Times.
"Sir,--In the Times of the 21st inst. there is a notice of the death of Sir Richard Burton, an extract from which I give here: 'To the unhappy dispute between Burton and Speke, which gave rise to such bitter feeling, it is not necessary to do more than allude.' I do not myself see why your readers should have any doubt as to which of the two travellers was to blame for this 'unhappy dispute,' neither why a slur should rest on the memory of Speke, one of the most upright men I ever knew--brave, noble, and true.
"Burton's instructions from the Royal Geographical Society were:--
"'The great object of the expedition is to penetrate from Kilwa, etc., and to make the best of your way to the Lake of Nyassa, etc. Having obtained all the information you require here, you are to proceed northwards, etc., towards the source of the Bahr-el-Abiad (White Nile), which it will be your next great object to discover. You will be at liberty to return to England by descending the Nile, or you may return by the route you advanced.'
"On his return from Unyanyembe after discovering Lake Tanganyika, his companion, Speke, wished him to follow up the above instructions, but Burton, using strong language, declared 'he was not going to see any more lakes.' Hence Speke went north alone and discovered the Victoria Nyanza, returning to Unyanyembe with his twenty followers. The discovery of this lake seems to have been galling to Burton; it created a 'bitter feeling,' and few words were exchanged by them during the remaining part of the journey to the East Coast. Things went from bad to worse. Speke was too generous to publish what occurred at this time, but he communicated grave charges against Burton to his relatives and to the Geographical Society, and the judgment of the Society was shown in the fact of their selecting Speke, and not Burton, to complete his discoveries.
"The two travellers had no sympathies, their natures entirely differed. Speke observed and mapped and collected the specimens of natural history. He was the geographer and sportsman of the expedition. Burton knew little of these matters. He excelled in his own line, made copious notes by day and by night of all he saw and heard; he had the gift of languages; while surrounded by natives he amused them, won their confidence, and so obtained those stores of information which have been since transferred to something like eighty volumes. He travelled with three heavy cases of books for consultation. These included a work on the Upper Nile, which would have been of important service to Speke--had he ever seen it!
"A sore subject of 'quarrel' was the non-payment of the Wanyamezi porters who had accompanied them to their own 'Land of the Moon.' These men did not receive their just wages, in consequence of which upwards of a hundred of the same race deserted the next expedition, which was in command of Captain Speke and me.
"Under the above circumstances, and many more I could name, no one will feel surprised that 'unhappy disputes' and 'bitter feeling' existed between the two travellers, and I cannot see how it can be said of Sir Richard Burton that 'no man ever succeeded better with the natives of Africa and Asia.' Neither do I agree with the writer of the article that he was 'a man of real humanity,' when I consider his treatment of his companion and his native followers.
"My long-dead friend's honour is too dear to me to allow a shade of doubt to rest on his honoured name; therefore, with all respect for those who mourn the more recently dead, I ask your insertion of this in your valued paper.
"I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
"J. A. GRANT, Lieut-Col.
"Househill, Nairn, October 25th."
[Sidenote: I answer directly to the "Graphic" in Two Parts.]
I only saw it (as I refused to look at newspaper scraps in my grief) on the 4th of January, 1891, and I answered as follows:--
[Sidenote: My Answer.]
"In my earliest agony after my husband's death, Colonel Grant's letter to the Times was the first that caught my eyes, and the bitter cry arose to my lips--
'He had not dared to do it, Except he surely knew my lord was dead;'
and I read no more. I do regret that he had not written this letter any time within the last thirty-one years, that my husband might have heard and answered the 'grave charges' of which Colonel Grant speaks now, but of which Richard Burton never heard; but he is not dead so long as I live.
"Now that Burton and Speke are together above, there are only two below who may venture to give an opinion on the matter--Colonel Grant and I.[5] If I live, my future work will be to write my husband's life; but as that will take me some time, I cannot have the public misled until then. I know I am right in saying that, whatever the Royal Geographical Society may have thought then, they have since learned the truth, and know what a true and valuable member they possessed in Richard Burton, of which they have now given me most gratifying proofs. No one can speak so truly as I can, because I possess all Richard Burton's private journals; I know all the secrets of his life for the past thirty-five years. I have all Speke's letters, and the copies of my husband's to him. Men do not tell everything to their men-friends. I knew Speke, and I am less offended with Colonel Grant because I believe him honest and staunch, and that he says what he thinks he knows. I will give the résumé of my knowledge, trying to avoid detail.
