CHAPTER XVII.

HIS FIRST LEAVE.

"Oh, when wilt thou return, my love? For as the moments glide, They leave me wishing still for thee, My husband, by my side; And ever at the evening hour My hopes more fondly burn, And still they linger on that word, 'Oh, when wilt thou return?'" ----_To a Husband during a Long Absence._

Richard left me plenty of occupation during this awfully long absence of sixteen months. Firstly, all kinds of official fights about India, and then for a gunboat and other privileges for Fernando Po. I lived with my father, mother, and family, and then I had a great deal to do for his book, "The City of the Saints," and every letter brought its own work and commissions, people to see and to write to, and things to be done for him, so that I was never idle for a minute. I began to feel, what I have always felt since, that he was the glorious, stately ship in full sail, commanding all attention and admiration; and sometimes, if the wind drops, she still sails gallantly, and no one sees the humble little steam-tug hidden at the other side, with her strong heart and faithful arms working forth, and glorying in her proud and stately ship.

I think a true woman, who is married to her proper mate, recognizes the fully performed mission, whether prosperous or not, and that no one can ever take his place _for her_, as an interpreter of that which is betwixt her and her Creator, _to her_ as the shadow of God's protection here on earth.

In winter he made me go to Paris with the Napoleon ring and sketch, mentioned in the little story called "The Last Hours of Napoleon;" and, through want of experience and proper friends and protection, my little mission of courtesy failed. The failure drew down upon me some annoyances, which appeared very disagreeable and important to me at the time; they are not worth mentioning, nor, indeed, had I been older and more experienced, should I have thought them worth fretting about.

The rest of the time of those dreary sixteen months was wearing to a degree, and diversified by ten weeks of diphtheria and its results. One day I betook myself to the Foreign Office, and I cried my heart out to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Layard. He seemed very sorry for me, and he asked me to wait awhile whilst he went upstairs; and, when he came back, he told me that he had got four months' leave home for my husband, and had ordered the despatch to be sent off that very afternoon. I could have thrown my arms round his neck and kissed him, but I did not; he might have been rather surprised. I had to go and sit out in the Green Park till the excitement wore off; it was more to me than if he had given me a large fortune.

At last the happy day came to go and meet Richard at Liverpool, and I shall never forget the joy of our meeting. It was December, 1863, and we had some happy weeks in England--a pleasant Christmas with my people at Wardour, and at Lord Gerard's at Garswood, where the family parties mustered strong, and at Fryston (Lord Houghton's), and several other country-houses; and he brought out two books--"Wanderings in West Africa" (2 vols., 1863), also "Abeokuta and the Cameroons" (2 vols., 1863), which he dedicated to me, with a lovely inscription and motto, of which I am very proud. And then came round the time again to leave. But I told him I could not possibly go on living as I was living; it was too miserable, one's husband in a place where one was not allowed to go, and I living with my mother like a girl--I was neither wife, nor maid, nor widow; so he took me with him. Excepting yachting, it was my first experience of _real_ sea-going.

[Sidenote: _We sail for West Africa._]

The African steamships were established in January, 1852, by the late Mr. MacGregor Laird, who was the second pioneer of the Niger Exploration, and an enthusiastic improver of Africa. These steamers were seven in number, and went once a month; four of them were of 978 tons. They went out to the West Coast, Fernando Po being their furthest station save one, and the whole round from England and back again caused them to visit twenty-two ports, and cover ten thousand nautical miles at eight knots an hour; but they were built for cargo, not for passengers. There was no doctor, no bath; the conveniences were difficult, and the stewardess only went as far as Madeira, the first port. We sometimes had seven or eight human beings stuffed into a cabin, which had four berths. I speak of 1861-2-3-4; it may be all changed since then. We now started in the worst circumstances. It was the big storm of January, 1863, one of the worst that has ever been known. My mother, who was a very bad sailor, insisted on coming on board to see us off. It was terribly rough, and an ironclad just shaved us going out, as we lay to in the river. There were even wrecks in the Mersey. Our Captain frankly said that he had an accident every January, but he would almost rather sink than have a mark put against his name for not going out on his right day. Mother behaved most pluckily. She went back in the tug, and she just reached Uncle Gerard's, which was three-quarters of an hour from Liverpool, got up to her bedroom, took up the poker to poke the fire, which fell out of her hand--she had the strength to crawl to the bell--and when they came up she was on the floor in that attack of paralysis with which she had been so long threatened, and to stave off which, we had hid my marriage from her just two years before.

