Richard began (though he progressed favourably) to get exceedingly nervous; he thought he could never live to leave his room, and to fancy that he could not swallow. I proposed to take him away, and the doctors told me they would be only too glad if it were possible to move him. It was the end of July, so I went up to the rural inn, Opçina, before mentioned, took a ground-floor suite of rooms, ordered a carriage with a bed in it, and an invalid chair for carrying up and down stairs; so when he told me that he thought he should never get away, I told him that he certainly would, for that I meant him to go on the morrow. He said it was impossible, that he never could be conveyed below. However, next morning the men came with the chair, the carriage was at the door, and he said smiling, "Do you know, I am absolutely sweating with funk." Fancy how ill that man of iron must have been, who could travel where and as he had travelled, and yet dreaded going down the stairs for an hour's journey in a carriage; but it was the seventy-ninth day of endurance. I made the men put him gently in the chair, and gave him a glass of port wine. We had a hundred and twenty steps to go down, and I made them pause on every landing while I gave him a stimulant, and then we put him gently in the carriage in a recumbent position on a bed, and telling the man to walk his horses, I sat by him and held his hand. After about a quarter of an hour he said, "I am all right; tell him to drive on." We then drove on, and in an hour reached the inn, where I had men waiting to lift him gently into bed. He said, "I feel as if I had made a journey into Central Africa; but I shall get well now."

In a couple of days he was breakfasting and basking out in the garden, and in twelve days I took him on to Padua, where there was a celebrated old doctor (Pinalli), whom I called in. He stayed an hour and a half, and overhauled Richard thoroughly. He said he should go for five days to Battaglia, and that nature and bicarbonate of soda would do the rest. Then he looked round at me, who had been on duty night and day two months and a half. He said, "As for you, you've got gastric fever, and you will go to Recoaro for four weeks; and you will drink the waters, which are purgative and iron, take the baths, and have complete rest." We drove to Battaglia, which is about seven and a half miles away; our traces broke, and we spent some time mending them with bits of string; but I got him there and conveyed him to bed, and here he bathed and took the waters, which are especially for gout.

We used to drive out every day to Monselice, which is a charming place, or to Arqua, to stay by Petrarch's tomb and see his house. One wonders how he left Rome and Venice to settle in such a wretched little place. He died in a very stuck-up wooden chair, in a little hole about the size of a cupboard. It is frescoed everywhere. The good priest (as his tomb was being repaired) gave me a nail out of his coffin, and a bit of its wood, to keep as a treasure. The priest at Monselice has an amateur collection of curios of every sort; a brave, gentlemanly old man, and very much taken with Richard. From here we went to Mont' Ortoni and to Abano, other baths of the same nature. Thence to Monte Rua to see a monastery of Benedictines, where there is an exquisite view of the Italian plains; and one can see Padua, Vicenza, Venice, and the sea in the distance.

We always drove, and where we could not drive I had Richard carried on a chair on two poles everywhere, and I remember so well his saying, "I have always been afraid of being paralyzed, but I do not care in the least now, because I see that I could go about just the same." We returned to Battaglia, and went to a theatre in the evening that was just like a hole in some stables, and everything was to match. It was done, and well done, by the dilettanti of Padua (Torquato Tasso). We then went on to Vicenza. The hotel was rather like Noah's Ark, but it was not uncomfortable. It was now much cooler weather. We arrived at Palezetta, Montecchio, Cornedo with its four churches, and then we drove up a mountain ascent to Recoaro.

The cure here is chiefly a sitz-bath of Fonte Reggia water once a day, from one to three litres of Acqua Amára (bitter water) to drink per diem, a douche for the eyes twice, a douche for the back once, and cold compress at night. We had a charming drive to Valdagno; there are caves, mines, and petroleum there. Other excursions are Monte Guiliane, Fonte Vegri, Fonte Aqua di Capitello, Forano, Rovegliano, where there is a miraculous Virgin, Val d'Agno, Castagnara, Peserico, Spaccata, L'Aura, and Nogara; but the grandest of all is to the peak called the Spitz. We went all these excursions in country carts or on donkeys, for Richard was getting quite strong, and the country is exceedingly beautiful and mountainous. From the Spitz there is a magnificent view of the whole country, but we were eleven hours out.

