HOME.
At last the time came round for a second leave, and we had a second
joyous meeting at Liverpool--this time to part no more as previously.
It was on the 28th of August, soon after his landing, 1864, that we
chose our burial-place in the Mortlake Cemetery. We had been for that
purpose to one of the big cemeteries--I think it was Kensal Green--and
we had seen with discomfort that there was so much damp, and looking
into an open grave we saw it was full of water; so he looked round
rather woeful, and instead of saying it was melancholy, as most men
would have done, and as _I thought_, he espied a tomb on which the
instruments of the Passion were represented, amongst them the cock of
St. Peter. So he said, "I don't think we had better be too near that
cock, he will always be crowing and waking us up." We were on a visit
to my aunts at Mortlake, who had bought Portobello House, close to the
station, nearly opposite to where I live now, had been settled there
for some years, and where we had had many large family reunions. We
walked into the burial-ground where numbers of my people are buried,
and he said, "We will have it here; it is like a nice little family
hotel;" and he again confirmed the idea in 1882, when we came down to
visit my mother's grave.
Whilst Richard had been on the West Coast of Africa, Speke and Grant
had been on their Expedition, and returned and had a grand ovation.
The labours of the _first_ Expedition had rendered the road easy
for the _second_. "The line had been opened," Richard wrote, "by me
to Englishmen; they had only to tread in my steps." In the closing
days of December, 1863, Speke made a speech at Taunton, which for
vain-gloriousness and bad taste was unequalled. He referred to Richard
as "Bigg," asserted "that in 1857 he (Speke) had hit the Nile on the
head, but that now (1863) he had driven it into the Mediterranean."
It is not much to be wondered at if the following epigram on one
of Richard's visiting cards was left on the table of the Royal
Geographical Society--
"Two loves the Row of Savile haunt,
Who both by nature big be;
The fool is Colonel (Barren) Grant,
The rogue is General Rigby."
[Sidenote: _Speke's Death._]
The first great event was the British Association Meeting at Bath,
September, 1864. Laurence Oliphant conveyed to Richard that Speke had
said that "if Burton appeared on the platform at Bath" (which was, as
it were, Speke's native town) "he would kick him." I remember Richard's
answer--"Well, _that_ settles it! By God, he _shall_ kick me;" and so
to Bath we went. There was to be no speaking on Africa the first day,
but the next day was fixed for the "great discussion between Burton and
Speke." The first day we went on the platform close to Speke. He looked
at Richard, and at me, and we at him. I shall never forget his face. It
was full of sorrow, of yearning, and perplexity. Then he seemed to turn
to stone. After a while he began to fidget a great deal, and exclaimed
half aloud, "Oh, I cannot stand this any longer." He got up to go out.
The man nearest him said, "Shall you want your chair again, Sir? May
I have it? Shall you come back?" and he answered, "I hope not," and
left the Hall. The next day a large crowd was assembled for this famous
discussion. All the distinguished people were with the Council; Richard
_alone was excluded_, and stood on the platform, _we two alone_, he
with his notes in his hand. There was a delay of about twenty-five
minutes, and then the Council and speakers filed in and announced the
terrible accident out shooting that had befallen poor Speke shortly
after his leaving the Hall the day before. Richard sank into a chair,
and I saw by the workings of his face the terrible emotion he was
controlling, and the shock he had received. When called upon to speak,
in a voice that trembled, he spoke of other things and as briefly as he
could. When we got home he wept long and bitterly, and I was for many a
day trying to comfort him.
I reprint a few lines that rushed to my mind in winter, 1864:--
Reprinted from _Fraser's Magazine_, February, 1869.
"'WHO LAST WINS.'
[Sidenote: _Some Lines I wrote on Richard and Speke._]
"The following lines were suggested to me in the studio of the late
Edgar George Papworth, Esq., of 36, Milton Street, Dorset Square, in
the winter of 1864.
"Captain Burton had recently returned from Africa. The annual meeting
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science had just
taken place at Bath, and poor Captain Speke's sudden death was still
fresh in our memories. We had been invited by the artist to look at
Captain Speke's bust, upon which he was then employed. Mr. Papworth
said to Captain Burton, 'I only took the cast after death, and never
knew him alive; but you who lived with him so long can surely give me
some hints.' Captain Burton, who had learnt something of sculpturing
when a boy in Italy, took the sculptor's pencil from Mr. Papworth's
hand, and with a few touches here and there made a perfect likeness
and expression. As I stood by, I was very much impressed by this
singular coincidence.
