CHAPTER VII.

THE REMINISCENCES WRITTEN FOR MR. HITCHMAN IN 1888--INDIA.

[Sidenote: _A Later Chapter on same events differently told._]

When I landed at Bombay (October 28th, 1842), "Momba Devi" town was a

marvellous contrast with the "Queen of Western India," as she thrones

it in 1887; no City in Europe, except perhaps Vienna, can show such a

difference. The old Portuguese port-village _temp. Caroli Secundi_,

with its silly fortifications and useless esplanade, its narrow alleys

and squares like _places d'armes_, had not developed itself into

"Sasson-Town," as we may call the olden, and "Frére-Town" the modern

moiety.

Under the patriarchal rule of the Court of Directors to the Hon. East

Indian Company, a form of torpidity much resembling the paternal

government of good Emperor Franz, no arrangements were made for the

reception of the queer animals called "cadets." They landed and fell

into the knowing hands of some rascals; lodged at a Persian tavern,

the British Hotel, all uncleanliness at the highest prices. I had a

touch of "seasoning sickness," came under the charge of "Paddy Ryan,"

Fort Surgeon and general favourite, and was duly drafted into the

Sanitary Bungalow--thatched hovels facing Back Bay, whence ever arose

a pestilential whiff of roast Hindú, and opened the eyes of those

who had read about the luxuries of the East. Life was confined to a

solitary ride (at dawn and dusk), a dull monotonous day, and a night in

some place of dissipation--to put it mildly--such as the Bhendi bazar,

whose attractions consisted of dark young persons in gaudy dress,

mock jewels, and hair japanned with cocoa-nut oil, and whose especial

diversions were an occasional "row"--a barbarous manner of "town and

gown." But a few days, of residence had taught me that India, at least

Western India, offered only two specialities for the Britisher; first

_Shikar_ or sport, and secondly, opportunities of studying the people

and their languages. These were practically unlimited; I found that

it took me some years of hard study before I could walk into a bazar

and distinguish the several castes, and know something of them, their

manners and customs, religion and superstitions. I at once engaged a

venerable Parsee, Dosabhai Sohrabji, also a _mubid_, or priest, as

his white cap and coat showed, who had coached many generations of

_griffs_, and under his guidance dived deep into the "Ethics of Hind"

(Akhlak-i-Hindi) and other such text-books.

This was the year after the heir-apparent was born; when Nott, Pollock,

and Sale revenged the destruction of some 13,000 men by the Afghans;

when the Chinese War broke out; when Lord Ellenborough succeeded

awkward Lord Auckland; and when Major-General Sir Charles J. Napier,

commanding at Poonah, was appointed to Sind (August 25th, 1842),

and when his subsequent unfriend, Brevet-Major James Outram, was on

furlough to England; lastly, and curious to say, most important of all

to me, was the fact that "Ensign Burton" was ranked and posted in the

G. G. O. of October 15th, 1842, to the 18th Regiment, Bombay N.I.

Nor was I less surprised by the boasting of my brother officers (the

Sepoys had thrashed the French in India and elsewhere, they were the

flower of the British army, and so forth)--fine specimen of _esprit

de corps_ run mad, which was destined presently to change its tone,

after 1857. Meanwhile this loud brag covered an ugly truth. We officers

of the Indian army held her Majesty's commission, but the Company's

officers were looked upon by the Queen's troops as mere auxiliaries,

locals without general rank, as it were black policemen. Moreover the

rules of the service did not allow us to rise above a certain rank.

What a contrast to the French private, who carries a Marshal's baton in

his knapsack!

Captain Cleland introduced me to his sister, the wife of a

field-officer, and she to sundry of her friends, whose tone somewhat

surprised me. Here and there a reference was made to my "immortal

soul," and I was overwhelmed with oral treatises upon what was expected

from a "Christian in a heathen land." And these ladies "talked shop,"

at least, so it appeared to me, like non-commissioned officers. After

_Shikar_ and the linguistics, the only popular pursuit in India is

(I should think always was) "Society." But indigestible dinners are

not pleasant in a Turkish bath; dancing is at a discount in a region

of eternal dog-days; picnics are unpleasant on the "palm-tasselled

strand of glowing Ind," where scorpions and cobras come uninvited;

horse-racing, like Cicero's "Mercaturi," to be honoured, must be on a

large scale; the Mess tiffin is an abomination ruinous to digestion and

health; the billiard-table may pass an hour or so pleasantly enough,

but it becomes a monotonous waste of time, and the evening bands, or

meet at "Scandal Point," is open to the charge of a deadly dullness.

Visits become visitations, because that tyrant Madam Etiquette

commanded them about noon, despite risk of sunstroke, and "the ladies"

insisted upon them without remorse of conscience. Needless to say that

in those days the _Gym-hánah_ was unknown, and that the Indian world

ignored lawn-tennis, even croquet.

Another point in Bombay Society at once struck me, and I afterwards

found it in the Colonies and most highly developed in the United

States. At home men and women live under an incubus, a perfect system

of social despotism which is intended to make amends for an unnatural

political equality, amongst classes born radically unequal. Abroad, the

weight is taken off their shoulders, and they result of its removal is

a peculiar rankness of growth. The pious become fanatically one-idea'd,

pharisaical, unchristian, monomaniacal. The un-pious run to the other

extreme, believe nothing, sneer at the holies, "and look upon the mere

Agnostic as a 'slow coach.'" Eccentricity develops itself Bedlam-wards.

One of my friends had a mania and swore "By my halidom." Another had

an image of Gánpati over his door, which he never passed without

the prayer, "Shri ganeshayá Hamahá" ("I bow to auspicious Janus").

A third, of whom I heard, had studied Aristotle in Arabic, and when

shown the "Novum Organon," asked, indignantly, "who the fellow might

be that talked such stuff." And in matters of honesty the social idea

was somewhat lax; to sell a spavined horse to a friend was considered

a good joke, and to pass off plated wares for real silver was looked

upon as only a trifle too "smart." The Press faithfully reflected

these nuances with a little extra violence and virulence of its own.

By-the-by, I must not forget making the acquaintance of a typical

Scot, Dr. Buist (afterwards Sir Charles Napier's "blatant beast of the

_Bombay Times_"). He wrote much (so badly that only one clerk could

read it) and washed little; and as age advanced he married a young wife.

After a month or so at Bombay, chiefly spent in mugging "Hindostani,"

and in providing myself with the necessaries of life--servants, headed

by Salvador Soares, a handsome Goanese; a horse, in the shape of a

dun-coloured Kattywár nag; also a "horsekeeper," a dog, a tent, and

so forth--I received my marching orders and set out to "join" my own

corps. The simple way of travelling in those days before steam and rail

was by palanquin or _pattymar_. I have described the latter article

in "Goa," and I may add that it had its advantages. True it was a

"slow coach," creeping on seventy or eighty miles a day, and some days

almost stationary; it had few comforts and no luxuries. I began by

actually missing "pudding," and have often smiled at the remembrance

of my stomach's comical disappointment. _En revanche_, the study of

the little world within was most valuable to the "young Anglo-Indian,"

and the slow devious course allowed landing at places rarely visited

by Europeans. During my repeated trips I saw Diu, once so famous in

Portuguese story, Holy Dwarká, guarded outside by sharks and filled

with fierce and fanatic mercenaries, and a dozen less interesting spots.

The end of this trip was Tankária-Bunder, a small landing in the Bay of

Cambay, a most primitive locale to be called a port, where a mud-bank,

adapted for a mooring-stake, was about the only convenience. It showed

me, however, a fine specimen of the _Ghora_, or bore, known to our

Severn and other rivers--an exaggerated high tide, when the water

comes rushing up the shallows like a charge of cavalry. Native carts

were also to be procured at Tankária-Bunder for the three days' short

march to Baroda, and a mattress spread below made the rude article

comfortable enough for young limbs and strong nerves.

Gujarat, the classical Gujaráhtra, a land of the Gujar clan, which

remained the Syrastrena Regio of Arrian, surprised me by its tranquil

beauty and its vast natural wealth. Green as a card-table, flat as

a prairie, it grew a marvellous growth of trees, which stunted our

English oaks and elm trees--

"to ancient song unknown,

The noble sons of potent heat and flood"--

and a succession of fields breaking the glades, of townlets and

villages walled by luxuriant barriers of caustic milk-bush (euphorbia),

teemed with sights and sounds and smells peculiarly Indian. The sharp

bark of Hanu the Monkey and the bray of the _Shankh_ or conch near

the bowery pagoda were surprises to the ear, and less to the nose was

the blue vapour which settled over the hamlets morning and evening, a

semi-transparent veil, the result of _Gobar_ smoke from "cow-chips."

A stale trick upon travellers approaching India by sea was to rub a

little sandal oil upon the gunwale and invite them to "smell India,"

yet many a time for miles off shore I have noted that faint spicy

odour, as if there were curry in the air, which about the abodes of man

seems to be crossed with an aroma of drugs, as though proceeding from

an apothecary's store. Wondrous peaceful and quiet lay those little

Indian villages, outlaid by glorious banyan and pipal trees, topes or

clumps of giant figs which rain a most grateful shade, and sometimes

provided by the piety of some long-departed Chief with a tank of cut

stone, a _baurá_ or draw-well of fine masonry and large dimensions. But

what "exercised" not a little my "Griffin" thoughts was to note the

unpleasant difference between villages under English rule and those

belonging to "His Highness the Gaikwar" or cowkeeper; the penury of the

former and the prosperity of the latter. Mr. Boyd, the then Resident at

the local court, soon enlightened me upon the evils of our unelastic

rule of "smart Collectors," who cannot and dare not make any allowance

for deficient rainfall or injured crops, and it is better to have

something to lose, and to lose it even to the extent "of being ousted

of possessions and disseized of freehold," with the likely hope of

gaining it again, than to own nothing worth plundering.

The end of the march introduced me to my corps, the 18th Regiment,

Bombay Native Infantry, whose head-quarters were in Gujarat, one wing

being stationed at Mhow, on the Bengal frontier.