For those who want to go to Recoaro from the main line between Milan and Venice, Tavernelle is the proper place. It is three hours' drive from Tavernelle to Recoaro. On our return to Vicenza we went to see Monte Berice. At Verona we stayed to see the amphitheatre, the church of Zanone, the tombs of the Scaligers, the gardens of the Conte Giusti, the Duomo, the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, the museum, Roland the Brave's statue, the Palazzo dei Consiglii, the Arco dei Borsari. We began early to explore Vicenza, the Palazzo della Ragione by Pallagio, the great architect of Vicenza, the Palazzo Prefettizio, the Cathedral, and the church of the Corona (where is the best Baptism in Jordan I have ever seen), by Giovanni Bellini. There are two styles of architecture—Venetian semi-Gothic, the Pallagio school, classical. We visited the house of Pigafetta, as well as the house of Pallagio; this gem, which has been most beautiful, is now neglected and forgotten. He was a great navigator, and was one of the companions of Magellan. So much for posthumous fame. The Theatre Olimpico is one of the oldest and most interesting specimens of Pallagio. Here the Academicians used to act the old Greek and Latin plays about 1580. We stopped at Padua to see the doctor again, who found us both perfectly well; got on to Venice and back to Trieste in a shocking bad steamer.

"The Source of the Nile.

"Dulwich Wood, March 18, 1874.

"It is somewhat remarkable that each accession to our knowledge of Lake Tanganyika has added to the difficulties of the Nile problem; for while oral testimony almost universally points towards its connection with that great river, yet the two occasions on which its northern end was examined would seem, at first sight, to negative such a solution. There are many other evidences in favour of its having a northern outlet, in addition to those which have been well adduced by Mr. Mott, in the Athenæum of March 14th, and those in my letter which you inserted in the Athenæum of February 28th.

"Mr. Stanley's account of the puny and insignificant streamlet which he was told was the Rusizi river, shows that it cannot be taken to have any weight whatever on the solution of the great enigma. The journey he describes has overturned the basis of Captain Speke's theory of the existence of lunar mountains. He does not say one word about the existence of the eleven great rivers which Captain Speke was told fell into the northern head of Tanganyika, therefrom inferring that they rose in an extensive and lofty mountain chain which entirely separated the Tanganyika lake from the Nile basin.

"Captain Speke, in his account of the share he took in the Burton-Speke expedition,[3] gives a most explicit account of an outward flow at the north end of the lake, from the statement of Sheikh Hamed, a respectable Arab merchant, one of a class whose trustworthy testimony was proved by the way in which Captain Burton was enabled to lay down on their map the outlines of rivers and countries they could not visit in their expedition of 1856-58. Sheikh Hamed, after an accurate description of Lake Tanganyika and the rivers which flow into it, says, 'On a visit to the northern end, I saw one which was very much larger than either of these (the Marungu and the Malagarázi), and which I am certain flowed out of the lake; for although I did not venture on it ... I went so near its outlet that I could see and feel the outward drift of the water.' This is in exact accordance with the observations of Dr. Livingstone and Mr. Stanley, quoted heretofore.

"The late venerable Mr. Macqueen published, in 1845,[4] a very circumstantial account of another Arab, Lief ben Saied's visit to the great African lake, of course unknown at that time to Europeans. He says, 'It is well known by all the people there that the river which goes through Egypt takes its origin and source from the lake.'

"These extracts, with many others, have been frequently quoted before in the discussion of the most ancient geographic problem yet left to us, and I will not extend them by any reference to many mediæval speculations, based on the evidently correct and much misunderstood geography of Ptolemy, and but to only one of comparatively modern times, the first announcement from authentic information. It is that given by Pigafetta, among many wild speculations of his own, from the authority of Duarte (or Odoardo) Lopez, in his 'Relatione del Reaine di Congo,' published in 1591. He states that 'there are two lakes, ... situated north and south of each other, in almost a direct line, and about four hundred miles asunder. Some persons in these countries are of opinion that the Nile, after leaving the first lake, hides itself underground, but afterwards rises again.... The Nile truly has its origin in this first lake, which is in 12° south latitude, ... and it runs four hundred miles due north, and enters another very large lake, which is called by the natives a sea, because it is two hundred and twenty miles in extent, and it lies under the equator.'[5] I will not now extend these quotations, but the last-named author, as has been pointed out by Mr. R. H. Major, has indicated the connection between the two lakes on his map as 'Lagoa,' a lagoon or shallow, coinciding exactly with Sir Samuel Baker's information.

