Damascus."
Bibliography:
32. Vikram and the Vampire. 33. Letters from the Battlefields of
Paraguay. 1870. 34. Proverba Communia Syriaca. 1871. 35. The Jew.
Written 1871, published 1898.
56. Archbishop Manning and the Odd Fish.
Mrs. Burton had carried with her to England several books written by her
husband in Brazil, and upon her arrival she occupied herself first
in arranging for their publication, and secondly in trying to form a
company to work some Brazilian mines for which Burton had obtained a
concession. The books were The Highlands of Brazil (2 vols. 1869), The
Lands of the Cazembe (1873) and Iracema, or Honey Lips, a translation
from the Brazilian (1886).
We hear no more of the mines, but she was able to send her husband "the
excellent news of his appointment to the Consulate of Damascus." He
heard of it first, however, not from her letter, but casually in a cafe
at Lima, just as he was preparing to return home. On arriving in England
almost his first business was to patent a pistol which he had invented
especially for the use of travellers, and then he and Mrs. Burton
gave themselves the pleasure of calling on old friends and going into
society. To this date should, perhaps, be assigned the story [218] of
Archbishop, afterwards Cardinal Manning, and the Odd Fish. Burton had
just presented to the Zoological Gardens a curious fish which lived
out of water, and took but little nourishment. He had often presented
different creatures to the Zoo, though nobody had ever thanked him, but
this gift created some commotion, and "Captain Burton's Odd Fish" became
the talk of London.
In the midst of its popularity Burton one day found himself seated at
a grand dinner next to his good friend the long, lean and abstemious
Archbishop Manning. But much as Burton liked Manning, he could never
bear to be near him at meal times. Manning always would eat little
and talk much; so Burton, who was a magnificent trencherman, suffered
serious inconvenience, and the present occasion proved no exception.
It was in vain that Burton urged the Archbishop to mortify himself by
eating his dinner. After a while Mrs. Burton, who sat on the other side
of the Archbishop, remarked "Richard must take you to the Zoo and show
you his famous fish." "I'll certainly go," said Manning, turning to
Burton, "I am really curious to see it." "Then my Lord," followed
Burton, "there will be a pair of odd fish. You know, you neither eat nor
drink, and that's the peculiarity of the other fish."
As usual when in England, Burton spoke at several public meetings, and
Mrs. Burton, of whose appearance he continued to be justifiably proud,
generally accompanied him on the platform. Before speaking he always ate
sparingly, saying "No" to almost everything. On one of such evenings
he was the guest of Dr. Burton, and by chance, hot curry, his favourite
dish, was placed on the table. "Now this is real wickedness, cousin,"
he exclaimed, "to have hot curry when I can't eat it." When dinner was
nearly over somebody came in with a basket of damask roses. "Ask for two
of them," whispered Burton to his wife. She did, and appeared with them
in her bosom on the platform, "And oh," added my informer, "how handsome
she looked!"
Having visited Uriconium, the English Pompeii, the Burtons made for
Vichy, where they met Mr. Swinburne, (Sir) Frederick Leighton and Mrs.
Sartoris. His companions on this journey, as on so many others, were two
books--one being the anodynous Camoens, the other a volume consisting of
the Bible, Shakespeare and Euclid bound together, which looked, with its
three large clasps, like a congested Church Service. Mrs. Burton then
returned to England "to pay and pack," while Burton, "being ignorant" as
they say in the Nights, "of what lurked for him in the secret purpose
of God," proceeded to Damascus, with two bull-terriers, descendants, no
doubt, of the Oxford beauty.
57. 3rd Consulate, Damascus.
