CHAPTER XVII.

THE TWO CONTESTED POINTS BETWEEN A SMALL SECTION OF ANTAGONISTS AND MYSELF.

"Because I'm with the swallow, however far he flies; Because the lark within me leaps upwards to the skies; Because, where'er there's singing of birds on hill or plain, We catch each other's meaning and join in one refrain; Because the forest temples where God has made His throne Can rustle to a rising chant they sing to me alone; Because, where'er I find them among the waving grass, The daisies and the violets nod shyly as I pass; Because the flowers have secrets that few men seem to see, And yet they ope their bosoms and tell their tales to me; Because the earth is fairer; because the roses blow With a loveliness and purity that few men care to know; Because the heavens are higher than many dare to think; Because the heavens are nearer, I tremble on their brink; And oh, because to all the joys of birds and beasts and flies, The myriad joys that move the earth and fill the summer skies, There's something in this heart of mine, there's something that replies; Because those other singers whom death has granted fame Stand by my side in solemn hours and call me by my name; Because I dare to meet their gaze, and seem to understand The language which proclaims them all of one great father-land; Because their touch is on me; because in accents mild They hail me as a follower, a servant, yet a child; Because the fairies hearken, I call them at mine ease; Because I hear the angels' harps in the pauses of the breeze; Because a spirit's with me, where'er my steps have trod, Whose eyes have something of myself, and, oh, far more of God; Because, when night is silent, I watch the planets roll, And hear their solemn melodies in the centre of my soul; Because of one great action I feel myself the part, A life whose sphere is nature, a life whose voice is art, And in my breast re-echo the pulsings of its heart; Because my thoughts are splendour, because my thoughts are sin, With a shock, as if of armies amid the battle's din; Because the shades of former days go with me on my way, And because to-morrow's sunshine is on my path to-day; Because my heart-strings tremble to the pressure of thy hand, And because I live a sorrow which none can understand." ----MAARTEN MAARTENS.

THE "SCENTED GARDEN" CONTROVERSY.

I must now revert, I hope for the last time, to the "Scented Garden." I made the greatest mistake in the world; I did not know my public, I did not know England. I was under some delusion which I have often bewailed, that I was responsible to, or owed some explanation to, the would-be buyers of that book, nor can I _now_ think how I could have imagined that it was, or described it as, my husband's _magnum opus_--perhaps it was because it was the first work of the kind I had ever read--as it certainly was the _least_ of his works, and I should say that his "Mecca and Medinah" and his "Arabian Nights" were his best. The abuse I got by a portion of the Press, and eventually volumes of anonymous letters, which were far coarser than the "Scented Garden," and which would have shocked Whitechapel, induced me a month later to write a second letter to the _Echo_, which I reproduce, and, as it went on, a further explanation in the _New Review_.

_Lady Burton's Last Words to the "Echo."_

[Sidenote: _My Defence about the burnt MS. to the "Echo."_]

"On reading my own letter in the _Morning Post_, which paper has always been my best friend, I see that the few lines that explained my _reasons_ for taking the public into my confidence are cut out, probably on account of its length. I quite understand, and see exactly what the opposite side think of it. I wrote to the _Morning Post_, 'I am obliged to confess this, because there are fifteen hundred men expecting the book, and I do not quite know how to get at them, also I want to avoid unpleasant hints by telling the truth.' My _reasons_ were, that there were too many people after the book, too many inconvenient letters and questions from those who expected it and wanted to buy it, and had I not told what I did, my few bitter enemies--we all have some--would hint and not speak out, which is the worst of all things. Will you believe that I have been four months in England, and quite unable to wind-up half our affairs because my whole mornings have been taken up with answering such letters? I can satisfy all the objections. Had my husband lived, the book would now have been in the printing press; I should never have been allowed to read it, and I should have done exactly what I did to the 'Arabian Nights'--worked the financial part of it. I intended privately to offer it for three thousand guineas to a bookseller with whom my husband and I had had a long-standing friendship, in order to save myself the trouble of all I went through with the 'Arabian Nights,' and it was only on getting the double offer from the unknown man, which was more than I could ever have hoped for--not the next day, as the Press has it--that I sat down to read it. The money was quite a secondary consideration with me, though I like money as much as most women, and have got none; but no woman who truly loved a man, and cared for his interests after death, would have coveted that class of monument for his beloved memory, and only the most selfish or thoughtless of men could have expected me to give it up. Such men would not have risked one little corner of their good names, or reputations, or profession, or money, or family, or society, in connection with any book on this subject. No! they would have shoved him forward into the breach; they would have egged him on with the bravado of schoolboys to his face, in good fellowship--how often have I seen it!--and, if anything went wrong, would probably have pretended that they did not know anything about it. He would have been perfectly justified, had he lived, in carrying out his work. He would have been surrounded by friends to whom he could have explained any objections or controversies, and would have done everything to guard against the incalculable harm of his purchasers lending it to their women-friends, and to their boyish acquaintances, which I could not guarantee.

"Was it a classic? No! it was not a classic; it was a translation from Arabic manuscripts very difficult to get in the original, with copious notes and explanations of his own. But it is very difficult for me, as a woman, to tell you exactly what it was.

"I have received hundreds of letters, with all sorts of opinions, all except a few thoroughly approving my act, and some of these are anonymous, showing how careful people are with their own skins, but the most curious trait is that so many agree with me privately and write in the papers against me. I did not expect my confession to be noticed at all; it was a great surprise to me to find it discussed. I only meant to stop the letters asking for it. Moreover, I only burnt what was my own property, and at my own loss. If my husband had been alive I should not have read it, and I should not have done it. He and I both supposed that he would live for many, many years; but, nevertheless, one day, several weeks before he died, when we were travelling in Switzerland, he called me into his room, and dictated to me a list of such things as he wished burnt in case I survived him, and three documents, which he signed. One of them, amongst other things, contained the following:--

"'In the event of my death, I bequeath especially to my wife, Isabel Burton, every book, paper, or manuscript, to be overhauled and examined by her only, and to be dealt with entirely at her own discretion, and in the manner she thinks best, having been my sole helper for thirty years,' etc., etc., etc., etc.

"'(Signed) RICHARD F BURTON.'

"I need hardly tell you that the 'Scented Garden' was not included in the list of things to be burnt. I did it purely out of love for my husband, and all the censure is as nothing to me in comparison to his memory and our speedy reunion.

"Shortly after we married we lost all we possessed in the world in Grindlay's fire, and when the news was brought to him he remained silent for a few minutes, and then turning to me, said, 'The worst part of the loss is that there were boxes full of priceless Arabic and Persian manuscripts, which I picked up in out-of-the-way places; but,' he added, smiling, 'the world will be all the better for the loss.'

"When I wrote to the _Morning Post_ I never calculated or thought of either praise, or blame, or gain; in fact, I think any one may see I never thought of myself at all, or I should have been more worldly-wise. I shall never regret what I have done, but I shall regret all my life having confessed it, though I could scarcely have helped it, as I was ordered to do so. My husband did no wrong; he had a high purpose, and he thought no evil of printing it, and could one have secured the one per cent. of individuals to whom it would have been merely a study, it probably would have done no harm; but once you get a thing in print in England you have lost all hold of it, and the merest schoolgirl, if she is bent upon seeing it, will get to do so, and the more the mystery the keener they are.

"You will pardon me, who have spent the best part of thirty years on foreign stations, for saying, that if what people tell me be true, and if England progresses in this line at the rate she has done for the last fifteen or twenty years, let us say in another sixty or seventy years, my husband's 'Scented Garden' would have become a Christmas book for boys, on the plea that the mind should be trained to everything. I shall not have done the world such an injury as they make out. Thousands, millions, admire my husband, and many talk of their great love for him, in many instances truly, but I am the only being in the world to whom he was _everything_, whose soul is mine, whose interests are mine, and therefore I am obliged to harden myself against all abuse, although I quite understand the people of the opposite part, from their point of view.

"I do not understand what the Press meant by my casting a slur on his memory. Did any slur attach to him from the 'Arabian Nights'? On the contrary, great praise, and fame, and gain! Why, then, should a slur come from the 'Scented Garden'? It was not the world's slur that was to be feared. I did not think I could laugh now, but I did when I read 'that I appealed to the public for sympathy and acclaim for my own purity--at his expense,' for there is no cause for sympathy--I never thought about being pure or impure--I felt no sacrifice. I know what I saw. I knew what I had to do, and I did it. It is no use explaining, because the world would not understand me--and there is no need why it should. It never understood _him_ whilst he lived, and it will not understand _me_ while I live.

"Some articles in the Press say that I am uneducated. I am not going to deny it, but my husband found that I had quite sufficient common sense to trust me unreservedly with the whole of his business of whatever nature for thirty years, and he never had cause to regret it, nor did he ever do the slightest thing without consulting me. This is the only instance in which I have not co-operated. I am accused of doing it to earn money, which is rather illogical. If that was my object, why did I not quietly pocket my six thousand guineas, hold my tongue, and pass the manuscript quietly to a man who is incapable of betraying me? Out of the many hundreds of letters which I have received since the 20th of June, three offered to start public subscriptions for me, but I declined them, because this subject is, to me, too sacred for barter. The only money I have ever asked for was for the monument. I forgive those who have heaped me with unmeasured abuse, but I shall never forget it, and I thank them for showing me what sort of people were waiting for the book, and how right I was to burn it. Yet I am quite sure that more than two-thirds of this particular school would condemn what has been said and written to me, did they know it. At any rate, I am quite certain that none of it (either private letters or Press) was penned by any true friend of Sir Richard's to his wife.

"ISABEL BURTON."

* * * * *

"My confession has been twisted and turned into the following:--'That my poor husband had been engaged on a most beautiful and scientific work for thirty years, that he had finished it all but the last page, that it contained gems of science, that it was full of transcendental Oriental poetry, and that I brutally burnt it, the day after he was dead, in either wanton ignorance or bigotry.' Now, the truth is this. Ever since 1842, whenever my husband came across any information on _any_ subject, he collected it and pigeon-holed it, and at this particular time the accumulations of twenty-seven years (since Grindlay's fire, which lost all preceding ones) were pigeon-holed in different compartments, on as many as twenty different subjects. As fast as he had finished one book, he opened a compartment to produce another, and sometimes had several books on the stocks at the same time, on as many different large plain deal tables.

"It was towards the end of 1888, that he pulled out of its nook the material which would go towards the 'Scented Garden,' and occasionally he translated bits from an Arabic manuscript called the 'Perfumed Garden,'[1] by the Shaykh El Nefzáwih, a Kabyle Arab of the early sixth century (Hegira), the French translation of which is as poor, as a translation of the original, as all the translations of the 'Arabian Nights' were (except Mr. John Payne's) until Richard's came out, which was the perfect one. The only value in the book at all, consisted in his annotations, and there was no poetry. He was engaged on Catullus at the same time, and he threw all his strength and style into the more virile work at the expense of the other. His journal of 31st of March, 1890, contains this sentence--'Began, or rather resumed, "Scented Garden," and don't much care about it, but it is a good pot-boiler,' which I interpret that he knew it was not up to the mark; but the time he was actually seriously occupied on it was from 31st of March, 1890, till the 19th of October--not quite seven months. I have often bewailed my own folly in considering that I was in any way responsible to or owed any explanation to the public respecting my husband's writings, and the only object, as I said, of my letter was to deliver myself from the bother of the letters and visits of a very large number of would-be purchasers. I never supposed for an instant that my action would excite any comment, one way or the other, much less did I suppose that any one would attach any kind of blame to my husband, any more than to the printing of the 'Arabian Nights,' which gave him so much _kudos_ and plenty of money.

"I know that no one would have _dared_ to blame him had he been alive, nor to have represented me as throwing a blight on his reputation, for whom I would at any moment, during a period of forty years, have cheerfully given my life. I knew that this book, being the outcome of sickness during the last two years of his life, was not up to the standard of his former works. Turner's executors burnt a few of his last pictures under similar circumstances to leave his reputation as a painter at its zenith. I acted from the same motive. I should not have dared to burn any autobiography, and every word that he wrote about himself to be given to the public is given. I consider that I have done infinitely more for his reputation and memory by burning it than by printing it. People must not tell me that I am no judge, because I wrote _with_ him, and _for_ him, and also copied everything for him, for the first twenty-six of our thirty years' married life, till I broke down myself, and the 'Arabian Nights' was then handed over to another copyist, I doing all the rest. He laid no stress on bringing it out, except for money's sake. When he had done the 'Arabian Nights,' he said, in his joking, honest way, 'I have struggled for forty-seven years, distinguishing myself honourably in every way that I possibly could. I never had a compliment, nor a "thank you," nor a single farthing. I translate a doubtful book in my old age, and I immediately make sixteen thousand guineas. Now that I know the tastes of England, we need never be without money.'

"Had we lived to come home together, I should have talked him off printing it, as I did another manuscript, quite on a different subject, and he knew that if I had my will, I would burn it. This did not prevent him, about eight weeks before he died, leaving me sole executrix of all he possessed, with instructions '_to sift thoroughly, and publish anything that I thought would not misrepresent him to the public_,' adding, '_having been my sole helper for thirty years, I wish you to act solely on your own judgment and discretion_.' Now, I judged, after long thinking, that the subject would be unpopular; that had he lived to explain it, to talk about it in the clubs amongst his men-friends, it would have been different; that I probably should have worked the financial part of it, as I did that of the 'Arabian Nights,' because I should not have read it, and large sums would doubtless have accrued from it. He always wrote over the heads of his public, and sixty years in advance of his time: I think that about fifteen people would possibly have understood it and his motives (which were always noble) if the germ was big enough to produce the good intended.

"Given fifteen people to read and understand, given a dead hero who could no longer profit from the money, who could not explain or defend himself if he were attacked by the press, who could not enjoy the praise of a small section of his fellow-men; given two thousand or more other men who could buy the book and in course of time would tire of it and sell it. It would be bought by rich Tom, Dick, and Harry. It would by degrees descend amongst the populace out of Holywell Street, the _very opposite result_ to what the upright manly translator would have desired, and the whole contents might be so misunderstood by the uneducated that the good, noble, glorious life of Richard Burton, of which I and thousands of others are most proud and delight to honour, might sixty years hence receive a very different colouring from the truth, and be handed down to posterity in a false light.

"Many people will regret that Richard did not leave his manuscripts in the hands of a literary man, a lawyer, or a so-called friend. If he had, little men without a name would have profited by it, by tacking on theirs to his big name, money would have been made, and everybody, without distinction, who could have paid would have been pandered to, but _nobody_ would have thought of the dead man, the soldier, the chivalrous gentleman in his tomb--he knew this. I _alone_ stand here, and I think it an honour, for his sake, to bear with the epithets of scorn that the brutality of the athlete, and the dyspepsia of the effete--mostly anonymous Braves--have showered upon me. All that he has left will be given to the public by degrees, if it is more than a mere sketch, but it is cruel to the dead to give their sketches to the world and pretend that they are their best work, simply because they fetch money."[2]

* * * * *

The _Leicester Post_, a little while ago, wrote:--

"I don't think that Lady Burton's coming book will contain any explanation of her action in destroying the manuscript which Sir Richard endeavoured to complete on his death-bed. It is now said, with some show of authority, that the work contained but one chapter, which in a _virginibus puerisque_ light, might have given offence; if this were so, it seems appalling that the whole work should have been consigned to the flames. Lady Burton cannot know of this report, or she would hasten to relieve the literary minds, whose plaint is bitter because anything has perished which came from the translator of the 'Arabian Nights.'"

Now, it is absurd to suppose that Richard tried to complete a manuscript on a death-bed of three hours. As to _authority_, there were only three people who ever read that manuscript--Richard who wrote it, the copyist who copied it, and myself. I can relieve the literary minds at once. The first two chapters were a raw translation of part of the works of "Numa Numantius," without any annotations at all, or comments of any kind on Richard's part, and twenty chapters translation of Shaykh el Nafzáwih from Arabic. In fact, it was _all translation_, excepting the annotations on the Arabic work. I asked the copyist, who is a woman, "what she would have done with it," and she said, "I think I should most likely have been tempted with the money, but if I cared for my husband as much as you did, and if he was dead, I hope I might have burned it." I asked her "upon what grounds she would have burnt it," and she said, "Because the Press would assuredly have criticized it. If he were alive he could answer for himself, and explain--he being dead, _you_ could not; and we all know what men-friends are, and how many would have put themselves in the slightest difficulty to take his part. Sir Richard had the courage of his opinions, but his friends have not, and would only come forward if it could aggrandize their own names a little bit. You have done very well." It makes me sick to hear all this anxiety of the Press and the literary world, lest they should miss a word he ever wrote. When he came back in 1882, after being sent to look after Palmer, he had a good deal of information to give, and he could not get a magazine or paper to take his most valuable article till it was quite stale. We used to boil over with rage when his books or articles were rejected. Only the other day I sent a most valuable letter of his, written in 1886, to a Liberal and a Conservative paper, and neither of them would take it. And _now_, because a few chapters, which were of no particular value to the world, have been burnt, the whole country's literary minds are "full of bitter plaint because anything has perished which came from the translator of the 'Arabian Nights.'" Such are the waves and whims of such people. They are (privately of course), selling down at Soho a "Scented Garden," translated by the bookseller himself, from a miserable little French copy, which they pretend is "Sir Richard Burton's Scented Garden," gulling people who ought to know better--but not scholars--and who deserve to lose their money, paying for trash that my husband never saw. I hope the seller charges them enormous sums, and I hope that some of the purchasers will have the common sense to bring an action against him for obtaining money under false pretences.

I have done no evil and am unharmed. I am not afraid of slander which I have not deserved; it will die out and I shall live.

Those who say I have failed in my trust, wish it to be so, mean that it shall be so, if it depends upon them. Slander is very cruel; it tracks its victims like a bloodhound, but it generally crushes its own begetter.

* * * * *

"THE SECOND BONE OF CONTENTION IS RELIGION.

"No, no; it is not there the sorrow lies, Not in the lack of hands that could applaud, But in the lack of hearts that, answering, rise As loadstones to the magnet, the replies Electric of a sympathy which cries: 'The truth is with thee!'" ----MAARTEN MAARTENS.

[Sidenote: _And to the New Review_.]

"Heredity is a strong thing, and cannot always be shaken off. It breeds alike forms of body, forms of soul, disease to this, good teeth or scanty hair to that, or colour, or talents, or creed. My Burtons mostly have Catholic-phobia; they hate it without knowing what it is, because their ancestors seceded from it at the time of the Reformation; but one of the most anti-Catholic of them, at the age of seventeen, wrote me more than one beautiful letter imploring me to take her, and get her baptised and received into the Catholic Church. I have them amongst my treasures now; but I did not do so, because it would have been an act of treachery to her mother, and dishonourable to take advantage of a girl, and she has since been very grateful for it. Another Burton, whilst labouring from the effects of an Indian sunstroke, used always to turn his face alternately towards Mecca (evidently thinking of my husband), and then turn the other way and say his rosary: something Catholic having come into his unbiased, unconscious brain. Richard, when he was out in India, had no one to keep him in order. As soon as he was well emancipated and untrammelled, he answered the call of his Bourbon blood, and transferred himself to the Catholic Church, and this is the way he describes it to the public--he always spoke lightly of the things he felt the most: 'What added not a little to the general astonishment was, that I left off "sitting under" the garrison chaplain, and betook myself to the Catholic chapel of the chocolate-coloured Goanese priest who adhibited spiritual consolation to the buttrels, butlers, and head servants, and other servants of the camp.' He frequently spoke in after writings of 'the Portuguese priest who had charge of his soul,' who, when Richard committed some escapade, 'was like a hen who had hatched a duckling.' These writings were lent by Richard to Mr. Hitchman, with other notes, in 1887, but he did not understand the importance of it, nor what it pointed to, and left it amongst the parts he did not use.[3] When I asked Richard how it was that it escaped public comment, he said, 'Because, when I mention that I went to the chocolate-coloured priest of the Goanese Church, the English only think it is some black tribe, where I have been probably tarred and feathered, whilst I was very much in earnest; but since it is no use annoying my people, and as it has escaped Mr. Hitchman, and as it only concerns you and me, and is no business of any outsider, I do not wish you to say anything about it till my death-bed, or some time after my death, and that only if you are put in any difficulty.' Cardinal Wiseman knew it, for he passed Richard through all the missions in wild places all over the world as a Catholic officer, and was willing to patronize my marriage. But Richard never let _me_ know anything about it until after we were married, and I have kept it all my life a secret. I have always steadily said that '_I did not know_,' because I never meant to tell it to any one but those who had a right to ask, as I did not see how it concerned the public.

"The public have allowed me to think it unworthy of having anything but _public_ events related to it by the result of my stupid confidence about the burnt manuscript; one almost begrudges it the truth. Look at Grant Allen, a strong and clever man, who stated a while ago in the _Athenæum_ in a paragraph, 'The worm will turn,' that he had been asked to write something personal, that he threw his whole soul and religion into a book, and that when he gave it to his publisher he besought him to destroy it, or 'no one would ever read one of his books again.' It is the same with me; but I have one advantage; I want _nothing_ of the public except what it accords to me freely and out of its own courteous sympathy, and I do want it to understand its departed hero--therefore I sacrifice myself for the public good.

"I think that the World, if a man speaks its own shibboleth, if he wears its last new-fashioned coat in the Park, has no right to complain if he does not show it the colour of the singlet that he wears next to his skin, or the talisman that he wears round his neck, which his wife happens to see, because she helps him to dress and undress.

"Richard was so beautifully reserved, such a past master in concealing his real thoughts and feelings, whilst talking most freely, so as never to hurt his surroundings by letting them imagine that he did not trust them with everything. I used to tell him that he was like the 'Man with the Iron Mask.' He did not see what right any one had to know anything, except what he just absolutely chose them to know.

"I feel with Walt Whitman:--

'I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition; They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God; Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.'

"I am by no means going to tell you that his Catholicity was a life-long, fixed, and steady thing, like mine. It was not. He had long and wild fits of Eastern Mysticism, but not the Agnosticism that I have seen in England since my widowhood. It was the mysticism of the East--Sufiism. Periodically he had equal Catholic fits, and practised it, hiding it sometimes even from me, though I knew it. In every place we lived in, except Trieste, he had a priest from whom he took lessons, but even this stopped, after he had resident doctors and could not go out by himself. From Trieste he used formerly to go to Gorizia, two hours express inland, and other towns. He was worse than ever _in talk_ the three last years, but the things that he said were so innocent and so witty that I was often compelled to laugh or to go away and laugh. Still, as I saw his health declining I grew frightfully anxious, nay agonized, and in 1888, two years before he died, I made a general appeal for prayers in our Church, which he saw and kept a copy of in a drawer."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Religion_.]

There are three people in the world who might possibly be able to write sections of his life. Most of his intimate friends are dead, but there are still a few left. One would describe him as a Deist, one as an Agnostic, and one as an Atheist and Freethinker, but I can only describe the Richard that I knew, not the Richard that they knew. I, his wife, who lived with him day and night for thirty years, believed him to be half-Sufi, half-Catholic, or I prefer to say (as nearer the truth) alternately Sufi and Catholic, because I did not in the least count all his wild talk at table or in Society, nor what he wrote; I minded only what he _thought_ and what he _did_, and this is why I cannot truthfully join in the general opinion. He was like the Druzes, who adopt the national religion for peace' sake; but they have their own private religion all the same. I can distinctly remember a speech which he made in London--I believe it was in 1865, I think at the Anthropological--in which he said, "My religious opinions are of no importance to anybody but myself; _no one_ knows what my religious views are. I object to confessions, and I will _not_ confess. My standpoint is, and I hope ever will be, 'The Truth' as far as it is in me, but known only to myself." This was a public statement, and _might_ silence those who jabber upon things of which they are entirely ignorant.

How beautiful and how sad a mentor is friendship! A noble character must contain three qualities to contend with this one great element of our lives--a sincere, staunch, loyal heart, philosophy, and discernment. The World is a kind, pleasant place to live in, whatever cynics may say. Be in trouble, and you must wonder at the innumerable kind hearts who will call and write, and offer every assistance and consolation in their power. This will not prevent your nearest and dearest relative from snubbing you if you want anything; nor that friend to whom you clung with all your soul, as to a rock, failing you just at the crisis of your life when you most counted upon his support. Then you must call in your philosophy. Again, if a cloud comes over you, how many will disappear, and reappear again as soon as the world has decided in your favour, to join in the applause. Do not blame the weaklings, but your own discernment; they do not want to hurt you, but they hold themselves ready to go on the popular side, whichever way it turns. And why should they not? It is not because they dislike you, but because they fear others more than they love you. In sensitive youth these facts make our misery; but we should learn to rejoice in our riper years when a weak, uncertain friend falls away. Carry the true gold about your own strong heart, and shake off the dross, which is but the superfluous ballast which clogs and impedes the ship's free sailing.

Now, I ask, who is unjust enough, inhuman enough, to grudge me this last consolation? From 1842 to 1890, for forty-eight years, he was before the public; he had a strong band of friends, a strong band of admirers; but the world at large, and notably England, never understood him because he was so above his time, and the larger part did not know how to appreciate him. Who from 1856 to 1859 kept him so supplied with daily written journals of news, of daily cuttings from the newspapers, that when he returned, people said to him, "How come you so well informed of all that has been passing, just as if you had never been away, and you living beyond the pale of civilization?" "Ah, how?" he said. By many mails he never received a line from any one but me. Who cheered him on in danger, toil, and heart-breaking sickness? Who, when he came back from Tanganyika (Africa) in 1859, coldly looked upon by the Government, bullied by the India House, rejected by the Geographical Society, almost tabooed by Society on account of the machinations of Captain Speke, so that he scarcely had ten friends to say good-morning to him,--who sought his side to comfort him? I did! Then we married. Who for thirty years daily attended to his comforts, watched his going out and coming in, had his slippers, dressing-gown, and pipe ready for him every evening, sat sick at heart if he was an hour late, watched all night and till morning if he did not come back? Who copied and worked for and with him? Who fought for thirty years to raise his official position all she could, and wept bitter tears over his being neglected? I did. My only complaint is, that I believe he would have got infinitely more, if he had asked for things himself, and not perpetually stuck me forward; but he was too modest, and I had to obey orders. Who rode or walked at his side through hunger, thirst, cold, and burning heat, with hardships and privations and danger, in all his travels? Who nursed him through seven long illnesses, before his last illness, some lasting two or three months, and never left his bed-head day or night, and did everything for him? I did! Why, I was wife, and mother, and comrade, and secretary, and aide-de-camp, and agent to him; and I was proud, happy, and glad to do it all, and never tired day or night for thirty years. I would rather have had a crust and a tent with him, than be a Queen elsewhere. At the moment of his death I had done all I could for the body, and then I tried to follow his soul. I _am_ following the soul, and I _shall_ reach it before long. There we shall nevermore part. Agnostics! "Burnt manuscript" readers! where were _you_ all then? Hail-fellow-well-met, when the world went well; running away when it pursed up its stupid lips. And do any of _you_ pretend or wish to take _him_ away from _me_ in death? Oh, for shame, for shame! Let him rest where he wanted to rest, and be silent, or do not boast of your "free country" where a man may not even be buried where he will; where he may not speak his mind, and tell the truth. Be ashamed that History may have to say, that the only honour that England accorded to Richard Burton, having failed to do him justice in this life, was to bespatter his wife with mud after he was dead, and could not defend her.

Do not be so hard and prosaic as to suppose that our Dead cannot, in rare instances, come back and tell us how it is with them.

"He lives and moves, he is not dead, He does not alter nor grow strange, His love is still around me shed, Untouched by time, or chance, or change; And when he walks beside me, then As shadows seem all living men." ----MARY MACLEOD.

[Sidenote: _I take my Leave_.]

He said always, "I am gone--pay, pack, and follow."

Reader! I have paid, I have packed, I have suffered. I am waiting to join his Caravan. I am waiting for a welcome sound--

"THE TINKLING OF HIS CAMEL-BELL."

* * * * *

"THE SELF-EXILED."

"'Now, open the gate, and let her in, And fling it wide, For she hath been cleansed from stain of sin,' St. Peter cried. And the angels were all silent.

"'Though I am cleansed from stain of sin,' She answered low, 'I came not hither to enter in, Nor may I go.' And the angels were all silent.

* * * * *

"'But I may not enter there,' she said, 'For I must go Across the gulf, where the guilty dead Lie in their woe.' And the angels were all silent.

"'If I enter heaven, I may not speak My soul's desire, For them that are lying distraught and weak In flaming fire.' And the angels were all silent.

"St. Peter he turned the keys about, And answered grim: 'Can you love the Lord, and abide without Afar from Him?' And the angels were all silent.

"'Should I be nearer Christ,' she said 'By pitying less The sinful living, or woeful dead, In their helplessness?' And the angels were all silent.

"'Should I be liker Christ, were I To love no more The loved, who in their anguish lie Outside the door?' And the angels were all silent.

* * * * *

"'Did He not hang on the cursed tree, And bear its shame, And clasp to His heart, for love of me, My guilt and blame?' And the angels were all silent.

"'Should I be liker, nearer Him, Forgetting this, Singing all day with the Seraphim, In selfish bliss?' And the angels were all silent.

"The Lord Himself stood by the gate And heard her speak Those tender words compassionate, Gentle and meek. And the angels were all silent.

"Now, pity is the touch of God In human hearts, And from that way He ever trod He ne'er departs. And the angels were all silent.

"And He said, 'Now will I go with you, Dear child of Love; I am weary of all this glory, too. In heaven above.' And the angels were all silent.

"'We will go and seek and save the lost, If they will hear. They who are worst but need Me most; And all are dear.' And the angels were all silent." ----WALTER C. SMITH, _Hilda among the Brother Gods_.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Good-bye_.]

[1] This is a work of Arabian erotology--the Arab art of love--and would have been brought out with the same privacy and a limited number, and at a prohibitive price, like the "Arabian Nights," so that the general public have sustained no loss, and the penny-a-liner would never have seen it.--I. B.

[2] "I was told lately that a 'Scented Garden,' from a mild French translation, is being sold and passed off to the uneducated, not to scholars, as Burton's 'Scented Garden,' under the false plea that I carried away with me from Trieste a copy of it. I now state upon my oath, that there were but two copies of Richard Burton's 'Scented Garden;' one was his own original, and one a clean copy; that I burnt them both, and that no other copy was made from them, on the solemn written declaration of the copyist, and I warn the world against buying a spurious article. I also was told that people talk about bringing out works in collaboration with my husband. There is only one genuine collaboration, and that will appear in time; that is Catullus; Richard Burton's poetry, Mr. Leonard Smithers' prose. Richard, to save me, used to pretend to his men-friends that I knew nothing of these works, and people who want notoriety pretend that they were collaborating with him, thinking they can do so _now_ with impunity. Richard _did_ tell me everything, although he did not allow me to read the works; but now that he has left me his literary executrix I find it necessary to say that I _do_ know my own business, that I warn people from taking liberties with my husband's name and my property to sell spurious literature. About six weeks before Richard died (not because he contemplated his death, but because we were going away for four months to Greece and Constantinople, which would leave us very little time on our return for the actual exodus on the following July 1st) we took, a week together, in the early morning, a list of all the manuscripts, published and unpublished, and their destinations when packed up for England. Hence, when I was offered assistance in the sorting and arrangements from numbers of people after his death, I replied, That I did not want help, because I knew them "as a shepherd knows his sheep"--hence a few bitter enemies. The so-called collaborations are all in my husband's handwriting, and I have them, or rather I keep all my literary treasures in a bank for safety, and take them out piecemeal as I need them. Three of his diaries have indeed been abstracted since his death, 1859, 1860, and 1861, but fortunately they are not the _private_ ones, which were always kept under lock and key, but those containing public remarks, memoranda, and so on, which were left about. Numbers of our best books have also disappeared, notably an old Shakespeare of twelve vols., which he charged me never to part with. Of course it is impossible to say where they may have been lost during a period of seventeen months; I only got them housed March, 1892; only after I am dead let no one exhibit them as 'gifts from my intimate friend and fellow-worker, Richard Burton.' There is also missing £200 worth of scrip shares in African mines."

[3] "Mr. Hitchman returned all these writings to Richard, who wanted to use them for his own autobiography, which he was to begin in 1891, and I have them now for his biography."

APPENDIX A.

LIST OF CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD F. BURTON'S WORKS.

A Grammar of the Játaki or Belochi Dialect. Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, India. 1849.

Grammar of the Mooltanee Language. India, 1849.

Critical Remarks on Dr. Dorn's Chrestomathy of Pushtoo or Afghan Dialect. India, 1849.

Reports to Bombay: (1) General Notes on Sind; (2) Notes on the Population of Sind. Printed in the Government records.

Goa and the Blue Mountains. 1851.

Scinde; or, the Unhappy Valley. 2 vols. 1851.

Sindh, and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the Indus. 1851.

Falconry in the Valley of the Indus. 1852.

A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise. 1853.

Pilgrimage to Mecca and El-Medinah. 3 vols. 1855.

First Footsteps in East Africa. 1856.

Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa. 2 vols. 1860.

The whole of Vol. XXXIII. of the Royal Geographical Society. 1860.

The City of the Saints (Mormon). 1861.

Wanderings in West Africa. 2 vols. 1863.

Abeokuta and the Cameroons. 2 vols. 1863.

The Nile Basin. 1864.

A Mission to the King of Dahomé. 2 vols. 1864.

Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. 1864.

The Highlands of the Brazil. 2 vols. 1869.

Vikram and the Vampire. Hindú Tales. 1870.

Marcy's Prairie Traveller. Notes by R. F. Burton. _Anthropological Review_, 1864.

Psychic Facts. Stone Talk, by F. Baker. 1865.

Paraguay. 1870.

Proverba Communia Syriaca. Royal Asiatic Society. 1871.

Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast. 2 vols. 1872.

Unexplored Syria. Richard and Isabel Burton. 2 vols. 1872.

The Lands of the Cazembe, and a small pamphlet of Supplementary papers. Royal Geographical Society. 1873.

The Captivity of Hans Stadt. Hakluyt Society. 1874.

Articles on Rome. Two Papers. _Macmillan's Magazine_, 1874-5.

The Castellieri of Istria: a Pamphlet. Anthropological Society. 1874.

Gerber's Province of Minas Geraes. Translated and annotated by R. F. Burton. Royal Geographical Society. 1874.

New System of Sword Exercise: a Manual. 1875.

Ultima Thule: a Summer in Iceland. 2 vols. 1875.

Gorilla Land; or, the Cataracts of the Congo. 2 vols. 1875.

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.

Etruscan Bologna. 1876.

Sind Revisited. 1877.

The Gold Mines of Midian, and the Ruined Midianite Cities. 1878.

The Land of Midian (Revisited). 2 vols. 1879.

The Kasîdah.

Camoens. 6 vols. of 10. First publication. 1880. --I. The Lusiads. Englished by R. F. Burton. Edited by his wife, Isabel Burton. 2 vols. --II. The Commentary, Life, and Lusiads. R. F. Burton. 2 vols., containing a Glossary, and Reviewers reviewed by Isabel Burton. --III. The Lyrics of Camoens. 2 vols. R. F. Burton.

A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881. 8vo.

To the Gold Coast for Gold. 2 vols. 1883.

The Book of the Sword. 1 large vol. of 3. By R. F. Burton, Maître d'Armes. 1884.

Iraçema, or Honey Lips; and Manoel de Moraes, the Convert. Translated from the Brazilian by Richard and Isabel Burton. 1 vol. 1886.

Arabian Nights. Printed by private subscription, 1885-8. 1000 sets of 10 vols., followed by 1000 sets of 6 Supplementary vols. (Lady Burton's Edition).

Besides which, Sir Richard Burton has written extensively for _Fraser, Blackwood,_ and a host of Magazines, Pamphlets, and Periodicals; has lectured in many lands: has largely contributed to the newspaper Press in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (both North and South), to say nothing of poetry and anonymous writings.

LIST OF LADY BURTON'S BOOKS.

Inner Life of Syria. 2 vols. 1875.

A. E. I. (Arabia, Egypt, and India). 1879.

LIST OF SIR RICHARD BURTON'S _UNPUBLISHED_ WORKS.

Uruguay. Translated from Brazilian author by Richard and Isabel Burton.

Ladislas Magyar's African Travels. ) Pentamerone. ) These are quite complete. A book on the Jews. )

Catullus. (Almost complete.)

In a semi-state of completion, or only materials and notes, are-- More Notes on Paraguay. Personal Experiences in Syria. Lowlands of Brazil. North America. South America. Central America. A book on Istria--More Castellieri. Materials for four more books of Camoens. Materials towards another book on the Sword. Materials for a book of Greek Proverbs (Greek Anthology). Materials towards a book on the Gypsies. Ditto Slavonic Proverbs. Ditto Dr. Wetstein's Haurán. Ditto Apuleius, or the Golden Ass. Ditto Ausonius (Epigrams).

The Uniform Library will bring out a cheap edition for the people, first, of all his hitherto published works, to which will gradually be added his unpublished works as fast as they can be produced, that the British Public may be made familiar with all that he has written.

This Life will be followed by 2 vols, collecting all his Pamphlets, Essays, Correspondence with the Press, Letters, and the pith of the work he has endeavoured to do for the benefit of the human race during his seventy years; and this will occupy me another year, or, let us say, two whole years, and will be called "The Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton."

APPENDIX B.

NOTES ON "THE KASÎDAH."

"NOTE I.--HÂJÎ ABDÛ, THE MAN.

"Hâjî Abdû has been known to me for more years than I care to record. A native, it is believed, of Darâbghird in the Yezd Province, he always preferred to style himself El-Hichmakâni, a facetious 'lackab' or surname, meaning 'Of No-hall, Nowhere.' He had travelled far and wide with his eyes open; as appears by his 'couplets.' To a natural facility, a knack of language-learning, he added a store of desultory various reading; scraps of Chinese and old Egyptian; of Hebrew and Syriac; of Sanskrit and Prakrit; of Slav, especially Lithuanian; of Latin and Greek, including Romaic; of Berber, the Nubian dialect, and of Zend and Akkadian, besides Persian, his mother-tongue, and Arabic, the classic of the schools. Nor was he ignorant of 'the -ologies' and the triumphs of modern scientific discovery. Briefly, his memory was well stored; and he had every talent save that of using his talents.

"But no one thought that he 'woo'd the Muse,' to speak in the style of the last century. Even his intimates were ignorant of the fact that he had a skeleton in his cupboard, his Kasîdah or distichs. He confided to me his secret, and when so doing he held in hand the long and hoary honours of his chin with the points towards me, as if to say with the Island-King--

'There is a touch of Winter in my beard, A sign the Gods will guard me from imprudence.'

And yet the piercing eye, clear as an onyx, seemed to protest against the plea of age. The MS. was in the vilest 'Shikastah' or running-hand; and, as I carried it off, the writer declined to take the trouble of copying out his cacograph.

"We, his old friends, had long addressed Hâjî Abdû by the sobriquet of _Nabbianâ_ ('our Prophet'); and the reader will see that the Pilgrim has, or believes he has, a message to deliver. He evidently aspires to preach a Faith of his own; an Eastern Version of Humanitarianism blended with the sceptical or, as we now say, the scientific habit of mind. This religion, of which Fetishism, Hinduism, and Heathendom, Judaism, Christianity, and Islamism, are mere fractions, may, methinks, be accepted by the Philosopher: it worships with single-minded devotion the Holy Cause of Truth, of Truth for its own sake, not for the goods it may bring; and this belief is equally acceptable to honest ignorance, and to the highest attainments in nature-study.

"With Confucius the Hâjî cultivates what Strauss has called the 'stern common sense of mankind;' while the reign of order is a paragraph of his 'Higher Law.' He traces from its rudest beginnings the all but absolute universality of some perception by man, called 'Faith;' that _sensus Numinis_ which, by inheritance or communication, is now universal except in those who force themselves to oppose it. And he evidently holds this general consent of mankind to be so far divine that it primarily discovered for itself, if it did not create, a divinity. He does not cry with the Christ of Novalis, 'Children, you have no father;' and perhaps he would join Renan in exclaiming, _Un monde sans Dieu est horrible!_

"But he recognizes the incompatibility of the Infinite with the Definite; of a Being who loves, who thinks, who hates; of an _Actus purus_ who is called jealous, wrathful, and revengeful, with an 'Eternal that makes for righteousness.' In the presence of the endless contradictions, which spring from the idea of a Personal Deity, with the Synthesis, the _Begriff_ of Providence, our Agnostic takes refuge in the sentiment of an unknown and an unknowable. He objects to the countless variety of forms assumed by the perception of a _Causa Causans_ (a misnomer), and to that intellectual adoption of general propositions, capable of distinct statement but incapable of proofs, which we term Belief.

"He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity, and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed matter. A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that many of these jarring families, especially those of the same blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and reflection; that in the business of the visible working world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.

"Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite past creeds; will account for the present, and will anticipate the future with a continuous and uninterrupted development; this, too, by a process, not negative and distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the attempt succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because not limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal. Meanwhile he satisfies himself,--the main point.

"Students of metaphysics have of late years defined the abuse of their science as 'the morphology of common opinion.' Contemporary investigators, they say, have been too much occupied with introspection; their labours have become merely physiologico-biographical, and they have greatly neglected the study of averages. For, says La Rochefoucauld, _Il est plus aisé de connoître l'homme en général que de connoître un homme en particulier_; and on so wide a subject all views must be one-sided.

"But this is not the fashion of Easterns. They have still to treat great questions _ex analogiâ universi_, instead of _ex analogiâ hominis_. They must learn the basis of sociology, the philosophic conviction that mankind should be studied, not as a congeries of individuals, but as an organic whole. Hence the _Zeitgeist_, or historical evolution of the collective consciousness of the age, despises the obsolete opinion that Society, the State, is bound by the same moral duties as the simple citizen. Hence, too, it holds that the 'spirit of man, being of equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in Truth.'

"Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing, yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race. Hâjî Abdû would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of what their votaries call 'pure truths,' by the innate imperfections of the same. Both propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. Thus they reduce everything to the scale of a somewhat unrefined egotism; and their demoralizing effects become clearer to every progressive age.

"Hâjî Abdû seeks Truth only, truth as far as man, in the present phase of his development, is able to comprehend it. He disdains to associate utility, like Bacon ('Nov. Org.' I. Aph. 124), the High Priest of the English Creed, _les gros bon sens_, with the _lumen siccum ac purum notionum verarum_. He seems to see the injury inflicted upon the sum of thought by the _à posteriori_ superstition, the worship of 'facts,' and the deification of synthesis. Lastly, came the reckless way in which Locke 'freed philosophy from the incubus of innate ideas.' Like Luther and the leaders of the great French Revolution, he broke with the Past; and he threw overboard the whole cargo of human tradition. The result has been an immense movement of the mind which we love to call Progress, when it has often been retrograde; together with a mighty development of egotism resulting from the pampered sentiment of personality.

"The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible future state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a daydream, whose revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The condition may appear humble and prosaic to those exalted by the fumes of Fancy, by a spiritual dram-drinking which, like the physical, is the pursuit of an ideal happiness. But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind, no Catholic opinion held _semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus_. The intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon the subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof. Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under the shadow of mighty events, leads to the highest of goals,--the development of Humanity. With him suspension of judgment is a system.

"Man has done much during the sixty-eight centuries which represent his history. This assumes the first Egyptian Empire, following the prehistoric, to begin with B.C. 5000, and to end with B.C. 3249. It was the Old, as opposed to the Middle, the New, and the Low: it contained the Dynasties from I. to X., and it was the age of the Pyramids, at once simple, solid, and grand. When the praiser of the Past contends that modern civilization has improved in nothing upon Homer and Herodotus, he is apt to forget that every schoolboy is a miracle of learning compared with the Cave-man and the palæolithic race. And, as the Past has been, so shall the Future be.

"The Pilgrim's view of life is that of the Soofi, with the usual dash of Buddhistic pessimism. The profound sorrow of existence, so often sung by the dreamy Eastern poet, has now passed into the practical European mind. Even the light Frenchman murmurs--

'Moi, moi, chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête Je passe--et refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux, Je m'en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête, Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux.'

But our Hâjî is not Nihilistic in the 'no-nothing' sense of Hood's poem, or, as the American phrases it, 'There is nothing new, nothing true, and it don't signify.' His is a healthy wail over the shortness and the miseries of life, because he finds all created things--

'Measure the world, with "Me" immense.'

"He reminds us of St. Augustine ('Med.' c. 21). 'Vita hæc, vita misera, vita caduca, vita incerta, vita laboriosa, vita immunda, vita domina malorum, regina superborum, plena miseriis et erroribus.... Quam humores tumidant, escæ inflant, jejunia macerant, joci dissolvunt, tristitiæ consumunt; sollicitudo coarctat, securitas hebetat, divitiæ inflant et jactant. Paupertas dejicit, juventus extollit, senectus incurvat, importunitas frangit, mæror deprimit. Et his malis omnibus mors furibunda succedit.' But for _furibunda_ the Pilgrim would, perhaps, read _benedicta_.

"With Cardinal Newman, one of the glories of our age, Hâjî Abdû finds 'the Light of the world nothing else than the Prophet's scroll, full of lamentations and mourning and woe.' I cannot refrain from quoting all this fine passage, if it be only for the sake of its lame and shallow deduction. 'To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history and the many races of men, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts, and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution (!) of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes; the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims and short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no hope and without God in the world"--_all this is a vision to dizzy and appal, and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is absolutely without human solution_.' Hence that admirable writer postulates some 'terrible original calamity;' and thus the hateful doctrine, theologically called 'original sin,' becomes to him almost as certain as that 'the world exists, and as the existence of God.' Similarly the 'Schedule of Doctrines' of the most liberal Christian Church insists upon human depravity, and the 'absolute need of the Holy Spirit's agency in man's regeneration and sanctification.'

"But what have we here? The 'original calamity' was either caused by God or arose without leave of God, in either case degrading God to man. It is the old dilemma whose horns are the irreconcilable attributes of goodness and omniscience in the supposed Creator of sin and suffering. If the one quality be predicable, the other cannot be predicable of the same subject. Far better and wiser is the essayist's poetical explanation, now apparently despised because it was the fashionable doctrine of the sage bard's day--

'All nature is but art . . . All discord harmony not understood; All partial evil universal good.' ----(Essay, 289-292.)

The Pilgrim holds with St. Augustine Absolute Evil is impossible because it is always rising up into good. He considers the theory of a beneficent or maleficent deity a purely sentimental fancy, contradicted by human reason and the aspect of the world. Evil is often the active form of good; as F. W. Newman says, 'so likewise is Evil the revelation of Good.' With him all existences are equal: so long as they possess the Hindú Agasa, Life-fluid or vital force, it matters not they be

'Fungus or oak or worm or man.'

War, he says, brings about countless individual miseries, but it forwards general progress by raising the stronger upon the ruins of the weaker races. Earthquakes and cyclones ravage small areas; but the former builds up earth for man's habitation, and the latter renders the atmosphere fit for him to breathe. Hence he echoes--

'--The universal Cause Acts not by partial but by general laws.'

Ancillary to the churchman's immoral view of 'original sin' is the unscientific theory that evil came into the world with Adam and his seed. Let us ask what was the state of our globe in the pre-Adamite days, when the tyrants of the Earth, the huge Saurians and other monsters lived in perpetual strife, in a destructiveness of which we have now only the feeblest examples? What is the actual state of the world of waters, where the only object of life is death, where the Law of murder is the Law of Development?

"Some will charge the Hâjî with irreverence, and hold him a 'lieutenant of Satan who sits in the chair of pestilence.' But he is not intentionally irreverent. Like men of far higher strain, who deny divinely the divine, he speaks the things that others think and hide. With the author of 'Supernatural Religion,' he holds that we 'gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the reality of revelation;' and he looks forward to the day when 'the old tyranny shall have been broken, and when the anarchy of transition shall have passed away.' But he is an Eastern. When he repeats the Greek's 'Remember not to believe,' he means, Strive to learn, to know, for right ideas lead to right actions. Among the couplets not translated for this eclogue is--

'Of all the safest ways of Life the safest way is still to doubt; Men win the future world with Faith, the present world they win without.'

This is the Spaniard's--

'De las cosas mas seguras, mas seguro es duvidar;'

a typically modern sentiment of the Brazen Age of Science following the Golden Age of Sentiment. But the Pilgrim continues--

'The sages say: I tell thee no! with equal faith all Faiths receive; None more, none less, for Doubt is Death: they live the most who most believe.'

"Here, again, is an Oriental subtlety; a man who believes in everything equally and generally may be said to believe in nothing. It is not a simple European view which makes honest Doubt worth a dozen of the Creeds. And it is in direct opposition to the noted writer who holds that the man of simple faith is worth ninety-nine of those who hold only to the egotistic interests of their own individuality. This dark saying means (if it mean anything), that the so-called moral faculties of man, fancy and ideality, must lord it over the perceptive and reflective powers,--a simple absurdity! It produced a Turricremata, alias Torquemada, who, shedding floods of honest tears, caused his victims to be burnt alive; and an Anchieta, the Thaumaturgist of Brazil, who beheaded a converted heretic lest the latter by lapse from grace lose his immortal soul.

"But this vein of speculation, which bigots brand as 'Doubt, Denial, and Destruction;' this earnest religious scepticism; this curious inquiry, 'Has the universal tradition any base of fact?' this craving after the secrets and mysteries of the future, the unseen, the unknown, is common to all races and to every age. Even amongst the Romans, whose model man in Augustus' day was Horace, the philosophic, the epicurean, we find Propertius asking--

'An ficta in miseras descendit fabula gentes Et timor haud ultra quam rogus esse potest?'

"To return: the Pilgrim's doctrines upon the subject of conscience and repentance will startle those who do not follow his train of thought--

'Never repent because thy will with will of Fate be not at one: Think, an thou please, before thou dost, but never rue the deed when done.'

This again is his modified fatalism. He would not accept the boisterous mode of cutting the Gordian-knot proposed by the noble British Philister--'we know we're free and there's an end on it!' He prefers Lamarck's, 'The will is, in truth, never free.' He believes man to be a co-ordinate term of Nature's great progression; a result of the interaction of organism and environment, working through cosmic sections of time. He views the human machine, the pipe of flesh, as depending upon the physical theory of life. Every corporeal fact and phenomenon which, like the tree, grows from within or without, is a mere product of organization; living bodies being subject to the natural law governing the lifeless and the inorganic. Whilst the religionist assures us that man is not a mere toy of fate, but a free agent responsible to himself, with work to do and duties to perform, the Hâjî, with many modern schools, holds Mind to be a word describing a special operation of matter; the faculties generally to be manifestations of movements in the central nervous system; and every idea, even of the Deity, to be a certain little pulsation of a certain little mass of animal pap,--the brain. Thus he would not object to relationship with a tailless catarrhine anthropoid ape, descended from a monad or a primal ascidian.

"Hence he virtually says, 'I came into the world without having applied for or having obtained permission; nay, more, without my leave being asked or given. Here I find myself hand-tied by conditions, and fettered by laws and circumstances, in making which my voice had no part. While in the womb I was an automaton; and death will find me a mere machine. Therefore not I, but the Law, or, if you please, the Lawgiver, is answerable for all my actions.' Let me here observe that to the Western mind 'Law' postulates a Lawgiver; not so to the Eastern, and especially to the Soofi, who holds these ideas to be human, unjustifiably extended to interpreting the non-human, which men call the Divine.

"Further he would say, 'I am an individual (_qui nil habet dividui_), a circle touching and intersecting my neighbours at certain points, but nowhere corresponding, nowhere blending. Physically I am not identical in all points with other men. Morally I differ from them: in nothing do the approaches of knowledge, my five organs of sense (with their Shelleyan "interpenetration"), exactly resemble those of any other being. _Ergo_, the effect of the world, of life, of natural objects, will not in my case be the same as with the beings most resembling me. Thus I claim the right of creating or modifying for my own and private use, the system which most imports me; and if the reasonable leave be refused to me, I take it without leave.

"'But my individuality, however all-sufficient for myself, is an infinitesimal point, an atom subject in all things to the Law of Storms called Life. I feel, I know that Fate _is_. But I cannot know what is or what is not fated to befall me. Therefore in the pursuit of perfection as an individual lies my highest, and indeed my only duty, the "I" being duly blended with the "We." I object to be a "self-less man," which to me denotes an inverted moral sense. I am bound to take careful thought concerning the consequences of every word and deed. When, however, the Future has become the Past, it would be the merest vanity for me to grieve or to repent over that which was decreed by universal Law.'

"The usual objection is that of man's practice. It says, 'This is well in theory; but how carry it out? For instance, why would you kill, or give, over to be killed, the man compelled by Fate to kill your father?' Hâjî Abdû replies, 'I do as others do, not because the murder was done by him, but because the murderer should not be allowed another chance of murdering. He is a tiger who has tasted blood and who should be shot. I am convinced that he was a tool in the hands of Fate, but that will not prevent my taking measures, whether predestined or not, in order to prevent his being similarly used again.'

"As with repentance so with conscience. Conscience may be a 'fear which is the shadow of justice;' even as pity is the shadow of love. Though simply a geographical and chronological accident, which changes with every age of the world, it may deter men from seeking and securing the prize of successful villany. But this incentive to beneficence must be applied to actions that will be done, not to deeds that have been done.

"The Hâjî, moreover, carefully distinguishes between the working of fate under a personal God, and under the Reign of Law. In the former case the contradiction between the foreknowledge of a Creator, and the free-will of a Creature, is direct, palpable, absolute. We might as well talk of black-whiteness and of white-blackness. A hundred generations of divines have never been able to ree the riddle; a million will fail. The difficulty is insurmountable to the Theist whose Almighty is perforce Omniscient, and as Omniscient, Prescient. But it disappears when we convert the Person into Law, or a settled order of events; subject, moreover, to certain exceptions fixed and immutable, but at present unknown to man. The difference is essential as that between the penal code with its narrow forbiddal, and the broad commandment which is a guide rather than a taskmaster.

"Thus, too, the belief in fixed Law, _versus_ arbitrary will, modifies the Hâjî's opinions concerning the pursuit of happiness. Mankind, _das rastlose Ursachenthier_, is born to be on the whole equally happy and miserable. The highest organisms, the fine porcelain of our family, enjoy the most and suffer the most: they have a capacity for rising to the empyrean of pleasure and for plunging deep into the swift-flowing river of woe and pain. Thus Dante ('Inf.' vi. 106)--

'--tua scienza Che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta Più senta 'l bene, e cosi la doglienza.'

So Buddhism declares that existence in itself implies effort, pain, and sorrow; and, the higher the creature, the more it suffers. The common clay enjoys little and suffers little. Sum up the whole and distribute the mass; the result will be an average; and the beggar is, on the whole, happy as the prince. Why, then, asks the objector, does man ever strive and struggle to change, to rise; a struggle which involves the idea of improving his condition? The Hâjî answers, 'Because such is the Law under which man is born: it may be fierce as famine, cruel as the grave, but man must obey it with blind obedience.' He does not enter into the question whether life is worth living, whether man should elect to be born. Yet his Eastern pessimism, which contrasts so sharply with the optimism of the West, re-echoes the lines--

'--a life, With large results so little rife, Though bearable seems hardly worth This pomp of words, this pain of birth.'

"Life, whatever may be its consequence, is built upon a basis of sorrow. Literature, the voice of humanity, and the verdict of mankind proclaim that all existence is a state of sadness. The 'physicians of the Soul' would save her melancholy from degenerating into despair by doses of steadfast belief in the presence of God, in the assurance of Immortality, and in visions of the final victory of good. Were Hâjî Abdû a mere Theologist, he would add that Sin, not the possibility of revolt, but the revolt itself against conscience, is the primary form of evil, because it produces error, moral and intellectual. This man, who omits to read the Conscience-law, however it may differ from the Society-law, is guilty of negligence. That man, who obscures the light of Nature with sophistries, becomes incapable of discerning his own truths. In both cases error, deliberately adopted, is succeeded by suffering which, we are told, comes in justice and benevolence as a warning, a remedy, and a chastisement.

"But the Pilgrim is dissatisfied with the idea that evil originates in the individual actions of free agents, ourselves and others. This doctrine fails to account for its characteristics,--essentiality and universality. That creatures endowed with the mere possibility of liberty should not always choose the Good appears natural. But that of the milliards of human beings who have inhabited Earth, not one should have been found invariably to choose Good, proves how insufficient is the solution. Hence no one believes in the existence of the complete man under the present state of things. The Hâjî rejects all popular and mythical explanation by the Fall of 'Adam,' the innate depravity of human nature, and the absolute perfection of certain Incarnations, which argues their divinity. He can only wail over the prevalence of evil, assume its foundation to be error, and purpose to abate it by uprooting that Ignorance which bears and feeds it.

"His 'eschatology,' like that of the Soofis generally, is vague and shadowy. He may lean towards the doctrine of Marc Aurelius, 'The unripe grape, the ripe and the dried: all things are changes not into nothing, but into that which is not at present.' This is one of the _monstruosa opinionum portenta_ mentioned by the Nineteenth General Council, alias the First Council of the Vatican. But he only accepts it with a limitation. He cleaves to the ethical, not the intellectual, worship of 'Nature,' which moderns define to be an 'unscientific and imaginary synonym for the sum total of observed phenomena.' Consequently he holds to the 'dark and degrading doctrines of the Materialist,' the '_Hylotheist_;' in opposition to the spiritualist, a distinction far more marked in the West than in the East. Europe draws a hard, dry line between Spirit and Matter: Asia does not.

"Among us the Idealist objects to the Materialists that the latter cannot agree upon fundamental points; that they cannot define what is an atom; that they cannot account for the transformation of physical action and molecular motion into consciousness; and _vice versâ_, that they cannot say what matter is; and, lastly, that Berkeley and his school have proved the existence of spirit while denying that of matter.

"The Materialists reply that the want of agreement shows only a study insufficiently advanced; that man cannot describe an atom, because he is still an infant in science, yet there is no reason why his mature manhood should not pass through error and incapacity to truth and knowledge; that consciousness becomes a property of matter when certain conditions are present; that Hyle (ὔλη) or Matter may be provisionally defined as 'phenomena with a substructure of their own, transcendental and eternal, subject to the action, direct or indirect, of the five senses, whilst its properties present themselves in three states, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous.' To casuistical Berkeley they prefer the common sense of mankind. They ask the idealist and the spiritualist why they cannot find names for themselves without borrowing from a 'dark and degraded' school; why the former must call himself after his eye (_idein_); the latter after his breath (_spiritus_)? Thus the Hâjî twits them with affixing their own limitations to their own Almighty Power, and, as Socrates said, with bringing down Heaven to the market-place.

