Consulate
Bibliography:
25. Speech before the Anthropological Society. 4th April 1865. 26. Wit
and Wisdom from West Africa. 1865. 27. Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and
Medina. 28. Psychic Facts, by Francis Baker (Burton). 1865. 29. Notes...
connected with the Dahoman. 1865. 30. On an Hermaphrodite. 1866. 31.
Exploration of the Highland of the Brazil. 2 vols. 1869.
51. To Santos.
Owing mainly to Mrs. Burton's solicitation, Burton was now transferred
from Fernando Po to Santos, in Brazil, so it was no longer necessary
for him and his wife to live apart. He wrote altogether upon his West
African adventures, the enormous number of 9 volumes! namely: Wanderings
in West Africa (2 vols.), Abeokuta and the Cameroons (2 vols.), A
Mission to the King of Dahome (2 vols.), Wit and Wisdom from West Africa
(1 vol.), Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo (2
vols.). Remorselessly condensed, these nine might, with artistry, have
made a book worthy to live. But Burton's prolixity is his reader's
despair. He was devoid of the faintest idea of proportion. Consequently
at the present day his books are regarded as mere quarries. He dedicated
his Abeokuta "To my best friend," my wife, with a Latin verse which has
been rendered:
"Oh, I could live with thee in the wild wood
Where human foot hath never worn a way;
With thee, my city, and my solitude,
Light of my night, sweet rest from cares by day."
In her own copy Mrs. Burton wrote close to the lines, "Thank you, sweet
love!" [210]
Burton and his wife now set out for Lisbon, where they saw a bull-fight,
because Burton said people "ought to see everything once," though this
did not prevent them from going to several other bull-fights. Mrs.
Burton was not at all afraid of the bulls, but when some cockroaches
invaded her apartment she got on a chair and screamed, though even then
they did not go away. More than that, numbers of other cockroaches came
to see what was the matter; and they never left off coming. After "a
delightful two months" at Lisbon, Burton set out for Brazil, while his
wife returned to England "to pay and pack." She rejoined him some weeks
later at Rio Janeiro, and they reached Santos on 9th October 1865. They
found it a plashy, swampy place, prolific in mangroves and true ferns,
with here and there a cultivated patch. Settlers, however, became
attached to it. Sandflies and mosquitoes abounded, and the former used
to make Burton "come out all over lumps." Of the other vermin, including
multitudinous snakes, and hairy spiders the size of toy terriers they
took no particular notice. The amenities of the place were wonderful
orchids, brilliantly coloured parrots and gigantic butterflies with
great prismy wings. The Burtons kept a number of slaves, whom, however,
they paid "as if they were free men," and Mrs. Burton erected a chapel
for them--her oratory--where the Bishop "gave her leave to have mass and
the sacraments." Her chief convert, and he wanted converting very badly,
was an inhuman, pusillanimous coal-black dwarf, 35 years of age, called
Chico, [211] who became her right-hand man. Just as she had made him to
all appearance a good sound Catholic she caught him roasting alive her
favourite cat before the kitchen fire. This was the result partly of
innate diablery and partly of her having spoilt him, but wherever she
went Mrs. Burton managed to get a servant companion whom her lack of
judgment made an intolerable burden to her. Chico was only the first of
a series. Mrs. Burton also looked well after the temporal needs of the
neighbourhood, but if she was always the Lady Bountiful, she was rarely
the Lady Judicious.
52. Aubertin. Death of Steinhauser, 27th July 1866.
The Burtons resided sometimes at Santos and sometimes at Sao Paulo,
eight miles inland. These towns were just then being connected by
railway; and one of the superintendents, Mr. John James Aubertin, who
resided at Sao Paulo, became Burton's principal friend there. Aubertin
was generally known as the "Father of Cotton," because during the days
of the cotton famine, he had laboured indefatigably and with success
to promote the cultivation of the shrub in those parts. Like Burton,
Aubertin loved Camoens, and the two friends delighted to walk together
in the butterfly-haunted forests and talk about the "beloved master,"
while each communicated to the other his intention of translating The
Lusiads into English. Thirteen years, however, were to elapse before
the appearance of Aubertin's translation [212] and Burton's did not see
print till 1880. In 1866 Burton received a staggering blow in the loss
of his old friend Dr. Steinhauser, who died suddenly of heart disease,
during a holiday in Switzerland, 27th July 1866. It was Steinhauser,
it will be remembered, with whom he had planned the translation of The
Arabian Nights, a subject upon which they frequently corresponded. [213]