"I trust that the expeditions now on foot in Africa will settle this great controversy, and secure for England and the Royal Geographical Society the honour of finally closing the canon of ancient geography, and completing the grand discoveries commenced by Captain Burton in 1857, which has been denied to the greatest explorer that ever existed, Dr. Livingstone.

"But there is one aspect of the geographic solution which may be thought by many not so desirable as the simple fact of the final determination of a grand geographic problem. It may be demonstrated that Lake Tanganyika and its southern extension, the beautiful Lake Liemba, first seen by Dr. Livingstone, and its tributaries, reaching to the cold highlands where that great man's earthly career ended, all belong to the basin of the Nile. If it be the determination of the Khedive that Egypt and the Nile basin shall be conterminous, there may be something to deplore on the missionary object of the great traveller's life. The Mohammedan influence, which has been so forcibly dwelt on of late by Sir Samuel Baker, may, in these distant regions, become paramount, and the telegrams of to-day tell us that by great efforts the navigation of the Nile has been opened up to Gondokoro, so that it behoves Europe to make strenuous exertions to prevent the great efforts she has made to open Africa to Western civilization from being turned to her detriment.

"A. G. Findlay."

We now took very much to our life up in the Karso, walking up without servants, and staying part of the week, and taking immense long drives or immense long walks over the country, searching for inscriptions and castellieri, and of the former we generally took squeezes. When we first began this we were occasionally invited out shooting by the family proprietors of the inn; but we never saw anything, after miles of walking over stony country, but an occasional hare, and for our parts, as we were not hungry, we used to fire everywhere excepting at them, and they generally got off. But one day as we were going along we asked, "What are we going to shoot to-day?" and so they said, "Foxes." So we looked very grave, and we said, "But don't you know that it is against the English religion to shoot a fox?" And they said, "No, is it?" and we said, "Yes, we must turn back;" and so they agreed to sacrifice the day's shooting if we would go out with them, and Richard chaffed them, pretending that he thought that Adam and Eve had been turned out of Paradise for shooting a fox. (We had just seen it in Punch, where two little children had just been wondering why Adam and Eve were turned out of Paradise, and the boy, the son of a sporting parson, said, "Perhaps he shot a fox!")

On Sunday, the 15th of November, we lost some friends. Captain Nevill and his wife, née Lever, sailed for India, having had an offer to command the Nizam's troops in Hyderabad (Deccan), where they have now been eighteen years, and have risen to a great position there. I had now (November 20th) finished writing my "Inner Life of Syria," 2 vols., which occupied me sixteen months, and on Christmas Eve handed my manuscripts over to the publisher. It came round to end of 1874.

This month Richard went to have some teeth out by gas, but the gas did not have any effect on him at all. Believing that they were playing a trick, and that there was no gas in it, it was tried on me, and I went off directly.

Richard now proposed a thing which disconcerted me considerably, and that was to send me to England to transact some business for him, and to bring out books, and I was to start with several pages of directions, and he would join me later on. I had only been two years in Trieste, and it made me exceedingly miserable; but whenever he put his foot down, I had to do it, whether I would or no. I was getting very unhappy about my poor little Arab maid; she had been very much petted and spoiled; she was getting quite beyond my orders, and would only do what she fancied. It was not easy to marry her in Europe, so that I felt her life would be thrown away. I therefore wrote to her father, to tell him that we proposed to send her home under the charge of the captain and the stewardess of the first ship direct to Beyrout, and that he should meet her, and that he should try and marry her to some of her own people if possible. I told her she had often reproached me with not being able to give her a holiday; that England had disagreed with her so much before, I was afraid to take her back, and that she had better profit of my visit to England to go and see her parents. She liked very much the idea of going to show all her fine clothes and pretty things, and a good sum of money I had saved for her, and she started off with nine boxes full, and a purse full of gold, and before long I heard to my great relief that she had married one of her own people, and was settled down in the Buká'a. It was nevertheless a great wrench to part with her, and we always keep up our affection and correspond in broken Arabic and broken English.