"A moulded mask at my feet I found,
With the drawn-down mouth and deepen'd eye,
More lifeless still than the marbles round--
Very death amid dead life's mimicry;
I raised it, and Thought fled afar from me
To the African land by the Zingian Sea.
"'Twas a face, a shell that had nought of brain,
And th' imbedding chalk showed a yellow thread
Which struck my glance with a sudden pain,
For this seemed alive when the rest was dead;
And poor bygone raillery came to mind
Of the tragic masque and no brain behind.
"But behind there lay in the humblest shrine
A gem of the brightest purest ray:
The gem was the human will divine;
The shrine was the homeliest human clay,
Self-glory--but hush! be the tale untold
To the pale ear thinned by yon plaster mould.
"Shall the diamond gem lose her queenly worth,
Though pent in the dungeon of sandy stone?
Say, is gold less gold, though in vilest earth
For long years it has lurked unprized, unknown?
And the rose which blooms o'er the buried dead,
Hath its pinkness paled, hath its fragrance fled?
"Thus the poet sang, 'Is the basil vile,
Though the beetle's foot o'er the basil crawl?
And though Arachne hath webbed her toil,
Shall disgrace attach to the princely hall?
And the pearl's clear drop from the oyster shell,
Comes it not on the royal brow to dwell?'
"On the guarded tablet was writ by Fate,
A double self for each man ere born,
Who shall love his love and shall hate his hate,
Who shall praise his praise and shall scorn his scorn,
Enduring aye to the bitter end,
And man's other man shall be called a friend.
"When the spirits with radiance nude arrayed
In the presence stood of the one Supreme,
Soul looked unto soul, and the glance conveyed,
A pledge of love which each _must_ redeem;
Nor may spirit enfleshed in the dust, forget
That high trysting-place, ere time was not yet.
"When the first great Sire, so the Legends say,
The four-rivered garden in Asia trod,
And 'neath perfumed shade, in the drouth of day,
Walked and talked with the Hebrew God,
Such friendship was when it first began;
And the first of friends were the God, the man.
"But _we_ twain were not bound by such highborn ties;
Our souls, our minds, and our thoughts were strange,
Our ways were not one, nor our sympathies,
We had severed aims, we had diverse range;
In the stern drear Present his lot was cast,
Whilst I hoped for the Future and loved the Past.
"'Twixt man and woman use oft hath bred
The habits that feebly affection feign,
While the common board and genial bed
And Time's welding force links a length of chain;
Till, when Love was not, it has sometimes proved
This has loved and lived, that has lived and loved.
"But 'twixt man and man it may not so hap
Each man in his own and his proper sphere;
At some point, perchance, may the lines o'erlap;
The far rest is far as the near is near--
Save when the orbs are of friend and friend
And the circles' limits perforce must blend.
"But the one sole point at which he and I
Could touch, was the contact of vulgar minds.
'Twas interest's forcible feeble tie
Which binds, but with lasting bonds ne'er binds;
And our objects fated to disagree,
What way went I, and what way went he?
"And yet we were comrades for many years,
And endured in its troth our companionship
Through a life of chances, of hopes and fears;
Nor a word of harshness e'er passed the lip,
Nor a thought unkind dwelt in either heart,
Till we chanced--by what chance did it hap?--to part.
"Where Fever yellow-skinned, bony, gaunt,
With the long blue nails and lip livid white;
With the blood-stained orbs that could ever haunt
Our brains by day and our eyes by night;
In her grave-clothes mouldy with graveyard taint
Came around our sleeping mats--came and went:
"Where the crocodile glared with malignant stare,
And the horse of the river, with watery mane
That flashed in the sun, from his oozy lair
Rose to gaze on the white and wondrous men;
And the lion, with muzzle bent low to earth,
Mocked the thunder-cloud with his cruel mirth:
"Where the speckled fowls the Mimosa decked
Like blue-bells studded with opal dew;
And giraffes pard-spotted, deer-eyed, swan-necked,
Browsed down the base whence the tree dome grew,
And the sentinel-antelope, aëried high,
With his frightened bound taught his friends to fly:
"Where the lovely Coast is all rank with death,
That basks in the sun of the Zingian shore;
Where the mountains, dank with the ocean's breath,
Bear the incense-tree and the sycamore;
Where the grim fierce desert and stony hill
Breed the fiercest beasts, and men fiercer still:
"Where the Land of the Moon with all blessings blest
Save one--save man; and with name that sped
To the farthest edge of the misty West
Since the Tyrian sailor his sail-sheet spread,
Loves to gaze on her planet whose loving ray
Fills her dells and fells with a rival day:
"Where the Lake unnamed in the Afric wold
Its breast to the stranger eye lay bare;
Where Isis, forced her veil to unfold--
To forget the boast of the days that were--
Stood in dusky charms with the crisp tire crowned
On the hallowed bourne, on the Nile's last bound:--
"We toiled side by side, for the hope was sweet
To engrave our names on the Rock of Time:
On the Holy Hill to implant our feet
Where enfaned sits Fame o'er the earth sublime;
And now rose the temple before our eyes--
We had paid the price, we had plucked the prize;
"When up stood the Shadow betwixt us twain--
Had the dusky goddess bequeathed her ban?