Long before we had got past the Skerries, we were in serious trouble, and the passengers implored the Captain to alter his course, and take refuge in some harbour; but he explained to them that it would be awfully dangerous to turn the ship's head round, as the going round might sink her. I had forgotten in my ignorance to secure a berth, and the Captain gallantly gave up his own cabin to me, till Madeira. It was just on the break of the poop, and every wave broke over that before it reached the saloon. The ship appeared quite unmanageable; she bucked and plunged without stopping. There were seven feet of water in the hold, and all hands and available passengers were called on to man the pumps. The under berths were full of water, the bird-cages and kittens and parcels were all floating about, most of the women were screaming, many of the men-passengers were drunk, the lights went out, the furniture came unshipped and rolled about at its own sweet will. The cook was thrown on the galley fire, so there could be nothing to eat. Fortunately the sea put the fire out. It was very difficult for men to get along the deck.

A rich lady gave the stewardess £5 to hold her hand all night, so the rest of us poorer ones had to do without consolation. One most painful scene occurred. There were seven women, missionaries' wives, going out either with or to join their husbands. One, a poor child of sixteen, just married, missed her husband, and she called out in the dark for him. A naval officer who was going out to join his ship, and was tipsy the whole way, called out, "Oh, he has tumbled overboard, and is hanging on outside; you will never see him any more." The poor child believed it, and fell down in an epileptic fit, to which she remained subject as long as I ever heard of her. Her husband and mine were working at the pumps. I crawled to my bunk in the Captain's cabin, sick and terrified, and I thought that the terrible seas breaking against its side were loosening the nails, and that the sea would come in and wash me out. I was far away from any help and quite alone, and I hung on to the door, calling, "Carpenter! carpenter!" He came to my assistance, but a huge wave covered us; it carried him overboard and left me--he was never seen again. We lost two men that night.

As I lay there trembling, and terribly sea-sick, something tumbled against my door, and rolled in and sank down on the floor. It was the tipsy naval officer. I could not rise, I could not shut the door, I could not lug him out, so I lay there. When Richard had finished his work, he crawled along the decks till he got to the cabin, where the sea had swamped through the open door pretty considerably. "Hullo! what's that?" he said. I managed faintly to ejaculate, "The tipsy naval officer." He picked him up by the scruff of his neck, and, regardless of consequences, he propelled him, with a good kick behind, all down the deck, and shut the door. He said, "The Captain says we can't live more than two hours in such a sea as this." At first I was frightened that I should die, but now I was only frightened that I shouldn't, and I uttered feebly, "Oh, thank God it will be over so soon." I shall never forget how angry he was with me, because I was not frightened, and gave me quite a sermon. We were like that mostly three days and nights, and then it got better, and I saw the steward passing with some boiled mutton and caper sauce, and called out, "Oh, stop and give me some." He cut me some slices, and I ate them like a starved dog. I got up and dressed and went on deck, and have never been sea-sick since to speak of. I do not speak of Richard, because he never was sea-sick in his life; he never knew what it was; and I believe if it had not been for spilling the ink, he would have been writing his manuscripts, even if the ship had been going round like a squirrel's cage, as he always did all his life, no matter what the weather, and ate and slept enough for three.

[Sidenote: _We land at Madeira._]

The temperature changed by magic. There was a tropical calm at night; the usual rough north-easterly breeze of the outside subsided into a luxurious, sensual calm, with occasional puffs of soft, exciting westerly zephyrs, or _viento de las mugeres_, formed by the land wind of the night. We arrived in thirteen days at Madeira, having been longer than usual on account of the three days' storm. We could smell the land strong of clover hay long before we reached it. I shall never forget my astonishment and delight when I looked out of the port-hole one morning and found myself at Madeira. We had left a frightful English winter, we had suffered much on the sea journey; here was summer--luxuriant and varied foliage, warmth and splendour, the profusion and magnificence of the tropics, a bright blue sky and sun, a deep blue sea, mountains, hills covered with vines, white villas covered with glorious creepers, and picturesque churches and convents. Here we passed a most delightful six weeks. At that time, for about £200 a year, one could have all the luxuries that one could desire--ponies to ride, a hammock to carry you, boats to sail in, and every comfort and luxury; and as for hospitality, there was hardly a chance of breakfasting, lunching, or dining at home. We found here our best and never-to-be-forgotten friend, Lady Marian Alford, with the first Lord Brownlow, Dr. Frank, and a large party whose society we daily enjoyed immensely. After some weeks we went on to Teneriffe in another West African boat.