On the 4th of December I put her on board, and I left on the 8th, and never stopped till I reached Paris, and next day went on to Boulogne, arriving in London on the 12th. At Dijon a little Frenchman, hearing me speak German to my maid, accused me of insulting his sister and throwing down her shawl, collected a crowd, had my little dog taken from me and put into the dog-box, although I had taken a ticket to hold it on my knees. I vainly explained that I had never seen either the sister or the shawl, so that I could not have insulted them; and I was very meek, because I was alone. When he found out I was an Englishwoman, he almost cried with vexation for what he had done. In England I was to study up the Iceland sulphur mine affair with Mr. L——, and then to see an immense lot of publishers for Richard. My work was pretty well cut out for me, and I got so wrapped up in it, that sometimes I worked for thirteen hours a day, and would forget to eat. They would come and put a tray by my side with something on it, and I can remember once, after working for thirteen hours, feeling my head whirling, and being quite alarmed, and then I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to eat anything all day, which I at once did, and recovered.

During the two years we had been at Trieste Richard had occupied himself with writing the "Lands of the Cazembe,"[6] and a small pamphlet of supplementary papers for the Royal Geographical Society, 1873; the "Captivity of Hans Stadt," for the Hakluyt, 1874; articles on "Rome" (two papers, Macmillan's Magazine, 1874-5); the poem of "Uruguay," which has never been published; and "Volcanic Eruptions of Iceland" for the Royal Society of Edinburgh; the "Castellieri of Istria," Anthropological Society, 1874; a "New System of Sword Exercise," a manual, 1875; "Ultima Thule;" "A Summer in Iceland" (2 vols., 1875), which though written had not appeared; "Gorilla Land; or, the Cataracts of the Congo" (2 vols., 1875). Also we had been to Bologna for the express purpose of exploring all the Etruscan remains, and he had produced two volumes of "Etruscan Bologna;" "The Long Wall of Salona, and the Ruined Cities of Pharia and Gelsa di Lesina," a pamphlet, Anthropological Society, 1875; "The Port of Trieste, Ancient and Modern" (Journal of the Society of Arts, October 29th and November 5th, 1875): and Gerber's "Province of Minas Geraes," translated and annotated by him for the Royal Geographical Society; and a fresh paper for the Anthropological on "Human Remains and other Articles from Iceland." So that my charge was the bringing out of three books, and the "Manual of Sword Exercise." This last, when he arrived, he took himself to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, who desired him to show him several of the positions of defence he most liked, and a system of manchette, with which he appeared particularly pleased, and Richard returned enchanted with his interview. Richard criticizes the English system of broadsword, which, he says, is the worst in the world. With this pamphlet he has done, for broadsword exercise, what a score of years ago he did for bayonet exercise, and he was confident that the Horse Guards will eventually adopt it. The last revised English edition, by MacLaren, at that time dated half a century before. A thousand writers have been at this subject for three hundred and fifty years, and yet Richard found lots of new things to say about it.

One of our most intimate friends was General Charles Gordon—"Chinese Gordon" of Khartoum sad memory. The likeness between these two men, Richard Burton and Charles Gordon, was immense. The two men stood out in this nineteenth century as a sort of pendant, and the sad fate of both is equal, as far as Government goes. One abandoned and forgotten in the desert, the other in a small foreign seaport; both men equally honoured by their country, and standing on pedestals that will never be thrown down—uncrowned kings both. This difference there was between them—Charles Gordon spoke out all that Richard laboured to conceal. He used to come and sit on our hearthrug before the fire in the long winter evenings, and it was very pleasant to hear them talk. Gordon had the habit of saying, "There are only two men in the world who could do such or such a thing; I am one, and you are the other." After he became Governor of the Soudan, he wrote to my husband as follows:—

"You and I are the only two men fit to govern the Soudan; if one dies, the other will be left. I will keep the Soudan, you take Darfur; and I will give you £5000 a year if you will throw up Trieste."

Richard wrote back:—

"My dear Gordon,

"You and I are too much alike. I could not serve under you, nor you under me. I do not look upon the Soudan as a lasting thing. I have nothing to depend upon but my salary, and I have a wife, and you have not."

I have got all Gordon's and his correspondence, and I will give specimens in the coming work, which I shall call "The Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton," as in this book there is no room to dilate upon his works for his country, nor to quote letters. The subject is so extensive that it would never be read in one work.

I had the pleasure during this visit to London of making acquaintance with Miss Emily Faithful, and renewing acquaintance with Mrs. Pender Cudlip (Annie Thomas). Miss Faithful took me to Middleton Hall, Islington, where she was going to take the chair on Women's Rights.

I need not say that I did not get much time for amusement, between Richard's proof-sheets and mine, K.C.B. letters, sulphur and saltpetre mines—except in the evening, when I went out a great deal.