And the ice of death through every vein
Of comradeship spread in briefest span;
The guerdon our toils and our pains had won
Was too great for two, was enough for one;
"And deeper and deeper grew the gloom
When the serpent tongue had power to sting,
While o'er one of us hung the untimely doom--
A winter's night to a day of spring,
And heart from heart parting fell away
At the fiat of Fate by her iron sway.
"It seems as though from a foamy[1] dream
I awake, and this pallid mask behold,
And I ask--Can this be the end supreme
Of the countless things of the days of old?
This clay, is it all of what used to be
In the Afric land by the Zingian Sea?"
----ISABEL BURTON.
[Sidenote: _Richard's "Stone Talk."_]
Richard at this time wrote, secretly, a little "squib" of one
hundred and twenty-one pages, called "Stone Talk," being some of the
marvellous sayings of a petral portion of Fleet Street, London, to one
Dr. Polyglot, Ph.D., by Frank Baker, D.O.N., 1865. He kept it quite
secret from me, and one day brought it out of his pocket on a railway
journey, as if he had bought it from a stall, and gave it to me to
read. I was delighted with it, kept reading him out passages from it,
with peals of laughter. Fortunately we were alone, and I kept saying
to him, "Jemmy, I wish you would not go about talking as you do; I am
sure this man has been associating with you at the club, picked up all
your ideas and written this book, and won't he just catch it!" At last,
after going on like that for a considerable time, the amused expression
of his face flashed an idea into my brain, and I said, "You wrote it
yourself, Jemmy, and _nobody else_;" and he said, "I _did_." When I
showed it to Lord Houghton, he told me that he was afraid that it
would do Richard a great deal of harm with the "powers that were," and
advised me to buy them up, which I did. He took the _nom de plume_ of
"Frank Baker" from his second name Francis and his mother's name Baker.
It has been thrown in my teeth, since his death, that he would have
married twice before he married me, and as he was between thirty-nine
and forty at the time of our marriage, it is very natural that it
should be so. I sometimes take comfort in reading passages from "Stone
Talk" anent former loves--I do not know who they are:--
"So, standing 'mid the vulgar crowd,
I watched the fair, the great, the proud
That hustled in, when glad surprise
Awaited these my languid eyes.
The pink silk hood her head was on
Did make a sweet comparison
With brow as pure, as clear, as bright,
As Boreal dawn or Polar night,
With lips whose crimson strove to hide
Gems all unknown to Oman's tide,
With eyes as myosotis blue,
With cheeks of peachy down and hue,
And locks whose semi-liquid gold
Over the ivory shoulders rolled.
Not 'low' her dress, yet cunning eye
'Neath gauzy texture could descry
Two silvery orbs, that rose and fell,
With Midland Sea's voluptuous swell,
Intoxicating to the brain
As flowers that breathe from Persian plain
Whereon to rest one moment brief
Were worth a life of pain and grief;
And, though fast closed in iron cage--
Venetian padlock of the age--
The poetry of motion told
Of all by envious flounce and fold
Concealed; each step of nameless grace
Taught glowing Fancy's glance to trace
A falling waist, on whose soft round
No lacing wrinkle might be found
(Nor waspish elegance affright
Thorwaldsen's, Canova's sight),
And rising hips and migniard feet--
Ankle for Dian's buskin meet--
Gastrocunemius----
Cease, Muse! to tell
The things my mem'ry holds too well.
I bowed before the 'Thing Divine'
As pilgrim sighting holy shrine,
And straight my 'chanted spirit soared
To dizzy regions late explored
By Mister Hume--A. B.--C. D.--all
The rout yclept spiritual.