Mrs. Burton followed in December, with her entire fortune--a modest L300
in gold, and life promised to be all labdanum. Disliking the houses in
Damascus itself, the Burtons took one in the suburb El Salahiyyah; and
here for two years they lived among white domes and tapering minarets,
palms and apricot trees. Midmost the court, with its orange and lemon
trees, fell all day the cool waters of a fountain. The principal
apartments were the reception room, furnished with rich Eastern webs,
and a large dining room, while a terrace forming part of the upper
storey served as "a pleasant housetop in the cool evenings." The garden,
with its roses, jessamine, vines, citron, orange and lemon trees,
extended to that ancient river, the jewel-blue Chyrsorrhoa. There was
excellent stabling, and Mrs. Burton kept horses, donkeys, a camel,
turkeys, bull-terriers, street dogs, ducks, leopards, lambs, pigeons,
goats, and, to use Burton's favourite expression, "other notions." They
required much patient training, but the result was satisfactory, for
when most of them had eaten one another they became a really harmonious
family.
If Mrs. Burton went abroad to the bazaar or elsewhere she was
accompanied by four Kawwasses in full dress of scarlet and gold, and on
her reception day these gorgeous attendants kept guard. Her visitors
sat on the divans cross-legged or not according to their nation, smoked,
drank sherbet and coffee, and ate sweetmeats.
For Ra'shid Pasha, the Wali or Governor-General of Syria, both Burton
and his wife conceived from the first a pronounced antipathy. He was fat
and indolent, with pin-point eyes, wore furs, walked on his toes, purred
and looked like "a well-fed cat." It did not, however, occur to them
just then that he was to be their evil genius.
"Call him Ra'shid, with the accent on the first syllable," Burton was
always careful to say when speaking of this fiendish monster, "and
do not confound him with (Haroun al) Rashi'd, accent on the second
syllable--'the orthodox,' the 'treader in the right path.'" [219]
58. Jane Digby el Mezrab.
At an early date Burton formed a friendship with the Algerine hero and
exile Abd el Kadir, a dark, kingly-looking man who always appeared in
snow white and carried superbly-jewelled arms; while Mrs. Burton, who
had a genius for associating herself with undesirable persons, took to
her bosom the notorious and polyandrous Jane Digby el Mezrab. [220] This
lady had been the wife first of Lord Ellenborough, who divorced her,
secondly of Prince Schwartzenberg, and afterwards of about six other
gentlemen. Finally, having used up Europe, she made her way to Syria,
where she married a "dirty little black" [221] Bedawin shaykh. Mrs.
Burton, with her innocent, impulsive, flamboyant mind, not only grappled
Jane Digby with hoops of steel, but stigmatised all the charges against
her as wilful and malicious. Burton, however, mistrusted the lady from
the first. Says Mrs. Burton of her new friend, "She was a most beautiful
woman, though sixty-one, tall, commanding, and queen-like. She was
grande dame jusqu' au bout des doights, as much as if she had just left
the salons of London and Paris, refined in manner, nor did she ever
utter a word you could wish unsaid. She spoke nine languages perfectly,
and could read and write in them. She lived half the year in Damascus
and half with her husband in his Bedawin tents, she like any other
Bedawin woman, but honoured and respected as the queen of her tribe,
wearing one blue garment, her beautiful hair in two long plaits down to
the ground, milking the camels, serving her husband, preparing his food,
sitting on the floor and washing his feet, giving him his coffee; and
while he ate she stood and waited on him: and glorying in it. She looked
splendid in Oriental dress. She was my most intimate friend, and she
dictated to me the whole of her biography." [222] Both ladies were
inveterate smokers, and they, Burton, and Abd el Kadir spent many
evenings on the terrace of the house with their narghilehs. Burton and
his wife never forgot these delightsome causeries. Swiftly, indeed, flew
the happy hours when they
"Nighted and dayed in Damascus town." [223]
59. To Tadmor.
Burton had scarcely got settled in Damascus before he expressed his
intention of visiting the historic Tadmor in the desert. It was an eight
days' journey, and the position of the two wells on the way was kept a
secret by Jane Digby's tribe, who levied blackmail on all visitors
to the famous ruins. The charge was the monstrous one of L250; but
Burton--at all times a sworn foe to cupidity--resolved to go without
paying. Says Mrs. Burton, "Jane Digby was in a very anxious state when
she heard this announcement, as she knew it was a death blow to a great
source of revenue to the tribe... She did all she could to dissuade us,
she wept over our loss, and she told us that we should never come back."