The officer commanding, Captain James (C.V.), called upon me at the

Travellers' bungalow, the rudimentary Inn which must satisfy the

stranger in India, suggesting the while such sad contrast, and bore me

off to his bungalow, formally presented me at Mess--then reduced to

eight members besides myself--and the Assistant-Surgeon Arnott put me

in the way of lodging myself. The regimental Mess, with its large cool

Hall and punkahs, its clean napery and bright silver, its servants each

standing behind his master's chair, and the cheroots and hookahs which

appeared with the disappearance of the "table"-cloth, was a pleasant

surprise, the first sight of comfortable home-life I had seen since

landing at Bombay. Not so the Subalterns' bungalow, which gave the idea

of a dog-hole at which British Ponto would turn up his civilized nose.

The business of the day was mainly goose-step and studying the drill

book, and listening to such equivocal words of command as "Tandelees"

(stand at ease) and "Fiz-bagnat" (fix bayonets). Long practice with

the sword, which I had began seriously at the age of twelve, sometimes

taking three lessons a day, soon eased my difficulties, and led to the

study of native swordsmanship, whose grotesqueness and buffoonery can

be rivalled only by its insufficiency.[1]

The wrestling, however, was another matter, and not a few natives in my

Company had at first the advantage of me, and this induced a trial of

Indian training, which consisted mainly of washing down balls of _Gur_

(unrefined sugar) with bowls of hot milk hotly spiced. The result was

that in a week I was blind with bile. Another set of lessons suggested

by common sense, was instruction by a _chábuhsawar_, or native jockey.

All nations seem to despise one another's riding, and none seem to

know how much they have to learn. The Indian style was the merit of

holding the horse well in hand, making him bound off at a touch of the

heel, stopping him dead at a hand gallop, and wheeling him round as

on a pivot. The Hindú will canter over a figure-of-eight, gradually

diminishing the dimensions till the animal leans over at an angle of

45°, and throwing himself over the off side and hanging by the heel to

the earth, will pick up sword or pistol from the ground. Our lumbering

chargers brought us to notable grief more than once in the great Sikh

War. And as I was somewhat nervous about snakes, I took lessons of a

"Charmer," and could soon handle them with coolness.

The _Bibi_ (white woman) was at that time rare in India; the result was

the triumph of the _Búbú_ (coloured sister). I found every officer in

the corps more or less provided with one of these helpmates.

We boys naturally followed suit; but I had to suffer the protestations

of the Portuguese _padre_, who had taken upon himself the cure and

charge of my soul, and was like a hen who had hatched a duckling. I

had a fine opportunity of studying the _pros_ and _cons_ of the _Búbú_

system.

_Pros_: The "walking dictionary" is all but indispensable to the

Student, and she teaches him not only Hindostani grammar, but the

syntaxes of native Life. She keeps house for him, never allowing him

to save money, or, if possible, to waste it. She keeps the servants in

order. She has an infallible recipe to prevent maternity, especially if

her tenure of office depends on such compact. She looks after him in

sickness, and is one of the best of nurses, and, as it is not good for

man to live alone, she makes him a manner of home.

The _disadvantages_ are as manifest as the advantages. Presently, as

overland passages became cheaper and commoner, the _Bibi_ won and the

_Búbú_ lost ground. Even during _my_ day, married men began, doubtless

at the instance of their wives, to look coldly upon the half-married,

thereby showing mighty little common sense. For India was the classic

land of Cicisbeism, where husbands are occupied between ten a.m. and

five p.m. at their offices and counting-houses, leaving a fair field

and much favour to the sub unattached, and whose duty often keeps

the man sweltering upon the plains, when the wife is enjoying the

_somer-frisch_ upon "the Hills." Moreover, the confirmed hypocrite and

the respectable-ist, when in power, established a kind of inquisitorial

inquiry into the officer's house, and affixed a black mark to the

name of the half-married. At last the _Búbú_ made her exit and left a

void. The greatest danger in British India is the ever-growing gulf

that yawns between the governors and the governed; they lose touch of

one another, and such racial estrangement leads directly to racial

hostility.

The day in Cantonment-way is lively. It began before sunrise on the

parade-ground, an open space, which any other people but English

would have converted into a stronghold. Followed, the baths and the

_choti-hazri_, or little breakfast, the _munshi_ (language-master), and

literary matters till nine o'clock meal. The hours were detestable,

compared with the French system--the _déjeuner à la fourchette_, which

abolished the necessity of lunch; but throughout the Anglo-American

world, even in the places worst adapted, "business" lays out the day.

After breakfast, most men went to the billiard-room; some, but very

few, preferred "peacocking," which meant robing in white-grass clothes

and riding under a roasting sun, as near the meridian as possible, to

call upon "regimental ladies," who were gruff as corporals when the

function was neglected too long. The dull and tedious afternoon again

belonged to _munshi_, and ended with a constitutional ride, or a rare

glance at the band; Mess about seven p.m., possibly a game of whist,

and a stroll home under the marvellous Gujarat skies, through a scene

of perfect loveliness, a paradise bounded by the whity-black line.

There was little variety in such days. At times we rode to Baroda

City, which seemed like a Mansion, to which the Cantonment acted as

porter's Lodge. "Good Water" (as the Sanskritists translate it) was

a walled City, lying on the north bank of the Vishwamitra river, and

containing some 150,000 souls, mostly hostile, who eyed us with hateful

eyes, and who seemed to have taught even their animals to abhor us. The

City is a _mélange_ of low huts and tall houses, grotesquely painted,

with a shabby palace, and a _Chauk_, or Bazar, where four streets

meet. At times H.M. the Gaikwar would show us what was called sport--a

fight between two elephants with cut tusks, or a caged tiger and a

buffalo--the last being generally the winner--or a wrangle between

two fierce stallions, which bit like camels. The cock-fighting was,

however, of a superior kind, the birds being of first-class blood,

and so well trained, that they never hesitated to attack a stranger.

An occasional picnic, for hunting, not society, was a most pleasant

treat. The native Prince would always lend us his cheetahs or hunting

leopards, or his elephants; the jungles inland of the city swarmed with

game, from a snipe to a tiger, and the broad plains to the north were

packs of _nilghai_ and the glorious black buck. About twenty-eight

miles due east, rises high above the sea of verdure the picturesque

hill known as Pávangarh, the Fort of Eolus, and the centre of an old

Civilization. Tanks and Jain temples were scattered around it, and

the ruins of Champenír City cumbered the base. In a more progressive

society, this place, 2500 feet high, and cooler by 18° to 20° F.,

would have become a kind of sanitarium. But men, apparently, could not

agree. When the Baroda races came round, Major C. Crawley, commanding

the 4th Bombay Rifles, used, in consequence of some fancied slight, to

openly ride out of cantonment; and Brigadier Gibbons, the commander,

did nothing for society. But the crowning excitement of the season was

the report of Sir Charles Napier's battle of Miani (February 21st),

followed by the affair of Dubba (March 25th), the "tail of the Afghan

War." The account seemed to act as an electric shock upon the English

frame, followed by a deep depression and a sense of mortal injury at

the hands of Fate in keeping us out of the fray.

At length, in April, 1843, I obtained two months' leave of absence

to the Presidency, for the purpose of passing an examination in

Hindostani. The function was held at the Town Hall. Major-General

Vans-Kennedy presided, a queer old man as queerly dressed, who

had given his life to Orientalism, and who had printed some very

respectable studies of Hinduism. The examining _munshi_, Mohammed

"Mucklá," was no friend to me, because I was coached by a rival, old

Dosabhai, yet he could not prevent my distancing a field of eleven.

This happened on May 5th, and on May 12th I had laid in a full supply

of Gujarati books, and set out by the old road to rejoin.

If Baroda was dull and dreary during the dries, it was mortal during

the rains. I had been compelled to change my quarters for a bigger

bungalow, close to the bank of the _nullah_ which bounded the camp

to the east and fed the Vishwamitra. It was an ill-omened place; an

English officer had been wounded in it, and the lintel still bore

the mark of a sabre which some native ruffian had left, intending

to split a Serjeant's head. Other quarters in the cantonment were

obliged to keep one _ramosi, alias_ Paggi, a tracker, a temporarily

reformed thief who keeps off other thieves; my bungalow required two.

An ignoble position for a dominant race, this openly paying blackmail

and compounding felony. The rule of the good Company was, however, not

a rule of honour, but of expediency, and the safety of its officers

was little regarded; they were stabbed in their tents, or cut down by

dacoits, even when travelling on the highways of Gujarat. Long and

loudly the survivors hoped that some fine day a bishop or a Director's

son would come to grief, and _when this happened at last_ the process

was summarily stopped. Indeed, nothing was easier to find than a

remedy. A heavy fine was imposed upon the district in which the outrage

was committed. By such means, Mohammed Ali of Egypt made the Suez

Desert safer than a London street, and Sir Charles Napier pacified

Sind, and made deeds of violence unknown--by means not such as Earl

Russell virtually encouraged the robber-shepherds of Greece to plunder

and murder English travellers.

The monsoon,[2] as it is most incorrectly termed, completely changes

the tenor of Anglo-Indian life. It is ushered in by a display of

"insect youth" which would have astonished Egypt in the age of the

plagues, "flying bugs," and so forth. At Mess every tumbler was

protected by a silver lid. And when the downfall begins it suggests

that the "fountains of the great deep" have been opened up. I have

seen tropical rains in many a region near the Line, but never anything

that rivals Gujarati. Without exaggeration, the steady discharge of

water buckets lasted literally, on one occasion, through seven days

and nights without intermission, and to reach Mess we had to send our

clothes on, and to wear a single waterproof, and to gallop through

water above, around, and below at full speed. This third of the year

was a terribly dull suicidal time, worse even than the gloomy month

of November. It amply accounted for the card-table surface and the

glorious tree-clump of the Gujarat--

"The mighty growth of sun and torrent-rains."