A church of emeralds I see,
An altar-tower lit brilliantly;
A steeple, too, the pave inlaid
With richest tint of light and shade;
A 'deal of purple,' archèd pews;
And all the 'blacks' methinks are 'blues.'
Now throngs the murex-robèd crowd,
A-chanting anthems long and loud,
And children, garbed in purest white,
Kneel with wreathed heads before the light.
I, too, am there, with 'Thing Divine,'
Bending before the marble shrine,
While spirit-parson's sleepy drone
Maketh me hers and her my own.
When sudden on my raptured sight
Falls deadly and discharming blight,
Such blight as Eurus loves to fling
O'er gladsome crop in genial spring.
Fast by the side of 'Thing Divine,'
By spirit-parson fresh made mine,
In apparition grim--I saw
The middle-aged British mother-in-law!!
* * * * *
The pink silk hood her head was on
Did make a _triste_ comparison
With blossomed brow and green-grey eyes,
And cheeks bespread with vinous dyes,
And mouth and nose--all, all, in fine,
Caricature of 'Thing Divine.'
Full low the Doppelgänger's dress
Of moire and tulle, in last distress
To decorate the massive charms
Displayed to manhood's shrinking arms;
Large loom'd her waist 'spite pinching stays,
As man-o'-war in bygone days;
And, ah! her feet were broader far
Than beauty's heel in Mullingar.
Circular all from toe to head,
Pond'rous of framework, as if bred
On streaky loin and juicy steak;
And, when she walked, she seemed to shake
With elephantine tread the ground.
Sternly, grimly, she gazed around,
Terribly calm, in much flesh strong,
Upon the junior, lighter throng,
And loudly whispered, 'Who's that feller?
Come! none of this, Louise, I tell yer!'
And 'Thing Divine' averted head,
And I, heart-broken, turned and fled."
DIRGE.
"I also swore to love a face
And form where beauty strove with grace,
And raven hair, black varnished blue,
A brow that robbed the cygnet's hue,
Orbs that beshamed the fawnlet's eyne,
And lips like rosebuds damp with rain.
Ah! where is she? ah! where are they--
The charms that stole my heart away?
"She's fatten'd like a feather bed,
Her cheeks with beefy hue are red,
Her eyes are tarnished, and her nose
Affection for high diet shows;
The voice like music wont to flow,
Is now a kind of vaccine low.
Cupid, and all ye gods above,
Is this the thing I used to love?"
This year, 1864, Richard edited and annotated Marcy's "Prairie
Traveller" for the _Anthropological Review_.
[Sidenote: _Gaiety._]
Apart from the sad circumstance of Speke's death, we had a very
delightful winter. We went to Uncle Gerard's at Garswood, to Lady
Egerton of Tatton's, to Lady Stanley of Alderley's (in the present
dowager's time), when the now Dowager Lady Airlie and Lady Amberly and
all the family were then at home, where we met an immense quantity of
distinguished people, and notably Professor Jowett. Then we went to
Lady Margaret Beaumont's at Bretton Park, and to Lord Fitzwilliam's;
and all these had large house-parties.
[Sidenote: _Winwoode Reade--We go to Ireland._]
This year we became very intimate with Winwood Reade. We went over to
Ireland, where we spent a delightful two months. We took an Irish car,
and drove by degrees over all the most interesting and prettiest parts
of Ireland, at the rate of so many miles a day, stopping where it was
most interesting. I had an Irish maid with me, whose chief delight
was to see Richard and me clinging on to the car as it flew round the
corners, while she sat as cool and calm as possible, with her hands in
her muff. "Ye devil," Richard said to her, "I believe you were born on
a car; I will pay you out for laughing at me." Some days afterwards,
she dropped her muff. There was a great deal of snow on the ground, so
Richard said to her very kindly, "Don't get down, Kiernan; I will get
your muff for you." He stopped the car, got down, pretended to be very
busy with his boot, but in reality he was filling her muff with snow.
When he gave it back to her she gave a little screech. "Ah," he said,
with glistening eyes, "you'll laugh at me for clinging on the car like
a monkey on a scraper again."