Finally the subtle lady dried her crocodile eyes and offered her "dear
friends" the escort of one of her Bedawin, that they might steer clear
of the raiders and be conducted more quickly to water, "if it existed."
Burton motioned to his wife to accept the escort, and Jane left the
house with ill-concealed satisfaction. The Bedawi [224] in due time
arrived, but not before he had been secretly instructed by Jane to lead
the Burtons into ambush whence they could be pounced upon by the tribe
and kept prisoners till ransomed. That, however, was no more than Burton
had anticipated; consequently as soon as the expedition was well on the
road he deprived the Bedawi of his mare and accoutrements, and retained
both as hostages until Damascus should be reached again. Appropriately
enough this occurred on April the First. [225] Success rewarded his
acuteness, for naturally the wells were found, and the travellers
having watered their camels finished the journey with comfort. Says Mrs.
Burton, "I shall never forget the imposing sight of Tadmor. There is
nothing so deceiving as distance in the desert.... A distant ruin stands
out of the sea of sand, the atmosphere is so clear that you think you
will reach it in half an hour; you ride all day and you never seem to
get any nearer to it." Arrived at Tadmor they found it to consist of
a few orchards, the imposing ruins, and a number of wretched huts
"plastered like wasps' nests within them." Of the chief ruin, the Temple
of the Sun, one hundred columns were still standing and Burton, who
set his men to make excavations, found some statues, including one of
Zenobia. The party reached Damascus again after an absence of about a
month. The Bedawi's mare was returned; and Jane Digby had the pleasure
of re-union with her dear Mrs. Burton, whom she kissed effusively.
Both Burton and his wife mingled freely with the people of Damascus,
and Burton, who was constantly storing up knowledge against his great
edition of The Arabian Nights, often frequented the Arabic library.
[226] Their favourite walk was to the top of an adjacent eminence,
whence they could look down on Damascus, which lay in the light of
the setting sun, "like a pearl." Then there were excursions to distant
villages of traditionary interest, including Jobar, where Elijah is
reputed to have hidden, and to have anointed Hazael. [227] "The Bird,"
indeed, as ever, was continually on the wing, nor was Mrs. Burton less
active. She visited, for example, several of the harems in the city,
including that of Abd el Kadir. "He had five wives," she says, "one of
them was very pretty. I asked them how they could bear to live together
and pet each other's children. I told them that in England, if a woman
thought her husband had another wife or mistress, she would be ready
to kill her. They all laughed heartily at me, and seemed to think it a
great joke." [228] She also took part in various social and religious
functions, and was present more than once at a circumcision--at which,
she tells us, the victim, as Westerns must regard him, was always seated
on richest tapestry resembling a bride throne, while his cries were
drowned by the crash of cymbals. Burton's note-books, indeed, owed no
mean debt to her zealous co-operation.
60. Palmer and Drake. 11th July 1870.
The Burtons spent their summer in a diminutive Christian village called
B'ludan, on the Anti-Lebanon, at the head of the Vale of Zebedani,
Burton having chosen it as his sanitarium. A beautiful stream with
waterfalls bubbled through their gardens, which commanded magnificent
views of the Lebanon country. As at Santos, Mrs. Burton continued her
role of Lady Bountiful, and she spent many hours making up powders and
pills. Although in reality nobody was one jot the better or the worse
for taking them, the rumour circulated that they were invariably fatal.