Working some twelve hours a day, and doing nothing but work, I found

myself ready in later August for a second trip to the Presidency, and

obtained leave from September 10th to October 30th (afterwards made to

include November 10th) for proceeding to Bombay, and being examined in

the Guzerattee language.[3]

This time I resolved to try another route, and, despite the warning of

abominable roads, to ride down coast _viâ_ Baroch and Surat. I had not

been deceived; the deep and rich black soil, which is so good for the

growth of cotton, makes a mud truly terrible to travellers. Baroch, the

Hindú Brighu-Khatia, or Field of Brighú, son of Brahma, is generally

made the modern successor of Ptolemy and Arrian's "Barygaza," but there

are no classic remains to support the identification of the spot, nor

indeed did any one in the place seem to care a fig about the matter.

A truly Hindú town of some twelve thousand souls on the banks of the

Nerbudda, it boasted of only one sight, the _Kabir-bar_, which the

English translated "Big Banyan," and which meant, "Banyan-tree of (the

famous ascetic and poet) Das Kabir." I remember only two of his lines--

"Máyá mare na man mare, mar mar gaya sarir"

("Illusion dies; dies not the mind, though body die and die")--

_Máyá_ (illusion) being sensuous matter, and old Fakirs express the

idea of the modern Hylozoist,[4] "All things are thinks." The old tree

is hardly worth a visit, although it may have sheltered five thousand

horsemen and inspired Milton, for which see the guide-books.

Surat (Surashtra = good region), long time the "Gate of Meccah," where

pilgrims embarked instead of at Bombay, shows nothing of its olden

splendour.

This was the nucleus of British power on the western coast of India in

the seventeenth century, and as early as May, 1609, Captain Hawkins, of

the _Hector_, obtained permission at Agra here to found a factory for

his half-piratical countrymen, who are briefly described as "Molossis

suis ferociores." They soon managed to turn out the Portuguese,

and they left a Graveyard which is not devoid of some barbaric

interest--Tom Croyate of the Crudities, however, is absent from it. At

Surat I met Lieutenant Manson, R.A. He was going down to "go up" in

Maharátta, and we agreed to take a _pattymar_ together. We cruised down

the foul Tapti river--all Indian, like West African, streams seem to be

made of dirty water--and were shown the abandoned sites of the Dutch

garden and French factory, Vaux's Tomb, and Dormus Island. We escaped

an _Elephanta_ storm, one of those pleasant September visitations

which denote the break up of the "monsoon," and which not unfrequently

bestrews the whole coast of Western India with wreckage. This time I

found lodging in the Town Barracks, Bombay, and passed an examination

in the Town Hall before General Vans-Kennedy, with the normal success,

being placed first. The process consisted of reading from print (two

books), and handwriting, generally some "native letter," and of

conversing and of writing an "address" or some paper of the kind.

Returning Baroda-wards, whence my regiment was transferred to our

immense satisfaction to Sind, I assisted in the farewell revelries,

dinners and _Naches_, or native dances--the most melancholy form in

which Terpsichore ever manifested herself.

By far the most agreeable and wholesome part of regimental life in

India is the march; the hours are reasonable, the work not too severe,

and the results, in appetite and sleep, admirable. At Bombay we

encamped on the Esplanade, and on January 1st, 1844, we embarked for

Karáchi on board the H.E.I.C.'s steamer _Semiramis_, whose uneventful

cruise is told in "Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley," chap. I, "The Shippe

of Helle." Yet not wholly uneventual to me.

On board of the _Semiramis_ was Captain Walter Scott, Bombay Engineers,

who had lately been transferred from commanding in Candeish to the

superintendence of the Sind Canals, a department newly organized by

the old Conqueror of "Young Egypt," and our chance meeting influenced

my life for the next six years. I have before described him. With

short intervals I was one of his assistants till 1849. We never had a

diverging thought, much less an unpleasant word; and when he died, at

Berlin, in 1875, I felt his loss as that of a near relation.

Karáchi, which I have twice described, was in 1844 a mere stretch of

a Cantonment, and nothing if not military; the garrison consisting of

some five thousand men of all arms, European and native. The discomfort

of camp life in this Sahara,[5] which represented the Libyan Desert,

after Gujarat, the Nile Valley, was excessive, the dust-storms were

atrocious,[6] and the brackish water produced the most unpleasant

symptoms. Parades of all kinds, regimental and brigade, were the rule,

and Sir Charles Napier was rarely absent from anything on a large scale.

The Conqueror of Scinde was a noted and remarkable figure at that time,

and there is still a semi-heroic ring about the name. In appearance

he was ultra-Jewish, a wondrous contrast to his grand brother, Sir

William; his countrymen called him Fagan, after Dickens, and his

subjects, Shaytan-á-Bhái, Satan's brother, from his masterful spirit

and reckless energy. There is an idealized portrait of him in Mr. W. H.

Bruce's "Life" (London, Murray, 1885), but I much prefer the caricature

by Lieutenant Beresford, printed in my wife's volume, "A.E.I." Yet

there was nothing mean in the Conqueror's diminutive form; the hawk's

eye, and eagle's beak, and powerful chin would redeem any face from

vulgarity.

Sir Charles, during his long years of Peninsular and European service,

cultivated the habit of jotting down all events in his diary, with

a _naïveté_, a vivacity, and a fulness which echoed his spirit, and

which, with advancing years, degenerated into intemperance of language

and extravagance of statement. He was hard, as were most men in those

days, upon the great Company he termed the "Twenty-four Kings of

Leadenhall Street"--"ephemeral sovereigns;" he quoted Lord Wellesley

about the "ignominious tyrants of the East."

In his sixtieth year he was appointed to the command of Poonah

(December 28th, 1841), and he was so lacking in the goods of this world

that a Bombay house refused to advance him £500. He began at once to

study Hindostani, but it was too late; the lesson induced irresistible

drowsiness, and the _munshi_ was too polite to awaken the aged scholar,

who always said he would give Rs. 10,000 to be able to address the

Sepoys. On September 3rd, 1842, he set off to assume his new command

in Upper and Lower Sind, and he at once saw his opportunity. Major

Outram had blackened the faces of the Amirs, but he wanted to keep the

work of conquest for himself, and he did not relish its being done by

another. He, however, assisted Sir Charles Napier, and it was not till

his return to England in 1843 that he ranged himself on the side of the

Directors, whose hatred of the Conqueror grew with his success, and

two factions, Outramists and Napierists, divided the little world of

Western India.

The battles of Miani and Dubba were much criticized by military

experts, who found that the "butcher's bill" did not justify the

magnificent periods of Sir William Napier. This noble old soldier's

"Conquest of Scinde" was a work of _fantaisie_; the story was admirably

told, the picture was perfect, but the details were so incorrect, that

it became the subject of endless "chaff" even in Government House,

Karáchi. The corrective was an official report by Major (afterwards

General) Waddington, B.O. Eng., which gave the shady, rather than the

sunlit side of the picture. And there is still a third to be written.

Neither of our authorities tell us, nor can we expect a public document

to do so, how the mulatto who had charge of the Amir's guns had been

persuaded to fire high, and how the Talpur traitor who commanded the

cavalry, openly drew off his men and showed the shameless example

of flight. When the day shall come to publish details concerning

disbursement of "Secret service money in India," the public will learn

strange things. Meanwhile those of us who have lived long enough to see

how history is written, can regard it as but little better than a poor

romance.

However exaggerated, little Miani taught the world one lesson which

should not be forgotten--the sole plan to win a fight from barbarians,

be they Belochis, Kafirs, or Burmese. It is simplicity itself; a sharp

cannonade to shake the enemy, an advance in line or _échelon_ as the

ground demands, and a dash of cavalry to expedite the runaways. And

presently the victory led to organizing the "Land Transport Corps"

and the "Baggage Corps," two prime wants of the Indian army. Here Sir

Charles Napier's skill as an inventor evolved order out of disorder,

and efficiency from the most cumbrous of abuses. The pacification of

the new Province was marvellously brought about by the enlightened

despotism of the Conqueror. Outram had predicted ten years of guerilla

warfare before peace could be restored; Sir Charles made it safer than

any part of India within a year, and in 1844, when levelling down the

canals, I was loudly blessed by the peasants, who cried out, "These men

are indeed worthy to govern us, as they work for our good."

But Sir Charles Napier began India somewhat too late in life, and

had to pay the penalty. His mistakes were manifold, and some of them

miserable. When preparing for the "Truhkee campaign," he proposed to

content himself with a "_Numero-cent_" tent for a Commander-in-Chief!

When marching upon Multan, his idea was to quarter the Sepoys in the

villages, which would have been destroyed at once; and it was some time

before his Staff dared put it in this light.

From over-deference to English opinion, he liberated all the African

slaves in Sind and turned them out to starve; it would have been wiser

to "free the womb," and forbid importation. He never could understand

the "Badli system," where a rich native buys a poor man to be hanged

for him who committed the crime, and terribly scandalized Captain

Young, the civilian Judge Advocate-General, by hanging the wrong man.

Finding that the offended husband in Sind was justified by public

opinion for cutting down his wife, he sent the unfortunate to the

gallows, and the result was a peculiar condition of society. On one

occasion, the anonymas of Hyderabad sent him a deputation to complain

"that the married women were taking the bread out of their mouths."

Sir Charles was a favourite among the juniors, in fact, amongst all who

did not thwart or oppose him. He delighted in Rabelaisian _bon-mots_,

and the _Conte grivois_, as was the wont of field-officers in his day;

his comment upon a newspaper's "peace and plenty at Karáchi" was long

quoted.

After a month of discomfort at Karáchi, rendered more uncomfortable

by the compulsory joining of six unfortunate Staff-officers who lost

their snug appointments in India,[7] we were moved to Gharra--"out of

the frying-pan into the fire"--a melancholy hole some forty miles by

road north of Head-quarters, and within hearing of the evening gun. I

have already described its horror.[8] Our predecessors had not built

the barracks or bungalows, and we found only a parallelogram of rock

and sand, girt by a tall dense hedge of bright green milk-bush, and

surrounded by a flat of stone and gravel, near a filthy village whose

timorous inhabitants shunned us as walking pestilences.