"Modern thought tends more and more to reject crude idealism and to support the monistic theory, the double aspect, the transfigured realism. It discusses the Nature of Things in Themselves. To the question, is there anything outside of us which corresponds with our sensations? that is to say, is the whole world simply 'I,' they reply that obviously there is a something else; and that this something else produces the brain-disturbance which is called sensation. Instinct orders us to do something; Reason (the balance of faculties) directs; and the strongest motive controls. Modern Science, by the discovery of Radiant Matter, a fourth condition, seems to conciliate the two schools. 'La découverte d'un quatrième état de la matière,' says a Reviewer, 'c'est la porte ouverte à l'infini de ses transformations; c'est l'homme invisible et impalpable de même possible sans cesser d'être substantiel; c'est le monde des esprits entrant sans absurdité dans la domaine des hypothèses scientifiques; c'est la possibilité pour le matérialiste de croire à la vie d'outre tombe, sans renoncer au substratum matériel qu'il croit nécessaire au maintien de l'individualité.'

"With Hâjî Abdû the soul is not material, for that would be a contradiction of terms. He regards it, with many moderns, as a state of things, not a thing; a convenient word denoting the sense of personality, of individual identity. In its ghostly signification he discovers an artificial dogma which could hardly belong to the brutal savages of the Stone Age. He finds it in the funereal books of ancient Egypt, whence probably it passed to the Zendavesta and the Vedas. In the Hebrew Pentateuch, of which part is still attributed to Moses, it is unknown, or, rather, it is deliberately ignored by the author or authors. The early Christians could not agree upon the subject; Origen advocated the pre-existence of men's souls, supposing them to have been all created at one time and successively embodied. Others make Spirit born with the hour of birth: and so forth.

"But the brain-action, or, if you so phrase it, the mind, is not confined to the reasoning faculties; nor can we afford to ignore the sentiments, the affections which are, perhaps, the most potent realities of life. Their loud affirmative voice contrasts strongly with the titubant accents of the intellect. They seem to demand a future life, even a state of rewards and punishments from the Maker of the world, the _Ortolano Eterno_,[1] the Potter of the East, the Watchmaker of the West. They protest against the idea of annihilation. They revolt at the notion of eternal parting from parents, kinsmen, and friends. Yet the dogma of a future life is by no means catholic and universal. The Anglo-European race apparently cannot exist without it, and we have lately heard of the 'Aryan Soul-land.' On the other hand, many of the Buddhist and even the Brahman Schools preach Nirwâna (comparative non-existence) and Parinirwâna (absolute nothingness). Moreover, the great Turanian family, actually occupying all Eastern Asia, has ever ignored it; and the 200,000,000 of Chinese Confucians, the mass of the nation, protest emphatically against the mainstay of the Western creeds, because it 'unfits men for the business and duty of life, by fixing their speculations on an unknown world.' And even its votaries, in all ages, races, and faiths, cannot deny that the next world is a copy, more or less idealized, of the present; and that it lacks a single particular savouring of originality. It is, in fact, a mere continuation; and the continuation is 'not proven.'

'It is most hard to be a man;'

and the Pilgrim's sole consolation is in self-cultivation, and in the pleasures of the affections. This sympathy may be an indirect self-love, a reflection of the light of egotism: still it is so transferred as to imply a different system of convictions. It requires a different name: to call benevolence 'self-love' is to make the fruit or flower not only depend upon a root for development (which is true), but the very root itself (which is false). And, finally, his ideal is of the highest: his praise is reserved for

'--Lives Lived in obedience to the inner law Which cannot alter.'

"NOTE II.

"A few words concerning the Kasîdah itself. Our Hâjî begins with a _mise-en-scène_; and takes leave of the Caravan setting out for Mecca. He sees the 'Wolf's tail' (_Dum-i-gurg_), the υκαυγές, or wolf-gleam, the Diluculum, the Zodiacal dawn-light, the first faint brushes of white radiating from below the Eastern horizon. It is accompanied by the morning-breath (_Dam-i-Subh_), the current of air, almost imperceptible except by the increase of cold, which Moslem physiologists suppose to be the early prayer offered by Nature to the First Cause. The Ghoul-i-Biyâbân (Desert-Demon) is evidently the personification of man's fears and of the dangers that surround travelling in the wilds. The 'wold-where-none-save-He (Allah)-can dwell' is a great and terrible wilderness (_Dash-i-la-siwa Hu_); and Allah's Holy Hill is Arafât, near Mecca, which the Caravan reaches after passing through Medina. The first section ends with a sore lament that the 'meetings of this world take place upon the highway of Separation;' and the original also has--

'The chill of sorrow numbs my thought: methinks I hear the passing knell; As dies across yon thin blue line the tinkling of the Camel-bell.'

"The next section quotes the various aspects under which Life appeared to the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First comes Hafiz, whose well-known lines are quoted beginning with Shab-i-târîk o bîm-i-mauj, etc. Hûr is the plural of Ahwar, in full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose eyes are intensely white where they should be white, and black elsewhere: hence our silly 'Houries.' Follows Umar-i-Khayyâm, who spiritualized Tasawwof, or Sooffeism, even as the Soofis (Gnostics) spiritualized Moslem Puritanism. The verses alluded to are--

'You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse I made a second marriage in my house, Divorced old barren Reason from my bed And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.' (St. 60, Mr. Fitzgerald's translation.)

"Here 'Wine' is used in its mystic sense of entranced Love for the Soul of Souls. Umar was hated and feared because he spoke boldly when his brethren the Soofis dealt in innuendoes. A third quotation has been trained into a likeness of the 'Hymn of Life,' despite the commonplace and the _navrante vulgarité_ which characterize the pseudo-Schiller-Anglo-American School. The same has been done to the words of Isâ (Jesus); for the author, who is well-read in the Ingîl (Evangel), evidently intended the allusion. Mansur el-Hallâj (the Cotton-Cleaner) was stoned for crudely uttering the Pantheistic dogma _Ana'l Hakk_ (I am the Truth, _i.e._ God), _wa laysa fi-jubbatî il' Allah_ (and within my coat is nought but God). His blood traced on the ground the first-quoted sentence. Lastly, there is a quotation from 'Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes,' etc.: here παῑζε may mean sport; but the context determines the kind of sport intended. The Zâhid is the literal believer in the letter of the Law, opposed to the Soofi, who believes in its spirit: hence the former is called a Zâhiri (outsider), and the latter a Bâtini, an insider. Moses is quoted because he ignored future rewards and punishments. As regards the 'two Eternities,' Persian and Arab metaphysicians split Eternity, _i.e._ the negation of Time, into two halves, _Azal_ (beginninglessness) and _Abad_ (endlessness); both being mere words, gatherings of letters with a subjective significance. In English we use 'Eternal' (_Æviternus_, age-long, life-long) as loosely, by applying it to three distinct ideas; (1) the habitual, in popular parlance; (2) the exempt from duration; and (3) the everlasting, which embraces all duration. 'Omniscience-Maker' is the old Roman sceptic's _Homo fecit Deos_.

"The next section is one long wail over the contradictions, the mysteries, the dark end, the infinite sorrowfulness of all existence, and the arcanum of grief which, Luther said, underlies all life. As with Euripides 'to live is to die, to die is to live.' Hâjî Abdû borrows the Hindu idea of the human body. 'It is a mansion,' says Menu, 'with bones for its beams and rafters; with nerves and tendons for cords; with muscles and blood for cement; with skin for its outer covering; filled with no sweet perfume, but loaded with impurities; a mansion infested by age and sorrow; the seat of malady; harassed with pains; haunted with the quality of darkness (Tama-guna), and incapable of standing.' The Pot and Potter began with the ancient Egyptians. 'Sitting as a potter at the wheel, Cneph (at Philæ) moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life to the nostrils of Osiris.' Hence the Genesitic 'breath.' Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being, 'by whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated.' We find him next in Jeremiah's 'Arise and go down unto the Potter's house,' etc. (xviii. 2), and lastly in Romans (ix. 20), 'Hath not the potter power over the clay?' No wonder that the first Hand who moulded the man-mud is a _lieu commun_ in Eastern thought. The 'waste of agony 'is Buddhism, or Schopenhauerism pure and simple. I have moulded 'Earth on Earth' upon 'Seint Ysidre''s well-known rhymes (A.D. 1440)--

'Erthe out of Erthe is wondirli wrouȝt, Erthe of Erth had gete a dignite of nouȝt, Erthe upon Erthe had sett all his thouȝt How that Erthe upon Erthe may be his brouȝt': etc.

"The 'Camel-rider,' suggests Ossian, 'yet a few years and the blast of the desert comes.' The dromedary was chosen as Death's vehicle by the Arabs, probably because it bears the Bedouin's corpse to the distant burial-ground, where he will lie among his kith and kin. The end of this section reminds us of--

'How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is Man!'

"The Hâjî now passes to the results of his long and anxious thoughts: I have purposely twisted his exordium into an echo of Milton--

'Till old experience doth attain To something of prophetic strain.'

"He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:--'En général les croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-mêmes' (says J. J. Rousseau, 'Confessions,' I. 6): 'les bons le font bon: les méchants le font méchant: les dévots haineux et bilieux, ne voient que l'enfer, parce qu'ils voudraient damner tout le monde; les âmes aimantes et douces n'y croient guère; et l'un des étonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fénélon en parler dans son Télémaque comme s'il y croyoit tout de bon: mais j'espère qu'il mentoit alors; car enfin quelque véridique qu'on soit, il faut bien mentir quelquefois quand on est évêque.' 'Man depicts himself in his gods,' says Schiller. Hence the _Naturgott_, the deity of all ancient peoples, and with which every system began, allowed and approved of actions distinctly immoral, often diabolical. Belief became moralized only when the conscience of the community, and with it of the individual items, began aspiring to its golden age,--Perfection. 'Dieu est le superlatif, dont le positif est l'homme,' says Carl Vogt; meaning, that the popular idea of a _numen_ is that of a magnified and non-natural man.

"He then quotes his authorities. Buddha, whom the Catholic Church converted to Saint Josaphat, refused to recognize Ishwara (the deity), on account of the mystery of the 'cruelty of things.' Schopenhauer, Miss Cobbe's model pessimist, who at the humblest distance represents Buddha in the world of Western thought, found the vision of man's unhappiness, irrespective of his actions, so overpowering that he concluded the Supreme Will to be malevolent, 'heartless, cowardly, and arrogant.' Confucius, the 'Throneless king, more powerful than all kings,' denied a personal deity. The Epicurean idea rules the China of the present day. 'God is great, but He lives too far off,' say the Turanian Santâls in Aryan India; and this is the general language of man in the Turanian East.

"Hâjî Abdû evidently holds that idolatry begins with a personal deity. And let us note that the latter is deliberately denied by the 'Thirty-nine Articles.' With them God is 'a Being without Parts (personality) or Passions.' He professes a vague Agnosticism, and attributes popular faith to the fact that Timor fecit Deos; 'every religion being, without exception, the child of fear and ignorance' (Carl Vogt). He now speaks as the 'Drawer of the Wine,' the 'Ancient Taverner,' the 'Old Magus,' the 'Patron of the Mughân or Magians;' all titles applied to the Soofi as opposed to the Zâhid. His 'idols' are the _eidola_ (illusions) of Bacon, 'having their foundations in the very constitution of man,' and therefore appropriately called _fabulæ_. That 'Nature's Common Course' is subject to various interpretation, may be easily proved. Aristotle was as great a subverter as Alexander; but the quasi-prophetical Stagyrite of the Dark Ages, who ruled the world till the end of the thirteenth century, became the 'twice execrable' of Martin Luther and was finally abolished by Galileo and Newton. Here I have excised two stanzas. The first is--

'Theories for truths, fable for fact, system for science, vex the thought. Life's one great lesson you despise--to know that all we know is nought.'

This is in fact--

'Well didst thou say, Athena's noblest son, The most we know is nothing can be known.'

The next is--

'Essence and substance, sequence, cause, beginning, ending, space and time, These be the toys of manhood's mind, at once ridiculous and sublime.'

"He is not the only one who so regards 'bothering Time and Space.' A late definition of the 'infinitely great,' viz. that the idea arises from denying form to any figure; of the 'infinitely small,' from refusing magnitude to any figure, is a fair specimen of the 'dismal science'--metaphysics.

"Another omitted stanza reads--

'How canst thou, Phenomen! pretend the Noumenon to mete and span? Say which were easier probed and proved, Absolute Being or mortal man?'

"One would think that he had read Kant on the 'Knowable and the Unknowable,' or had heard of the Yankee lady, who could 'differentiate between the Finite and the Infinite.' It is a commonplace of the age, in the West as well as the East, that Science is confined to phenomena, and cannot reach the Noumena, the things themselves. This is the scholastic realism, the 'residuum of a bad metaphysic,' which deforms the system of Comte. With all its pretensions, it simply means that there are, or can be conceived, things in themselves (_i.e._ unrelated to thought); that we know them to exist; and, at the same time, that we cannot know what they are. But who dares say 'cannot'? Who can measure man's work when he shall be as superior to our present selves as we are to the Caveman of part time?

"The 'Chain of Universe' alludes to the Jain idea that the whole, consisting of intellectual as well as of natural principles, existed from all eternity; and that it has been subject to endless revolutions, whose causes are the inherent powers of nature, intellectual as well as physical, without the intervention of a deity. But the Poet ridicules the 'non-human,' _i.e._ the not-ourselves, the negation of ourselves and consequently a non-existence. Most Easterns confuse the contradictories, in which one term stands for something, and the other for nothing (_e.g._ ourselves and not-ourselves), with the contraries (_e.g._ rich and not-rich = poor), in which both terms express a something. So the positive-negative 'infinite' is not the complement of 'finite,' but its negation. The Western man derides the process by making 'not-horse' the complementary entity of 'horse.' The Pilgrim ends with the favourite Soofi tenet that the five (six?) senses are the doors of all human knowledge, and that no form of man, incarnation of the deity, prophet, apostle or sage, has ever produced an idea not conceived within his brain by the sole operation of these vulgar material agents. Evidently he is neither spiritualist nor idealist.

"He then proceeds to show that man depicts himself in his God, and that 'God is the racial expression'; a pedagogue on the Nile, an abstraction in India, and an astrologer in Chaldæa: where Abraham, says Berosus (Josephus, 'Ant.' I. 7, § 2, and II. 9, § 2), was 'skilful in the celestial science.' He notices the Akârana-Zamân (endless Time) of the Guebres, and the working dual, Hormuzd and Ahriman. He brands the God of the Hebrews with pugnacity and cruelty. He has heard of the beautiful creations of Greek fancy which, not attributing a moral nature to the deity, included Theology in Physics; and which, like Professor Tyndall, seemed to consider all matter everywhere alive. We have adopted a very different Unitarianism; Theology, with its one Creator; Pantheism with its 'one Spirit's plastic stress'; and Science with its one Energy. He is hard upon Christianity and its 'trinal God': I have not softened his expression (لغز = a riddle), although it may offend readers. There is nothing more enigmatical to the Moslem mind than Christian Trinitarianism: all other objections they can get over, not this. Nor is he any lover of Islamism, which, like Christianity, has its ascetic Hebraism and its Hellenic hedonism; with the world of thought moving between these two extremes. The former, defined as predominant or exclusive care for the practice of right, is represented by Semitic and Arab influence, Korânic and Hadîsic. The latter, the religion of humanity, a passion for life and light, for culture and intelligence; for art, poetry and science, is represented in Islamism by the fondly and impiously cherished memory of the old Guebre kings and heroes, beauties, bards and sages. Hence the mention of Zâl and his son Rostam; of Cyrus and of the Jâmi-i-Jamshîd, which may be translated either grail (cup) or mirror: it showed the whole world within its rim; and hence it was called Jâm-i-Jehân-numâ (universe-exposing). The contemptuous expressions about the diet of camel's milk and the meat of the Susmâr, or green lizard, are evidently quoted from Firdausi's famous lines beginning--

'Arab-râ be-jât rasîd'est kâr.'

"The Hâjî is severe upon those who make of the Deity a Khwân-i-yaghmâ (or tray of plunder), as the Persians phrase it. He looks upon the shepherds as men,

'--Who rob the sheep themselves to clothe.'

So Schopenhauer (Leben, etc., by Wilhelm Gewinner) furiously shows how the 'English nation ought to treat that set of hypocrites, impostors and money-graspers, the clergy, that annually devours £3,500,000.'

"The Hâjî broadly asserts that there is no Good and no Evil in the absolute sense as man has made them. Here he is one with Pope:--

'And spite of pride, in erring nature's spite One truth is clear--whatever is, is right.'

Unfortunately the converse is just as true:--whatever is, is wrong. Khizr is the Elijah who puzzled Milman. He represents the Soofi, the Bâtini, while Musâ (Moses) is the Zâhid, the Zâhiri; and the strange adventures of the twain, invented by the Jews, have been appropriated by the Moslems. He derides the Freewill of man; and, like Diderot, he detects 'pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a president, a pig in a priest, an ostrich in a minister, and a goose in a chief clerk.' He holds to Fortune, the Τύχη of Alcman, which is, Εὐυομίας τε καὶ Πειθοῡϛ ἀδελφὰ, καὶ Προμαθνίας θυγάτηρ,--Chance, the sister of Order and Trust, and the daughter of Forethought. The Scandinavian Spinners of Fate were Urd (the Was, the Past), Verdandi (the Becoming, or Present), and Skuld (the To-be, or Future). He alludes to Plato, who made the Demiourgos create the worlds by the Logos (the Hebrew Dabar) or Creative Word, through the Æons. These Αἰῶυερ of the Mystics were spiritual emanations from Αἰών, lit. a wave of influx, an age, period, or day; hence the Latin _ævum_, and the Welsh Awen, the stream of inspiration falling upon a bard. Basilides, the Egypto-Christian, made the Creator evolve seven Æons or Pteromata (fulnesses); from two of whom, Wisdom and Power, proceeded the 365 degrees of Angels. All were subject to a Prince of Heaven, called Abraxas, who was himself under guidance of the chief Æon, Wisdom. Others represent the first Cause to have produced an Æon or Pure Intelligence; the first a second, and so forth till the tenth. This was material enough to affect Hyle, which thereby assumed a spiritual form. Thus the two incompatibles combined in the Scheme of Creation.

"He denies the three ages of the Buddhists: the wholly happy; the happy mixed with misery, and the miserable tinged with happiness,--the present. The Zoroastrians had four, each of 3000 years. In the first, Hormuzd, the good-god, ruled alone; then Ahriman, the bad-god, began to work subserviently; in the third both ruled equally; and in the last, now current, Ahriman has gained the day.

"Against the popular idea that man has caused the misery of this world, he cites the ages, when the Old Red Sandstone bred gigantic cannibal fishes; when the Oolites produced the mighty reptile tyrants of air, earth, and sea; and when the monsters of the Eocene and Miocene periods shook the ground with their ponderous tread. And the world of waters is still a hideous scene of cruelty, carnage, and destruction.

"He declares Conscience to be a geographical and chronological accident. Thus he answers the modern philosopher whose soul was overwhelmed by the marvel and the awe of two things, 'the starry heaven above and the moral law within.' He makes the latter sense a development of the gregarious and social instincts; and so travellers have observed that the moral is the last step in mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab with the other. He translates literally the Indian word Hâthî (an elephant), the animal with the Hâth (hand, or trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present, which is merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and the spectacle to be seen from Mushtari, or the planet Jupiter.

"The Hâjî again asks the old, old question, What is Truth? And he answers himself, after the fashion of the wise Emperor of China, 'Truth hath not an unchanging name.' A modern English writer says: 'I have long been convinced by the experience of my life, as a pioneer of various heterodoxies which are rapidly becoming orthodoxies, that nearly all truth is temperamental to us, or given in the affections and intuitions; and that discussion and injury do little more than feed temperament.' Our poet seems to mean that the Perceptions, when they perceive truly, convey objective truth, which is universal; whereas the Reflectives and the Sentiments, the working of the moral region, or the middle lobe of the phrenologists, supplies only subjective truth, personal and individual. Thus to one man the axiom, _Opes irritamenta malorum_, represents a distinct fact; while another holds wealth to be an incentive for good. Evidently both are right, according to their lights.

"Hâjî Abdû cites Plato and Aristotle, as usual with Eastern songsters, who delight in Mantik (logic). Here he appears to mean that a false proposition is as real a proposition as one that is true. 'Faith moves mountains' and 'Manet immota fides' are evidently quotations. He derides the teaching of the 'First Council of the Vatican' (cap. v.), 'all the faithful are little children listening to the voice of St. Peter,' who is the 'Prince of the Apostles.' He glances at the fancy of certain modern physicists, 'devotion is a definite molecular change in the convolution of grey pulp.' He notices with contumely the riddle of which Milton speaks so glibly, where the Dialoguists,

'--reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.'

"In opposition to the orthodox Mohammedan tenets which make Man's soul his percipient Ego, an entity, a unity, the Soofi considers it a fancy, opposed to body, which is a fact; at most a state of things, not a thing; a consensus of faculties whereof our frames are but the phenomena. This is not contrary to Genesitic legend. The Hebrew Ruach and Arabic Ruh, now perverted to mean soul or spirit, simply signify wind or breath, the outward and visible sign of life. Their later schools are even more explicit: 'For that which befalls man befalls beasts; as the one dies, so does the other; they have all one death; all go unto one place' (Eccles. iii. 19). But the modern soul, a nothing, a string of negations, a negative in chief, is thus described in the Mahâbhârat: 'It is indivisible, inconceivable, inconceptible: it is eternal, universal, permanent, immovable: it is invisible and unalterable.' Hence the modern spiritualism which, rejecting materialism, can use only material language.

"These, says the Hâjî, are mere sounds. He would not assert 'Verba gignunt verba,' but 'Verba gignunt res,' a step further. The idea is Bacon's 'idola fori, omnium molestissima,' the twofold illusions of language; either the names of things that have no existence in fact, or the names of things whose idea is confused and ill-defined.

"He derives the Soul-idea from the 'savage ghost' which Dr. Johnson defined to be a 'kind of shadowy being.' He justly remarks that it arose (perhaps) in Egypt: and was not invented by the 'People of the Book.' By this term Moslems denote Jews and Christians who have a recognized revelation, while their ignorance refuses it to Guebres, Hindus, and Confucians.

"He evidently holds to the doctrine of progress. With him protoplasm is the Yliastron, the Prima Materies. Our word matter is derived from the Sanskrit माढ़ा (mâtrâ), which, however, signifies properly the invisible type of visible matter; in modern language, the substance distinct from the sum of its physical and chemical properties. Thus, Mâtrâ exists only in thought, and is not recognizable by the action of the five senses. His 'Chain of Being' reminds us of Prof. Huxley's Pedigree of the Horse, Orohippus, Mesohippus, Meiohippus, Protohippus, Pleiohippus, and Equus. He has evidently heard of modern biology, or Hylozoism, which holds its quarter-million species of living beings, animal and vegetable, to be progressive modifications of one great fundamental unity, an unity of so-called 'mental faculties' as well as of bodily structure. And this is the jelly-speck. He scoffs at the popular idea that man is the great central figure round which all things gyrate like marionettes; in fact, the anthropocentric era of Draper, which, strange to say, lives by the side of the telescope and the microscope. As man is of recent origin, and may end at an early epoch of the macrocosm, so before his birth all things revolved round nothing, and may continue to do so after his death.

"The Hâjî, who elsewhere denounces 'compound ignorance,' holds that all evil comes from error; and that all knowledge has been developed by overthrowing error, the ordinary channel of human thought. He ends this section with a great truth. There are things which human Reason or Instinct matured, in its undeveloped state, cannot master; but Reason is a Law to itself. Therefore we are not bound to believe, or to attempt belief in, anything which is contrary or contradictory to Reason. Here he is diametrically opposed to Rome, who says, 'Do not appeal to History; that is private judgment. Do not appeal to Holy Writ; that is heresy. Do not appeal to Reason; that is Rationalism.'

"He holds with the Patriarchs of Hebrew Holy Writ, that the present life is all-sufficient for an intellectual (not a sentimental) being; and, therefore, that there is no want of a Heaven or a Hell. With far more contradiction the Western poet sings--

'Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self-place; but when we are in hell, And where hell is, there must we ever be; And, to be short, when all this world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell which are not heaven.'

For what want is there of a Hell when all are pure? He enlarges upon the ancient Buddhist theory, that Happiness and Misery are equally distributed among men and beasts; some enjoy much and suffer much; others the reverse. Hence Diderot declares, 'Sober passions produce only the commonplace ... the man of moderate passion lives and dies like a brute.' And again we have the half-truth--

'That the mark of rank in nature Is capacity for pain.'

The latter implies an equal capacity for pleasure, and thus the balance is kept.

"Hâjî Abdû then proceeds to show that Faith is an accident of birth. One of his omitted distichs says--

'Race makes religion; true! but aye upon the Maker acts the made. A finite God, an infinite sin, in lieu of raising man, degrade.'

In a manner of dialogue he introduces the various races each fighting to establish his own belief. The Frank (Christian) abuses the Hindu, who retorts that he is of Mlenchha, mixed or impure, blood, a term applied to all non-Hindus. The same is done by Nazarene and Mohammedan; by the Confucian, who believes in nothing, and by the Soofi, who naturally has the last word. The association of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph with the Trinity, in the Roman and Greek Churches, makes many Moslems conclude that Christians believe not in three but in five Persons. So an Englishman writes of the early Fathers, 'They not only said that 3 = 1, and that 1 = 3: they professed to explain how that curious arithmetical combination had been brought about. The Indivisible had been divided, and yet was not divided: it was divisible, and yet it was indivisible; black was white, and white was black; and yet there were not two colours but one colour; and whoever did not believe it would be damned.' The Arab quotation runs in the original--

'_Ahsanu 'l-Makâni l' il-Falâ 'l-Jehannamu_, The best of places for (the generous) youth is Gehenna:'

Gehenna, alias Jahim, being the fiery place of eternal punishment. And the second saying, _Al-nâr wa lâ 'l-'Ar_'--'Fire (of Hell) rather than Shame,'--is equally condemned by the Koranist. The Gustâkhi (insolence) of Fate is the expression of Umar-i-Khayyâm (St. xxx.)--

'What, without asking hither hurried _whence?_ And, without asking _whither_ hurried hence! Oh many a cup of this forbidden wine Must drown the memory of that insolence.'

"Soofistically, the word means 'the coquetry of the beloved one,' the divinæ particula auræ. And the section ends with Pope's--

'He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

"CONCLUSION.

"Here the Hâjî ends his practical study of mankind. The image of Destiny playing with men as pieces is a view common amongst Easterns. His idea of wisdom is once more Pope's--

'And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.' ----(Essay IV., 398.)

"Regret, _i.e._ repentance, was one of the forty-two deadly sins of the Ancient Egyptians. 'Thou shalt not consume thy heart,' says the Ritual of the Dead, the negative justification of the soul or ghost (Lepsius, 'Alteste Texte des Todtenbuchs'). We have borrowed competitive examination from the Chinese; and, in these morbid days of weak introspection and retrospection, we might learn wisdom from the sturdy old Khemites. When he sings 'Abjure the Why and seek the How,' he refers to the old Scholastic difference of the _Demonstratio propter quid_ (why is a thing?), as opposed to _Demonstratio quia_ (_i.e._ that a thing is). The 'great Man' shall end with becoming deathless, as Shakespeare says in his noble sonnet--

'And Death once dead, there's no more dying then!'

"Like the great Pagans, the Hâjî holds that man was born good, while the Christian, 'tormented by the things divine,' cleaves to the comforting doctrine of innate sinfulness. Hence the universal tenet, that man should do good in order to gain by it here or hereafter; the 'enlightened selfishness,' that says, Act well and get compound interest in a future state. The allusion to the 'Theist-word' apparently means that the votaries of a personal Deity must believe in the absolute foreknowledge of the Omniscient in particulars as in generals. The Rule of Law emancipates man; and its exceptions are the gaps left by his ignorance. The wail over the fallen flower, etc., reminds us of the Pulambal (Lamentations) of the Anti-Brahminical writer, 'Pathira-Giriyâr.' The allusion to Mâyâ is from Dâs Kabîr--

'Mâyâ mare, na man mare, mar mar gayâ sarir. Illusion dies, the mind dies not though dead and gone the flesh.'

Nirwânâ, I have said, is partial extinction by being merged in the Supreme, not to be confounded with Pari-nirwânâ or absolute annihilation. In the former also, dying gives birth to a new being, the embodiment of _karma_ (deeds), good and evil, done in the countless ages of transmigration.

"Here ends my share of the work. On the whole it has been considerable. I have omitted, as has been seen, sundry stanzas, and I have changed the order of others. The text has nowhere been translated verbatim; in fact, a familiar European turn has been given to many sentiments which were judged too Oriental. As the metre adopted by Hâjî Abdû was the _Bahr Tawîl_ (long verse), I thought it advisable to preserve that peculiarity, and to fringe it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the original.

"Vive, valeque!"

[1] "The Eternal Gardener: so the old inscription saying--

Homo {locatus est in } {damnatus est in} {humatus est in } {renatus est in } horto."

APPENDIX C.

BHUJANG AND THE COCK-FIGHT.

_Specimen of his early writings in Scinde._

"Some years ago, when surveying the country about this Hoosree, I had an opportunity of reading a lecture to a gentleman about your age, Sir: hear how politely he received it, without ever using the word 'dogmatical,' or making the slightest allusion to 'forwardness.'

"I was superintending the shampooing[1] of a fighting cock--about as dunghill and 'low-caste' a bird as ever used a spur, but a strong spiteful thing, a sharp riser, and a clean hitter withal. Bhujang,[2] the 'dragon,' had sent many a brother biped to the soup-pot. Ere the operation of rubbing him down ended, in walked an old Moslem gentleman, who had called in a friendly unceremonious way to look at and chat with the stranger.

"Cocking, you must know, Mr. Bull, is not amongst these people the 'low' diversion your good lady has been pleased to make it. Here a man may still fight his own bird and beat his own donkey _à discrétion_, without incurring the persecutions of a Philo-beast Society.

"There was a humorous twinkle in the Senior's sly eye as it fell upon the form of Bhujang, and the look gained intensity when, turning towards me, the scrutinizer salaamed and politely ejaculated--

"'Máshálláh! that _is_ a bird!--the Hyderabad breed,[3] or the Afghan?'

"I shuffled off the necessity of romancing about my dunghill's origin, and merely replied that, struck by his many beauties, I had bought him of some unknown person--I did not add for eightpence.

"'What Allah pleases!--it is a miraculous animal! You must have paid his weight in silver! Two hundred rupees, or three hundred?'[4]

"Many people are apt to show impatience or irritability when being 'made fools of'--whereby, methinks, they lose much fun and show more folly than they imagine. My answer to the old gentleman's remark was calculated to persuade that most impertinently polite personage that the Frank, with all his Persian and Arabic, was a 'jolly green.'

"Thereupon, with the utmost suavity he proceeded to inform me that he also was a fighter of cocks, and that he had some--of course immeasurably inferior to the splendid animal being shampooed there--which perhaps might satisfy even _my_ fastidious taste. He concluded with offering to fight one under the certainty of losing it,[5] but anything for a little sport; again gauged me with his cunning glance, salaamed, and took his leave.

"In the evening, after prayers, appeared Mr. Ahmed Khan, slowly sauntering in, accompanied by his friends and domestics; a privileged servant carrying in his arms a magnificent bird, tall, thin, gaunt, and active, with the fierce, full, clear eye, the Chashmi Murwarid,[6] as the Persians call it; small, short, thin, taper head, long neck, stout crooked back, round compact body, bony, strong, and well-hung wings, stout thighs, shanks yellow as purest gold, and huge splay claws--in fact, a love of a cock.

"I thought of Bhujang for a moment despairingly.

"After a short and ceremonious dialogue, in which the old gentleman 'trotted' me out very much to his own satisfaction and the amusement of his companions, the terms of the wager were settled, and Bhujang was brought in, struggling upon his bearer's bosom, kicking his stomach, stretching his neck, and crowing with an air, as if he were the _Sans-peur_ of all the cocks. 'There's an animal for you!' I exclaimed, as he entered. It was a rich treat to see the _goguenard_ looks of my native friends.

"Countenances, however, presently changed, when sending for a few dozen Indian cock-spurs,[7] like little sabres, I lashed a pair to my bird's toes, and then politely proceeded to perform the same operation to my friend's. Ahmed Khan looked on curiously. He was too much of a sportsman, that is to say, a gentleman, to hang back, although he began to suspect that all was not right as he could have wished it to be. His bird's natural weapon was sound, thin, and sharp as a needle, low down upon the shank, at least an inch and a quarter long, and bent at the correctest angle; mine had short, ragged, and blunt bits of horn--the most inoffensive weapons imaginable. But the steel levelled all distinctions.

"We took up the champions, stood a few yards apart--the usual distance--placed them on the ground, and when the '_laissez aller_' was given, let go.

"For some reason, by me unexplainable, the game-cock, especially in this country, when fighting with a dunghill, seldom begins the battle with the spirit and activity of his plebeian antagonist. Possibly the noble animal's blood boiling in his veins at the degrading necessity of entering the lists against an unworthy adversary confuses him for a moment. However that may be, one thing is palpable, namely, that he generally receives the first blows.

"On this occasion the vulgarian Bhujang, who appeared to be utterly destitute of respect for lineage and gentle blood--nay, more like an English snob, ineffably delighted at the prospect of 'thrashing' a gentleman--began to dance, spring, and kick with such happy violence and aplomb, that before the minute elapsed one of his long steels was dyed with the heart's blood of his enemy.

"Politeness forbad, otherwise I could have laughed aloud at the expression assumed by the faces present as they witnessed this especial 'do.' Ahmed Khan, at the imminent peril of a wound from the triumphant dunghill, whom excited cowardice now made vicious as a fiend, raised his cock from the ground, looked piteously for an instant at his glazing eye and drooping head, bowed, and handed it over to me with a sigh.

"Then like the parasite of Penaflor after dinner, I thus addressed him--

"'Ahmed Khan, great is the power of Allah! Did not a gnat annihilate Namrud,[8] the giant king? Could Rustam, the son of Zal, stand against a pistol-bullet? or Antar against an ounce of aquafortis? Have you not heard of the _hikmat_[9] of the Frank, that he is a perfect Plato in wisdom and contrivance? Another time, old gentleman, do not conclude that because our chins are smooth, we are children of asses: and if you will take my advice, abstain from pitting valuable cocks against the obscure produce of a peasant's poultry-yard.'

"'Wallah!' replied my visitor, all the cunning twinkle out of his eye, 'I will take your advice! Your words are sharp: but they are the words of wisdom. But'--here obstinacy and conventionalism obscured Ahmed Khan's brighter qualities--'your bird is a wonderful bird. Máshálláh! may he win many a fight, even as he has done this one!'"

[1] "As Orientals generally fight their birds without spurs they pay extraordinary attention to feeding, training, and exercising them. They are sweated and scoured with anxious care, dosed (in my poor opinion a great deal too much) with spices and drugs most precisely, and made to pass hours in running, flying, and leaping. The shampooing is intended to harden their frames; it is done regularly every day, morning and evening. A fair course of training lasts from three weeks to a month, and the birds are generally brought out in excellent condition."

[2] "Game-cocks, like chargers, are always called by some big and terrible name."

[3] "The game-cocks of Hyderabad, in the Deccan, are celebrated throughout India, for their excellence and rarity. So difficult is it to purchase birds of purest blood, that I have heard of a rich Moslem visiting the Nizam's capital for the purpose of buying eggs."

[4] "The usual price of a first-rate cock is £3 or £4. My friend was indulging his facetiousness when he named £20 or £30."

[5] "The usual wager is the body of the bird killed or wounded."

[6] "The 'pearl eye.'"

[7] "The Indian cock-spur differs essentially from ours. It is a straight bit of steel varying from two to three and a half inches in length, with a blunt flat shaft, ending in a sharp sword-like blade, the handle as it were of which is bound to the bird's fore toe, shank, and hind toe. Every cock-fighter has dozens of these tools, made in every possible variety of size and angle to suit the cocks."

[8] "Nimrod, represented to be a cruel tyrant, who, attempting to martyr Abraham, was slain by a mosquito--sent to eat into his brain for the general purpose of pointing many a somnific Oriental moral."

[9] "_Hikmat_, philosophy, science, political cunning, king-craft, etc., a favourite word for head work in Central Asia."

APPENDIX D.

VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF MEER IBRAHIM KHAN TALPUR A BELOCH CHIEF.

_Another specimen of Richard's fresh writings in Scinde._

"Enter Mr. Hari Chand, a portly pulpy Hindoo, the very type of his unamiable race, with a cat-like gait, a bow of exquisite finish; a habit of sweetly smiling under every emotion, whether the produce of a bribe or a kick; a softly murmuring voice, with a tendency to sinking; and a glance which seldom meets yours, and when it does, seems not quite to enjoy the meeting. How timidly he appears at the door! How deferentially he slides in, salaams, looks deprecating, and at last is induced to sit down! Above all things, how he listens! Might he not be mistaken for a novel kind of automaton, into which you can transfer your mind and thoughts--a curious piece of human mechanism in the shape of a creature endowed with all things but a self?

"You would start could you read his thoughts at the very moment that you are forming such opinions of him.

"'Well, Hari Chand' (after the usual salutations), 'and pray what manner of man may be this Meer Ibrahim Khan.--Talpur, is he not?'

"'Wah! wah! What a Chieftain! What a very Nushirawan[1] for all-shading equity! a Hátim for overflowing generosity--a Rustam--

"'That is to say, always considering that he is a Beloch,' says Hari Chand, perceiving by the expression of _my_ face that _his_ opinion requires modifying.

"'For a Beloch! The Sahab's exalted intelligence has of course comprehended the extra fact that they are all dolts, asses, fools. But this Ibrahim Khan, saving the Sahab's presence, is not one of them. Quite the contrary.'

"'You mean he is a rogue!'

"'The Sahab has the penetration of an arrow--a rogue of the first water!

"'A rogue of the first water. He has won the wealth of Bokhara and Samarcand by the sunshine of the countenance of the Honourable Company, to whom he sells camels at six pounds a head, after compelling his subjects to receive two pounds for them. Ah! well said the poet--

"I would rather be a companion of devils Than the ryot of an unjust king."

"'He has almost doubled the size and resources of his jagir (feof), by the friendship of certain Sahabs who--' (here we must stop Hari Chand's tongue with a look). 'And when the Valiant Company allows him twenty thousand rupees to excavate his canals and improve his land, he--the Lord bless him!--expends half, and lays by the other moiety in his coffers.

"'But,' pursues Hari Chand, delighted that we allow him a reasonably free use of his subject, 'has not the Sahab seen with his own eyes what a prodigious thief he is? Did not the poor Scindian complain yesterday that his camel had been stolen from him? and the peasants, that they were starving? and the Hindoos, that they were ruined? Every man, to be sure, may cut off his own dog's tail! It were well, however, if nothing worse could be said about this Ibrahim.'

"Now Mr. Hari Chand's countenance assumes that deep mysterious expression which courts the operation of 'pumping.' After which, chuckling internally at having secured for himself the acute gratification of being able to tear a man's reputation to shreds, he resumes in a low soft tone of voice, as if the tent walls had ears--

"'He murdered his elder brother! Yes, Sahab, before the battle of Meeanee, Ibrahim was a poor sorry fellow, a cadet who was not even allowed to sit in the presence of the great. But

"The world is a water-wheel, and men the pots upon it; Now their heads are beneath the stones, now they are raised high to heaven."

"'At the battle of Meeanee a matchlock ball pierced the occiput of Ibrahim's brother, and the clan, when they saw their Chief bite the dust, ran away like sheep, headed by Ibrahim Khan, the leader of the flock, who ran a little faster than the rest to show the line of direction. When the Fort of Hyderabad surrendered, one of the first persons that gave up his dangerous sword to the General Sahab, was Ibrahim Khan, who had the address to oust his nephew from the inheritance, and by plentiful foxplay took all the carcase from the tiger.

"'And now,' continues Hari Chand, anxious to improve each fleeting minute, 'Ibrahim, who five years ago was not allowed to show his mouth at Court, sits on a chair before the Collector and pays visits to the Madams--the ladies of the English. He has ventured to boast that one of them is desperately enamoured of him.' ('This,' says Hari Chand to himself, 'will irritate the fools'--ourselves, Mr. Bull--'beyond measure.') 'He drinks curaçoa and brandy like a Sahab. He has become proud. Yesterday, for instance, instead of coming out for miles and miles to meet the Sawari----

"'The Sahab is a servant of the Honourable Company--long be its prosperity! Whose dog is Ibrahimoo,[2] that he should treat the "lords of the sword and pen"[3] in this disgraceful way? that he should send that owl[4] of a nephew to greet them with his hootings, and venture to be absent when they arrive at his grave?[5] Had Smith Sahab the Collector' ('now I have that red-coated infidel on the hip,' thinks Hari Chand) 'been coming with his writers, and his scribes, and his secretaries, and his guards, and all his retinue, Ibrahim would have been present to kiss his feet. And why? Because Smith Sahab is a--good easy man, who allows the bandit to do what he pleases. Ah, well said Nizami--[6]

"The joys of this world!--donkeys have engrossed them. Would to Allah, Nizami had been a donkey!"

"'But perhaps,' continues Hari Chand during a short pause, in which time his mind had been almost preternaturally active, 'it is not so much Ibrahim's crime as that of Kakoo Mall.'

"'And who may Kakoo Mall be?'

"'Kakoo Mall? The Sahab does not know who Kakoo Mall is? Ibrahim's head moonshee, a Khudabadi Banyan of a fellow' (our man, Mr. Bull, is a Sehwani, a Green instead of a Brown), 'and one of the most unscrupulous ruffians that ever carried inkstand in his belt.'

"Thereupon a fierce worrying of Kakoo Mall's character. In common charity I would draw our man off, only that most probably Kakoo Mall is about this time abusing us and Hari Chand to Ibrahim, just as violently as Hari Chand abuses Ibrahim and Kakoo Mall to us.

"'He will, I would swear, do his best that your honours may not be treated with the courtesy due to your rank, and that I, your humble servant, may be insulted.'

"'Very well, moonshee, we will look after him. You may go. At eleven we start for our visit. Be ready to accompany us; and don't be afraid of Kakoo Mall.'

"'Under the shadow of your eagle wings,' replies Hari Chand, with a lovely bow, 'what have I to fear from the puny talons of the carrion crow?'

* * * * *

"We mount our horses, still in native costume, and cross the village, our moonshee ambling by our side, and a few ferocious Afghan servants bringing up the rear, much to the astonishment and quite to the admiration of its inhabitants.

"We reach the courtyard gate of the Talpur's dwelling. Three ragged rascals, with sheathed swords in their hands and daggers in their belts, headed by another nephew, rush up to us as if their intention were to begin by cutting our throats. The young Chief, seizing our hands, chatters forth a thousand congratulations, salutations, and messages, nearly tears us from our saddles, and demands concerning our happiness, in tones which rise high above the whooping and yelling of his followers. One fellow rushes away to pass the word, 'They come.' And out pours a whole rout to witness the event, and, by their presence, to communicate to it all possible importance.

"After jostling and being jostled through half a dozen narrow gateways, we arrive opposite the verandah, under which stands Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur. I see this reception is to be a poor attempt at court ceremonial.

"We dismount--twenty men pressing forward to hold our stirrups, the whole party yelling 'Bismillah!' (in the name of Allah) as our feet touch the ground. Then Ibrahim Khan, pressing forward, seizes our hands, wrings our arms in their sockets, and--oh, compliment with which we might readily have dispensed!--precipitates himself upon our bosoms, clasping us firmly to a 'corporation,' and applying a rough-bearded chin to the upper portions of both our shoulder-blades consecutively.

"We are led in with our slippers on. Our host has not removed his, consequently we will continue to wear ours. Another volley of inquiries and another series of huggings, as we are led up to the silken ottoman, upon which he, the Chief, and his eldest nephew are to sit, a motley crowd of relations, friends, acquaintances, dependants, and any one who happened to be passing the house at the time, pressing in, looking curiously at us and fearfully at our retainers. All arrange themselves with the noise of a troop of ravens upon the floor.

"Observe, Mr. John Bull, in the corner of the room Hari Chand and Kakoo Mall, almost weeping with joy, throw themselves upon each other, and murmur _mezzo-voce_ thanks to that Heaven which hath thus permitted the tree of hope to put forth green leaves and to bear sweet fruit.

"Charming this choice blossom of true civilization, blooming amid the desert of barbarism around it! Had a violet or a forget-me-not appeared to us in the centre of Ibrahim Khan's courtyard, the sight would scarcely have been more suggestive. What memories it revives! One of them--

"When the fascinating Lady F. Macarthy, an authoress and a _femme d'esprit_, had sketched with a pencil, stolen from Wit, the character of her bosom friend, Miss Anne Clotworthy Crawley, and published the same, the English world laughed, but Dublin joyed with double joy.

"Dublin joyed thus: firstly, at seeing the picture; secondly, at foreseeing the scene it would occasion when the sketcher and the sketched met for the first time in public. There was much of anticipation, much of vague and happy expectation, in this idea.

"Was it disappointed?

"No! At the next ball, Lady Florence, unwilling to show Miss Crawley that she could not use as well as abuse a friend, and Miss Crawley, as unwilling to show Lady Florence her consciousness of having been abused as she deserved, both with one impulse at the same moment clave the crowd, and--they had been parted at least five days--kissed each other with all the ardour of feminine friendship.

"'And faith,' said every Irishman of the hundred who witnessed the scene--'and 'faith, I disp'hised them both!'

"Kiss on, Kakoo Mall and Hari Chand!

* * * * *

"At the end of the time the host motions away his pipe, and prepares himself to converse and hor! hor! with renewed vigour.

"'Were you at Nasir Khan's fight?'--so the battle of Meeanee is called by the Scindians, as opposed to Sher Mohammed's fight, the battle of Dubbah.

"We reply in the negative, and suspect that we are in for one of our noble host's stock stories.

"'Hor! hor! that _was_ an affair. O Allah, Allah Akbar! was ever the like of it before?'

"'Then you were present, Meer Sahab?'[7]

"'I--yes, indeed I was. I went out with all the vassals of my poor brother' (a broad grin), 'whom you killed. Look at his son, my nephew there' (pointing to the lean scowler sitting by his side). 'Well, you killed his poor father. And, hor! hor! you would have killed me,' pursues Ibrahim, highly amused by the idea, 'but I was a little too sharp even for the Frank.'

"We stimulate him by an inquiry.

"'How?' he vociferates. 'Why, when we went out of the tent to attack you we started to hunt the deer. Some carried swords, others spears, and many sticks, because we wanted to thrash you soundly for your impudence--not to kill you, poor things. My brother--now Allah illumine his grave!--was a simple-minded man, who said, "What can the iron of the Angreez[8] do against the steel of the Beloch?"

"'We drew up in a heap, eager for the onslaught. Presently some guns of yours appeared; they unlimbered: they began to fire. So did ours; but somehow or other we shot over you, you shot into us. I was on the other part of the field, so of course I didn't care much for that. But, a few minutes afterwards, what did we see?--a long red line, with flashing spikes, come sweeping over the plain towards us like a simoom.

"'Allah, Allah! what are these dogs doing? They are not running away? All my poor brother's men put the same question.

"'Then bang went the great guns, phit the little guns; the Franks prayed aloud to the Shaitan with a loud, horrible voice; we to Allah. What a mosque full of mullahs it was, to be sure![9] Who could fight? We howled defiance against them. Still they came on. We stood and looked at them. Still they came on. We rushed and slashed at them, like Rustams. Still they came on--the white fiends.[10] And, by Allah, when we ran away, still they came after us. It was useless to encounter this kind of magic; the head magician sitting all the time on the back of a little bay horse, waving his hat in circles, and using words which those that heard them sounded like the language of devils. I waited till my poor brother fell dead. Then I cried to the vassals, "Ye base-born, will you see your chieftain perish unavenged?" And, having done my best to fight like a soldier, I thought I had a right to run like one--hor! hor!

"'But now tell me--you are an Englishman--is there any chance of the Ameer's ever returning from captivity?'

"The assembly, after being convulsed with laughter during the Chief's account of his prowess at the battle of Meeanee--there are 'toadies' in Scinde as elsewhere--was breathless whilst he awaited our answer to his question.

"'No, Meer Sahab, there is none. The morning of prosperity has at length dawned upon Scinde. It leads to a day that knows no return of night!'

"'Allah Tuhar--the Lord be thy preserver!' There was no laugh as Ibrahim Khan uttered this short prayer.

"We rise; so does every man in the room. Vehemently are we pressed to stay. Vehemently do we refuse. Then there is a rushing to the doors, a whooping for horses, an appearance of the animals, madly kicking and plunging because ten hands are holding each bridle. The Chief accompanies us as far as the main gate of his palace, shaking hands, laughing violently, and catechizing us about our healths and brains; he repeats his delight at having made friendship with us, and, as a conclusion, again clasps us to that development which would not disgrace the fat fame of a Falstaff.

* * * * *

[What can be more true or witty, more picturesque and characteristic, than this picture of a Beloch dinner and tea party?--I. B.]

"'A tea-party! 'What horrible goblins of the past are conjured up by these three syllables!

* * * * *

"The first object that meets our glance, as we near the tents, is a line of Belochies drawn up behind a row of earthen pots, in shape and hue by no means unlike monstrous turnips. These--the turnips--are a present of choice confectionery; material, coarse sugar, rice, flour, spices, and clarified butter--always sent in token of friendship or favour. There are ten pots full for you, the 'great gentleman,' eight for me, the thinner man, one for our moonshee, who looks a profound disgust at not having received two, and the rest for the servants. The latter will obtain, although they cannot claim, possession of the whole, and the result will be a general indigestion, which nothing but a certain preparation of tartar can remove. Half a pound of the foul mixture would place our lives in imminent peril. Another uncomfortable effect of the ceremony is, that in this case, as on all occasions where an Oriental sends you a present, a return is expected, and the amount of the return is supposed exactly to show at what rate you value yourself. We must give vails to all the fellows, otherwise we shall be called 'fly-suckers,' _i.e._ skinflints--a reputation which you, in your own country and in these days, seem rather to court than to avoid, Mr. Bull; but what the East is not yet sufficiently enlightened to appreciate. We must also send a 'token' to the noble giver of the sweetmeats. If we withhold it, he will not be too shamefaced to apply for it in person. I remarked that, during the visit, he repeatedly admired your ring--a bloodstone with the family crest, a lion rampant, upon it. Send it to him, with an epigrammatic compliment, which I will impromptu for you, and you will earn, as the natives say, a 'great name.'

* * * * *

"'Well, Hari Chand, how progresses the Ameer?'

"'The Ameer? Your exalted intelligence will understand most prosperously, only he has robbed his ryots of all their camels, and now he is quarrelling with the neighbouring jagirdars (country gentlemen) in order to get theirs to cheat the Company with; he has depopulated the land of small birds to feed his twenty hawks; he has been to Hyderabad and has returned stark-staring mad, swearing that he drank two sahibs under the table, and made love to every madam[11] in the place' (Hari Chand is determined to excite our _ghairat_, or jealousy, on that point by perpetually hammering at it); 'he has married another wife, although people say he has five[12] already; the new one being a devil, fights with all the old ones, who try to poison her; and his eldest daughter, when on a visit to the capital, ran away with a mounted policeman. Wah! wah! Verily, it is a noble family, as the poet said of the people of Cabul--

"A most distinguished race are they; The men can't say 'Yes,' the women can't say 'No.'"'[13]

"'And Kakoo Mall?'

"'Oh, Kakoo Mall! He is making a fortune by sedulously practising all kinds of iniquities. Praised be Allah! what a scoundrel he is! It would take hours to sketch out his villanies even for the exalted intelligence of your honours to comprehend them. But one of these days Kakoo must and will come to a bad end, a very bad end, which may be a warning to mankind.'

"This prediction, Mr. Bull, is simply the result of envy on the part of Hari Chand, who would give one of his eyes for the unlimited powers of doing evil, that good (to himself) might come of it, which he represents Kakoo Mall to enjoy. Of course he alludes piously to the vengeance of the gods, but the reference is an habitual one; the heart knows nothing about what the tongue speaks.

"'Ut sit magna, tamen certe lenta ira decrum est,' is a sentiment which misleads the Eastern as well as the Western would-be criminal. These people theoretically own the idea of retribution in this certain life; practically, they act as if sure to evade it. An unseen, an uncertain punishment has so little effect when threatened from afar! Offended Heaven may so easily be propitiated by vain oblations, and equally vain repentance. And, after all, celestial vengeance so often comes too late--a man may enjoy himself so many years before the blow descends! So they never neglect to threaten one another with the _ira deorum_, and always sit in the teeth of it themselves.

* * * * *

"Here is the Sawári, the retinue. Meer Ibrahim Khan, all crimson and gold, alights from his steed, a handsome Beloch mare, whose bridle and head-gear are covered with grotesque silver ornaments, and stands a moment patting her, to show off her points and equipments. The saddle is richly mounted--though far inferior to those used by some of the petty Indian princes, whose led horses are decked in harness plated with precious metals studded with diamonds--and there is no deficiency, at the same time no particular attraction, in the abundance of girth, housing, martingale and crupper, with which a gentleman's animal in this part of the world must be lumbered.

"Ibrahim Khan prepares for dinner by dismissing all his attendants but one, Kakoo Mall, who remains to 'toady' his highness, to swear the truth of every falsehood the great man tells, to supply him with an idea or a word whenever conversation does not flow glibly, and to be insulted, 'chaffed' and derided, _tour à tour_, as the ill-humour or joviality of his Chief prevail. The Ameer's quick glance has detected that we have nought but ale and cognac to offer him; that point settled, he assures his mind by feeling the smooth insides of our wine-glasses, by taking up the spoons, avoiding their handles, by producing brown facsimiles of his thumbs upon the white surface of the salt, by converting the mustard-pot into a scent-bottle, and by correcting any little irritation of the epidermis with our only corkscrews.

"'Will you take a glass of the water of life, Meer Sahab?'

"Perhaps, Mr. Bull, you expect our visitor to drink a few drops of brandy, as the French take _un petit verre d'absinthe pour ouvrir l'appetit_. If so, a quarter of an hour will convince you of your mistake.

"Ibrahim Khan hands his gold-hilted sabre to the Afghan servant--who receives it at a distance, as if it bit, with a sneering smile, for which he shall presently receive well-merited correction--sees it deposited in the corner of the tent, and then seating himself heavily upon the edge of the cot of honour opposite the dinner-table, he clutches a tumbler, blows warmly into it, polishes the damp interior with his pocket-handkerchief, and prepares to attack the liquid part of his meal.

"We must join him if you please. In Scinde men drink before, in England after, dinner. At home, the object, we say, is to pass time pleasantly over a glass of wine; here, they honestly avow, they drink to get drunk, and wonder what makes you do the same, disclaiming all intention of doing it. The Eastern practice is admirable for securing the object proposed to itself; every one knows that half a bottle upon an empty stomach does the duty of two emptied under converse circumstances. Moreover, the Scindians declare that alcohol before meals whets the appetite, enlivens the spirits, and facilitates digestion. Habit is everything. I should advise you, Mr. John Bull, to follow the Meer's example at humble distance; otherwise a portly old gentleman in a state of roaring intoxication, singing and speechifying, excited combativeness and general benevolence, may be the concluding scene of this feast of unreason.

"The dinner passes off rapidly. Ibrahim Khan eats quite as much as he drinks. Not contented with scooping up masses of boiled rice, hard eggs, and unctuous stews, in his palm, now and then stripping a kabab-stick[14] with his fingers, and holding up a large bone to his mouth with both hands, he proposes after our example to practise the knife and fork. With these articles, the former in the left, the latter in the right fist, he attempts to dissect a roast fowl, which dances away from him, as if it had vitality, over the damask, to the tune of loud hor! hors! Again he tries--again he fails, although he prefaced the second attempt by a Bismillah: 'Heathen dog' (to Kakoo Mall), 'is the soul of thy father in this bit of carrion?' for which gross insult[15] the Hindoo mentally fines his lord a thousand rupees, to be cheated the first opportunity. At last, desperate by the failure of many efforts, he throws away the fork, transfers the knife to his right hand, and grasping with his left the animal's limbs, he tears it piecemeal with a facility which calls for a loud explosion of mirth.

"I never yet saw an Oriental laugh at himself so readily. Generally speaking, childlike, they are nervously and uncomfortably sensitive to ridicule of all kinds. Nothing offends them more lastingly than a caricature, be it the most good-natured. A writer of satire in Persia rarely dies an easy death; and the present race must be numbered amongst things that were, before a man could edit, at Teheran, a number of _Punch_ and live through the day.

"Scindian cookery is, like the country and its native, a link between the Iranian and the Indian systems. Central Asia is pre-eminently the land of good living and of masterly _artistes_, men as truly great in their exquisite art as Paris or Naples ever produced: it teems with enjoyment to the philosophic _bon vivant_, who will apply his mind to naturalizing his palate. Amongst the Hindoos, the _matériel_ of the _cuisine_ is too limited, consequently there is a monotony in the succession of rice-dishes and vegetables: moreover, the bilious ghee enters into almost every preparation, the sweets are cloying, and the profuse spices annoying to the tasteful palate. In Scinde there are dawnings of culinary light, which would in a happier moral clime usher in a brilliant day. You have seldom eaten anything better--I will answer for the fact, Mr. Bull--than a _salmi_ of black partridge, with a garnishing of stewed _bengans_, or egg-plants.

"The repast ends more abruptly than it began. The Scindian, as the boa-constrictor, is always torpid after his ample meal, and he holds to the apothegm of the Salernitan school--

'Post prandium est dormiendum.'

You may observe our guest's fat heavy eyelids winking and drooping with progressive somnolency as the time for his _siesta_ draws nigh. He calls for a cup of lukewarm milk--the invariable and offensive conclusion to dinner here; apologizes for leaving us--he must go to his prayers and attend to his guest-house[16]--promises a return to tea in the evening, calls for his horse, mounts it and retires.

"Now that he has gone, perhaps you also, sir, may have 'letters to write.'