We were asked to numbers of country-houses on the way--to the Bellews',
Gormanstons', and Lord Drogheda's; and we had the pleasure of making
acquaintance with Lady Rachel Butler and Lord James, who were very kind
to us. Dublin was immensely hospitable, and at that time very gay. One
of our interesting events was making acquaintance with Mr. Lentaigne,
the great convict philanthropist. His mania was to reform his convicts,
and make his friends take them for service, if nobody else would. He
was the man to whom Lord Carlisle said, "Why, Lentaigne, you will wake
up some morning, and find you are the only spoon in the house." He
took us to see the prisons and the reformatories, and he implored of
me to take out with me a convict woman of about thirty-four, who had
been fifteen years in prison. I said, "Well, Mr. Lentaigne, what did
she do?" "Poor girl! the sweetest creature--she murdered her baby when
she was sixteen." "Well," I answered, "I would do anything to oblige
you, but I dare say I shall often be quite alone with her, and at
thirty-four she might like larger game."
Richard was veritably, though born of prosaic parents, a child of
romance. He had English, Irish, Scotch, and French blood in his veins,
and, it has often been suggested (though never proved), a drop of
Oriental or gypsy blood from some far-off ancestor. His Scottish,
North England, and Border blood came out in all posts of trust and
responsibility, in steadiness and coolness in the hour of danger, in
uprightness and integrity, and the honour of a gentleman. Of Irish
blood he showed nothing excepting fight, but the two foreign strains
were strong. From Arab or gypsy he got his fluency of languages, his
wild and daring spirit, his Agnosticism, his melancholy pathos, his
mysticism, his superstition (I am superstitious enough, God knows, but
he was far more so), his divination, his magician-like foresight into
events, his insight, or reading men through like a pane of glass, his
restless wandering, his poetry. From a very strong strain of Bourbon
blood (Richard showed "race" from the top of his head to the sole of
his feet) which the Burtons inherit--that is, _my_ Burtons--he got his
fencing, knowledge of arms, his ready wit and repartee, his boyish
gaiety of character as alternately opposed to his melancholy, and,
lastly, but not least, his Catholicism as opposed to the mysticism of
the East, which is not in the least like the Agnosticism of the West.
But it was not a fixed thing like my Catholicism; it ran silently
threaded through his life, alternately with his mysticism, like the
refrain of an opera.
He was proud of his Scottish and North England blood, he liked his Rob
Roy descent, and also his Bourbon blood, and he used to laugh heartily
when, sometimes, I was half-vexed at something and used to chaff him by
saying, "You dirty Frenchman!"
Richard was a regular _gamin_; his keen sense of humour, his ready wit,
were always present. He adored shocking dense people and seeing their
funny faces and stolid belief, and never cared about what harm it would
do him in a worldly sense. I have frequently sat at the dinner-table
of such people, praying him by signs not to go on, but he was in a
very ecstasy of glee; he said it was so funny always to be believed
when you were chaffing, and so curious never to be believed when you
were telling the truth. He had a sort of schoolboy bravado about these
things that in his high spirits lasted him all the seventy years of his
life.
But especially strong were the melancholy, tender, sad hours of the
man, full of sensitiveness to pathos in all he said, or did, or wrote.
The one paid too much for the other, if I may so express it.
[Sidenote: _Richard and Sir Bernard Burke._]
Talking of the Bourbon blood and his _gaminerie_, during this visit to
Ireland we were in Dublin, where we had the pleasure of knowing Sir
Bernard and Lady Burke, and Richard and he were talking in his study
over his genealogy and this Louis XIV. descent. He said, "I want this
to be made quite clear." Sir Bernard said, "I wonder, Captain Burton,
that _you_, who have such good Northern and Scottish blood in your
veins, and are connected with so many of the best families, should
trouble about what can only be a morganatic descent at best." I can see
him now, carelessly leaning against the bookcase with his hands in his
pockets, with his amused face on, looking at the earnest countenance of
Sir Bernard and saying, "Why! I would rather be the bastard of a King,
than the son of an honest man," and his hearty laugh at the shocked
expression and "_Oh!_ Captain Burton," which he had been waiting for.
[Sidenote: _Bianconi._]
One of the amusing things, and interesting as well, was going to
Gerald's Cross by rail, and when we arrived, there was only one car.
There was another gentleman and ourselves, and as we had telegraphed
for the car, it was ours. Still we did not like to leave him without
anything. So we asked him if we could give him a lift. He asked us
where we were going, and we told him. So he said, "Well, you pass
my house, so I shall be grateful." As we drove along for about half
an hour between Gerald's Cross and Cashel, he told us that he was
Bianconi, the first inventor of outside Irish cars, that his house was
called Longfield, and the whole of his most interesting history. His
house was a nice little residence in a garden with a lawn and trees in
front, and he insisted upon taking us into it, and giving us afternoon
tea, after which we drove on.