This, with an occasional temperature of 125° F., was to be our "house"

for some years. As I had no money wherewith to build, I was compelled

to endure a hot season in a single-poled tent, pitched outside the

milk-bush hedge; and after, to escape suffocation, I was obliged to

cover my table with a wet cloth and pass the hot hours under it.

However, energy was not wanting, and the regimental _pandit_ proving

a good school-master, I threw away Sindi for Maráthá; and in October,

1844, I was able to pass my examination in Maráthá at the Presidency,

I coming first of half a dozen. About this time Southern Bombay was

agitated by a small mutiny in Sáwantwádi, and the papers contained a

long service-correspondence about Colonels Outram and Wallace, the

capture of Amanghar, and Lieutenant Brassy's descent on Shiva Drug. I

at once laid in a store of Persian books, and began seriously to work

at that richest and most charming of Eastern languages.

On return to Karáchi, I found myself, by the favour of my friend Scott,

gazetted as one of his four assistants in the Sind "Survey," with

especial reference to the Canal Department; my being able to read and

translate the valuable Italian works on hydro-dynamics being a point

in my favour. A few days taught me the use of compass, theodolite, and

spirit-level, and on December 10th, 1844, I was sent with a surveying

party and six camels to work at Fulayli (Phuleli) and its continuation,

the Guni river. The labour was not small; after a frosty night using

instruments in the sole of a canal where the sun's rays seemed to

pour as through a funnel, was decidedly trying to the constitution.

However, I managed to pull through, and my surveying books were

honoured with official approbation. During this winter I enjoyed some

sport, especially hawking, and collected material for "Falconry in the

Valley of the Indus."[9] I had begun the noble art as a boy at Blois,

but the poor kestrel upon which I tried my "'prentice hand" had died

soon, worn out like an Eastern ascetic by the severities of training,

especially in the fasting line. Returning northwards, I found my Corps

at Hyderabad, and passing through the deserted Gharra, joined the

Head-quarters of the Survey at Karáchi in April.

Here I made acquaintance with Mirza Ali Akhbar, who owed his rank (Khan

Bahádur) to his gallant conduct as Sir Charles Napier's _munshi_ at

Miani and Dubba, where he did his best to save as many unfortunate

Beloch braves as possible. He lived outside the camp in a bungalow

which he built for himself, and lodged a friend, Mirza Dáud, a

first-rate Persian scholar. My life became much mixed up with these

gentlemen, and my brother officers fell to calling me the "White

Nigger." I had also invested in a Persian _munshi_, Mirza Mohammad

Musayn, of Shiraz; poor fellow, after passing through the fires of

Scinde unscathed, he returned to die of cholera in his native land.

With his assistance I opened on the sly three shops at Karáchi,[10]

where cloth, tobacco, and other small matters were sold exceedingly

cheap to those who deserved them, and where I laid in a stock of native

experience, especially regarding such matters as I have treated upon

in my "Terminal Essay" to the "Thousand Nights and a Night,"[11] but

I soon lost my _munshi_ friends. Mirza Dáud died of indigestion and

patent pills at Karáchi; I last saw Mirza Ali Akhbar at Bombay, in

1876, and he deceased shortly afterwards. He had been unjustly and

cruelly treated. Despite the high praises of Outram and Napier for

the honesty and efficiency of Ali Akhbar,[12] the new commission had

brought against the doomed man a number of trumped-up charges, proving

bribery and corruption, and managed to effect his dismissal from the

service. The unfortunate Mirza, in the course of time, disproved them

all, but the only answer to his application for being reinstated was

that what had been done could not now be undone. I greatly regretted

his loss. He had promised me to write out from his Persian notes a

diary of his proceedings during the conquest of Scinde; he was more

"behind the curtain" than any man I knew, and the truths he might have

told would have been exceedingly valuable.

Karáchi was, for India, not a dull place in those days. Besides our

daily work of planning and mapping the surveys of the cold season,

and practising latitudes and longitudes till my right eye became

comparatively short-sighted, we organized a "Survey Mess" in a bungalow

belonging to the office "Compound." There were six of us--Blagrave,

Maclagan, Vanrenin, and afterwards Price and Lambert--and local

society pronounced us all mad, although I cannot see that we were

more whimsical than our neighbours. I also built a bungalow, which

got the title of the "Inquisition," and there I buried my favourite

game-cock Bhujang (the dragon), who had won me many a victory--people

declared that it was the grave of a small human. I saw much of Mirza

Husayn, a brother of Agha Khan Mahallati, a scion of the Isma'iliyah,

or "Old Man of the Mountain," who, having fled his country, Persia,

after a rebellion, ridiculous even in that land of eternal ridiculous

rebellions, turned _condottière_, and with his troop of one hundred

and thirty ruffians took service with us and was placed to garrison

Jarak (Jerruch). Here the Belochis came down upon him, and killed

or wounded about a hundred of his troop, after which he passed on

to Bombay and enlightened the Presidency about his having conquered

Scinde. His brother, my acquaintance, also determined to attack Persia

_viâ_ Makran, and managed so well that he found himself travelling to

Teheran, lashed to a gun carriage. The Lodge "Hope" kindly made me

an "entered apprentice," but I had read Carlisle, "The Atheistical

Publisher," and the whole affair appeared to me a gigantic humbug,

dating from the days of the Crusades, and as Cardinal Newman expressed

it, "meaning a goose club." But I think better of it now, as it still

serves political purposes in the East, and gives us a point against

our French rivals and enemies. As the "Scinde Association" was formed,

I was made honorary secretary, and had no little correspondence with

Mr. E. Blyth, the curator of the Zoological Department, Calcutta. Sir

Charles Napier's friends also determined to start a newspaper, in order

to answer the Enemy in the Gate, and reply to the "base and sordid

Bombay faction," headed by the "Rampant Buist," with a strong backing

of anonymous officials.

The _Karrachee Advertiser_ presently appeared in the modest shape of

a lithographed sheet on Government foolscap, and, through Sir William

Napier, its most spicy articles had the honour of a reprint in London.

Of these, the best were "the letters of Omega," by my late friend

Rathborne, then Collector at Hyderabad, and they described the vices

of the Sind Amirs in language the reverse of ambiguous. I did not keep

copies, nor, unfortunately, did the clever and genial author.

This pleasant, careless life broke up in November, 1845, when I started

with my friend Scott for a long tour to the north of Sind. We rode by

the high-road through Gharra and Jarak to Kotri, the station of the

Sind flotilla, and then crossed to Hyderabad, where I found my Corps

flourishing. After a very jolly week, we resumed our way up the right

bank of the Indus and on the extreme western frontier, where we found

the Beloch herdsmen in their wildest state. About that time began to

prevail the wildest reports about the lost tribes of Israel (who were

never lost), and with the aid of Gesenius and Lynch I dressed up a very

pretty grammar and vocabulary, which proved to sundry scientists that

the lost was found at last. But my mentor would not allow the joke

to appear _in print_. On Christmas Day we entered "Sehwán," absurdly

styled "Alexander's Camp." Here again the spirit of mischief was too

strong for me. I buried a broken and hocussed jar of "_Athenæum_

sauce," red pottery with black Etruscan figures, right in the way of

an ardent amateur antiquary; and the results were comical. At Larkháná

we made acquaintance with "fighting FitzGerald," who commanded there,

a magnificent figure, who could cut a donkey in two; and who, although

a man of property, preferred the hardships of India to the pleasures

of home. He had, however, a mania of blowing himself up in a little

steamer mainly of his own construction, and after his last accident he

was invalided home to England, and died within sight of her shores. At

Larkháná the following letter was received:--

"Karáchi, January 3, 1846.

"MY DEAR SCOTT,

"The General says you may allow as many of your assistants as you

can spare to join their regiments, if going on service, with the

understanding that they must resign their appointments and will not be

reappointed, etc.

"(Signed) JOHN NAPIER."

This, beyond bazar reports, was our first notice of the great Sikh War,

which added the Punjab to Anglo-India. This news made me wild to go. A

carpet-soldier was a horror to me, and I was miserable that anything

should take place in India without my being in the thick of the fight.

So, after a visit to Sahkar Shikarpúr and the neighbourhood, I applied

myself with all my might to prepare for the Campaign. After sundry

small surveyings and levellings about Sahkar (Sukhur), I persuaded

Scott, greatly against the grain, to send in my resignation, and called

upon General James Simpson, who was supposed to be in his dotage, and

was qualifying for the Chief Command in the Crimea.

My application was refused. Happily for me, however, suddenly appeared

an order from Bengal to the purport that all we assistant-surveyors

must give sureties. This was enough for me. I wrote officially, saying

that no man would be bail for me, and was told to be off to my corps;

and on February 23rd, I marched with the 18th from Rohri.

Needless to repeat the sad story of our disappointment.[13] It was a

model army of thirteen thousand men, Europeans and natives, and under

"Old Charley" it would have walked into Multan as into a mutton-pie.

We had also heard that Náo Mall was wasting his two millions of gold,

and we were willing to save him the trouble. Merrily we trudged through

Sabzalcote and Khanpur, and we entered Baháwalpur, where we found the

heart-chilling order to retire and to march home, and consequently

we marched and returned to Rohri on April 2nd; and after a few days'

halt there, tired and miserable, we marched south, _viâ_ Khayrpur,

and, after seventeen marches, reached the old regimental quarters in

Mohammad Khan Ká Tándá, on the Fulayli river.[14]

But our physical trials and mental disappointments had soured our

tempers, and domestic disturbances began. Our colonel was one Henry

Corsellis, the son of a Bencoolen civilian, and neither his colour nor

his temper were in his favour. The wars began in a small matter.

I had been making doggrel rhymes on men's names at Mess, and knowing

something of the commanding officer's touchiness, passed him over.

Hereupon he took offence, and seeing well that I was "in for a row,"

I said, "Very well, Colonel, I will write your Epitaph," which was as

follows--

"Here lieth the body of Colonel Corsellis;

The rest of the fellow, I fancy, in hell is."

After which we went at it "hammer and tongs."