Consequently her reputation as a doctor spread far and wide. One evening
a peasant woman who was dying sent a piteous request for aid, and
Mrs. Burton, who hurried to the spot, satisfied the poor soul by the
administration of some useless but harmless dose. Next morning the
woman's son appeared. He thanked Mrs. Burton warmly for her attentions,
said it was his duty to report that his mother was dead, and begged for
a little more of the efficacious white powder, as he had a bedridden
grandmother of whom he was also anxious to be relieved.
One piping hot morning [229] when walking in his garden Burton noticed
a gipsy tent outside, and on approaching it found two sun-burnt
Englishmen, a powerful, amiable-looking giant, and a smaller man with a
long beard and silky hair. The giant turned out to be Charles Tyrwhitt
Drake and the medium-sized man Edward Henry Palmer, both of whom
were engaged in survey work. Drake, aged 24, was the draughtsman and
naturalist; Palmer, [230] just upon 30, but already one of the first
linguists of the day, the archaeologist. Palmer, like Burton, had
leanings towards occultism; crystal gazing, philosopher's stone hunting.
After making a mess with chemicals, he would gaze intently at it, and
say excitedly: "I wonder what will happen"--an expression that was
always expected of him on such and all other exciting occasions. A
quadruple friendship ensued, and the Burtons, Drake and Palmer made
several archaeological expeditions together. To Palmer's poetical eyes
all the Lebanon region was enchanted ground. Here the lovely Shulamite
of the lovelier Scripture lyric fed her flocks by the shepherd's tents.
Hither came Solomon, first disguised as a shepherd, to win her love, and
afterwards in his royal litter perfumed with myrrh and frankincense to
take her to his Cedar House. This, too, was the country of Adonis.
In Lebanon the wild boar slew him, and yonder, flowing towards "holy
Byblus," were "the sacred waters where the women of the ancient
mysteries came to mingle their tears." [231] Of this primitive and
picturesque but wanton worship they were reminded frequently both by
relic and place name. To Palmer, viewing them in the light of the past,
the Cedars of Lebanon were a poem, but to Burton--a curious mixture of
the romantic and the prosaic--with his invariable habit of underrating
famous objects, they were "a wretched collection of scraggy Christmas
trees." "I thought," said Burton, "when I came here that Syria and
Palestine would be so worn out that my occupation as an explorer was
clean gone." He found, however, that such was not the case--all previous
travellers having kept to the beaten tracks; Jaydur, for example,
the classical Ituraea, was represented on the maps by "a virgin white
patch." Burton found it teeming with interest. There was hardly a mile
without a ruin--broken pillars, inscribed slabs, monoliths, tombs. A
little later he travelled as far northward as Hamah [232] in order to
copy the uncouth characters on the famous stones, and Drake discovered
an altar adorned with figures of Astarte and Baal. [233] Everywhere
throughout Palestine he had to deplore the absence of trees. "Oh that
Brigham Young were here!" he used to say, "to plant a million. The sky
would then no longer be brass, or the face of the country a quarry."
Thanks to his researches, Burton has made his name historical in the
Holy Land, for his book Unexplored Syria--written though it be in
a distressingly slipshod style--throws, from almost every page,
interesting light on the Bible. "Study of the Holy Land," he said,
"has the force of a fifth Gospel, not only because it completes and
harmonises, but also because it makes intelligible the other four. Oh,
when shall we have a reasonable version of Hebrew Holy Writ which
will retain the original names of words either untranslatable or to be
translated only by guess work!" [234] One of their adventures--with
a shaykh named Salameh--reads like a tale out of The Arabian Nights.