* * * * *

"'Ibrahimoo was so full of wine,' remarks Hari Chand, 'with these eyes I saw him almost tumble over his animal. He go to pray! He went to prepare for the evening's work. As for his guest-house, it is called by all the poor around, "House of Hunger." Your honours, I hear, gave him only beer and brandy. You will see him presently return with a donkey's load of bottles. And I am told that he is going to bring his eldest boy. Ah, your honours must button up your pouches now!'

* * * * *

"Here comes the Ameer with some additions to his former escort, Kakoo Mall; a little brown boy five or six years old, a minstrel, and a servant carrying many 'grey-beards.'

"In few parts of the world do you see prettier children than those of the higher class in Scinde. Their features are delicate and harmonious; the forehead is beautifully _bombé_; the full, rounded cheek shows almost olive-coloured by the side of the silky black curls; and there is an intelligence and a vivacity which you scarcely expect to see in their large, long, lustrous black eyes. Their forms are equal to their faces; for symmetry and finish they might serve as models to the well-provided Murillo or Correggio. And the simplicity of their dress--a skull-cap, a little silk frock like a night-gown, confined with a waist-shawl in which sticks the tiniest of daggers, and a pair of loose slippers--contrasts most advantageously with the dancing-dog costumes with which your good lady, Mr. Bull, invests her younger offspring, or the unsightly jackets and waistcoats conferred upon Billy when breeched. If you like their dress you will also admire their behaviour. The constant habit of society makes them companionable at an age when your progeny is fit for nothing but confinement in a loose box called a nursery. The boy here stands before his father, or sits with him when ordered, more staidly than one of your adults would do. He listens with uncommon gravity to the conversation of his seniors, answers pithily and respectfully when addressed, and never requires to be lectured upon the text, 'Little children are made to be seen and not heard.' At eight years of age he is master of the _usages_; he will receive you at the door in the absence of his progenitor, hand you to your proper seat in the room, converse with you, compliment you, call for pipes, offer you sweetmeats, invite you to dinner, and dismiss you without failing in a single point. As a boy he is a little man, and his sister in the harem is a little woman. This you may object to on the score of taste; say that it robs childhood of its chief charm, the natural, the innocent, and all that kind of thing. At any rate, you must own that it also preserves us from the very troublesome displays of the said charm in the form of pertness, selfishness, turbulence, and all the unlovely details comprehended in your 'naughtiness'--the Irish 'boldness.'

"Our admiration of their children is reciprocated by the Orientals. I have heard of a Chief travelling many miles to see the fair and flaxen hair of a 'European baby;' and 'Beautiful as a white child' is almost a proverb amongst the dark-skinned Maharattas.

"We must treat Master Ibrahim--I beg his pardon, Meer Jan Mohammed Khan Talpur, as he sententiously names himself--with especial attention, as a mark of politeness to his father. We insist upon his sitting down--upon the highest seat, too--inquire with interest after his horse and his hawk, look at his dagger, and slip in a hope that he may be as brave a soldier as his father. But we must not tell him that he is a pretty boy, or ask him his age, or say anything about his brothers and sisters, otherwise we offend against the _convenances_. And when we wish him to be sent home--that venerable maxim,

'Maxima debetur puero reverenda,'

is still venerated in the East--we give him a trifling _tohfeh_ (present), a pocket-pistol or a coloured print, and then he will feel that the object of his mission has been fulfilled. In Central Asia a child's visit is a mere present-trap.

"You admire the row of bottles displayed upon the table--a dozen at least of champagne and sherry, curaçoa and noyau, brandy and gin, soda-water and pale ale. You will wonder still more when you see Ibrahim Khan disposing of their contents recklessly, mixing them (after consumption) by tumblers full, intoxicating himself with each draught, and in each twenty minutes' interval becoming, by dint of pushing his cap off his brow, scratching his head, abusing his moonshee, and concentrating all the energies of mind and body upon his pipe, sober as judges are said to be.

"A faint 'twang-twang' draws your attention to the corner of the tent. As in the ages preceding Darius, so since his time the _soirée_ of Oriental Cæsar, or Chief, never ended without sweet music.

"Remark the appearance of the performer. He is a dark, chocolate-coloured man with a ragged beard, an opium look, sharp, thin features, and a skin that appears never to have known ablution. A dirty, torn cloth wrapped round his temples acts as turban; the rest of the attire, a long shirt of green cotton and blue drawers, is in a state which may be designated 'disgusting.' In his hand is his _surando_, the instrument of his craft, a rude form of the violin, with four or five sheep-gut strings, which are made to discourse eloquent music by a short crooked bow that contains half the tail of a horse. He is preparing to perform, not in the attitude of a Paganini, but as we see in old Raphaels, and occasionally in the byways of Italy--the instrument resting upon his lap instead of his collar-bone. Before the preliminary scraping ends, whilst the Meer is reviling Kakoo Mall _sotto voce_, a word or two about the fellow and his race.

"The Langho, or, as he is politely and accurately termed, the Manganhar, or 'asker'[17]--they are the most peremptory and persevering of beggars--is a particular caste in Scindi. Anciently all the great clans had their own minstrels, whose duty it was to preserve their tradition for recital on festival occasions, and to attend the Chief in battle, where they noted everything with an eagle's eye, praising those that fought, and raining showers of curses, taunts, and invectives upon those that fled. This part of their occupation is now gone. In the present day they subsist principally by the charity of the people, and by attending at the houses in which their professional services at marriages and other ceremonies are required. They are idle as well as fond of pleasure, dirty, immoral, and notoriously dishonest. _Largesse_ to a minstrel being a gentlemanly way of wasting one's substance in Scinde, those that employ the 'asker' are provoked to liberality till either the will or the way fail. In the mean time he spends every pice, with all the recklessness of a Western _artiste_, in drinking, gambling, and the silliest ostentation. He is not expected to live long, and none knows what becomes of him in his old age.

"Our friend the Meer has, I am told by Hari Chand, suffered so much from these men's sneering encomiums upon his valour and conduct in the late war, that he once tried the experiment of paying them liberally to avoid his palace. Finding that the revenues of Persia would be inadequate to carry out the scheme, he has altered his tactics, and now supports half a dozen of these, on the express condition that they never allude to the battles of Meeanee or Dubbah in his presence.

"And now, as Ibrahim Khan looks tired of attempting to converse with our surly Afghans, and of outraging the feelings of his moonshee, we will lend an ear to Music--heavenly maid--as she springs upon us in grimly guise from the head of Aludo, the minstrel.

"The singing will commence with a favourite rhapsod theme--the murder of the great Lord Bahram, the ancestor of the Talpur Princess--by order of Sarfaraz, the Kalhora; and with the deadliest accuracy will it detail how an individual of lowly birth but brave, Shah Baharo, a Scindian, when ordered by the despot to do the deed, refused, saying, 'I will fight the Beloch like a man.' How Sarfaraz made light of Shah Baharo's chivalry and honour, asking, 'Where is Mohammed the Prophet of Allah, and where is Musaylimah the liar?'[18] How Shah Baharo responded with great temper and a prodigious quantity of good advice, the major part of which was _à propos_ of everything; how Sarfaraz cozened and flattered till he found a willing bravo in Ismail Mombiyani the Scindian; how the said Ismail, being a one-handed man, cut down the valiant Bahram from behind with a sword which he held in his left hand, raised a little higher than usual, and drew down the murdered chief's shoulder; how Ismail, after the assassination, cut off Bahram's head; and, finally, how Sarfaraz looked at it, and gave utterance to unchristianlike sentiments.

"All the terrible minuteness of a French novel of the day or an Italian historical romance!

"The sounds that accompany are more remarkable than the words of the song. Each fresh verse is ushered in by a loud howl so strikingly discordant that your every nerve starts at it, and so prolonged that anticipation wearies of looking forward to its close. To which follows the _aria_, a collection of sharp shatterings, in a key strained at least two notes above the _voce di petto_, which, nevertheless, must be forced up to the mark, falsetto being unknown here. And, lastly, the conclusion of the phrase--a descent into the regions of the _basso_ till the voice dies away, vaguely growling--lost, as it were, and unable to merge from the depths into which it strayed. Then the howl, the chatterings, the soprano scream, and the growl over again. Half an hour of this work goes to the formation of a Scindian melody.

"Melody!

"Well, yes, melody! You see, sir, all around you are ecstatized, consequently there must be something to attract admiration in the performance. Of all the arts, Music is the most conventional. What do you think Orpheus would have thought of Thalberg--Thalberg of Orpheus? The tradition of all ancient people, Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and others, tell of minstrels who worked miracles by the voice, the guitar, the lute, and the lyre. The Music of the Greeks and Romans is beyond our reach; that of the Hindoo and the Persian is still in its old age,--much the same, I suppose, as it was when it began to exist. Accustomed to his own system, the Indian cannot derive the least pleasure from ours. The noisiness confuses him; his ear cannot detect a phrase, and he is ignorant of its harmony as he would be insensible to discord. He wonders greatly how it is that the European, so superior to him in arms and arts, can be so far behind in this one science, and he turns with eagerness to the strain familiar to his ear; not to the 'Hindostanee melodies,' which are occasionally composed in London, but to an honest, downright bit of barbarism such as we have just now heard.

"After my description, you will be astonished to hear that I could do anything but suffer during the endurance of the minstrel's song. At first all was pure torture. Presently the ear, in its despair, began to make friends with the least harsh sounds, as prisoners do with spiders or jailors. Then, as a note or two became familiar, the utter strangeness wore off, and a sensation of grotesque enjoyment, novel and unexplainable, struggled into existence. At last, when a few years had thoroughly broken my taste to bear what you have just heard, I could listen to it not only without the horror you experience, but also with something more like gratification than composure. Possibly I like it better for the disgust it provoked at first. So the Highlander learns to love his screaming, wheezing bagpipe, the German his putrescent _Sauerkraut_, the Frenchman _haut-goût_ in game, the Italian his rancid olives, and all the world their snuff and cigars--things which at first they must, as they were human, have hated.

"The songs generally sung by these Eastern _jongleurs_ are legends, ballads, certain erotic verses which are very much admired by every class, and mystical effusions which the learned enjoy, and which the unlearned, being utterly unable to comprehend them, listen to with the acutest sensations of pleasure. The Homer of Scinde is one Sayyid Abd el Latif, a saintly bard, whose Risalo, or collection of distichs upon traditionary themes of the two passions, Love and War, has been set to different musical modes, and is, by the consenting voice of society, admitted to be a perfect _chef d'œuvre_, a bit of heaven on earth.

"I will translate one of the songs which Aludo sings--a short satirical effusion, directed against the descendants of that celebrated man by some Scindian poet, who appears fond of using the figure irony.

"AN ODE TO THE HOLY MEN OF BHIT.[19]

1. "'Ye monks of Bhit, whose holy care In fast and penance, wake and prayer! Your lips and eyes bespeak a love From low earth weaned to Heaven above! Your hearts have rent all carnal ties, Abjured all pomps and vanities! Not mean will be your meed, I ken, In Heaven's bright realms, ye rev'rend men!'

2. "'And yet, they say, those tuneful throats, With prayers' stem chaunt, mix softer notes; Those mouths will sometimes deign to sip The honey-dew from maiden's lip; And other juice than salt tear dyes With purpling hues those heavy eyes. Ah, ah! twice blest your lot, I ken, Here and hereafter, rev'rend men!'

* * * * *

"You have a small musical snuff-box with you. Mr. John Bull; wind it up, put it in your pocket, and try the effects of a polka or a waltz.

"All are silent in a moment. They start, stare, peer about the room, and look very much scared by the strange sounds. In another minute they will run away from us adepts in the black art. You see how many miracles could be got out of a few such simple contrivances as a grind-organ, an electrical machine, or a magic lantern. Now produce the cause of astonishment whilst I attempt to explain the mechanism of the invention. The sight of something soothes them; their minds become, comparatively speaking, quiet; still they handle the box with constraint, as if it had the power of stinging as well as singing. All are vociferous in praise of the music, probably on account of the curiosity of the thing, as a civilized audience applauds a sonata upon one string, at which it would yawn if performed upon four. Even the Minstrel declares with humble looks that the charm has fled his _Surando_, that his voice is become like to the crows. This, however, is his politeness, not his belief. In what part of the world, or at what epoch of the creation, did a painter, a musician, or a poet, ever own to himself that he is a dauber, a mar-music, or a poetaster?

"Ibrahim Khan will by no means refuse a 'dish a tea,' especially when offered to him during a short account of the Chinese Empire: the beardless state of the Celestials and the porcelain tower being topics which will at once rivet his attention. Orientals in their cups love to become inquisitive, scientific, theological, and metaphysical. But he qualifies the thin potation with quite an equal quantity of brandy, as in his heart of hearts he has compared the first sip to an infusion of senna disguised by sugar and milk. The Belochies, unlike their neighbours the Persians and Afghans, are not accustomed to the use of _Chahi_.[20]

* * * * *

"'Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur, listen! The meetings of this world are in the street of separation. And truly said the poet that the sweet draught of friendly union is ever followed by the bitter waters of parting. To-morrow we wander forth from these pleasant abodes, to return to Hyderabad. My friend, Jan Bool Sahib, is determined to feast his eyes upon the Edens of Larkhana and to dare the Jehannums of Shikarpur.'

"The Chief rises steadily, though intoxicated.

"'You are the King of the Franks. You are the best of the Nazarenes, and, by the blessed Prophet, you almost deserve to be a Moslem! Swear to me that you will presently return and gladden the glance of amity. What is life without the faces of those we love? Wah! wah! I have received you badly. There are no dancing-women in my villages. I would have seized a dozen of the ryots' wives, but Kakoo Mall said--didn't you, you scoundrel----?'

"'Certainly, great Chief!'

"'How can the Haiwans,[21] the Scindees, venture to show their blackened[22] faces in the presence of those exalted lords? If I have failed in anything, pardon me.'

"The tears stand in Ibrahim's eyes. No wonder. He has nearly finished six bottles. He grasps our hands at every comma; at every full stop vigorously embraces us. Yet he is not wholly maudlin. To water the tree of friendship, as he phrases it, he stuffs my cheroot-case into one pocket, and a wine-glass into the other. I must give him your musical box, Mr. Bull, and as an equivalent--I don't wish him to go home and laugh at our beards--I gently extract his best hunting-knife from his waistband and transfer it to my own, declaring that with that identical weapon will I cut the throat of a poetic image called Firak or Separation.

"Now the adieus become general. The minstrel raises his voice in fervent prayer; he has received five rupees and a bottle of bad gin. All the followers put their heads into the tent to bless us, and to see if we have anything more to give them. The Ameer, convinced that there are no more presents to be distributed, prepares to depart, accompanied by his secretary, when Hari Chand, determined upon a final scene, raises the tent-fly and precipitates himself into Kakoo Mall's arms."

[1] "The just king of Persia."

[2] "A diminutive and decidedly disrespectful form of the proper name."

[3] "A high title in Persia, terribly prostituted in Scinde and India."

[4] "The bird of wisdom in Europe, in Asia becomes the symbol of stupidity: _vice versâ_, the European goose is the Asiatic emblem of sageness."

[5] "A metaphor, by no means complimentary, for his house and home."

[6] "A first-rate Persian poet infinitely celebrated and popular for satire, morality, and gross indecency."

[7] "The polite address to one of the blood-royal."

[8] "An allusion to the boasted superiority of what is called Damascus steel over our Sheffield cutlery."

[9] "As we should say, 'What a bear-garden!' Two mullahs in one mosque are sure to fight."

[10] "One of the Rustam's great exploits was slaughtering the Divi Sapid, or White Demon--a personage, say the Persians, clearly typical of the modern Russians."

[11] "European ladies in general."

[12] "Four wives are allowed by law and religion, but if a man marries half a dozen or so, it is considered a peccadillo, not a felony."

[13] "Which, by-the-by, is borrowed from the Arab saying concerning the city of Wasit."

[14] "Bits of roast meat with onion between, fastened together with a skewer."

[15] "Fowls are considered impure in the extreme by high-caste Hindoos."

[16] "The wealthy nobles in Scinde generally support an establishment called Mehman-Khana (guest-house), in which they receive and entertain poor travellers and strangers."

[17] "To call a man 'beggar' does not sound polite in English, but it does in Scinde ears. An Oriental would generally prefer being under any kind of obligation to his superiors than lack connection with them."

[18] "A false prophet, _i.e._ an unsuccessful one, contemporary with Mohammed. The phrase is a classical one amongst the Moslems: it is much used when drawing odious comparisons between man and man."

[19] "Bhit is a small town lying to the eastward of Hyderabad. The word in Scinde literally means a 'heap,' and is applied to the place because the holy Abd el Latif ordered his followers to throw up a mound of earth as a foundation for the habitations of men. The holy subjects of the Ode, although his descendants, have quite lost reputation amongst the Bards, because they ungenerously appropriated the hoards entrusted to their charge by the wife of the dethroned Kalhora prince. Perhaps, being very wealthy, they are become, as might be expected, very niggardly, and that is another cause of offence."

[20] "Tea."

[21] "In Arabic, 'anything that hath life'--popularly used to signify a beast as opposed to a human being, or a human being that resembles a beast."

[22] "Blackened, _bien entendu_, by certain unquenchable flames."

APPENDIX E.

POLITICS.

RICHARD'S VIEWS UPON THEM, AND WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE--A SUBJECT TO BE CONTINUED IN THE FUTURE WORK, "LABOURS AND WISDOM OF RICHARD BURTON."

"And now for a serious bit of moralizing, from gay to grave. The radical changes of the last five years in Paris deserve chronicling and deep study. The War and the Commune have made a new world. '_La nation la plus aimable la plus aimée et peut-être la moins aimante_,' has been translated, 'The light and joyous character may lie below, but there is a terrible hard upper crust of sulkiness and economy run mad--rage for lucre, and lust _pour la revanche_.' There is only the _ancienne noblesse_, the Faubourg St. Germain, the souls loyal to their King and to their Faith, who remain pure. So far, the Parisians are like the Irish Kelt,--a blathering, bumptious, bull-and-blunder loving race. The former have been converted in half a century by politics and polemics into a moping and melancholy brood. It is no longer the fashion in France to speak without an introduction. Men will sit side by side at _table d'hôte_ in dead silence for a month; they travel twenty-four hours in the railway without opening the mouth; and if a loud laugh be heard in public, it is sure to come from some _triste Anglais_. Even the women, although they still fling the look of hate at a pretty toilette, seem to have abdicated the supremacy of the toilette. Once you never did, now you often see the absence of corsets upon figures that can't stand it. They are badly painted, and it is a sin to paint badly. They are _outrées_ in their dress, and the neglect of these things is a bad sign in Paris. The middle and the lower classes, who used to be _à quatre épingles_, are _mal coiffées_, with their petticoats hanging below their dresses, as we were in the days of _les Anglaises pour rire_. We have learnt many things from our French friends, and amongst the _good_ things, how to dress; but dress never made _our_ women's beauty--it did that of the French.

"The theatres are clearing 27,000,000 of francs (1875), when during the palmiest days of the Empire they never exceeded 17,000,000. Except at the new Opera, the scenery and decorations are those of our penny gaffs. 'Les Italiens' bears the palm of dowdyism, and actors and actresses seem to have decayed with the decorations. The _cuisine_, except in special instances, has notably fallen off. The bottles are all 'kick,' the famous bread and butter has lost caste. The _café au lait_ is all chicory--maximum water, minimum beans. Mammonolatry is rampant, and the great problem of manufacture and depôt, of store and shop, is how to charge the most for the worst article. Economy has now become a vice instead of a virtue, and 1,852,000 souls manage to pay 12,280,000 francs in taxes per annum.

"It is impossible to pass a day in Paris without hearing and speaking politics. The French, I have said, are sulky, especially with the 'Perfidious,' because she has supplanted them in Egypt, where for so many years England had by a tacit convention supplied the material and France the personal. They question the wisdom of our last dodge. It is the first move in the coming Kriegspiel. I hate half-measures, and I would have bought the Canal wholly out and out, and put a fortress at each end, and taken a mild nominal toll to show my right. I would annex Egypt and protect Syria, occupy the Dardanelles, and after that let the whole world wrangle as much as it pleased. What is the use of having a Navy superior to all the united navies of the rest of the world, if we can't do this? The world will never be still till Constantinople returns to the old Byzantine kingdom; and we might put a Royalty there, say the Duke of Edinburgh, who, being married to the Czar's daughter, would unite the interests of Russia and England. Let the Turk live, but retire into private life; he is a good fellow there, and we can respect El Islam so long as he has nothing to butcher.

[Sidenote: _Central Europe_.]

"Let Austria become a mighty empire,--nineteen million Slavs, eight million Germans, five million Hungarians. Let Italy be satisfied with her Unity and Freedom and Progress, and Prussia repose upon her Bismarck, and France keep quiet and look after her health. But as it is, the three Emperors may say to us, 'Gentlemen, you have got what you want; we will follow suit--look on, and don't spoil sport.' Taken _per se_, this Suez Canal measure is a patch of tinsel gold plastered upon the rags of foreign and continental policy which our ins and outs have kept us up during the last decade, whilst under-authorities are apparently told off to declare periodically that England has lost none of her prestige abroad. Listen to the average politician of the multitude.[1] I do not like the doings of my own party (I am a Conservative); and what irritates me more is, that little as _he_ knows, there is sound truth in what he says.

"The fact is, that England has repudiated the grand old rule of aristocracy which carried her safely through the Titan wars of the early Buonaparte ages, whilst she has not accepted the strong repulsive arm of Democracy, which enabled the Federal to beat down the Confederate. She rejects equally the refined minority and the sturdy majority; she is neither hot nor cold; she sits between two stools, and we all know where that leads to.

"This Suez move would have been a homogeneous part of a strong policy--that is, a policy backed by two millions of soldiers, by a preponderating fleet of ironclads, and by a school of diplomatists, which has not been broken in to 'effacing' themselves. Of our politicians generally, the less said the soonest mended; but I have unbounded confidence in our Premier,[2] in our Navy, and the good heart, rough common sense, firmness, and _esprit de corps_ of our British public. The next shake--and it will be heavy and soon--will give us the Euphrates Valley Railway, despite the cleverness of an Ignatieff. The first disaster will bring on a revival of the Militia Law, and I should not be surprised if we live to see ourselves revolve round again to a general conscription, and the 'do nothings' will eventually go to the wall. It is a pity to tie the hands of so long-sighted a Premier.

"Revenge is still the dream of Paris, and the dream is not of the wise. The three Emperors love the three Empires, and hate one another; the Government and the Lieges are blinded by jealousy; each wishes to be the first in the race, and to see the other two distanced. All are mounted upon a war footing _au piéd de guerre_; which means that they intend fighting, and Germany especially must fight or she is lost; to her peace is more ruinous than war. France is cutting her way up with the purse instead of the sword. The great Triad might alter the map of Europe. 'The sons of Hermann' would absorb Belgium and Holland; the Muscovite swallow Constantinople with its neighbouring appendages, and Austria _convey_ ('the wise call it') the remainder of Turkey's Slavonic provinces. But they will do nothing of the kind. Germany has proved herself the natural guardian of the Eastern frontier of Europe.

"A Franco-Russian alliance is now, in 1876, in everybody's mouth. France is for the moment safely republican, with a chance of M. Thiers, the kingmaker, succeeding to the Presidency.[3] She casts the blame of the Communal excesses upon the Buonapartists, because she fears them; but she has clean forgotten Legitimists and Orleanists. As regards the Franco-Russian alliance, opinions follow two courses. The sensible and far-seeing, which (like councils of war) never fights, would unite with Russia and temporarily keep the peace. The majority of hot heads and Hotspurs would use it for another '_À Berlin!_' to attack Prussia from the east as well as the west.

"Yet, if the truth be told, France is far less ready for war than England. She can hardly raise 400,000 men to defend her own frontiers. We assisted at various reviews, and inspected many of the camps; we saw artillery, cavalry, and infantry equally unfit to face an educated enemy. Every order given by an officer was answered or questioned by a private, 'Mais, ce n'est pas cela du tout, mon Capitaine.' Guns, horses, and men were equally inefficient. True, the chassepot is being changed for the fusil Gras, the sword-bayonet is being supplanted by a neat triangular weapon unfit to cut cabbages and wood, and the six arms manufacturers of France are not wasting an hour. But after seeing the skirmishes and advances in line, one cannot help feeling certain that at this rate half a century will elapse before the Frenchman is ready to fight the Prussian. Meanwhile, every head of man, woman, and child here pay half a franc (fivepence sterling) per diem, and the municipality of Paris spends, I am told, an income inferior only to the six great Powers of Europe.

"The part of the Regal-Republican, Imperial-Republican Capital showing least change is that Conservative quarter which may be called 'Anglo-American Paris.' This 'West End' is bounded north by the Boulevards des Italiens and the Madeleine; south by the Rue Rivoli and the river (a mere ditch, but not so dirty as father Thames); east by the Rue Richelieu, the Palais Royal, and Véfour; west by the Embassy and the Chapel, with the Vendôme Column as a landmark. Here the northern and western barbarians have their King Plenipo, and their Consul, their chaplain and physician, their pet hotels, English (Meurice's), their club and library (Galignani's), their tavern (Byron's, famed for beer), their dentist, their pharmacies, and their shops labelled, 'English (or American) spoken here,'--which generally means, 'I'm a thief, you're a fool.' We can tell a compatriot a mile off--the men by their billycock hats and tweed suits, their open mouths, hats well at back of head, and red guide-books; the women by their wondrous dress and hats--for which there are special shops--their turned-up toes and noses, their manly strides, their taking men's arms, one on each side; and the glum faces of both sexes on the Sabbath, when the guide-book is exchanged for the Common Prayer-book and the Bible. In this region, where the snuffle of the Yankee mixes with the _h_aspirations of the Cockney, the really Parisianized Englishman is never seen, and if compelled to pass through it he hurries with muffled face in trembling haste, like Mahomet rushing down the demon-haunted defiles of El Hidjr.

"Milan is bravely raising a monument to Napoleon III., whilst the popular feeling of young Italy runs strong against the French. The main reasons appear to be the abstraction of Nice, and the domineering tone assumed by the late Empire. Moreover, 'the _peoples_' (Kossuth still lives at Turin) do not readily pardon their benefactors. Witness the aversion of Spain and Portugal for England since the Peninsular War. In the next campaign the general voice of the younger and more fiery sort, and of that solid power, the Left Centre, will compel the constitutional Government of Victor Emmanuel, despite all his prepossessions and prejudices, to side with Germany against France. This was written years ago, but it is, methinks, still true.

"I was astonished to find the Italianissimo feeling so rampant in Upper Italy, and the people so excited upon the subject, when their Government have set them an example of calmness, common sense, moderation, and constitutional spirit of compromise, which go far to redeem the character of the Latin race, even in this, the darkest day of its history. Because Dante made the Quarnero Gulf finish Italy, and because Petrarch established the Alps as the surroundings of his fair land, their new geographical politicians would absorb Trieste and Istria; and when Jove shall wax wroth, he will probably grant them their silly prayer.

"Trieste has a mixed population. North of Ponte Rosso is Germania, composed of the authorities, the employés, and a few wealthy merchants. They have a maniacal idea of Germanizing their little world, a mania which secures for them abundant trouble and ill-will, for eight millions cannot denationalize thirty-two millions. There are twelve thousand Italians at Trieste who speak a corrupted Venetian; eleven thousand of these are more or less poor, one thousand are perhaps too rich. However, their civilization is all Roman, and they take a pride in it, whilst the _exaltés_ and the Italianissimi hate their rulers like poison. In this they are joined by the mass of the wealthy and influential Israelites, who divide the commerce with the Greeks. The former subscribe handsomely to every Italian charity or movement; and periodically and anonymously memorialize the King of Italy. The lower class take a delight in throwing large squibs, here called by courtesy 'torpedoes,' amongst the unpatriotic petticoats who dare to throng the Austrian balls. The immediate suburbs, country, and villages are Slav, and even in the City some can barely speak Italian. This people detests all its fellow-citizens with an instinctive odium of race, and with a dim consciousness that it has been ousted from its own. Thus the population may be said to be triple. Politics are lively, and the Italianissimi thrive because the constitutional Government, which has taken the place of the old patriarchal despotism, is weak, acting as if it feared them. Austria of to-day is feeble and gentlemanly, and as such is scarcely a match for the actual Italy. Let us lay out a little map of politics immediately around our small corner of the world.

"Being devoted Austrians, we have many anxieties concerning the political health of this admirable country. Austria, once so famed for the astute management, the 'Politiké,' which kept in order the most heterogeneous of households between Bohemia and Dalmatia, and from Hungary to the Milanese, is suffering from a complication of complaints. The first is the economic: her deficit for 1877 is already laid at twenty-six millions of florins; she lives on paper, and she habitually outruns the constable. Secondly, are the _modus vivendi_ with Hungary, the Convention, the Bank, and half a dozen other troubles, which result from the 'chilling dualism' of Count Beust (1867). The inevitable rivalry of a twofold instead of a threefold empire is now deepening to downright hostility. The Slavs complain that the crown of the Empire is being dragged through the mire by the 'Magyarists;' and on December 9th, the Vienna Chamber of Deputies heard for the first time a proposal to substitute Trialism for Dualism. Third, and last, is the Eastern Question, in which the poor invalid is distracted by three physicians proposing three several cures. Doctor Hungary wants only the integrity (!) of Turkey: alliance with England, war with Russia. Doctor Germany, backed by the Archduke Albert, and aided by the army, looks to alliance with Russia, and to the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina when Turkey falls to pieces. Lastly, Doctor Progressist, with the club of the Left, advocates the cold-water treatment, absolute passivity: no annexation, no occupation, no intervention. The triad division seems inveterate: even the Constitutionalist party must split into three--a Centrum, a Left, and a _Fortschritts partei_. Hence Prince Gortschakoff, not without truth, characterized this mosaic without coherence as 'no longer a State, but only a Government.'

"Austria, like England, is suffering from the manifold disorders and troubles that accompany a change of life. At home we have thrown over for ever the rule of Aristocracy; and we have not yet resigned ourselves to what must inevitably come--Democracy pure and simple. Accordingly, we sit between two stools, with the usual proverbial result. Austria, in 1848, sent to the Limbo of past things the respectable 'paternal government,' with its _carcere_, its _carcere duro_, and its _carcere durissimo_; and threatened to make sausage-meat of M. Ochsenhausen von Metternich. Constitutionalism, adopted by automatism, found the Austrians utterly unfit for freedom; and the last thirty years have only proved that constitutionalism may be more despotic than despotism. Austria has ever been the prey of minorities, German and Magyar. Her _Beamter_ class has adopted the worst form of Latin _Bureaucratie_. Her Press has one great object in life, that of 'Germanizing' unwilling Slavs. Her fleet has lost Tegetthoff and Archduke Max. Her army, once the best drilled in Europe, and second to none in the _ingens magnitudo corporum_, has been reduced by short service to a host of beardless boys; and the marvels of the Uchatius gun will not prevent half the regiments being knocked up by a fortnight's work. But these are the inevitable evils of a transition system, and if Austria can only tide over her change of life, she will still enjoy a long, hearty, and happy old age.

"Hence Austro-Hungary is freely denounced as 'disturbing the European Areopagus.' Hence Paskievich declared in 1854 that the road to Stamboul leads through Vienna. Hence Fadajeff, the Panslavist, significantly points out that Europe contains forty millions of Slavs who are _not_ under the White Czar. These ancient Scythians have hitherto shown very little wisdom. Instead of cultivating some general language,--for instance, the old Slavonic, which would have represented Latin,--they are elaborating half a dozen different local dialogues; and, at the last Slav Congress, the Pan-Slav Deputies, greatly to the delight of the Pan-Germanists, were obliged to harangue one another in German. If 'Trialism' be carried out in the teeth of Hungary, what and where can be the capital of the Jugo-Slavs--the Southern and Latin, as opposed to the Pravo-Slavs or orthodox? Where shall be the seat of its Houses? Prague is purely Czech, utterly distasteful to Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. Laibach in Krain is the only place comparatively central; but that means that all would combine to reject Laibach. Meanwhile the Slavs declare that they are treated as Helots, and that they will stand this treatment no longer.

"Austria will hardly declare war against Russia even at the bidding of the Turko-Hungarian alliance--even if menaced with her pet bugbear, the formation of a strong Slav kingdom, or kingdoms, on her south-eastern frontier. She is thoroughly awake to the danger threatened by her friends, that of falling into her four component parts, each obeying the law of gravitation--Styria, Upper and Lower, absorbing herself in Germany, and Dalmatia and Istria merging into Italy. She has made all her preparations for occupying Bosnia, which the Turks are abandoning, and for which it is generally believed they will not fight. Count Andrassy, the rebel of 1848, the Premier of 1876-78, will keep his own counsel and carry out his own plans. He has been unjustly charged with a vacillating and uncertain policy; as if a man who is being frantically pulled diametrically in four opposite directions were not obliged to stoop at times in order to conquer.

"Italy has of late made strong representations at Vienna against the possible occupation of Bosnia by Austria. She knows that the step would for ever debar her from the possessions of Dalmatia; and that the old kingdom, the mother of Emperors, will never rest satisfied till her extensive seaboard is subtended by a proportionate interior. Italy would prefer to occupy Bosnia _in propriâ personâ_; but, that being hardly possible, she would leave it occupied, or, worst of all, occupied by the Turks. Italy is the deadliest enemy of Austria, and wears the dangerous aspect of a friend. Such is the present standpoint of the Empire,[4] and you see she is still, as she has been for years, a 'political necessity.' We, her well-wishers, can only say to her, in olden phrase, _Tu, felix Austria, nube,_--'Yea, marry, and take unto thyself the broad and fertile lands lying behind the Dinaric Alps.'

"Meanwhile, Italy, the rival sister of France, the recipient of many favours from her, and, _par consequence_, her bitterest foe, bides her time, remains quiet as a church mouse, and, like the Scotchman's owl, thinks hard. She is at present the last, the only hope of Latinism. She has shown, since 1870, a prudence, a moderation, an amount of common sense, comparatively speaking, which have surprised the world. Ethnologists, who scoffed at 'Panlatinism,' were overhasty in determining that the game of the Latin race was 'up;' and that the three progressive families of the future are the English (including the German and the Anglo-American), the Slav, and the sons of the Flowery Land. The present standpoint of Italy is this. She has a treaty with Russia which makes her a spectator. She has returned an overwhelming majority of the progressists, who aim at converting her into a Republic; and Italy, classical and mediæval, has never attained her full development except under Republican rule. Meanwhile, her 'citizens and patriots' look forward to recovering Nice, where, in 1860, some 26,000 votes against 160 were polled in favour of annexation to France. She wants an Algeria, and would like to find it at Tunis, with Carthage for capital. And finally, she would fain round off her possessions by annexing from Austria the Trentine, the county of Gorizia, the peninsula of Istria, including the chief emporium, Trieste, and even the kingdom of Dalmatia.

"It was not a little amusing to note the expression of simple amazement with which the general Press of England acknowledged the discovery that Italy 'actually contemplates' this extension of territory. Would they be surprised to hear that such has been her object for the last six hundred years; that in her darkest hour she has never abandoned her claim; that during the last half-century she has urged it with all her might, and that at the present moment she is steadily labouring to the same end? We, who derive experience from the pages of history, firmly believe that the prize would even now be in her hands were it not for Prussia, who calculates upon the gravitation of the Austro-German race, and who already speaks of Trieste as 'our future seaport.' But why, we ask, cannot Italy rest contented with Venice, which, after a century of neglect, might by liberal measures again become one of the principal commercial centres of Europe?

"Under Augustus the whole of Istria was annexed to the tenth region of Italy; the south-eastern limits being the Flumen Arsæ, the modern Arsa, that great gash in the Eastern flank beyond which began Liburnia. Hence Dante sang ('Inferno,' ix. 113-115)--

'Si come a Pola presso del Quarnaro _Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna,_ Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo.'

Hence Petrarch (Sonnet cxiv.) declares of his Laura, whose praises he cannot waft all the world over--

'----udralo il bel paese, Ch' Apennin parte, e 'l mar circonda e 'l Alpe.'

And who can forget the glorious verse of Alfieri, the first to discern Italy in the 'geographical expression' of the eighteenth century?--

'Giorno verrà, tornerà giorno in cui Redivivi ornai gli Itali staranno, In campo armati,' etc., etc., etc.

"Italy bases her claim to the larger limit, upon geography, ethnology, and sentiment, as well as upon history. Only the most modest of patriots contend that the Isonzo river, the present boundary of Austria, was a capricious creation of Napoleon I. The more ambitious spirits demand the whole southern watershed of the Julian Alps; nor are they wanting who, by 'Alps' understanding the Dinaric chain, would thus include the whole kingdom of Dalmatia inherited from the Romans.

"Ethnologically, again, Istria declares herself Italian, not Austrian. Her 290,000 souls (round number) consist of 166,000 Latins to 109,000 Slavs, the latter a mongrel breed that emigrated between A.D. 800 and 1657; and a small residue of foreigners, especially Austro-German officials. The Italians are, it is true, confined to the inner towns and to the cities of the seaboard; still, these scattered centres cannot forget that to their noble blood Istria has owed all her civilization, all her progress, and all her glories in arts and arms. Lastly, 'sentiment,' as a factor of unknown power in the great sum of what constitutes 'politics,' is undervalued only by the ignorant vulgus. The Istrians are more Italian than the Italians. Since the first constitution of 1848, they have little to complain of the Government in theory, much in practice. Austria, after the fashion of Prussia, unwisely attempts to 'Germanize' her Italian subjects, who in Istria outnumber the Teutons by five to one. The true policy of Austria would be to Italianize the Italians, to Slavonize the Slavs, and to Magyarize the Hungarians; in other words, to elicit the good qualities of her four component races, instead of attempting to unrace them. And her first practical step should be to abolish all idea of 'Germanizing.' If she did not try for it, it might settle itself.

"The chief danger of Italy, at present, is wishing to go too fast. She would run before she can walk steadily: she forgets the past: she ignores that her independence and unity were won for, and not by, her; that each defeat was to her a conquest. She had the greatest statesman in Europe, Cavour; who so disposed his game, opening it in 1854 with the Crimean War, and following it up with a seat for Piedmont amongst the Great Powers in the Congress of Paris, that it led by a mathematical certainty to Solferino in 1859, and to securing Rome for a capital in 1870. But 'milor Camillo' is dead, and Prince Bismarck, who rules in his stead, bluntly says, 'No one can doubt, even beyond the Alps, that an attack upon Trieste and Istria would meet the point of a sword which is not Austrian.' Italy must put her house in order before she can aspire to extend her grounds. Her income is insufficient for her expenses; her gold is paper; her currency is forced, and her heavy taxes breed general discontent. She has a noble estate for agriculture, but her peasants prefer the stocking to the stocks, the Funds, or the Bank. Her Civil Service is half paid, and compelled to pay itself. Her Custom-house duties are a scandal to a civilized power, and her post-office is a farce. Her army cannot compare, in fighting qualities, with that of Prussia, Austria, or even France. Her sailors are not tailors, but she cannot afford a first-rate armour-clad fleet; she was beaten at Lissa, and her seaboard would easily be blockaded by a great maritime power. Moreover, she has that dual Government at Rome, and a terrible skeleton in the cupboard,--her treatment of the Pope.

"The Liberal press and the 'indignation meetings' of Italy have been alternatively severe and sarcastic upon _entente cordiale_ between the Vatican and the Seraglio. But the Papal logic is clear and sound. It says, 'The reverence of Constantine for the Keys transferred the seat of civil empire to the Byzantium, whereas Anti-Christ Russia founded the pseudo-throne of Saint Peter in the far north. We fought against the Moslem when he was an aggressor. Innocent XI., not to mention the crusader-Popes, preached the liberation of Vienna. Pius I. worked up to the Battle of Lepanto. But things are now changed. You, Bulgarian and Bosnian Catholics, have religious liberty, and you will have political liberty when you deserve it! Meanwhile, obey the Sultan, who has nothing to do with Christianity, and shun Anti-Christ--the Czar.' Good logic, I say, cold and clear-drawn; but powerless to purge away the sentiments, the prejudices, and the passions of mankind.

"Italy drives the coach too fast. Patriotic Italians declare that England has no right to hold Malta. Cyprus was under Venice; _ergo_, they think it should be under Italy. The Trentine, the Southern Tyrol, Istria, and Dalmatia, are in the same conditions. The Latin kingdom has achieved a great position in Japan. She sends her travellers to explore New Guinea. She aims at being the most favoured nation in Egypt, where she lately received a severe _schiaffo_. The Italian national expedition landed in the dominions of the Khedive without having had the decency to call upon him in Cairo. You know how the Egyptian noticed the affront. Finally, she talks of herself as one of the Powers, ready to occupy the insurgent districts which the Porte cannot reduce. Such is the actual standpoint of United Italy.

"I will now sketch the state of Hungary, whose ambition threatens to make her aggressive, entitled, by the press of England, the 'backbone of the Austrian monarchy;' and praised for the 'superior political organization' with which she has crushed her Slav rivals.

"Since the days, now forgotten, when Prince Esterhazy first flashed, in London society, his diamond jacket upon the dazzled eyes of the 'upper ten thousand,' the name of Hungarian has been a passport to favour amongst us. We meet him in the shape of a Kinsky, an Erdŏdy, or a Hunyadi,--well born, well clad, and somewhat unlearned, except in the matter of modern languages. But he is a good rider, a keen sportsman, and a cool player for high stakes--qualities in one point (only) much resembling Charity. He looks like a gentleman in a drawing-room and in the hunting-field; he is quite at home at a fancy ball; he wears his frogged jacket, his tights and his tall boots, his silks, satins, and furs, with an air; his manners are courteous, cordial, and pleasant; in money matters he has none of the closeness of the cantankerous Prussian, none of the meanness of the Italian; and, lastly, he makes no secret of his sympathy with England, with the English, and with all their constitution-manias. What can you want more? You pronounce him a nice fellow, and all, woman especially, re-echo your words, 'He is _such_ a gentleman!' and--he received the Prince of Wales so enthusiastically!

"But there is another side (politically speaking) to this fair point of view. The Hungarian is a Tartar with a coat of veneer and varnish. Hungary is, as regards civilization, simply the most backward country in Europe. Buda-Pest is almost purely German, the work of the Teutons, who, at the capital, do all the work; you hardly ever hear in the streets a word of Magyar, and the Magyars have only managed to raise its prices and its death-rate to somewhat double those of London. The cities, like historic Gran on the Danube, have attempts at public buildings and streets; in the country towns and villages the thoroughfares are left to Nature; the houses and huts, the rookeries and doggeries are planted higgledy-piggledy, wherever the tenants please; and they are filthier than any shanty in Galway or Cork, in Carinthia or Krain. The Ugrian or Ogre prairies have no roads, or rather they are all road; and the driver takes you across country when and where he wills. The peasantry are 'men on horseback,'--in this matter preserving the customs of their Hun and Tartar ancestors. They speak a tongue of Turkish affinity, all their sympathies are with their blood-kinsmen the Turks, and they have toiled to deserve the savage title of 'white Turks,' lately conferred upon them by Europe.

"Fiume, the only seaport of Hungary, is a study of Hungarian nationality. The town is neatly built, well paved, and kept tolerably clean by Slav and Italian labour, the former doing the coarse, the latter the fine work. The port is, or rather is to be, bran-new. Because Austria chooses to provide a worse than useless, and frightfully expensive--in fact, ruinous--harbour for Trieste, whose anchoring roads were some of the best in Europe, therefore (admire the consequence) Hungary demands a similar folly for her emporium, Fiume, whose anchoring roads are still better. After throwing a few million of florins into the water, the works are committed to the charge of the usual half-dozen men and boys; moreover, as the port is supposed to improve, so its shipping and its business fall off in far quicker ratio. Commerce cannot thrive amongst these reckless, feckless people. There is no spirit of enterprise, no union to make force, no public spirit; the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee are bustling New England centres in comparison with Fiume; and the latter, which might have become the emporium of the whole Dalmatian coast, and a dangerous rival to Trieste, is allowing her golden opportunity to pass away never to return. For when Dalmatia shall have been vitalized by the addition of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, her glorious natural basins--harbours that can hold all the navies of the world--will leave Fiume mighty little to do except what she does now, look pretty and sit in the sun.

"All Englishmen who have lived long amongst Hungarians remark the similarity of the Magyar and the southern Irish Catholic. Both are imaginative and poetical, rather in talk than in books; neither race ever yet composed poetry of the highest class. Both delight in music; but, as the 'Irish Melodies' are mostly Old English, so the favourites of Hungary are gypsy songs. Both have the 'gift of the gab' to any extent, while their eloquence is notably more flowery than fruity. Both are sharp and intelligent, affectionate and warm-hearted; easily angered and appeased, delighted with wit, and to be managed by a _bon mot_; superficial, indolent, sensitive, punctilious, jealous, quarrelsome, passionate, and full of fight. Both are ardent patriots, with an occasional notable exception of treachery; both are brilliant soldiers; the Hungarians, who formerly were only cavalry men, now form whole regiments of the Austrian Line. They are officered by the Germans, who will not learn the language, justly remarking, 'If we speak Magyar, we shall be condemned for ever to Magyar corps, and when the inevitable split takes place, where shall we then be?' Both are bold and skilful riders; and, as the expatriated Irish Catholic was declared by Louis Le Grand--an excellent authority upon such matters--to be 'one of the best gentlemen in Europe,' so Europe says the same of the Hungarian _haute volée_.

"As regards politics and finance, Buda-Pest is simply a modern and eastern copy of Dublin. The Hungarian magnate still lives like the Squireen and Buckeen of the late Mr. Charles Lever's 'earliest style;' he keeps open house, he is plundered by all hands, and no Galway landowner of the last generation was less fitted by nature and nurture to manage his own affairs. Hence he is drowned in debt, and the Jew usurer is virtually the owner of all those broad acres which bear so little. An 'Encumbered Estates Bill' would tell strange tales; but the sabre is readily drawn in Hungary, and the 'chosen people,' sensibly enough, content themselves with the meat of the oyster, leaving the shells to the owner.

"This riotous, rollicking style of private life finds its way into public affairs; and as a model of 'passionate politics,' the Hungarian is simply perfect. He has made himself hateful to the sober-sided German and to the dull Slav; both are dead sick of his _outrecuidance_; the former would be delighted to get rid of the selfish and short-sighted irrepressibles, who are ever bullying and threatening secession about a custom tax, or a bank, or a question of union. They are scandalized by seeing the academical youth, the _jeunesse dorée_ of Magyar universities, sympathizing with Turkish atrocities, declaring Turkey to be the defender of European civilization, _fackelzuging_ the Turkish Consul, insulting the Russians, and sending a memorial sabre to a Sirdar Ekrem (Commander-in-Chief), whose line of march was marked by the fire-blackened walls of Giaour villages, and by the corpses of murdered Christians, men and women and babes. Could the Austro-Germans only shake off the bugbear of Panslavism, they would cut the cable, allow the ne'er-do-well Hungarian craft to drift away water-logged into hypostatic union with that big ironclad the Turk; they would absorb the whole of Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and Albania; they would cultivate the Slav nationality, and they would rely upon racial difference of dialect and religion to protect them against the real or imaginary designs of Russia. Prince Eugène of Savoy, in the last century, a man of wit, was of that opinion, and so are we.

"Hungary, indeed, is a tinder-box like Montenegro, and much more dangerous, because her supply of combustible is on a larger scale. The last bit of puerile folly has been to press for an Austrian military occupation of Servia; and why? Because an Austrian monitor, being in a part of the river where 'No thoroughfare' is put up, was fired upon with ball cartridges by a _schildwache_ (sentinel) from the fort walls, and exploded, bungler that she was, one of her own shells. The Hungarians had been raving at the idea of 'occupation' in Bulgaria, but the moment they saw an opportunity of breaking the Treaty of Paris, they proposed doing so at once. By-the-by, now that Prince Wrede, a _personâ ingratâ_, is removed from Belgrade, you will hear no more of Servian outrages against Austria. To the 'Magyarists' we may trace most of the calumnies against the brave and unfortunate Servian soldiery--lies of the darkest dye, so eagerly swallowed by the philo-Turk members of the English Press, and danger of Hungary and her politics of passion. Russians and Turks might be safely put into the ring together, like 'Down-Easters' in a darkened room, and be allowed to fight it out till one cried, 'Enough!'

"If these views of Hungary and the Hungarians be true--and they are our views--you will considerably discount the valuation set upon them by the Turcophile Press. They were once a barrier against Tartar savagery, a Finnish race, invited by the Byzantine Emperors to act as a buffer against Mohammedanism. The three orders of Magyars--Magnates, Moderates, and Miserables--hate Russia for the sensible and far-seeing part which she played in 1848-49; all excitement is apt to spread; even so in a street dog-fight, every cur thinks itself bound to assist, and to bite and wrangle something or other, no matter what. And where, we may ask, is the power that can muzzle these Eastern ban-dogs? who shall take away the shillelaghs of these Oriental Paddies?

"A taste of Hungarian quality has been given by M. Vambéry in the columns of the _Daily Telegraph_. M. Vambéry was born in Hungary, of Israelitish German parents. Like the sons of Israel generally, he hates Russia, and he loves England, and probably he has good and weighty reasons both for his hate and for his love. He was daring enough to tell us, in his first book of travels, that after dinner with the Turkish Minister at Teheran--and a very good dinner it was--he just disguised himself as a dervish, and travelled perfectly _incog._ for months and months under Russian eyes, partly through Russian territory. The Russians must have known every step taken by M. Vambéry. He saw only what he was allowed to do; and thus Mr. Schuyler, whose name has, we regret to say, been altered by the irreverent Turcophile to 'Squealer,' roundly declares that he never visited the places which he has so well described. You will therefore regard M. Vambéry's opinions upon the subject of Turkey with suspicion, and reserve all your respect for his invaluable publications upon the Turanian dialects, his _spécialité_. Lieutenant Payer's book will disappoint you; its main merit is that of having been written by a Magyar.

"Do not believe these Ugrians to be 'the backbone of the Austrian Empire,' whatever they may be to its element of weakness, the Monarchy. And if you are driven to own that the Hungarians 'play the leading part in the events of Southern Europe,' understand that the chief end and aim of Magyarist policy is to ruin the Slavs. I am a strong Austrian, with a great admiration for the Hungarians, who are to me, personally and individually, most attractive; but this does not blind me to the disadvantages they, _en masse_, bring to Austria. _I believe the Slav to be the future race of Europe, even as I hold the Chinese to be the future race of the East._ In writing politics and history which may live after one is long forgotten, one must speak the truth, and bury repulsions and attractions.

"Were I Emperor of Austria, I should have the police organized on English principles. I should punish with death the first two or three cases of brutal crime. The people are excellent. It speaks highly for the independent Triestines that, with weak laws, and authorities that act as though they dreaded them, the worst crimes are only stabbing when drunk, and suicide; and the latter is entirely owing to the excitability of the climate and the utter throwing off of religion, whilst all moral disgrace or dread is removed by the applause conferred on the suicide, and sympathy with the surviving family--which last is good and noble. I have seen thousands accompanying a _felo de se_ to the grave, with verses and laurel leaves and a band of music, as if he had done something gallant and brave. Indeed, one was considered very narrow-minded for not joining in his eulogy.

"They say that forty years ago Trieste was a charming place to live in; but that, with increase of trade, luxury and money flowed in and faith flowed out. Let us say that the population is 150,000, with suburbs; 20,000 are practical Catholics, 30,000 are freethinkers, and 90,000 are utterly indifferent. In fact, the national religion is dying out; and when that is so in a Catholic land, there is nothing to replace it except Socialism. After repeated outrages and torpedo-throwing, the Habeas Corpus would have been at once suspended in free England, and the French would have placed the City under martial law. The Empire-Kingdom does not, however, disfranchise the turbulent City by suppressing the local Diet till such time as the public expression of disloyal feeling shall have disappeared. A more manly policy would suit better. Trieste is also allowed to retain peculiar privileges. She is still a free port; her _octrois_ are left to her for squandering and pillage, and are so heavy that till lately the adjoining villages consumed sugar which came _viâ_ Holland all round and through Europe. Trieste has three towns, as well as three races. The oldest is the Citta Vecchia, which dates before the days of Strabo. Filthy in the extreme, it is a focus of infection. Smallpox is rarely absent from it, and it swells the rate of mortality to the indecent figure of 40 to 50 per 1000 per annum; London being 22, and Madras 36. The climate is peculiar. It has three winds--the _Bora_ (Boreas), the Baltic current, the winter wind, cold, dry, highly electrical, very exciting, and so violent that sometimes the quays have been roped, and some of the walls have iron rails let in to prevent people from being blown into the sea. And there have been some terrible accidents in my time. An English engineer has been blown from the quay into the hold of a ship (thirty feet). I saw him in the hospital, a mere jelly, but nothing more; he is well and at work. A cab and horse have been upset, and also a train. The summer wind is the Scirocco, straight from Africa, wet, warm, and debilitating; whilst the _contraste_ means the two blowing together, and against each other, with all the disadvantages of both.

"Trieste is a political and coy personage, hotly wooed by Italy and by Germany. The latter openly declares that she is part of the new Teutonic Empire, and that the eight millions or so of Austro-Germans ought to belong body and soul to the Fatherland. Meanwhile she is enjoyed by the Empire-Kingdom, greatly against the grain. A powerful rival is rising a few miles to the south, in the person of Croatian Fiume, which has long ago repented her of having cast her lot with Hungary. The Flanatic Bay of the ancients is magnificent, almost equalling the scenery of Naples. A French company is building a port, which will avoid much of the expense and some of the errors fatal to Trieste; and but for the inveterate backwardness of the people, the utter ignorance of what progress means, and the miserable local jealousies, Fiume, connected by a railway with Agram or Zagabria, might already have risen upon the decline of Trieste; but Fiume does not see her advantage, and we retain our supremacy.

"Beyond the Sinus Flanaticus begins the kingdom of Dalmatia, with a line of natural harbours between Zara and the Bocche di Cattaro, which are perhaps the finest in the European world. Unhappily, at present these ports have nothing to export or import. After long and careful consideration of the question, based upon the impartial hearing of both sides discussed, we have come to the conclusion, firstly, that the dualism of 1867 has not been successful; secondly, that Austria should have been a _Triregno_; thirdly, that H.I.M. Franz Josef might still be crowned King of Bohemia as well, and thus establish a nucleus about which the divided families of Slavs, especially the estimable Slovenes, the Wends who founded Venice, could and would group themselves. I am essentially Austrian by sympathy; but I do not like the Germans to chuckle when they tell me that the last great Slavonic Congress, which met in 1845, was compelled, after various failures, to make speeches in German; because the laughers ignore the fact that Panslavism is still rampant in Austria, and the clergy puff up the patriotic movement with all their might, and that schools and colleges are teaching the rising generation its rights as well as its wrongs. None but an inveterate theorist, who holds that the Slav race is not to be the race of the future, would neglect the importance of a people constituting nearly half the total of Austro-Hungary--nineteen millions out of the thirty-four which remained after the cession of Venice in 1866.

"The evil action of this unfair dualism is now causing profound discontent. Dalmatia is the narrowest kingdom in Europe--300 miles long by 0 to 15 miles broad, the cypher representing the two spots where Turkey touches the sea. She is a face without a head; the latter would be Bosnia and the Herzegovina. She has a profusion of ports which have nothing to port, and a fine seafaring population ready for, and capable of, any amount of carrying trade, but condemned to be professors, custom-house officers, and fishers of sardines. Bosnia, with her unworked mines and forests, her unimproved flocks and herds, and her hundred other sources of neglected wealth, is the complement of, a political necessity to, Dalmatia. Some day she must become Dalmatian, and the sooner she connects herself with Austro-Hungary by a _plébiscite_, or some such civilized instrument, the better it will be for both. The only drawback to this movement in the far west of the Ottoman Empire is that it appears to be somewhat premature. Russia has her hands full in Eastern Asia, and Austria has for some time a hole in her pocket. No one knows how sick the famous Sick Man really is since his last attack of Russomania, following his chronic Russophobia[5]--an attack brought on by our own disgraceful (Liberal) abandonment of the Black Sea Treaties. None know, save those who have sat by his bedside, looked at his tongue, and have felt his pulse. He was breaking fast when he determined to risk a national bankruptcy. Finding the so-called 'tax of blood' too heavy, he was already talking of a Christian recruitment, which would have been the beginning of the end; and the paroxysm induced by sending a few thousand troops to ravage and lay waste his discontented outlying estates, has reduced him to the last gasp. For the rebellion, although premature, is a reality--it will not be put down by paper; it means to last till next spring, and when the fighting season comes it will call for the armed intervention of Europe.

"The integrity of the Ottoman Empire has been, since the days of Chatham, a fortieth article of faith to English statesmen; although since the publication of Macfarlane's 'Turkey and her Destiny,' every traveller from Mostar to Bussorah, from Candia to Circassia, has shown up the miserable misrule which oppresses those fair and fruitful regions. The British Cabinet till now has not opened its eyes to ask 'How long?' or has had originality enough or irreverence sufficient to pull down the old idol, and to propose a remedy for the present condition of things. The official mind was made up; there was no more to be said upon the subject. A Government that preferred peace and present prosperity to the discharge of an arduous and distasteful duty, laid down its law, determined to let sleeping dogs lie, till that little matter of the Turkish debt, the neatest thing done by the arch-enemy of the Ottoman, came like a thunderbolt and 'roused the spirit of the British Lion.'

"Meanwhile the action of Austria has been sadly trammelled by the Dualism which she has brought upon herself. The German population of the Empire naturally dislikes being swamped by the new influx of Slavs, but it has not proved itself unpatriotic. The contrary is the case with the kingdom of Hungary--the five millions of Magyar who, strengthened by the position and the character of Count Andrassy, have opposed themselves with all their might to the development of Dalmatia. This is a mistake, because sooner or later Dalmatia will develop herself without them. The reason that Austro-German officers joining Hungarian regiments avoid as much as possible studying the language is that they fear not being allowed to exchange, and they do not see their way in case of a separation between the Empire and the Kingdom.

"The British philo-Turk, if any there be now, would characterize the absorption of Bosnia and Herzegovina--I would even add Montenegro and Albania, with the frontier of Greece--as a spoliation of Turkey. Let him prove that it is not a just and right retaliation for the centuries of injury which she has inflicted, which she still inflicts, and which she will ever inflict, upon the sacred causes of civilization and progress. If any casuist declare that the misrule of a Government, as in the case of Oude, does not justify the annexation by Powers professing faith in the development of man, in the religion of humanity; if he put forward that old saw, that 'the end does not justify the means,' let him be answered that Europe has duties which she owes to herself; that the first rule of conduct is her own safety, and that the second is the support of her co-religionists in Europe and Asia, throughout the Ottoman Empire. The Christian population equals, if not exceeds, the Mohammedan, and the evident hope with which it looks forward to emancipation from Islamism deserves the most careful consideration.