We visited Tuam, which we _both_ thought a dreadful place; but the
name of Burton was big there, on account of the Bishop and the Dean,
Richard's grandfather and uncle, and hundreds of the poor crowded round
us for _bakshish_ (presents). Richard had still some old aunts there,
who came to dine with us, his grandfather's daughters. They had a large
tract of land here, but Richard's father had made it over to the aunts,
and I was very glad of it, as I should have been very sorry to have
had to stop there. We were delighted with the fishing population of
Lough Corrib, a cross between Spanish and Irish, who have nothing in
common with the town; they are called Claddhah, pronounced Clather. We
stopped long at the Armagh Cathedral, looking for Drelincourt tombs,
of which there are plenty belonging to Richard's people. From Drogheda
we went to see the Halls of Tara, the site of the Palace of the Kings,
the Stone of Destiny, and then to the site of the Battle of the Boyne,
afterwards to Maynooth College, where the boys cheered Richard. Then
we proceeded to Blarney and kissed the stone; near Cork to see Captain
and Mrs. Lane Fox, now General and Mrs. Pitt-Rivers; and also to
Killarney, and thought it very pretty but _very_ small. We enjoyed much
hospitality at the Castle during our stay. During all our car-driving
our little horse used to have a middle-of-the-day feed, with a pint
of whisky and water, and she came in at the end of the time in better
condition, and looking in every way better, and twice as frisky as when
she started.
On the 17th of May the Polytechnic in London opened with an account of
Richard's travels in Mecca, and a dissolving view of Richard's picture
in uniform. It was arranged by Mr. Pepper of "Pepper's Ghost," and a
quantity of little green pamphlets with the lecture were sold at the
door. On the 22nd of May we dined with George Augustus Sala, previous
to his going to Algiers, and also with poor Blakeley of the Guns, in
his and Mrs. Blakeley's pretty little home; he died so sadly afterwards.
Richard was now transferred to Santos, São Paulo, Brazil.
FAREWELL DINNER TO CAPTAIN R. F. BURTON.
[Sidenote: _The Anthropological Farewell Dinner._]
"On Tuesday, April 4th, 1865, there was celebrated an event in
London of such importance to anthropological science as to deserve
an especial record in these pages. On this day the Anthropological
Society of London celebrated the election into their society of
five hundred Fellows, by giving a public dinner to Captain Richard
F. Burton, their senior vice-president. The Right Honourable Lord
Stanley, M.P., F.R.S., F.A.S.L., took the chair, and was supported
on the right by Captain Burton. [Here follows one hundred and twenty
distinguished names.]
[Sidenote: _Lord Derby's Speech as Chairman._]
"The noble Chairman, Lord Derby, in proposing 'The health of Captain
Burton,' said--I rise to propose a toast which will not require that
I should bespeak for it a favourable consideration on your part. I
intend to give you the health of the gentleman in whose honour we
have met to-night. (Loud cheers.) I propose the health of one--your
cheers have said it before me--of the most distinguished Explorers and
Geographers of the present day. (Cheers.) I do not know what you feel,
but as far as my limited experience in that way extends, for a man to
sit and listen to his own eulogy is by no means an unmixed pleasure,
and in Captain Burton's presence I shall say a great deal less about
what he has done than I should take the liberty of doing if he were
not here. (Cheers.) But no one can dispute this, that into a life of
less than forty-five years Captain Burton has crowded more of study,
more of hardship, and more of successful enterprise and adventure than
would have sufficed to fill up the existence of half a dozen ordinary
men. (Cheers.) If, instead of continuing his active career--as we hope
he will for many years to come--it were to end to-morrow, he would
still have done enough to entitle him to a conspicuous and permanent
place in the annals of geographical discoverers. (Cheers.) I need not
remind you, except in the briefest way, of the long course of his
adventures and their results. His first important work, the 'History
of the Races of Scinde,' will long continue to be useful to those
whose studies lie in that direction, and those who, like myself, have
travelled through that unhappy valley--through that young Egypt, which
is about as like old Egypt as a British barrack is like an Egyptian
pyramid--will recognize the fact that if there have been men who have
described that country for _utilitarian_ purposes more accurately and
minutely, no man has described it with a more graphic pen. (Cheers.)