On the 1st of March, 1875, there was a paragraph in the Scotsman, speaking of Richard's death, and of me as a widow, which gave me a few very unhappy hours. I telegraphed to Trieste at once, packed and prepared money to start; but I got a telegram as soon as a return could be, saying, "I am eating a very good dinner at table d'hôte."

During all the month of April I was very sad about Winwood Reade, who was living, or rather dying, alone in a wretched little room at the top of a house. I used to go and see him every day and try and cheer him, and take him anything I fancied he could touch. I asked him if money could be of any use to him, but he told me he had quite enough to last him for the time he had to live. What distressed me the most of all, was the state he was dying in, which to me was dreadful, because he said he had no belief, and it seemed true. Of course it was useless—it was no business of mine; but I could not help doing my best during the last fortnight of his life to induce him to believe in God, and to be sorry before he died. Three or four days before he died, Mr. and Mrs. Sandwith, who were very old friends of his, removed him to their place, "The Old House, Wimbledon," where he passed away quietly on the 24th of April, 1875. He had caught a cold sitting up at night to write his last book, and had accomplished it in six weeks, but the cold settled on his chest. R.I.P.

On the 5th of May I went to the Drawing-room, and on the 12th of May Richard arrived himself, and we did a great deal of visiting and a great deal of Society in the evening.

This year Richard established his "Divans." They were to be every other Sunday—only men. They were to drop in after dinner, or opera, or club. We were ready at half-past nine. We had mild refreshments, brandies and sodas, various drinks, smoking and talk, and he made me preside, but he would not allow me to invite other women; he said it would spoil the Divan character of the thing. Our first was on the 23rd of May.

This year, 1875, Richard took it into his head to make his fortune by producing a Bitter, the secret of which he had learnt in the East; it was to be put into a pretty bottle, and to have his picture on it. We took a great deal of trouble about it; it was to be called "Captain Burton's Tonic Bitters." It was compounded by a Swedish physician in 1565. He had been hospitably received in a Franciscan monastery, and having nothing to reward them with, before his death, he gave it as a token of gratitude to the Prior. It was extensively used by the monks as a restorative and nervous stimulant during three centuries, and the prescription was given to Richard by his Franciscan friend Padre Francesco. One tablespoonful was to be given in a glass of water or sherry, or diluted cognac. I have got the recipe now. Many people have made a fortune with less, but we were not knowing money-makers. It was supposed to digest and stimulate, and completely took away the consequences of drinking overnight. I am now starting it again with the same chemist with whom we intended to drive it in 1875.

One night in May (my book "Inner Life of Syria" had come out in the morning, and being my first independent publication I went to bed quite ill with fright and the agony of a novice, thinking that all the world now knew what I was thinking about everything)—it so happened that I had to go to a party that night whether I liked it or not, but when I saw a famous Editor standing at the top of the stairs I nearly turned round and bolted out of the house, till I saw a kindly smile breaking out all over his face, and his two hands extended to me, and heard warm congratulations on having written "such a book," which made me as happy as if somebody had just given me a fortune. This month Richard went to the Levée.

"June 24, 1869.

"Dear Sir Roderick Murchison,

"I have already spoken to you and personally petitioned that you should ask that my husband, Captain Burton, may be made a K.C.B. You desired that I should furnish you with reasons for making such a petition. I do this with pleasure, and they are as follows:—

"He has been in active service of one kind or another—in each distinguishing himself—for twenty-seven years. Any one of these services would have ensured most men some high reward, but he remains, at forty-eight years of age, a simple Consul in her Majesty's service, without so much as a decoration or an honour of any kind.

"It will be objected that a military K.C.B. cannot be made.

"To this I have to reply, that Captain Burton was nineteen years in the Bombay army—the first ten years in active service, serving five of those years in the Scinde Survey on Sir Charles Napier's staff. He joined his regiment when marching upon Mooltan to attack the Sikhs, and only returned home when compelled by a severe attack of ophthalmia—the result of mental and physical over-fatigue.

"In 1853 he published a system of bayonet exercise—which is actually the one adopted at present by the Horse Guards—which was acknowledged by an order on the Treasury for the sum of one shilling.

"In the Crimea he was Chief of the Staff to General Beatson, and was the chief organizer of the Irregular Cavalry, and at the moment of their disbanding had four thousand sabres in perfect training, ready to do anything and go anywhere.