"When Richard Burton was preparing for his lake journey into Africa (1856) I was just engaged to him, and John Hanning Speke, his friend, wanted to accompany him as second in command. Burton applied for him, and, after difficulties, leave was granted. Speke had been already with him to Somali-land, and knew perfectly well what travelling with Burton meant, and was glad to go again. Speke was not then, nor did he pretend to be, a geographer, a scientist, an explorer; he was a first-rate sportsman, and he meant to shoot, to get ivory and specimens for natural history, to collect the fauna and animals north of the Line in Africa, but he never gave the Nile a thought. That was Richard's hobby. Richard advised him to coach up all that would be most useful on the journey, in case one of them should fall sick; and he did, for all the world knows what a terrible journey they had pioneering and cutting their way, with no money, no comforts, no support, or protection. That was in days when exploring meant losing your life at a moment's notice, perishing of hunger, thirst, privation, fever, hostile natives, wild beasts, and reptiles. There was no picnicking on champagne and truffles then, no 'riding to Tanganyika in a bath-chair.' It was work for men. They were both fearfully ill on and off. They were great friends, and called each other Dick and Jack.
"All the spare time in tents Richard helped Speke with his scientific instruments, correcting up journals and maps, and learning the languages as spoken there. When Speke was ill Burton tended him like a woman, and when Burton was ill Speke did not repay him in kind. There were no quarrels, but Speke had a peculiarity which, when once Richard had become familiar with, he respected, but found a little trying--there being only two of them. Speke would be silent for days, when Richard would find out that he had unconsciously given some little offence which Speke had treasured up. Many people have that temperament. When they had been absent over two years, and Speke had got well, but Richard was down with fever, Speke was impatient to go on; Richard therefore sent him forward in the direction of Nyanza, which was Speke's great discovery, and he eventually came back triumphant, saying he had 'discovered the sources of the Nile.' Richard said, 'It seems almost too good to be true.' Speke, being well, wanted naturally to return, and push on, but Richard said to him, 'I am a much older man than you, Jack, and I am not getting better. You will be ill again, and I unable to nurse you, and we shall both be down at once, much further from home, our money and stores giving out, our followers discontented. Consent to our return, and we will go home, recruit our health, report what we have done, get some more money, return together and finish our whole journey.'
"Speke agreed, and they set out on the return journey to the coast, and when they reached Aden, Richard being too weak for the journey, and Speke impatient to get to England, Richard agreed to come on by the next steamer. There was no quarrel up to this. As regards the non-payment of the negroes, it was thus: The porters were to receive a certain pay for their services, and an extra reward if they behaved well. They behaved ill, and therefore Richard, being the Chief, decided that they should receive their pay only, but not their reward, because he said, 'If they are rewarded for their ill-doing, they will behave ill to us when we return, and to any future travellers, being certain of their money, no matter what their conduct. They will not respect us, but only think we act from fear.' Speke at first objected, but then said it was right; so did Consul Rigby. They both changed afterwards to suit circumstances. Any one who is used to negroes will know that if they behaved well to Speke and Grant afterwards, and others who followed, it was because of this mulct which Burton had the courage to stand by, and receive the blame at home for. My husband was lavish of his money, and when any one of his dependents had to be punished he used to say, 'I will do anything sooner than dock their pay.' To me it sounds supremely ridiculous to speak of such a thing in connection with his name. Now, when Richard and Speke parted, it was on the best of terms. Richard said, 'I shall hurry up, Jack, as soon as I can,' and Speke's parting words--the last he ever spoke to him--were, 'Good-bye, old fellow. You may be quite sure I shall not go up to the Royal Geographical Society until you come to the fore and we appear together; make your mind quite easy about that.' I need not say that the appearance of Speke alone in London gave us the keenest anxiety. Here comes in the quarrel.