[Sidenote: _Yellow Fever._]

When we arrived at Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe, I did not think much of it; it is not only far less pretty than Madeira, but there were no comforts and luxuries. _En revanche_, it was far healthier, because Madeira, like Davosplatz, had been quite used up by consumptives, and was full of germs; but then we had arrived at a wrong moment, as we found that the yellow fever was raging at Santa Cruz, and whilst we were there it carried off three thousand people in as many weeks. There was such a panic, that the moment a person was ill, the coffin was brought in and put under the bed, by way of reassuring the patient, and the moment they got into the state of coma, in which they either die or recover, they were clapped into their coffins, but not locked down, and the key was handed to the nearest relative, and the coffin was put into the ground with only a small quantity of mould over it, so that when the patient came to, and was strong enough, he or she would struggle out and come home.

One woman came back in her graveclothes, and tapped at her cottage door, which, in those parts, opens into what serves as a sitting-room. Her daughter was sitting at the table, by moonlight, weeping for her mother's death, when the tap came; she got up and opened the door, and saw her mother standing in her graveclothes! Believing it to be her ghost, she fell down insensible. The mother lived for many years, and had more children, but the daughter never recovered her reason. One gentlemen, whom we knew, took it at nine in the morning. We went to inquire after him, and was told he was convalescent, and at eleven, two hours later, we saw his funeral going down the street! English people born at Teneriffe have such an emaciated appearance that I was always condoling with them on having had the yellow fever; and then, to my horror, I found it was their natural appearance. Richard and I thought it better to move, and not waiting for our baggage, things being at the worst, and transport difficult, we set off with knapsacks to walk across the island, twenty-one miles, to Oratava, where we heard that not a single case had made its appearance. There was a halfway house, a very poor little inn. We slept there. Our room was shaped like a claret-case, white-washed, with a tiny grating near the roof for air. There was no furniture of any kind, but they put a mattress on the floor, and gave us a rug. We lay down in our clothes, taking off our weapons and laying them between us. When we woke in the morning, and got up, intending to breakfast and continue our tramp, we found that although we had closed the door, and stuck something up against it, so that any one coming in would knock it down and make a noise, that some one had stolen our best knife, from between us, and we were both remarkably light sleepers. A Spaniard cannot resist a knife, and as everything remained exactly as we had left it, it showed that there was some trap-door, or panel in the wall for ingress, which was not perceptible.

It was not comfortable, so we were not sorry to be once more upon the road. We arrived at Oratava, and found it delightful. In our days (1863) there were no hotels; but we were able to hire a room, the size of a riding-school, in a private house on the Square. One side was our bedroom, one corner our dressing-room, one our drawing-room and dining-room, and the middle our study.

[Sidenote: _The Peak of Teneriffe._]

Whilst here (March, 1863) we made a delightful excursion up the Peak of Teneriffe. We were out two days and one night. The Peak is 12,198 feet above sea-level. We bivouacked in the snow at 9600 feet, and slept well. Temp., 16°. Around us were no end of little spirts of steam; we counted thirty-five on the final cone. The view from the top, as the dawn broke, was glorious. The horses slept lower down, further ascent being too steep, and the most distressing thing was that they could have no water. The mules could eat snow, but they could not; and coming into the town, they flew at everybody with water-jars on their heads. At last they heard the trickling of the stream near the little town, and they bolted at full gallop. We drew rein, jumped down, and loosened their girths, and let them drink. The only peculiarity of our journey was that it was the _first_ performed in _winter_, and therefore people were anxious about us.

The women of Teneriffe were the most beautiful I have ever seen--a cross between Spanish and Irish, who were shipwrecked here in old times. I used to stop and stare at them until they used to say, "What are you staring at?" and I would answer, "At you, because you are so pretty;" and they used to laugh with delight, and show the most lovely teeth. I allude to the peasant women, whose Spanish is very pretty, but not quite Castilian. Here I wrote my first book on Madeira and Teneriffe; but my husband would not let me print it, because he did not think it was up to the mark. He thought I must study and copy many more years before I tried authorship. And he was right, both in this and not letting me share with him the climate of West Africa. But I thought both very hard at the time.