"For the last ten years the relations of Great Britain with Turkey have been peculiar and unsatisfactory. The Ottoman voice has openly said, 'The last Englishman who cared for us was Lord Palmerston. You will assist us if it be to your interest, no matter how we treat you, well or ill. You do not fight for an idea, like France. You will not fight for love of us, as in the days of Silistria and Eupatoria. We prefer an open enemy to a false friend. Go to! We have had enough of you.' And they showed their especial contempt by their treatment of English subjects in Turkey; the debts owed to them by the Turk remain unpaid, and in Syria our fellow-countrymen were the last to receive the compensation for the destruction of their property in the massacre of 1860.

"Again, the present is, if any, the moment for us to act, or to encourage action in others. The stride of the young Colossus is temporarily, not lastingly, stayed. In future times[6] _quien sabe?_ (but God avert it!) we may be so hampered by civil disturbances between Capital and Labour, so trammelled by intestine troubles in Ireland, or so engaged in external war, that moral force only will not suffice to give our voice any weight in the European world. And the effect would be allowing Russia, a vigilant enemy of overpowering resolution, to annex Turkey in Europe without any attempt to preserve the last rag of balance of power by strengthening the hands of Austria.

"Again, there are thousands of our fellow-countrymen scattered over the surface of Turkey, and were England known to be incapacitated from using arms, yet having arms and money, it is to be feared that the first Russian gun fired from Constantinople would be the signal of a miserable butchery. But it will be said that the Sultan has begun the task of reform; his last rescript has been more favourable to the Rayyahs than anything ever issued by Turkey. I reply, it is easy to have dust thrown in our eyes provided we open them for the purpose. What have all the Hatts Shereef or Humayoun yet done for the Christian Turk? We must be made, after the image of David Urquhart, to believe in such pie-crust promises. Grant we that H.I.M. the Sultan is sincere, yet he cannot act himself, and there is no one to act for him. The Turkish official, and, for the matter of that, the unofficial, society is much like her army. The private is an excellent man, sober, honest, truthful, brave, and docile to a degree. Promote him, and he runs through the several grades of bad comparison, not _repenté_, but with an agility which surprises the slow northern mind. As a non-commissioned officer he is bad; higher he is worse; and command makes him worst. The same with the French peasant; give him a small _emploi_, a bit of gold lace, and he falls from an angel to a demon in a week, without stopping to look round.

"Now back to _notre premier amour_, Trieste. I associate with politicians and clever men all day, with open eyes and ears; and an occasional peep at a despatch makes one learn a great deal, and form strong opinions. I am neither philo-Turk nor Russ. I am John Bull to the backbone, with personal Austrian sympathies, and a strong leaning to all that is of Arab blood.

"This port was once a favourite with the British bird of passage, especially when embarking with the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd for Alexandria. But the Northerner did not approve of the line. He liked his beef and mutton in huge joints, not in slices and cutlets; he preferred his potatoes in their jackets to _pommes de terre à la maître d'hôtel_; in fact, he grumbled about everything, and at Suez he transferred himself on board the P. and O. like one that had found a home. The stranger has also been put to flight by the hotel-managers. This city is one of the dearest in Europe. The shilling, the lira, and the franc have become the florin; but these gentlemen gild refined gold, and charge highly for the operation. There are three establishments which call themselves first-rate, and which Englishmen would consider decently comfortable. Unhappily, they belong to companies, not individuals, and they are farmed out to managers, who squeeze you as the tax-gatherer does the Rayyah. There are no tables of charges hung up in the rooms, so you pay according to length of purse, real or supposed. Thus the late Lord Dalling had a bill of £45 for two days, during which he never dined in the house, and the present Prince Ypsilante was plundered at the same time of 950 florins. It is said that he sent for the manager, and, after settling his account, warmly complimented him upon being the greatest rascal he had ever had to do with. So the late Lord Hertford, when paying off his Parisian architect, politely regretted that he had never had _le déplaisir de sa connaissance_.

"All the world here is reading M. Charles Yriarte. That popular writer, the Ipsilon of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, who spent the winter of 1873-4 in Istria and Dalmatia, Montenegro and Herzegovina, published his trip in the illustrated journal, the _Tour du Monde_; and, the time being propitious, it was translated into Italian at Milan, with a variety of notes, taking the Italianissimo view of the matter, and converting a delightful tale of travel into a rabid wrangle of politics. The Austrian Government has shown a want of knowledge of human nature, put the book _à l'index_, confiscating every copy found in the libraries; consequently we are all devouring it _en cachette_."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Red Sea_.]

[Here we change from Central Europe to the massacre at Jeddah in 1858 (the source of the official wigging), and the cause of cholera.]

"In 1858 there was a cruel, cowardly massacre of the few Europeans and Christians, including the English and French Consuls, which was revenged by the French with two bombardments and a fine of 2,241,016 francs. It arose from our suppression of the slave-trade, and jealousy at finding that the Europeans, whose exports and imports are worth about £3,000,000, were absorbing the commerce; moreover, these two feelings still exist. Our present Vice-Consul, Mr. Wylde, is a man well fitted to the post, which is anything but a pleasant one. His open-hearted, straightforward, and fearless ways of dealing with the natives succeed perfectly. He knows what the native disposition is, and how to treat it, whilst he is of a joyous temperament and quite insensible to any danger. Still (as he laughingly remarked to me one day) it would doubtless be much more comfortable if the morning and evening _shell_ (instead of gun) were fired into the town; and, joking apart, every passing Man-of-war ought to have orders to look in _en passant_, just to call on the authorities, and to see what the delightful natives have been up to since the last ship passed. Some day the Wali Pasha of the Hejaz may be a fanatical hater of Europeans, the Kaimmakám of Jeddah may be a weak-minded good-intentioned man who cannot keep things in order, or intestine troubles may draw away the troops; and these visits are more necessary in places where perpetual orders from home necessitate an interference with the slave-trade, which the Arabs are ever ready to resist. There ought to be cruisers perpetually visiting and reporting upon the condition of all the outlying little ports, where at present British subjects are unfairly left to take care of themselves.

"HOW CHOLERA SPREADS--THE JEDDAH MASSACRE OF 1858.

"One must read 'Une Mission au Hedjaz Arabie,' par Dr. Buez (Paris: Masson, 1873, Académie de Médecine), which treats of the epidemics which the Hajj engenders,--the focus of infection for Egypt, the Mediterranean, and consequently for Europe. At any rate, one may note the nine conclusions.

"1. Arabia, and especially El Hejaz, with its pure air, does not originated the morbid elements which express themselves in dysentery and typhus, cholera and plague. Small-pox, however, in certain places is always to be dreaded.

"2. Cholera is at present the special genesis of India.

"3. Steamers, though on the whole beneficial to the general health of the pilgrims, produce new sanitary conditions, and aid greatly in propagating the choleraic element, thus becoming a permanent and, at times, a real danger to Europe. The same is the case with railroads, but to a much less extent.

"4. All the great outbreaks in the Hejaz, notably that of 1865, when five hundred _per diem_ died at Mecca during the Hajj, were imported, indirectly or directly, from India, and then spread over the civilized world.

"5. The problem of preserving Egypt, Syria, the Levant, and Europe from cholera is to be resolved only through the strictest surveillance, by competent men, over pilgrims bound from India to the Hejaz, and to Egypt from the Red Sea ports--Jeddah, Rais, Rabegh, Yambu, Líth, Gonfodah, Jisán, Hodaydah, Lohayah, Mocha, etc.

"6. The question is complicated by the existence of choleraic foci, which may be termed secondary and local, as opposed to primitive or original, where the epidemic has lingered, and possibly has incubated till again exasperated by occult conditions--telluric, atmospheric, or hygienic. This fact demands increased measures of surveillance. They may not be thoroughly satisfactory, but because we cannot close all the doors we need not leave all the largest open.

"7. At the period of embarking from the Red Sea ports, where _bakshish_ is the key to most consciences, the local Health Office and the member of the Sanitary Council annually sent from Stamboul after the International Conference of 1866 should be assisted by a special commission of European physicians, who could, moreover, modify and improve the different 'Passenger Acts.'

"8. 'Long Desert,' a march of twenty-one days, is the best of _cordon sanitaires_, alone able to 'purge' infected caravans.

"9. _Ergo_, when the Hejaz is attacked by cholera the sea-road should be peremptorily closed to all pilgrims, an operation whose difficulties have been greatly and needlessly exaggerated; nor should it be reopened till after at least one pilgrimage season has passed away without accident.

"To these wise conclusions I would add a truth. All quarantinary measures are unpopular with Moslems, who regard them as inventions of the evil one, or, as the vulgar say, 'flying in the face of Providence.' Moreover, at Mecca it is every man's interest to conceal the outbreak; and there is always a danger of the earliest cases finding their way to Jeddah before the existence of cholera is suspected at the port. Indeed, clean bills have been given under such circumstances. Evidently, the only remedy for this evil is to make the special sanitary commission of European physicians meet annually at Mecca.

"Now, if such great meteoric changes can be effected by a mere riband of water let into the sand, what will happen when we submerge a great part of the African Sáhara (whose eastern limits are unknown), and thereby create a sea, perhaps, bigger than the Mediterranean? We cannot calculate the possible amount of climatic modification which such a new offset of the Atlantic might induce; and some clever men think that the Sáhara Sea is likely to affect many parts of the Mediterranean basin, and even the whole southern seaboard of Europe, with changes which may be deleterious in the extreme. The scirocco from Africa is the summer wind _par excellence_ of the 'White Sea,' as the Arabs call it, blowing through half the year, and that half the most dangerous--if we submerge the desert, say with a foot or two of water upon rotting vegetation, what will its effect be upon the world's health?

* * * * *

"A new Passenger Act is, I believe, about to appear; let us hope that it will abate one part of the nuisance. At present we can never feel safe on board these crowded cattle-pens. An epidemic might break out any moment; in case of shipwreck all would be lost; and even if the screw were injured, or the main shaft were to break, hundreds on board would die of starvation.

"Each ship should be compelled to carry a condensing apparatus and cooking-ranges, calculated to accommodate the pilgrims; while one passenger per two tons (registered) should be the maximum of freightage. Before departure, the devotees ought to be severally and carefully inspected by the Port Surgeons; at Aden the health officer should take them in charge; and in case of infectious disease having appeared on the voyage, they should be quarantined at Perim or at the Kumarán Islands, off Lohayya. No one after a certain age should be allowed to embark--the Korán allows him to send a substitute; and the same is the case with the infirm and with invalids. Each person should prove that he carries at least four hundred rupees in ready money, and that he has left with his family sufficient to support it according to its station: such is the absolute order of the Hanafi school, to which all these Bengalis belong. On arriving at Jeddah, all should take out passports from her Majesty's Consulate, paying a fee of one rupee per head, and the same for _visas_ after return: the French and the Dutch charge a dollar. Proclamations in Hindostani and Persian should be issued at the several Presidencies, and be published in the local papers every year before the annual preparations for the pilgrimage begin. I am certain that all sensible Hindí Moslems would be grateful for a measure relieving them from exorbitant charities, and from the reproach that Hindustan is the 'basest of kingdoms;' whilst we should only be doing our duty,--a little late, it is true, but better now than neglecting till the evil shall have become inveterate. That everlasting incuriousness and _laissez-aller_ of the Anglo-Indian are the only reasons why precautions were not taken twenty-five years ago.

_The Massacre._

"I took some trouble to investigate the causes which led to the horrible massacre of June 15, 1858. This is far from being an old tale of times which will not return; it is an example of what may occur any day in the present excited state of the Moslem world. Moreover, the conditions under which it occurred are precisely those of the present moment, and an ugly symptom has just appeared.[7] The village _moplah_ (Malabar Moslem), who murdered Mr. Conolly, has been allowed to escape from surveillance at Jeddah, to embark at Líth, and probably to return to India _viâ_ Makalla in Hadramant. But as popular memory in England is short upon such subjects, it is necessary to give a _résumé_ of the facts.

"The innovation of appointing European Consuls to Jeddah, the 'Gate of the Holy City,' was resented by the Moslems, both on the grounds of religion and of private interests, especially when protected foreign subjects began to absorb the greater parts of the commerce. Several _ballons d'essai_ were launched. In 1848 an attempt was made to assassinate, near the Medinah Gate, M. Fulgence Fresnel, the famous Arabist, who was often consulted upon questions of casuistry by the D.D.'s of Mecca. The criminal was saved by a certain Abdullah Muhtásib, a Fellah of Lower Egypt, who began life as a baker, and who rose to be farmer of the _octroi_ and Chief of the Police; thus being able to bribe and bully _à discretion_. In 1849, Mr. Consul Ogilvie was openly insulted in the bazar, and obtained no redress. During my first visit to Jeddah, Mr. Consul Cole had avoided all troubles by his firmness and conciliatory manners; but, after his departure, the so-called 'War of the Sherífs' (1854) suggested a grand opportunity for despoiling the Christians. Abdullah Muhtásib again appeared as the villain of the play. He was, however, arrested, and exiled to Masáwwah by the _Wali_ of the Hejaz, Namik Pasha.

"In 1856 Abdullah Muhtásib returned triumphant from his exile, and the Sepoy war of 1857 once more offered him a tempting opportunity. Actively assisted by his son, he brought into the plot the Kadi (Abd el Kadir Effendi), the Sayyid el Amúli, the Shaykh Bagafur, Abdullah Bakarum, and the wealthy merchant Yusuf Banaji. Presently, in June, 1858, during the height of the pilgrimage, it became known that Captain Pullen, H.M.S. _Cyclops_, intended to carry off the _Irania_, an English ship upon which Turkish colours had been hoisted. Abdullah Muhtásib and his friends met at the Custom-house _café_, and sat, _en permanence_, to direct the issue of their conspiracy. At two p.m. on June 15, the ship was worked out, the boats of the _Cyclops_ left, and the coast was clear.

"Violent harangues in the bazar roused the cry of 'Death to the Infidel!' The plot burst like a barrel of gunpowder, and at six p.m. the massacre began. The Sayyid el Amúli took charge of Mr. Page, whom he beheaded with his own hand; the body was thrown into the streets to be hacked to pieces by the mob; the house was plundered, and the flagstaff was torn up. M. Sabatier, however, is in error when he reports that the English dragoman and _kawwás_ were murdered: one died lately, and the other, a very old man, is still living.

"Meanwhile, two bands of ruffians attacked the other objects of their hate. One rushed to the French Consulate, and broke in the doors when they were closed by the _kawwás_. Madame Eveillard was first stabbed, and then her husband was cut down, despite the heroic defence of the daughter, Mdlle. Elsie, who, after seizing one of the chief murderers by the beard, and severely biting his arm, was wounded by a yataghan in the face. She and the lady's-maid, saved by the tardy arrival of the _kaimmakám_ (commandant) and two Government _kawwáses_, were taken from the blood-bespattered home to a Turkish house. Monsieur Emérat,[8] the Chancellor, after bravely fighting for fifteen minutes, was preserved in the same way, and, sabred in three places, was led by his faithful Algerian, Haji Mahommed, to the quarters of Hasan Bey, commanding the artillery. M. de Lesseps was, therefore, misinformed about Mdlle. Eveillard saving herself by drawing the cushions of the divan over her body, and by simulating death whilst the murderers slashed at her legs. He says nothing of the _kaimmakám_, and he attributes the honour of saving the two lives to a negro boy and the old Algerine soldier.[9] The flagstaff was torn down, the tricolour trampled upon, and the Consulate given over to plunder.

"The other band rushed to the house of Sabá Mascondi, the richest of the Greek merchants, and therefore the most obnoxious of all the Christians. My husband well remembers this amiable and inoffensive man. He had been repeatedly warned, but he refused to believe a massacre possible till he and his party, some twenty men, mostly from Lemnos, met one evening. At length, when it was reported that the Consulates were being pillaged, three of them went out to inquire. Meanwhile the armed mob rushed in, and instantly cut down eight; the rest jumping out of the windows, and flying over the terraces and down the street, to reach the sea. Poor Sabá veiled his head, and also tried to escape. M. Sabatier heard two accounts of his death: one was that he was killed in the house of the English dragoman (an error); the other, that he was recognized in his rude disguise by the son of Abdullah Muhtásib, who blew out his brains with a pistol. This is a fact.

"The French Consul-General also relates that the _Cyclops_, anchored only three miles off, perceiving a tumult in the town, armed her boats and sent them to find out the cause; that the crews were fired upon, and that they returned, without further action, to their ship. It is hard to believe this. A few shells thrown into Jeddah would have cleared every street in half an hour. No justification was wanted for resenting so gross an insult, and instant measures might have saved some unhappy lives. But in those days we were still under the glamour of that most unfortunate Crimean War, and modern England does not, as a rule, encourage her officers to incur any manner of responsibility.

"The first act of retribution was on the early morning of July 25, when the _Cyclops_, at the distance of twenty-five hundred yards, bombarded Jeddah for two hours. This was repeated till noon on the 26th, when the new Governor-General, Namik Pasha, arrived. The people, of course, evacuated the town; a few houses were injured, a minaret was knocked crooked, and some fifteen boats were destroyed.

"Presently France, who, whatever may have been her sins of omission and commission, has ever shown a noble jealousy of her national honour, determined not to be played with after this fashion; and she sent, not a 'person of rank,' but M. Sabatier, the fittest head and hand for the work. The inapt and treacherous politic of the Porte on this occasion bears a fraternal resemblance to her manœuvres adopted after the massacre of Damascus (1860), with this difference: at Beyrout there was no Sabatier, but there was a certain trickster of the first order, Fuad Pasha, whose reckless ambition had caused the catastrophe. The Sultan appointed, as his Commissioner, one Ismail Pasha, who hastened off to the Hejaz, and, in concert with the feeble and negligent Namik Pasha, put to death half a dozen poor devils, complied a voluminous _Mazbatah_ (_procès verbale_), and hurried back to Constantinople with thirty-nine 'compromised' individuals. Heavy bribes had induced him to estimate the damage done to Christian property at twenty thousand francs. '_Il était difficile de faire associer les consuls de France et d'Angleterre à meilleur marché_,' is M. Sabatier's only comment upon this part of the proceeding.

"As Ismail Pasha persisted in conversation with his two fellow-Commissioners, that his part of the work had been thoroughly done, and that he was expected at Stamboul, M. Sabatier and Captain Pullen, R.N., set out in the _Cyclops_, with the English and French flags flying together on the mainmast, and reached Jeddah on October 12th, 1859. Here they found Commodore Seymour with the _Pelorus_ (twenty-one guns); the corvette _Assaye_ (ten guns); and the _Chesapeake_ (fifty-one guns) expected. Five days afterwards, Namik Pasha arrived from Mecca; and, as the Turkish Commissioner had admitted that all the local authorities were accessories to the murder, M. Sabatier proceeded to examine all witnesses, Moslems as well as Christians. Even he, accustomed for long years to the abstruse chicanery of the East, must have been surprised to hear the Turkish authorities laying the blame upon Captain Pullen; as if a mere question of maritime and international law could have borne such fruits. Even he, so well inured to the contempt of European intelligence--which is an article of faith with all Orientals--must have been startled, as well as shocked, to see the abominable Abdullah Muhtásib sitting side by side with Hasan Bey, the wretched commandant of artillery, when the Consulate of France was still a mere shell, and the walls were bespattered with the blood of his fellow-countrymen.

"It would be tedious to relate how bravely and how well M. Sabatier did his duty. Briefly, in January, 1859, Tricoult, _capitaine de frégate_, appeared upon the stage, and a few hours brought the authorities to their senses. The miserable Ismail Pasha lost his head on 'Raven's Isle,' within sight of Jeddah; Abdullah Muhtásib and the Sayyid el Amúli on the Custom-house square (January 21st, 1859). The fine for the losses of the Christians amounted to 2,241,016 francs, of which 500,000 were paid to the Eveillard family, 100,000 to M. Emérat, and 100,000 to Sabá Mascondi's relatives.

"The Jeddah massacre was made the stalking-horse to bring down slave-trading in the Red Sea, which had already been abolished theoretically (1885) under the effects of the Crimean War. In June, 1869, vizierial letters were addressed especially to the Hejaz, without any effect beyond causing a disturbance; they were essentially dead letters, worth only their weight of spoiled paper. This is not the place for so extensive a subject. I will only state that the traffic still flourishes at Jeddah; that the market, till lately, was under the eyes of the British Consulate; that on representation it was removed a few yards off; that the Turkish authorities, even if they wished, are unable to stop or even to hinder it; and that the only remedy is armed intervention, serious and continued,--in fact, a 'Coffin Squadron,' like that of the Persian Gulf, stationed in the Red Sea, with 'slave approvers' all around the coast of Arabia. I need hardly say that we should demand the right of search, and that a Consul-General or Slave Commissioner, with a sufficient staff and salary, the use of a gunboat, and a roving commission, should be appointed to the Red Sea, independently of the Consul-General of Egypt, and in lieu of the trading Consul of Jeddah.

"M. Sabatier on the occasion omitted only one step, probably because he judged that the hour to take it had not struck. He should have insisted upon Mecca being opened to the world, and upon all travellers being protected there, as they are at Jerusalem and other 'Holy Cities.' It is high time that these obsolete obstructions to the march of civilization should everywhere be swept away; the world will endure them no longer. Mecca is not only a great centre of religion and commerce; it is also the prime source of political intrigues, the very nest where plans of conquest and schemes of revenge upon the Infidel are hatched; and, as I have before said, the focus whence cholera is dispersed over the West. Shall a misplaced sentiment of tolerating intolerance allow her to work in the dark against humanity? Allah forbid it!

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _India_.]

[We now change to India.]

"I suppose no one has any idea (and certainly no foreigner has) of the amount of diplomacy or the responsibility incurred by the Viceroy of India. The India House may well be quoted as 'the focus of politics for nearly all Asia, and the storehouse of romance of all the East.' It has to regulate our relations with all the neighbouring foreign Powers _beyond_ the limits of Hindustan, and with the four hundred and sixty dependent Princes and Chiefs within our own Indian Empire.

* * * * *

"I inspected the cotton-mills. It is evident that India must become a manufacturing country, or it can no longer defend its teeming millions from famine. When this great work shall have been done, Great Britain, with one foot on Hindustan and the other in China, will command the cotton and wool manufactures of the world, and be the greatest producing power ever known.

* * * * *

"We now know, even at home, that India is not a country, but a continent. It contains as many races as the whole of Europe: here we have the Jangali, or wild men; the Dravidians, or old Turanian immigration; the pure Aryans from Persia, as the Nágar Brahman; the vast variety of mixed breeds between Dravidian and Aryan, such as the Telinga Brahman; and, besides these four great families, a number of intrusive peoples--Christians from Chaldea and Portugal; Jews, white and black; Rohillas ('hill-people') from the Afghan mountains; Sidis (Wásáwáhili) from Zanzibar; and Arabs, pure or mixed, the latter showing its type in the Mapillahs (Moplahs) of Malabar. After all, in Europe there are only three: the great Slav race, occupying the eastern half of the continent; the Scandinavo-Teuton; and the Græco-Latin races. Europe also speaks three great forms of language; here we have the three, Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic, or Turanian, with some thirty modifications of the Prakrit, which, in the hands of the literati, became, like the modern Greek spoken at Athens, the Sanskrit, or finished speech. It was the same with the _Latina Rustica_, not the language of Virgil and Cicero, but the quaint country tongues which branched off into the neo-Latin family.

"Again, the climate of India has a far wider range than that of Europe, even if we throw into the latter Iceland and Spitzbergen. The west regions of the mighty Himalayas, the 'Homes of Snow,' represent the Polar regions; and we run through the temperates into the tropical, or rather the equinoctial, about Ceylon. And what a richness and diversity of productions in the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral worlds, compared with the poor produce of the temperate regions! What untold wealth still hidden in the soil, and awaiting the skill and energy of the nineteenth century! What a grand field for exploration and discovery! Dr. de Marchesetti, a young Italian botanist from Trieste, assures us that the fungi, one of the most interesting families of plants, have hardly been studied at all. And how much remains for us to learn! For instance, no sword-cutter in Europe can tell you anything about the steel which makes the far-famed Khorásáni blades, miscalled 'Damascus;' and the dismantiferous regions between the valleys of the Ganges and the Krishna are in great part unexplored ground.

* * * * *

"On the other hand, the Kharekwasla Tank and the noble dam, built by Mr. Joyner, C.E., are well worth visiting, both on account of the intrinsic excellence of the work, and the great consequences to which such works must lead. It not only supplies the 'Monsoon Capital' of the Bombay Presidency, but it will diffuse life and plenty over some ninety linear miles of now waste ground. Travelling from Poonah to Hyderabad, you remark that the land at this season is mostly fit only for the traditional dragon and wild ass; it is, like Sind, a cross between an oven and a dust-bin. Yet where the smallest rill flows, all is life and verdure; the emerald-green topes, and the leek-green paddy fields, are a repose to the sight, a 'coolness to the eye,' as the Arabs say; and you hasten to plunge that hot and weary organ into the damp lush vegetation of orchard and field and kitchen-garden. The first step will be to supply water, as Mr. Joyner is doing; the second, to regulate its use. Here the golden fluid is wasted in a way which would scandalize the Arab, the Egyptian, the Sindi, and the 'Heathen Chinee.'

"And this leads us to notice another popular error which has gained possession of the British brain. Certain statistics, which may be correct, have taught it that India is an overcrowded land, and that its population per square mile, exceeding that of England, approaches that of Belgium. This, as with all statistics, is both true and untrue. Parts of Bengal, for instance, teem with human life; and as native wars are no more, and famines are to be turned, regardless of expense, into plenty, or rather profusion, the peasantry will end, in Kafir phrase, with 'eating one another up.' For note that the true cause of Indian famines is concealed from England. There is plenty of provision. There is an abundance of transport. But the people are so penniless that when grain rises one penny a pound, they must live on wild roots or starve.

"The statement that India is overcrowded is utterly misleading as regards the whole of India. Throughout the peninsula the lands are of three kinds, not including the jungles and forests, which cannot be touched without danger of diminishing the rain-supply. There are the fertile, as Gujerat; the wholly desert, mostly sandy and stony tracks; and the half-desert, which grows luxuriant crops only during the rains. And the latter are so extensive that with irrigation they would support at least treble the actual number of inhabitants.

"India, then, has more than one string to her bow: she will dispose of her increasing millions in three ways. Firstly, she will keep them at home and feed them by irrigation, which costs much, gives slow profits, but ends by being the best of investments. Secondly, she will export them to our other colonies, where labour is so much wanted, and where, as free hands, they will take the place of our old friend, the 'a'mighty nigger.' Sind, I need hardly tell you, calls aloud for them, and can offer the richest of soils. Thirdly, she will retrench her useless expenditure; abolish a host of local Governors who should be Secretaries; of Commanders-in-Chief who should be Major-Generals; and of Members of Council whose chief work is to spoil foolscap. Lastly, she will become a manufacturing country. She has coal and iron; she breeds millions of human beings, hireable at sixpence a day; her men can mine, and her women and children can work at _la petite industrie_. Despite the 'mildew' with which mildewed Manchester, _pace_ Mr. E. Ashworth, is attempting to inoculate India; despite the timidity of statesmen, and despite the jealousy of the manufacturing mob, which wishes to buy dirt-cheap from India, and to make her pay 100 per cent. for working her own produce, we have a conviction, as we have before said, that Indian manufactures will succeed; and that Great Britain, with one foot on Hindustan and another in China, whose three hundred millions work at threepence a day, will command the wool and cotton markets of the world, and will become the greatest producing power that the globe ever bore.

* * * * *

"Lanauli is a place of some importance, being the locomotive station at the head of the Bhore Ghát, whilst the site upon the edge of the Sahyadri Range renders it tolerably healthy for the Europeans. Consequently, where a few huts formerly rose, the place now contains some two hundred pale faces. I saw with immense satisfaction fifty-three men of the New Railway Volunteer Corps, which numbers a total of one hundred and fourteen, being drilled by a red-coated sergeant, under the eye of Captain Buckley. This is truly a patriotic movement, and one which may prove far more important than we expect in these days, when the native powers have armies far exceeding our own in numbers. There is hardly an 'Indian officer' who does not expect another 'Sepoy Mutiny' within ten years, and yet we do little to prepare for it. Were I Viceroy, every station should have its cannon-armed and casemated place of refuge.

* * * * *

"Shere Ali Khan is an ill-conditioned Prince--proud, coarse, and violent. Yet there is something to be noted on the side of this little Highland chief. His hostility dates from those early days when, perhaps, we deserved scant friendship. During the Sepoy Mutiny he urged the invasion of the Punjaub upon his wise old father, Dost Mohammed Khan, whom a Russian paper reports on the throne, although he has been dead for years. The masterly inactivity which Lord Lawrence still dares to recommend, did not prevent that Viceroy acknowledging the claims of Afzal Khan, the brother who had deprecated the Punjaub invasion. Shere Ali had a pet grievance against Lord Mayo, and he was especially hurt by Lord Northcote refusing to pay his subsidy--'tribute,' the wise would call it--with the desired regularity. His relations with the present Viceroy need hardly be noticed. The truth is that a policy of alternate do-nothing, bullying, and cajoling have persuaded him firmly that he holds the road to India; that the keys of the treasure-house are in his hands. Hence he persistently refused to receive the Káshgar mission; 'their blood be upon their own heads if they come to Cabul!' Hence he admitted no English representatives, and he hardly permitted the _Wakeel_, or resident Agent of her Majesty's Government, to address him in Durbar. That he despises us, we cannot fail to see; nor less can we fail to feel that we have not forced him to respect us. We might have withdrawn that phantom of a _Wakeel_; we might also have withdrawn his subsidy or tribute, a lakh of rupees _per mensem_, till his manners improved; or, better still, we might have reserved it for his successor. But a high-principled Viceroy objected that such proceedings would be a 'premium upon rebellion.'

"That unhappy mission has placed us between the horns of an ugly dilemma. If we do not fight, we offend public opinion at home and abroad, in England and in India. If we do fight, we play Russia's own game. Although never committed to paper, there was an implied agreement between the two great Europe-Asiatic Powers that our Asiatic army should not be employed in European wars. The policy of the moment thought fit to throw a new weight into the scale; and Russia's comment must have been something of this nature: 'Oh! you will employ your Sepoys in Europe, will you? All right; meanwhile you shall have enough to do with them in India!' Whatever alarmists told the world, Russia has hitherto meddled mighty little with our Eastern Empire. Now, however, times have changed, and we may look out for squalls. Our Imperial 'Bakht,' our conquering star, our unbroken good luck, may yet be our shield and our defender. Not the less this Afghan war threatens to be the beginning of serious, nay, of fatal troubles, which may shake our Indian Empire to its very foundation. Behind it stand General Scindia and the Nawab of Hyderabad,--now the great Moslem power, the Delhi of the Peninsula. Behind all, terrible and menacing as the Spirit of the Storm which appeared to Da Gama, rises that frightful phantom, a starving population reduced to the lowest expression of life by the exorbitant expenditure of our rule.

"I would willingly point a moral with the state of the Sepoy army, now reduced to a host of Irregulars; with the cost of a march _à Cabul_ against an enemy whose improved weapons have been supplied by ourselves as well as by Russia; with the Russian claim to wage aggressive and non-official war, even as we did in Turkey; with the effect which our intense sensitiveness to every step taken by Russia must exercise upon the Sultan and his Ministers; and lastly, with the possible results to England, which under the workings of a Free Trade, the reverse of free, threatens to become a Macclesfield on a very large scale. Is the prophecy of the Koh-i-noor to be fulfilled after all, and a ridiculed superstition to become a reality?

"THE NIZAM DIAMOND--THE DIAMOND IN INDIA.

[Sidenote: _Diamonds_.]

"It would be unpardonable to quit Golconda without a word concerning the precious stone which, in the seventeenth century, made its name a household word throughout Europe; and also without noticing the great diamond whose unauspicious name, Bala (little) Koh-i-noor, I would alter to 'The Nizam.' Not a little peculiar it is that professional books like Mr. Lewis Lieulafait's 'Diamonds and Precious Stones' (London: Blackie, 1874), which record the life, the titles, the weight, the scale, the size, and the shape of all the historic stones, have utterly ignored one of the most remarkable. Mr. Harry Emanuel does not neglect even the Násik diamond, which fetched only £30,000: we must, by-the-by, convert for intelligibility his 'Mahratta of Peshawur' into the 'Peshwa of the Maharattas.'

"The history of the Nizam diamond is simple enough; like the Abaïté, and unlike the Koh-i-noor, its discovery cost at most a heartache, and did not lose a drop of man's blood. About half a century ago it was accidentally found by a Hindú _sonár_ (goldsmith) at Narkola, a village about twenty miles cast of Shamsábád, the latter lying some fourteen miles south-west of the Lion City, on the road to Maktal. It had been buried in an earthen pipkin (_Koti_ or _Abkhorah_), which suggests, possibly, that it had been stolen, and was being carried for sale to Mysore or Coorg. The wretched finder placed it upon a stone, and struck it with another upon the apex of the pyramid. This violence broke it into three pieces, of which the largest represents about half. With the glass model in hand it is easy to restore the original octohedron. The discovery came to the ears of the celebrated Diwan (Minister) Rajah Chandú Lál, a friend of General Fraser, who governed the country as Premier for the term of forty-two years. He took it very properly from the _sonár_, before it underwent further ill-treatment, and deposited it amongst his master's crown jewels. Lately Messrs. Aratoon, of Madras, offered to cut it for three lakhs of rupees, a modest sum, considering the responsibility and the labour such operations involve; but the figure was considered exorbitant. A M. Jansen of Amsterdam, who died about a twelvemonth ago, volunteered to place it in the hands of Messrs. Costa, who certainly did not improve its big brother. This offer was also naturally enough declined. Let me hope, however, that it will not be cloven into a plate or flat slab _more Indico_.

"The stone is said to be of the finest water. An outline of the model gives a maximum length of 1 inch 10.25 lines, and 1 inch 2 lines for the greatest breadth, with comfortable thickness throughout. The face is slightly convex, and the cleavage plane, produced by the fracture, is nearly flat, with a curious slope or groove beginning at the apex. The general appearance is an imperfect oval, with only one projection which will require the saw. It is not unlike a Chinese woman's foot without the toes, and it will easily cut into a splendid brilliant, larger and more valuable than the present Koh-i-noor.

"I can hardly wonder at this stone being ignored in England and in India, when little is known about it at Hyderabad. No one could tell me its weight in grains or carats. The highest authority in the land vaguely said 'about two ounces or three hundred carats.'[10] The blacksmith who made the mould was brought to us, and the rascal showed a bit of wood shaped much like a clove of orange. Finally, I was driven to accept the statement of Mr. Briggs (i. 117): 'Almost all the finest jewels in India have been gradually collected at Hyderabad, and have fallen into the Nizam's possession, and are considered State property. _One uncut diamond alone of three hundred and seventy-five carats is valued at thirty lakhs of rupees_, and has been mortgaged for half that money.'

"Let us now estimate the value of the Nizam diamond. For uncut stones we square the weight (375 x 375 = 140,625) and multiply the product by £2, which gives a sum of £281,250. For cut stones the process is the same, only the multiplier is raised from £2 to £8. Thus, supposing a loss of 75 carats, which would reduce 375 to 300 (300 x 300 = 90,000 x £8), we obtain a total value of £720,003.

"Allow me briefly to compare the Nizam diamond (uncut 375 carats, cut 370) with the historic stones of the world. The list usually begins with the Pitt or Regent, the first cut in Europe. When the extraneous matter was removed in unusual quantities, it was reduced to 136¾ carats, valued from £141,058 to £160,000. The famous or infamous Koh-i-noor originally gauged 900 carats; it was successively reduced to 279 or 280 (Tavernier) and to 186¼ (= £276,768) when exhibited in Hyde Park; its last treatment has left it at 162½ carats. Then we have the Grand Duke's or Austrian, of 139½ carats (= £153,682); the Orloff or Russian (rose cut) of 195 (193?) carats; and the Abaïté, poetically called the 'Estrella do Sul' (Star of the South), weighing 120 carats. The 'Stone of the Great Mogul,' mentioned by Tavernier, is probably that now called the Daryá-i-noor: it weighs 279 9/16 carats, and graces the treasury of the Shah. The nearest approach to 'The Nizam' is the Mattan or Laudah diamond of 376 carats. Experts agree to ignore the Braganza, whose 1680 carats are calculated to be worth £5,644,800: the stone is kept with a silly mystery which makes men suspect that it is a white topaz.

"And now to notice the diamond diggings of India, and especially of Golconda, their ancient history and their modern state. I will begin by stating my conclusions. Diamonds have been found in the Ganges Valley: they are still washed as far north as Sambalpúr, and in the Majnodi, an influent of the Mahanadi, on the Upper Narbada (Nerbudda), on the line of the Godaveri and on the whole course of the Krishna. The extreme points would range between Masulipatam and the Ganges Valley; the more limited area gives a depth from north to south of some 5º (= three hundred direct geographical miles), beginning north from the Central Provinces and south from the Western Gháts, a breadth averaging about the same extent, and a superficies of ninety thousand miles. A considerable part of this vast space is, I need hardly say, almost unexplored, and the sooner we prospect it the better. The curious reader will find the limits laid down in the 'General Sketch,' etc., of British India, by G. B. Greenough, F.R.S.

"The history of the diamond in India begins with the Maharabháta (B.C. 2100). The Koh-i-noor is supposed to have belonged to King Vikramaditya (B.C. 56), and to a succession of Moslem princes (A.D. 1306), till it fell into the hands of the Christians. Henry Lord's 'Discovery of the Banian Religion' quaintly relates how 'Shuddery' (Sudra), the third son of Pourvus (Purusha), 'findeth a mine of diamonds,' and engenders a race of miners--this is going back with a witness, _teste_ Menu. At what period India invented the cutting of the stone we are yet unable to find out; the more civilized Greeks and Romans ignored, it is suspected, the steel wheel. The Indian diamond was first made famous in Europe by the French jeweller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier (born 1605, died 1689), who made six journeys to the Peninsula as a purchaser of what he calls the Iri (_hira_).

"Tavernier's travels are especially interesting to diamond-diggers, because he visited the two extreme points, north and south. He began with 'Raulconda,' in the Carnatic, some five days south of Golconda (Hyderabad), and eight or nine marches from Vizapore (_hodie_ Bijapur). In 1665 the diggings were some two hundred years old, and they still employed sixty thousand hands. The traveller's description of the sandy earth, full of rocks, and 'covered with coppice-wood, nearly similar to the environs of Fontainebleau,' is perfectly applicable to the Nizam's country about Hyderabad. The diamond veins ranged from half an inch to an inch in thickness, and the precious gangue was hooked out with iron rods. Some of the stones were valued at two thousand, and even at sixteen thousand crowns, and the steel wheel was used for cutting. He then passed on to the Ganee diggings, which the Persians call Coulour (_hod._ Burkalún), also belonging to the King of Golconda. They lay upon the river separating the capital from Bijapur. This must be the Bhima influent of the Krishna, and the old jeweller notices the 'corracles' which are still in use. The discovery began about A.D. 1565 with a peasant finding a stone gauging twenty-five carats. Here, we are told, appeared the Koh-i-noor (nine hundred carats), which 'Mirzimolas,' or 'Mirgimola,' the 'Captain of the Mogols,' presented to the Emperor Aurungzeb. The sixty thousand hands used to dig to the depth of ten, twelve, or fourteen feet, _but as soon as they meet with water there is no hope of success_. Tavernier then records the fact that the king closed perforce half a dozen diggings between 'Coulour and Raulconda, because for thirty or forty years the yield of black and yellow had given rise to frauds.' The Frenchman's last visit was to 'Soumelpore' (Sambalpur), 'a town of Bengala, on the river Gowel,' a northern affluent of the Mahanadi. The season for washing the diamantiferous land began in early February, when the waters ran clear; other authors make it extend from November to the rainy season; and the eight thousand hands extended their operations to fifty _kos_ up-stream. Gold and the finest diamonds in India--locally called 'Brahmans'--were found in the river-bed and at the mouth of the various feeders.

"So far Tavernier. In 1688 and 1728 the well-known Captain Hamilton ('New Account,' etc.), in his twenty-ninth chapter, treating of 'Maderass, or China-Patam,' describes the diamond mines, evidently those of Partiál in the Northern Circars, as being distant a week's journey from Fort St. George; and he records the fact that the Pitt diamond was there brought to light.

"The precious stone was practically limited to Hindustan and Borneo before A.D. 1728, when diggings were opened in Brazil. At first the new produce was rejected by the public, till it found out that many Indian stones from the New World were sent to Goa, and thence were exported to Europe. Still the general view was not wholly wrong. The specific gravity of the diamond averages 3.6, and the difference of oxide in the crystallized or allotropic carbon does not exceed a third place of decimals. This, however, makes all the difference in lustre; and, even in England, we have lately found out that a small brilliant of perfect water, hung to the ear, for instance, is far more effective than a stone much superior in size but inferior in quality. The public, perhaps, do not remember that as far back as 1868 my study of the formations which bear the Brazilian diamonds enabled me to forecast that the gem would be found in a variety of places where its existence had never been suspected. Thus, to mention no others, they were washed in the Cudgegong river, near Rylston, New South Wales; the Australian Diamond Company failed, however, probably by bad management, to pay its expenses. It has been otherwise with the South African diggings, which began with the Vaal river; the stones are inferior even to those of the Brazil, yet they have reduced the value of the latter by one-third. When another great revolution or other political trouble shall occur, the diamond will recover its old market price.

"'The diamond mines of Golconda,' says Mr. Briggs (ch. vi.), 'derive their name from being in the kingdom of Golconda, and not from being near the Fort. They are at the village of Purteeali (Partiál), near Condapilly, about one hundred and fifty miles from Hyderabad, on the road to Masulipatam.[11] The property of them was reserved by the late Nizam when he ceded the Northern Circars to the English Government. They are superficial excavations not extending ten or twelve feet deep in any part. For some years past the working of them has been discontinued, and there is no tradition of their having ever produced very valuable stones.'

"This _résumé_ is so full of errors that we cannot but suspect that they conceal some design. The historian must have known that the Pitt diamond, one of the finest and most perfect of its kind, was produced at Gáni Partiál, and that the Koh-i-noor came from the so-called 'Golconda mines.' Again, Partiál, on the north bank of the Krishna, some fifty miles from the Bay of Bengal, is only one of many diggings in the vast area which I have before laid down, some being still worked, and the others prematurely, we must believe, abandoned.

"The student will do well to consult that valuable volume, the 'Geological Papers on Western India' (Bombay, 1857), edited by my old friend, Dr. Henry J. Carter. Here he will find detailed modern notices of a multitude of mines. John Malcolmson, F.R.S. (p. 6), treats of the diggings at 'Chinon on the Pennar,' and the Cuddapah mines (p. 6). Of the latter Captain Newbold says ('Geological Notes' p. 375), 'The diamond is found in the gravel beds of the Cuddapah district below the _Regur_,' the black, tenacious, and fertile soils of Central and Southern India. The same scientific officer, who died too early for his fame, describes (p. 67) the yield of Mullavelly (or Malavilly), north-west of Ellore, as 'occurring in a bed of gravel, composed chiefly of rolled pebbles of quartz, sandstone, chert, ferruginous jasper, conglomerate, sandstone, and Kankar, lying in a stratum of dark mould about a foot thick.' Both these geologists inferred the identity of the sandstone of Central with that of Southern India from the existence of the diamond at Weiragad, a town about eighty miles south-east of the capital. Malcolmson declared that the 'celebrated diamond mines of Partel (Partiál), Bangnapilly, and Panna, occurring in the great sandstone formations of Northern India, as well as the limestones and schists associated with them, exhibit from the latitude of Madras to the banks of the Ganges the same characters, and are broken up or elevated by granite on trap rocks, in no respect differing in mineralogical characters or in geological relations.'

"The Rev. Messrs. S. Hislop and R. Hunter, who visited and described the Nagpur mines, object to this assertion, and endeavour to prove that the 'diamond sandstone of the Southern Maharatta country is a conglomerate, reposing upon the arenaceous beds, which have _never_ yielded the precious stone, nor are there any data to prove that the conglomerate derived most of its materials from that source.' Dr. Heyne contributed an excellent description of the mines of Southern India, especially those of Bangnapilly (p. 689); of Ovalumpilly, six miles from Cuddapah (p. 691); and of others in the Ellore district. This experienced geologist concludes, 'All the diamond mines which I have seen can be considered as nothing else than alluvial soil.' Major Franklin ('Geological Translation,' second series, vol. iii. part i.), who visited the mines of Pannah in Bandelkhand, before Victor Jacquemont's day, makes the diamond sandstone, between the Narbada (Nerbudda) and the Ganges, belong to the 'New Red'--apparently an error. Others have described the diggings east of Nagpur (Central Provinces) as having been opened in a matrix of lateritic grit. Dr. Carter ('Summary of the Geology of India,' pp. 686-691) connects the 'diamond conglomerate' with the Oolitic series and its _débris_, and he offers (p. 688) a useful tabular view of the strata in the mines of Bangnapilly, described by Voysey, and Pannah or Punna, by Franklin and Jacquemont. The most important conclusion is their invariable connection with sandstone.

"Dr. Carter's volume quotes largely from the writings of Mr. Voysey (_Journal As. Soc._, Bengal, second Report on the Government of Hyderabad), a geologist who maintained the growth of the diamond as others do of gold: he declared that he could prove in alluvial soil the recrystallization of amethysts, zeolites, and felspar. During his last journey from Nagpur to Calcutta he visited the diamond washings of 'Sumbhulpore,' in the Mahanadi valley, and he describes the gems as being 'sought for in the sand and gravel of the river,' the latter consisting of pebbles of clay slate, flinty slate, jasper and jaspery ironstone of all sizes, from an inch to a foot in diameter.

"We possess fortunately a modern description of the diggings, which, I have said, were visited successively by Major Franklin and by Victor Jacquemont. M. Louis Rousselet ('L'Inde des Rajahs,' Paris, Hachette, 1857), in his splendid volume (pp. 440, 443), gives an illustration and an account of the world-famous mines of Pannah, the Pannasca of Ptolemy (?), a little kingdom of eastern Bandelkhand erected in 1809. The Rajah sent a _Jemadar_ (officer) to show him the diggings, which are about twenty minutes' walk from the town. The site is a small plateau covered with pebble-heaps; and, at the foot of a rise somewhat higher than usual, yawns the pit, about twelve or fifteen or twenty feet in diameter (about one hundred and eighty feet deep). It is pierced in alluvial grounds, divided into horizontal strata, _débris_ of gneiss and carbonates, averaging thirteen metres. At the bottom is the diamond-rock, a mixture of silex and quartz, in a gangue of red earth (clay?). The naked miners descend by an inclined plane, and work knee-deep in water, which the _noria_, or Persian wheel, turned by four bullocks, is insufficient to drain; they heap the muddy mixture into small baskets, which are drawn up by ropes, whilst a few are carried by coolies. The dirt is placed upon stone slabs, sheltered by a shed; the produce is carefully washed, and the silicious residuum is transferred to a marble table for examination. The workmen, each with his overseer, examine the stones one by one, throwing back the refuse into a basket; it is a work of skill on the part of both men, as it must be done with a certain rapidity, and the rough diamond is not easily distinguished from the silex, quartz, jasper, hornstone (corundum), etc.

"Tradition reports that the first diamonds of fabulous size were thus found, and the system of pits was perpetuated. When one is exhausted it is filled up and another is opened hard by--a deplorable system, as one hundred cubic metres must be displaced to examine one, and around each well a surface of twenty times the area is rendered useless. Moreover, much time is lost by the imperfect way of sinking the shaft, which sometimes does not strike the stone.

"This diamond stratum extends more than twenty kilometres to the north-east of Pannah. The most important diggings are those of the capital, of Myra, Etawa, Kamariya, Brijpur, and Baraghari. The mean annual produce ranges between £40,000 and £60,000--a trifling sum, as the stones are the most prized in the world, and sell for a high price in the country. They are pure and full of fire; the colour varies from the purest white to black, with the intermediate shades--milky, rose, yellow, green, and brown. Some have been found reaching twenty carats, and the Myra mine yielded one of eighty-three, which belongs to the crown jewels of the Mogul. Of course, the real produce must be taken at double the official estimate, despite all precautions; such is the case everywhere. The Rajah has established an approximate average amount, and when this descends too low, he seizes one of the supposed defaulters and beheads him or confiscates his goods. He sells his diamonds directly to Allahabad and Benares, and of late years he has established ateliers for cutting. These are the usual kind, horizontal wheels of steel worked by the foot.

"Evidently here we have a primitive style, which has not varied since diamond-working began. Good pumps are required to drain the wet pits. Instead of sinking a succession of shafts, tunnels should be run along the veins of diamond-bearing rocks. Magnifying-glasses and European superintendence would improve the washing. I need hardly say that the yield would double in the hands of Brazilians or South Africans.

"The precious stone is still brought for sale from the nearer valley of the Krishna to Hyderabad. It occurs, I was assured, in a white conglomerate of lime locally called _gar-ká-pathar_, which must be broken up and washed. As it is found in a region of crystalline rocks, common sense would suggest tracing up the material to the places where it may have been formed; but this is never done. During our week's visit I was consulted by two Parsee merchants concerning the rudimentary tests of scratching and specific gravity. In fact, at Golconda, where the finest gems used to be worked, no one, strange to say, can now recognize a rough diamond.

"The 'Highlands of the Brazil' (ii. 113) has given a detailed list of the various stones associated with the gem; and specimens of the _cascalho_, or diamond gravel, the _tauá_, the _canga_, etc., have been sent to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Mr. Swinton. It is advisable to remark that this association has everywhere been recognized. In Borneo we are told that 'the diamond is known by the presence of sundry small flints.' The gem-yielding pebble-conglomerate of India, not usually a breccia, as was proved by Franklin, Newbold, and Aytoun (_loc. cit._, p. 386), contains quartz and various quartzose formations; garnet, corundum, epidote, and Lydian stone; chalcedony and carnelian; jasper of red, brown, bluish, and black hues; and hornstone, a kind of felspar, whilst 'green quartz indicates the presence of the best stones.' Fossil chert is yielded by the limestone, and the highly ferruginous and crystalline sandstone produces micaceous iron ores, small globular stones (pisoliths?), and almost invariably fragments of iron oxide. Finally, there are generally traces of gold, and sometimes of platinum. At Hyderabad I was assured that such was the case on the Krishna river; but none of my informants had any personal knowledge of washing. Finally, Dr. Carter's 'Geological Papers' convinced me that the sandstones of the diamond area will be found to resemble the _itacolumite_--quartzose mica slate or laminated granular quartz, of Brazilian 'Minas Geraes.'

"These considerations convince me that diamond-digging in India generally, and especially in Golconda (the territory of Hyderabad), has been prematurely abandoned. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the machinery for draining wet mines was not what it is now; and the imperfect appliances led to the general belief that all the deposits were purely superficial. Doubtless some were in the alluvial soil of the most recent rocks; but M. Rosselet's account shows that deep digging may still be practised to advantage. Voysey also saw the 'sandstone breccia' (diamond conglomerate?) of Southern India 'under fifty feet of sandstone, clay, slate, and slaty limestone.' The Brazilian miners ('Highlands,' ii. 121) have only lately learned to descend one hundred and eighty feet; and they find some of their best stones at the lowest horizon. The Vaal River and other South-African washings, opened in 1868, soon reached sixty feet.

"Immediately about the Golconda Fort the rocks, almost wholly syenitic and granitic, supply only quartz, chalcedony, carnelian, and amethyst; but we had heard of chance diamonds being picked up by the accolents of the Krishna river, and Sir Salar Jung, with his usual liberality, proposed laying a _dák_ for us to Raichor. He was ready, in fact, to meet a wanderer's wishes in every possible way. I presently, however, learned from good authority that only crystalline rocks, like those which we had seen in the Golconda tombs, are produced by this central section of the Krishna, and that _itacolumite_ must be sought elsewhere. Evidently the precious stones have been rolled down from some unknown distance; and to follow the 'spoor' demanded more time than I could command.

"It would be wasting paper to insist upon the benefits of reviving the ancient industry. But India is slow, deadly slow. In her present impoverished state she wants an energetic cultivation of every branch of industry. She does nothing; worse still, she rages against those who advise her to be up and doing. There is a fatal lethargy in her air. England administered like Anglo-India would be bankrupt in a week. And, locally speaking, diamond-working is a necessity. Hyderabad is not a rich country, and her trade is well-nigh _nil_. But she has coal that wants only a market; and if to the 'black diamond' she can add the white diamond, her future prospects are not to be despised. The first step is, of course, that of 'prospecting,' of systematically reconnoitring the ground, with the aid of a few experienced hands imported from the Brazil and South Africa. If the search be successful, a company or companies would soon be found to do the rest. For me it will be glory enough to have restored the time-honoured 'mines of Golconda.'

"We left at the week's end the country of 'our Faithful Ally,' greatly pleased with the courtesy and hospitality which seem to be its natural growth. And I have a conviction that, despite the inevitable retrograde party of all native states, the _codini_ of the East, the warlike Zemindars, the 'dissolute vagabonds,' the 'Pathan bravos,'and the 'cut-throats and assassins' of the Press, this realm has become, since 1859, the 'greatest Mohammedan power in India.'

"The return journey to Bombay gave time for other reflections. At present our 'enormous dependency, India, the most populous and important that ever belonged to a nation, and conferring a higher prestige on the ruling race than has ever been conferred by any other subject people'--as the judicial Trollope has it--is, has been, and, under present circumstances, ever will be, somewhat neglected by the general public of England. No home Britisher can interest himself even moderately in such a colony; it is too distant, and it can hardly be brought nearer by local parliaments and similar institutions. Although 'taxation without representation is tyranny,' we are not yet prepared to grant, what eventually must be granted, Representative Government. We are therefore driven to seek some other course.

"Again, at Hyderabad, as in India generally, we are living upon a volcano which may or may not slumber for years. See how of late all soldiers have come round to the same opinion concerning the 'scientific frontier.' All, in fact, are tacitly agreed to treat our Empire in India like an army; with supports, reserves, with outposts, vedettes, and similar martial appliances. The remedies hitherto proposed for the natural disaffection of the great native powers, kept as they are in a state of _quasi_-tutelage, appear to be mere quackeries, likely to do harm rather than good. For instance, to make the energetic Indian prince more powerful within his own jurisdiction would be simply to arm him against ourselves.

"But why not at once admit a certain number of seats in the House of Lords? Of those who claim salutes of twenty-one guns, there are, besides four foreigners, three Indian princes, the Nizam, the Gaikwár, and the rulers of Mysore, who all happen at present to be minors. Amongst those honoured by nineteen guns we find Scindhia, Holkar, and Udepúr; whilst Jaipúr, with twelve others, has seventeen guns. Of course, it would be necessary to limit the number to six or seven, but the hope of eventually rising to the dignity should not be withheld from Chiefs of lower grade.

"Nothing would tend more directly to conciliate the princes of India, and to make them our firm friends, than to admit them to the highest dignity of the Empire--to a House where they would doubtless hasten to sit; where they would learn their true interests, and where they would find themselves raised to a real, instead of a false equality with the ruling-race.

"Mr. Sowerby addressed a letter (April 25th, Broach) to the _Times of India_, entering into a discussion with me on the Diamonds of Golconda, to which I replied as follows:--

"'THE UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES OF INDIA.

"'To the Editor of the _Times of India_.

"'Sir,--Amidst the hurry and worry of departure, I failed to find a spare moment for noticing the valuable communication dated Broach, April 25th, and bearing the name of your distinguished correspondent Mr. Sowerby. The calm and quiet of my present home, the "Minerva," allow me leisure _à discretion_, and perhaps some of your readers may not be unwilling to see how much may be said on the other side.

"'The Madras Government would have done better to send a few experienced diamond-diggers to the Cuddapah country, instead of "driving the unfortunate diamond-seekers away from the fields;" but we have already heard something concerning the modicum of wisdom with which the world, even in Madras, is governed. Of course, untrained prospecting and ignorant working end, as a rule, in "the most abject poverty, wretchedness, and starvation." Thus we explain the Spanish proverb, "A silver-mine means misery, a gold-mine ruin." The "Garimpeiro," or pick-and-pan adventurer in the Brazil, could hardly keep himself alive on manioc and tobacco, where the wealthy English companies, which took his place, filled their coffers. With the diamond the same is the case, and hence I have been able to draw up a "rose-tinted" account of the diggings in Minas Geraes. Capital and skilled labour succeed where the desultory attempts of untaught men breed nothing but failure. My "projects" are simply to place the true state of the case before the English capitalist, and to enlist the sympathies of individuals and of the public; it would be a profligate waste of labour to attack the _vis inertiæ_ of the Indian Government, and bepreach the caste whose _dharma_ it is to work the machine. It is hardly possible to believe that, whilst the diamond has been found in spots scattered over the enormous area, say, of five hundred direct geographical miles in depth, bounded north by the Mahanadi and south by the Krishna, the mineral resources of vast and almost unexplored tracts, like the highlands of Orissa, should continue to be neglected. And, although an attempt to revive the diamond-mines of Sambalpore resulted, I am told, in failure, my advice would be to begin with the oldest diggings, which, as Tavernier shows, were systematically abandoned after reaching the depth of a few feet, because the owners ignored the art of pumping. Even if the deserted spots be so worked out as not to yield a single gem, they will make an excellent practical study of the formations in which the stone may be expected to occur elsewhere. My principal difficulty will be the utter unfamiliarity with the subject which belongs to the class whose interests are most concerned. The first attempt brings me the following answer: "I will give my opinion of the undertaking when I have studied the details; but Golconda is an ungodly place to invite the British capitalist to." As regards preliminaries, a friend, whose touching modesty induces me to withhold his name, writes to me: "The success in finding minerals and gems to the east of the Gháts is simply a question of prospecting; and the more prospectors the merrier. Why, there must be now ferreting in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, little short of half a million of skilled hands. Geologists are valuable only so far as they indicate formations likely to prove fertile; the real work must be done by prospectors."

