CHAPTER 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."