"On board the same ship with Speke, part of the way home, was Laurence Oliphant. I liked Laurence Oliphant, so did Richard, and so did and do hundreds in London, and I am ashamed to write anything against a dead man, but I must do it to defend my own. He got hold of and poisoned Speke's mind against Richard. He said 'that Burton was a jealous man, and being Chief of the expedition he would take all the glory of Nyanza, which, he said, was undoubtedly the true source of the Nile, for himself; that if he were in Speke's place he would go up to the Royal Geographical Society at once, and get the command of the second expedition; that he would back him, and get others to.' Speke resisted at first, but his vanity prevailed, and carried him along until one thing after another was piled up against the unconscious absentee.[6] I grieve to say that these were neither the first friends nor the last that Laurence Oliphant sundered with no apparent settled object. He worked upon Speke till he planted the seed of bitter enmity against Richard to the end. I mentioned this to Mr. Stanley in August, 1890, at Maloja, and he replied, 'How very odd; he did exactly the same to me!' When Richard arrived, this information was the first that greeted him--that his friend and companion had cast him off, and become his enemy. He had gone up to the Royal Geographical Society, and secured all the honour of the expedition, and had been appointed to command the second expedition with Colonel Grant.
"I shall never forget Richard Burton as he was then. He had had twenty-one attacks of fever, was partially paralyzed, and partially blind; he was a mere skeleton, with brown yellow skin hanging in bags, his eyes protruding, and his lips drawn away from his teeth. I used to support him about the Botanical Gardens for fresh air, and sometimes convey him away almost fainting in a cab. The Government and the Royal Geographical Society looked coldly on him. The Indian Army brought him under the reduction; he was almost penniless, and he had hardly a friend to greet him. 'Jack' was the hero of the hour, the Stanley of 1859-64. This was one of the martyrdoms of that uncrowned king's life, and I think that but for me he would have died. He never abused Speke as a mean man would have done; he used to say, 'Jack is one of the bravest fellows in the world. If he has a fault, it is overweening vanity and being so easily flattered. In good hands, he would be the best of men. Let him alone; he will be very sorry some day, though that won't mend my case.' It is interesting to mark in their letters how they descend from 'dear Jack' and 'dear Dick' to 'dear Burton' and 'dear Speke,' until they become 'sir.' Now I must tell you, in Speke's favour, that the injury once done to his friend and the glory won for himself, he was not happy with it.
"Speke and I had a mutual friend--a lady well known in society as Kitty Dormer (Countess Dormer). Through her auspices, Speke and I met, and also exchanged many messages, and we nearly succeeded in reconciling Burton and Speke, and would have done, but for the anti-influences around him. He said to me, 'I am so sorry, and I don't know how it all came about. Burton was so kind to me, nursed me like a woman, taught me such a lot, and I was so fond of him, but it would be too difficult for me to go back now.' And upon that last sentence he always remained.
"At last came the British Association Meeting (Bath, September, 1864). We had been married in 1861, and were back on leave from the West Coast of Africa. Laurence Oliphant conveyed to Burton that Speke had said that if Burton appeared on the platform at Bath (which was, as it were, Speke's native town) he would kick him. I remember Richard's answer: 'Well, that settles it. By God, he shall kick me;' and so to Bath we went. There was to be no speaking on Africa the first day, but the next day was fixed for the great discussion between Burton and Speke. The first day we went on to the platform close to Speke. He looked at Richard and at me, and we at him. I shall never forget his face. It was full of sorrow, of yearning, and perplexity. Then he seemed to turn to stone. After a while he began to fidget a great deal, and exclaimed half aloud, 'Oh, I cannot stand this any longer.' He got up to go out. The man nearest him said, 'Shall you want your chair again, sir? May I have it? Shall you come back?' And he answered, 'I hope not,' and left the hall. The next day a large crowd was assembled for this famous discussion. All the distinguished people were with the Council; Burton alone was excluded, and stood on the platform, we two alone, he with his notes in his hand. There was a delay of about twenty-five minutes, and then the Council and speakers filed in and announced the terrible accident out shooting that had befallen poor Speke shortly after his leaving the hall the day before. Burton sank into a chair, and I saw by the workings of his face the terrible emotion he was controlling and the shock he had received. When called upon to speak, in a voice that trembled he spoke of other things and as briefly as he could. When we got home, he wept long and bitterly, and I was for many a day trying to comfort him.
"Yours obediently,
"ISABEL BURTON."
There were old servants to be placed out, many people dependent on us, institutions of which I was President to be wound up, debts to be paid, old friends to say good-bye to. My husband's and my personal effects, his library and manuscripts, were packed in two hundred and four cases. Having been eighteen years at Trieste, I felt there would be a meanness in selling, so I furnished the orphanage, and a few rooms for Lisa, and gave away everything where I thought it would be most useful or most valued; and this, with constant visits to my beloved in the chapelle ardente, which was half an hour's drive away, occupied fourteen weeks, though I got up at six and worked till ten p.m. I never rested, and it was a life of torture. I used to wake at four, the hour he was taken ill, and go through all the horrors of his three hours' illness until seven. I prayed for supernatural strength of soul and body, and it was really given to me.