"In 1861 he came under the reduction when the Indian army changed hands, and his whole nineteen years were swept out as if they had never been, without a vestige of pay or pension. For all this a K.C.B. would be a compensation.

"During the times he was not in active military service he was serving his country, humanity, science, and civilization in other ways, by opening up lands hitherto unknown, and trying to do good wherever he went.

"Baker and Grant have been rewarded for one expedition; Speke would have been had he lived; Livingstone will be when he returns; and Captain Burton only is left out in the cold. It is forgotten that he was the first to lead the way—that he, so to speak, opened the oyster, while Baker, Speke, and Grant appear to have taken the pearl; yet every news we get from Livingstone proves that Captain Burton's original theory was the right one, and that his Lake Tanganyika is the true head source of the Nile, for which all the others have been decorated. Again, it must be remembered that each of these men have made one expedition, and got a large reward, whilst Captain Burton has made several, most of which were at the risk of his life; for instance—

"1. Mecca and Medinah.

"2. Somali-land, East Africa (badly wounded, and lost all his effects). Speke second in command.

"3. The Lake Regions of Central Africa (Speke again second in command). The first attempt to discover the Sources of the Nile. Three years absent, twenty-one fevers, temporary paralysis, and total blindness.

"4. California and the Mormon Country.

"For eight years and a half Captain Burton has been in the Consular Service—

"Firstly.—On the West Coast of Africa, which he thoroughly explored, from Bathurst, on the Gambia, down to S. Paulo de Loanda, in Angola, and the Congo river, visiting the cannibal Fans, and discovering many unknown places.

"This included a dangerous mission of three months' visit to the King of Dahomè, where he was sent by the Foreign Office as Commissioner.

"Lastly.—Four years in Brazil, where he has been equally active and useful, both on the coast and the interior, having thoroughly explored his own province, which is larger than France; the Gold and Diamond Mines of Minas Geraes; canoed down the great river S. Francisco, fifteen hundred miles; visited the Argentine Republic, the river La Plata and Paraguay, for the purpose of reporting the state of the war to the Foreign Office; crossed the Andes, amongst the bad Indians, and visited all the Pacific Coast; and this during sick leave.

"It would be idle and useless to enumerate all that Captain Burton has done in these twenty-seven years, but still there is no need to pass over his thorough knowledge of twenty-five languages, and the fact that he has written almost thirty standard works.

"He is now transferred to Damascus, where his friendship with Mohammedans and knowledge of Arabic and Turkish will put him in intimate relations with Arab tribes.

"Inasmuch as certain designing persons, who are known to us, covet the Consulship to which he is appointed, and are not very scrupulous in their means of trying to bring about their wishes by making disagreeable complications for him, it would be a great help to Captain Burton to leave England with the prestige of having received some mark of approval from his country for his past services, and as Sir Samuel Baker is already knighted and made a C.B. for his one expedition, Captain Burton would like to have something higher for his many services, and in the shape of a military distinction for his past unacknowledged military services, that is, a K.C.B.

"I am sure you will consider that, having done almost more than any other six men living, this distinction is fairly earned, and you will, I am certain, as his old friend and one of his earliest patrons, endeavour to obtain it for him.

"I am, dear Sir Roderick, yours most truly,

"Isabel Burton.

"Hewlett's Hotel, 36, Manchester Street, W., London."

In 1878 I added—

"He explored all the unknown parts of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land. He saved the poor peasantry of his jurisdiction from the usurers; advanced the just claims of British subjects. He kept the peace when a massacre seemed imminent, and opposed the fanatical persecution directed against the Christians. Damascus was reduced to a Vice-Consulate, and Captain Burton was therefore recalled, and with 'leave' proceeded to explore Iceland.

"Fourthly.—On his return he found himself appointed to Trieste, where he has explored and described prehistoric ruins unknown to the world, and pronounced to be the most interesting on the continent of Europe. He has also added several new literary works to his writings, and other languages in addition to those before mentioned.