Having led them by devious paths into an uninhabited wild, Salameh
announced that, unless they made it worth his wile to do otherwise, he
intended to leave them there to perish, and it took twenty-five pounds
to satisfy the rogue's cupidity. Palmer, however, was of opinion that an
offence of this kind ought by no means to be passed over, so on reaching
Jerusalem he complained to the Turkish governor and asked that the man
might receive punishment. "I know the man," said the Pasha, "he is a
scoundrel, and you shall see an example of the strength and equity of
the Sultan's rule;" and of course, Palmer, in his perpetual phrase,
wondered what would happen. After their return to Damascus the three
friends had occasion to call on Rashid Pasha. "Do you think," said the
Wali, with his twitching moustache and curious, sleek, unctuous smile,
"do you think you would know your friend again?" He then clapped his
hands and a soldier brought in a sack containing four human heads, one
of which had belonged to the unfortunate Salameh. "Are you satisfied?"
enquired the Wali. [235]
61. Khamoor.
Having been separated from "that little beast of a Brazilian"--the
cat-torturing Chico--Mrs. Burton felt that she must have another
confidential servant companion. Male dwarfs being so unsatisfactory she
now decided to try a full-sized human being, and of the other sex. At
Miss Ellen Wilson's Protestant Mission in Anti-Lebanon she saw just her
ideal--a lissom, good-looking Syrian maid, named Khamoor, or "The Moon."
Chico the Second (or shall we say Chica [236] the First.) had black
plaits of hair confined by a coloured handkerchief, large, dark,
reflulgent eyes, pouting lips, white teeth, of which she was very proud,
"a temperament which was all sunshine and lightning in ten minutes," and
a habit of discharging, quite unexpectedly, a "volley of fearful oaths."
She was seventeen--"just the time of life when a girl requires careful
guiding." So Mrs. Burton, or "Ya Sitti," as Khamoor called her, promptly
set about this careful guiding--that is to say she fussed and petted
Khamoor till the girl lost all knowledge of her place and became an
intolerable burden. Under Mrs. Burton's direction she learnt to wear
stays [237] though this took a good deal of learning; and also to slap
men's faces and scream when they tried to kiss her. By dint of practice
she in time managed this also to perfection. Indeed, she gave up, one
by one, all her heathenish ways, except swearing, and so became a
well-conducted young lady, and almost English. Mrs. Burton was nothing
if not a woman with a mission, and henceforward two cardinal ideas
swayed her namely, first to inveigle the heathen into stays, and
secondly, to induce them to turn Catholics. Her efforts at conversion
were more or less successful, but the other propaganda had, to her real
sorrow, only barren results.
In March 1871, Charles Tyrwhitt Drake, who had spent some months in
England, arrived again in Damascus, and the Burtons begged him to be
their permanent guest. Henceforth Mrs. Burton, Burton and Drake were
inseparable companions, and they explored together "almost every known
part of Syria." Mrs. Burton used to take charge of the camp "and visited
the harems to note things hidden from mankind," Drake sketched and
collected botanical and geological specimens, while Burton's studies
were mainly anthropological and archaeological. They first proceeded to
Jerusalem, where they spent Holy Week, and after visiting Hebron, the
Dead Sea, and other historical spots, they returned by way of Nazareth.
But here they met with trouble. Early in his consulate, it seems, Burton
had protested against some arbitrary proceedings on the part of the
Greek Bishop of Nazareth, and thus made enemies among the Greeks.
Unhappily, when the travellers appeared this ill-feeling led a posse of
Nazarenes to make an attack on Burton's servants; and Burton and Drake,
who ran half dressed out of their tents to see what was the matter, were
received with a shower of stones, and cries of "Kill them!" Burton stood
perfectly calm, though the stones hit him right and left, and Drake also
displayed cool bravery. Mrs. Burton then hastened up with "two six shot
revolvers," but Burton, having waved her back--snatched a pistol from
the belt of one of his servants and fired it into the air, with the
object of summoning his armed companions, whereupon the Greeks, though
they numbered at least a hundred and fifty, promptly took to their
heels. Out of this occurrence, which Burton would have passed over, his
enemies, as we shall see, subsequently made considerable capital. The
party then proceeded to the Sea of Galilee, whence they galloped across
"their own desert" home. During these travels Burton and Drake made some
valuable discoveries and saw many extraordinary peoples, though none
more extraordinary than the lazy and filthy Troglodytes of the Hauran,
[238] who shared the pre-historic caves with their cows and sheep, and
fed on mallows just as their forefathers are represented as having
done in the vivid thirtieth chapter of Job, [239] and in the pages of
Agatharchides. [240]