I became almost listless as to exterior things; I suppose that is always the way with a deep-sea grief. I had a little relief by the coming of my cousin Canon Waterton, of Carlisle, and he, by leave from the Vatican, said Mass in our chapel, gave me Communion every morning, stayed with us a month, and helped me wonderfully with the books and manuscripts. He is a highly educated man of good family, living in the best society, was educated in France, so he was a fitting person to consult on many points, to which no one else there could have helped me. I should like to say a word of parting with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose affairs I wound up before leaving, because the history is rather curious, and will interest a large body of people who subscribed to it. I had employed four active men; the rest of the Society was nominal. One of these men died of apoplexy one month after my husband; the second had a stroke of paralysis and died immediately after I left; the third fell into a well, and his body was not found till several days; the fourth was very ill of blood-poisoning, had to be sent away, but has since returned and is well--five of us put hors de combat, as I was stricken down with grief. I left a complete chart of directions as to how the remaining money, 1916 florins, should be employed, after which there would be no more funds, and the work closed. The remaining man is Inspector Mottek, of the police, and one new man, both of whom I can trust. The money is under control of the bank, the accounts are sent to me every three months. It has lasted two years and three months, and I believe there are a few florins still left. This will comfort my numerous donors.
[Sidenote: The Beloved Remains are removed to England.]
On the 20th of January, 1891, I had to go to the Sant' Anna Cemetery to see the beloved remains prepared, and conveyed on board the Cunard steamer Palmyra at the New Port. The remains had been placed in a leaden shell, with a glass over the face; this was again closed in a very handsome coffin of steel and gilt. On this day it was put into a plain white deal case, two inches thick, dovetailed, and secured with iron clamps and screws, and painted in black--"To the Rev. Canon Wenham, Catholic Church, Mortlake, S.W., Surrey, England." The case was filled with sawdust, in which, according to Austrian law, a bottle of carbolic acid was poured, which has rather stained the coffin. (I cannot think who could have started the irreverent report in the press that it was a piano-case.) Accompanied by the Vice-Consul, Mr. Cautley, I proceeded to the steamer, and saw the precious case lowered, and put into a dry and secured place. Poor good Louis Marcovich, the guardian of the cemetery, would not take one single penny of the present that I had prepared for him, for giving up his bedroom for three months. He only said, clasping my hand, "Don't send it me, because I shall only send it back again. I have got a nice consecrated room to die in;" which he did, poor fellow, about a year later. May God reward him for his good work!
[Sidenote: I leave Trieste and go to Liverpool.]
The last night came, and twenty of my friends came up to spend the last evening with me. My work was only finished about two hours before I had to start, and I walked round and round to every room, recalling all my life in that happy home and all the sad events that had lately taken place. I gazed at all those beautiful views for the last time--at the tablet over the place where my husband's death-bed stood, recalling his death; another tablet in the chapel where the Masses had been said; and I looked around with parting eyes. I went into every nook and cranny of the garden, and under our dear linden tree, where my husband and I had so often sat (a little branch of which I have now framed in my room); my servants following me about, crying bitterly, and saying, "Oh, my dear mistress, we shall never have your husband's and your like again; we shall never have such another house as this." Then came carriages full of our friends to take me away, and the dreadful wrench made me cry all the way down to the station. There I found all that was worth of Society, and Authorities, and the children of our Orphanage, and our Poor, and all our private friends, bearing flowers. It was an awful trial not to make an exhibition of myself, and I was glad when the train steamed out; but for a whole hour ascending the beautiful road close to the sea and Miramar and Trieste, I never took my misty eyes off Trieste, and our home where I had been so happy for eighteen years, and which I shall never see again.
"A TRIESTE.
"Quando la sera piano sprofonda Il sol nell' onda--solcando il mar, Presso la riva d' un mesto addio Il suol natio--vo' a salutar.
"Veggo le case, le ville, i monti, Che ai bei tramonti--pajono d' or E 'l scosso mare che con dolcezza Bagna e accarezza--le sponde ancor.
"Qua e là pur veggo qualche nocchiero Che con leggero--legno va e vien, E qualche vela che al debil raggio Tributa omaggio--nell' ampio sen.