[Sidenote: _I return Home._]

The time came when he had to go back to his post, but I was not allowed to _sleep_ at Fernando Po. I thought it dreadfully hard, and cried and begged, but he was immovable; and he was right. So I turned back again with a heavy heart, and had a passage back, if not quite as bad, very nearly as bad, _viâ_ Teneriffe and Madeira. Being alone, I had gone into the ladies' cabin--a very small hole with four berths, and what is called by courtesy a sofa; but there were eight of us packed in it. It was pitch dark; the porthole being closed on account of the weather, the effluvia was disgusting. I got on a dressing-gown, and crawled out to a stack of arms, which I fondly embraced, to keep myself from rolling overboard, where I was found by one of the officers, who ran off to the Captain; he found there was an empty deck cabin, which they immediately put me into, and in a few hours, having got rid of the noxious vapours, I quite recovered. I again passed a long and dreary time, during which he kept me either with my parents well at work, or at sea coming out and going back, with visits to Madeira and Teneriffe. I had one _very_ anxious time, inasmuch as he was sent as her Majesty's Commissioner to the King of Dahomè, in _those days_ by no means a safe or easy thing.

DAHOMÈ.

"Beautiful feet are those that go On kindly ministry to and fro-- Down lowliest ways if God wills so.

"Beautiful life is that whose span Is spent in duty to God and man, Forgetting 'self' in all that it can.

"Beautiful calm when the course is run, Beautiful twilight at set of sun-- Beautiful death with a life well done."

[Sidenote: _Richard sent as H.M.'s Commissioner to Dahomè._]

Richard, being British Consul for Fernando Po, went to visit Agbome, the capital of the kingdom of Dahomè. Lord Russell, hearing of this, gave him instructions to proceed as her Majesty's Commissioner, on a friendly mission to King Gelele, to impress upon the King the importance the British Government attached to the cessation of the slave-trade, and to endeavour by every possible means to induce him to cease to continue the Dahoman customs. Now the Dahoman customs, as all know, meant the cutting of the throats of prisoners of war, and, in old days, making a little lake of blood on which to sail a boat. Not only this, cruelty was the rule of every day. Throats cut, to send a message to the king's father in the other world; women cut open alive in a state of pregnancy to see what it was like; animals tied up in every sort of horrible position. He writes--

"There is apparently in this people a physical delight in cruelty to beasts as well as to men. The sight of suffering seems to bring them enjoyment, without which the world is tame. Probably the wholesale murderers and torturers of history, from Phalaris and Nero downwards, took an animal and sensual pleasure--all the passions are sisters--in the look of blood, and in the inspection of mortal agonies. I can see no other explanation of the phenomena which meets my eye in Africa. In almost all the towns on the Oil Rivers, you see dead or dying animals fastened in some agonizing position. Poultry is most common, because cheapest--eggs and milk are _juju_ to slaves here--they are tied by the legs, head downwards, or lashed round the body to a stake or a tree, where they remain till they fall in fragments. If a man be unwell he hangs a live chicken round his throat, expecting that its pain will abstract from his sufferings. Goats are lashed head downwards tightly to wooden pillars, and are allowed to die a lingering death. Even the harmless tortoise cannot escape impalement. Blood seems to be the favourite ornament for a man's face, as pattern-painting with some dark colour, like indigo, is the proper decoration for a woman. At funerals, numbers of goats and poultry are sacrificed for the benefit of the deceased, and the corpse is sprinkled with the warm blood. The headless trunks are laid upon the body, and if the fowls flap their wings, which they will do for some seconds after decapitation, it is a good omen for the dead man.

"When male prisoners of war are taken they are brought home for sacrifice and food, whilst their infants and children are sometimes supported by the middle, from poles planted in the canoe. The priest decapitates the men--for ordinary executions each Chief has his own headsman--and no one doubts that the bodies are eaten. Mr. Smith and Dr. Hutchinson both aver that they witnessed actual cases. The former declares that, when old Pepple, father of the present King, took captive King Amakree, of New Calabar, he gave a large feast to the European slave-traders on the river. All was on a grand scale. But the reader might perhaps find some difficulty in guessing the name of the dish placed before his Majesty at the head of the table. It was the bloody heart of the King of Calabar, just as it had been torn from the body. He took it in his hand and devoured it with the greatest apparent gusto, remarking, 'This is the way I serve my enemies!'

"Shortly after my first visit, five prisoners of war were brought in from the eastern country. I saw in the _juju_-house their skulls, which were suspiciously white and clean, as if boiled, and not a white man doubted that they had been eaten. The fact is, that they cannot afford to reject any kind of provisions."