I shall say no more upon the subject; it is, perhaps, the part of my

life upon which my mind dwells with least satisfaction. In addition

to regimental troubles, there were not a few domestic disagreeables,

especially complications, with a young person named Núr Jan. To make

matters worse, after a dreadful wet night my mud bungalow came down

upon me, wounding my foot.[15] The only pleasant reminiscences of the

time are the days spent in the quarters of an old native friend[16]

on the banks of the beautiful Phuleli, seated upon a felt rug, spread

beneath a shadowy tamarind tree, with beds of sweet-smelling _rayhan_

(basil) around, and eyes looking over the broad smooth stream and the

gaily dressed groups gathered at the frequent ferries. I need hardly

say that these visits were paid in native costume, and so correct was

it, that I, on camel's back, frequently passed my Commanding Officer

in the Gateway of Fort Hyderabad, without his recognizing me. I had

also a host of good friends, especially Dr. J. J. Steinhaüser, who, in

after years, was to have accompanied me, but for an accident, to Lake

Tanganyika, and who afterwards became my collaborateur in the "Thousand

Nights and a Night."

The hot season of 1846 was unusually sickly, and the white regiments

at Karáchi, notably the 78th Highlanders, suffered terribly. Hyderabad

was also threatened, but escaped better than she deserved. In early

July I went into "sick quarters," and left my regiment in early

September, with a strong case. At Bombay my friend Henry J. Carter

assisted me, and enabled me to obtain two years' leave of absence to

the Neilgherries.

My _munshi_, Mohammed Husayn, had sailed for Persia, and I at once

engaged an Arab "coach." This was one Haji Jauhur, a young Abyssinian,

who, with his wife, of the same breed, spoke a curious Semitic dialect,

and was useful in conversational matters. Accompanied by my servants

and horse, I engaged the usual _pattymar_, the _Daryá Prashád_ ("Joy

of the Ocean"), and set sail for Goa on February 20th, 1847. In three

days' trip we landed in the once splendid capital, whose ruins I have

described in "Goa and the Blue Mountains" (1851). Dom Pestanha was

the Governor-General, Senhor Gomez Secretary to Government, and Major

St. Maurice chief aide-de-camp, and all treated me with uncommon

kindness. On my third visit to the place in 1876, all my old friends

and acquaintances had disappeared, whilst the other surroundings had

not changed in the least degree.

From Goa to Punány was a trip of five days, and from the little Malabar

Port, a terrible dull ride of ten days, halts and excursions included,

with the only excitement of being nearly drowned in a torrent,

placed me at Conoor, on the western edge of the "Blue Mountains." At

Ootacamund, the capital of the sanitarium, I found a friend, Lieutenant

Dyett, who offered to share with me his quarters. Poor fellow! he

suffered sadly in the Multan campaign, where most of the wounded came

to grief, some said owing to the salt in the silt, which made so many

operations fatal; after three amputations his arm was taken out of

the socket. I have noted the humours of "Ooty" in the book before

mentioned, and I made myself independent of society by beginning the

study of Telugu, in addition to Arabic.

But the sudden change from dry Scinde to the damp cold mountains

induced in me an attack of rheumatic ophthalmia, which began at the

end of May, 1847, and lasted nearly two years, and would not be shaken

off till I left India in March, 1849. In vain I tried diet and dark

rooms, change of place, blisters of sorts, and the whole contents of

the Pharmacopœia; it was a thorn in the flesh which determined to

make itself felt. At intervals I was able to work hard and to visit

the adjacent places, such as Kotagherry, the Orange Valley, and St.

Catherine's Falls.[17] Meanwhile I wrote letters to the _Bombay

Times_, and studied Telugu and Toda as well as Persian and Arabic, and

worked at the ethnology of Hylobius the Hillman, whose country showed

mysterious remains of civilized life, gold mining included.

"Ooty" may be a pleasant place, like a water-cure establishment to

an invalid in rude health; but to me nothing could be duller or more

disagreeable, and my two years of sick leave was consequently reduced

to four months. On September 1st, 1847, glad as a partridge-shooter,

I rode down the Ghát, and a dozen days later made Calicut, the old

capital of Camoens' "Jamorim," the Samriry Rajah. Here I was kindly

received, and sent to visit old Calicut and other sights, by Mr.

Collector Conolly, whom a Madras civilianship could not defend from

Fate. A short time after my departure he was set upon and barbarously

murdered in his own verandah, by a band of villain _Moplahs_,[18] a

bastard race got by Arab sires on Hindú dams. He was thus the third of

the gallant brothers who came to violent end.

This visit gave me a good opportunity of studying on the spot the most

remarkable scene of "The Lusiads," and it afterwards served me in good

stead. The _Seaforth_, Captain Biggs, carried me to Bombay, after

passing visits to Mangalore and Goa, in three days of ugly monsoon

weather. On October 15th I passed in Persian at the Town Hall, coming

out first of some thirty, with a compliment from the examiners; and

this was succeeded by something more substantial, in the shape of an

"honorarium" of Rs. 1000 from the Court of Directors.

This bright side of the medal had its reverse. A friend, an Irish

medico, volunteered to prescribe for me, and strongly recommended

frictions of citric ointment (calomel in disguise) round the orbit

of the eye, and my perseverance in his prescription developed ugly

symptoms of mercurialism, which eventually drove me from India.

My return to Scinde was in the s.s. _Dwárká_, the little vessel which,

in 1853, carried me from Jeddah to Suez, and which, in 1862, foundered

at the mouth of the Tapti or Surat river. She belonged to the Steam

Navigation Company, Bombay, and she had been brought safely round the

Cape by the skipper, a man named Tribe. That "climate" had demoralized

him. He set out from Karáchi without even an able seaman who knew the

Coast; the Captain and his Mate were drunk and incapable the whole way.

As we were about to enter the dangerous port, my fellow-passengers

insisted upon my taking Command as Senior Officer, and I ordered the

_Dwárká's_ head to be turned westward under the easiest steam, so that

next morning we landed safely.

My return to head-quarters of the Survey was a misfortune to my

comrades; my eyes forbade regular work, and my friends had to bear my

share of the burden. However, there were painless intervals when I

found myself able to work at Sindí under Munshi Nandú, and at Arabic

under Shaykh Háshim, a small half-Bedawin, who had been imported by me

from Bombay. Under him also I began the systematic study of practical

Moslem divinity, learned about a quarter of the Korán by heart, and

became a proficient at prayer. It was always my desire to visit Meccah

during the pilgrimage season; written descriptions by hearsay of its

rites and ceremonies were common enough in all languages, European as

well as native, but none satisfied me, because none seemed practically

to know anything about the matter. So to this preparation I devoted all

my time and energy; not forgetting a sympathetic study of Sufi-ism,

the _Gnosticism_ of Al-Islam,[19] which would raise me high above the

rank of a mere Moslem. I conscientiously went through the _chillá_,

or quarantine of fasting and other exercises, which, by-the-by,

proved rather over-exciting to the brain. At times, when overstrung,

I relieved my nerves with a course of Sikh religion and literature:

the good old priest solemnly initiated me in presence of the swinging

_Granth_, or Naná Shah's Scripture. As I had already been duly

invested by a strict Hindú with the _Janeo_, or "Brahminical thread,"

my experience of Eastern faiths became phenomenal, and I became a

Master-Sufi.

There was a scanty hope of surveying for weak eyes; so I attempted

to do my duty by long reports concerning the country and the people,

addressed to the Bombay Government, and these were duly printed in its

"Selections," which MSS. I have by me. To the local branch of the Royal

Asiatic Society, there were sent two papers, "Grammar of the Játakí

or Mulltani Language," and "Remarks on Dr. Dorn's Chrestomathy of the

Afghan Tongue."[20] Without hearing of Professor Pott, the _savant_

of Halle (and deceased lately), I convinced myself that the Játs of

Scinde, a race which extends from the Indus's mouth to the plains of

Tartary, give a clue to the origin of the Gypsies as well as to the

Getæ and Massagetæ (Great Getæ).

And this induced me to work with the Camel men, who belong to that

notorious race, and to bring out a grammar and vocabulary.

Indeed the more sluggish became my sight, the more active became my

brain, which could be satisfied only with twelve to fourteen hours a

day of alchemy, mnemonics, "Mantih," or Eastern logic, Arabic, Sindi,

and Panjábi. In the latter, official examinations were passed before

Captain Stack, the only Englishman in the country who had an inkling of

the subject.

The spring of 1848, that most eventful year in Europe, brought us two

most exciting items of intelligence. The proclamation of the French

Republic reached us on April 8th, and on May 2nd came the news of the

murder of Anderson and his companion by Náo Mall of Multan.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _His Little Autobiography._]

Richard wrote a little bit of autobiography about himself in 1852. In

case all may not have seen it, and many may not remember it, I here

insert it.

RICHARD BURTON'S LITTLE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

"The only scrap of autobiography we have from Richard Burton's pen,"

said Alfred Richard Bates, "was written very early in life, whilst in

India, and dates thirty years ago. It is so characteristic it deserves

to be perpetuated:--

"I extract the following few lines from a well-known literary

journal as a kind of excuse for venturing, unasked, upon a scrap of

autobiography. As long as critics content themselves with bedevilling

one's style, discovering that one's slang is 'vulgar,' and one's

attempts at drollery 'failures,' one should, methinks, listen silently

to their ideas of 'gentility,' and accept their definitions of wit,

reserving one's own opinion upon such subjects. For the British

author in this, our modern day, engages himself as clown in a great

pantomime, to be knocked down, and pulled up, slashed, tickled, and

buttered _à discrétion_ for the benefit of a manual-pleasantry-loving

Public. So it would be weakness in him to complain of bruised back,

scored elbows, and bumped head.

"Besides, the treatment you receive varies prodigiously according to

the temper and the manifold influences from without that operate upon

the gentleman that operates upon you. For instance--

"''Tis a _failure_ at being _funny_,' says surly Aristarchus, when,

for some reason or other, he dislikes you or your publisher.

"'It is a _smart_ book,' opines another, who has no particular reason

to be your friend.