53. The Facetious Cannibals.
Wherever Burton was stationed he invariably interested himself in the
local archaeological and historical associations. Thus at Santos he
explored the enormous kitchen middens of the aboriginal Indians; but the
chief attraction was the site of a Portuguese fort, marked by a stone
heap, where a gunner, one Hans Stade, was carried off by the cannibals
and all but eaten. Burton used to visit the place by boat, and the
narrative written by Hans Stade so fascinated him that he induced
a Santos friend, Albert Tootal, to translate it into English. The
translation was finished in 1869, and five years later Burton wrote for
it an introduction and some valuable notes and sent it to press. Though
Burton scarcely shines as an original writer, he had a keen eye for
what was good in others, and he here showed for the first time that
remarkable gift for annotating which stood him in such stead when he
came to handle The Arabian Nights.
Hans Stade's story is so amusing that if we did not know it to be fact
we should imagine it the work of some Portuguese W. S. Gilbert. Never
were more grisly scenes or more captivating and facetious cannibals.
When they told Stade that he was to be eaten, they added, in order to
cheer him, that he was to be washed down with a really pleasant drink
called kawi. The king's son then tied Stade's legs together in three
places. "I was made," says the wretched man, "to hop with jointed feet
through the huts; at this they laughed and said 'Here comes our meat
hopping along,'" Death seemed imminent. They did Stade, however, no
injury beside shaving off his eyebrows, though the younger savages, when
hungry, often looked wistfully at him and rubbed their midriffs. The
other prisoners were, one by one, killed and eaten, but the cannibals
took their meals in a way that showed indifferent breeding. Even the
king had no table manners whatever, but walked about gnawing a meaty
bone. He was good-natured, however, and offered a bit to Stade, who not
only declined, but uttered some words of reproof. Though surprised, the
king was not angry; he took another bite and observed critically, with
his mouth full, "It tastes good!"
Life proceeds slowly, whether at Santos or Sao Paulo, almost the only
excitement being the appearance of companies of friendly Indians. They
used to walk in single file, and on passing Burton's house would throw
out their arms as if the whole file were pulled by a string. Burton did
not confine himself to Santos, however. He wandered all over maritime
Brazil, and at Rio he lectured before the king [214] and was several
times invited to be present at banquets and other splendid gatherings.
On the occasion of one of these notable functions, which was to be
followed by a dinner, one room of the palace was set apart for the
ministers to wait in and another for the consuls. The Burtons were told
not to go into the consular room, but into the ministers' room. When,
however, they got to the door the officials refused to let them pass.
"This is the ministers' room," they said, "You cannot come here."
"Well, where am I to go?" enquired Burton.
Mrs. Burton stood fuming with indignation at the sight of the stream of
nonentities who passed in without question, but Burton cried, "Wait a
moment, my darling. I've come to see the Emperor, and see the Emperor I
will."
So he sent in his card and a message.
"What!" cried the Emperor, "a man like Burton excluded. Bring him to
me at once." So Burton and his wife were conducted to the Emperor and
Empress, to whom Burton talked so interestingly, that they forgot all
about the dinner. Meanwhile flunkeys kept moving in and out, anxiety
on their faces--the princes, ambassadors and other folk were waiting,
dinner was waiting; and the high functionaries and dinner were kept
waiting for half an hour. "Well, I've had my revenge," said Burton to
his wife when the interview was over. "Only think of those starving
brutes downstairs; but I'm sorry on your account I behaved as I did, for
it will go against all your future 'at homes.'" At dinner the Emperor
and the Empress were most attentive to the Burtons and the Empress gave
Mrs. Burton a beautiful diamond bracelet. [215]
Among Burton's admirers was a Rio gentleman named Cox, who had a mansion
near the city. One day Mr. Cox arranged a grand dinner party and invited
all his friends to meet the famous traveller. Burton arrived early, but
presently disappeared. By and by the other guests streamed in, and after
amusing themselves for a little while about the grounds they began
to enquire for Burton. But no Burton was to be seen. At last someone
happened to look up the highest tree in the compound and there was the
guest of the day high among the branches squatting like a monkey. He had
got up there, he said, to have a little peace, and to keep on with the
book he was writing about Brazil. He came down, however, when the lunch
bell rang, for though he grumbled at all other noises, he maintained
that, somehow that sound always had a peculiar sweetness.