"'I am far from thinking, with Mr. Sowerby, that, in a hopeful matter like this, of development of wealth, "native rulers will always take their cue from the paramount power," however rigidly our official seal is affixed to the mineral treasures lying dormant in the land. One of the commonplaces of the theoretical English writer is the exceeding Conservatism of the East: practically I have found the reverse. True, the Bombay "Kumbi" rejected the ridiculous windmills by which the late Dr. Buist proposed to abolish the cheap and all-sufficient water-wheel; and thus he incurred the vehement displeasure of that _perfervidum ingenium_, who had, they said, a monetary interest in the matter. But show the Hindú and Hindí (Moslem) that the novelty will pay or will save money, and they will adopt it as readily as almost any nationality known to me. What nonsense has been written and read about the failure of Indian railways, because nothing could persuade the Brahmin to ride side by side with the pariah! The truth is, caste remains powerful as long as it pays; in the inverse condition it is a name, and nothing more.

"'But practically it is very little matter whether the Government of H.H. the Nizam take or take not the cue from the groovy and torpid rule which distinguishes British India in this section of the nineteenth century. That it will grant free and liberal concessions I am persuaded. Still, after all, the diamond-diggings in the Krishna Valley, though far-famed for their produce in days gone by, are a mere line of trenches compared with the depths of field which lies behind them.

"'Upon the subject of iron-making in India, Mr. Sowerby and I must agree to differ. Of course, stone may be too rich for smelting purposes; my travels have shown me mountains of iron, in the United States and in South America, which are, perforce, neglected for poorer ores. But the common charcoal-smelted metal of the Brazil is preferred by the English mining companies--for instance, at São João d'El Rei--to stampers of the best English steel; and I fail to see why the same should not be the case in India, when replanting of trees shall become the rule, and when the woods and forests shall be properly managed. In my former letter, however, I alluded especially to sword-blades and other costly articles, in which the least thing thought of is the value of the raw material. Mr. Sowerby asserts, "Not a single attempt has been made to manufacture arms in India on a European scale and on European principles, but it has ended in financial failure." Yet, further on, we are told that a "native smith of Salem makes the best of hog-spears and hunting-knives." European principles, I presume, mean the use of coal, whilst the native preferred charcoal. And why should the Brazil succeed so admirably with its thousands of little Catalan furnaces, and India fail? Evidently the quality of the fuel is, in both cases, the vital condition of success.

"'The specimens of Hyderabad coal shown to me at the Nizam's capital were of thicker formation and of superior quality to the "brown coal of Southern Austria," which is more lignite. And yet the latter pays, even for steamers, when mixed with a certain proportion of Cardiff. There _is_ a demand for coal almost throughout the ancient kingdom of Golconda, where the land has been ruthlessly disforested; and there should, methinks, be little difficulty in inducing the people to abolish in its favour the use of "gober" and other fuels to which their poverty drives them. Here the only want is evidently cheap and easy transport; and with this object I proposed Mr. Worsley's "wooden idea."

"'Your distinguished correspondent throws undue stress, it appears to me, upon the fact that these cheapest of tramways have been known in England for centuries, and have been supplanted by light iron rails. Because the latter are found cheapest in England, _argal_, as the grave-digger said, they should be adopted in India. But the mine-owners in the Brazil, where wood is hard and abundant as in India, still work with wooden rails; and in both countries the state of the thoroughfares, especially beyond the main lines of traffic, is like that of England two hundred years ago.

"'Upon this subject the modest friend before quoted writes to me as follows:--"I shall be much obliged if you will give me all the information you can about Worsley's wooden railways. I have five hundred acres of excellent timber at a point of the Tasmanian north-west coast, three hundred and fifty miles from Melbourne. I am within two miles of a shipping-place, and I shall have to make five miles of tramway with wooden rails, _as is always done in this neighbourhood_" (italics mine); "but the ordinary flanged wheels are used, and they drub the rails horribly. I understand your description of the rails, but I cannot gather from your letter to the _Times of India_ what sort of wheels Mr. Cayley Worsley proposes to use. Could you send me a plan, or tell me where to get one?"

"'Mr. Worsley supplied me with a sketch-design of his invention or modification, but as it contains novelties perhaps unknown to Mr. Sowerby, whilst allowing me to put the public in possession of the outline of his scheme, he naturally enough insisted upon the details and the plan being kept secret. I have therefore referred my valued correspondent to the inventor himself, whose private residence is No. 62, Belgrave Road, London.

"'Finally, when Mr. Sowerby roundly asserts "it is rather too late in the day to teach us anything new in making cheap tramways," I presume that he has seen or has read about the "Pioneer," lately invented by my friend Mr. John Hadden, C.E., and exhibited during last December at Mr. Lee Smith's office, No. 6, Westminster Chambers, and the "Economical," belonging to Mr. Russell Shaw. If not, he would do well to master the subject, and then he will probably conclude with me that what has been done in tramways (as in other matters) is a very small part of what remains to be done.

"'Yours, etc.,

"'R. F. BURTON.

"'Aden, at Sea, May 18th, 1876.'

"A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA.

[Sidenote: _India_.]

"I would fain enter a vehement protest against the spirit and the manner in which the relative positions of Great Britain and Russia are treated by Englishmen, and I hope to show the immense detriment to which this treatment has subjected, and still subjects, our prestige and our good name.

"We were lately asked by an educated native of Bombay if the Russians are not ready to throw fifty lakhs of men--five hundred thousand bayonets!--upon British India; and not a few of the lower classes, Mussulmans all, had told me that the 'Moskoff' is about to attack the Punjáb.

"Men now just middle age, whose youth saw the virulent attack of Russophobia which in 1838-39 led to the Afghan War, the severest shake, next to the Sepoy Mutiny, which our Indian Empire has ever endured, find it difficult, with the proverbial difficulty of mastering new ideas after the tenth lustre, to appreciate the complete change in the positions of the two great rival Powers. As early as 1791, Russia prepared to invade India from Orenburg, _viâ_ Ashur, Ata, and Asterabad, 'the line of least resistance,' Meshhed, Herat, and Kandahar.

"Let us suppose that in 1835 she had taken heart of grace and resolved to follow in the footsteps of Nadir Shah. The road to Delhi lay completely open to her. She had only to point to India, the 'traditional plunder-ground of Central Asia,' and all the rugged robber-hordes, from the Sutlej to the mouths of the Euphrates, would have rushed to the 'loot' like wolves and vultures to the quarry, and Persia was only waiting to see the offensive action taken. Afghanistan was ever ready to renew the pleasant scenes of Paniput. The whole line of the Indus, Mooltan, Bahawulpore, and Sind, under the Talpúr Amirs, would have hurried to the flank attack. The direct line lay through the dominions of our good friend and bitterest enemy, Runjeet Singh, whose gallant heart was broken by the easy successes of the British in Afghanistan, where he flattered himself they had fallen into his trap. With the Punjáb would have sided Cashmere, Nepaul, and even Bhootan; in fact, the whole region south, and possibly north, of the Himalayan range.

"But Russia did not take the opportunity, which means she had other things to do; and that cautious, far-seeing Power saw no advantage in a raid like the 'Chapáo' of Nadir Shah. Now the conditions of our frontier are completely changed. From the modest line of the Sutlej and the great North-western Desert, we have occupied a thousand miles of the Indus frontier, extending from Peshawar to the sea; the Punjáb is ours; Cashmere, Nepaul, and Bhootan exist on sufferance; they may be ours at any moment we please.

"Persia might still join Russia, but we have operated more than once with fatal effect upon her vulnerable heel, the Gulf. Her strength has been wasted by famine; her exchequer is empty; and the chivalry of the Desert, her Iliyát or Bedawi, have been crushed by the contact of a so-called Regular Army. The Afghans would still flock to enrol under the banners of the North, but they would be met by their hereditary foe, the Sikh. How secure we are upon this point may be judged by the way in which the military authorities have dismantled the whole Indian fortress. Our native army has been converted into an irregular machine, which could not meet even the Abyssinians without sending for reinforcements of officers to Madras and Calcutta.

"The hare-hearted Sepoy--undoubtedly the worst soldier in Asia--has been reduced to eight European officers per regiment, with all the combatants mounted, so as to secure their being swept away by the first fire.

"We have no army in England beyond what is required for police purposes; nor shall we have one until the Britons, still happily separated from the total world, determine, by a general conscription, to march with the rest of Europe, and to exchange a small standing army for a national force. And whilst we literally hold India with eighty thousand white faces, we freely allow the Native Powers to levy and to drill troops in numbers exceeding our own. Evidently our authorities are very sure of their affair. Possibly they rely upon the fact that the game is no longer worth the candle; that India, that golden land, has been squeezed till no more is to be got out of her. 'Poor India, every hair of her head is numbered!' said a mercantile traveller, when I explained to him the figures on the date trees; and, certainly, between the Abkari (excise) and the salt-tax, we have thoroughly emptied the pockets of the breechless population.

"But, happily, things are gradually getting to the worst, and we may fairly hope that they will surely mend. Presently we shall take a lesson from Russia, who manages her trans-Caucasian provinces by a mixture of foreign and native _employés_. Nothing more offends the patriotic Russian than to doubt that he is wholly European; and yet to the dash of Asiatic blood he owes many of his highest national gifts,--his facility in acquiring languages; his devotion to his Emperors, the 'Shadows of Bog upon Earth;' his subtle and persistent policy; his love of conquest and military glory; and his fatalistic calmness under fire.

"We shall remedy the chronic discontent of a pauper population by opening up new sources of wealth in reproductive works, in manufactures and mines. At present India is administered for the benefit of England, or rather, of the English trading classes, who must supply the public offices with paper and sealing-wax, and the soldiers and sepoys with broadcloth and ducks. The National Religion of England will become the State Church in India, and we shall cease to foster and encourage, by a fatuous and absurd toleration, the fanaticism of Pagan idolatry. We shall borrow from Russia another lesson of economy, by substituting military law and rule for the pseudo-constitutionalism with which we, like Portugal, have afflicted India; we shall relieve our great colony, or rather conquest, of such an incubus as Presidency Governors and Commanders-in-Chief, Members of Council and Chief Justices. We shall reserve High Courts and similar preserves for lawyers' game; but we shall confine them to the various capitals, where wealthy natives may play at law, and ruin themselves _à discretion_.

"With this money, now profligately wasted upon civil establishments, we shall maintain an efficient Native Army, which will deliver us from the feeble politic of 'purpose and no power.' At home a general conscription, or a revival of the Militia Act, will give us a force, between actives and reserves, of two millions of men. The first serious 'shake' in the East or the West will show us that our national existence depends upon this measure, or rather that the alternative will be subsiding into the position of Belgium and Holland. And finally, when Russia begins her railway from Tabriz to Teheran and Baghdad, we shall check her by the Euphrates Valley Line, at present our principal Colonial want. And thus the 'Ikbal,' or good fortune, which apparently departed with the defunct East India Company, will be inherited by the Imperial Rule.

"The Government of the Company, it must be remembered, was aristocratic,--an aristocracy of bales and barrels, if you please, but still, to a certain extent, a rule of honour. Its successor acts upon the latest and most modern rules of political economy; it buys its labour in the cheapest market, and it demands only a fair day and a half's work for a fair day's wage. It notably borrowed from China its system of competitive examinations, which examine all least worth examining,--that is, the memory and the receptivity, not the moral and physical value of its Mandarins. Some day, perhaps, we shall see a return of the well-abused system of patronage, whose evils can so easily be checked by the administration of proper tests, and by provisional appointments to be confirmed only after a sufficient period of practical trial.

"To an Englishman who has at heart the honour and interests of his native land, nothing is more offensive than the low standing taken by our writers in treating of the Central Asian Question, and the tone of despondency which contrasts so disparagingly with the high grounds assumed by the Russians. England accepted as a kind of boon the creation of a neutral zone,--a string of independent semi-barbarian States, separating the frontiers of the two great Asiatic Powers. Russia, with the moderation engendered by her intense vigour and vitality, throws this sop to Cerberus, perfectly certain that the measure is merely temporary, whilst the powerful war party which looks upon the Cesarewitch as its head, openly expresses its scorn and disgust. We are told by our Pundits that 'all we want is rest--rest from foreign wars, rest from political disturbance.' We want nothing of the kind: our only want is, _de l'audace, de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace_.

"We are assured that we are conservative, not aggressive; whereas our rivals are aggressive, not conservative; in other words, that they are young and active and strong, while we are old and stiff and weak. We are advised to push forward, because any check upon our frontier would raise a host of enemies in our troubled rear,--which means that our position in India is more or less precarious. We are informed in the same breath that Russia has certainly not contemplated anything like an invasion of India; and yet we are advised to take the strongest steps in order to secure ourselves from invasion.

"A curious comment, by the way, upon the first dictum is the tone of the young Grand Duke Nicholas' letters, published by Miss Fanny Lear, in which he considers an appointment to the Caucasus as the first step of a Russian march upon India. Again, we read the alarming sentence, 'If there was danger to British India from the attitude and possible designs of Russia twenty-eight years ago, that danger must be increased a hundred-fold at the present day.' Furthermore, we are threatened with the 'moral leverage' which Russia, by menacing India, can bring to bear upon us in Europe; and with the chronic conflagration which would result from the mere contiguity of a rival European Power; in other words, we are told that Russia can make India too hot to hold us,--as if we could not make, by means of China, Turkestan too hot to hold Russia. Her troops are ever moving on resistless as fate, whilst we are thoroughly alarmed by their advance: that is, Russia swoops like the hawk, while we cower like the pigeon.

"Hence, the perpetual reports of new invasion-routes from the North which fill our Press, the old Buroghil Pass being the latest 'fad.' And hence the trembling anxiety with which the Anglo-Indian eye was fixed upon the late Amir el-Muminin, Ya'akub Khan of Kashgar, as if a struggling little Moslem Prince, who would assuredly be crushed between the rival Colossi, Russia and China, held the destinies of British India in his weakling hand. Hence the exaggerated importance attached to what is called the 'Indian situation,' to the 'Russian glacis' on the north-east of Persia, and to the strategic approach from the south-eastern corner of Persia, 'which is so stealthily, but steadily progressing.' And hence, finally, the forcible feeble stand which we are making about the independence of villainous Bokhara, and the inviolability of pauper Merv--a village which once numbered a million of souls.

"This tone of excited despondency, this symptom of weakness and violence, has travelled far, and has already done great damage to our name. It has thoroughly complicated our relations with Afghanistan. As may be proved by any old map, that turbulent land of robber-chiefs has gained enormously, both in territory and in population, by our intervention. Yet Shere Ali Khan sulks and pouts because Lord Lawrence acknowledged his elder brother, the friendly Afzul Khan; because Lord Mayo did not anticipate his every wish, and because Lord Northbrook did not pay his subsidy--'tribute' I would rather call it--with all the regularity he desired. Hence he refused the Kashgar Mission, under pretext of being unable to protect the members,--'Their blood be upon their own heads if they come to Cabul!' Hence he will admit no English resident Agent; and the native _Aakil-i-Sarkar-i-Angriz_ is hardly permitted to address him in Durbar. The fact is, this miserable Highland Chief believes, and has been taught by us to believe, that he holds 'the road to the English.' He is convinced that he has only to offer aid to the Russians in order to drive us out of India. That he hates us, we know: during the Sepoy Mutiny he urged in vain his wise old father, Dost Mohammed, to invade the Punjáb--a measure deprecated by Afzul Khan. That he despises us, we cannot fail to see; and not less can we fail to feel that our policy has given him a right to despise us.[12]

"What, then, should we do in this matter? The 'repose of strength' is liable to be interpreted by the Oriental as supineness; moderation means fear; and 'compromise,' the basis of public and private life in England, has no synonym in the East. _De l'audace_, etc., is the only rule of conduct in the Afghan hills. At the first opportunity--and any day may bring one--we should break openly with Shere Ali; tread boldly upon the coat-tail which he is trailing for a fight; withdraw that phantom of a Native Agent, and offer the subsidy, a lakh _per mensem_, to the successor who promises us his friendship and his confidence. The latter measure has been characterized as a premium on rebellion. _Sit_, so be it!

"We have nothing to fear from the Afghan chief, most of whose subjects would right willingly exchange his barbarous sway for our civilized rule. We have nothing to hope from him; he would take, Afghan-like, our money with one hand, and stab us with the other. Here, if anywhere, are the time and place to assume the tone and position of a 'dominant race.' We have talked too long and too loudly about 'our fellow-subjects in India' and our 'Afghan allies;' let us now change the terms for 'conquered races' here, and for 'paid partisans' there.

"Curious to say, the latest form of Russophobia was developed by our grand national blunder, the great artillery duel in the corner of the Black Sea, which history will call the 'Crimean War.' After nearly incurring national bankruptcy by our rabid hostility to Napoleon I., we were cozened by Napoleon III. into an alliance, whose sole object was to give his house a status amongst the old and aristocratic dynasties of Europe. But, to do the latter justice, he proposed to take upon himself the chief onus of the campaign.

"It was Lord Palmerston--the statesman who saddled us with the Fenian imbroglio; the man who, believing about as much as Epicurus, never missed a Sunday morning service; the Irishman who knew the English public better than it knew itself--that rejected the Frenchman's offer to send the army, whilst England supplied the fleet. Thus, upon the obsolete principle that one Englishman can beat three _Mossoos or Johnny Crapauds_, we were allowed to contribute a mere contingent. Thus we were condemned to play, as is commonly said, second fiddle, without the least hope of rising in the world; whilst the want of ability amongst our superior officers, the normal English deficiency of organization, and a few miserable blunders, glorious like the Balaclava Charge, and inglorious like the run from the Mamelon, duly printed abroad throughout the civilized world, combined to form an ample 'vengeance for Waterloo.'

"The world has not yet learned that we entered half-hearted into that war; that we were thoroughly ashamed of our Turkish allies and of their cause; that many of our leading statesmen determined upon not abasing Russia; that Cronstadt was allowed to exclude us from St. Petersburg, when the late Captain Cole's turret-ship would have set the fortress at defiance; that Kars was given over to starvation because the Russians refused to make peace without a set-off for the southern half of Sebastopol, evacuated after a resistance of eighteen months; that Napoleon insisted on coming to terms with Russia, because his Crimean army was mutinous, and he had won his point; and lastly, that our allies' ignoble jealousy confined us to a game at long bowls in the Crimea, when, with the assistance of the Turks, the Kurds, and the Persians, we might easily have driven Russia once more behind and beyond the Caucasus.

"All this, and more, we have been told by the late Lord Strangford, in the two volumes of his pleasant works published some years ago by the Viscountess, whose late gigantic charitable undertakings in Bulgaria must be the envy and admiration of every woman. But, in determining that Russia had gained by the war as much as Great Britain lost, my clever friend was not so happy as in the rest of his judgments: in fact, he neglected one great item in the account which determined the balance in our favour. The Crimean War prevented the march of the Russian empire southwards,--the general rule of northern conquest. It compelled her to go and grow eastward.

"This necessity of growth in the Northern Giant is treated by our writers with a luxury of explanation. It is attributed to a steadfast political purpose; to the preponderating impulse of irresponsible military ambition thirsting for distinction; to a traditional creed of the Empire, which aims at augmented power in Europe through extension in Asia; to obeying the natural law of increase; and to all these causes combined.

"For the anthropologist, one amply suffices. The body politic, like the individual, must grow to attain full development; and 'earth-hunger,' as it is called, characterizes all young peoples in the lusty prime of life. At present the only great conquering races are the Slav, especially Russia, and the English, especially the Anglo-Americans. The former conquer by invasion, the latter by occupation and colonization.

"Why Great Britain, at the present moment of her history, has turned her sword into a ploughshare, is apparently little understood by the mass of foreign writers. The truth is, we are still in a period of reaction. During the first quarter of the present century we meddled with--and often, it must be confessed, we muddled--European affairs which least concerned an insular people.

"About 1850 the counter-action set in with peculiar violence. Lord Palmerston was rebuked by the Crown for his officious interference in continental matters. Mr. Cobden was at the summit of his fame. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was to inaugurate the reign of peace and good will amongst men, and international commerce was to cement the union of the Pan-European family. The Frenchman would never invade us. If he attempted so obsolete a step, our touching and charitable reception of him would melt the heart of the bearded Zouave and the Sapeur, to whom nothing is sacred. The army should be turned into a body of navvies; the navy was to be converted into police-ships and emigrant-ships. Posterity will marvel at this peace mania, and perhaps will sneer at the part which the peacemakers took in precipitating the Russian War of 1853. It reads like a tale of Bedlam, but it is not the less true. The secondary symptoms of the dread malady still ferment in the national constitution, and possibly we may not escape without tertiaries. But the perfect cure must come at last.

[Sidenote: _Eastern Politics_.]

"About 1863, when Russia had recovered from the fatigues of the Crimean campaign, her 'manifest destiny' began to show itself in what we vaguely term 'Central Asia.' It is not my purpose to trace her steps. England, and especially India, looked on uneasily, although a 'large portion of the thinking public, including the optimist class of Anglo-Indian politicians to a man, declared in favour of the Russian advance.' And no wonder. The actual civilization of the Russian Empire may not yet be of the highest order, yet it is long centuries in advance of the reckless barbarism which characterizes the Great Horde and the Usbeg Khanats. Whilst annexing the barren steppes, the eastern shores of the Caspian, the lands about the Aral, and the noble valleys of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, Russia's mission was _terram aperire gentibus_. She opened military roads and proposed railways; she built forts and meditated canals. She rendered the country passable to the traveller and to the trader. The European had no longer to fear being plundered or reduced to slavery, or being foully murdered. She enlisted sundry marauding tribes; she had made them disciplined soldiers and peaceful subjects, whilst many 'bad neighbours' were converted by example into 'good neighbours.'

"Again, the dash of Eastern blood in the veins of Russia enabled her to curb the fanatic spirit of her new lieges. Her enemies had predicted that she had disturbed a hornet's nest; that her lines were now cast in unpleasant places, amongst the most violent and bigoted of Mohammedan races. Even our latest writers dwell upon the prospects of an anti-Russian _Jehád_, or Holy War.

"But Russia is the only European Power which can successfully abate the evil; and we must seek the reason of her success in her despotic rule, the only regimen which the Oriental understands. She knows how to handle her Sáyyids and her Súfis; she 'grasps her nettle,' and this is the only treatment to which the ecclesiastical throat, priest or parson, Mullah or Brahmin, unconditionally submits.

"We, on the contrary, with our excess of toleration and _penchant_ for liberty, too often degenerating into licence, make the natives subjected to our rule far more bigoted than they were when we first conquered them. Formerly, the Hindú would allow the 'Mlenchha' to drink out of his metal pot, which only required scouring to become pure once more; now he pours the water into a double leaf, or into the European's hand. Twenty-five years ago, when entering the mosques or mausolea, we removed our hats and wore our boots; now the Moslems insist upon our conforming to a practice which, in our case, means degradation. At Jeddah, the guardians of Eve's tomb only laugh when a terrier runs in and out of the doors; after a few years of British rule they would object to admitting not only the terrier, but the terrier's master. In her early relations with Persia, the Russian was as fanatical as the Persian, till the murder of an envoy taught him the more prudent way of dealing with Moslems. We have notably failed in this matter, and I should be sorry to see the experiment tried elsewhere.

"Some six years after Russia's first decided move eastwards (1869), she abandoned the direct Persian line, and adopted the new plan of turning her friend's flank by annexing the Balkan or Krasnovdsk Bay, and exploring the northern valley of the Atrek river, the road popularly known as the 'Atok,' or hill-skirt. Thereupon the alarmist openly denounced the annexation of the eastern coast of the Caspian, and the subjugation of the Turkomans, as a 'violation of treaty.' The good sense of the public refused to be scared. What sympathy, indeed, could England have with wretched Khiva, whose main industry was kidnapping Russians and enslaving Persians? What with hateful Bokhara, the very focus and head-quarters of Islamitic fanaticism; the city of barbarians, whose murderous chief, Nasr Allah, had foully put to death Stoddart and Conolly? Could we forget that, unable to reach this double-dyed assassin, despite the proverbial length of her arm, England was compelled to leave the slaughter of her envoys unavenged, to sit down and cry like an impotent crone?

"Again, the public saw no objection to the two great Powers, Russia and England, dividing between them the Empire of the East. Not a few of us were put to shame by the importance attached to establishing a craven 'neutral zone' of independent native states. The 'friendly partition of Asia, leaving no intermediate zone,' was the favourite idea of the Russian Press and of the public, especially the powerful and influential war party, or party of progress. Here, again, we took theoretically lower grounds than Russia. We were afraid to meet her; she did not fear to meet us. After all, the prize, such as it is, will fall to the better man: _detur digniori_ will be the verdict of the world. If we can win the day, let us do so; if we cannot, let us cease to accumulate futile obstacles in the path of those who deserve to win.

"And we shall gain little or nothing by the strong flanking position secured by the reoccupation of the open country of Shaul, of Kandahar, and even of Herat. Men are ever hankering after Herat and its 'stupendous earthworks.' A still better line of outlying frontier, namely, Khelat, Quetta, and Jelalabad, would avail us as little. Wanting an army, English or native, we shall be driven to moral influence, to sympathy and moral support, to moral disapprobation--a pretentiously feeble tactic without the _gros bataillons_ to give it _vis_. So the late Macgregor Laird defined moral influence in West Africa as a 68-pounder worked by British seamen.

"Our present policy must be a lively trust in the chapter of accidents, and looking forward to the day when we can place two millions of bayonets in the field. Russia has internal dangers of her own. She works cheaply; her invasions of Khiva cost her, we are told, £70,000, whilst we paid £15,000,000 for our occupation of Afghanistan. Still capitalists are beginning to inquire curiously about her budget, and she refuses to satisfy their curiosity. 'Russians' fell two per cent. in one day during last autumn, and a chilling report pronounced them to be 'shaky.' The fact is, a portion of the English Press has so long been preaching the doctrine of repudiation, that the world of debtors begins to lend its ear to the charmer: there are so many nations which can afford to _payer les Anglais_. South America may be pronounced to be 'going,' Turkey to be 'gone;' and the influence of such failures on a gigantic scale, especially when they extend to Europe and to England,--where at the present moment nothing is safe beyond ground-rents, railways, and three per cents.,--must sooner or later weigh upon Russia. Even she cannot go to war without the sinews of war; even her ingenuity will be puzzled to make _la guerre nourrir la guerre_ amongst the impecunious peoples of Central Asia.

[Sidenote: _China_.]

"But our highest prospect of happy deliverance from this terrible northern rival is still to be noticed; and that so little attention has been paid to it by our writers is not a little astonishing to the student. In Russia it must have caused a vast amount of anxious thought; and it readily explains the cautious system of her approaches, parallels, and encroachments in the East: her provisional system of indirect until ready for direct rule over her new conquests; her strategic lines of observation and demonstration; and her carefully disposed apparatus of supports, reserves, and bases of operations. _Nolens volens_, will-we nill-we, Russia must eventually absorb Kashgar; she must meet China face to face, and then her serious troubles begin.

"The dash of Tartar blood in Russian veins establishes a remote cousinhood with China. There is something of physical, and more of moral, likeness between the two peoples. Both are equally sturdy, hardy, frugal, energetic, persistent, aggressive, and brave in facing death. Both have a national speech, a peculiar alphabet, and, to go no further, a religion which distinguishes them from the rest of the world. Both are animated by the sturdy vigour of a newly awakened civilization. During the war of 1842 we facetiously said that it was rank murder to attack the Chinese troops with any missiles but oranges. Presently the Ever-Victorious Army, led by Gordon, one of England's noblest and best neglected sons, showed the might that was slumbering in a nation of three hundred millions.

"And now China is preparing herself, with that slow but terrible stedfastness of purpose which distinguishes her, to exercise her influence upon the civilized world,--upon the other three-fourths which compose the sum of humanity. After a hundred checks and defeats she has utterly annihilated the intrusive Mohammedan schism which attempted to establish its independence in Yunnan. She will do the same in Kashgar, although the dilatoriness of her proceedings, unintelligible to the Western mind, tends to create a false feeling of security. She is building a fleet and is rolling her own plates. Her army is being drilled by Europeans; the men are armed with Remingtons, and she has six manufactories for breech-loading rifles. Securely cautious of her coming strength, she declines all little wars with England and France till another dozen years or so shall enable her to meet her enemies on terms which, forecasted in 1842, would have appeared the very madness of prophecy.

"Such is the nation which is fated to contend with Russia for the glorious empire of Central Asia. This is the Power which our Press and its teachers have agreed to ignore. In the coming struggle we shall see the direct result of the Crimean War, and then, perhaps, we may reap the reward of sacrifice and losses which hitherto have added little to our honour or to our power.

'Now whether he kill Cassio, Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other, Every way makes my gain.'

[Sidenote: _Eastern Politics_.]

"When we were at Jeddah I addressed to the _Daily Telegraph_ a letter upon the 'Partition of Turkey.' This paper had not pronounced itself in January, 1876, as decidedly as in January, 1877, so the missive was published on March 7th, with the heading only changed to 'The Future of Turkey.' I did not then know that the Duke of Wellington had put forth exactly the same views upon the critical point, the main question, What is to become of Constantinople? nor could I forecast that Mr. Grant Duff, who probably glances, like other men, at the _Daily Telegraph_, would see in a dream what I saw when wide awake,--the Kingdom of Byzantium revived.

"During the last two years and a half of war and massacre, which must have cost the lives of a million human beings, the situation has shifted, but the truth remains untouched. Still the Sick Man's constitution is breaking up fast; and the political doctors and patent drugs have done him no good. What peace he now enjoys is accompanied neither by honour nor by honours. Instead of removing proud flesh and amputating gangrened limbs, the rough surgeons have cut into the very vitals of the patient. They should have pruned the tree; they preferred to bark it. Under such circumstances vitality is impossible. With acephalous governments and dynastic demoralization, diminished states and autonomous provinces, to say nothing of utter impecuniosity and of a paper money that threatens to be cheaper than assignats, ruin is a mere matter of time.

"Resolved to maintain the 'integrity of Turkey,' the doctors have disintegrated it. Turkey has become, not 'a scattered Empire like England,' but a mere 'geographical expression,' as was the Italy of the past. And now the Sick, or rather the Dying Man, has only to look forward to financial ruin, to Russification, to the reign of dementia, to spoliation, to partition--

'The dull grey close and apathetic end.'

"During the last quarter of a century the preservation of the putrid Power has cost us forty thousand lives and four hundred millions sterling. We are not likely to spend much more.

"The first letter was written, it will be remembered, under the reign of Abd el Aziz, the suicided and 'forbicated' Vitellius, when the troubles began at Podgorizza. In those days (1875-76) the general reader knew nothing of Dalmatia, Servia, and the Herzegovina, beyond what he had learnt from our late friends Gardner Wilkinson, Alexander Paton, Miss Muir Mackenzie (the late Lady Sebright), and from the present Viscountess Strangford. Mr. Arthur Evans had not published either his brilliant book or his still more brilliant letters in the _Manchester Examiner_. The older writers did indeed bring out the fact, afterwards ignored by a host of 'Our Correspondents,' that the Turk of the Slav Provinces has not one drop of Turkish blood in his veins, that he cannot speak a word of Turkish, and that he detests the Turk, especially the Effendi from Constantinople, with the bitterest hate; witness the murdering of two Pashas, Mehemet Ali and Sa'ad ed Din, by the Albanians in September, 1878. Even the dress of the Slav 'Turk,' his big turban, his tight jacket, and his bag breeches, are those of old Slavonia, and contrast strongly with the flowing robes of the Osmanli, whom you insult by calling a 'Toork,' _i.e._ a wild wanderer, a nomad. He is by blood a cousin of the Russian Slavo-Finn, an element which peoples nearly half of the great Empire, which forms thirty-four out of seventy-one millions. In creed he is simply a renegade Christian, an Islamized Paulicean or Bogomil, with all the malignant animosity of a renegade, with a horror and an abomination of the creed which he abandoned. Hence the tenacity and fury which he displayed at Plevna and the Balkan Passes, where Russian met Russian, where heretical Jugo-Slav struggled with orthodox Slavo-Finn. This is the true history of the 'gentle and gallant Turk,' as far as the Bosniac element is concerned. And that element supplied Turkey with one hundred thousand of her best Regulars.

"Like most outsiders, I cannot see the difficulty of settling the Eastern Question (_malè pereat!_), but I thoroughly see the danger of leaving it, as at present, half settled. Of course, the distribution of the spoil and the Turkish debt favour the conservation of Turkey. But although the _haute politique_ makes all kinds of delays, ambiguities, considerations, and mysteries, the eye of common sense can detect none. As regards matters of finance, if the Powers that profit by annexation will only guarantee, as in fairness they should, the liabilities of Turkey, one prop of the rotten old pile is at once knocked away. And even total loss is better than this chronic state of irritation now afflicting the European system; this disturbance of trade and industry; this fool's paradise of the gaming-table; this armed peace, which has many of the evils and little of the good that war brings.

"Our great diplomatic triumph in the second half of the nineteenth century has removed from us the fatal necessity of propping up 'Turkism' in Europe. The late occupation of Bosnia by the Austrians shows what are the Bosniacs and their Beys. Savage and brutal as Krevosjes or Cimariots, they have all the Moslem vices, none of the simple and noble virtues which distinguish their peasant co-religionists in Caramania, Anatolia, and other parts of Asia Minor, where the Faithful number three to one. Their bullying tyranny was exasperated for many a generation by the conviction that, despite numerical inferiority of one to three (3,380,000 to 9,500,000), theirs was the ruling class; and that the _Mudir_, the _Wali_, the Ministry, and the Sultan himself would invariably support their iniquities, unless compelled by the Great Powers of Europe to do simple justice under threat of war. His temper was not improved by the aggravating presence of the Kafir; and his habit of carrying weapons enabled him to gratify every whim by a stab of the ready yataghan. He had never heard of the classical policy embodied in Sultan Selim's will--_Farriku baynhumá wa Sallitu alayhumá_ ('Breed dissensions between them both, Moslems and Christians, and rule them both'). Selim El-Fátih (the conqueror) left a will, you see, like Peter Velika, and their merits were, being the expressions of hereditary racial thoughts, like Lord Palmerston and M. Thiers. Yet he recognized the working of this obsolete Machiavelism as it still prevails throughout the Turkish Empire. Whenever a dispute arises between the rival religions about a field, a woman, or a boy whose face has been slapped, the Nazarene applies officially to the Pasha. The Pasha lends an attentive ear to the complaint, quotes all the Hatts Sheríf, Humayoon, and so forth, and exhorts the petitioner to remember that under a Constitutional Government (Heaven save the mark!) men of all faiths are equal. When the Mussulman proffers his counter-complaint, the same Pasha swears by his beard that no earthly power can make the Infidel take rank with True Believers. This was the tactic that caused the Syrian massacre of 1860. My theory stands proved by the fact that in the outlying villages and hamlets, where no Turks were, the Mohammedan peasants fought against the emissaries from Damascus, in defence of their Christian neighbours.

"Austria has at length adopted the course prescribed to her many years ago. Prince Eugène was the first name of note that advised the Holy Roman Empire to abandon her worse than useless Italian conquests, and to bring her weight to bear upon the Ottoman. Bosnia and the Herzegovina are in these days political necessaries to her; and the visit of the Emperor to Dalmatia was the beginning of the present policy. It would have been carried out two years ago, only circumstances then tied the hands of Count Andrassy, who throughout the affair has shown himself a statesman. Without the inner regions the stout Dalmatian kingdom cannot hold in the world the rank which it deserves to hold. The country of Diocletian, the mother of Emperors, was the narrowest realm of Europe, a mere masque, a face without a head. She had the finest ports in the Mediterranean and the noblest maritime population, while she had nothing to import, nothing to export, nothing to transport. Meanwhile the barbarous and exclusive policy of the Porte cut off the interior from the outer world. The precious metals, the 'Dalmatic gold,' famed by the Romans, silver, copper, iron, and coal remained undug, and the timber, the cattle, and the wool never saw the sea. Building was confined to forts; entrenchments took the place of roads, and whenever a traveller passed through the country he carried his life in his hand.

"But things are now changed. After an occupation which has been a campaign costing some four thousand lives, Austria, by the mandate of Europe, has pacified Bosnia and the Herzegovina. She has taken the first step towards becoming a great Slav power. These modern Sarmatians and Scythians are divided by ethnologists into a multitude of races, Slovaks, Slovenes, and so forth. I know only two halves. The majority would be the Northern (Russo-Orthodox), the minority the Southern (Jugo-Slavs) and Catholics. Here religion, not race, draws a hard-and-fast line. Dual empire has now become virtually a _Triregno_, as she would have been but for Count Beust, so much more distinguished as an Ambassador than a Minister. The conquest of Bosnia, for such it is, puts an end to Dualism; the Slav will now have his rights. Austria may lose her 'better half,' Hungary, which threatens to renew the scandals of 1849. The land of the Magyar, once the _Antemurale Christianitatis_, the outlying bulwark of Christendom, has now become a country of white Turks, of 'Ogres,' as Mr. Freeman calls them, of Ugro-Altaics, more Turkish than the Turks. There is nothing to prevent her becoming a great Jugo-Slav power, ever extending herself to the south-eastward till she meets the Greek. Thus she will halve with Russia the Slav world. By cultivating the Christian populations on the Lower Danube, and by a league with Old Bulgaria (Servia, Roumania, Roumelia, etc.), added to Bosnia, she would invest the Muscovite rival to the south and the south-west, while Germany hems it in to the west and north-west. Indeed, Russia declares that such a union, forming a state of siege impossible to endure, would be a calamity second only to the restoration of the Polish kingdom.

"Here, then, has begun the distribution of the Dying Man's estate. The characteristic of the situation is its purely provisional nature. No one is satisfied as matters now stand. All are, without exception, claimants, and urgent claimants, for something more than 'administrative autonomy,' either municipal or provincial. The 'rebellious principalities,' Montenegro and Servia, have enlarged their boundaries at the expense of Bulgaria; but both want more, and will have more. The new 'tributary principality' of Bulgaria Proper, as I suppose we must call her, will not be satisfied with quasi-independence. As soon as she is strong enough she will fight again, and, unless amalgamated with the 'Servian accession,' she will insist upon becoming Russian. Meanwhile the Russians have not withdrawn their armies, and they are justified in not doing so as long as Austria holds Bosnia and England holds Cyprus. Eastern Roumelia, which is Southern Bulgaria, will obtain her freedom only by uniting with Bulgaria Proper and Russia.

"By the way, I must notice the notable injustice of the European Press, that expects the wretched Bulgarians, who have been treated like wild beasts for the last five hundred years, to show all the virtues of freemen. There is an old prejudice against them since Pushkin sang--

'Be a Pole, or be a Russian, Frenchman, Austrian, or Hungarian, Englishman, or Dane, or Prussian, Anything but base Bulgarian.'

Nothing can palliate their 'atrocities;' but what horrors have they not to revenge? We all remember Lord Macaulay's answer when the Jews were taunted with preferring low and immoral callings. But fair play in English politics threatens to be a thing of the past. At least, the Bulgarians have as yet enjoyed very little of our boasted national quality. And Bulgaria literally has been what Turkey will be, broken up, distributed into Roumania, Servia, and Roumelia. She is in the world (without knowing it), a Southern Poland.

"Another sturdy claimant is Greece, not including her neighbour and old congener Albania. The writings of Messrs. Gladstone and Freeman have told the public of Turco-Græcia's wrongs. Since 1872, when her independence was recognized, she has been shut up in the barren Morea and the rocky deserts north of the financial world as a turf-defaulter; and the massacre of Marathon is better known to our generation than the battle of Marathon. But she now begins to see the error of her ways. She makes roads, she proposes to pay her debt, and she puts down brigandage. She behaved with exemplary patience during the Russo-Turkish War; and we must excuse the irritability which presses for the proposed concession--a miserable slice. But her turn will come. Her manifest destiny is to divide with Austria the broad lands between Albania and the Despoto Dagh, the Rhodope range. Meanwhile, Albania--classic land of ruffians, hemmed in by Montenegro, Servia, and Greece--clamours for self-rule. Let her take it and supply bath-men to Byzantium.

"So much for Turkey in Europe. In Asia, Turkey has lost her most valuable possessions: Kars, the great base of military operations; and Batoum, the port which commands the Bosphorus. The Russians intend to run their fine harbour against Trebizond, and to divert as much as they can of the caravan-trade that enriches the latter. Hence their obstinacy in the matter of that 'interesting tribe,' the Lazes. The Muscovite wants nothing more at present in Western Asia, and it was a second masterly stroke of policy, our pledging ourselves to defend that which needs no defence. The Russian has nothing to do with the bleak and barren mountains of Armenia, which must also count amongst the rebellious provinces; and they are sturdy fellows, the men of Adana, of Old Cilicia. Nor is she tempted by the rocky wastes of Kurdistan, where every brigand 'subject' would want waiting upon by a soldier. She may assist and laugh till she cries at the pleasant spectacle of Mrs. Britannia performing the part of 'Reform by Moral Force,' and proposing an honest gendarmerie, just tribunals, and tax-gathering publicans turned to saints. If England were 'doctrinary' she would either let the task severely alone or she would appoint to every _wilayat_ (province) a 'Resident,' after the fashion of British India. But compromise is her specific, her panacea for home use. She will do neither this nor that; she will use _mezzi termini_ (half-measures), rely on the rule of thumb, and in fact meddle and muddle her position between the two stools. Liberal measures of reform have been freely promised, but that stale trick now deceives nobody. It is very well to command, but what is the use where none obey? Europe has had so much dust of this kind thrown into her eyes, that she now endures the process without writhing. And the Turk virtually says, 'Pay us, and we will give ear to you; no loan, no reforms.' Which means, if you do not pay him he won't reform; and if you do pay him, he will do ditto. The truth is, he can't reform, and if he could he wouldn't. When Turkey assented to the proceedings of the Berlin Congress, the credulous dreamed that she intended to keep her treaty engagements. Not she! When Turkey promises, suspect a lie; when she swears, be sure of a lie. What to her are treaties, save things to be broken? Talk of a treaty between a dog and its fleas!

"Our beloved Syria and Palestine must also be drawn from the vampire claws of Turkey--this daughter of chaos. The Holy Land for many past centuries has not enjoyed a gleam of prosperity, except when connected with, or, rather, when placed under, Egypt. It was a miserable and mistaken policy of Lord Palmerston in 1840, which, arresting the progress of Mohammed Ali Pasha, made England the cat's-paw of Russia. The old Bāsh-Buzzuk of Cavala, as Sultan of Turkey, would have given fresh life to the obsolete and effete, the battered and broken empire of the barbarian; and his ambition was, naturally enough, dreaded by the northern pretenders to Constantinople. Let one sentence suffice to show the difference of development between the two Pashaliks. Syria has not one made port, Egypt has three; Egypt has a dozen railways, Syria boasts of only one carriageable road--the Beyrout-Damascus--and that one French. Of late years many efforts have been made to restore the Israelites to their own; and there is, I believe, a project of the kind--financial, not sentimental--actually in hand. The idea is to obtain the consent and the subscriptions of the Jews in every part of the world, and to purchase the tract between Dan and Beersheba by means of a loan to the Porte. Jerusalem cannot, in the present state of Europe, become the exclusive possession of any one European Power. But already the land has been almost all bought up by the Jews, and the City--like its holy sisters, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safet--now virtually belongs to them.

"Moreover, Syria is fated to become in a few years most important to England. The Euphrates Valley Line, under the surveillance of the Duke of Sutherland, has at last fallen into shape. Instead of a Levantine port, Alexandretta, Tripoli, or Tyre, and the great river for termini, it will set out from Constantinople and pass, _viâ_ Baghdad, to Persia and India. This great highway--the only means of consolidating Turkey in Asia Minor--has hitherto been delayed only by the activity of Muscovite agents, and by the systematic self-effacement of our own. Before many years are past a branch of the main trunk-line will connect it with the Syrian coast opposite Cyprus. Baalbak and Palmyra are not yet 'played out.' These main stations, on the first and best of the many 'overlands,' will presently hear the whistle of the railway, and in the evening of their days they will again be made happy. The Euphrates Valley system will be to the Suez Canal what the 'Egyptian Bosphorus' has been to the Cape of Good Hope.

"And then we shall recognize the full value of Cyprus. After the melancholy policy of the pedagogue-demagogue in 1862, that restored the ruined Corfu, where some few years ago there was a popular tumult in favour of bringing back the old masters, England must secure ports and stations for her ironclads. The marvellous excitement caused by our last scrap of annexation shows the way the popular wind blows. Such a cackling over such a very small egg! We do not wish to make the Mediterranean an English lake, but we object to its being a French lake or a Russian lake, like the Black and Caspian Seas. Candia and Mitylene would certainly not oppose the hoisting of the Union Jack. Of course, those possessions will at first be unpopular--they will cost money, soldiers will die of fever, and officers will grumble. The Turks, after making the noble islands howling wildernesses, will propose to raise loans upon their 'surplus revenues.' But British gold will drain these homes of fever, ports will be laid out, and population will be introduced. We are not justified in failing where the Crusaders and the Knights succeeded so grandly.

"The destiny of Turkey in Africa is equally manifest. France, who has by no means abandoned her claim to 'hegemony,' would add, if she pleased, to her Algerine provinces the fair lands of Tunis as far east as the plains of Jafara, where the southern bend of the coast ends in the Gulf of Sidra. The limits are roughly east long. (G.) 8° to 12°, a linear length of two hundred and forty direct geographical miles. Already there is a report that the offer has been made to her, despite the active opposition of Italy. This latter might be contented with Tripoli, as far as the eastern shore of the Gulf of Sidra. But, since her emancipation, she has shown a turbulent spirit, which threatens the peace of Europe. I lately met a young Italian diplomatist, who would hardly speak to an Englishman because we hold Malta as our _haupt-piquet_. The occupation of Cyprus was a severe blow: the three standards in St. Mark's Square, Venice, represent Cyprus, Candia, and the Morea. 'Unredeemed Italy' means an Italy 'free from Etna to Trieste.' It represents, I have shown, amongst the moderates, the annexation of the Trentino, the duchy of Gorizia, and the peninsula of Istria. The immoderates add the whole of Dalmatia and part of Albania; in fact, wherever the Roman '_regiones_' reached.

"I say 'Tripoli as far as East Sidra,' the knob projecting into the Mediterranean eastward of Sidra, and including Barca and the Cyrenaic, should be added to Egypt, which would thus be prolonged from east long. (G.) 24° to 20°, also about two hundred and forty direct geographical miles. Grennah, of Old Cyrene, has a noble port, lying at a short distance south-east of Malta, and this will be the terminus of a future railway, connecting the glorious lands lying along the Mediterranean with the Nile Valley. By this line passenger-traffic shall escape the sea-voyage between Malta and Egypt, whilst the Cairo-Sioot, prolonged to Cosseir, will save the mortification of the Suez Gulf.

"As regards Egypt, we were only beginning to take into consideration the grand results brought about by the great Mohammed Ali Pasha and his family. We want from her nothing but the free right of transit and transport; we are resolved that the highway of the nations shall not be barricaded. We may eventually be compelled to annex her, but that measure is still distant, although lately advocated in England, and feared in France. Meanwhile, we might be a little kinder to her. Whilst the Turks are allowed freely to repudiate their debts, poor Egypt must pay her usurious Christian creditors the uttermost farthing. The Powers of Europe unwisely and wickedly compelled her to take part in the last Russo-Turkish campaign. We have hitherto refused to set her free from the immense 'benevolences' and other douceurs, heavier than any tribute, which perpetually find their way into the Seraglio, and into the ministerial pockets at Stamboul; and now that all the family income is mortgaged, the head of the house will still be obliged to hold his position by bribery. Surely the absolute independence or annexation of Egypt has now become a necessity.

"Remains the real 'bone of contention'--Constantinople. Europe has generally assumed that, with this queen of the Golden Horn added to her dominions, the great Muscovite power would become irresistible; men and statesmen have made it an article of faith. I am far from believing in such results; at the same time, it would be unwise to allow Russia the chance. The problem to be worked out is this: How, when the Eastern half of Europe is almost wholly Slav, to exclude the Slav from Stamboul--to create another island like Roumania, breaking the Slavonic flood? Practically it was solved many years ago. Volney narrowly escaped the Bastille for advocating a Franco-Russian coalition against Turkey. When the Emperor Joseph I. of Austria had shaken the equilibrium of Europe by his alliance with Catharine II., the great traveller saw the political necessity of his project, namely, a Christian State having command of the Bosphorus. The Duke of Wellington, as has been told, recommended it in the same words, and the Russians have never refused to accept the measure. What says the Turk himself? 'For Turkey, Roumelia is the Past, Anatolia is the Future.' Pleasant prospect, by-the-by, for poor Anatolia! And what say his serfs? 'Avoid the Turk if you can; for either he eats you out of very love, or in his rage he tears you to pieces.'

"I would abolish the very name of Constantinople, whose hateful sound reminds us of religious cruelty and hypocrisy. Let us substitute a kingdom or principality of Byzantium,--a Hanse town mediatized by Europe. Her territory would extend northwards, through Eastern Roumelia, to the Balkans, and westwards to Rhodope, a fair and fertile country, somewhat larger than increased Servia. Protected by the Great Powers, she would be governed by a prince chosen from amongst the ruling families of Europe. She would be neither Greek, nor Bulgarian, nor Jewish, nor Armenian, nor Roumelian, nor Frank, but something of all. The Hellene would make her illustrious by his political aptitude and literary gifts; the Israelite and the Armenian would enrich her by banking and commerce; the Bulgarian and the Roumelian would be her hewers of wood and drawers of water; and, finally, the Frank would connect her with the civilization of the West. I know nothing in Europe which shows a finer combination of intellect and labour than this would be. No stronger dyke could be opposed to the Muscovite flood.

"Turkey would thus be confined to Asia Minor proper, with Broussa or Koniah, the old Iconium, for a capital. Her new frontier, bordering on Russia and Persia, would remain untouched, and southwards she would be barred by a line drawn from Alexandretta, _viâ_ Aleppo, to the Euphrates. She would thus cease to be an incubus on Europe, especially on South-Eastern Europe, whose 'neutral armaments' must last till relieved of her hideous presence. Thus the evil effects of her extended influence, which exists by acting upon the hates and fears of her neighbours, would presently be abated, leaving behind them the battle and the wrack. Thus her hopeless misgovernment and her inveterate maladministration would at once be confined within comparatively narrow limits. The old and venerable kingdoms, the Syria of the Seleucidæ, for instance, which her iron heel has trodden and trampled into wastes and deserts; where ruins are the sole remnants of a glorious and memorious past; where even hope, man's last delusion, can hardly cheer the prospect of the future, would soon recover a prosperity now all but forgotten. Christendom would once more be free from the deadening presence of that Mohammedan Mongol, whose hateful boast it ever was that--

'Where once the Sultan's horse has trod, Grass neither grows, nor shrub, nor tree.'

Ay, truly quoth Mazeppa--

'The year before A Turkish army had marched o'er; And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod, The verdure flies the bloody sod.'

"'This is a mere spoliation of Turkey,' I hear some one cry. Well, yes; the Osmanli rose to empire by spoiling others, and it is now his turn to be spoiled. What he won by the sword he must keep by the sword, or the sword will snatch it from him. His presence in Europe is in these days an anachronism; it might be tolerated for good, certainly not for evil. He is fit only for Asia Minor, where, untrammelled by rival Plenipotentiaries and unscrupulous Ambassadors, he can throw off the tights that embarrass his limbs, and become once more the 'man on horseback.' There, at least, he can clean abolish his _Irádes_, his _Tanzimát_, and other bastard forms of constitutionalism, which, combined with so-called reforms, have destroyed the old forms without substituting anything new; which have weakened his material powers, spoiled his temper, and debased his character. There he can revert to those mediæval institutions that made the race what it was; to the eternal '_non possumus_,' to the 'Pacha of many Tales,' to the slave and the concubine, to the eunuch and the mute, to the bowstring, the bastinado, and the bag for the light o' love. There _la gent qui porte le turban_ may cultivate its mixture of childishness and senile cunning; its levity of mind, cloaked by solemn garb and mien; its mental indolence, with spasmodic efforts by way of change; and its conscious weakness warring with overweening arrogance. But Europe will no longer bear in her bosom this survival of the Unfittest. _Apage Sathanas!_ Return, Tartar, to that Tartary whence thou earnest. These are the words of St. Louis, and they shall be heard."

* * * * *

[He also wrote later on--]

"THE PARTITION OF TURKEY.

"The curious are beginning to ask, Do statesmen, politicians, and Foreign Offices really wish to settle the so-called 'Eastern Question'? Does the trade hesitate to take it in hand from the dread vision of half its occupation gone? And yet what a host of evils such _fainéance_ breeds! Take, for instance, the last miserable move, known to politics as the 'Cession of Dulcigno,' a paltry village on the wild Albanian shore. It kept the fleets of Europe at bay for a couple of months; it kept the whole of Southeastern Europe in 'hot water;' it kept newspapers in news while starving trade; and it supplied history with an episode the most comical, the most absurd. Of the Turk we may say (with Spenser)--

'That his behaviour altogether was _Alla Turchesca_.'

He has adhered to his traditional policy--procrastination, promising, non-performance. 'The friendly concert of the Great Powers' has been sorely tried, strained to breaking point. Bulgaria, 'one and indivisible,' has been arming and drilling instead of tilling and earing. Greece has made it the business of her national life to raise a loan and an army of 60,000 men. Albania has, perhaps, fared the worst. The Porte encouraged her to resist the so-called 'will of Europe,' and to oppose with all her might the transfer of Albanians to Montenegrins. Then the Porte executed the normal manœuvre _volte face_; commanded, or pretended to command, her to give up her property; and made a happy despatch of her recusant chiefs--by means of the usual cup of coffee. The turbulent mountain region is now between two stools; she is neither Turkish nor Albanian, she is lost to the Porte without having gained her independence; and, like the Libanus in the past, she has become one of the 'tinder-boxes' of the West. Meanwhile the work of the European world has suffered, and still suffers, from an armed peace which has many of the evils and none of the good which war brings.

"When I last wrote (1879) the Turco-Russian campaign of two years, which must have cost the lives of a million human beings, had dragged itself to its weary end. It left the Sick Man weaker and more prostrated than ever--even the political doctors with their patent drugs could do no good to a constitution fast breaking up. The short respite from his sufferings called peace was not a 'peace with honour.' Resolved to maintain the 'integrity of Turkey,' the rough surgeons dismembered, disintegrated her. She was, before that treatment, a 'scattered Empire like England;' after it she became a 'geographical expression,' as was the Italy of the eighteenth century. Virtually she lost all her European provinces, except Roumelia, which took the peculiarly inconsequent title of Eastern Bulgaria. Dynastic demoralization and despotic government; diminished territory and autonomous provinces; national bankruptcy, with confusion of finance, unpaid debts, and a paper money which caused disturbances wherever it circulated, have made the Sick Man a dying man; and, instead of soothing and syruping his last moments, the greedy heirs standing by his bedside are wrangling and recriminating and calling one another names over the approaching distribution of his property.

"The 'future of Turkey' was virtually settled in 1816, when 'Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington' proposed to the great Muscovite Empire the mediatization of Constantinople. Russia saw how great a boon this step would be to her. She may look forward to absorbing the Queen of the Bosphorus after half a century; in the present state of things she knows that the superb possession would be a well-nigh unmitigated evil. It would cut her Empire in two: and the southern would only injure the sounder and sturdier northern half. The _status quo_ she knew to be equally detrimental; autocratic governments must obey popular will; and an ebullition of national rage may at any moment force on a campaign like that of 1877-78. She wants rest; and she wishes to recruit her finances, to reorganize her armies, and to settle conclusions with the Tartars and the Chinese. In fact, peace in Europe, but not an armed peace, is a desideratum to her, and she can obtain it only when Constantinople becomes a free town. She knew this half a century ago, and she knows it still.

"Meanwhile, the partition of Turkey has been going on merrily. In the war brought on mainly by our old enemy Rashíd Pasha, the 'rebellious Principalities,' Montenegro and Servia, have enlarged their boundaries; but both want more, and both will have more. For the characteristic of the actual 'situation' is its purely provisional nature. No one is satisfied as matters now stand; all are without exception claimants, and urgent claimants, for something more than 'administrative autonomy,' either municipal or provincial. The new 'tributary principality' of Bulgaria Proper, as I suppose we must call her, will not be satisfied with _quasi_ independence. She has spent the last two years in preparations for a campaign; in buying arms and in drilling under Russian officers. She waits only for Greece to begin the game; whilst Greece says, 'Gentlemen of Bulgaria, fire first.' It is the old story of the Earl of Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan. Eastern Roumelia, which is Southern Bulgaria, cannot be satisfied with her rank as a mere province, even under a nominal Christian Governor whose ministry rules. She must conquer her freedom; and she will conquer it by uniting with Bulgaria Proper, and by throwing herself into the arms of Russia, if we compel her to commit this act of political suicide.

"Greece, that progressive little kingdom, which has been so much and so unjustly abused by the sentimentalists of England, behaved with exemplary patience during the Russo-Turkish War. She allowed herself to be cajoled by promise after promise, and now she finds that--

'In native swords and native ranks, The only hope of freedom dwells.'

Action, in fact, is thrust upon her. The two Conferences of Berlin promised her a thin slice of enslaved Greece, which she thankfully accepted as an earnest of more. It would weary the reader to recount the miserable subterfuges and tergiversation of Turkey, who alternately presents the bittock to her lips and withdraws it, proposing impossible conditions. In this mean matter politics are complicated by something like personal spite and racial hatred. The Turk makes it a _pundonor_ not to yield to the Greek; he would keep for his own use the right of robbery and rape, kidnapping and murdering. The Greek will bear no more the hateful yoke.

"The former declares with perfect untruth that the transfer of Janina, Larissa, and other places would be the loss of a commanding strategic line. The Greek asserts that he must also have Epirus, Thessaly, and even Thrace, because the whole country is Greek in language, manners, and religion. And a fresh complication has sprung up. Greece has been making, for her, immense sacrifices, and an army of 30,000 to 40,000 men will soon eat up a State whose population is 1,500,000, and whose revenue of £3,600,000, with a deficit of half a million and a debt of eighteen millions; it would hardly keep her in bread and cheese. Every day costs her more money than she can afford; the business of everyday life is at a standstill.