"Mentre la sera man mano imbruna Veggo la luna--nel ciel vagar, Dietro alle nubi va lentamente, Poi, di repente--si specchia in mar.
"Indi apparire veggo una stella Lieve ma bella--d' aureo splendor, E poi dell' altre formano in cielo Screziato un velo--di luce e d' or.
"Poi, da lontano; la u' v' è Trieste Debili e meste--sovra il terren Veggo brillare mille più e mille Vaghe scintille--che van che vien.
"Talvolta io sento flebili tocchi, Poi, dei rintocchi--qua e la mandar Un cupo suono che giunge a meta Per l' aere cheta--lento a vagar.
"E allor contento penso a quel lido Mio dolce nido--di pace e amor E sospirando dico t' è degno II tronco e il regno--di quel splendor.
"Terra diletta se un qualche giorno A te ritorno--di vita pien, Allor baciare in dolce pianto Ti voglio tanto--caro terren." ----S. DI G. SFETEZ.
My first care on arriving in England was to go and see Richard's sister and niece, and acquaint them with all the circumstances and my intentions. I arrived in London on the 7th of February, 1891, and having no home, went to the Langham for a few days to look about for a lodging. At the Langham my three sisters were waiting for me.
On the 9th I immediately went to Messrs. Dyke, 49, Highgate Road, to inspect the monument, and to give orders respecting everything, and found, to my great distress, that, owing to the severity of the weather, it would be difficult to say when we could get the remainder of the Forest of Dean stone. On the 10th I went to Mortlake, chose my ground and had it pegged out, made arrangements with Canon Wenham, and on the 11th my sister, Mrs. Gerald Fitzgerald, and I went to Liverpool. I cannot say how ill I felt, and as soon as I arrived at Liverpool I had to go to bed. Friends began to arrive from different parts of England. Lord and Lady Derby, my best and kindest friends, had been so kind as to have everything seen to for me at Liverpool, and the Captain and the officers of the ships, the authorities of the dockyard, and the London and North-Western Company outvied each other in civility and courteous attention in the arrangements that were made for us.
The Palmyra (after a journey as smooth as a lake) arrived on the 12th of February, 1891, at midnight, and we were told to be on board at nine next morning. Carriages for my party, and a small hearse, were ready to convey us to the ship. We went on board, and were courteously received by the Captain, and the case containing the coffin was brought up and placed on a small bridge. I forgot the people when I saw my beloved case, and I ran forward to kiss it. Canon Waterton said a few prayers. The Captain, officers, and men knew my husband, and many of the dockyard men were Catholics. They all bowed their heads, the Catholics answered the prayers, and there were audible sobs all round. The case was conveyed to the hearse, and we proceeded to the station, where it was immediately put into a separate compartment next to the two saloons reserved for me and my party.
When we arrived at Euston we found a duplicate of these conveyances waiting to take us and the body to Mortlake. We unpacked the case, but Canon Wenham, who had gone out, kept us an hour and three-quarters. The evening was cold and damp, and by torchlight, with a prayer, we conveyed him to rest in the crypt under the altar of the church. I remained some time praying there, and then we all dispersed, my sister and myself going back to the Langham. The reaction, after all I had gone through, set in; there was no more call upon my courage. I was safe in England and amongst my own people; there was nothing more to be done for Richard till the funeral.
"Poor had been my life's best efforts, Now I waste no thought or breath; For the prayer of those who suffer Has the strength of love and death."
[Sidenote: I fall ill.]
My courage broke, and I took to my bed that night, the 13th of February, and nolens volens I was obliged to stay at the Langham, being too weak either to find or to be transferred to a lodging. I passed from the 13th of February till the 30th of April between bed and armchair, and latterly was taken down in the lift occasionally to dinner or lunch. Every one was most kind to me, and my sisters spoilt me, and came daily to lunch or dine. I cannot describe the horror of the seventy-six days, enhanced by the fog, which, after sunlight and air, was like being buried alive. The sense of desolation and loneliness and the longing for him was cruel, and it became--
"The custom of the day, And the haunting of the night."