"'Narrated with _freshness of thought_,' declares a third, who takes

an honest pride in 'giving the devil his due.'

"'Very _clever_,' exclaims the amiable critic, who for some reason or

another likes you or your publisher.

"'There is _wit_ and _humour_ in these pages,' says the gentleman who

has some particular reason to be your friend.

"'Evinces considerable _talent_.'

"And--

"'There is _genius_ in this book,' declare the dear critics who in any

way identify themselves or their interests with you.

"Now for the extract:--

"'Mr. Burton was, it appears, stationed for several years in Sind

with his regiment, and it is due to him to say that he has set a

good example to his fellow-subalterns by pursuing so diligently his

inquiries into the language, literature, and customs of the native

population by which he was surrounded. We are far from accepting all

his doctrines on questions of Eastern policy, especially as regards

the treatment of natives; but we are sensible of the value of the

additional evidence which he has brought forward on many important

questions. For a young man, he seems to have adopted some very extreme

opinions; and it is perhaps not too much to say, that the fault from

which he has most to fear, not only as an author, but as an Indian

officer, is a disregard of those well-established rules of moderation

which no one can transgress with impunity.'

"The greatest difficulty a raw writer on Indian subjects has to

contend with, is a proper comprehension of the _ignorance crasse_

which besets the mind of the home-reader and his oracle the critic.

What a knowledge these lines _do_ show of the opportunity for study

presented to the Anglo-Indian subaltern serving with his corps! Part

of the time when I did duty with mine we were quartered at Ghárrá,

a heap of bungalows surrounded by a wall of milk-bush; on a sandy

flat, near a dirty village whose timorous inhabitants shunned us as

walking pestilences. No amount of domiciliary visiting would have

found a single Sindian book in the place, except the accounts of the

native shopkeepers; and, to the best of my remembrance, there was not

a soul who could make himself intelligible in the common medium of

Indian intercourse--Hindostani. An ensign stationed at Dover Castle

might write 'Ellis's Antiquities;' a _sous-lieutenant_ with his corps

at Boulogne might compose the 'Legendaire de la Morinie,' but Ghárrá

was sufficient to paralyse the readiest pen that ever coursed over

foolscap paper.

"Now, waiving, with all due modesty, the unmerited compliment of

'good boy,' so gracefully tendered to me, I proceed to the judgment

which follows it, my imminent peril of 'extreme opinions.' If there

be any value in the 'additional evidence' I have 'brought forward on

important questions,' the reader may, perchance, be curious to know

how that evidence was collected. So, without further apology, I plunge

into the subject.

"After some years of careful training for the Church in the north

and south of France, Florence, Naples, and the University of Pisa,

I found myself one day walking the High Street, Oxford, with all

the emotions which a Parisian exquisite of the first water would

experience on awaking--at 3 p.m.--in 'Dandakaran's tangled wood.'

"To be brief, my 'college career' was highly unsatisfactory. I began

a 'reading man,' worked regularly twelve hours a day, failed in

everything--chiefly, I flattered myself, because Latin hexameters

and Greek iambics had not entered into the list of my studies--threw

up the classics, and returned to old habits of fencing, boxing, and

single-stick, handling the 'ribbons,' and sketching facetiously,

though not wisely, the reverend features and figures of certain

half-reformed monks, calling themselves 'fellows.' My reading also ran

into bad courses--Erpenius, Zadkiel, Falconry, Cornelius Agrippa, and

the Art of Pluck.

"At last the Afghan War broke out. After begging the paternal

authority in vain for the Austrian service, the Swiss Guards at

Naples, and even the _Légion étrangère_, I determined to leave

Oxford, _coûte qui coûte_. The testy old lady, Alma Mater, was easily

persuaded to consign, for a time, to 'country nursing' the froward

brat who showed not a whit of filial regard for her. So, after two

years, I left Trinity, without a 'little go,' in a high dog-cart,--a

companion in misfortune too-tooing lustily through a 'yard of tin,' as

the dons started up from their game of bowls to witness the departure

of the forbidden vehicle. Thus having thoroughly established the fact

that I was fit for nothing but to be 'shot at for sixpence a day,' and

as those Afghans (how I blessed their name!) had cut gaps in many a

regiment, my father provided me with a commission in the Indian army,

and started me as quickly as feasible for the 'Land of the Sun.'

"So, my friends and fellow-soldiers, I may address you in the words

of the witty thief--slightly altered from Gil Blas--'Blessings on the

dainty pow of the old dame who turned me out of her house; for had she

shown clemency I should now doubtless be a dyspeptic Don, instead of

which I have the honour to be a lieutenant, your comrade.'

"As the Bombay pilot sprang on board, twenty mouths agape over the

gangway, all asked one and the same question. Alas! the answer was

a sad one!--the Afghans had been defeated--the avenging army had

retreated! The twenty mouths all ejaculated a something unfit for ears

polite.

"To a mind thoroughly impressed with the sentiment that

'Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long,'

the position of an Ensign in the Hon. E. I. Company's Service is a

very satisfactory one. He has a horse or two, part of a house, a

pleasant Mess, plenty of pale ale, as much shooting as he can manage,

and an occasional invitation to a dance, where there are thirty-two

cavaliers to three dames, or to a dinner-party when a chair

unexpectedly falls vacant. But some are vain enough to want more, and

of these fools was I.

"In India two roads lead to preferment. The direct highway is

'service;'--getting a flesh wound, cutting down a few of the enemy,

and doing something eccentric, so that your name may creep into a

despatch. The other path, study of the languages, is a rugged and

tortuous one, still you have only to plod steadily along its length,

and, sooner or later, you must come to a 'staff appointment.' _Bien

entendu_, I suppose you to be destitute of or deficient in Interest

whose magic influence sets you down at once a heaven-born Staff

Officer, at the goal which others must toil to reach.

"A dozen lessons from Professor Forbes and a native servant on board

the _John Knox_ enabled me to land with _éclat_ as a griff, and to

astonish the throng of palanquin bearers that jostled, pushed, and

pulled me at the pier head, with the vivacity and nervousness of

my phraseology. And I spent the first evening in company with one

Dosabhai Sohrabji, a white-bearded Parsee, who, in his quality of

language-master, had vernacularized the tongues of Hormuzd knows how

many generations of Anglo-Indian subalterns.

"The corps to which I was appointed was then in country quarters

at Baroda, in the land of Gujerat; the journey was a long one, the

difficulty of finding good instructors there was great, so was the

expense, moreover fevers abounded; and, lastly, it was not so easy to

obtain leave of absence to visit the Presidency, where candidates for

the honours of language are examined. These were serious obstacles to

success; they were surmounted, however, in six months, at the end of

which time I found myself in the novel position of 'passed interpreter

in Hindostani.'

"My success--for I had distanced a field of eleven--encouraged me

to a second attempt, and though I had to front all the difficulties

over again, in four months my name appeared in orders as qualified to

interpret in the Guzerattee tongue.

"Meanwhile the Ameers of Sind had exchanged their palaces at

Haydarábád for other quarters not quite so comfortable at Hazareebagh,

and we were ordered up to the Indus for the pleasant purpose of

acting police there. Knowing the Conqueror's chief want, a man who

could speak a word of his pet conquest's vernacular dialect, I had

not been a week at Karáchee before I found a language-master and a

book. But the study was undertaken _invitâ minervâ_. We were quartered

in tents, dust-storms howled over us daily, drills and brigade

parades were never ending, and, as I was acting interpreter to my

regiment, courts-martial of dreary length occupied the best part of

my time. Besides, it was impossible to work in such an atmosphere of

discontent. The seniors abhorred the barren desolate spot, with all

its inglorious perils of fever, spleen, dysentery, and congestion of

the brain, the juniors grumbled in sympathy, and the Staff officers,

ordered up to rejoin the corps--it was on field service--complained

bitterly of having to quit their comfortable appointments in more

favoured lands without even a campaign in prospect. So when, a month

or two after landing in the country, we were transferred from

Karáchee to Ghárrá--purgatory to the other locale--I threw aside Sindí

for Maharattee, hoping, by dint of reiterated examinations, to escape

the place of torment as soon as possible. It was very like studying

Russian in an English country-town; however, with the assistance of

Molesworth's excellent dictionary, and the regimental _pundit_, or

schoolmaster, I gained some knowledge of the dialect, and proved

myself duly qualified in it at Bombay. At the same time a brother

subaltern and I had jointly leased a Persian _moonshee_, one Mirza

Mohammed Hosayn, of Shiraz. Poor fellow, after passing through the

fires of Sind unscathed, he returned to his delightful land for a

few weeks, to die there!--and we laid the foundation of a lengthened

course of reading in that most elegant of Oriental languages.

"Now it is a known fact that a good Staff appointment has the general

effect of doing away with one's bad opinion of any place whatever. So

when, by the kindness of a friend whose name _his_ modesty prevents

my mentioning, the Governor of Sind was persuaded to give me the

temporary appointment of Assistant in the Survey, I began to look with

interest upon the desolation around me. The country was a new one, so

was its population, so was their language. After reading all the works

published upon the subject, I felt convinced that none but Mr. Crow

and Captain J. MacMurdo had dipped beneath the superficies of things.

My new duties compelled me to spend the cold season in wandering over

the districts, levelling the beds of canals, and making preparatory

sketches for a grand survey. I was thrown so entirely amongst the

people as to depend upon them for society, and the 'dignity,' not

to mention the increased allowances of a Staff officer, enabled me

to collect a fair stock of books, and to gather around me those who

could make them of any use. So, after the first year, when I had

Persian at my fingers'-ends, sufficient Arabic to read, write, and

converse fluently, and a superficial knowledge of that dialect of

Punjaubee which is spoken in the wilder parts of the province, I began

the systematic study of the Sindian people, their mariners and their

tongue.