Richard was the bearer of presents from Her Majesty to the King--one forty-feet circular crimson silk damask tent, with pole complete; a richly embossed silver pipe with amber mouthpiece; two richly embossed silver belts, with lion and crane in raised relief; two silver waiters; one coat of mail and gauntlets. This is not the place to introduce the subject very largely into _this_ book, as I hope to do in "The Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton" (two further volumes that I am preparing). But I may say that, with regard to his Mission, the King said that if he renounced the customs of his forefathers his people would kill him; that the slaves represented his fortune, but if the Queen would allow him £50,000 a year, that he would be able to do without it. With regard to the tent, it was exceedingly handsome, but it was too small to sit under in that climate, and the only thing he cared for was the gingerbread lion on the top of the pole. He liked his old red-clay and wooden-stem pipe better than the silver one; he liked the silver waiters very much, but he thought they were too small to use as shields; he could not get his hand into the gauntlet; the coat of mail he hung up and made into a target; and then he explained that the only thing he really _did_ want, and would be much obliged to her Majesty for, was a carriage and horses, and a white woman!

He made my husband a Brigadier-General of his Amazons, and I was madly jealous from afar; for I imagined lovely women in flowing robes, armed, and riding thoroughbred Arabs, and above is the Amazon as, to my great relief, I found she was (afterwards). The King gave him a string of green beads, which was a kind of Dahoman "Garter," a necklace of human bones for his favourite squaw, and a silver chain and Cross with a Chameleon on it. We traced in it the presence of former missionaries, who doubtless found that their crucifixes were thought to be a delightful invention for the King to crucify men, and therefore they replaced it by the chameleon. I have lost my paper on it, and am afraid to quote Greek without it. The King sent return presents to Her Majesty; they consisted of native pipes and tobacco for Her Majesty's smoking, and loin-cloths for Her Majesty to change while travelling, and an umbrella to be held over Her Majesty's head whilst drinking. The presents arrived one day whilst I was at the Foreign Office, but as there had been a murder at Fernando Po, and Richard had been ordered to send home the clothes of the murdered man, on opening the box they were supposed to be these latter articles, and were put on one side. I was told they looked quite dirty enough to be that.

[Sidenote: _Dahomè and Richard's Travels._]

The journey occupied three months, during the whole of which time the King made much of him, but holding his life in his hand, and any spiteful moment might have ended it. He told me when he came back, that he had seen enough horrid sights to turn a man's brain; and he said, "I used to have to be perfectly calm and dignified whilst seeing these things, or they would have had a contempt for me; but I frequently used to send to the King to say, that if such or such happened again, I should be obliged to leave his Court, as my Government did not countenance such proceedings, which always had the desired effect." On his return, he received no acknowledgment whatever of his services, but Earl Russell wrote me a kind little note, in which he said, "Tell Captain Burton that he has performed his Mission to my utmost and entire satisfaction." I will renew the subject, as I said, in my "Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton."

[Sidenote: _His Travels, Business, etc. on the West Coast._]

The Bight of Biafra, on the West Coast of Africa, extends from Fernando Po to Bathurst, about six hundred miles of coast, and that was Richard's jurisdiction. The lawless conduct of the rum-corrupted natives gave him a good deal of trouble. The traders and the merchants of the coast are called "palm-oil lambs," and they used to call Richard their "shepherd" (supercargoes and skippers are also called "palm-oil ruffians" and "coast-lambs"). I believe he managed them very amicably, and, in spite of business and the dangerous climate, he was supported by all the better class of European agents and supercargoes. He pursued his explorations with ardour. He knew the whole coast from Bathurst (Gambia) to St. Paulo de Loanda (Angola). He marched up to Abeokuta, he ascended the Cameroon Mountains,[1] the wonderful extinct volcano described by Hanno the Carthagenian and Ptolemy's "Theon Ochema." He wanted the English Government to establish a sanitarium there for the West Coast, and a convict-station for garrotters, the last new crime of _that_ day, and to be allowed to use them to construct roads, and in cultivating cotton and chocolate. He told Lord Russell that he would be responsible for them, and should never chain them or lock them up, because, as long as they remained within a certain extent of ring-fence, they would be well and hearty, and the moment they went outside it, they would die without anybody looking after them. The British Government was too tender over their darling human brutes, the cruel, ferocious, and murderous criminals, though the climate was considered quite good enough for Richard and other honourable and active British subjects. He then told Earl Russell that if he would make him Governor of the "Gold Coast," he could send home annually one million pounds sterling; but Lord Russell answered him, "that gold was becoming too common."