My altered circumstances, and the looking into and facing my future, had also to be borne. From my sick bed I dictated answers to some two thousand letters, mostly of sympathy, writing out different business cases, and preparing for the funeral. Meantime the Queen had, in consideration of my husband's services, to my great gratitude and surprise, allowed me a pension of £150 a year.[7]
I would not have asked for anything for myself, but I thought that the British nation would take a pride in helping me to raise the characteristic monument so long wished for, to a man they so honoured, and who had devoted his life to the nation's interest in so many ways as he had done; and more so as I had over a thousand cuttings from newspapers and hundreds of letters saying that the nation wished his memory to be honoured by a testimonial. Nor was I disappointed, as, during the eight months, from his death to his final burial at Mortlake, I was helped by £668 towards it.[8]
On the 30th of April I was well enough to be transferred to a lodging, where my sister and I lived together; for the Langham was getting too gay, too full for me, nor could I afford it. Here I had privacy, quiet, and cheapness.
The funeral was finally fixed for Monday, the 15th of June, at eleven o'clock, and the final completions were only ended two hours before the ceremony began.
[Sidenote: The Mausoleum Tent complete.]
I had taken lodgings at Mortlake. The tent is sculptured in dark Forest of Dean stone and white Carrara marble. It is an Arab tent, twelve feet by twelve and eighteen feet high, surmounted by a gilt star of nine points. Over the flap door of the tent is a white marble crucifix. The fringe is composed of gilt cressets and stars. The flap door of the tent supports an open book of white marble, on which are inscribed Richard's name and the dates of his birth and decease. A blank page is left for "Isabel, his wife." Underneath is a ribbon with the words, "This monument is erected to his memory by his loving countrymen." Below, on a white marble tablet, is a beautiful sonnet written in a passion of grief by Justin Huntley McCarthy:--
"RICHARD BURTON.
"Farewell, dear friend, dead hero! The great life Is ended, the great perils, the great joys; And he to whom adventures were as toys, Who seemed to bear a charm 'gainst spear or knife Or bullet, now lies silent from all strife Out yonder where the Austrian eagles poise On Istrian hills. But England, at the noise Of that dread fall, weeps with the hero's wife. Oh, last and noblest of the Errant Knights, The English soldier and the Arab Sheik! Oh, singer of the East who loved so well The deathless wonder of the 'Arabian Nights,' Who touched Camoens' lute and still would seek Ever new deeds until the end! farewell!"
It is planted round with trees and flowers, and has a background of linden trees. It is, I think, the most beautiful little burial-ground in England, especially in summer time. In fact, it is so covered with flowers and embedded in trees as to look almost foreign, by its pretty little church and presbytery.
[Sidenote: The Funeral in England at Mortlake.]
The interior is nearly all marble; the floor, of white and black marble, covers a base of Portland cement (concrete), so that no damp can arise from the ground. The coffin of steel and gilt lies above ground on three marble trestles, with three trestles on the opposite side for me. At the foot of the coffin is a marble altar and tabernacle with candles and flowers, a window of coloured glass, with Richard's monogram, and the whole adorned with seven hanging and various other Oriental lamps. It is no small compliment to Messrs. Dyke, that many people who come into the ground ask "why the canvas cover is not taken off," and are quite astonished when they touch the stone. People were invited generally, but special invitations were issued to the senders of wreaths, telegrams, cards, letters, subscriptions, visits, editors of friendly newspapers, applications, private friends, and those who had interested themselves in my future. Eight hundred and fifty-two invitations were issued. Four hundred were down with influenza, but eight hundred people came all the same. Trains left Waterloo for Mortlake at 10.20 a.m., arriving at 11.47.
The ceremony began at eleven, lasting an hour and a half, giving time to a visitor to enter the mausoleum and get back to the station, which was a few yards from the church, for the one o'clock train back to London, the authorities being duly warned of the number of invited. The Church was very simply decorated with a fleur-de-lys carpet, the trestles were covered by a cramoisie velvet pall, being Richard's favourite colour, and the coffin was laid at the top of it, and covered with wreaths sent by friends, my little bunch of forget-me-nots lying where the face would be. It was surrounded by tall silver candlesticks with wax candles. I occupied a prie-dieu by his side; to my right were the women--on the left hand the men--mourners, headed by Captain St. George Burton of the Black Watch, his chief male relation, and both sides were composed of his and my relations, and his oldest friends. The procession filed out exactly at 11.10, the acolytes bearing flambeaux. The short requiem Mass of Casciolini was the one sung, by a London professional choir. Monsignor Stanley sang the Mass, assisted by several priests who had been personal friends of my husband. Then followed the Burial Service with its three absolutions, the priest walking round the coffin perfuming it with incense, and sprinkling it with holy water, and Canon Wenham, who performed this service in Latin, said in English, with a smile and a voice full of emotion, "Enter now into Paradise." The men then lifted the coffin, and a wreath was given to one of the lady mourners to carry, I taking my own little bunch of forget-me-nots, and following the coffin closely. Flanked a little lower down by the women and men mourners, and followed by all the assembled friends, the procession wound through the small but beautiful cemetery of St. Mary Magdalen's, Mortlake, to what seemed a veritable canvas tent pegged down amongst palm-trees, and he, who died eight months ago, was laid in his final resting-place. I begged that there might be no sermon or oration. When the coffin was deposited, the choir sang the Benedictus, and if there was any choice throughout the touching and impressive ceremony, perhaps this was the most impressive and the softest.