"The first difficulty was to pass for an Oriental, and this was as

necessary as it was difficult. The European official in India seldom,

if ever, sees anything in its real light, so dense is the veil which

the fearfulness, the duplicity, the prejudice, and the superstitions

of the natives hang before his eyes. And the white man lives a life

so distinct from the black, that hundreds of the former serve through

what they call their 'term of exile' without once being present at

a circumcision feast, a wedding, or a funeral. More especially the

present generation, whom the habit and the means of taking furloughs,

the increased facility for enjoying ladies' society, and, if truth be

spoken, a greater regard for appearances, if not a stricter code of

morality, estrange from their dusky fellow-subjects every day more and

more. After trying several characters, the easiest to be assumed was,

I found, that of a half-Arab, half-Iranian, such as may be met with in

thousands along the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. The Sindians

would have detected in a moment the difference between my articulation

and their own, had I attempted to speak their vernacular dialect,

but they attributed the accent to my strange country, as naturally

as a home-bred Englishman would account for the bad pronunciation

of a foreigner calling himself partly Spanish, partly Portuguese.

Besides, I knew the countries along the Gulf by heart from books, I

had a fair knowledge of the Shiah form of worship prevalent in Persia,

and my poor _moonshee_ was generally at hand to support me in times

of difficulty, so that the danger of being detected--even by a 'real

Simon Pure'--was a very inconsiderable one.

"With hair falling upon his shoulders, a long beard, face and hands,

arms and feet, stained with a thin coat of henna, Mirza Abdullah of

Bushire--your humble servant--set out upon many and many a trip. He

was a _bazzaz_, a vendor of fine linen, calicoes, and muslins--such

chapmen are sometimes admitted to display their wares, even in the

sacred harem, by 'fast' and fashionable dames--and he had a little

pack of _bijouterie_ and _virtù_ reserved for emergencies. It was

only, however, when absolutely necessary that he displayed his

stock-in-trade; generally, he contented himself with alluding to it on

all possible occasions, boasting largely of his traffic, and asking a

thousand questions concerning the state of the market. Thus he could

walk into most men's houses, quite without ceremony; even if the

master dreamed of kicking him out, the mistress was sure to oppose

such measure with might and main. He secured numberless invitations,

was proposed to by several papas, and won, or had to think he won, a

few hearts; for he came as a rich man and he stayed with dignity, and

he departed exacting all the honours. When wending his ways he usually

urged a return of visit in the morning, but he was seldom to be found

at the caravanserai he specified--was Mirza Abdullah the Bushiri.

"The timid villagers collected in crowds to see the rich merchant in

Oriental dress, riding spear in hand, and pistols in holsters, towards

the little encampment pitched near their settlements. But regularly

every evening on the line of march the Mirza issued from his tent and

wandered amongst them, collecting much information and dealing out

more concerning an ideal master--the Feringhee supposed to be sitting

in State amongst the _moonshees_, the Scribes, the servants, the

wheels, the chains, the telescopes, and the other magical implements

in which the camp abounded. When travelling, the Mirza became this

mysterious person's factotum, and often had he to answer the question

how much his perquisites and illicit gains amounted to in the course

of the year.

"When the Mirza arrived at a strange town, his first step was to

secure a house in or near the bazar, for the purpose of evening

_conversazioni_. Now and then he rented a shop, and furnished it

with clammy dates, viscid molasses, tobacco, ginger, rancid oil, and

strong-smelling sweetmeats; and wonderful tales Fame told about these

establishments. Yet somehow or other, though they were more crowded

than a first-rate milliner's rooms in town, they throve not in a

pecuniary point of view; the cause of which was, I believe, that the

polite Mirza was in the habit of giving the heaviest possible weight

for their money to all the ladies, particularly the pretty ones, that

honoured him by patronizing his concern.

"Sometimes the Mirza passed the evening in a mosque listening to the

ragged students who, stretched at full length with their stomachs on

the dusty floor, and their arms supporting their heads, mumbled out

Arabic from the thumbed, soiled, and tattered pages of theology upon

which a dim oil light shed its scanty ray, or he sat debating the

niceties of faith with the long-bearded, shaven-pated, blear-eyed,

and stolid-faced _genus loci_, the _Mullah_. At other times, when

in merrier mood, he entered uninvited the first door whence issued

the sounds of music and the dance;--a clean turban and a polite bow

are the best 'tickets for soup' the East knows. Or he played chess

with some native friend, or he consorted with the hemp-drinkers and

opium-eaters in the _estaminets_, or he visited the Mrs. Gadabouts and

Go-betweens who make matches amongst the Faithful, and gathered from

them a precious budget of private history and domestic scandal.

"What scenes he saw! what adventures he went through! But who would

believe, even if he ventured to detail them?[21]

"The Mirza's favourite school for study was the house of an elderly

matron on the banks of the Fulailee River, about a mile from the

Fort of Haydarábád. Khanum Jan had been a beauty in her youth, and

the tender passion had been hard upon her--at least judging from the

fact that she had fled her home, her husband, and her native town,

Candahar, in company with Mohammed Bakhsh, a purblind old tailor, the

object of her warmest affections.

"'Ah, he is a regular old hyæna now,' would the Joan exclaim in her

outlandish Persian, pointing to the venerable Darby as he sat in the

cool shade, nodding his head and winking his eyes over a pair of

pantaloons which took him a month to sew, 'but you should have seen

him fifteen years ago, what a wonderful youth he was!'

"The knowledge of one mind is that of a million--after a fashion. I

addressed myself particularly to that of 'Darby;' and many an hour

of tough thought it took me before I had mastered its truly Oriental

peculiarities, its regular irregularities of deduction, and its

strange monotonous one-idea'dness.

"Khanum Jan's house was a mud edifice, occupying one side of a

square formed by tall, thin, crumbling mud walls. The respectable

matron's peculiar vanity was to lend a helping hand in all manner

of _affaires du cœur_. So it often happened that Mirza Abdullah was

turned out of the house to pass a few hours in the garden. There he

sat upon his felt rug spread beneath a shadowy tamarind, with beds of

sweet-smelling basil around him, his eyes roving over the broad river

that coursed rapidly between its wooded banks and the groups gathered

at the frequent ferries, whilst the soft strains of mysterious,

philosophical, transcendental Hafiz were sounded in his ears by the

other Mirza, his companion; Mohammed Hosayn--peace be upon him!

"Of all economical studies this course was the cheapest. For tobacco

daily, for frequent draughts of milk, for hemp occasionally, for

four months' lectures from Mohammed Bakhsh, and for sundry other

little indulgences, the Mirza paid, it is calculated, the sum of six

shillings. When he left Haydarábád, he gave a silver talisman to the

dame, and a cloth coat to her protector: long may they live to wear

them!"

* * * * *

"Thus it was I formed my estimate of the native character. I am as

ready to reform it when a man of more extensive experience and greater

knowledge of the subject will kindly show me how far it transgresses

the well-established limits of moderation. As yet I hold, by way of

general rule, that the Eastern mind--I talk of the nations known to me

by personal experience--is always in extremes; that it ignores what

is meant by 'golden mean,' and that it delights to range in flights

limited only by the _ne plus ultra_ of Nature herself. Under which

conviction I am open to correction.

"RICHARD F. BURTON."

[Sidenote: _His Books on India._]

Richard's works on India are--A grammar of the Játakí, or Belochi

dialect. Here I would remark he mixed with the Játs of Sind, a race

extending from the mouth of the Indus to the plains of Tartary, and

who _he_ believed to be the origin and head of the numerous tribes

of Oriental gypsies, and he worked with the Camel men to assimilate

himself with them. The next work was a grammar of the Mooltanee

language, "Notes on the Pushtû, or Afghan Dialect," Reports to Bombay,

(1) "General Notes on Sind," (2) "Notes on the Population of Sind."

These were all _preparatory_ to becoming an author, and were brought

out in 1849 by the Royal Asiatic Society, Bombay branch, and the

Government Records. I have a single copy of each, but they must be out

of print; meantime he prepared "Goa and the Blue Mountains," 1 vol.;

"Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley," 2 vols.; and "Sindh and the Races that

inhabit the Valley of the Indus," 1 vol.; but these did not appear

until 1851.

"Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley," is, I think, the freshest, most witty

and spirited thing I ever read. He had not been to war with the critics

and Mrs. Grundy then, and there is all the boy's fun and fire in it.

"Falconry in the Valley of the Indus" was produced in 1852, and is

worthy of any sportsman's attention. That is Van Voorst's, now Gurney

and Jackson, whom Richard used to say was the only honest publisher he

ever met. It is _not_ out of print. In 1870 appeared "Vikram and the

Vampire," 1 vol. These tales are thoroughly witty, and make those laugh

heartily who have lived in the East, but it was a great amusement to

Richard and me, when the publisher, having accepted "Vikram," which

is full of "chaff," said to me with a long face, "My eldest boy and I

read over some of the tales last night, and we were so disappointed we

could not laugh." I could not help saying drily, "No, I dare say you

couldn't."

The last book on India was "Sind Revisited," 2 vols., 1877. It was

written in maturer years and after hard experience of the world. It

may be more valuable, but to my mind has not the sparkle of twenty-six

years earlier. All these eight or ten books, including my own

"A.E.I."--"Arabia, Egypt, and India"--brought out in 1879, I boiled

down into Christmas books for boys. I took my manuscript (enough for

three Christmas books) to David Bogue, King William Street, Strand,

and went abroad, and the next thing I heard was, that David Bogue was

bankrupt, and my manuscript had disappeared.

I give a few pages in the appendixes out of his first book on Scinde as

a sample. One describes his visit to the village of a Scindian chief,

a perfect picture of an Oriental visit; the other is a description of

a cock-fight. After his transfer to the Goanese Church, his bungalow

was nicknamed the "Inquisition," and there he buried Bhujang, when his

favourite game-cock departed this life, and people declared it was

a baby's grave. For all that my husband _said_ of India, he talked

exactly as Mr. Rudyard Kipling writes, and when I read him, I can

hear Richard talking; hence I knew how true and to the point are his

writings. Also I think Mr. Kipling must have taken his character of

"Strickland" from my husband, who mixed with, and knew all about, the

natives and their customs, as Strickland did.