"Captain Burton deeply feels this want of appreciation of his services, for it is not only a neglect, it amounts to an imputation upon his career. He is now not only the first opener of the Lake Regions of Central Africa, but the senior African traveller in England. Most men who have done even average duty, military and civil, during thirty-two years, are acknowledged by some form of honour. To what, then, can the public at home and abroad attribute the cold shade thrown over exploits which are known and appreciated throughout Europe? The various geographical societies of the Continent have, it is true, made him an honorary Fellow. But the foreign Governments—for instance, the Italian, which bestowed gold medals and other honours upon Captain Speke and the Rev. Mr. Badger—cannot be expected to lead the way in honouring a man whose services are ignored by his own rulers. He hopes that he may be recommended to her Majesty and her Majesty's Government, for honours no less than those received by Sir Samuel Baker, and which would have been conferred upon the other heroic travellers had they lived to receive them. In one word, he asks to be made a K.C.B."

When the press unanimously took up the cause of his K.C.B.-ship, and complained that the Government did not give him his proper place in official life, he wrote the following:—

"The Press are calling me 'the neglected Englishman,' and I want to express to them the feelings of pride and gratitude with which I have seen the exertions of my brethren of the Press to procure for me a tardy justice. The public is a fountain of honour which amply suffices all my aspirations; it is the more honourable as it will not allow a long career to be ignored for reasons of catechism or creed. With a general voice so loud and so unanimous in my favour, I can amply console myself for the absence of what the world calls 'honours,' which I have long done passing well without; nor should I repine at a fate which I share with England's most memorable men, and most honourable, to go no further than Gordon and Thackeray. It certainly is a sad sight to see perfectly private considerations and petty bias prevail against the claims of public service, and let us only hope for better things in future days."

It has been an oft-told tale, but it is a true one, that Richard went to the Zoological Gardens one Sunday, and he asked for a glass of beer. The girl was going to give it him, when she changed her mind, and then she said, "Now, are you really a bonâ-fide traveller?" "Well," he said, "I think I am." Then she thought he was taking her in, and she would not give it him. The others laughed and told her who he was; still she would not let him have it.

This year we had some expeditions down the Thames. My brothers and sisters had a boat, and we used to go down to Oxford, sleeping at little inns on the river-side at night, and cooking our food on the banks at lunch-time.

Richard and I went down to Oxford to see Professors Vaux, Jowett, Thomas Short, and McLaren, and, as he was fond of doing, to revisit the colleges—his own Trinity, and Magdalen and Oriel—and to go on the river. I note in our journals of this year, 1875, that we often breakfasted twice and lunched twice, that is to say, to fulfil invitations, and one night we had thirteen invitations, and made a bet that we would do them all, beginning by a dinner-party; and we won it by passing the night in the streets, and only staying a quarter of an hour everywhere.

Richard was lounging at a supper-room door of a ball one night, when an impertinent young "masher" walked up to him and said, "Aw—are you one of the waitahs?" So Richard smiled and pulled his long moustache, and said with a quiet drawl, "No—are you? For you look a damned sight more like a waiter than I do, and I was in hopes you were, because I might have got something to drink."[7]

Richard's picture, by Sir Frederick Leighton, was exhibited in the Academy of 1875.

Richard had, amongst others, a very remarkable friend; his popular name was "Bob Campbell;" numbers of men knew him well. He was very gentlemanly, very clever, poor, proud, eccentric. He knew Paris as well as London. Richard and he had a very sincere friendship for each other. He lived in an attic, and the second room was a kitchen. He once took it into his head that it was very silly to have to go to the expense of a coffin and not to utilize it during his life, so he went and had himself measured for one, and ordered quite a nice oak and brass, and a plate with his name and everything usual on it, leaving a space for the date, only he had it fitted up inside with crossway shelves, so as to utilize it for keeping cold meat, or bottles, or any other sort of thing. He then told the undertaker to send it on a hearse covered up in the usual way, mutes and all. When it arrived, the landlord ran up in a dreadful state and said, "Sir, what is to be done? there are two mutes at the door with handkerchiefs up to their eyes, and they say the coffin is for one Mr. Robert Campbell. I told them you were not dead, but they say there is no mistake; it is for here, and they won't go away." So Bob Campbell, who had previously arranged the whole scene with the men, went down and told them to bring the coffin up, and put his own handkerchief up to his eyes, saying, "This is a very melancholy occasion indeed; pray bring the coffin upstairs." So it was brought up and set like a little cupboard against the wall, and he gave the mutes something to drink and paid them, and they went away, but the landlord could not get over it at all.