"Austria has at length adopted the course prescribed to her in the last century by the soldier and statesman, Prince Eugène of Savoy, who advised her to abandon her worse than useless Italian conquests, and to bring her weight to bear upon the Turk. After an 'occupation,' which was a campaign costing some 4000 lives, she has established herself in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which are geographical necessities to the 'Kingdom of Dalmatia,' the old 'Mother of Emperors.' Here she has done, despite her enemies, excellent work. A traveller writes to me, 'The improvements effected in the new protectorate during the last two years must be seen to be believed. The military roads extending from Brood on the Sava to Serajevo, and from Serajevo through Herzegovina, by Mostar, to the mouth of the Narenta, do infinite honour to the Engineer Department, and, considering the immense outlay of the Imperial Treasury, to the forethought and generosity of the Government. A capable police has been organized, and district courts and schools have been established throughout the length and breadth of the land. I found perfect order and tranquillity prevailing everywhere, and well will it be for the best interests, social and political, of the people, the farther Austrian rule is extended and the longer it is perpetuated.'

"Austria took formal charge of the Ottoman in South-Eastern Europe at the Congress of Berlin--a step enthusiastically hailed by a statesman as 'glad tidings of great joy.' The Emperor's journey to Dalmatia (1876) was the beginning of that policy, and we have still to see the results of the Imperial round of visits in the summer of 1880. It is understood that the attitude of England has revived the league known as the Dreikaiserbund, and that Germany and Austria are united in the determination that the other third should not profit exclusively by annexing Turkish territory. When the war breaks out, and it may break out at any moment, Austria cannot remain passive. Under pain of retrograding she must advance. Adrianople will become necessary to the Dual Empire when Greece enlarges herself; when Bulgaria shall conquer her independence, the course of events must carry Austria forward to Salonica. There is nothing to prevent her becoming a great Jugo-Slav (South Slavonic) power, the mainstay of the Catholic Slavs, as Russia is of the Northern or orthodox. By cultivating the Christian populations on the Lower Danube, and by a league with 'Old Bulgaria' (Servia, Roumania, Roumelia, etc.), she would invest the Muscovite rival to the south and the south-west, while Germany hems him in to the west and the north-west. Russia declares that such a union, forming a state of siege impossible to endure, would be a calamity second only to the restoration of the kingdom of Poland.

"Austria has two opponents who will serve only to force her forwards. The Land of the Magyar has become a country of 'white Turks,' of 'ogres,' as Mr. Freeman calls them, more Ottoman than the Ottomans. Kossuth's lately published volumes explain the reason why; but the ambitions and the passions of 1848, which brought about the unnatural and abominable union, cannot outlast a second generation. The other rival is Italy, whose statesmen view, with a curious mixture of rage and spite, the aggrandizement of a quondam master. Since Italia became _una_, her politicians have shown a turbulent spirit which menaces the peace of Europe. _Italia Irredenta_, an old idea, but an expression apparently coined in 1878, means much. The _Redenta_ represents an 'Italy free from Etna to Trieste.' The Moderates would be satisfied with annexing the Trentino, the duchy of Gorizia, and the peninsula of Istria. The 'Immoderates' add all Dalmatia and part of Albania; in fact, wherever the Roman _regiones_ extended. But Trieste will not be Italian. Mr. Disraeli said, 'The port of Trieste is not a mere Austrian port; it belongs to the German Confederation; and an attack on Trieste is not an attack on Austria alone, but also on Germany.' The managing man, _par excellence_, of Europe has as openly declared that if the Italians attempt to march upon the Vice-Queen of the Adriatic, they will meet a sword-point which is not Austrian. Italy might do better than to lay out her income upon 'bloated armaments,' a disproportionate army which she is still increasing, and colossal ironclads, which any torpedo-cockboat may blow up. She is one of the poorest of nations, in the very richest of soils; her agriculture has progressed little beyond that of the 'Georgics;' her railroads are a disgrace; so is her post-office; her finances suffer from the good old practice of converting a stocking into a bank; and her business is injured by her over-'cuteness' and greed of gain. She is no longer the charming country of the early nineteenth century. Freedom has taught her all the roughness, but little of the virtue of the Northerner. Honesty seems to be at its lowest ebb. The knife is king. Whatever Italy has of genius, energy, and 'go-ahead' is now devoted to warlike preparations, and to dreams of conquest. The awaking will be bitter.

"So much for Turkey in Europe, where, despite Mr. Redhouse, she can hardly be said to exist. In Asia, or rather Asia Minor, her future home, she has lost her most valuable possessions--Kars, the great base of military operations, and Batoum, the rival of Trebizonde, and the port that commands the Bosphorus. The Muscovite really requires nothing more in Western Asia; and it was a masterly stroke of policy our pledging ourselves to protect what wants no protection. It is again the Dean's--

'When nothing's left to need defence They build a magazine.'

But here again Russia is being forced forward. She has nothing to do with the bleak and barren mountains of Armenia, an Asiatic Scotland; but the cries of the unfortunate Christians, though peremptorily suppressed in the Turkish papers, are exciting legitimate Muscovite sympathies. It is the old story of the 'Bulgarian atrocities.' Armenia, when I last wrote, was a 'rebellious province,' and she was to be put down by slipping at her the Kurd bloodhound. This race of bandits, fanatical as it is ferocious, has perpetrated every horror under the sun; and the complication of a hunger-year has made the desolate Christians ready to accept any rule. And now they are attacking in force Persia, the neighbour and ally of Russia, so as to compel the latter to remove.

"The 'reform by moral force,' the honest gendarmerie, the just tribunals, and the tax-gathering publicans turned to saints, all these choice projects of a future for Asia Minor have turned out, as might have been expected, the merest visions, baseless as a mirage. If England were _doctrinaire_, she would either let the task severely alone or she would appoint to every government (_vilayet_) of Turkey a British 'Resident,' after the fashion of Anglo-India. But compromise is her specific; it is a panacea for home use, and, _ergo_, it is a panacea everywhere. She has done neither this nor that; she has adopted _mezzi termini_ (half-measures); she has again applied the rule of thumb; she has 'meddled and muddled' once more. How perfectly she has failed is known to every newspaper reader.

"A number of English officers, mostly ignorant of the languages and customs of the East, have been made Consuls and Vice-Consuls in Asia Minor. Turkey, on her side, has sent Englishmen, with high official rank in her armies, to inspect provinces, to inquire into abuses, and to send in long reports for instant pigeon-holing. This is again mere dust thrown in the general eyes. As Sultan of Turkey, the old Bāsh-Buzzuk of Cavala would have given new life to the battered and broken empire of the 'unspeakable;' and, naturally enough, his ambition was dreaded by the northern pretenders to Constantinople. Let one sentence suffice to show the difference of development between the two. Syria has not one made harbour; Egypt has three. Egypt has a dozen railroads; Syria boasts only of one carriageable highway, and that is French property. But Palestine grows in importance every year. Mr. Laurence Oliphant has surveyed the land of Gilead, the eastern frontier; and, supported by the Israelitish capitalists of Europe, he proposes to restore that part of Judæa to her old owners. Captain Cameron, equally well backed, has virtually begun the Euphrates Valley line, despite the adverse forecasts of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Jerusalem, it is true, cannot, in the present state of Europe, become the exclusive possession of any European Power. But already almost all the land around has been bought up by the Jews, and the Sacred City, like her holy sisters, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safet, may be said to belong to them. The sooner Syria is made over to Egypt the better.

"Then we shall recognize the full value of Cyprus. The marvellous excitement, caused at home and abroad, by this latest scrap of annexation shows the way the popular wind blows--the reaction of the melancholy policy which restored and ruined Corfu. We do not wish to make the Mediterranean an 'English lake;' but it is, and ever will be, our highway to India and to Indo-China; and we reasonably object to its becoming a French lake or a Russian lake. And England wants secure ports and stations for her guardhouses, the ironclads. Candia and Mitylene would not oppose the hoisting of the Union Jack. These acquisitions must be unpopular at first--they will cost money, and men will die of fever. The Turks, who occupied three centuries of misrule in making the noble islands howling wildernesses, will clamour as they now do for the 'surplus revenues' produced by British blood and gold. Rome was not built in a day, nor will Cyprus be restored in a week. But our energy and industry must at last prevail. We will clean out harbours, raise cities, and drain away malaria. We are not justified in failing where our crusading ancestors succeeded so grandly.

"As regards Egypt we are beginning only now to appreciate the grand results brought about by the great high-minded Ali Pasha and his successors. We want from her nothing but the free right of transit and transport; but we are resolved that the great highway of nations shall not be barricaded by her or by others. Meanwhile, the absolute independence of Egypt has become a necessity. Her connection with Turkey is an unmixed and unmitigated evil. She wants all her hands; and yet she was compelled to send a large contingent to the last Russo-Turkish campaign. When the Turks are freely allowed wholesale 'repudiation,' the Nile Valley must pay her usurious creditors the uttermost farthing of a public debt individually contracted. She wants all her money, and she should, in common justice, be freed from her heavy tribute, and from the heavier benevolences and _douceurs_ which perpetually find their way to the Seraglio, or rather into ministerial pockets. And Egypt is at present, despite the rose-water reports of officials, who take a personal pride in writing, not the truth but what is wished to be the truth, far from comfortable. Abyssinia has placed her between the horns of a dilemma. She must either grant or not grant a port to the barbarous and bloodthirsty Nestorians called Christians. In the former case, the only imports will be arms and ammunition, especially the latter, for Johannes, the Emperor, has thousands of breech-loaders, but no cartridges. In the latter case she will be in a state of chronic war with her turbulent neighbour, who is ever threatening her inland frontier.

"And Egypt has lately offended the moral sense of Europe by a peculiarly retrograde Mohammedan measure--the systematic revival of the import slave-trade. England has a manner of convention with her for suppressing it: but the provisions of 1877 should be made more stringent. She has now reached that point of civilization when she can afford to proclaim a total abolition of compulsory labour, the full and immediate emancipation of the 'chattel.' Slaves and eunuchs, the latter denounced by Islamism, are mere articles of luxury for pashas and beys. I will not deny that when the infamous revival of trade in human beings was brought to their notice, her Ministry addressed a circular letter to the _Mudirs_ or provincial Governors, and appointed a director for its suppression. But this, again, was the Eastern trick of _poudre aux yeux_. The director went up the Nile, and the slaves came down the Red Sea. Then the director, having apparently done enough for a rose-water report, retired to his winter quarters at Cairo, and the slaves returned to the Nile. Meanwhile the Ministry, whilst permitting this shameful traffic, has systematically neglected the gold and silver placers discovered on the Midian coast, and evidently extending far southwards; in fact, the old Ophir and Havilah. In Turkish Arabia (the _vilayet_ province of Yemen, near Sana'a), a new digging has been discovered, and, with true Oriental exaggeration, has been proclaimed 'one of the richest in the world.' But in the hands of the Turkish Government even a diamond-mine, a Golconda, would be a losing affair; it can be worked with profit only by European heads and hands. Meanwhile Egypt must recover her prestige by abolishing slavery and by exploiting her mineral wealth.

"To conclude. Poets are sometimes prophets; and we have a specimen in the forecast of Camoens, which dates from the year of grace 1572--

'Those fierce projectiles, of our days the work, Murderous engines, dire artilleries, Against Byzantine walls, where dwells the Turk, Should long ago have belcht their batteries. Oh, hurl it back, in forest caves to lurk, Where Caspian crests and steppes of Scythia freeze, That Turkish ogre-progeny multiplied By potent Europe's policy and pride.'

"What also wrote Torquato Tasso, only a few years after Camoens?

'For if the Christian Princes ever strive To win fair Greece out of the tyrant's hands, And those usurping Ismaelites deprive Of woeful Thrace, which now captived stands; You must from realms and sea the Turks forth drive, As Godfrey chased them from Judah's lands,' etc.

Amen, and so be it!

"R. F. B.

"Trieste."

[1] Written in 1876.

[2] Lord Beaconsfield.

[3] This was written in 1876.

[4] "This was written at the end of 1876. It would be impossible to-day (1878) not to sympathize with and admire Austria and her brave army struggling single-handed and manfully in the great Bosnian and Herzegovinian difficulty, but when it is over her reward will be great. It is a large step in the right direction; but we, who want a great Austrian Empire, wish she had had all the nineteen million Slavs, not a part."

[5] "This was written January, 1876."

[6] "I fear that the Future now threatens to be the Present (1893)."--I. B.

[7] This was written in 1876.

[8] His grandson was Chancellier at Trieste in 1888.--I. B.

[9] "See 'Lettres, Journal, et Documents,' vol. ii. pp. 298-300. He rates the mob at five thousand, and writes dramatically. The cushions of a divan do not form an _espèce de tombeau_, where a woman can be _ensevelie vivante_. M. de Lesseps says that he had the details from the chief actors of the drama, but I prefer M. Sabatier's account."

[10] "Our diamond weights are as follows:--

16 parts = 1 (diamond) grain = 4/5 grain, troy. 4 diamond grains = 1 carat = 3 1/5 (3.174 grains, troy).

"The Indian weights are:--

1 Dhan = 15.32 grains, troy, in round numbers half a grain. 4 Dhary = 1 Rati = 1 2/3 grains, troy. 8 Rati = 1 Masha = 18 grains, troy. 12 Mashas = 1 Tola = 180 grains troy.

"The 'ounces' in the text probably represents 'tolas,' certainly not troy ounces of 24 grains."

[11] "Mr. Maclean kindly drew my attention to the Treaty with the Nizam (November 12th, 1766), which cedes to the E. I. Company 'the five Circars or Provinces of Ellour (Ellore, north of Masulipatam), Rajahmondra Siccacole (or Chicacole on the coast), and Moortizanuggur or Gunton.' The four first named were added to the French dominions by De Bussy. 'These Circars,' we read, 'include territory extending along the coast from the mouths of the Kistna (Krishna) northward to near Ganjour, and stretching some distance inland.' Article No. 11 of the same Treaty runs thus: 'The Hon'ble E. I. Company, in consideration of their diamond mines, with the villages appertaining thereto, having been always dependent on H. H. the Nizam's Government, do hereby agree that the same shall remain in possession now also.'"

[12] "All this was written two years before the late Afghan War began."

APPENDIX F.

LETTERS ON THE JEDDAH MASSACRE, AND CHOLERA--HIS WARNING TO THE GOVERNMENT, WHICH CALLED DOWN A REPRIMAND ON HIM.

"To the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, London.

"Sir,--I have the honour to inform you that on the 1st of December, 1856, I addressed to you a letter which I hope has been duly received. On the 2nd instant, in company with Lieutenant Speke, I left Bombay Harbour, on board the H.E.I. Company's ship of war _Elphinstone_ (Captain Frushard, I.N., commanding), _en route_ to East Africa. I have little to report that may be interesting to geographers; but perhaps some account of political affairs in the Red Sea may be deemed worthy to be transmitted by you to the Court of Directors or to the Foreign Office.

"As regards the Expedition, copies of directions and a memorandum on instruments and observations for our guidance have come to hand. For observations, Lieutenant Speke and I must depend upon our own exertions, neither serjeants nor native students being procurable at the Bombay Observatory. The case of instruments and the mountain barometer have not been forwarded, but may still find us at Zanzibar. Meanwhile I have obtained from the Commanding Engineer, Bombay, one six-inch sextant, one five and a half ditto, two prismatic compasses, five thermometers (of which two are B.P.), a patent log, taper, protractors, stands, etc.; also two pocket chronometers from the Observatory, duly rated; and Dr. Buist, secretary Bombay Geographical Society, has obliged me with a mountain barometer and various instructions about points of interest. Lieutenant Speke has been recommended by the local Government to the Government of India for duty in East Africa, and the services of Dr. Steinhaüser, who is most desirous to join us, have been applied for from the Medical Board, Bombay. I have strong hopes that both these officers will be allowed to accompany me, and that the Royal Geographical Society will use their efforts to that effect.

"By the subjoined detailed account of preliminary expenses at Bombay, it will be seen that I have expended £70 out of £250 for which I was permitted to draw.

"Although, as before mentioned, the survey of Eastern Intertropical Africa has for the moment been deferred, the necessity still exists. Even in the latest editions of Horsburgh, the mass of matter relative to Zanzibar is borrowed from the observations of Captain Bissel, who navigated the coast in H.M.'s ships _Leopard_ and _Orestes_, about A.D. 1799. Little is known of the great current which, setting periodically from and to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, sweeps round the Eastern Horn of Africa. The reefs are still formidable to navigators; and before these seas can be safely traversed by steamers from the Cape, as is now proposed, considerable additions must be made to Captain Owen's survey in A.D. 1823-24. Finally, operations on the coast will form the best introduction to the geographical treasures of the interior.

"The H.E.I. Company's surveying brig _Tigris_ will shortly be out of dock, where she has been undergoing a thorough repair, and if fitted up with a round-house on the quarter-deck would answer the purpose well. She might be equipped in a couple of months, and despatched to her ground before the south-west monsoon sets in, or be usefully employed in observing at Zanzibar instead of lying idle in Bombay Harbour. On former surveys of the Arabian and African Coasts, a small tender of from thirty to forty tons has always been granted, as otherwise operations are much crippled in boisterous weather and exposed on inhospitable shores. Should no other vessel be available, one of the smallest of the new pilot schooners now unemployed at Bombay might be directed to wait upon the _Tigris_. Lieutenant H. G. Fraser, I.N., has volunteered for duty upon the African coast, and I have the honour to transmit his letter. Nothing more would be required were some junior officer of the Indian navy stationed at Zanzibar for the purpose of registering tidal, barometric, and thermometric observations, in order that something of the meteorology of this unknown region may be accurately investigated.

"When passing through Aden I was informed that the blockade of the Somali Coast had been raised without compensation for the losses sustained on my last journey. This step appears, politically speaking, a mistake. In the case of the _Mary Ann_ brig, plundered near Berberah in A.D. 1825, due compensation was demanded and obtained. Even in India, an officer travelling through the states not under British rule can, if he be plundered, require an equivalent for his property. This is, indeed, our chief protection--semi-barbarians and savages part with money less willingly than with life. If it be determined for social reasons at Aden that the blockade should cease and mutton become cheap, a certain percentage could be paid upon the exports of Berberah till such time as our losses, which, including those of Government, amount to £1380, are made good.

"From Harar news has reached Aden that the Amir Abubakr, dying during the last year of chronic consumption, has been succeeded by a cousin, one Abd el Rahman, a bigoted Moslem, and a violent hater of the Gallas. His success in feud and foray, however, has not prevented the wild tribes from hemming him in, and unless fortune interferes, the city must fall into their hands. The rumour prevalent at Cairo, namely, that Harar had been besieged and taken by Mr. Bell, now serving under 'Theodorus, Emperor of Ethiopia' (the chief Cássái), appears premature. At Aden I met in exile Sharmarkay bin Ali Salih, formerly Governor of Zayla. He has been ejected in favour of a Dankali chief by the Ottoman authorities of Yemen--a circumstance the more to be regretted as he has ever been a firm friend to our interests.

"The present defenceless state of Berberah still invites our presence. The eastern coast of the Red Sea is almost entirely under the Porte. On the western shore, Cosseir is Egyptian; Masáwwah, Sawakin, and Zayla, Turkish; and Berberah, the best port of all, unoccupied. I have frequently advocated the establishment of a British agency at this place, and venture to do so at once. This step would tend to increase trade, to obviate accidents in case of shipwreck, and materially assist in civilizing the Somal of the interior. The Government of Bombay has doubtless preserved copies of my reports, plans, and estimates concerning the proposed agency, and I would request the Royal Geographical Society to inquire into a project peculiarly fitted to promote their views of exploration in the Eastern Horn of Africa. Finally, this move would checkmate any ambitious projects in the Red Sea. The Suez Canal may be said to have commenced. It appears impossible that the work should pay in a commercial sense. Politically it may, if at least its object be, as announced by the Count d'Escayrac de Lauture, at the Société de Géographie, to 'throw open the road of India to the Mediterranean coasting trade, to democratize commerce and navigation.' The first effect of the highway would be, as that learned traveller justly remarks, to open a passage through Egypt to the speronari and feluccas of the Levant, the light infantry of a more regular force.

"The next step should be to provide ourselves with a more efficient naval force at Aden, the head-quarters of the Red Sea squadron. I may briefly quote, as a proof of the necessity for protection, the number of British _protégés_ in the neighbouring ports, and the present value of the Jeddah trade.

"Mocha now contains about twenty-five English subjects, the principal merchants in the place. At Masáwwah, besides a few French and Americans, there are from sixteen to twenty British _protégés_, who trade with the interior, especially for mules required at the Mauritius and our other colonies. Hodaydah has from fifty to sixty, and Jeddah, besides its dozen resident merchants, annually witnesses the transit of some hundreds of British-protected subjects, who flock to the Haj for commerce and for devotion.

"The chief emporium of the Red Sea trade for centuries past has been Jeddah, the port of Meccah. The custom-house reports of 1856 were kindly furnished to me by Captain Frushard, I.N. (now commanding the H.E.I.C.'s sloop of war _Elphinstone_), an old and experienced officer, lately employed in blockading Berberah, and who made himself instrumental in quelling certain recent attempts upon Turkish supremacy in Western Arabia. According to these documents, thirty-five ships of English build (square-rigged) arrived at and left Jeddah between the end of September and April, from and for various places in the East, China, Batavia, Singapore, Calcutta, Bombay, the Malabar coast, the Persian Gulf, and Eastern Africa. Nearly all carried our colours, and were protected, or supposed to be protected, by a British register: only five had on board a European captain or sailing master, the rest being commanded and officered by Arabs and Indians. Their cargoes from India and the Eastern regions are rice, sugar, piece goods, planking, pepper, and pilgrims; from Persia, dates, tobacco, and raw silk; and from the Mozambique, ivory, gold dust, and similar costly articles. These imports in 1856 are valued at £160,000. The exports for the year, consisting of a little coffee and spice for purchase of imports, amounts, per returns, to £120,000. In addition to these square-rigged ships, the number of country vessels, open boats, bungalows, and others, from the Persian Gulf and the Indian coasts, amounts to 900, importing £550,000, and exporting about £400,000. I may remark, that to all these sums at least one-third should be added, as speculation abounds, and books are kept by triple entry in the Holy Land.

"The next port in importance to Jeddah is Hodaydah, where vessels touch on their way northward, land piece and other goods, and call on the return passage to fill with coffee. As the head-quarters of the Yemen Pashalik, it has reduced Mocha, formerly the great coffee mart, to insignificance, and the vicinity of Aden, a free port, has drawn off much of the stream of trade from both these ancient emporia. On the African coast of the Red Sea, Sawakin, opposite Jeddah, is a mere slave mart, and Masáwwah, opposite Hodaydah, still trades in pearls, gold dust, ivory, and mules.

"But if the value of the Red Sea traffic calls, in the present posture of events, for increased means of protection, the slave-trade has equal claims to our attention. At Aden energetic efforts have been made to suppress it. It is, however, still carried on by her country boats from Sawakin, Tajarrah, Zayla, and the Somali coast; a single cargo sometimes consisting of two hundred head gathered from the interior, and exported to Jeddah and the small ports lying north and south of it. The trade is, I believe, principally in the hands of Arab merchants at Jeddah and Hodaydah, and resident foreigners, principally Indian Moslems, who claim our protection in case of disturbances, and consequently carry on a thriving business. Our present squadron in the Red Sea consisting of only two sailing-vessels, the country boats in the African ports have only to wait till they see the ship pass up or down, and then, knowing the passage--a matter of a day--to be clear, to lodge the slaves at their destination. During the past year, this trade was much injured by the revolt of the Arabs against the Turks, and the constant presence of the _Elphinstone_, whose reported object was to seize all vessels carrying slaves. The effect was principally moral. Although the instructions for the guidance of the Commander enjoined him to carry out the wishes of the Home and Indian Governments for the suppression of slavery, yet there being no published treaty between the Imperial Government and the Porte sanctioning to us the right of search in Turkish bottoms, his interference would not have been supported by the Ottoman local authorities. It may be well to state, that after a Firman had been published in the Hejaz and Yemen abolishing the trade, the Turkish Governments of Jeddah and Hodaydah declared that the English Commander might do as he pleased, but that they declined making any written request for his assistance. For its present increased duties, for the suppression of the slave-trade, for the protection of British subjects, and for the watching over Turkish and English interests in the Red Sea, the Aden Squadron is no longer sufficient. During the last two years it has numbered two sailing-vessels--the _Elphinstone_, a sloop of war, carrying twelve 32-pounders and two 12-pounders; and the _Mahi_, a schooner armed with one pivot gun, 32-pounder, and two 12-pounders. Nor would it be benefited by even a considerable increase of sailing-vessels. It is well known that, as the prevailing winds inside the sea are favourable for proceeding upwards from September to April, so on the return, during those months, they are strongly adverse. A fast ship, like the _Elphinstone_, requires thirty days on the downward voyage to do the work of four. Outside the sea, during those months, the current sets inward from the Indian Ocean, and a ship, in event of very light winds falling, has been detained a whole week in sight of Aden. From April to September, on the contrary, the winds set down the Red Sea frequently with violence, the current inside the sea also turns towards the Indian Ocean, and outside the south-west monsoon is blowing. Finally, sailing-ships draw too much water. In the last year the _Elphinstone_ kept the Arabs away from Jeddah till the meanness of the Sherif Abd el Muttalib had caused his downfall. But her great depth (about from 14'6 to 15 feet) prevented her approaching the shore at Hodaydah near enough to have injured the insurgents, who, unaware of the fact, delayed their attack upon the town till famine and a consequent pestilence dispersed them. With little increase of present expenditure, the Red Sea might be effectually commanded. Two screw-steamers, small enough to enter every harbour, and to work steadily amongst the banks on either shore, and yet large enough to be made useful in conveying English political officers of rank and native princes, when necessary, would amply suffice. A vessel of the class of H.M.'s gunboat _Flying Fish_, drawing at most nine feet of water, and carrying four 32-pounders of 25 cwt. each, as broadside, and two 32-pounders of 25 cwt. each, as pivot guns, would probably be that selected. The crews would consist of fewer men than those at present required, and means would easily be devised for increasing the accommodation of officers and men, and for securing their health and comfort during cruises that might last two months in a hot and dangerous climate.

"By means of two such steamers we shall, I believe, be prepared for any contingencies which may arise in the Red Sea; and if to this squadron be added an allowance for interpreters and a slave approver in each harbour--in fact, a few of the precautions practised by the West African Squadron--the slave-trade in the Red Sea will soon have received its death-blow, and Eastern Africa its regeneration at our hands.

"I have, etc., etc.,

"R. F. B,

"Commanding East African Expedition.

"H.E.I.C. Sloop of War _Elphinstone_,

"15th December, 1856."

* * * * *

THE OFFICIAL "JUDICIOUS" (?) REPLY.

No. 961 of 1857.

From H. L. Anderson, Esquire, Secretary to Government, Bombay, to Captain R. F. Burton, 18th Regiment Bombay N.I.

"Dated the 23rd July, 1857.

"Sir,--With reference to your letter, dated the 15th December, 1856, to the address of the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society of London, communicating your views on affairs in the Red Sea, and commenting on the political measures of the Government of India, I am directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council to state, your want of discretion, and due respect for the authorities to whom you are subordinate, has been regarded with displeasure by Government.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient Servant,

"(Signed) H. L. ANDERSON,

"Secretary to Government.

"Bombay Castle, 23rd July, 1857."

* * * * *

[Richard received by same post as above letter the account of the Massacre at Jeddah.]

(Extracts from the _Telegraph Courier_, Overland Summary, Bombay, August 4, 1858.)

"On the 30th of June, a massacre of nearly all the Christians took place at Jeddah on the Red Sea. Amongst the victims were Mr. Page, the British Consul, and the French Consul and his lady. Altogether the Arabs succeeded in slaughtering about twenty-five.

"H.M. steamship _Cyclops_ was there at the time, and the captain landed with a boat's crew, and attempted to bring off some of the survivors, but he was compelled to retreat, not without having killed a number of the Arabs. The next day, however, he succeeded in rescuing the few remaining Christians, and conveyed them to Suez.

"Amongst those who were fortunate enough to escape was the daughter of the French Consul; and this she succeeded in doing through the fidelity of a native, after she had killed two men with her own hands, and been severely wounded in the encounter. Telegraphic despatches were transmitted to England and France, and the _Cyclops_ is waiting orders at Suez. As it was apprehended that the news from Jeddah might excite the Arab population of Suez to the commission of similar outrages, H.B.M.'s Vice-Consul at that place applied to the Pasha of Egypt for assistance, which was immediately afforded by the landing of five hundred Turkish soldiers, under the orders of the Pasha of Suez."

* * * * *

"Unyanyembe, Central Africa, 24th June, 1858.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official letter, No. 961 of 1857, conveying to me the displeasure of the Government in consequence of my having communicated certain views on political affairs in the Red Sea to the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain.

"The paper in question was as is directly stated, and it was sent for transmission to the Board of Directors, or the Foreign Office, not for publication. I beg to express my regret that it should have contained any passage offensive to the authorities to whom I am subordinate; and to assure the Right Honourable the Governor in Council that nothing was further from my intentions than to displease a Government to whose kind consideration I have been, and am still, so much indebted.

"In conclusion, I have the honour to remind you that I have received no reply to my official letter, sent from Zanzibar, urging our claims upon the Somal for the plunder of our property.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient Servant,

"RICHARD F. BURTON,

"Commanding East African Expedition.

"To the Secretary to Government, Bombay."

* * * * *

No. 2845 of 1857. Political Department.

From H. L. Anderson, Esq., Secretary to Government of Bombay, to Captain R. F. Burton, Commanding E. A. Expedition, Zanzibar.

"Dated 13th June, 1857.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 26th April last, soliciting compensation on behalf of yourself and other members of the late Somalee Expedition, for losses sustained by you and them.

"2. In reply, I am desired to inform you, that under the opinion copied in the margin [here reproduced below], expressed by the late Governor-General of India, the Right Honourable the Governor in Council cannot accede to the application now preferred.

"I have, etc.,

"(Signed) H. L. ANDERSON,

"Secretary to Government."

[From margin.] "Having regard to the conduct of the Expedition, his Lordship cannot think that the officers who composed it have any just claims on the Government for their personal losses."

END OF FIRST CORRESPONDENCE.

[Here begins the Speke and Rigby cabal.]

SECOND CORRESPONDENCE.

1.

"India Office, E.C., November 8th, 1859.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to forward for your information, copy of a letter addressed by Captain Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and Agent at Zanzibar, to the Government of Bombay, respecting the non-payment of certain persons hired by you to accompany the Expedition under your command into Equatorial Africa, and to request that you will furnish me with any observations which you may have to make upon the statements contained in that letter.

"Sir Charles Wood especially desires to be informed why you took no steps to bring the services of the men who accompanied you, and your obligations to them, to the notice of the Bombay Government.

"I am, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"(Signed) T. COSMO MELVILL.

"Captain R. Burton."

* * * * *

No. 70 of 1859. Political Department.

From Captain C. P. Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and British Agent, Zanzibar, to H. L. Anderson, Esquire, Secretary to Government, Bombay.

"Zanzibar, July 15th, 1859.

"Sir,--I have the honour to report, for the information of the Right Honourable the Governor in Council, the following circumstances connected with the late East African Expedition under the command of Captain Burton.

"2. Upon the return of Captain Burton to Zanzibar in March last, from the interior of Africa, he stated that, from the funds supplied him by the Royal Geographical Society for the expenses of the Expedition, he had only a sufficient sum left to defray the passage of himself and Captain Speke to England, and in consequence the persons who accompanied the Expedition from here, viz. the Kafila Bashi, the Belooch sepoys, and the porters, received nothing whatever from him on their return.

"3. On quitting Zanzibar for the interior of Africa, the Expedition was accompanied by a party of Belooch soldiers, consisting of a Jemadar and twelve armed men. I understand they were promised a monthly salary of five dollars each; they remained with the Expedition for twenty months, and as they received nothing from Captain Burton beyond a few dollars each before starting, his Highness the Sultan has generously distributed amongst them the sum of two thousand three hundred (2300) dollars.

"4. The head clerk of the Custom House here, a Banian, by name Ramjee, procured ten men, who accompanied the Expedition as porters. They were promised five dollars each per mensem, and received pay for six months, viz. thirty dollars each before starting for the interior. They were absent for twenty months, during three of which the Banian Ramjee states that they did not accompany the Expedition. He now claims eleven months' pay for each of these men, as they have not been paid anything beyond the advance before starting.

"5. The head clerk also states that, after the Expedition left Zanzibar, he sent two men to Captain Burton with supplies, one of whom was absent with the Expedition seventeen months, and received nothing whatever; the other, he states, was absent fifteen months, and received six months' pay, the pay for the remaining nine months being still due to him. Thus his claim amounts to the following sum:--

Dollars. Ten men for eleven months, at five dollars per man per month 550 One man for seventeen " " " 85 One man for nine " " " 45 Total 680

"6. These men were slaves, belonging to 'deewans,' or petty chiefs, on the opposite mainland. They travel far into the interior to collect and carry down ivory to the coast, and are absent frequently for the space of two or three years. When hired out, the pay they receive is equally divided between the slave and the master. Captain Speke informs me, that when these men were hired, it was agreed that one-half of their hire should be paid to the men, and the other half to Ramjee on account of their owners. When Ramjee asked Captain Burton for their pay, on his return here, he declined to give him anything, saying that they had received thirty dollars each on starting, and that he could have bought them for a less sum.

"7. The Kafila Bashi, or chief Arab, who accompanied the Expedition, by name Said bin Salem, was twenty-two months with Captain Burton. He states that on the first journey to Pangany and Usumbara, he received fifty (50) dollars from Captain Burton; and that before starting on the last Expedition, to discover the Great Lake, the late Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton presented him with five hundred dollars on behalf of Government for the maintenance of his family during his absence. He states that he did not stipulate for any monthly pay, as Colonel Hamerton told him that if he escorted the gentlemen to the Great Lake in the interior, and brought them in safety back to Zanzibar, he would be handsomely rewarded, and both Captain Speke and Mr. Apothecary Frost inform me that Colonel Hamerton frequently promised Said bin Salem that he should receive a thousand dollars and a gold watch if the Expedition were successful.

"8. As it appeared to me that Colonel Hamerton had received no authority from Government to defray any part of the expenses of this Expedition, and probably made these promises, thinking that if the exploration of the unknown interior were successful a great national object would be attained, and that the chief man who conducted the Expedition would be liberally rewarded, and as Captain Burton had been furnished with funds to defray the expenses, I told him that I did not feel authorized to make any payment without the previous sanction of Government, and Said bin Salem has therefore received nothing whatever since his return.

"9. Said bin Salem also states, that on the return of the Expedition from Lake Tanganyika, seventy (70) natives of the country were engaged as porters, and accompanied the Expedition for three months; and that on arriving at a place called 'Kootoo,' a few days' journey from the sea-coast, Captain Burton wished them to diverge from the correct route to the coast opposite Zanzibar, to accompany him south to Keelwa; but they refused to do so, saying that none of their people ever dared to venture to Keelwa, where the chief slave-trade on the east coast is carried on. No doubt their fears were well grounded. These men received nothing in payment for their three months' journey, and, as no white man had ever penetrated into their country previously, I fear that any future traveller will meet with much inconvenience in consequence of these poor people not having been paid.

"10. As I considered that my duty connected with the late Expedition was limited to affording it all the aid and support in my power, I have felt very reluctant to interfere with anything connected with the non-payment of these men; but Said bin Salem and Ramjee having appealed to me, and Captain Speke, since his departure from Zanzibar, having written me two private letters, pointing out so forcibly the claims of these men, the hardships they endured, and the fidelity and perseverance they showed, conducting them safely through unexplored countries, and stating also that the agreements with them were entered into at the British Consulate, and that they considered they were serving the British Government, that I deem it my duty to bring their claims to the notice of Government; for I feel that if these men remain unpaid, after all they have endured in the service of British officers, our name for good faith in these countries will suffer, and that any future traveller wishing to further explore the interesting countries of the interior will find no persons willing to accompany them from Zanzibar, or the opposite mainland.

"11. As there was no British agent at Zanzibar for thirteen months after the death of Colonel Hamerton, the Expedition was entirely dependent on Luddah Damha, the Custom-master here, for money and supplies. He advanced considerable sums of money without any security, forwarding all requisite supplies, and, Captain Speke says, afforded the Expedition every assistance in the most handsome manner. Should Government, therefore, be pleased to present him with a shawl, or some small mark of satisfaction, I am confident he is fully deserving of it, and it would gratify a very worthy man to find that his assistance to the Expedition is acknowledged.

"I have, etc.,

"(Signed) C. P. RIGBY, Captain,

"H.M.'s Consul and British Agent, Zanzibar."

* * * * *

3.

"East India United Service Club, St. James's Square,

"November 11th, 1859.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official letter, dated the 8th of November, 1859, forwarding for my information copy of a letter, addressed by Captain Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and Agent at Zanzibar, to the Government of Bombay, respecting the non-payment of certain persons hired by me to accompany the Expedition under my command into Equatorial Africa, and apprising me that Sir C. Wood especially desires to be informed why I took no steps to bring the services of the men who accompanied me, and my obligations to them, to the notice of the Bombay Government.

"In reply to Sir Charles Wood, I have the honour to state that, as the men alluded to rendered me no service, and as I felt in no way obliged to them, I would not report favourably of them. The Kafilah Bashi, the _Jemadar_, and the Beloch were servants of H.H. Sayyid Majid, in his pay and under his command. They were not hired by me, but by the late Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, H.M.'s Consul and H.E.I.C.'s Agent at Zanzibar, and they marched under the Arab flag. On return to Zanzibar, I reported them as undeserving of reward to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton's successor, Colonel Rigby, and after return to England, when my accounts were sent in to the Royal Geographical Society, I appended a memorandum, that as those persons had deserved no reward, no reward had been applied for.

"Before proceeding to reply to Captain Rigby's letter, paragraph by paragraph, I would briefly premise with the following remarks:--

"Being ordered to report myself to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and having been placed under his direction, I admitted his friendly interference, and allowed him to apply to H.H. the Sultan for a guide and an escort. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton offered to defray, from public funds, which he understood to be at his disposal, certain expenses of the Expedition, and he promised, as reward to the guide and escort, sums of money, to which, had I been unfettered, I should have objected as exorbitant. But in all cases the promises made by the late Consul were purely conditional, depending entirely upon the satisfactory conduct of those employed. These facts are wholly omitted in Captain Rigby's reports.

"2. Captain Rigby appears to mean that the Kafila Bashi, the Beloch sepoys, and the porters received nothing whatever on my return to Zanzibar, in March last, from the interior of Africa because the funds supplied to me by the Royal Geographical Society for the expenditure of the Expedition, had been exhausted, besides the sum of one thousand pounds (£1000) granted by the Foreign Office. I had expended from my own private resources nearly fourteen hundred pounds (£1400), and I was ready to expend more had the expenditure been called for. But, though prepared on these occasions to reward liberally for good service, I cannot see the necessity, or rather I see the unadvisability, of offering a premium to notorious misconduct. This was fully explained by me to Captain Rigby on my return to Zanzibar.

"3. Captain Rigby '_understands_' that the party of Beloch sepoys, consisting of a _Jemadar_ and twelve armed men, were promised a monthly salary of five dollars each. This was not the case. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton advanced to the _Jemadar_ twenty-five, and to each sepoy twenty dollars for an outfit; he agreed that I should provide them with daily rations, and he promised them an ample reward from the public funds in case of good behaviour. These men deserved nothing; I ignore their 'fidelity' and 'perseverance,' and I assert that if I passed safely through an unexplored country, it was in no wise by their efforts. On hearing of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton's death, they mutinied in a body. At the Tanganyika Lake they refused to escort me during the period of navigation, a month of danger and difficulty. When Captain Speke proposed to explore the Nyanza Lake, they would not march without a present of a hundred dollars' worth of cloth. On every possible occasion they clamoured for _bakshish_, which, under pain of endangering the success of the Expedition, could not always be withheld. They were often warned by me that they were forfeiting all hopes of a future reward, and, indeed, they ended by thinking so themselves. They returned to Zanzibar with a number of slaves, purchased by them with money procured from the Expedition. I would not present either guide or escort to the Consul; but I did not think it my duty to oppose a large reward, said to be 2300 dollars, given to them by H.H. the Sultan, and I reported his liberality and other acts of kindness to the Bombay Government on my arrival at Aden. This fact will, I trust, exonerate me from any charge of wishing to suppress my obligations.

"4. The Banyan Ramjee, head clerk of the Custom House, did not, as is stated by Captain Rigby, procure me ten (10) men who accompanied the Expedition as porters; nor were these men, as is asserted (in par. 6), 'slaves belonging to deewans or petty chiefs on the opposite mainland.' It is a notorious fact that these men were private slaves, belonging to the Banyan Ramjee, who hired them to me direct, and received from me as their pay, for six months, thirty dollars each; a sum for which, as I told him, he might have bought them in the bazaar. At the end of six months I was obliged to dismiss these slaves, who, as is usually the case with the slaves of Indian subjects at Zanzibar, were mutinous in the extreme. At the same time, I supplied them with cloth, to enable them to rejoin their patron. On my return from the Tanganyika Lake, they requested leave to accompany me back to Zanzibar, which I permitted, with the express warning that they were not to consider themselves re-engaged. The Banyan, their proprietor, had, in fact, sent them on a trading trip into the interior under my escort, and I found them the most troublesome of the party. When Ramjee applied for additional pay, after my return to Zanzibar, I told him that I had engaged them for six months; that I had dismissed them at the end of six months, as was left optional to me; and that he had already received an unusual sum for their services. This conversation appears in a distorted form and improperly represented in the concluding sentence of Captain Rigby's 6th paragraph.

"5 and 6. With respect to the two men sent on with supplies after the Expedition had left Zanzibar, they were not paid, on account of the prodigious disappearance of the goods entrusted to their charge, as I am prepared to prove from the original journals in my possession. They were dismissed with their comrades, and never afterwards, to the best of my remembrance, did a day's work.

"7 and 8. The Kafilah Bashi received from me for the first journey to Usumbara fifty (50) dollars. Before my departure in the second Expedition he was presented by Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton with five hundred (500) dollars, almost double what he had expected. He was also promised, in case of good conduct, a gold watch, and an ample reward, which, however, was to be left to the discretion of his employers. I could not recommend him through Captain Rigby to the Government for remuneration. His only object seemed to be that of wasting our resources and of collecting slaves in return for the heavy presents made to the native chiefs by the Expedition, and the consequence of his carelessness or dishonesty was, that the expenditure on the whole march, until we had learnt sufficient to supervise him, was inordinate. When the Kafilah Bashi at last refused to accompany Captain Speke to the Nyanza Lake, he was warned that he also was forfeiting all claim to future reward, and when I mentioned this circumstance to Captain Rigby at Zanzibar, he then agreed with me that the 500 dollars originally advanced were sufficient.

"9. With regard to the statement of Said bin Salim concerning the non-payment of the seventy-three porters, I have to remark that it was mainly owing to his own fault. The men did not refuse to accompany me because I wished to diverge from the 'correct route,' nor was I so unreasonable as to expect them to venture into the jaws of the slave-trade. Several caravans that had accompanied us on the down-march, as well as the porters attached to the Expedition, were persuaded by the slaves of Ramjee (because Zanzibar was a nearer way to their homes) not to make Kilwa. The pretext of the porters was simply that they would be obliged to march back for three days. An extra remuneration was offered to them; they refused it, and left in a body. Shortly before their departure Captain Speke proposed to pay them for their services, but being convinced that they might be prevented from desertion, I did not judge it advisable by paying them, to do what would be virtually dismissing them. After they had proceeded a few miles, Said bin Salim was sent to recall them, on conditions which they would have accepted; he delayed, lost time, and ended by declaring that he could not travel without his dinner. Another party was instantly sent; they also loitered on the way, and thus the porters reached the coast and dispersed. Before their departure I rewarded the Kirangozi, or chief man of the caravan, who had behaved well in exhorting his followers to remain with us. I was delayed in a most unhealthy region for the arrival of some down porters, who consented to carry our goods to the coast; and to prove to them that money was not my object, I paid the newly engaged gang as if they had marched the whole way. Their willingness to accompany me is the best proof that I had not lost the confidence of the people. Finally, on arrival at the coast, I inquired concerning those porters who had deserted us, and was informed by the Diwan and headman of the village that they had returned to their homes in the interior, after a stay of a few days on the seaboard. This was a regrettable occurrence, but such events are common on the slave-path in Eastern Africa, and the established custom of the Arabs and other merchants, whom I had consulted upon the subject before leaving the interior, is not to encourage desertion by paying part of the hire, or by settling for porterage before arriving at the coasts. Of the seven gangs of porters engaged on this journey, _only one_, an unusually small proportion, left me without being fully satisfied.

"10. That Said bin Salim, and Ramjee, the Banyan, should have appealed to Captain Rigby, according to the fashion of Orientals, after my departure from Zanzibar, for claims which they should have advanced when I refused to admit them, I am not astonished. But I must express my extreme surprise that Captain Speke should have written two private letters, forcibly pointing out the claims of these men to Captain Rigby, without having communicated the circumstance in any way to me, the chief of the Expedition. I have been in continued correspondence with that officer since my departure from Zanzibar, and until this moment I have been impressed with the conviction that Captain Speke's opinion as to the claims of the guide and escort above alluded to was identical with my own.

"11. With respect to the last paragraph of Captain Rigby's letter, proposing that a shawl or some small mark of satisfaction should be presented by Government to Ladha Damha, the Custom-master at Zanzibar, for his assistance to the Expedition, I distinctly deny the gratuitous assertions that I was entirely dependent on him for money and supplies; that he advanced considerable sums of money without any security; that he forwarded all requisite supplies, or, as Captain Speke affirms, that he afforded the Expedition every assistance in the most handsome manner. Before quitting Zanzibar for inner Africa, I settled all accounts with him, and left a small balance in his hands, and I gave, for all subsequent supplies, an order upon Messrs. Forbes, my agent in Bombay. He, like the other Hindus at Zanzibar, utterly neglected me after the death of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton; and Captain Rigby has probably seen some of the letters of complaint which were sent by me from the interior. In fact, my principal merit in having conducted the Expedition to a successful issue is in having contended against the utter neglect of the Hindus at Zanzibar (who had promised to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, in return for his many good offices, their interest and assistance), and against the carelessness and dishonesty, the mutinous spirit, and the active opposition of the guide and escort.

"I admit that I was careful that these men should suffer for their misconduct. On the other hand, I was equally determined that those who did their duty should be adequately rewarded--a fact which nowhere appears in Captain Rigby's letter. The Portuguese servants, the negro gun-carriers, the several African gangs of porters, with their leaders, and all other claimants, were fully satisfied. The bills drawn in the interior, from the Arab merchants, were duly paid at Zanzibar, and on departure I left orders that if anything had been neglected it should be forwarded to me in Europe. I regret that Captain Rigby, without thoroughly ascertaining the merits of the case (which he evidently has not done), should not have permitted me to record any remarks which I might wish to offer before making it a matter of appeal to the Bombay Government.

"Finally, I venture to hope that Captain Rigby has forwarded the complaints of those who have appealed to him without endorsing their validity; and I trust that these observations upon the statements were based upon no foundation of fact.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"R. F. BURTON,

"Bombay Army."

* * * * *

4.

"India Office, E.C., 14th January, 1860.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council, to inform you that, having taken into consideration the explanations afforded by you in your letter of the 11th of November, together with the information on the same subject furnished by Captain Speke, he is of opinion that it was your duty, knowing, as you did, that demands for wages, on the part of certain Belochs and others who accompanied you into Equatorial Africa, existed against you, not to have left Zanzibar without bringing these claims before the Consul there, with a view to their being adjudicated on their own merits, the more especially as the men had been originally engaged through the intervention or the influence of the British authorities, whom, therefore, it was your duty to satisfy before leaving the country. Had this course been followed, the character of the British Government would not have suffered, and the adjustment of the dispute would, in all probability, have been effected at a comparatively small outlay.

"Your letter, and that of Captain Speke, will be forwarded to the Government of Bombay, with whom it will rest to determine whether you shall be held pecuniarily responsible for the amount which has been paid in liquidation of the claims against you.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"(Signed) J. COSMO MELVILL."

* * * * *

5.

"January, 1860.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official letter of the 14th of January, 1860.

"In reply, I have the honour to observe that, not having been favoured with a copy of the information on the same subject furnished to you by Captain Speke, I am not in a position to understand on what grounds the Secretary of State for India in Council should have arrived at so unexpected a decision as regards the alleged non-payment of certain claims made by certain persons sent with me into the African interior.

"I have the honour to observe that I did not know that demands for wages existed against me on the part of those persons, and that I believed I had satisfactorily explained the circumstance of their dismissal without payment in my official letter of the 11th of November, 1859.

"Although impaired health and its consequence prevented me from proceeding in an official form to the adjudication of the supposed claims in the presence of the Consular authority, I represented the whole question to Captain Rigby, who, had he then--at that time--deemed it his duty to interfere, might have insisted upon adjudicating the affair with me, or with Captain Speke, before we left Zanzibar.

"I have the honour to remark that the character of the British Government has _not_, and cannot (in my humble opinion) have suffered in any way by my withholding a purely conditional reward when forfeited by gross neglect and misconduct; and I venture to suggest that by encouraging such abuses serious obstacles will be thrown in the way of future exploration, and that the liberality of the British Government will be more esteemed by the native than its character for sound sense.

"In conclusion, I venture to express my surprise, that all my labours and long services in the cause of African Exploration should have won for me no other reward than the prospect of being mulcted in a pecuniary liability incurred by my late lamented friend, Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and settled without reference to me by his successor, Captain Rigby.

"I have the honour, etc., etc.,

"RICHARD F. BURTON,

"Capt. Bombay Army.

"The Under-Secretary of State for India."

* * * * *

6.

"14, St. James's Square, London,

"16th January, 1861.

"Sir,--I have been indebted to the kindness and consideration of my friend Dr. Shaw, for a sight of your letter addressed to him the 10th of October last from Zanzibar. I shall not attempt to characterize it in the terms that best befit it. To do so, indeed, I should be compelled to resort to language 'vile' and unseemly as your own. Nor can there be any necessity for this. A person who could act as you have acted must be held by every one to be beneath the notice of any honourable man. You have addressed a virulent attack on me, to a quarter in which you had hoped it would prove deeply injurious to me; and this not in the discharge of any public duty, but for the gratification of a long-standing private pique. You sent me no copy of this attack, you gave me no opportunity of meeting it; the slander was propagated, as slanders generally are, in secret and behind my back. You took a method of disseminating it which made the ordinary mode of dealing with such libels impossible, while your distance from England puts you in a position to be perfectly secure from any consequence of a nature personal to yourself. Such being the case, there remains to me but one manner of treating your letter, and that is with the contempt it merits. My qualifications as a traveller are, I hope, sufficiently established to render your criticisms innocuous, and the medals of the English and French Geographical Societies may console me for the non-appreciation of my labours by so eminent an authority as yourself. As regards my method of dealing with the natives, the complete success of all my explorations, except that which started under the auspices of Brigadier Coghlan, will perhaps be accepted as a better criterion of its correctness than the carpings of the wretched sycophants whom you make to pander to your malignity at Zanzibar. Where the question between us is one of personal veracity, I can hardly think that your statements will have much weight with those who are aware of the cognomen acquired by you at Addiscombe, and which, to judge from your letter now under notice, I think you most entirely, richly deserve. I have only to add, in conclusion, that I shall forward a copy of this letter to Dr. Shaw, as well as to my publishers, and to Government--you mention your intention of writing to them--and that I shall at all times, in all companies, even in print if it suits me, use the same freedom in discussing your character and conduct that you have presumed to exercise in discussing mine.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"RICHARD F. BURTON.

"Captain C. P. Rigby."

* * * * *

7.

"India Office, 21st April, 1860.

"Sir,--I am directed by Sir Charles Wood to inform you that your letter of the 12th ultimo having been considered by him in Council, he cannot, with reference to the circumstances under which the expedition into Central Africa under your charge was undertaken, comply with your request to be reimbursed the amount of expenditure incurred by you over and above the Government allowance of £1000.

"I am, etc.,

"J. COSMO MELVILL.

"Captain R. Burton, 14, St. James's Square."

* * * * *

8.

[Here there was evidently another letter received during Richard's nine months' absence in N. America, but I have not yet found it amongst his papers.]

(In answer to J. Cosmo Melvill's letter.)

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official letter of the 18th of July, 1861, with enclosure.

"I am wholly at a loss to understand what may be the 'circumstances' ('under which the expedition into Central Africa under my charge was undertaken') that have prevented the Secretary of State for India in Council complying with my request to be refunded. Captain Speke and I have received the medals of the Geographical Societies of England and France for that expedition, and the Royal Geographical Society of London has officially expressed its opinion of the economy with which it was conducted by me.

"I can but conclude that the representations, or rather the misrepresentations of those whose interest it has been to prolong my absence from Zanzibar, have led to a conclusion by which I feel deeply aggrieved--namely, the non-recognition of my services by the Secretary of State for India in Council. And I venture to express a hope that when the Civil proceedings which are now being instituted by me against Captain (local Lieut.-Colonel) Rigby, British Consul at Zanzibar, come on for trial, this correspondence may be adduced to show how successfully this officer has exerted his malice against me.

"R. F. BURTON."

APPENDIX G.

DESCRIPTION OF AFRICAN CHARACTER--THE RAW MATERIAL IN 1856-59.

"The East African, like other barbarians, is a strange mixture of good and evil: by the nature of barbarous society, however, the good element has not, whilst the evil has, been carefully cultured.

"As a rule, the civilized or highest type of man owns the sway of intellect, of reason; the semi-civilized--as are still the great nations of the East--are guided by sentiment and propensity in a degree incomprehensible to more advanced races; and the barbarian is the slave of impulse, passion, and instinct, faintly modified by sentiment, but ignorant of intellectual discipline. He appears, therefore, to the civilized man a paralogic being,--a mere mass of contradictions; his ways are not our ways, his reason is not our reason. He deduces effects from causes which we ignore; he compasses his ends by contrivances which we cannot comprehend; and his artifices and polity excite, by their shallowness and 'inconsequence,' our surprise and our contempt. Like that Hindú race that has puzzled the plain-witted Englishman for the century closing with the massacres of Delhi and Cawnpore, he is calculated to perplex those who make conscience an instinct which elevates man to the highest ground of human intelligence. He is at once very good-tempered and hard-hearted, combative and cautious; kind at one moment, cruel, pitiless, and violent at another; sociable and unaffectionate; superstitious and grossly irreverent; brave and cowardly, servile and oppressive; obstinate, yet fickle and fond of changes; with points of honour, but without a trace of honesty in word or in deed; a lover of life, though addicted to suicide; covetous and parsimonious, yet thoughtless and improvident; somewhat conscious of inferiority, withal unimprovable. In fact, he appears an embryo of the two superior races. He is inferior to the active-minded and objective, and analytic and perceptive European, and to the ideal and subjective, the synthetic and reflective Asiatic. He partakes largely of the worst characteristics of the lower Oriental types--stagnation of mind, indolence of body, moral deficiency, superstition, and childish passion; hence the Egyptians aptly termed the Berbers and negroes the 'perverse race of Kush.'

"The main characteristic of this people is the selfishness which the civilized man strives to conceal, because publishing it would obstruct its gratification. The barbarian, on the other hand, displays his inordinate egotism openly and recklessly; his every action discloses those unworthy traits which in more polished races chiefly appear on public occasions, when each man thinks solely of self-gratification. Gratitude with him is not even a sense of prospective favours; he looks upon a benefit as the weakness of his benefactor and as his own strength; consequently, he will not recognize even the hand that feeds him. He will, perhaps, lament for a night the death of a parent or of a child, but the morrow will find him thoroughly comforted. The name of hospitality, except for interested motives, is unknown to him. 'What will you give me?' is his first question. To a stranger entering a village the worst hut is assigned, and, if he complains, the answer is that he can find encamping ground outside. Instead of treating him like a guest, which the Arab Bedouin would hold to be a point of pride, of honour, his host compels him to pay and prepay every article, otherwise he might starve in the midst of plenty. Nothing, in fact, renders the stranger's life safe in this land, except the timid shrinking of the natives from the 'hot-mouthed weapon' and the necessity of trade, which induces the chiefs to restrain the atrocities of their subjects. To travellers the African is, of course, less civil than to merchants, from whom he expects to gain something. He will refuse a mouthful of water out of his abundance to a man dying of thirst; utterly unsympathizing, he will not stretch out a hand to save another's goods, though worth thousands of dollars. Of his own property, if a ragged cloth or a lame slave be lost, his violent excitement is ridiculous to behold. His egotism renders him parsimonious even in self-gratification; the wretched curs, which he loves as much as his children, seldom receive a mouthful of food, and the sight of an Arab's ass feeding on grain elicits a prolonged 'Hi! hi!' of extreme surprise. He is exceedingly improvident, taking no thought for the morrow--not from faith, but rather from carelessness as to what may betide him; yet so greedy of gain is he that he will refuse information about a country or about the direction of a path without a present of beads. He also invariably demands prepayment: no one keeps a promise or adheres to an agreement, and, if credit be demanded for an hour, his answer would be, 'There is nothing in my hand.' Yet even greed of gain cannot overcome the levity and laxity of his mind. Despite his best interests, he will indulge the mania for desertion caused by that mischievous love of change and whimsical desire for novelty that characterize the European sailor. Nor can even lucre prevail against the ingrained indolence of the race--an indolence the more hopeless as it is the growth of the climate. In these temperate and abundant lands Nature has cursed mankind with the abundance of her gifts; his wants still await creation, and he is contented with such necessaries as roots and herbs, game, and a few handfuls of grain--consequently improvement has no hold upon him.

"In this stage of society truth is no virtue. The 'mixture of a lie' may 'add to pleasure' amongst Europeans; in Africa it enters where neither pleasure nor profit can arise from the deception. If a Mnyamwezi guide informs the traveller that the stage is short, he may make up his mind for a long and weary march, and _vice versâ_. Of course, falsehood is used as a defence by the weak and oppressed; but beyond that, the African desires to be lied to, and one of his proverbs is, ''Tis better to be deceived than to be undeceived.' The European thus qualifies the assertion--

'For sure the pleasure is as great In being cheated as to cheat.'