During the Benedictus the priest made a sign to me to go inside the mausoleum. I knelt and kissed the coffin, and put my forget-me-nots on it, and then I got behind the door. The other chief mourners passed into the tent, knelt, and deposited their wreaths and flowers. After the Benedictus, Canon Wenham, feeling that there were so many Protestants, said some English prayers; but his voice broke with emotion, and he had a difficulty in finishing them. When all was over, St. George Burton gave me his arm and conducted me to Canon Wenham's house, that I might not embarrass the public, who would like freely to enter the mausoleum and examine it. As I passed through the burial-ground, many friends shook hands with me, but I was so dazed I could not see them.
SIR RICHARD BURTON, KNIGHT.
Born 1821. Died 1890.
"He resteth now. His noble part is done, And Britain mourns another true-born son. His was the work that crowned with lasting fame The hallowed mem'ry of a gallant name. He gave the world the mysteries of men; He travelled lands unknown to history's pen, And braved the savage in his distant den. America and Asia's hills and plains-- Through Afric's darkest forest light he gains. The tree of knowledge bloomed for him its flow'rs Where grandest Nature showed her mighty pow'rs; And Heaven was his in all his lonely hours. Oh! name him as he sleeps through longest night A learned gentleman--a gallant Knight." ----W. J. NOWERS BRETT.
One might add--There lies the best husband that ever lived, the best son, the best brother, and the truest, staunchest friend.
Cardinal Manning had written me a beautiful letter full of blessings and consolation, in which he said, "As for myself, I will not fail to remember you on the day of the requiem--my heart will be with you; but I have not left the house for many months, and have ceased to officiate. I therefore cannot be with you, for I am within a few weeks of my eighty-fourth year."
Then one of my sisters took me away to the country at once.
At the end of July I went down to my Convent, the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, Essex. It has been full of my relations for six generations, and is like a second home to me. I passed most of my youth in it, and I returned to it with pleasure. There I found a mental and physical tonic. The 1st of September, 1891--the date that we were to have been settled in London together--I came to London, and took a small house in Baker Street, and finding I could never keep away from the mausoleum, I bought a very little cottage close to it, and I set about making them comfortable and pretty, out of my two hundred and four cases from Trieste, and a little second-hand furniture.
During this sad time, death has been alarmingly busy with us. We were four sisters, all married. One sister, exactly like me, died in September; all three sisters lost their husbands in November, January, and September; and one sister lives with me. I was brought to death's door with influenza in January, 1892, but I was spared to do the work I am now doing. I got my books and papers housed in March, 1892. The books are tidied and classified, but my papers are not; but I was afraid to trust to sufficient life if I took six months to put them in order, so I have hurried on to give these pages to the world, and whilst I live I shall transact the rest of his literary work set forth in the preface. The loss of eight immediate relatives and my own wretched health have marked little epochs in the period that has elapsed.
"It is a terrible thing to be innocent, and yet to know yourself suspected. Nobody in such a case can ever act quite naturally. The very sense of innocency, coupled with the knowledge of the suspicions against one, gives rise to an awkward self-consciousness which looks like guilt in the eyes of others."
[Sidenote: "It" Confesses--too Late.]
I must now refer to the episode of "It." In July, 1891, after all my troubles, I was summoned to the death-bed of a lady who I thought was a great friend of mine. I went with great warmth and distress of feeling, and when I went up to her bed to kiss her, she drew away and said, "Do not kiss me. I have sent for you to make a confession, as if it were to a priest; but you must give me a solemn promise never to betray me, after I am dead, that my husband and my girls, who go out a great deal in Society"--naming very high quarters--"may not have to be ashamed of me, and curse my memory." I gave the required promise, for I thought she was going to breathe her last, and she said she could not die in peace. I will never betray her name, but I have a right to tell the substance of what she said, because I have had to suffer bitterly through it, and may still be suffering without knowing it. She asked me not to look at her, and in pity I turned away.