Wit and humour, wherever found, never failed to please Burton, and a
remark which he heard in a Brazilian police court and uttered by the
presiding magistrate, who, was one of his friends, particularly tickled
him:
"Who is this man?" demanded the magistrate, in reference to a
dissipated-looking prisoner.
"Un Inglez bebado" (a drunken Englishman), replied the constable.
"A drunken Englishman," followed the magistrate, "What a pleonasm!"
A little later Burton and his wife went down a mine which ran three
quarters of a mile into the earth. "The negret Chico," says Burton,
"gave one glance at the deep, dark pit, wrung his hands and fled the
Tophet, crying that nothing in the wide, wide world would make him enter
such an Inferno. He had lately been taught that he is a responsible
being, with an 'immortal soul,' and he was beginning to believe it in a
rough, theoretical way: this certainly did not look like a place 'where
the good niggers go.'" However, if Chico turned coward Burton and his
wife did not hesitate. But they had moments of fearful suspense as they
sank slowly down into the black abysm. The snap of a single link in the
long chain would have meant instantaneous death; and a link had snapped
but a few days previous, with fatal results. Arrived at the bottom they
found themselves in a vast cave lighted with a few lamps--the walls
black as night or reflecting slender rays from the polished watery
surface. Distinctly Dantesque was the gulf between the huge mountain
sides which threatened every moment to fall. One heard the click and
thud of hammers, the wild chants of the borers, the slush of water.
Being like gnomes and kobolds glided hither and thither--half naked
figures muffled up by the mist. Here dark bodies, gleaming with beaded
heat drops, hung in what seemed frightful positions; "they swung
like Leotard from place to place." Others swarmed up loose ropes like
Troglodytes. It was a situation in which "thoughts were many and where
words were few."
Burton and his wife were not sorry when they found themselves above
ground again and in the sweet light of day.
54. Down the Sao Francisco.
The next event was a canoe journey which Burton made alone down the
river Sao Francisco from its source to the falls of Paulo Affonso--and
then on to the sea, a distance of 1500 miles--an astounding feat even
for him. During these adventures a stanza in his own unpublished version
of Camoens constantly cheered him:
"Amid such scenes with danger fraught and pain
Serving the fiery spirit more to flame,
Who woos bright honour, he shall ever win
A true nobility, a deathless fame:
Not they who love to lean, unjustly vain,
Upon the ancestral trunk's departed claim;
Nor they reclining on the gilded beds
Where Moscow's zebeline downy softness spreads." [216]
Indeed he still continued, at all times of doubt and despondency, to
turn to this beloved poet; and always found something to encourage.
55. In Paraguay. August 15th to September 15th 1868. April 4th to April
18th 1869.
The year before his arrival in Santos a terrible war had broken out
between Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina on the one side and Paraguay on
the other; the Paraguayan dictator Lopez II. had been defeated in many
battles and Paraguay so long, thanks to the Jesuits and Dr. Francia, a
thriving country, was gradually being reduced to ruin. Tired of Santos,
which was out of the world and led to nothing, Burton in July 1868 sent
in his resignation. Mrs. Burton at once proceeded to England, but before
following her, Burton at the request of the Foreign Office, travelled
through various parts of South America in order to report the state of
the war. He visited Paraguay twice, and after the second journey made
his way across the continent to Arica in Peru, whence he took ship to
London via the Straits of Magellan. [217] During part of the voyage he
had as fellow traveller Arthur Orton, the Tichborne claimant. As both
had spent their early boyhood at Elstree they could had they so wished
have compared notes, but we may be sure Mr. Orton preserved on that
subject a discreet silence. The war terminated in March 1870, after
the death of Lopez II. at the battle of Aquidaban. Four-fifths of the
population of Paraguay had perished by sword or famine.