Like the generality of barbarous races, the East Africans are wilful, headstrong, and undisciplinable; in point of stubbornness and restiveness they resemble the lower animals. If they cannot obtain the very article of barter upon which they have set their mind, they will carry home things useless to them; any attempt at bargaining is settled by the seller turning his back, and they ask according to their wants and wishes, without regard to the value of goods. Grumbling and dissatisfied, they never do business without a grievance. Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars that have prevailed between kindred clans, even for a generation, prove. Retaliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of moral control. Judged by the test of death, the East African is a hard-hearted man, who seems to ignore all the charities of father, son, and brother. A tear is rarely shed, except by the women, for departed parent, relative, or friend, and the voice of the mourner is seldom heard in their abodes. It is most painful to witness the complete inhumanity with which a porter seized with small-pox is allowed by his friends, comrades, and brethren to fall behind in the jungle, with several days' life in him. No inducement--even beads--can persuade a soul to attend him. Every village will drive him from its doors; no one will risk taking, at any price, death into his bosom. If strong enough, the sufferer builds a little bough-hut away from the camp, and, provided with his rations--a pound of grain and a gourdful of water--he quietly expects his doom,--to feed the hyæna and the raven of the wild. The people are remarkable for the readiness with which they yield to fits of sudden fury; on these occasions they will, like children, vent their rage upon any object, animate or inanimate, that presents itself. Their temper is characterized by a nervous, futile impatience; under delay or disappointment they become madmen. In their own country, where such displays are safe, they are remarkable for a presumptuousness and a violence of manner which elsewhere disappear. As the Arabs say, there they are lions, here they become curs. Their squabbling and clamour pass description; they are never happy except when in dispute. After a rapid plunge into excitement, the brawlers alternately advance and recede, pointing the finger of threat, howling and screaming, cursing and using terms of insult which an inferior ingenuity--not want of will--causes to fall short of the Asiatic's model vituperation. After abusing each other to their fill, both 'parties' usually burst into a loud laugh or a burst of sobs. Their tears lie high: they weep like Goanese. After a cuff, a man will cover his face with his hands and cry as if his heart would break. More furious shrews than the women are nowhere met with. Here it is a great truth that 'the tongues of women cannot be governed.' They work off excitement by scolding, and they weep little compared with the men. Both sexes delight in 'argument,' which here, as elsewhere, means two fools talking foolishly. They will weary out of patience the most loquacious of the Arabs. This development is characteristic of the East African race, and '_maneno marefu!_'--long words!--will occur as a useless reproof half a dozen times in the course of a single conversation. When drunk, the East African is easily irritated; with the screams and excited gestures of a maniac he strides about, frantically flourishing his spear and agitating his bow, probably with notched arrow; the spear-point and the arrow-head are often brought perilously near, but rarely allowed to draw blood. The real combat is by pushing, pulling hair, and slapping with a will, and a pair thus engaged require to be torn asunder by half a dozen friends. The settled tribes are, for the most part, feeble and unwarlike barbarians; even the bravest East African, though, like all men, a combative entity, has a valour tempered by discretion and cooled by a high development of cautiousness. His tactics are of the Fabian order: he loves surprises and safe ambuscades; and in common frays and forays the loss of one per cent. justifies a _sauve qui peut_. This people, childlike, is ever in extremes. A man will hang himself from a rafter in his tent, and kick away from under him the large wooden mortar upon which he has stood at the beginning of the operation, with as much _sang-froid_ as an Anglo-Saxon in the gloomy month of November; yet he regards annihilation, as all savages do, with loathing and ineffable horror. 'He fears death,' to quote Bacon, 'as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.' The African mind must change radically before it can 'think upon death, and find it the least of all evils.' All the thoughts of these negroids are connected with this life. 'Ah!' they exclaim, 'it is bad to die; to leave off eating and drinking; to wear a fine cloth!' As in the negro race generally, their destructiveness is prominent; a slave never breaks a thing without an instinctive laugh of pleasure; and however careful he may be of his own life, he does not value that of another, even of a relative, at the price of a goat. During fires in the town of Zanzibar, the blacks have been seen adding fuel, and singing and dancing, wild with delight. On such occasions they are shot down by the Arabs like dogs.

"It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilized 'social evil' is not recognized as an evil. In the economy of the affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that rude stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now enlightened man. Marriage with these people, as amongst all barbarians, and even the lower classes of civilized races, is a mere affair of buying and selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his comfort; consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brasswire bracelets as the suitor can afford. He thus virtually sells her, and she belongs to the buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A strong inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in Europe, is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family; a large progeny enriches them. The African, like all barbarians, and, indeed, semi-civilized people, ignores the dowry by which, inverting nature's order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband buying the wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and an event with Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent recurrence. Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred. It is no disgrace for an unmarried woman to become a mother of a family; after marriage there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni, or adulterer, if detected, is punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor and weak, he is sold into slavery. Husbands seldom, however, resort to such severities; the offence, which is considered to be against vested property, being held to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the influence of jealousy, murders and mutilations have been committed; but they are rare and exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by turning the spouse out of doors, and the children become the father's property. Attachment to home is powerful in the African race; but it regards rather the comforts and pleasures of the house, and the unity of relations and friends, than the fondness of the family. Husband, wife, and children have through life divided interests, and live together with scant appearance of affection. Love of offspring can have but little power amongst a people who have no preventive for illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time. The children appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the Somal. Some attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward indications, but by surprise, as it were. 'Mamá! mamá!'--'Mother! mother!'--is a common exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is passed, the father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts. Yet they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of relatives sometimes, but rarely, leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity, resulting from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain. It is probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the Widad, or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the Koran, becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To this over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The 'ukosa,' or transgression, is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving the worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, 'Mbáyá we!'--'Thou art bad!'--a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and uneffective to European ears.

"The social position of the women--the unerring test of progress towards civilization--is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more highly organized tribes of the South. Few of the country own the rule of female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their wives; but the opinion of a brother or a friend usually prevail over that of a woman.

"The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his hemisphere of boughs, or his hide-acting tent, he hates, and has a truly savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the 'Madeleine,' but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many Wanyamwezi, when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a house.

"The East African is greedy and voracious. He seems, however, to prefer light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the civilized Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can exist and work with a small quantity of food; but he is unaccustomed, and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter is one kubabah (= 1.5 lbs.) of grain. He can, with the assistance of edible herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the least likely places, eke out this allowance for several days, though generally, upon the barbarian's impulsive principles of mortgaging the future for the present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him the grand end of life is eating. His love of feeding is inferior only to his propensity for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer stand, lies down to sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts are solemn things, to which the most important business must yield precedence. They celebrate with beer every event--the traveller's return, the birth of a child, and the death of an elephant. A labourer will not work unless beer is provided for him. The highest order rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing. The proper diet for a king is much beer and little meat. If a Wanyamwezi be asked, after eating, whether he is hungry, he will reply 'Yea,' meaning that he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The East African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance, or quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The favourite hour for drinking is after dawn--a time as distasteful to the European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The civilized man avoids early potations, because they incapacitate him for necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilized, on the other hand, prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when they awake, they have something to think of. The habit, once acquired, is never broken; it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and unoccupied barbarian.

"In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little veneration--the negro race is ever irreverent--and, though his cranium rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake's sake. The accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the moments not devoted to intoxication.

"The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African. The body politic consists of two great members--masters and slaves. Ignoring distinction of society, he treats all men, except his chief, as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he enters a stranger's house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak; his address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and his look bold. He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and tattered goatskin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When travelling, he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut: the chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempts to dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of mules--as the Arabs say, they 'have no shame.' The curiosity of these people is at times most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at; total apathy is the only remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or attempt to dislodge them, he will find it like disturbing a swarm of bees. They will come for miles to 'sow gape-seed:' if the tent-fly be closed, they will peer and peep from below, complaining loudly against the occupant, and, if further prevented, they may proceed to violence. On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and girls--will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive spectacle--these uncouth figures, running at a 'gymnastic pace,' half clothed except with grease, with pendant bosoms shaking in the air, and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek, is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first appeared in the country they were received with respect and deference. They soon, however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with the people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the Africans found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil has become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that between the manners of an Indian ryot and an East African Mshenzi.

"In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilized generally, he observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that of an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond which apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is stationary, but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle: his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no metrical songs: he contents himself with improvising a few words without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate: the long, drawling recitative generally ends in 'Ah! ha!' or some such strongly nasalized sound. Like the Somal, he has tunes appropriated to particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or the harvest-home. When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form: women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail: after venting a little distress in a natural sound, the long, long improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as before. As in Europe the 'laughing-song' is an imitation of hilarity somewhat distressing to the spirits of the audience, so the 'weeping-song' of the African only tends to risibility. His wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence; though, like most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content himself with squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some meaningless word in every different tone of voice during the weary length of a day's march. His language is highly artificial and musical: the reader will have observed that the names which occur often consist entirely of liquids and vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word, and that they never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of a syllabarium seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally, though the East African delights in the dance, and is an excellent timist--a thousand heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like one--his performance is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man. He delights in a joke, which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his efforts in wit are of the feeblest that can be conceived.

"'Use savages justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless.' They must be held as foes; and the prudent stranger will never put himself in their power, especially where life is concerned. The safety of a caravan will often depend upon the barbarian's fear of beginning the fray: if the onset takes place, the numbers, the fierce looks, the violent gestures, and the confidence of the assailants upon their own ground will probably prevail.

"They may be managed as the Indian saw directs, by a judicious mixture of the _Narm_ and _Garm_--the soft and hot. Thus the old traders remarked in Guinea, that the best way to treat a black man was to hold out one hand to shake with him, while the other is doubled ready to knock him down. In trading with, or even when dwelling amongst these people, all display of wealth must be avoided. A man who would purchase the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its equivalent.

"Much of this moral degradation must be attributed to the working, through centuries, of the slave-trade: the tribes are no longer as nature made them; and from their connection with strangers they have derived nothing but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous type, they have been varnished with the semi-civilization of trade and commerce, which sits ridiculously upon their minds as a rich garment would upon their persons.

"Nature, in these regions really sublime or beautiful, more often terrible and desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle, the tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a vague and nameless awe. Untaught to recommend himself for protection to a Superior Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of his reverence and awe: he prostrates himself before the sentiment within him, hoping to propitiate it as he would satisfy a fellow-man. The grand mysteries of life and death, to him unrevealed and unexplained, the want of a true interpretation of the admirable phenomena of creation, and the vagaries and misconceptions of his own degraded imagination, awaken in him ideas of horror, and people the invisible world with ghost and goblin, demon and spectrum, the incarnations, as it were, of his own childish fears. Deepened by the dread of destruction, ever strong in the barbarian breast, his terror causes him to look with suspicion upon all around him: 'How,' inquires the dying African, 'can I alone be ill when others are well, unless I have been bewitched?'

"Some missionaries have detected in the habit, which prevails throughout Eastern and Western Africa, of burying slaves with the deceased, of carrying provisions to graves, and of lighting fires on cold nights near the last resting-places of the departed, a continuation of relations between the quick and the dead which points to a belief in a future state of existence. The wish is father to that thought: the doctrine of the soul, of immortality, belongs to a superior order of mind, to a more advanced stage of society. The belief, as its operations show, is in presentity, materialism, not in futurity, spiritualism.

"When the savage and the barbarian are asked what has become of the 'old people' (their ancestors), they only smile and reply, 'They are ended.' It proves the inferior organization of the race. Some races have decided that man hath a future, since even Indian corn is vivified and rises again. The East African has created of his fears a ghost which never attains the perfect form of a soul.

"The East African's _Credenda_ are based upon two main articles. The first is demonology, or rather, the spectra of the dead; the second, witchcraft or black magic. Few, and only the tribes adjacent to the maritime regions, have derived from El Islam a faint conception of the One Supreme.

"He has not, like the Kafir, a holiday at the epoch of new moon: like the Moslem, however, on first seeing it, he raises and claps his hands in token of obeisance. In his Fetish hut upon the ground, or suspended from the roof, are handfuls of grain and small pots full of beer, placed there to propitiate the ghosts, and to defend the crops from injury.

"The African temperament has strong susceptibilities, combined with what appears to be a weakness of brain, and great excitability of the nervous system, as is proved by the prevalence of epilepsy, convulsions, and hysteric disease.

"The negroid is, therefore, peculiarly liable to the epidemical mania called 'Phantasmata,' which, according to history, has at times of great mental agitation and popular disturbance broken out in different parts of Europe, and which, even in this our day, forms the basework of 'revivals.'

"Salim bin Rashíd, a half-caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar, avers, and his companions bear witness to his words, that on one occasion, when travelling northwards from Unyanyembe, the possession occurred to himself. During the night two female slaves, his companions, of whom one was a child, fell, without apparent cause, into fits which denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously, the master became as one intoxicated; a dark mass, material, not spiritual, entered the tent, and he felt himself pulled and pushed by a number of black figures, whom he had never seen before. He called aloud to his companions and slaves, who, vainly attempting to enter the tent, threw it down, and presently found him in a state of stupor, from which he did not recover till the morning. The same merchant circumstantially related, and called witnesses to prove, that a small slave-boy, who was produced on the occasion, had been frequently carried off by possession even when confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door carefully bolted and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found, although the chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was met in the jungle, wandering absently like an idiot, and with speech too incoherent to explain what had happened to him.

"For ordeal the people of Usumbara thrust a red-hot hatchet into the mouth of the accused. Among the south-eastern tribes a heated iron spike, driven into some tender part of the person, is twice struck with a log of wood. The Wazaramo dip the hand into boiling water, the Waganda into seething oil, and the Wazegura prick the ear with the stiffest bristle of a gnu's tail. The Wakwafi have an ordeal of meat that chokes the guilty. The Wanyamwezi pound with water between two stones, and infuse a poisonous bark called 'Mwavi:' it is first administered by the _Mganga_ to a hen, who, for the nonce, represents the suspected. If, however, all parties be not satisfied with such trial, it is duly adhibited to the accused.

"The _Mganga_ (medicine man) aids his tribe by magical arts in wars, by catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an army of its fellows and disperse a host, however numerous. This belief well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the supernatural. The land being full of swarms, and man's body being wholly exposed, many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff before the wind by a bevy of swarming bees. Similarly, in South Africa the magician kicks an ant-hill and starts wasps which put the enemy to flight. And in the Books of the Hebrews we read that the hornet sent before the children of Israel against the Amorite was more terrible than sword or bow (Joshua xxiv.).

"On the coast and in the island of Zanzibar the slaves are of two kinds--the _Muwallid_ or domestic, born in captivity, and the wild slave imported from the interior.

"In the former case the slave is treated as one of the family, because the master's comfort depends upon the man being contented; often also his sister occupies the dignified position of concubine to the head of the house. These slaves vary greatly in conduct.

"The Arabs spoil them by kinder usage; few employ the stick, the _salib_, or cross--a forked pole to which the neck and ankles are lashed--and the _makantale_, or stocks, for fear or desertion. Yet the slave, if dissatisfied, silently leaves the house, lets himself to another master, and returns after perhaps two years' absence as if nothing had occurred. Thus he combines the advantages of freedom and slavery.

"Full-grown serfs are bought for predial purposes; they continue indocile, and alter little by domestication. When not used by the master they are left to plunder or let themselves out for food and raiment, and when dead they are cast into the sea or into the nearest pit. These men are the scourge of society; no one is safe from their violence; and to preserve a garden or an orchard from the depredations of the half-starved wretches, a guard of musketeers would be required. They are never armed, yet, as has been recounted, they have caused at Zanzibar servile wars, deadly and lasting as those of ancient Rome.

"Arabs declare that the barbarians are improved by captivity--a partial theory open to doubt. The _servum pecus_ retain in thraldom that wildness and obstinacy which distinguish the people and the lower animals of their native lands; they are trapped, but not tamed; they become captives, but not civilized. However trained, they are probably the worst servants in the world; a slave-household is a model of discomfort.

"The old definition of a slave still holds good--'an animal that eats as much and does as little as possible.' A whole gang will barely do the work of a single servant. He must deceive, for fraud and foxship are his force; when detected in some prodigious act of rascality, he pathetically pleads, 'Am I not a slave?' He will run away from the semblance of danger; yet on a journey he will tie his pipe to a leaky keg of gunpowder, and smoke it in that position rather than take the trouble to undo it. A slave belonging to Musa, the Indian merchant at Kazeh, unwilling to rise and fetch a pipe, opened the pan of his musket, filled it with tobacco and fire, and beginning to inhale it from the muzzle blew out his brains. Growing confident and impudent from the knowledge of how far he may safely go, the slave presumes to the utmost. He steals instinctively, like a magpie: a case is quoted in which the gold spangles were stripped from an officer's sword-belt whilst dining with the Prince of Zanzibar.

"The brutishness of negroid nature is brought out by the cheap and readily attainable pleasures of semi-civilization. Whenever on moonlight nights the tapping of the tomtom responds to the vile squeaking of the fife, it is impossible to keep either male or female slave within doors. All rendezvous at the place, and, having howled and danced themselves into happiness, conclude with a singularly disorderly scene.

"The negroid slaves greatly improve by exportation: they lose much of the surliness and violence which distinguish them at Zanzibar, and are disciplined into a kind of respect for superiors.

"In the present day the Persians and other Asiatics are careful, when bound on distant or dangerous journeys, to mix white servants with black slaves; they hold the African to be full of strange caprices, and to be ever at heart a treacherous and bloodthirsty barbarian.

"According to the Arabs there is another servile republic about Gulwen, near Brava. Travellers speak with horror of the rudeness, violence, and cruelty of these self-emancipated slaves; they are said to be more dangerous even than the Somal, who for wanton mischief and malice can be compared with nothing but the naughtiest schoolboys in England.

"The serviles at Zanzibar have played their Arab masters some notable tricks. Many a severe lord has perished by the hand of a slave. Several have lost their eyes by the dagger's point during sleep. Curious tales are told of ingenious servile conspiracy. Mohammed bin Sayf, a Zanzibar Arab, remarkable for household discipline, was brought to grief by Kombo, his slave, who stole a basket of nutmegs from the Prince, and, hiding them in his master's house, denounced him of theft. Fahl bin Nasr, a travelling merchant, when passing through Ugogo, nearly lost his life in consequence of a slave having privily informed the people that his patron had been killing crocodiles and preserving their fat for poison. In both these cases the slaves were not punished; they had acted, it was believed, according to the true instincts of servile nature, and chastisement would have caused desertion, not improvement.

"Prices of slaves range from six feet of unbleached domestics, or a few pounds of grain in time of famine, to seventy dollars, equal to £15. The slaves are cheapest in the interior, on account of the frequency of desertion: about Unyamwezi they are dearer, and most expensive in the island of Zanzibar.

"At Zanzibar the price of a boy under puberty is from fifteen to thirty dollars. A youth till the age of fifteen is worth a little less. A man in the prime of life, from twenty-five to forty, fetches from thirteen to twenty dollars; after that age he may be bought from ten to thirteen. Educated slaves, fitted for the work of factors, are sold from twenty-five to seventy dollars and at fancy prices. The price of females is everywhere about one-third higher than that of males. At Zanzibar the _ushur_, or custom-dues, vary according to the race of the slave: the Wahiao, Wangindo, and other serviles imported from Kilwa pay one dollar per head, from the Mrima or maritime regions two dollars, and from Unyamwezi, Ujiji, and the rest of the interior three dollars. At the central depôt, Unyanyembe, where slaves are considered neither cheap nor dear, the value of a boy ranges between eight and ten _doti_, or double cloths; a youth, from nine to eleven; a man in prime, from five to ten, and past his prime from four to six. In some parts of the interior men are dearer than children under puberty. In the cheapest places, as in Karagwah and Urori, a boy costs three _shukkahs_ of cloth, and three _fundo_ or thirty strings of coral beads; a youth, from ten to fifteen _fundo_; a man in prime, from eight to ten; and no one will purchase an old man. These general notes must not, however, be applied to particular tribes: as with ivory and other valuable commodities, the amount and the description of the circulating medium vary at almost every march.

"The average of yearly import into the island of Zanzibar was fourteen thousand head of slaves, the extremes being nine thousand and twenty thousand. The loss by mortality and desertion is thirty per cent. per annum; thus, the whole gang must be renewed between the third and fourth year.

"By a stretch of power slavery might readily be abolished in the island of Zanzibar, and in due time, after the first confusion, the measure would doubtless be found as profitable as it is now unpalatable to the landed proprietors and to the commercial body. A 'sentimental squadron,' like the West African, would easily, by means of steam, prevent any regular exportation to the Asiatic continent. But these measures would deal only with effects, leaving the causes in full vigour; they would strike at the bole and branches, the root retaining sufficient vitality to resume its functions as soon as relieved of the pressure from without. Neither treaty nor fleet would avail permanently to arrest the course of slavery upon the seaboard, much less would it act in the far realms of the interior. At present the African will not work; the purchase of predial slaves to till the harvest for him, is the great aim of his life. When a more extensive intercourse with the maritime regions shall beget wants which compel the barbarian, now contented with doing nothing and having nothing, to that individual exertion and that mutual dependency which render serfdom a moral impossibility in the more advanced stages of human society--when man, now valueless except to himself, shall become more precious by his labour than by his sale, in fact an article so expensive that strangers cannot afford to buy him--then we may expect to witness the extinction of the evil. Thus, and thus only, can 'Rachel, still weeping for her children,' in the evening of her days, be made happy.

"Meanwhile, the philanthropist, who after sowing the good seed has sense and patience to consign the gathering of the crop to posterity, will hear with pleasure that the extinction of slavery would be hailed with delight by the great mass throughout the length and breadth of Eastern Africa. This people, 'robbed and spoiled' by their oppressors, who are legionary, call themselves 'the meat,' and the slave-dealers 'the knife:' they hate and fear their own demon Moloch, but they lack unanimity to free their necks from his yoke. Africa still 'lies in her blood,' but the progress of human society, and the straiter bonds which unite man with man, shall eventually rescue her from her old pitiable fate."

APPENDIX H.

REPORT AFTER GOING TO SEARCH FOR PALMER.

"_It is said to be generally believed in official quarters that the whole of the troops forming the army of occupation in Egypt will have been withdrawn by the end of the financial year_ (Daily Papers).

"'Many will consider the following statement sensational and exaggerated, while it is distinctly, confessedly realistic. There is no second opinion upon the subject amongst foreigners in Egypt, whatever Egyptians may say, not think. When the last English soldier leaves Alexandria, the last European had better embark with him. Shortly after the final eclipse of our Redcoats and our Bluejackets the Nile Valley will witness a human hurricane which its lively annals have not yet chronicled. As we are here so here we must perforce rest. It is our second conquest of the glorious land which--all know--was offered in gift to England some years before its final fall. We honestly declined the "Protectorate," or whatever it may be called. Now, the tyranny of circumstance forces--nay! has forced--it upon us.'

"These lines were written in early 1883, and time has brought with it no change. Our occupation of Egypt is compulsory as ever. We only have made matters worse by those 'extra-parliamentary utterances,' those pledges for withdrawal which have kept the Nile Valley in a state of chronic excitement. As for our newly raised 'Army' and Police force, these men would be the first to turn upon Europeans and to rend them.

"A few words concerning the voyage.

"Nothing can be pleasanter, if aught of the kind can please, than a steamer-trip from Trieste to Alexandria. This, too, despite the _visages patibulaires_ of a First Class which should travel Second Class, of a Second which ever intrudes into the domains and dominions of a First Class, and despite the terrible infantry which makes an irritable Italian exclaim aloud, '_Sancte Herode ora pro nobis!_' The weather is sometimes perfect even in gloomy November, boisterous December, and roaring January. The scene-shifting of the five days, which may be six, is ever various and ever picturesque. The first, which begins at noon, is the Trieste-Dalmatian, showing the many-featured and historic shores of Trieste, vice-queen of the Adriatic and the Istrian coasts, which want only a secret something to make them thoroughly classical and Italian. It ends as morning rises splendid over the snowy crest and the bold seafront of the Dinarian Alps; and forenoon and afternoon are spent in gazing at the grey archipelago sharply thrown out from the Mediterranean blue; the rock-stuck Pomo; 'piscous' Sant' Andrea; romantic Lissa, whose Egypto-Greek art-remains make the fortune of the Spalato Museum; Cazza, the 'spoon' with bulging handle and bowl; broken Lagosta; the Sabbion cello Promontory, tossed and towering in azure air; and Pelagosa, the last remnant of a volcanic rim where lightning is deadly and where wind-storms are unknown.

"No. 2, the Albanian-Corfu day, opens with a near prospect of the grand and grandly named Akrokeraunian (Cimariot) Rocks. Whatever gales, Tramontana or Scirocco, may roar outside, the basin of Korkyra, forty-eight hours from Trieste and seventy-two from Alexandria, is a haven of rest tranquil as a dry dock. We have time to land and to note that transfer from England to Greece has by no means ruined the city, and to hear Mr. Gladstone roundly abused for what was done by Lord Palmerston.

"At Corfu we shipped for Egypt 245 Arnauts, the sweepings of the Albanian hills. These men, who were popularly described as 'Bathmen (Hammámjís) in Stambul and Pharaohs in Cairo,' are now returning to Nile-land, whence they were expelled by Said Pasha. We know them a mile off by their broad brows and long straight uncombed locks; their cats' moustachios and peaky chins; their felt caps and 'shaggy capotes;' their foul _fustanella_-skirts, girt with leather-belts for the nonce void of weapons; their archaic leggings (_knemides_) and their barbarous hide-sandals, the Slav _upanke_. These savages would doubtless train to good light infantry; but they are engaged as police. Set a thief to catch a thief may be true, but when the latter is caught how does the former occupy himself?

"Six hours beyond Corfu we draw inshore, but not too near on account of a lately found shoal, the deposit of a supposed submarine volcano. Hard by us to port a tall white precipice, Leucatos, in inverted bow-window-shape, breaks the seaward front of Leukadia Island, _alias_ Sta. Maura; and a long red streak shows 'Sappho's Leap.' Like Abel, whose slaughter-place is near Damascus, the poetess must have contained more 'curious juice' than a school of whales. A narrow strait separates Leukadia from Theaki (Ithaca), and we see distinctly the cause why Ulysses could not rest from travel. A double lump of grey-red limestone patched with dwarf evergreens, a few olives, and fewer cypresses; here and there a slip of field-slope no larger than a courtyard; sundry windmills on the hill-tops and rude tenements on the lower levels; a road gashed on the scaur-side leading to a 'port,' that consists of a covelet and one house and the general look of a place fit only for convicts, could have offered few charms to the crafty one who had seen the manners of many men and their cities. Cefalonia, the opposite feature, shows more fertility, because we see her landward face, and her tall cones Georgio and Elato, which make sunset about three p.m., condense the vapours and water her with 'Scotch mist.'

"Then comes the Zante-Morea day, the fair island fronted by the Skopo block with its white-walled monastery. Its huge old citadel overhanging the town, which stretches herself lazily upon the sunny slope, is still desert; not so the inner valley, 'O Kampos,' bounded by a hill-range which Zantiotes compare with the Jura line. On the fronting mainland south of grey Cape Glarenza (Clarence?) rises the once doughty pile Kastro Tornesi. Leaving the Zante-Channel we run near enough to distinguish the features of Pylus Bay, now Navarino ('of the Avars'), with its natural breakwater, Sphacteria, _hodie_ Sphagia, Island, where the Spartans were made captives. Then Methone (Modon) Port and Town, sister of Pylus,[1] whence the Mekhitaris Fathers spread through Upper Italy and Lower Austria; Cervera Islet, with its lighthouse; and Matapan, where Southern Europe ends. A very bad name has this terminal point, Tænorum, the Matapan (forehead) amongst Moderns as amongst Ancients, despite the good auspices of Poseidon, Herakles, and Orion. A western in-draught through the Sicilian and Gibraltar Straits or the return current of the same blows up high side-seas. The Corinth cut is intended for a cure, but will it ever be cut? Dim in haze beyond Matapan we see the long outlines of Malta or St. Angelo Promontory, distinguished only by a hermitage which is never vacant.

"Despite frequent disillusions we open our eyes at the sight of Cerigo and Cerigotto. What dull, commonplace, miserable lumps of limestone to represent poetic Cythera! Did Greek fancy go mad when it chose such a home for lovely Cytheræa? During the night we run by Candia, Crete, a huge front of calcareous wall, with green-flecked sides and copings snow-powdered and mist-feathered. The last land we shall see (thirty-six hours from Corfu) is the Gavdo or Gozzo Islet, distinguished only by its French lighthouse. And now patience after Gavdo day (No. 4); we shall have nothing in view but air and water, and look forward to Alexandria on the morrow.

"At length a passenger, with eyes glued to his binoculars, screams that he sees _le Phare_ or Eunostus light. All crowd around him, striving to see as much. Presently it stands up distinct, a white thimble-top capping the sheet of indigo. Running in we note the effects of the bombardment. Far to starboard rise the Marabút works, all knocked to pieces. Meks, over the bow, shows as much light through it as the shell of bulbous palace which it guarded: only one high flank now stands upright. Eastward lie the battered mainland batteries, between the harbour and Mareotis, the lake basin which we attempted, and this time failed, to flood. On the seaward side of the port are the works of Ras el-Tín, the headland (not 'of figs,' but) of clay, where rude potteries were once made. The walls are smashed, the big guns point wildly in all directions, and a white patch upon the tall light-tower marks where one of the heaviest bolts struck. The interior was found in fragments, but the sailors soon rigged up the apparatus. Further east Adda stands disconsolate, a series of breaches. Towered Fort Pharos, traditional site of the World's Wonder, at the heel of the Alexandrian sock, also shows huge chasms in the masonry. Picnics visit the ruins, but the artists of the various 'Illustrateds' have made the scene perfectly familiar to us. There has, however, been treasure-trove among the _débris_, such as stones with hieroglyphs, and a Latin inscription built up in the ashlar.

"A good result of this 'knocking about' will be to abolish the Alexandrian bar, which has kept thousands of tall ships rolling in the dangerous offing through livelong nights. The City of Zu'l-Karnayu (Alexander of the Two Horns) has built for herself a fine house, neglecting only the doorway, even as Balzac forgot only his villa staircase. The object of retaining the obstacle was to prevent the entrance of a fleet in war-time--incredible; but such was the policy of modern Egypt's short-sighted sons! The Bughaz, or Central Passage, flanked by Corvette Passage east, and west by Marabút Passage, is the main line, marked by buoys invisible at night--hence the delays. The scattered reefs of coralline must be blown up and the fragments removed, otherwise bad will wax worse. The work should be entrusted to an English contractor of repute, say Sir G. Elliot: a host of Levantines, Greeks and others, are proposing to do the job cheaply and badly. I heard £40,000 as the inadequate sum proposed.

"Very gay and lively is the glorious new Harbour, where warships of all nations, even Turkish, are alive with martial sounds. Steamers are puffing in and out, tugs are plying, and small craft under sail and oar are dotting the broad expanse. Three transports embark homeward-bound. The much-abused hospital ship _Carthage_, a whited sepulchre, lies apart, sulking as it were. Colliers and merchantmen line the landing-places, and even the Dry Dock is at work. Near the inner Mole stand the old Egyptian men-of-war, suggesting Greenwich pensioners; the sooner they are sold and broken up for building material the better. Presently appears the ubiquitous Cook's boat, as we learn from white calico letters sewn upon raiment red as the mediæval Headsman's. We surrender at discretion, leave a card at the custom-house, and take carriage at the Marina or quay.

"The burnings begin at once in the Darb el-Gumruk (Custom-house Street). A 'house of refreshment' was fired by the mob because frequented by the hated Frank, and the flames spread, but not far. Reaching the Darb Ras el-Tín, which connects the sea-palace with the main square, the ruins show in force, and extend in lines and patches through the Place to the walls that defend the city on the south and east.

"The Place des Consuls, or de Mahomet Ali, now shows its third phase. That of utter bareness and barrenness was described by the Pilgrim in 1852.[2] Then came the polished epoch of tall trees, round tanks and flower-plots, heavy chains, band-stand, and gravelled walks, which attracted hosts of nursery-maids and their sallow charges. The Great Old Man of Cavala still sits his bronze steed, but since 1882 he looks upon a Fair, a Kermesse, or rather a brand-new mining city in the Far West, set in a framework of ruins, an unburied Pompeii.

"On the west side of the square the huge Okem (Wakálat) Gharbi and its large _café_ have bodily disappeared. Its northern neighbour, the Palazzo Zizinia, is reduced to a mere shell eight feet high. The northern houses between the main square and the old or eastern harbour are burnt in blocks, but the Club and Penasson's Library show no damage: the English church also escaped; and, as a rule, little harm was done to places of worship, Giaour or Moslem. More 'loot' was to be had out of the laity. The fire began, they say, with the English and French Consulates, a kind of poetic justice for the _Condominium_. At the east end of the square the large building labelled 'Tribunal and Police Office' is wholly unhurt, and the Redcoats on guard are good to see. The long block to the south of the square, and dividing it from Place Sainte Cathérine, formerly the fine property of Prince Ibrahim Pasha, displays the typical scene of destruction. The bases have been piled up to clear the thoroughfares. The midway heights show shells of painted and papered chambers, with here and there a scorched chair or bedstead still standing on the airy edge of the precipice; there are _débris_ of archways and balconies, charred timbers and fragments of furniture, windows, doors, and shutters; iron work curiously twisted by the fire, toasted inscriptions and blistered advertisements, and fallen blocks of limestone burnt to lime. The sky-line of broken and blackened wall forms points and pinnacles of chimney and coping, thrown well out by the gold and azure of sun and air; many of these frets have fallen, and the first high wind after the first heavy rains will bring down showers of stones upon workmen's heads. The latter, however, are few. Little or nothing has been done, or will be done, till 'indemnity' is forthcoming. But--

'Wait: my faith is large--in Fire,'

as in Time. Cities gain by being burnt. Several companies have submitted plans for rebuilding; and now the only want is a Town-architect to regulate the façades, and to see that the masonry is good and solid. Only let him avoid arcades which shelter damp and Greek coffee-houses.

"A stroll through the Place des Consuls shows a parallel line of board-booths along the northern and southern faces. Gaps were left where men caught red-handed had been carefully shot and carelessly buried. Now tables are spread, and people dine merrily over the dead. This is essentially Egyptian, the mummy at the feast. The booths supply everything, from a needle to a ready-made suit: the staples, however, are bad liquor and worse women. The names mostly appeal to the fighting class; for instance, 'Admiral Seymour's Bazar,' 'Crocforde's,' 'Duke of Connaught's Rest,' and the 'Hole in the Wall.' Here and there are Birrerie, generally next door to the coiffeur's; καφφενεῑα, _a cucina economica alla Triestina_, and unclean card-tables, domino-tables, and billiard-tables. The number of tobacco-shops is a study.

"During my thirty years' experience I never saw Alexandria look so picturesque or so happy. The magic word INDEMNITY has much to do with her high spirits, and the indemnistists jauntily fixed their figure somewhere between four and five millions sterling. Life swarms and surges through the burnt thoroughfares. All are bustling about, busy as bees, except those who are eating and drinking, smoking and fighting. It is a _Pays de Cocagne_, where money seems to be a drug. About mid-September, 1882, not a carriage was to be seen; before the year ended they were everywhere; and the 'bus, a new introduction, heralds the advent of the tramway. Donkey-boys, never more free and easy than now, group, grin, and chatter at every corner. Cheeky shoeblacks, here the unerring test of well-doing, assail you like swarms of Nile-flies. The Redcoats give points of light, and riders in brown with M.P. (military police) on the arm afford a sense of security. The topboot-and-revolver period of invasion soon passed away, but the military tailor soon came well to the fore; and not a few uniforms reminded old hands of a Volunteer Review in London after the Crimean War.

"Alexandria is ordered to be in bed before twelve, but she enjoys her evenings. The Café Paradiso offers a hall full of billiard-tables ('balyards far unfit'), like bagatelle-boards, and music in the normal shape of a masculine and feminine Austrian band. The demoiselles-violinists are bound by contract to the best of behaviour during engagements. In descending scale is the Café Bel Ain, and a host of estaminets, groggeries, and beereries, till you touch bottom at depôts for Greek dancing and native music. Of the Teatro Rossini the less we say the better. The Theatre Zizinia opened with an Anglo-American troupe, distinguished by _Le Cabinet infernal, Le Negre Paganini,_ and _Le Jolly Coons, excentriques et high Kickers_. It finally rose to _Madame Angot_ in Italian.

"Standing before the ruins, we ponder over the events of June and July 11th, which confounded all 'old Egyptians'--myself included. The universal belief was that Alexandria had everything to fear, not from her Moslems, but from her mean white Christians--Italians, Greeks, and Levantines. Numerically they had the advantage, and all were more or less armed with long pistols and longer knives.

"How then came they to show such utter poltroonery? The only explanation is that they were surprised, scared, demoralized, by the soldiery and the murderous police taking part with a mob, dastardly, fanatic, and bloodthirsty as it was in the days of Hypatia. Whenever and wherever a knot of Europeans combined to defend themselves against the _canaille_, they fled like a flock of sheep. It is well to note and remember the fact, especially in the country parts of Egypt, where bad days may still be coming. Men who run are rarely merciful; after order was restored they would be cruel as they were cowardly. It was a sight to see their hangdog looks when they learnt that Arábi and Co. were not to be _sus. per coll._, or even shot.[3]

"For the English garrison of Alexandria much remained to be done. Of two thousand men (round numbers), four were buried per diem, at the yearly rate of 1460, and at an expense of £20,000, against £3200 per mensem. This excessive mortality of last autumn did not extend to the officers. The men died because fed with over-driven beef where mutton should have been preferred, and the horses were killed by rations of heating oats, where the natives use only cooling barley. The chief scourge, enteric fever, was attributed to 'bad water,' for which I should read 'strong waters.' It was the same in the time of Abercrombie. Men of both services might be seen at midday 'half-seas over' amongst the poison-selling booths. A Maltese lately convicted of 'hocussing' (vending drugged coffee) was let off without a flogging--_-pour encourager les autres_. It is to be feared that in a land where the rod only is respected, we shall govern too little, and thus distinguish ourselves from our French 'friends' who govern too much. The prime want was a Soldiers' Home in addition to canteens, where good liquor is to be bought. Men must leave their barracks for change of air and scene, but they should be ordered to walk about in knots, not singly, and they should be under agreement to drink nothing stronger than tea or coffee in the booths.

"The Police has been another serious consideration. The new 'Gendarmerie,' as it was called, consisted of a mongrel lot--jödelling Swiss, chestnut-sellers from Friuli, veteran soldiers from Dalmatia and Bosnia, Albanian shepherd-brigands, and a scatter of cosmopolitan mongrels. Far better to raise a brigade of three thousand 'Bobbies,' officered, drilled, and dressed (with due modification) after our London fashion. These men, who would not speak a word of any language but English, should be stationed in the port and capital, with detachments, relieved every quarter, at the six important towns, Damanhúr and Tantah, Zagázíg and Mansúrah, Port Said and Suez. Those who object forget that Swiss and Italians, Dalmatians and Arnauts, are as ignorant of Arabic as Englishmen are. The difference is, the latter are to be trusted; the former proved that they were not: some mutinied, others deserted, and all were dismissed.

"The environs of Alexandria had escaped any damage. The fair gardens and villas on 'the Canal' are as they were. Sídi Gábir was presently altered for better and for worse. The race-course served only to tether mules: the grand stand stood nodding to its fall, and 'Effendina's' palace and outhouses afforded shelter to the 18th Royal Irish. The fane of the old Maroccan Saint looks fresher and more flourishing than before. On the other side of the city the Boulevard de Ramleh suffered severely as its neighbours, Sherif Pasha and Tewfík[4] Streets: the station however remains, and the rails were not injured. As we issue from the land-fortifications we see them still crested by sand-bags. At that ticklish time, when Alexandria was left defended by few men and fewer cannon, Arábi might have attacked, and, aided by the half-cowed mob inside, might have driven us to extremes. Fortunately for Egypt, nothing less heroic than this hero. Ramleh, the 'Sand-heap' suburb, had nothing to complain of save the felling of trees and the plundering of gardens. The only changes we note there are the field-works near the water-tower thrown up to exchange long shots with the Rebels at Kafr Dawár. Here Abercrombie had his head-quarters before he was carried dying into the nearest mosque. Also the gypsy-like Bedawi who claimed the land have struck their foul black tents; and it will be the fault of the Ramleyites if the mean thieves are allowed to return.

"Leaving picturesque Alexandria behind us, we take the rail to Cairo. This, the main artery as well as the minor veins, so far from progressing under English management, of late years has distinctly retrograded. The rails are looser, the carriages dirtier, the _employés_ less civil and obliging; the prices higher and the danger greater than under Egyptian direction. All that can be said for this trunk line is that it appears somewhat less risky than its dependents. One of Egypt's latest curses is the rule of superannuated Anglo-Indian officials, who, with some notable exceptions, draw large salaries for doing little work. Their early training is worse than useless, as we saw in the Crimea, where Sepoy officers were sent to command Turks, _because_, forsooth, they had commanded Hindí Moslems and Hindú Pagans. For the Egyptian services I should prefer to these seniors, juveniles, even clerks, fresh and direct from England.

"The main interest of the railway-trip is the aspect of Kafr Dawár, the 'village of tent-encampments,' which I last saw in the guise of a sleepy little hamlet-station. The outer and inner lines of Rebel-earthworks, with rude batteries commanding the iron road, and resting upon Lake Mareotis and the Mahmudiyah Canal, contrast with the heap of beehive huts and the white villas embosomed in tree-mottes. The framework of the picture is a glorious sky and a flat fatiguing to the eyes as the South American Pampas. The reason for our declining this line of attack is obvious: the land is a bog, cut moreover by deep ditches and drains. Here Arábi made his first fatal mistake. Instead of keeping his half-disciplined troops well in hand, and cuddling their courage for the decisive day, he separated them and allowed detachments to be beaten in detail. But he had neglected the studies of a military college, and his staff did not contain a single officer versed in strategic science. It was a child playing against a master of chess. May the British Army enjoy few such easy triumphs; similar Algerian victories spoilt the French soldiers for European service.

"The main stations, Damanhúr, Kafr Zayyát, and Tantah, all made themselves infamous in the late Rebellion. The 'mild Fellah' and his milder wife tied the limbs of murdered Franks to dogs' tails, poured petroleum upon the poor brutes, and set them on fire. These horrors have sunk a great gulf between native and stranger which will not be bridged over during this generation. One regrets not to see a detachment of Redcoats, or at least a body of British policemen, holding fortified barracks in these three old centres of furious bigotry. The jails of Tantah were long crammed, but the contents were paupers, not rich culprits.

"The villages improve as we approach the capital, and square houses take the place of round African clay huts. The land is the same everywhere--a virgin-mother younger only than the hills. Black ants, brown ants, and white ants crawl over her ample bosom, come and go, are born to work and fight and die, but the Nile flows and floods for ever.

"Cairo promises ruins, but shows none beyond the railway-station. Nizr el-Kahíreh, the city of (planet) Mars, is still rejoicing over her narrow escape: she was saved one day before death by the gallant march of the British cavalry: the mean foreigners jealously suggest the 'horseman of St. George,' which is the golden sovereign. She is gay as Alexandria. The Shubra road that showed in 1879-80 some half-dozen _shandridans_ is now a line of Arab riders and neat equipages, of uniforms, un-uniforms, and of Parisian toilettes. Dinner-parties are the rule; balls are in prospect; Giroflé Giroflá is rehearsing at the Opera-house, and even that abomination the grind-organ has found its way into the city of the Mamelukes.

"Yet good old 'Shepherd's' is half-empty, and the New Hotel quasi-desert. Despite bogus lists and vamped-up reports this year will be, touristically speaking, a failure. And tourists are right. The tone of the population is disagreeable; the situation is unpleasant if not dangerous. Next season will be a success, on two conditions--the absence of cholera, and the non-withdrawal of the occupying army. But Cairo has suffered greatly in the loss of Lord Dufferin. It takes away one's breath (so rare is the sight) to see the right man in the right place; to miss the square peg in the round hole; to meet, for instance, General Feilding (a Hapsburg) at the Austro-Hungarian manœuvres, and to find Earl Dufferin sent to Egypt. The diplomat is a host in himself. His personal experience of 'the East' began nearly a quarter-century ago, when he organized the Libanus. He is a hard and conscientious worker; he has a priest's will with the 'courage of his opinions,' and he owns the gift of common sense which does not always characterize his profession. With one reservation (to err is human) we may hold _primâ facie_ that what Lord Dufferin determines is right will be rightly done. If he fail it will be from being ordered to attempt the impossible, to make an England of Egypt. Meanwhile we ardently wish he would abate the plague of locust-strangers that flock to batten upon the land. They are reviving all the conditions which led to the late troubles; and they will lead to a repetition of the drama with only the part of Arábi left out.

"One of Cairo's marvellous escapes is the unique Bulak Museum. It was offered for sale to a commercial house, _they say_; but here we must now believe little of what we see and less of what we hear. The old station-house is rebuilt, and may now be pronounced safe. MM. Maspero and Brugsch Bey are doing their best, but slowly: they want more assistance, which means money; and their revised catalogue will not be ready for this season. Their recovery of the old Pharaohs reads a lesson not only to the antiquary but to the political. How little the Egyptian has changed from what he was under the Double Crown may be seen in Brugsch Bey's report. The Fellah women ran bare-headed and dishevelled along the Nile-banks, keening the death-cry, as it were, for their husbands or brothers, when they heard that the mummies of their olden kings were being boated down stream by the French. The corpses were pickled some three thousand years ago, but what is that in the land of Kemi?

"Sunday, November 12th, corresponded with the first Muharram A.H. 1300. No Moslem, however, could or would tell me whether A.H. 1299 was, or 1300 is to be, the _Annus Mirabilis_ of Mohammedanism; even the comet had complicated the question by living too long. The popular expectation was a general uprising of the Moslem world, which, however, shows no sign; a kind of 'Battle of Armageddon;' the universal conquest of El-Islam and a general preparation for the end of time (_Akhir el-Zamán_), which is to follow in the fourteenth century. The superstitious noted a terrible omen. The Mahmal-litter, in which Rogers Bey finds a survival of the Covenant-ark (why not go back to Osiris?), was torn off its dromedary by a telegraph wire opposite the British camp, Suez, and (horrible to relate!) was mended by a Káfir, Mr. Campbell, engineer to the Compagnie Khédiviale.

"We wished the compliments of the season, _Kull ám antum bi'l-Khayr!_ (may every year find you fair!), to all our Egyptian friends who were not in durance or under surveillance. Every second man seemed to be in trouble, and with rare exceptions none from Caliph to churl would have come out with clean hands. Even the little black and whity-brown Beys, who haunted English dames and demoiselles at Shepherd's, found it advisable to make themselves 'scarce.' A very few words will resume the long story. Political imbecility, financial mismanagement, and the greed of bourgeois-shareholders raised up a powerful party against Europeans, and it found a fitting leader in Arábi, the Fellah-pasha. The Porte, hoping once more to conduct into shrunken and impoverished Constantinople a Nile flowing _lire_ and piastres, resolved that the Khedivial family should, in Napoleonic phrase, 'cease to reign.' Grand old Mohammed Ali was to be succeeded by a mere Pasha, or general, removable at will and retainable only whilst douceurs, _avances_, and tributes were regular. Hence the scandalous gift of the Medjidiah decoration to a palpable rebel. But the Fellah is _né malin_. He countered the Turkish project by transferring his allegiance from a 'Caliph' (successor), whose claims rest upon no legal base, to the Sheríf (Prince) of Meccah, the lineal descendant of the Apostle of Allah, whose right to succeed, if he choose to assert it, is indefeasible. How England was left to hack at, and lastly to cut, the Gordian knot need hardly be told.

"Finishing my work at the capital, I 'hardened my heart' to face the dangers of the Cairo-Suez railway. It is reported that the old direct line _viâ_ the Desert, where Burckhardt saw ostriches in 1816, will be relaid, and that a section of twenty-one miles is almost ready. Despite the expense and the waste of coin in carrying water, at the rate of three waggons to one full of passengers, our occupation will require this move. Nor must we forget the artesian wells, of which the old Olympiodorus thus speaks when describing the Lybian waste: 'In this oasis the people used to scoop out excavations one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet deep, when jets of pure water rose in tall columns.'

"At the still Burnt Station we found a trainful of half-uniformed peasants, bearing bag and baggage, including Remingtons. They will be mustered to the tune of ten thousand at Suez, and sent to the Sudan or Upper Nile Provinces with the view of putting down the long-standing insurrection. They look already beaten, and I do not envy the man who is to command. The Arch-enemy is the Mahdí, the 'False Prophet' of the European Press, a title which describes exactly enough what he is not. D'Herbelot has told the world that the twelfth Imam, or Antistes, the lineal blood-descendant of the Apostle of Allah and the legal religious head of El-Islam, was born in A.H. 255 (= A.D. 868), was named Abu 'l Kásim Mohammed, and assumed the style of El-Mahdí, or the Director, _i.e._ in the path of the True Faith. He mysteriously disappeared (probably murdered) under the rule of the Abbaside, El Mohtade, the fourteenth of the Baghdad House. Hence his title El-Mutabattan--the Concealed; but of the many _Redivivi_ noticed in history, he declared that he would return before the Last Day and lead a reformed Islamism to universal dominion in preparation for certain other Second Comings. Consequently every great political heave of Mohammedanism, in Africa as in Asia, has thrown up and still throws up one or more Mahdís. Of the latest 'Director' I could learn little, save that he is an inspired Carpenter: Cairo ignored even his real name. 'Mohammed Ahmed' of Dongola means nothing. Great men, religious or laical, always on promotion prefix to their own names 'Mohammed' or some variant. Thus Tewfík is Mohammed Tewfík, and Arábi is Ahmed Arábi. This Mahdí will, probably, like most of his predecessors, meet his death at the hands of his fanatical and infuriated mob of followers. Meanwhile, despite recurring reports of his being beaten, he is still formidable, and he will give trouble during the coming winter. The one only remedy will be an English expedition--costly, but not so costly as doing nothing.

"We detrained at Zagázíg after two hours and a half of dusting, which seemed to begin the process of burying alive. The modern town is the successor of Bubastis, Pi-Pasht, city of Pasht, Isis with the tabby-cat's head. Its position--a central point where roads, railways, and canals meet--has made it a Cottonopolis, and its factories, with tall stacks and huge warehouses, have entitled it the 'Manchester of Egypt.' It is the military key of the Delta; Napoleon Buonaparte, at the beginning of the century, drew his base from Bilbays to Sálihíyah, and the Arabists intended to do the same.

"I passed a day in the house of my friend M. Vetter, for the purpose of consulting with Mr. Charles Clarke, Chef des Télégraphes. He had been the managing man during my two expeditions to the Gold Lands of Midian; and his topographical and linguistic knowledge had enabled him to render the army valuable service during the late campaign. His house was carefully looted by English soldiers, who may have thought it belonged to some employé of M. de Lesseps, and by Indian sepoys, who tore up his wife's dresses to adorn their turbans, and his comfortable rooms were still bare and desolate. He had been invited to join the Palmer Expedition, but although on friendly terms with the powerful Bedawin chief, Sulayman Pasha El-Abázeh, he had declined. The game was not worth the candle. On my next visit I hope to find Mr. Clarke travelling Director of Telegraphs, a post which will suit him and which he will suit down to the ground. As yet he has received only the barren honour of a C.M.G., and H.H. the Khedive has shirked conferring any distinction to show that Mr. Clarke acted in his interest.

"The Zagázítes showed a peculiar, independent, free-and-easy bearing, and the resident Europeans, who lately begged two English officers in uniform to walk through the town, do not hold themselves safe without the protection of a detachment, British soldiers or policemen. For many reasons this should be granted to them. The adjoining villagers absolutely refuse to believe that Arábi has been fairly beaten: his defeat and capture are known in Southern Syria, but not within cannon-shot of Tel el-Kebir. Here, too, the Fellahs are ready to rise again at any given moment. They differ in blood from the inhabitants of the Nile Valley proper, but they are no improvement upon their neighbours.

"Prodigious is the iteration of books concerning the 'poor down-trodden Fellah,' serving sentimentality to contrast him with his Pharaohs, the Pashas and Beys who oppress him and his. This philanthropic and most ignorant twaddle began (not honestly) with the French invasion, endured through the age of Lane and Gardner Wilkinson, and is repeated in the old stock phrases by the latest writers, Baron de Mahortié and Dicey. Foreigners mostly know the city folk; their 'manners and customs of the modern Egyptians' should be called the 'manners and customs of Cairo.' Ask Mr. Charles Clarke of Zagázíg, or Mr. Curzon Tompson of Cairo, men who, never holding high official positions, could study the Fellah in his own home. They will confirm my statement that there is nowhere a more dogged and determined, turbulent and refractory, furious and fanatical, cruel and bloodthirsty race than these clowns of the 'Black Land.' Compared with them the 'finest pisantry' are a weak and violent race; nor do they produce, like the Felláhin, typical and remarkable men. This generation has seen the Mufattish, a son of the soil, who could hold his own against the ablest financiers of Europe, and who had amassed millions of money, when one fine night he was tumbled into the Nile. It has produced Arábi the Reb., who, despite his notorious want of physical pluck, has graved his name upon the memorial tablets of his native valley. Aided by the weakness of his opponents, he placed the captor between the horns of an exceptional dilemma. If put to death he would have become a _Shahíd_ or martyr. If allowed to live, even in exile, it was because the Káfir feared to slay him, and because it will soon be found advisable to recall him.

"A few words concerning the early career of this modern Prætorian may be acceptable; his later career is known to all. Arábi, not Ourabi, and mispronounced Arăby, probably an echo of 'Araby the blest,' is neither a Frenchman, nor a Spaniard, nor an Irishman, nor a green-turban'd Sayyid. His father, an honest Fellah, ploughed the old paternal fields about Kafr el-Taur ('Bull village'), between Tantah and Birkat el-Saba', stations on the Alexandria-Cairo railway. His mother, who has been interviewed by more than one Englishwoman, and who is now living at El-Hurríyyah ('Liberty'), her son's proprietary village near Zagázíg, sent her three boys as volunteers to serve and die for Said Pasha. This remarkable step, for the Egyptian parent invariably did and does the reverse, attracted the ruler's attention to the lads. He placed them in the military college, and he was heard to say, according to his widow, an honest Anglophobe, that he expected great things from Arábi.

"But Arábi preferred studying theology, which means bigotry, at El-Azhar, the University-mosque of Cairo, where professors are numbered by hundreds, and pupils by thousands. He had risen to be _Kaimmakám_ (Major), when his patron died. Ismail Khedive would have nothing to do with him: 'the man,' he said, 'has the eye of a _Hayyeh_' (snake). So he was kept on outpost duty till circumstances brought him to the fore, especially on February 1st, 1881, when his Azhar training proved peculiarly valuable. In 1882 he became the pivot of the situation. His right was that of being, after a fashion, the representative man; his claim was having posed before Egypt, England, and Europe as the Leader of the National Party.

"Returning to the Fellah, I would note that this race stands aloof from and above all its neighbours. As hair, features, and figure prove, the Nilote is of African not of Asiatic provenance, partly white-washed by foreign innervation. Mr. Lane dubbed him an 'Arab,' and derived him from the invading soldiery of Amru and other early Moslem conquerors, a handful whose nationality would be at once absorbed, would disappear in the next generation. You have only to place the Bedawi by the side of the Fellah, and the fallacy of the theory becomes palpable. The Fellah's half-brother is the Copt, who has kept his blood freer from 'miscegenation.' Both are perforce peculiar peoples. The climate of the Nile Valley allows no foreign-born to be viable; in its media neither Greek nor Roman, Persian, Turk, nor Circassian, German, Italian, Frenchman, nor Englishman, can permanently increase and multiply. It has thus an atmosphere of perfect conservatism. From the days of the monuments and of Herodotus, the Fellah has altered little but his faith: he preserves all the good and every bad and bitter quality of his forbears.

"The Home Press, when commenting upon the bloodshed and arson of June 11th, asked with wonder, how these 'lambs had suddenly turned wolves?' Lambs, indeed! why, no fighting ram is more obstinate and pugnacious, or less open to pity and mercy, than an Egyptian Fellah. And if the men are brutal and barbarous, the women are, if possible, worse; as mostly happens in hot damp climates, their morals are abominable, and, as Mr. Lane and the 'Arabian Nights' show, their modes of murdering are unutterably horrible. The account of these bestial beings, promenading the streets of Alexandria with the legs and arms of slaughtered Europeans, borne like flags on long staves, should open eyes that can be opened.

"The morbid philanthropy and the mawkish humanitarianism of modern days have created a theoretical, an ideal, Fellah; the factual man would start to see his own portrait. They must deserve compassion who have anything to do with him. There is hardly a European in Egypt who has frequented the villages as a sportsman or antiquary without being assaulted by the villagers, while several of my friends have been nearly killed. The peasants also act as their own police and 'ministers of high justice,' trying and punishing all criminal cases within their mud walls. If man or woman break the law, especially that of _Rasm_, or immemorial custom, the offence is kept from the guardians of society--policemen and magistrates, the worst robbers in the land. If certain 'commandments' be violated, he, she, or it, is carefully tied and trussed up, gagged, and thrown into the Great River. Father Nilus could tell more tales of murder than all the streams in the United Kingdom.

"Among the Fellah's good qualities we must not neglect his persistence and his bravery. A drive to the Pyramids will show you troops of half-naked urchins running a mile in the forlorn hope of a copper; and in this point the boy is the father of the man. The adult will be bastinado'd within an inch of his life before he pays his lawful rent, and his wife praises him as she dresses his wounds. Under Sesostris, who invented the phalanx, the Fellah-soldier overran the nearer East. Under Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas he beat the Arabs at Bissel and the Turks at Nezíb. Even a Moltke could not then save the Ottoman, and the late General Jochmus told me that he escaped defeat, when commanding the Tartar cavalry, only by systematically declining battle with Ibrahim Pasha and his Nilotic armies.

"The dogged pluck of the gunners at the Alexandrian forts and at Tel el-Kebir proves, that the stock has not degenerated; the easy final defeat is readily explained. There was treachery in the air, and the best and bravest men will not stand firm when they suspect that their right-hand, or left-hand neighbours, have been paid to leave them in the lurch. Had the rebels been disciplined, and led by English or French Officers, there would have been a very different tale. As a rule the sight of blood does not excite or terrify the Egyptian; it only makes him an 'uglier customer.'