This same Bob Campbell gave delightful little literary suppers, to which we used to go. He used to put on a white-paper cap and white apron, and disappear to do the cooking himself. He used to make a most beautiful bouille-a-baisse, which he would bring in, in a valuable large china bowl, and ladle it out to us, and it was so good we wanted nothing else for supper. Then he would mix his "cup" or his punch (in another exquisite china bowl), and ladle it out with china cups. He used to say, "Now, you must fancy yourself in the Quartier Latin in Paris;" and they tell me it was just like the description. We went twice that summer to him, and the company was so amusing that we stayed till six, and came in with the milk. One morning we had breakfast with Sir Frederick Leighton, and we had our last Sunday's Divan. We went to the Princess of Wales's Chiswick party, and the same night Richard started off for another trip to Iceland.

Richard was not gone more than six weeks, and then he returned with an attack of lumbago, followed by gout.

He went off again as soon as he got better. He went by ship to Rouen. He wished to go to Tours to revisit the old home of his childhood, and from thence to Vichy to do some good to the gout, and from there to make a pilgrimage, all by himself, to Paray le Monial, from whence he brought me beads and medals, and arrived in London on October 6th.

On the 4th of December Richard notes a never-to-be-forgotten day—so dark, foggy, deep snow, and a red, lurid light. All the gas and candles had to be lit at nine o'clock in the morning. London was like a Dante's snow hell; the squares were like a Christmas tree. It was as dark as if some great national crime was being committed. A large family party accompanied us to the Pavilion at Folkestone to see us off, and there Carlo Pellegrini joined us. He was staying there for his health, and painting a little. Andrew Wilson, of the "Abode of Snow," also joined us, and travelled with us for a week. The snow was eight feet deep. We were joined by several surrounding relations, living at short distances from there. The Dover train stuck in the snow from six till twelve at night. The boat did not cross; the night train did not come in. It was blowing great guns at sea. On the 7th it was something better, and two sledges took us to the station. We landed with great difficulty on the French side. We always lingered at Boulogne whenever we got there. We used to go and see Constantin (Richard's old fencing-master), all the old haunts, the Ramparts where we first met. Caroline, the Queen of the Poissardes, who received us à bras ouverts, talked of old times when we were young people, and reminded me of a promise which was then very unlikely, that if ever I should go to Jerusalem I should bring her a rosary, and I was now able to fulfil it. We went on to Paris. We did not care for Rossi's Hamlet, after Mr. Henry Irving's in London and Salvini's in Italy. I never can see any smartness in a Paris theatre; the scenery is so bad, the dresses so flashy and tinsel, no appliances for effect. I suppose in old days it was different, as so many people raved about it. The acting and the wit I can appreciate. We left Paris on the 16th, to my great delight—I believe I am the only woman who hates Paris—and dined next night at Turin with Cristoforo Negri and family, the head of the Geographical Society of Italy, and Signor Cora and wife, the editor of the most influential paper; and then we went on to Milan, where we always begin to consider ourselves at home on our own ground.

Mr. Kelly, who was then Consul, always made our stay pleasant as long as he was there, and we had delightful purely Milanese dinners together at the Rebecchino. I never pass Milan, and for those who do not know Milan well, I may say that I advise them never to go through without seeing Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in the refectory of Nostra Signora delle Grazie; then in the Brera, Raphael's "Marriage of the Virgin," with the rejected suitor breaking his rod; the tower of Azoni Visconti, where Jain Maria Visconti was murdered; Saint Gothardo, beautiful Lombard architecture, the façade of the Hospital in terra cotta, so beautifully carved, and the cloistered court; then San Bernardino dei Morti, a curious little church whose whole interior is made of bones and skulls. Every one should go up to the top of Milan Cathedral, which is a garden of spires and pinnacles and statues like lace-work, and of faces of which no two are alike. The view is glorious, and the mountains of Lecco are capped with snow and rosy in the sun.

We arrived in Venice on a dark, sad, silent night, when the plash of the gondola has a sad music of its own. At this time the Montalbas—the whole family are clever, and Clara, whose Venetian paintings are so celebrated, is the best known—were in Venice. These two girls hired a kitchen in their early days, turned it into a studio, and thus gave birth to their now famous works. We got to our home at Trieste on Christmas Eve, and having accepted a Christmas dinner, gave all the servants leave to go out and see their friends; but Richard got seedy on Christmas Day and he went to bed. I had nothing in the house but bread and olives, and ate my Christmas dinner by his bed. How happy we were! What would I give for bread and olives now, and to sit by him again!