He then visited the cannibal Mpangwe, the Fans of Du Chaillu, whose accuracy he had always stood up for when the world had doubted him, and now he was able to confirm it. He then went to Benin City, which was mostly unknown to the Europeans. Belzoni was born in Padua in 1778. During the last eight years of his life he was an African explorer; and he died in Africa, at Benin, in 1823, and he was buried at Gwato, at the foot of a very large tree; guns were fired, and a carpenter from one of the ships put up a tablet to his memory. It is suspected that he was poisoned for the sake of plunder. It was said that some native had inherited his papers. Richard offered £20 for them, but without avail. Belzoni's tree is of a fine spreading growth, which bears a poison apple, and whose boughs droop nearly to the ground. It is a pretty and romantic spot. He writes, "I made an attempt at digging, in order that I might take home his bones and, if possible, his papers, but I was obliged to content myself with sketching his tree, and sending home a handful of wild-flowers to Padua. He died, some say, on the 26th of November, and some say the 3rd of December, 1820." It is remarkable the tender feeling that Richard had for Travellers' graves abroad; indeed, _any_ English graves abroad, but especially Travellers or Englishmen. The number of graves that we have sought out, and put in a state of repair and furnished with tombstones and flowers, you would hardly believe--Lady Hester Stanhope's in Syria, Jules Jaquemont's in Bombay, a French traveller, and many, many others. It showed the feeling that he had about a traveller coming home to lay his bones to rest in his own land, and the respect he had for their resting-place. It makes me all the more thankful that I was able to bring _him_ home to the place he chose himself, and that our friends enabled me to put up such a monument to him.

He brought out, in _Fraser's Magazine_, several letters in February, March, and April, 1863, previous to his "Wanderings." He ascended the Elephant Mountain, and when he came home he lectured upon that before the Geographical Society. I remember so well, when Richard had submitted something he had written to Norton Shaw, at the Royal Geographical Society, the latter saying, "I don't ever remember hearing this word before, Burton! Where does it come from?" He threw back his head and laughed. "I coined it myself of course, and who has a better right?" Norton Shaw laughed heartily. "Well," he said, "it is a good word, a very good word." "Oh!" said Richard, "I always coin one when I have not got one; it is the only way." He visited the line of lagoons between Lagos and the Volta river. He explored the Yellahlah rapids of the Congo river, and while engaged in all this he collected 2859 proverbs in different African tongues, as for example the Wolof tongue, Kanuri or Bornuese, the Oji or Ashanti, the Ga or Accra, the Yoruba; some from the Eun or Dahoman; some from the Isubú, and Dúalla, of the Bight of Biafra; some in the Efik of the Old Calabar river, also Bight of Biafra; some from the Fans or Mpangwe, from the Upper Gaboon river. He held that the object of language-study was to obtain an insight into the character and thought-modes of Mankind, and that it was not only necessary to speak their language, but to investigate their literary compositions.

He thought that in the Semitic dialects, and in other Asiatic and Indo-European tongues--as the Persian, which imitate their style--the habit of balancing sentences naturally produces this parallelism, and he believed that "The Thousand and One Nights" supplies as many instances as can be found in the Hebrew poets. He thought that the whole of Yoruba shows more or less the effects of El Islam. With respect to the Kafirs, he says it must be noticed that they are a mixed race of African, Arab, and perhaps Persian blood. He thought that a collection of proverbs of this sort would make a kind of manual of Asiatic thought. The nations of the East, he said, always delight in the significant brevity of aphoristic eloquence; and the Proverbs of Solomon show their antiquity and their extensive uses by the Jews. The Arabs were equally addicted to proverbs, which passed into the Persian and Indian languages. He therefore produced "Wit and Wisdom from West Africa; or, a Book of Proverbial Philosophy, Idioms, Enigmas, and Laconisms," in 1865, in 1 vol., and his "Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomè" (2 vols., 1864), which should be _now_ a very useful book to the French army, as his "First Footsteps in East Africa" or "Harar" should be to the Italians.

[1] A month ago a black missionary from the Cameroons, with his white wife and her two sisters, paid me a most feeling visit at Mortlake, and visited Richard in his mausoleum, where they showed deep emotion and affection. He had stayed with them on the Cameroons nearly thirty years ago.--I. B.