During those first seven years in India, Richard passed in Hindostani,

Guzaratee, Persian, Maharattee, Sindhee, Punjaubee, Arabic, Telugu,

Pushtû (Afghan tongue), with Turkish and Armenian. In 1844 he went to

Scinde with the 18th Native Infantry, and Colonel Walter Scott put him

on Sir Charles Napier's staff, who soon found out what he was worth,

and turned his merits to account, but he accompanied his regiment to

Mooltan to attack the Sikhs. He became much attached to his Chief; they

quite understood each other, and remained together for five years.

Richard's training was of the uncommon sort, and glorious as it was,

dangerous as it was, and romantic as it will ever be to posterity, he

did not get from dense and narrow-minded Governments those rewards

which men who risk their lives deserve, and which would have been

given to the man who took care of "number one," and who, with average

stupidity, worked on red-tape lines. He was sent out amongst the wild

tribes of the hills and plains to collect information for Sir Charles.

He did not go as a British officer or Commissioner, because he knew he

would see nothing but what the natives chose him to see; he let down a

curtain between himself and Civilization, and a tattered, dirty-looking

dervish would wander on foot, lodge in mosques, where he was venerated

as a saintly man, mix with the strangest company, join the Beloch and

the Brahui tribes (Indo-Scythians), about whom there was nothing then

known. Sometimes he appeared in the towns; as a merchant he opened a

shop, sold stuffs or sweetmeats in the bazar. Sometimes he worked with

the men in native dress, "Játs" and Camel men, at levelling canals.

When Richard was in India he at one time got rather tired of the daily

Mess, and living with men, and he thought he should like to learn

the manners, customs, and habits of monkeys, so he collected forty

monkeys of all kinds of ages, races, species, and he lived with them,

and he used to call them by different offices. He had his doctor, his

chaplain, his secretary, his aide-de-camp, his agent, and one tiny one,

a very pretty, small, silky-looking monkey, he used to call his wife,

and put pearls in her ears. His great amusement was to keep a kind of

refectory for them, where they all sat down on chairs at meals, and the

servants waited on them, and each had its bowl and plate, with the food

and drinks proper for them. He sat at the head of the table, and the

pretty little monkey sat by him in a high baby's chair, with a little

bar before it. He had a little whip on the table, with which he used

to keep them in order when they had bad manners, which did sometimes

occur, as they frequently used to get jealous of the little monkey, and

try to claw her. He did this for the sake of doing what Mr. Garner is

now doing, that of ascertaining and studying the language of monkeys,

so that he used regularly to talk to them, and pronounce their sounds

afterwards, till he and the monkeys at last got quite to understand

each other. He obtained as many as sixty words, I think twenty more

than Mr. Garner--that is, leading words--and he wrote them down and

formed a vocabulary, meaning to pursue his studies at some future time.

Mr. Garner has now the advantage of phonographs, and all sorts of

appliances. Had Richard been alive, he could have helped him greatly.

Unfortunately his monkey vocabulary was burnt in Grindlay's fire. He

also writes--but this was with his regiment--

[Sidenote: _Burying a Sányasi._]

"Amongst other remarkable experiments made by me, a Sányasi, whom I

knew, talked to me about their manner of burying themselves alive.

I said I would not believe it unless I saw it. The native therefore

told me that he would prove it, by letting me try it; but that he

should require three days for preparation, and hoped for a reward.

Accordingly for three days he made his preparations by swallowing

immense draughts of milk. I refused to put him in a coffin, or to

bury him in the earth, lest he should die; but he lay down in a

hammock, rolled his tongue up in his throat, and appeared to be dead.

My brother officers and I then slung him up to the ceiling by four

large hooks and ropes, lying comfortably in the hammock, and, to avoid

trickery, one of us was always on guard day and night, each taking two

hours' watch at a time. After three weeks we began to get frightened,

because if the man died there would be such a scandal. So we lowered

him down, and tried to awake him. We opened his mouth and tried to

unroll his tongue into its natural position. He then, after some time,

woke perfectly well. We gave him food, paid him a handsome reward, and

he went away quite delighted, offering to do it for _three months_, if

it pleased us."

Richard would be in a dozen different capacities on his travels,

but when he returned, he was rich with news and information for Sir

Charles, for he arrived at secrets quite out of the reach of the

British Army. He knew all that the natives knew, which was more

than British officers and surveyors did. General MacMurdo consulted

his journals and Survey books, which were highly praised by the

Surveyor-General. He was frequently in the presence of and speaking

before his own Colonel without his having the slightest idea that it

was Richard.

Sir Charles Napier liked decision; he hated a man who had not an

answer ready for him. For instance, a young man would go and ask him

for an appointment. Sir Charles would say, "What do you want?" The

youth of firm mind would answer, "An Adjutancy, Sir." "All right,"

said Sir Charles, and he probably got it. But "Anything you please,

Sir Charles," would be sure to be contemptuously dismissed. On

returning from his native researches, Sir Charles would ask Richard

such questions as: "Is it true that native high-class landowners, who

monopolize the fiefs about the heads of the canals, neglect to clear

out the tails, and allow Government ground and the peasants' fields to

lie barren for want of water?"

"Perfectly true, Sir."

"What would be my best course then?"

"Simply to confiscate the whole or part of those estates, Sir."

"H'm! You don't mince matters, Burton."

He once asked Richard how many bricks there were in a newly built

bridge (an impossible question, such as are put to lads whom the

examiner intends to pluck). Richard, knowing his foible, answered,

"229,010, Sir Charles." He turned away and smiled. Another time he

ordered a review on a grand scale to impress certain Chiefs--

"Lieutenant Burton, be pleased to inform these gentlemen that I propose

to form these men in line, then to break into échelon by the right,

and to form square on the centre battalion," and so on, for about

five minutes in military technical terms, for which there were no

equivalents in these men's dialects.

"Yes, Sir," said Richard, saluting.

Turning to the Chiefs, Richard said, "Oh, Chiefs! our Great Man is

going to show you the way we fight, and you must be attentive to the

rules." He then touched his cap to Sir Charles.

"Have you explained all?" he asked.

"Everything, Sir," answered Richard.

"A most concentrated language that must be," said Sir Charles, riding

off with his nose in the air.

[Sidenote: _His Indian Career practically ends._]

After seven years of this kind of life, overwork, overstudy, combined

with the hot season, and the march up the Indus Valley, told on

Richard's health, and at the end of the campaign he was attacked by

severe ophthalmia, the result of mental and physical fatigue, and he

was ordered to take a short rest. He utilized that leave in going to

Goa, and especially to Old Goa, where, as he said himself, he made a

pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, and explored the scenes

of the Inquisition. At last news reached him that another campaign

was imminent in Mooltan, that Sir Charles Napier would take command;

Colonel Scott and a host of friends were ordered up. He writes as

follows:--

"I applied in almost suppliant terms to accompany the force as

interpreter. I had passed examinations in six native languages,

besides studying others, Multani included, and yet General Auchmuty's

secretary wrote to me that this could not be, as he had chosen for the

post Lieutenant X. Y. Z., who had passed in Hindustani.

"This last misfortune broke my heart. I had been seven years in India,

working like a horse, volunteering for every bit of service, and

qualifying myself for all contingencies. Rheumatic ophthalmia, which

had almost left me when in hopes of marching northward, came on with

redoubled force, and no longer had I any hope of curing it except

by a change to Europe. Sick, sorry, and almost in tears of rage, I

bade adieu to my friends and comrades in Sind. At Bombay there was no

difficulty in passing the Medical Board, and I embarked at Bombay for

a passage round the Cape, as the Austral winter was approaching, in a

sixty-year-old teak-built craft, the brig _Eliza_, Captain Cory.

"My career in India had been in my eyes a failure, and by no fault of

my own; the dwarfish demon called 'Interest' had fought against me,

and as usual had won the fight."

[1] Those curious upon the subject will consult my "Book of the Sword,"

vol. i. p. 163. Remember, young swordsman, these people never give

point and never parry it.

[2] The word is a Portuguese "corruption" of _mausim_, in Arabia a

season, and _per excellentiam_ the sailing season. Thence it was

transferred to the dry season, when the north-eastern trade-winds blow

upon the Indian Ocean. But popular use transferred the name to the

south-western rainy winds, which last from June to September.

[3] On June 26th, 1843, "Ensign Burton" appeared in orders as

"Regimental Interpreter."

[4] See "Humanism _versus_ Theism, or Solipsism (Egoism)--Atheism,"

letters by Robert Lewin, M.D. London: Freethought Publishing Company,

1887.

[5] "Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley," 2 vols.; and "Sind Revisited,"

1877.

[6] "Scinde," chapter iv.

[7] "Scinde," vol. i. p. 252.

[8] Ibid., p. 89.

[9] It was brought out in 1852, by my friend John Van Voorst, of

Paternoster Row, who, after a long and honourable career, retired at

the ripe age of eighty-four to take well-merited rest. He has proved

himself to me a phœnix amongst publishers. "Half profits are no profits

to the author," is the common saying, and yet for the last thirty years

I have continually received from him small sums which represented my

gains. Oh that all were so scrupulous!

[10] "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus," pp. 100, 101.

[11] Vol. x. p. 205, _et seqq._

[12] See, in vol. i. p. 53 of "Sind Revisited," Sir Charles's outspoken

opinion.

[13] "Scinde," vol. ii. p. 258, etc.

[14] "Sind Revisited," vol. i. p. 256, shows how I found my old home in

1876.

[15] "Scinde," vol. i. p. 151.

[16] "Falconry," pp. 103-105.

[17] "Goa," etc., p. 355.

[18] See Ibid., p. 339.

[19] This stuck to him off and on all his life.--I. B.

[20] Written with the assistance of a fine old Afghan _mullah_, Akhund

Burhan al-Din.

[21] This was the manner in which he excelled in Eastern life and

knowledge, and knew more than all your learned Orientalists and men

high in office. I wish he would have written a personal novel about

these scenes, but I never could induce him to do so. First he thought

that they would never suit Mrs. Grundy, and though he could retain a

crowd of friends around him till the small hours of the morning to

listen to his delightful experiences, in print he never could be got to

talk about himself.--I. B.