62. The Shazlis.
Mrs. Burton now heard news that fired her with joy. A sect of the
Mohammedans called Shazlis used to assemble in the house of one of their
number of Moslem prayer, reading and discussion. One day they became
conscious of a mysterious presence among them. They heard and saw things
incommunicably strange, and a sacred rapture diffused itself among
them. Their religion had long ceased to give them satisfaction, and they
looked anxiously round in search of a better. One night when they were
overcome by sleep there appeared to each a venerable man with a long
white beard, who said sweetly, "Let those who want the truth follow me,"
and forthwith they resolved to search the earth until they found the
original of the vision. But they had not to go far. One of them chancing
to enter a monastery in Damascus noticed a Spanish priest named Fray
Emanuel Forner. Hurrying back to his comrades he cried "I have seen the
oldster of the dreams." On being earnestly requested to give direction,
Forner became troubled, and with a view to obtaining advice, hurried to
Burton. Both Burton and his wife listened to the tale with breathless
interest. Mrs. Burton naturally wanted to sweep the whole sect
straightway into the Roman Church, and it is said that she offered to be
sponsor herself to 2,000 of them. In any circumstances, she distributed
large numbers of crucifixes and rosaries. Burton, who regarded
nine-tenths of the doctrines of her church as a tangle of error, was
nevertheless much struck with the story. He had long been seeking for a
perfect religion, and he wondered whether these people had not found it.
Here in this city of Damascus, where Our Lord had appeared to St. Paul,
a similar apparition had again been seen--this time by a company of
earnest seekers after truth. He determined to investigate. So disguised
as a Shazli, he attended their meetings and listened while Forner
imparted the principal dogmas of the Catholic faith. His common
sense soon told him that the so-called miraculous sights were merely
hallucinations, the outcome of heated and hysterical imagination. He
sympathised with the Shazlis in that like himself they were seekers
after truth, and there, as far as he was concerned, the matter would
have ended had the scenes been in any other country. But in Syria
religious freedom was unknown, and the cruel Wali Rashid Pasha was only
too delighted to have an opportunity to use his power. He crushed where
he could not controvert. Twelve of the leading Shazlis--the martyrs, as
they were called--were seized and imprisoned. Forner died suddenly; as
some think, by poison. This threw Burton, who hated oppression in all
its forms, into a towering rage, and he straightway flung the whole
of his weight into the cause of the Shazlis. Persecution gave
them holiness. He wrote to Lord Granville that there were at least
twenty-five thousand Christians longing secretly for baptism, and he
suggested methods by which they might be protected. He also recommended
the Government to press upon the Porte many other reforms. Both Burton
and his wife henceforward openly protected the Shazlis, and in fact
made themselves, to use the words of a member of the English Government,
"Emperor and Empress of Damascus."
That Rashid Pasha and his crawling myrmidons were rascals of the first
water and that the Shazlis were infamously treated is very evident.
It is also clear that Burton was more just than diplomatic. We cannot,
however, agree with those who lay all the blame on Mrs. Burton. We may
not sympathise with her religious views, but, of course, she had the
same right to endeavour to extend her own church as the Protestants at
Beyrout, who periodically sent enthusiastic agents to Damascus, had to
extend theirs.