With respect to his pilgrimage to Mecca, that, I believe, was part
only of a much larger undertaking which local disturbances in the
country prevented being carried out to the fullest extent. (Cheers.)
I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that not more than two
or three Englishmen would have been able to perform that feat. The
only two parallels to it that I recollect in one generation are, the
exploring journeys of Sir Henry Pottinger into Beloochistan, and the
journey of M. Vambéry through the deserts of Central Asia. (Cheers.)
I am speaking only by hearsay and report, but I take the fact to
be this, that the ways of Europeans and Asiatics are so totally
different--I do not mean in those important acts to which we all pay
a certain amount of attention while we do them, but in those little
trifling details of everyday life, that we do instinctively and
without paying attention to them--the difference in these respects
between the two races is so wide that the Englishman who would attempt
to travel in the disguise of an Oriental ought to be almost Oriental
in his habits if he hope to carry out that personation successfully.
And if that be true of a journey of a few days, it is far more true
of a journey extending over weeks and months, where you have to keep
your secret, not merely from the casual observer, but from your own
servants, your own friends, and your own travelling companions. To
carry through an enterprise of that kind may well be a strain on the
ingenuity of any man, and though, no doubt, danger does stimulate our
faculties, still it does not take from the merit of a feat that it is
performed under circumstances in which, in the event of detection,
death is almost certain. (Cheers.) I shall say nothing in this brief
review of that plucky though unsuccessful expedition to the Somali
country, which so nearly deprived the Anthropological Society of
one of its ablest members. But I cannot pass over so lightly the
journey into Harar--the first attempt to penetrate Eastern Africa in
that quarter. That journey really opened a wide district of country
previously unknown to the attention of civilized man. It led the
way indirectly to the Nile expeditions, which lasted from 1856 to
1859. With respect to the labours which were gone through in those
expeditions, and the controversies which arose out of those labours,
I do not require here to say anything except to make one passing
remark. With regard to this disputed subject of the Nile, I may be
permitted to say--though those who are experienced in geographical
matters may treat me as a heretic--(a laugh)--I cannot help it if they
do, for I speak by the light only of common sense--(renewed laughter,
and cheers)--but it seems to me that there is a little delusion in
this notion of searching for what we call the source of a river. Can
you say of any river that it has a source? It has a mouth, that is
certain--(cheers);--but it has a great many sources, and to my mind
you might just as well talk of a plant as having only one root, or a
man only one hair on his head, as of a river having a single source.
Every river is fed from many sources, and it does not seem to me that
the mere accident of hitting upon that which subsequent investigation
may prove to be the largest of its many affluents is a matter about
which there need be much controversy. The real test of the value of
this kind of work is, what is the quantity of land previously unknown
which the discoverer has gone through, and which he has opened up to
the knowledge of civilized man? (Cheers.) Judged by that test, I do
not hesitate to say that the African Expedition of 1856 has been the
most important of our time; the only rival which I could assign to it
being that separate expedition which was undertaken by Dr. Livingstone
through the southern part of the continent. (Hear.) Where one man has
made his way many will follow, and I do not think it is too sanguine
an anticipation, negro chiefs and African fevers notwithstanding,
to expect that within the lifetime of the present generation we may
know as much of Africa, at least, of Africa north of the equator, and
within fifteen degrees south of it, as we know now of South America.