"Such is the Fellah, the peculiar growth of long centuries. There are races, says M. Gambetta bluntly and truly, which want the rule of the rod. 'The green wand,' declares the Arab proverb, 'is from the trees of Paradise.' The abolition of the Kurbáj, or cowhide, had something to do with the late movement. The hill-peasant must either be beaten or beat; be tyrannized over or tyrannize: in the latter case, like the beggar on horseback, he beats to the death. Here it is no mercy to spare the stick; all forbearance is attributed to the ignoblest motive, craven fear; and the fancy that he is 'funked' makes even the coward brave. It is bad to bastinado, but it is better than to hang and shoot.

"From Zagázíg to Suez is one of the most rickety and dangerous bits of railway travelled over by Europeans. I have seen a single train catch fire twice in one day. You are pretty sure to be told of one which, a few hours ago, 'derailed' and made the hapless passengers pass a cold and hungry night in the waste. The only interest of the dangerous line is the casualty of running through the theatre of our latest campaign. War which, they say, teaches the British Public its geography, also brings into prominence and ennobles names known only to a local peasantry. Such are Kassásín, a lock-bridge over the Sweetwater Canal; Tel el-Mahútah, a mean ground-swell, where the Campaign and Mr. Neville have brought to life certain marvellous Pharaohnic remains; Mahsamah, an outpost station on the edge of Wady Tumilát, southern limit of the Land of Goshen; and Tel el-Kebír, which minor poets are invited to pronounce Keb-eer, not Kee-ber. The latter in 1878 was a mean village, distinguished only by tumble-down cavalry barracks of the Khedivial age, the Age of Modern Ruins. The name 'great mound' (Tel) alludes to a rubbish-heap which was removed for building-ground. There is a brother-hamlet, Tel el-Sagher (Little-mound) hard by, and it has suffered sorely in the maps.

"Amongst other _on dits_ the papers report that Sir Garnet Wolseley, before leaving London and Richmond, not only determined mid-September as the term of the campaign, but also, placing his finger upon Tel el-Kebír, predicted that the decisive action would be fought there. Is this possible? The rebels intended their field-works to be a simple outpost, a first line of trenches dug in the desert; the main defence was to be near Zagázíg, where the hoe'd and irrigated ground, cut by a network of small canals, would have been ugly to cross, as that about Kafr Dawár. But with an inconsequence, which denoted all their actions, Arábi and his Arábists wholly neglected to lay out a second line. Thus the battle was fought at the outer and provisional trenches, on open ground, with gentle rises and falls, where half-disciplined and unofficered men had no chance against regular troops, and the admirable arrangements of their General.

"Messrs. Cook, who took charge of the Commander-in-Chief and the head-quarter staff on their homeward journey--right sensibly they ignored those twin pests, the Courier and the Dragoman--and who will personally conduct the future Princes of the West to the 'Morning-Land,' soon advertised a 'trip to Tel el-Kebír,' where a large Dahabíyeh-barge, moored in the Sweetwater Canal, acted hotel. Here sundry sight-seers 'detrain,' each provided with Major Ardagh's 'lithographic sketch showing the attack.' They may find donkeys, but they prefer a four miles' trudge, over sand and gravel, in the November sun, hotter than an August semi-sun in England, to the British right, where the Highlanders attacked. The battle-field was long unpleasant; the dead might have been buried deeper; and the Bedawi took to 'resurrecting' the Egyptians for loot. Spoils presently disappeared and mementoes became rare, chiefly confined to water-bottles and old hats, bundles of cartridges, and fragments of weapons and missiles.

"A shaky stretch of twenty-six miles places us at ill-fated Ismailíyeh. When I first saw the pretty station in 1869, it boasted a delicious climate, combining the perfume of flowers and trees with the ozone and the 'champagne air' of the Desert. In 1878 the Ismailíyeh Canal, carrying Nile-water which sank into the loose gravelly ground, had bred dangerous malaria-fevers; and now the place is pestilential, hardly inhabitable. Worse still, no one knows what manner of sanitation it requires.

"Here the 'great engineer,' as our scribes will style M. F. de Lesseps, a retired Consul, innocent of all engineering but the amateur's, did us, unconsciously and right unwillingly, the best of good turns. His open patronizing of the arch-rebel, his phrasing, his posing, and his promises of immunity from attack, kept the Canal open, although all arrangements had been made for closing it. This is not to be done by shovelling in earth and sand, which can be shovelled out almost as fast. The best way is to lash together two or three ships or dredgers and simply to scuttle them: the obstruction would require blowing up, and even dynamite wastes valuable time. During future troubles merchant-craft should be convoyed with all precaution up and down the line, each convoy headed and followed by a gunboat. But the real want is a second waterway running parallel with the present. The cost need hardly exceed one-third of the first; and the lessons of the past will make the work easy as well as economical. This subject would require an article for itself: it has already appeared before the public, rather unpleasantly, and it will appear again. The pompous claim to monopoly of the Isthmus, the preposterous demands for millions, and the general tone of the Gallic chanticleers, followed by a loud gobbling from the bubbly-jock of Stamboul, rather amused than offended England. But it is no laughing matter, and some measure is the more necessary as the days of the Euphrates Valley Railway are either done or have not yet dawned. With the Russian at Kars, ready to march ten thousand men down south, we should be building a road for the especial benefit of the invader. Ten years ago it would have served to check the enemy; now it can only facilitate his attack. Not that we have any cause for alarm in the final result, whatever the Russophobe may think or say. Chinese armies, led by English officers, will occupy Moscow before the Muscovite reaches Calcutta.

"From Ismailíyeh we enter the wilderness; we are already in Arabia Deserta. The features are familiar, but they are ever fresh and they never pall. On our left, beyond the bush-green, rushy line of the _rigolle_, lies the chain of indigo-coloured lakelets, Timsah and the 'Waters of Marah;' and ships upraised by refraction course over the dry land. To our right rise the cliffy prolongations of Cairo's Jebel Mukattam, fading away into the distance-dwarfened mounds of Jebel Atákah and Abu Diráj beyond Suez. The broken plain around us, uniformly tawny as a lion's fell, dons ethereal tints as day is about to die, and borrows from the evening skies every colour of the rainbow. It has none of the charms of earthly landscape, grassy hill and wooded dale and park-like plain. All its beauties are reflected from the air and are assimilated till they become its own. No rose can be rosier than its blush-tints; no verdure delicater than its green glazing, the blend of chrome with lilac and cobalt; no yellow more golden than its foreground, no Tyrian purple more gorgeous than its middle distances; no azure more soothing and gracious than what clothes its horizon; no shift of scenery more pronounced than its rippling of alternate light and shade, flushing and paling under the acuter angles of the slanting sun-rays. Presently the giant grey shadow, or wall of night, rises slowly in the east; the blazonry of evening waxes faint and wan in the west, and without a shade of 'gloaming;' for here night comes on with a single stride, earth looks old and pallid and cold--_alt, kalt und ungestalt_--the spectre of her former self. Then follows the final transformation scene. The mysterious Zodiacal light, a pyramid whose base is the region of the setting sun, and whose apex towers towards the zenith, stands distinctly out of the black-blue velvety darkness, made visible by the golden lamps of star, planet, and constellation.

'--Contentez-vous mes yeux Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle!'

"Poor Suez is the sole exception to the general rule of gaiety and merry-making in Egypt. She is actually in the throes of house-changing. She knows that the flitting must be done, but she has no heart to do it. This will be her third remove: even as Heroöpolis on the Bitter Lakes shifted to Arsinoë and Arsinoë migrated to Suez, so Suez must transfer herself to the New Docks--Waghorntown. She must rebuild herself, hotel and inns, Consulates and offices, agencies and counting-houses, leaving the-present tenement to Egyptian officials and native population. The causeway run out to the New Harbour, has so swallowed the bays on either side of it, like the Alexandrian Heptastadium, that even light-draft steamers find shoal water, and in a few years there will be dry ground where the wave still rolls. Medieval Suez, like Sandwich, will presently become an inland town.

"And yet another change for the worse awaits her. We shall in a few years land from Malta at Gurnah, the famous old Cyrene south-east of the island which did _not_ shelter St. Paul. Lying near the north-eastern shore of the Sidra Gulf (Syrtis Major), with a safe port distant ten miles, it was famous in Roman days as the Capital of the Cyreniaca, one of the granaries of the Empire; and the splendour of its ruins shows a high degree of civilization. Through this ancient land, Pentapolis, where there are no mechanical difficulties, a railroad will carry us to Alexandria. We shall then run up _viâ_ Cairo to Keneh, turn eastward, and embark at El-Kusayr (Cosseir). This line, proposed about a decade ago, is sure to be built. It will spare us the mortification of the disagreeable and dangerous Suez-gulf, which is ever too stormy or too still; moreover, it will be a gain of three clear days, and in this section of the nineteenth century the shortest line surely wins. I say nothing about the proposed 'Jordan Canal,' which proposes to deluge half the 'Holy Land,' beyond an expression of admiration that men in their senses can be induced to listen to it. The next move will be for the Man in the Moon to apply for a railway.

"And Suez has been for some time _en petite santé!_ She has suffered from Dengué fever, which she calls _Abú rukab_, or 'Father of Knees,' because those articulations make themselves prominently felt. The complaint, unpleasant though not perilous, used to rage in Syrian Bayrút, and of late years Cairo suffered from it severely. The locally learned attribute its origin to impure drinking-water; if so, Suez has to blame herself for not cleaning her Canal. Perhaps her constitutional delicacy has prevented, during the Rebellion, her normal display of uproarious temper. All 'old Egyptians' were notably deceived in their forecasts about Suez as about Alexandria. The so-called National Movement never made head here, and yet with certain remarkable exceptions Englishmen and Europeans showed the normal poltroonery. It moves laughter to hear of men armed to the teeth sneaking home at night to find all the world peacefully asleep. It would be invidious to mention the names of those who manfully stood their ground, and who won the respect of the natives whilst the runaways fell into the utmost contempt. But it is to be hoped that their services in keeping the peace will be duly recognized by either Government.

"Before Suez can settle down in her fourth home she has hard work to do. The apparently solid masonry of the north and south basins in the French Docks is being washed away by mètres: the walls resemble the bombarded Alexandrian Forts; and here we have another fine study of modern ruins compared with the ancient which were built with the express purpose of defying Time. The only remedy will be to fill up both areas and fit them for building-ground. There is already space enough to begin with; but Suez No. 4 must have room to grow. The Harbour of the future will be formed, like Port Saíd, by the broad space between the Canal piers, where dredging and deepening are the only things needful. It is to be hoped that modern Suez will be laid out on a regular plan and with due attention to drainage. Moria Pasha should look to this.

"The Suez Caravanserai, whose cloistered court has received so many generations of Thelemi monks, is now occupationless as Othello--

'A dismal hostel in a dismal land.'

Like the Town, it must fare south with bag and baggage, and the fine old building will become warehouses--possibly an _usine_ when the gold mines of Midian come to be worked. For some years, however, it will accommodate travellers to 'Sinai,' Petra, and long Desert. Moreover, there is now no climate in Lower Egypt like that of 'Suez the Sanitarium;' it has none of the wet reeking heat of Alexandria, or the raw rheumatic damp of Cairo, which tree-planting, street-flooding, and irrigation have so soon changed from good to bad. It is a treat to breathe the ozoned air of Gulf and Desert, a sensation _sui generis_ like the flavour of Nile-water. Those who seek the Cairo-climate of 1852 must find it at Thebes or at Philæ.

"At the Suez Hôtel I found Colonel (now Sir Charles) Warren and his party. They had lately arrived from Ismailíyeh, whither they had been driven by the illness of one of the subalterns; a fiery march of a hundred and twenty miles without water had caused a sunstroke. Here, too, were Mr. and Miss Charrington, and Messieurs Gill and Houndle, and Captain Stephenson of H.M.S. _Carysfort_ occasionally put in an appearance. Having all one and the same occupation and preoccupation, we discussed the chances _pro_ and _con_ most anxiously. The general conclusion was that the deaths were 'not proven.' At the same time the cumulative circumstantial evidence was strong against hope of saving life; also the negative proof that of the many Bedawi witnesses daily examined not one could state that he had heard of a survivor. And yet there was still a bare chance. For some weeks a white man had been reported to be wandering about the wilderness. At Ghazzah (Gaza), the turbulent, half-Bedawi town in Southern Syria, a Fellah, Mohammed bin Khaysh, had mentioned the rumour to some Christian acquaintances as lately as November 10th. He refused to communicate with the Rev. Mr. Schapira, the Church Missionary there stationed; but his story appeared credible enough. The white man, looking _talkhán_ (sick and sorry), had fallen in with a wandering tribe (name not specified) near El-'Akabah, and had accosted one of them, saying after Arab-fashion, '_Ana fi 'irzak_'--'I am under thy protection!' When the search became hot, the white man, who may have been the dragoman or the servant, was carried inland, but where, deponent could not specify. Also at Ghazzah an English-made gun had been brought in, showing direct communication with the plunderers.

"And here it may be well to note that the original and universally accepted account of the murder was a mere fabrication. It stated that the captives 'had been led by the Governor of Nakhil' (the Fort El-Nakhl, midway between Suez and El-'Akabah) 'to the edge of a precipice, and had there been offered the alternative of throwing themselves over or of being shot. Professor Palmer covered his eyes with his hand and leapt, and Messieurs Gill and Charrington chose the other alternative, and were shot.' This romance, which utterly ignored the two servants, dragoman and cook, was the invention of some 'Own Correspondent,' telegraphed from Cairo on October 26th. Being of the category circumstantial and picturesque, it at once found its way into the newspapers of the civilized world; and it caused sore doubts to rise in the minds of all experts. No wonder that Colonel Warren was displeased by the publication of the silly tale.

"The next account appeared in El-Ahrám (_Les Pyramides_) of November 8th. The details were literally correct; it mentioned the guide Abú Sufíh; the attack in the Wady Sadr; the destruction of the whole party, including the servants, and the disappearance of the £3000 in gold. I had hoped to see the extract reprinted by the _Egyptian Gazette_, but _Le Phare_ had been beforehand, and professional sensitiveness left the public in ignorance.

"Mr. Walter Besant, in his biographical sketch of Professor Palmer (_Athenæum_, November 11th) preceding his detailed memoir, declared that he would be grateful for any information likely to make it more complete. I therefore make no apology for intruding my few personal reminiscences upon the reader.

"On July 11, 1870, when we were in summer quarters at Bludán, Anti-Libanus, I suddenly found two Englishmen camping with a gypsy-tent below the garden. These were Palmer and C. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake, brown and sunburnt by travel in the service of the 'Sinai Survey Expedition' led by Captain (now Sir Charles) Wilson. They proved the most pleasant of companions during a trip to Ba'albak, to the sources of the Litani (_not_ Leontes), and to the unvisited crests of the northern Lebanon. We parted at the Cedars, promising ourselves to meet again, and we did live and travel together often afterwards. How little we thought that within four years one would find a grave at Jerusalem, the victim of its fatal climate; and that the other would return to seek death on the scene of his old labours!

"Of Palmer I remarked that he was a born linguist, a rarity among all races except, perhaps, the Armenian. He had the linguistic instinct, an insight which required only to hear or to be shown a tongue. He mastered it as a musical genius learns an instrument; he picked up words, sentences, and idioms like a clever child with the least possible study of grammar and syntax. The truth is, he was _supra grammaticans_. During his energetic winter wanderings he had collected a whole vocabulary of Bedawi words, and he evidently revelled, like the late Percy Smythe, Lord Strangford, in his exceptional power of appreciating dialectic differences. He read and wrote Arabic like English, and he took delight in surprising the people by out-of-the-way phrases, by peculiar forms of blessing and unblessing, and by the rhymed prose of the 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' He kept also for times of need a vocabulary which terrified the superstitious: this served his turn amongst the vagrant bandits of Petra and the Nejeb, or South Country. He then knew something of Hindostani, which he afterwards cultivated, and which assisted him in so mastering the Romani (Gypsy) dialect, that he printed metrical translations in Mr. Leland's volume. Although he had learned Persian in London and at Cambridge, he spoke it as well as I could, and he had acquired the pure Shirázi twang. Lamenting his ignorance of German and the Scandinavian tongues, which he mastered at a later period, he proposed to devote three years to Arabia, Persia, and Egypt. _Diis aliter visum!_ His last volume, 'Hindūstāni, Persian, and Arabic,' one of 'Trübner's Collection of Simplified Grammars,' a series which will suffer by his loss, lies before me; and I note with sorrow that his translation of Háfiz, a taste for which he had carefully trained himself, will lack the delicate final touches.

"Returning to England in the summer of 1870, Palmer published his valuable reports, memoirs, and papers in the organ of the Palestine Exploration Fund. He also printed, in two volumes (Bell and Daldy, 1871), 'The Desert of the Exodus,' a popular account of his two walking journeys, in company with Tyrwhitt-Drake, and without dragoman or servants, which occupied parts of 1869 and 1870. He had not then learnt that the so-called 'Sinai' is simply a modern forgery, dating probably after the second century A.D.; that the Jewish nation never knew where the true 'Mountain of the Law' was; that it is differently placed by St. Paul and his contemporary Josephus, who describes it after the fashion of Sinbad the Sailor; that the first Mount Sinai (Jebel Sarbál) was invented by the Copts, the second (Jebel Musa) by the Greeks, the third (also Jebel Musa) by the Moslems, and the fourth (Jebel Safsáfeh) by Dr. Robinson the American; that the Exodists would naturally travel by the present Haj highway from Suez to El-'Akabah; and that learned Jews now incline to the belief that the real Tor Síná lay somewhere in the Tíh Desert north of the great Pilgrimage-line. Jebel Aráif has, as far as we know, the strongest claims. Moreover, Palmer insisted upon translating, with the vulgar, 'Tíh' by 'Wilderness of _the_ Wanderings,' when it means a wilderness where man may wander. Much friendly banter upon these points passed between us as often as we met in Syria and London, and, finally, he seemed to agree in opinion with me. I may note that his details concerning the Bedawi of the 'Phárán Peninsula,' as it is called by my late friend, Dr. Charles Beke, require copious revision; and it is to be hoped that Colonel Warren will correct them and supply the deficiencies.

"Professor Palmer spent twelve years in England, chiefly at Cambridge, working most energetically the professional, literary, and especially the Oriental veins. His friends lamented that he devoted so much valuable time to what Sir W. Jones calls the 'avenues and porticoes of learning,' dictionaries and vocabularies, grammars and manuals, instead of cultivating his high gifts of fancy and imagination. Yet he found time for a spirited metrical version of the Arab poet Buhá El Dín of Egypt, for a romantic life of Harún El-Rashíd, and for the charming 'Song of the Reed,' a title redolent of Persian mysticism. His Biography told his various gifts, as a traveller, a professor, a University lecturer and examiner, an improvisatore and rhymer, a barrister, an actor, a conjurer and thought-reader, a draughtsman and caricaturist, a writer of many books, and lastly, a politician and journalist.

"About the end of last June, when the troubles in Egypt became serious, 'The Palmer' resolved to make practical use of his linguistic studies, and gallantly volunteered to take part in putting down the rebellion. His project was to dissuade the Bedawi from attacking the Suez Canal, to collect camels for transport, and to raise the Wild Men of the Tíh against the Rebels. He was duly warned, I believe, that in case of capture he would be treated as a prisoner of war, perhaps as a spy; but no consideration of personal danger had any weight with his gallant spirit.

"The brave heart landed at Jaffa in the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's. During his few days of preparation he became immensely popular; three months afterwards I found every one full of his praises. Mr. Besant is right: 'Perhaps it would not be too much to assert that he had no business or private relations with any man who did not straightway become his friend.' He engaged a dragoman, a Christian pupil of the American College, Bayrút; and as servant a young Jew of Jaffa, who, by-the-by, has left a large family utterly destitute. He then visited the Rev. Mr. Schapira at Ghazzah, and set out by 'Short Desert,' as older travellers called it, for Suez. An obituary article in the _Academy_ (November 18th) declares that he 'turned back a Bedawy invasion of the Suez Canal.' I could hear nothing of this exploit on the spot. He might, and perhaps he would, have done it had he had the opportunity; but he also had grossly exaggerated in his own mind the numbers and the importance of the Tíh tribes. For his thousands we must read hundreds.

"On August 1st Shaykh Abdullah El Shámi (the Syrian) met at Suez his future companions, Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington, R.N. The former was a well-known and admirable traveller, who had spent the last winter studying Arabic in North Africa, and who had already done good service by cutting the telegraphic wires connecting Egypt with Syria. The latter was a young officer of great promise, burning to win his spurs. And now the fatal series of mistakes seems to have begun. I cannot but think that, after so many quiet, peaceful years in England, the laborious Desert march through the fiery heats of July must have affected, to a certain extent, Palmer's strong clear brain.

"Before entering the Arabian wastes, strangers always hire and pay a _Ghafír_--guide and protector. He ought to be a powerful chief, who can defend his 'guests' by the prestige of his name, and if necessary by the number of his matchlocks. Palmer may have preserved some sentimental reminiscences of his Bedawi friends and acquaintances; and may even have trusted to the exploded prestige of 'bread and salt.' The old chivalrous idea has gradually weakened till it has well-nigh died out. It may linger amongst the highest and noblest clans of the Anazeh, but it no longer extends beyond El-Nejd. The partial modification consists of feeding the Bedawi every day; otherwise, if you plead _Nahnu málihín!_ ('We are salt-fellows'), they rejoin, 'The salt is not in my belly.' The great majority of these 'sons of 'Antar,' who '_have_ ceased to be gentlemen,' ignore or rather deride the rococo practice of their forefathers. And there are scoundrels who will offer you a bowl with one hand and stab you with the other.

"Palmer engaged as his _Ghafír_ one Matr (Abú) Nassár, so named after his son; his family name is Abú Safíh. The man is not, and never was, a 'Bedouin Sheik,' but a mere hirer of camels to pilgrims and travellers. He had quarrelled with, and parted from, his kinsmen the Lahiyát, to take refuge with the Dabbúr, a clan or sub-tribe of the Huwaytát. This Matr, moreover, was judged by those who knew him best to be light-headed and half-witted. His proceedings with Colonel Warren and his conduct on board the _Carysfort_, where he was detained for his own safety, confirm the suspicion. Yet he and his nephew--the camel-men do not count--were the only defence of an expedition which carried, amongst other valuables, the sum of £3000 in gold. Travellers in Bedawi-land never even name the noble metal, and the venerable Arab proverb says, '_Ikhfi zahab-ak, wa mazhab-ak wa Ziháb-ak_'--'Hide thy gold, thy God-faith, and thy goings forth.' It has been asserted that the Englishmen had no firearms. This is an absurdity at first sight, and it is disproved by the gun produced at Ghazzah.

"The ill-starred party left Suez on August 8th, and passed the first night upon the sea-sands. On the 9th they marched _viâ_ 'Moses' Wells' to the Wady Kahabín, and next day, leaving their luggage in the rear, they entered the Wady Sadr, which heads near El-Nakhl. On the right jaw of this fiumara rises the Tel el-Sadr, _alias_ Tel Bishr, the 'Barn Hill' of our Hydrographic Charts, a broken tabular block within sight of the Suez Hotel.

"About midnight on August 10th, the expedition was surprised by a large body of the Terábín, or Bedawi of the Tíh, who trade with Ghazzah, and the Huwaytát, a mongrel tribe of Egypto-Arabs who are settled upon the Nile banks, nomads in the 'Sinaitic' peninsula and semi-nomads in the Land of Midian.[5] Palmer, they say, was the only one of the little party who fired and wounded a Bedawin in the foot.

"I pass rapidly over the deplorable scene which followed the attack. Palmer, seeing the extreme danger, expostulated with the horde of hired assassins; but all his sympathetic faculty, his appeals to Arab honour and superstition, his threats, his denunciations, and the gift of eloquence which had so often prevailed with the Wild Men, were unheeded. As vainly, Matr covered his _protégés_ with his _'abá_ (cloak), thus making them part of his own family. On the evening of August 11th, the captives were led, according to the general voice of the Bedawi informants, to the high bank of the Wady Sadr, where it receives another and a smaller fiumara yet unnamed. Here they were slaughtered in cold blood and thrown down the height. The object of not burying the bodies, according to-Bedawi practice, was the dread lest they should afterwards be discovered by means known to the Frank. It was thought safer to leave them to the birds and beasts of the wilderness. Moreover, the first rain-torrent would sweep away all traces of the foul deed.

"And here let me note that on this occasion the Bedawi behaved as Bedawi never behaved before. The Wild Men will attack strangers for the smallest inducement. They will plunder their captives, strip, beat, and even wound them. They will shoot the enemy when maddened by fight; but their almost superstitious terror of the _Dam_, or _Thár_ (Vendetta, blood-feud) prevents their taking life in cold blood. Nor have I ever heard of their keeping prisoners for a whole day and then deliberately massacring them after the fury of battle had cooled down. The whole conduct of the crime evidently suggests the far-seeing iniquity of civilized men; nor is it hard to divine whence came the suggestion.

"The evil report soon spread far and wide, and the public mind grew more and more excited. This mishap was the only black spot in the bright roll of continued successes. Colonel Warren, R.E., was directed to conduct the search for the missing expedition. He does not speak Arabic, nor had he any personal acquaintance with the Terábín and the Huwaytát. But he had taken a notable part in the Palestine Exploration, which necessarily brought him into frequent and familiar contact with the Bedawi. He is a man of unusual energy and tenacity, and he has shown great tact and _savoir faire_ in his dealings with the Wild Men. After a preliminary visit to Tor, in company with Mr. Consul West, on September 6th, he had some hopes of rescuing the captives, and he took the properest measures to secure success. In company with Lieutenants Burton and Haynes, and provided with an escort of some hundred and fifty friendly Bedawi, by the chiefs Salám El-Shadíd of Cairo and Musá Nasr of Tir, he scoured the Desert in all directions and made some important captures, which will lead to satisfactory results. On October 23rd he reached the reported scene of the murders; but it was too late to find the remains of his countrymen. The expected rain-torrent had swept them away. He picked up a truss belonging to Palmer--no conclusive proof of death; a traveller would carry more than one article of the kind. A sock bearing Captain Gill's name, and containing the fragment of a foot, seemed to forbid hope in this case. Lieutenant Charrington's overalls, marked 'Bombay,' and a caoutchouc tobacco-pouch, showed clear evidence of plunder, but nothing more. The other articles found in the neighbourhood were torn books, letters, and papers. All were temporarily deposited in the Egyptian fort El-Nakhl, whose garrison at first turned out to attack the search-party. Of the burial in Westminster Abbey nothing need be said.

"That all the culprits, even those still at large, will eventually be surrendered I have no doubt. It is a mere question of time. And until justice is thoroughly done there will be no safety for English or European travellers in the 'Sinaitic' Peninsula. No more hanging will be required, but all concerned in the foul deed should undergo imprisonment _in terrorem_ at Cairo. But it is sad to punish these poor tools when the guiding hands escape even blame.

"Of my proceedings after leaving Suez I need say nothing: they were disconnected with Egypt. Let me briefly resume the results of my three weeks' observations.

"The occupation of the Nile Valley has been thrust upon us by _force majeure_--the force of events. France was similarly circumstanced with respect to Tunis, Italy will be in the case of Tripoli: the rotten old fabric of the Porte is surely though slowly falling to pieces, and the fragments are being fitted into their right places.

"What form our Protectorate of the Nile Valley will eventually assume has not yet been determined; but if we can only come to a decision, the Public may rest assured that our tenure of the Nile Valley will be a success. At present it is not, and by the very condition of things it cannot be. Egypt hardly deserves a 'caravan government;' what it wants is stability, repose, and the training of a child to the way it should go. The unnatural excitement of looking forward to a complete change, which will mean anarchy, disorder, and violence, is doing immense and lasting damage. It interferes with revenue, _the_ difficulty of the present hour, a problem which seems to be puzzling even the experienced Sir Evelyn Baring. With diminished floating power and the millstone of debt ever weighing him down, his friends can only wish him well out of the scrape.

"The first to be considered are the sons of the soil. They have the strongest right to fair play, and they should at least share the goods of which the stranger has once more spoiled them. The ring of foreigners, who would exclude all except their own small cliques, must be broken up, and the monopoly of highly paid employments be exchanged for free selection and for competition amongst Egyptian candidates. But this is a work of time. 'Egypt for the Egyptians' as much as you please; but at present the Egyptians must be trained for Egypt. Meanwhile the supervision of imperial questions, matters of finance, and those involving income and outcome, the magistracy and the Police, cannot but remain under English surveillance.

"The _Condominium_, or Joint Control, has done in its day excellent work, but its work and day are alike done. It has tabulated the resources of the Nile Valley, and has introduced order into the chaos of native revenue. Moreover, during the last few centuries the Fellah has never been so happy or so well-to-do as under its administration. But a rule by the representatives of only two great creditors, to the neglect of all others, was an invidious measure irritating the rest of Europe. Nor would it be possible to govern by means of a board: the more votes the more discord. The old _Condominium_ must be modified to suit a permanent Protectorate.

"Modern Egypt has suffered severely from the _latifundia_ which, according to Pliny, _perdidere Italiani_. What Egypt especially requires is the maintenance of that class of peasant proprietors to which she owed all her ancient prosperity. This is the institution for which the Gracchi 'sedition'd' in vain; which modern Italy has attempted in Apulia; which Russia holds in view, and which Ireland must and _will_ have--the only Land Act that can ever satisfy her. The most fertile of countries has been sorely injured by the absorption of small properties into immense Khedivial domains, monopolizing one-fifth of the area, and into the large tracts belonging to 'the Pashas.' The sooner these model 'landed estates' are redistributed the better. However, as a trip to the Helwán les Bains will show, there is still a large proportion of waste ground--Nile mud buried in shallow sand-sheets--which can be fertilized by canals drawn from up-stream. The Great Valley can still support ten millions, and even more when a system of damming shall be applied to her river. In the mean time all attention should be given to the Cadastre, or Revenue Survey, which wants a radical reform. The dawdling, feckless system of General Stone would have carried it well into the twentieth century. Better pension off 'hard bargains' than pay and retain them as standing obstructions.

"Egypt no longer wants the disproportionate armies and fleets with which Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas conquered their neighbours. But she must have a small body of Regulars--not less than ten thousand--to defend her against Abyssinian raids, and to protect her Equatorial Provinces, where (Chinese) Gordon (Pasha) did such noble work. As regards the harbour on the Red Sea, proposed for the acceptance of the 'king of kings,' Johannes, I may say that the measure is theoretically good and practically evil. The port would serve only for the importation of arms and ammunition, and would make the troublesome 'Highlanders of Æthiopia,' ever a nest of hornets, more dangerous than at any time of their turbid history. As it is, the Egyptians cannot fight in the mountains nor the Abyssinians in the plains, a consideration which tends to keeping the peace. But the breech-loader and the magazine-gun, when provided with cartridges, will wholly change the condition of the Æthiopian. It is to be hoped that the Egyptian army of the future, composed of Fellahs and negroes from the Súdán, and officered by Englishmen and natives, will be built on the lines of the old East India Company's force, a return to which is one of the crying wants of India. The management may safely be left in the experienced hands of (Val.) Baker Pasha, unless he has to work in the chains of home orders.

"And as with the army, so with the Egyptian fleet--a mere show, an article of luxury, costly moreover as it was useless. The country wants only a few heavily armed gunboats to guard her African coast, to put down the slave-export, and to prevent Arab piracy. Subsidized lines of steamers, the more the better, suffice to connect her with Asia as well as with Africa. The old doddering Egyptian men-o'-war which rot in Alexandria and Suez harbours, melancholy remnants of past power, may be carted away as soon as possible.

"Part of the duty of the Police force will be to suppress that cruelty to animals which is one of Egypt's many abominations. The want of some active measure has long been felt, and during the last ten years a succession of _dilettanti_ has attempted to take the matter in hand. The Khedive has been interviewed; a Princess or two has been secured as patroness, and even subscription-lists have been opened. But the work is too serious, too continuous, for amateurs. Here we require an experienced delegate from the parent society in London, who, in concert with a local committee, will lay down the lines of work, and will determine what ought not to be done as well as what ought to be done. But the 'sinews of war' must also be forthcoming; and they can readily be supplied by military and naval economies.

"Lastly of the slave, who, theoretically free, is as much a bondsman as ever. Egypt yielded with her usual good grace, the moment serious pressure was brought to bear upon her. This is her way, the way of the universal East. She grants every demand, and takes especial care that nothing be granted. Pashas were appointed to issue certificates of freedom and to inquire into the case of runaways, whom the masters invariably denounced to the police as criminals, and proved their crimes by false witnesses--a drug in the market. As soon as the first excitement was over, a reaction set in and action slumbered: this was all the Government wanted. The one thing needful is still needed--a standing mixed committee of Europeans and Egyptians, presided over by a responsible English official. Its duties will be to make the abolition of slavery generally known throughout the length of the land, and to see that emancipation is fairly worked. As for that other abomination, the neutral, penalty of death should be unflinchingly inflicted upon those with whom it originates. All their names are well known, yet it causes us no surprise that the law has been and still is impudently broken, while the law-breakers have invariably escaped punishment.

"Egypt is now virtually independent of Turkey: during the court-martial of the Rebels not an allusion was made to the 'Suzerain.' It is unfair that she should continue to transmit money which is wanted for public works and internal improvements, because the so-called Tribute has been mortgaged to Frankish creditors of Turkey. The Porte is still rich enough to pay her debts, and, if she chooses again to be bankrupt, shareholders must put up with the losses which, for a high consideration, they have so long risked. Egypt now expects a complete disruption of the injurious tie: the living land must no longer be bound, in Mezentiaes-fashion, to the Ottoman corpse. She will have a fair field, and favour enough, under an English Protectorate if we only govern like men, not like Philanthropes and Humanitarians.

"RICHARD F BURTON."

[1] "Mekhitar the Armenian, nat. 1676 at Sebastia in ancient Media, est. a congregation confirmed by Clement IX. in 1712, and ob. in the island of S. Lazzaro, Venice, 1749. The Mekhitarists have educational establishments in Paris, Vienna and Rome, Constantinople, Venice, Trieste, etc."

[2] Richard Burton whilst preparing for Mecca.--I. B.

[3] Native Christians mingled with Moslems are generally cowardly. They do not unite to make a stand; if they did, they would never be attacked.--I. B.

[4] "The word should be Taufík, but we have adopted an ugly Gallicism derived from Turkish, in which it would be pronounced Tewfík."

[5] "I spent some months amongst the Huwaytát, and have described them in three volumes ('The Gold Mines of Midian,' 1878, and 'Midian Revisited,' 1880), besides a number of detached papers."

APPENDIX I.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS AND OF SCHOLARS ON THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS."

"To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.

"Sir,--Your correspondent 'Sigma' has forgotten the considerable number of 'students' who will buy Captain Burton's translation as the only literal one, needing it to help them in what has become necessary to many--a masterly knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. The so-called 'Arabian Nights' are about the only written halfway house between the literary Arabic and the colloquial Arabic, both of which they need, and need introductions to. I venture to say that its largest use will be as a grown-up school book, and that it is not coarser than the classics in which we soak all our boys' minds at school.

"ANGLO-EGYPTIAN.

"September 14th, 1885."

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The _Bat_, September 29th, 1885.

"Captain Burton, in his way, renders a gigantic service to all students of literature who are not profound Orientalists, and to many who are, by giving them a literal, honest, and accurate translation of the 'Arabian Nights.'

"The blatant buffoons who have spoken of Captain Burton's work indifferently only show their own ignorance of the literature of the East. Captain Burton's work is well worth the price he charges for it to students of Eastern literatures and Eastern manners, and Eastern customs; but the misguided lunatic who invests in it in the hope of getting hold of a good thing, in the Holywell Street sense of the term, will find indeed that the fool and his money are soon parted."

* * * * *

_Morning Advertiser_, September 15th.

"There is one work not entered in the publishers' announcements of 'new books,' though for years scholars and others have looked forward to it with an eagerness which has left far behind the ordinary curiosity which is bestowed on the greatest of contributions to current literature, and to-day the new fortunate possessors are examining it with an interest proportionate to the long toil which has been bestowed on its preparation. We refer to Captain Burton's 'Arabian Nights.' Hitherto all the editions have been imperfect, and more or less colourless versions of the original. They throw a flood of light on hundreds of features of Oriental life on which the student has failed to be informed. But the work only a few limited students can ever see, and is simply priceless to any one thus interested in the subject, and may be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation. Burton writes: 'Many a time and oft, after the day's journey was over, I gathered the Arabs around me and read or recited these tales to them, until the tears trickled down their cheeks and they rolled on the sand in uncontrollable delight. Nor was it only in Arabia that the immortal "Nights" did me such notable service. I found the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to their discipline; no one was deaf to the charm, and the two women workers of my caravan on its way to Harar were incontinently dubbed by my men Shehrazade and Deenarzade.'"

* * * * *

The _Lincoln Gazette_, October 10th, 1885.

"Captain Burton's first volume in sombre black and dazzling gold--the livery of the Abassides--made its appearance three weeks ago, and divided attention with the newly discovered star. It is the first volume of ten, the set issued solely to subscribers. And already, as in the case of Mr. Payne's edition, there has been a scramble to secure it, and it is no longer to be had for love or money. The fact is, it fills a void; the world has been waiting for this _chef d'œuvre_, and all lovers of the 'Arabian Nights' wonder how they have got on without it."

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The _Lincoln Gazette_, October 10th, 1885.

"Another speciality of Captain Burton's edition is the notes. He is celebrated for sowing the bottom of his pages with curiously illuminating remarks, and he has here carried out his custom in a way to astonish. He tells us that those who peruse his notes in addition to those of Lane would be complete proficients in the knowledge of Oriental practices and customs. Lane begins with Islam, from Creation to the present day, and has deservedly won for his notes the honour of a separate reprint. Captain Burton's object in his annotations is to treat of subjects which are completely concealed from the multitude. They are utterly and entirely esoteric, and deal with matters of which books usually know nothing. Indeed, he has been assured by an Indian officer who had been forty years in the East, that he was entirely ignorant of the matters revealed in these notes. Without these marvellous elucidations, the 'Arabian Nights' would remain only half understood, but by their aid we may know as much of the Moslems as the Moslems know of themselves."

* * * * *

_Whitehall Review_, September 17th, 1885.

"The publication of the first volume of Captain Burton's translation of the 'Alf Layla' enriches the world of Oriental investigation with a monument of labour and scholarship and of research. The book is advisedly, and even inevitably, printed for private circulation, and is intended, as Captain Burton says in his preface, only for the eyes of such persons as are seriously students of Oriental life and manners, and are desirous of making a more complete acquaintance with the great masterpieces of Eastern literature than has hitherto been possible, except to finished Arabic scholars. In the name of the whole world of Oriental scholarship, we offer our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Captain Burton upon the appearance of this first volume; and we look forward with the keenest interest for its successors."

* * * * *

_Nottingham Journal_, September 19th, 1885.

"To scholars and men who have sufficient love of the soul of these sweet stories to discern the form in its true proportions, the new edition will be welcome. From an Oriental point of view the work is masterly to a degree. The quatrains and couplets, reading like verses from Elizabethan mantels, and forming a perfect rosary of Eastern love, the constant succession of brilliant pictures, and the pleasure of meeting again our dear old friend Shahrázád, all these combine to give a unique charm and interest to this 'perfect expositor' of the mediæval Moslem mind."

* * * * *

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, Am Hof, Davos Platz, Switzerland.

_Academy_, October 3rd, 1885.

"The real question is whether a word-for-word version of the 'Arabian Nights,' executed with peculiar literary vigour, exact scholarship, and rare insight into Oriental modes of thought and feeling can, under any shadow of pretence, be ignored."

* * * * *

_Lincoln Gazette_, November 2nd, 1885.

"In announcing the issue of the first volume of Captain Burton's long-expected edition of the 'Arabian Nights,' the _Standard_ reminds its readers that the book is printed for subscribers only, and is sold at a price which is not likely to be paid by any save the scholars and students for whose instruction it is intended. Many of those who know the ordinary epitome prepared for the nursery and drawing-room have little idea of the nature of the original. Galland's abridgment was a mere shadow of the Arabic. Even the editions of Lane, and Habricht, and Torrens, and Payne, represented but imperfectly the great corpus of Eastern folklore, which Captain Burton has undertaken to render into English. To Captain Burton the preparation of these volumes must have been a labour of love. He began them in conjunction with his friend, Steinhaüser, soon after his return from the Mecca pilgrimage, more than thirty years ago, and he has been doing something to them ever since. In no other work of the same nature is Eastern life so vividly portrayed. We see the Arab knight, his prowess and his passion for adventure, his love and his revenge, the craft of his wives and the hypocrisy of his priests, as plainly as if we had lived among them. Gilded palaces, charming women, lovely gardens, caves full of jewels, and exquisite repasts, captivate the senses and give variety to the panorama which is passing before our eyes. Indeed there is a tinge of melancholy pervading the preface in which the Editor refers to his 'unsuccessful professional life,' and to the knowledge of which his country has cared so little to avail itself. When the great explorer discovered the African lakes he was a captain. He is a captain still. No University has thought fit to make him a Doctor; and while knighthoods have been distributed with a profusion which has gone far to lower the value of these distinctions, the foremost of English travellers and the greatest of European Arabists is still untitled.[1] Even in the recent Egyptian troubles--which are referred to somewhat bitterly--his wisdom was not utilized, though after the death of Major Morrice, there was not an English official in the camps before Suakin capable of speaking Arabic. On this scandal, and on the ignorance of Oriental customs which was everywhere displayed, Captain Burton is deservedly severe.

"There is only one 'Arabian Nights' in the world, and only one Captain Burton. The general tone of the London Press has been distinctly favourable, the _Standard_ leading the way and other journals following suit. The 'Thousand Nights and a Night' offers a complete picture of Eastern peoples. But the English reader must be prepared to find that the manners of Arabs and Moslems differ from his own. Eastern people look at things from a more natural and primitive point of view, and they say what they think with the unrestraint of children. At times their plain speaking is formidable; it is their nature to be downright, and to be communicative on subjects about which the Saxon is shy or silent, and it must be remembered that the separation of the sexes adds considerably to this freedom of expression.

"It is only knowledge that knows how to observe; and it is satisfactory that Captain Burton's amazing insight into Eastern peculiarities has been put to its best use in giving a true idea of the people of the Sun and a veritable version of their book of books. The labour expended on this edition has been enormous. The work could only have been completed by the most excessive and pertinacious application. All the same we are told it has been 'a labour of love,' a task that has brought its exceeding great reward. There is only one regret, the circulation is limited. We cannot help hoping, at some future time, a selection may be made from the ten volumes. If the public cannot have the whole work, at least it might have a part, and not be entirely shut out from a masterpiece unparalleled."

* * * * *

_Home News_, September 18th, 1885.

"Captain Burton has begun to issue the volumes of his subscription translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' and its fortunate possessors will now be able to realize the full flavour of Oriental feeling. They will now have the great storehouse of Eastern folklore opened to them, and Captain Burton's minute acquaintance with Eastern life makes his comments invaluable. In this respect, as well as in the freeness of the translation, the version will be distinguished from its many predecessors. Captain Burton's preface, it may be observed, bears traces of soreness at official neglect. Indeed it seems curious that his services could not have been utilized in the Soudan, when the want of competent Arabic scholars was so severely felt."

* * * * *

_Daily Exchange_, September 19th, 1883.

"The first volume of Captain Burton's 'Thousand Nights and a Night,' printed at Benares by the Kamashastra Society, for private subscribers only, has been delivered to the latter. If the other nine portions equal the first, English literature will be the richer by a work the like of which is rare. The English is strong and vitally idiomatic. It is the English of Shakespeare and Jeremy Taylor, the English of Robert Browning, with a curiously varied admixture of modern colloquial phraseology. I confess that I was not prepared, familiar as I was with Captain Burton's other work, to find so perfect a command of clear and vigorous style on the part of the great traveller and Oriental scholar. I must say that the tone of the work is singularly robust and healthy. What a treasurehouse Captain Burton has opened! Until he turned the key we knew little or nothing of the 'Nights,' and the notes which he has added to the work have a value that is simply unique."

* * * * *

_Standard_, September 12th.

"The first volume of Captain Burton's long-expected edition of the 'Arabian Nights' was issued yesterday to those who are in a position to avail themselves of the wealth of learning contained in this monumental labour of the famous Eastern traveller. The book is printed for subscribers only, and is sold at a price which is not likely to be paid by any save the scholars and students for whose instruction it is intended.

"Moreover, no previous editor--not even Lane himself--had a tithe of Captain Burton's acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Moslem East. Hence, not unfrequently, they made ludicrous blunders, and in no instance did they supply anything like the explanatory notes which have added so greatly to the value of this issue of 'Alf Laylah wa Laylah.'

"On the other hand, apart from the language, the general tone of the 'Nights' is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour, as Captain Burton justly claims, often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism, and the pathos is sweet and deep, genuine and tender, simple and true. Its life--strong, splendid, and multitudinous--is everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional melancholy which strikes deepest root under the brightest skies. The Kazi administers poetical justice with exemplary impartiality; and so healthy is the morale that at times we descry vistas of a transcendental morality--the morality of Socrates and Plato.

"In no other work is Eastern life so vividly pourtrayed. This work, illuminated with notes so full of learning, should give the nation an opportunity for wiping away that reproach of neglect which Captain Burton seems to feel more keenly than he cares to express."

* * * * *

_St. James's Gazette_, September 12th.

"One of the most important translations to which a great English scholar has ever devoted himself is now in the press. For three decades Captain Burton has been more or less engaged on his translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' the latest of the many versions of that extraordinary story which has been made into English, the only one at all worthy of a great original."

* * * * *

_South Eastern Herald_, October 31st.

"At Mr. Quaritch's trade sale the other day, Captain Burton made an interesting speech regarding the 'Thousand and One Nights,' of which the gist was to show that his translation performs a double office. It is not only a faithful and racy version of the true original, but it also represents a better text than any which has been hitherto accessible in print or manuscript. He, in fact, produced for his own use, and by collation of the existing materials, a careful, critical recension of the original; and his rendering may, therefore, claim to stand towards the 'Alf Laylah' in the same manner as the Latin version of Plato, by Marsilius Ficinus, towards the Greek text."

* * * * *

_Morning Advertiser_.

"Captain Burton, thirty-three years ago, went in the disguise of an Indian pilgrim to Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no one capable of giving the world the result of his experience has so minute, so exhaustive a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life generally. Hence the work now begun--only a limited number of students can ever see--which is simply priceless to any one who concerns himself with such subjects, and may be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation."

* * * * *

_Whitehall Review_, October 29th, 1885.

"The second volume of Captain Burton's translation of the 'Arabian Nights' has just been issued to the subscribers, who had already become impatient for a second instalment of this great and fascinating contribution to literature. The new volume is, if possible, of even greater interest than the first. It contains the whole of the fantastic semi-chivalrous story of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and his sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, a knowledge of which has hitherto been confined chiefly to Oriental scholars, as Lane only admitted an episode from it into his version of 'Alif Laila.' Some of Sharrkan's adventures will remind students of other Eastern stories of some of the adventures recorded of the hero of Persian romance, Hatim Taī. As usual, Captain Burton's notes are rich, varied, and copious, of the greatest service to all serious students of Arabic manners and customs, and of Oriental life in general."

* * * * *

_Montreal Daily Herald_, September 21st, 1885.

"Captain Burton has translated the 'Arabian Nights,' but will only publish it for private distribution. A correspondent says that 'all these years we have been reading Lane's turgid emasculated selections we have been kept in the dark as to their singular beauty and vitally human strength. I have been amazed at the "Nights" as Englished by Captain Burton in strong, vital, picturesque prose. The stories, instead of being pieces of wild extravagance, unreal and theatrically tinselly, with the limelight instead of daylight, and paste instead of diamonds, are full of abounding life.'"

* * * * *

"JEHU JUNIOR," _Vanity Fair_, October 24th, 1885.

"As a bold, astute traveller, courting danger, despising hardship, and compelling fortune, Captain Burton has few equals; as a master of Oriental languages, manners, and customs he has none. He is still very young, very vigorous, very full of anecdote and playful humour, and, what is remarkable in a linguist, he has not disdained even his own mother tongue, which he handles with a precision and a power that few can approach. He has recently crowned his literary labours by the most complete, laborious, uncompromising, and perfect translation of that collection of stories known to us as the 'Arabian Nights,' but more correctly called 'A Thousand Nights and a Night.' He is a wonderful man."

* * * * *

_Morning Post_, January 19th, 1886.

"Everything comes to him who waits--even the long-promised, eagerly expected 'Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights,' by Richard F. Burton. It is a whole quarter of a century since this translation of one of the most famous books of the world was contemplated, and we are told it is the natural outcome of the well-known pilgrimage to Medinah and Mecca. Of Captain Burton's fitness for the task who can doubt? It was during that celebrated journey to the Tomb of the Prophet that he proved himself to be an Arab--indeed, he says, in a previous state of existence he was a Bedouin. Did he not for months at a stretch lead the life of a Son of the Faithful, eat, drink, sleep, dress, speak, pray, like his brother devotees, the sharpest eyes failing to pierce his disguise? He knows the ways of Eastern men--and women--as he does the society of London or Trieste. How completely at home he is with his adopted brethren he showed at Cairo, when, to the amazement of some English friends who were looking on at the noisy devotions of some 'howling' Dervishes, he suddenly joined the shouting, gesticulating circle, and behaved as if to the manner born. He has qualified as a 'howler,' he holds a diploma as a master Dervish, and he can initiate disciples. Clearly, to use a phrase of Arabian story, it was decreed by Allah from the beginning--and fate and fortune have arranged--that Captain Burton should be the one of all others to confer upon his countrymen the boon of the genuine unsophisticated 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' In the whole of our literature no book is more widely known. It is spread broadcast like the Bible, Bunyan, and Shakespeare: yet although it is in every house, and every soul in the kingdom knows something about it, nobody knows it as it really exists. We have only had what translators have chosen to give--selected, diluted, and abridged transcripts. And of late some so-called 'original' books have been published, containing minor tales purloined bodily from the 'Nights.'"

* * * * *

_Whitehall Review_, May 24th, 1886.

"The sixth volume of Sir Richard Burton's 'Arabian Nights,' which has just been issued to subscribers, is one of the most interesting of the series to Anglo-Orientalists. For it contains that story--or set of stories--which is, perhaps, of all the tales of the 'Arabian Nights,' the dearest to legend-loving mankind, whether Oriental or Occidental--the story of the voyages of 'Sindbad the Sailor,' or of 'Sindbad the Seaman,' as Sir Richard Burton prefers to call him. Perhaps the only tale which at all competes in popularity with the wandering record of the 'Eastern Odysseus' is the story of 'Ali Baba,' and that, unfortunately, does not belong to the 'Arabian Nights' at all, and can only, as far as we know, be traced to a modern Greek origin. Lovers of the story of 'Sindbad the Sailor' will be pleased to learn that their old friend remains to all intents and purposes the same in Sir Richard's literal Translation as he was in the fanciful adaptation of Galland, and the more accurate rendering of Lane. He does not 'suffer a sea change,' but remains, what he has always been, the most wonderful wanderer in the whole range and region of romance. Sir Richard Burton's sixth volume contains, besides, that story of the 'Seven Viziers,' which in so many forms is a favourite in all the languages of the East."

* * * * *

The _Bat_, July 7th, 1886.

"As regards his translation, however, Captain Burton is certainly felicitous in the manner in which he has Englished the picturesque turns of the original. One great improvement in this version over that of Mr. Lane will be found in the fact that the verses so freely interspersed throughout the 'Nights' are here rendered in metre, and that an attempt also has often been made to preserve the assonants and the monorhyme of the Arabic. Mr. Lane frankly stated that he omitted the greater part of the poetry as tedious, and, through the loss of measure and rhyme, 'generally intolerable to the reader,' as, in truth, the specimens inserted mostly proved to be on account of the bald literalism of the rendering. Captain Burton has naturally inserted the poetry with the rest; and has often shown much skill in doing into English verse the rippling couplets of the original. Take as an instance, the verses which Mr. Lane renders:--

'Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety that anxiety will not last. As happiness passeth away, so passeth away anxiety.'

"Almost equally literal, and certainly more poetical, is Captain Burton, who gracefully turns this:--

'Tell whoso hath sorrow, Grief never shall last; E'en as Joy hath no morrow, so Woe shall go past.'

"And since, in proverbs and epigrams, so much depends on the form, the spirit of the original is well observed, when, for instance, we read in a certain chronicle the lines of one Ibn al Sumam:--

'Hold fast thy secret, and to none unfold: Lost is a secret when that secret's told. And fail thy breast thy secret to conceal, How canst thou hope another's breast shall hold?'

"Doubtless, too--and in this not following Mr. Lane--Captain Burton is right in retaining the original division into Nights: for, as he justly observes, 'Without the Nights, no Arabian Nights!' And, besides this being a prime feature of the original, a grateful pause is thereby introduced into these intricate and interminable stories. In the translation, Captain Burton's English is generally picturesque and always fluent. As it is frankly stated, too, he has 'never hesitated to coin a word when wanted.' Captain Burton, who has passed the greater portion of his life in Arab-speaking countries, mixing freely in Moslem society, and often passing--as during his pilgrimage--himself for a True Believer, is naturally well qualified to translate this 'Great Eastern Saga Book.' Also, since the scene of the stories is laid successively in every country of Islam, from Tangier to India, and beyond, the translator's intimate acquaintance, made during his wanderings, with all these peoples and places, stands him in good stead in elucidating peculiar manners and customs, and in this gives him the advantage over Mr. Lane, who had only seen Islam as domiciled in Egypt."

* * * * *

_Court Society_, March 4th, 1886.

"Not a little disgust has been excited by the vulgar sneer which a morning paper has indulged in at the expense of Sir Richard Burton. Long neglected by successive Governments, Captain Burton received, after forty-four years, a tardy recognition of his services. Straightway, it was suggested that he is made a knight because he translated the 'Arabian Nights.' It need scarcely be said that his translation has nothing to do with the distinction conferred upon him; but, as it is the habit in a certain quarter to denounce the literal translation of the 'Nights,' it cannot be too distinctly understood that Captain Burton never meant his work to fall into any hands save those of a thousand students."

* * * * *

The _Sporting Life_, July 17th, 1886.

"The more I see of this splendid translation, the more do I feel that we are indebted to the translator for the first real idea in English of the immortal original, and to him alone, for a complete reflection of the 'Arabian Nights.' The lustre and vigour of the English compel one's admiration at every step.... It is palpable enough that, until Sir Richard Burton's wonderful work first saw the light, _we had no 'Arabian Nights_.'"

* * * * *

The _Bat_, July 7th, 1886.

"Book-lovers will be glad to learn that Sir Richard Burton's 'Thousand and One Nights' will shortly be reprinted, and that also with revision which will remove it from the top shelf of a library to the drawing-room. Lady Burton is to be congratulated on her enterprise in taking up the matter, for, unquestionably, so admirable, and, indeed, instructive a work should be placed within the reach of all. A copy of the privately printed edition is now worth £25, and undoubtedly its reappearance as revised will be hailed with satisfaction by all lovers of Orientalism."

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM SCHOLARS.

_Mr. Floyer, at the Telegraphic Conference, has secured Egypt telegraphic independence, and an annual gain of_ £7000.

"Government Telegraphs, Berlin, September 16th, 1885.

"MY DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

"I cannot tell you how delighted I am with the translation. The language is wonderful. Only you in the world could have written it. How did you find out 'ensorcelled,' instead of the vulgar 'bewitched'? And how did you find out a hundred other words equally graceful and exact? It is the most wonderful translation in the whole of literature. In accuracy, in swing, it breathes Egypt to me. I could take it and read it straight out to my Effendis almost word for word. But the language is wonderful. As compared with Eastwick's _Anw'ar i Suhayli_ it is Tennyson to Gladstone. My sense of the feelings inspired by the first pages of the Foreword it is impossible to express, and I congratulate you most sincerely on your absolutely unique achievement.

"Yours very truly,

"(Signed) ERNEST A. FLOYER."

* * * * *

"October 24th.

"DEAR SIR,

"I do not know whether a letter which I wrote to the _Academy_ about your 'Arabian Nights' has come under your notice. If so, I beg you to excuse the chary words I used in commendation of a work which now, from the literary point of view, I regard as one of great original excellence."

* * * * *

"November 13th.

"I wish you _had_ issued more numbers of your book, as you well deserve to be rewarded for such an admirable work. I delight in the vigour and Oriental character of the language. Even a few months in India were enough to make me appreciate and perhaps better understand the charm of the 'Arabian Nights.'"

* * * * *

"DEAR CAPTAIN,

"The joy which your volume has occasioned me I will not attempt to express in a short letter. Let us meet soon, and talk of nothing else."

* * * * *

"DEAR BURTON,

"This is merely a line of greeting in appreciation of your first volume, which I have been reading, just to say how pleased I am with everything--intrinsic and extrinsic."

* * * * *

"September 25th.

"DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

"I have received the first volume of the 'Nights,' and beg you to accept my most heartfelt and sincere thanks for the valuable gift. I cannot express the pleasure which it affords me to see this wonderful book reproduced in a form which is as faithful a rendering of the original as it will remain an admirable '_monumentum aere perennius_' of the English language.

"Moreover, I am not ashamed to acknowledge that in reading again the text, together with your translation, I have learned more Arabic in a few months than in as many years of former toilsome study."

* * * * *

"I want to tell you how thoroughly I have enjoyed your 'Arabian Nights,' and how greatly they have contributed to making life endurable during these months. Your 'Arabian Nights' is a revelation of Orientalism, and the finest study of words that I have ever met with. It will remain a literary text-book as long as the English language lasts."

* * * * *

"Volume I. awaiting me.

"I congratulate Captain Burton heartily. The book looks very handsome, and the notes are most valuable. Altogether a great success."

* * * * *

"Your 'Nights' are admirable, fascinating--the true thing at last! I delight in my volume.

"I can hardly express to you how highly I appreciate the 'Nights,' the first two volumes of which are at hand. The work is interesting, too, and permits another edition."

* * * * *

"September 26th.

"I have been devouring your first volume of the 'Nights,' and cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the book, and how anxiously I am looking for the next volume."

* * * * *

EDWARD PEACOCK, Bottesford Manor, Brigg, October 3rd, 1885.

"I have read every word of the first volume of Captain Burton's 'Arabian Nights,' and, as I am not an Arabic scholar, _am very grateful to him for having given us_ an English version."

[1] This was written some weeks before the author was made a K.C.M.G.

THE END