The Shazli trouble alone, however, would not have shaken seriously
Burton's position; and whatever others may have thought, it is certain
Burton himself never at any time in his life considered that in this
matter any particular blame attached to his wife. But unfortunately the
Shazli trouble was only one of a series. Besides embroiling himself with
the truculent Rashid Pasha and his underlings, Burton contrived to give
offence to four other bodies of men. In June, 1870, Mr. Mentor Mott, the
kind and charitable [241] superintendent of the British Syrian School
at Beyrout, went to Damascus to proselytize, and acted, in Burton's
opinion, with some indiscretion. Deeming Damascus just then to be not
in a temper for proselytising, Burton reprimanded him, and thus offended
the Protestant missionaries and Mr. Jackson Eldridge, the Consul-General
at Beyrout. In Burton's opinion, but for Mrs. Mott the storm would have
gradually subsided. That lady, however, took the matter more to heart
than her husband, and was henceforth Burton's implacable enemy. Then
arose a difficulty with the Druzes, who had ill-treated some English
missionaries. As they were Turkish subjects the person to act was Rashid
Pasha, but Burton and he being at daggers drawn, Burton attempted to
fine the Druzes himself. He was reminded, however, that his power was
limitary, and that he would not be allowed to exceed it. To the trouble
with the Greeks we have already referred. But his chief enemies were
the Jews, or rather the Jewish money-lenders, who used to go to the
distressed villages, offer money, keep all the papers, and allow their
victims nothing to show. Interest had to be paid over and over again.
Compound interest was added, and when payment was impossible the
defaulters were cast into prison. Burton's predecessor had been content
to let matters alone, but Burton's blood boiled when he thought of these
enormities. Still, when the money-lenders came to him and stated their
case, he made for a time an honest attempt to double; but ultimately his
indignation got the better of his diplomacy, and with an oath that
made the windows rattle, he roared, "Do you think I am going to be
bum-bailiff to a parcel of blood-suckers!" And yet these gentlemen had
sometimes, in their moderation, charged as little as sixty per cent.
Henceforward Burton looked evil upon the whole Jewish race, and resolved
to write a book embodying his researches respecting them and his
Anti-Semite opinions. For the purpose of it he made minute enquiries
concerning the death of one Padre Tommaso, whom the Jews were suspected
of having murdered in 1840. These enquiries naturally have his foes
further umbrage, and they in return angrily discharge their venom at
him. In his book The Jew, published after his death, [242] he lashes the
whole people. He seems in its pages to be constantly running up and down
with a whip and saying: "I'll teach you to be 'an Ebrew Jew,' I
will." His credulity and prejudice are beyond belief. He accepts every
malicious and rancorous tale told against the Jews, and records as
historical facts even such problematical stories as the murder of Hugh
of Lincoln. Thus he managed to exasperate representatives of almost
every class. But perhaps it was his championship of the Shazlis that
made the most mischief. Says Lady Burton, "It broke his career, it
shattered his life, it embittered him towards religion."
Complaints and garbled stories reached London from all sides, and Burton
was communicated with. He defended himself manfully, and showed that in
every question he had been on the side of righteousness and equity,
that he had simply fought systematically against cruelty, oppression
and nefariousness. He could not and would not temporize. An idea of the
corruption prevalent at Damascus may be fathered from the fact that on
one occasion L10,000 was promised him if he would "give an opinion which
would have swayed a public transaction." Says Lady Burton, "My husband
let the man finish, and then he said, 'If you were a gentleman of my own
standing, and an Englishman, I would just pitch you out of the window;
but as you are not, you may pick up your L10,000 and walk down the
stairs.'" [243]
63. The Recall. 16th August 1871.
Accusations, many of them composed of the bluest gall; and manly letters
of defence from Burton now flew almost daily from Damascus to England.
The Wali, the Jews and others all had their various grievances. As it
happened, the British Government wanted, just then, above all things,
peace and quiet. If Burton could have managed to jog along in almost
any way with the Wali, the Druzes, the Greeks, the Jews and the other
factors in Syria, there would have been no trouble. As to whether Burton
was right or wrong in these disputes, the Government seems not to have
cared a straw or to have given a moment's thought. Here, they said, is
a man who somehow has managed to stir up a wasp's nest, and who may
embroil us with Turkey. This condition of affairs must cease. Presently
came the crash. On August 16th just as Burton and Tyrwhitt Drake were
setting out for a ride at B'ludan, a messenger appeared and handed
Burton a note. He was superseded. The blow was a terrible one, and for
a moment he was completely unmanned. He hastened to Damascus in the
forlorn hope that there was a mistake. But it was quite true, the
consulship had been given to another.