She said then, "I am 'It.' In 1876-7 your husband began mining in Midian, and subsequently in West Africa, and nothing was talked of but the millions that you were then sure of making--£100,000 in six months, so you said, and the rest following quickly. Now, I was awfully fond of money. I was much attracted by your husband. I loved you, and admired you; I hated you, and was jealous of you. I was not in love with him--So-and-so was my lover--but I thought that if I could only conciliate him, and disgust him with you, I should probably get a great deal of that money which I wanted; for my extravagances were far beyond the means of my husband or my lover, and I live very much in the world." She here confessed all she had done against us both, until our mining hopes had come to nothing. "I was dreadfully disgusted," she owned, "finding it impossible to alienate you, as the moment you found out anything you went and told each other; but I was surprised that you never suspected the right person, and you both of you frequently openly joked with me about 'It.' Towards the end I saw that your husband disliked and distrusted me, but he could not fix in his own mind why it was. You were easily deceived, but I dared not do anything except in his absence. I took a wicked pleasure in your perfect trust in me."
She had free access to all my letters, papers, journals, and writings, and knew my every movement. She would send me nice letters in a hand I did not know, but signed with a name I did know, in the hopes I might answer it. If I did answer it, I made a fool of myself, and if I did not answer it, she did, copying from my own writings my style and mode of speech. She was assisted in the forging part of the business (I mean handwriting) by a needy Englishman, with a college education, who was an expert in copying hands.
For a long time I sat crouched up in the room without answering, with my head buried in my hands--my consternation and my humiliation were so great, and I was wrestling with myself--and at last I answered her pitiful entreaties for pardon. I said, "I am sixty years old, I have left the world, I have one foot in the grave, and I have nothing to do with Revenge; but, before I go, I must clear the name I am so proud to bear. No one shall ever know who 'It' was. Your husband and your daughters and the crème of Society shall still bless and regret you; but you must give me the list, as far as you can, of the people you have written to, either in my name or my husband's, and then, if God will forgive you, and if Richard will forgive you, then I will also--and may you rest in peace!" I asked her what sort of letters she had written. "You frequently allowed me to help you to answer your letters. Sometimes I wrote gushing letters, so as to make you seem silly; sometimes I gave your opinions to people in high positions, to make you seem impertinent. Sometimes I wrote you letters myself, in a feigned hand, and answered them in your hand (imitated) to the supposed writers." I did not trust myself to speak, but I wrote down all the names she gave me, and I wrote this history to all those concerned, and, except one, they have all answered me. I left the room quietly, and she eventually died.
"Now, now my frame is old and wan and weary, And now my years on earth can be but few; I count the days, when God's voice, calling clearly, Shall lead me, O my loved one, back to you!"
[1] From "John Halifax."
[2] This is what happened to me. In my younger days I had malignant typhus. I appeared to die. I was attended by two very clever doctors, who were with me at my supposed death, which they certified, and I was laid out. My mother's grief was so violent that my father judged it expedient to send for her confessor to give her some consolation. He happened to be the famous large-minded clever Jesuit and theologian, old Father Randal Lythegoe. He consoled my mother for some time, then he knelt down and prayed for me, and then he got up and put on his stole. "What are you going to do, Father?" said my mother. "I am going to give her Extreme Unction," he said. "But you can't; she has been dead several hours." "I don't care about that," he said. "I am going to risk it." He did so, and about two hours after he was gone I opened my eyes, and gradually came to.
[3] His journals show that he believed in this too.
[4] I received £688, and I owe this handsome contribution to the exertions of Baroness Paul de Ralli, of Trieste, to Sir Polydore Keyser, and Mrs. Roland Ward, who started and collected for it.
[5] And since writing this, Colonel Grant has gone to join them.
[6] Speke told me of this, and after his death I taxed Laurence Oliphant with it, who said so simply, "Forgive me--I am sorry--I did not know what I was doing," I could not say another word; but Richard and he were friends after that.--I. B.
[7] I owed my pension to several of our old friends; notably the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, the Royal Geographical and other learned Societies.
[8] I mention this because I had an anonymous letter sent me which taunted me with touting for subscriptions for it.--I. B.