To his wife he sent the message, "I am superseded. Pay, pack, and follow
at convenience." Then he started for Beirut, where she joined him.
"After all my service," wrote Burton in his journal, "ignominiously
dismissed at fifty years of age." One cry only kept springing from Mrs.
Burton's lips, "Oh, Rashid Pasha! Oh, Rashid Pasha!"
At Damascus Burton had certainly proved himself a man of incorruptible
integrity. Even his enemies acknowledged his probity. But this availed
nothing. Only two years had elapsed since he had landed in Syria,
flushed with high premonitions; now he retired a broken man, shipwrecked
in hope and fortune. When he looked back on his beloved Damascus--"O,
Damascus, pearl of the East"--it was with the emotion evinced by the
last of the Moors bidding adieu to Granada, and it only added to his
exasperation when he imagined the exultation of the hated Jews, and the
sardonic grin on the sly, puffy, sleek face of Rashid Pasha.
Just before Mrs. Burton left B'ludan an incident occurred which brings
her character into high relief. A dying Arab boy was brought to her to
be treated for rheumatic fever. She says, "I saw that death was near....
'Would you like to see Allah?' I said, taking hold of his cold hand....
I parted his thick, matted hair, and kneeling, I baptised him from the
flask of water I always carried at my side. 'What is that?' asked his
grandmother after a minute's silence. 'It is a blessing,' I answered,
'and may do him good!'" [244] The scene has certain points in common
with that enacted many years after in Burton's death chamber. Having
finished all her "sad preparations at B'ludan," Mrs. Burton "bade adieu
to the Anti-Lebanon with a heavy heart, and for the last time, choking
with emotion, rode down the mountain and through the Plain of Zebedani,
with a very large train of followers."--"I had a sorrowful ride," says
she, "into Damascus. Just outside the city gates I met the Wali, driving
in state, with all his suite. He looked radiant, and saluted me with
much empressement. I did not return his salute." [245]
It is satisfactory to know that Rashid Pasha's triumph was short-lived.
Within a month of Burton's departure he was recalled by the Porte and
disgraced. Not only so but every measure which Burton had recommended
during his consulship was ordered to be carried out, and "The reform
was so thorough and complete, that Her Majesty's Ambassador at
Constantinople was directed officially to compliment the Porte upon its
newly initiated line of progress." But nobody thanked, or even though
of Burton. On the occasion of his departure Burton received shoals
of letters from prominent men of "every creed, race and tongue,"
manifesting sorrow and wishing him God-speed. Delightful, indeed, was
the prologue of that from Abd El Kadir: "Allah," it ran, "favour the
days of your far-famed learning, and prosper the excellence of your
writing. O wader of the seas of knowledge, O cistern of learning of our
globe, exalted above his age, whose exaltation is above the mountains
of increase and our rising place, opener by his books of night and
day, traveller by ship and foot and horse, one whom none can equal in
travel." The letter itself was couched in a few simple, heartfelt words,
and terminated with "It is our personal friendship to you which dictates
this letter." "You have departed," wrote a Druze shaykh, "leaving us the
sweet perfume of charity and noble conduct in befriending the poor and
supporting the weak and oppressed, and your name is large on account of
what God has put into your nature."
Some of the authorities at home gave out that one of the reasons for
Burton's recall was that his life was in danger from the bullets of his
enemies, but Burton commented drily: "I have been shot at, at different
times, by at least forty men who fortunately could not shoot straight.
Once more would not have mattered much."