Well, gentlemen, no man returns from a long African travel with health
entirely unimpaired, and our friend was no exception to the rule. But
there are men to whom all effort is unpleasant, so there are men to
whom all rest, all doing nothing, is about the hardest work to which
they could be put, and Captain Burton recruited his health, as you all
know, by a journey to the Mormon country, travelling thirty thousand
miles by sea and land, and bringing back from that community--morally,
I think, the most eccentric phenomenon of our days--a very curious
and interesting, and, as far as I could judge, the most accurate
description we have yet received. (Cheers.) Now, as to the last phase
of the career which I am attempting to sketch--the embassy to Dahomè,
the discovery of the Cameroon Mountains, and the travels along the
African coast, I shall only remind you of it, because I am quite sure
that the published accounts must be fresh in all your minds. I do not
know what other people may think of these volumes, but to me they
were a kind of revelation of negro life and character, enabling me to
feel, which certainly I never felt before, that I could understand
an African and barbarian court. As to any theories arising out of
these journeys, as to any speculations which may be deduced from
them, I do not comment upon these here. This is not the place nor the
occasion to do it. All I will say about them is, that when a man with
infinite labour, with infinite research, and at the imminent risk of
his life, has gone to work to collect a series of facts, I think the
least the public can do is to allow him a fair hearing when he puts
his own interpretation upon those facts. (Loud cheers.) I will add
this, that in matters which we all feel to be intensely interesting,
and upon which we all know that our knowledge is imperfect, any man
does us a service who helps us to arrange the facts which we have at
our command, who stimulates inquiry and thought by teaching us to
doubt instead of dogmatizing. I am quite aware that this is not in
all places a popular theory. There are a great many people who, if
you give them a new idea, receive it almost as if you had offered
them personal violence. (Laughter.) It puts them out. They don't
understand it--they are not used to it. I think that state of the
public mind, which we must all acknowledge, is the very best defence
for the existence of scientific societies such as that to which many
of us belong. It is something for a man who has got a word to say, to
know that there is a society where he will get a fair and considerate
hearing; and, whether the judgment goes against him or not, at least
he will be met by argument and not by abuse. I think Captain Burton
has done good service to the State in various ways. He has extended
our knowledge of the globe on which we live, and as we happen to be
men, and not mere animals, that is a result which, though it may not
have any immediate utilitarian result, we ought to value. (Cheers.) He
has done his share in opening savage and barbarous countries to the
enterprise of civilized man, and though I am not quite so sanguine as
many good men have been as to the reclaiming of savage races, one has
only to read his and all other travellers' accounts of African life
in its primitive condition, to see that whether they gain much or
not by European intercourse, at any rate they have nothing to lose.
(Laughter.) But there is something more than that. In these days of
peace and material prosperity (and both of them are exceedingly good
things), there is another point of view in which such a career as that
of our friend is singularly useful. It does as much as a successful
campaign to keep up in the minds of the English people that spirit of
adventure and of enterprise, that looking to reputation rather than
money, to love of effort rather than to ease--the old native English
feeling which has made this country what it has become, and which,
we trust, will keep this country what it is to be--a feeling which,
no doubt, the tendency of great wealth and material prosperity is to
diminish; but a feeling which, if it were to disappear from among us,
our wealth and our material prosperity would not be worth one year's
purchase. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I propose the health of Captain Burton,
and my best wish for him is that he may do for himself what nobody
else is likely to do for him, that by his future performance he may
efface the memory of his earlier exploits. (Loud cheers.)
"The toast was drunk with three times three.
[Sidenote: _Richard returns Thanks._]
"Captain Burton, who, on rising, was greeted with loud and protracted
cheering, said--My Lord Stanley, my lords and gentlemen, it falls to
the lot of few men to experience a moment so full of gratified feeling
as this, when I rise to return thanks for the honour you have done me
on this, to me, most memorable occasion. I am proud to see my poor
labours in the cause of discovery thus publicly recognized by the
representative of England's future greatness. (Cheers.) The terms of
praise which have fallen from your lordship's lips are far above my
present deserts, yet I treasure them gratefully in my memory as coming
from one so highly honoured, not only as a nobleman, but as a man. I
am joyed when looking round me to see so many faces of friends who
have met to give me God-speed--to see around me so many of England's
first men, England's brains, in fact; men who have left their mark
upon the age; men whose memories the world will not willingly let die.
These are the proudest laurels a man can win, and I shall wear them in
my heart of hearts that I may win more of them on my return.
"But, however gratifying this theme, I must bear in mind the occasion
which thus agreeably brings us together. We meet to commemorate the
fact that on March 14, 1865, that uncommonly lusty youth, our young
Anthropological Society, attained the respectable dimensions of five
hundred members. My lord and gentlemen, it is with no small pride
that I recall to mind how, under the auspices of my distinguished and
energetic friend Dr. James Hunt, our present president,--and long may
he remain so,--I took the chair on the occasion of its nativity. The
date was January 6, 1863. The number of those who met was eleven. Each
had his own doubts and hopes, and fears touching the viability of the
new-born. Still we knew that our cause was good; we persevered, we
succeeded. (Cheers.)
"The fact is, we all felt the weight of the great want. As a traveller
and a writer of travels during the last fifteen years, I have found
it impossible to publish those questions of social economy and those
physiological observations, always interesting to our common humanity,
and at times so valuable. The _Memoirs of the Anthropological Society_
now acts the good Samaritan to facts which the publisher and the
drawing-room table proudly pass by. Secondly, there was no arena for
the public discussion of opinions now deemed paradoxical, and known
to be unpopular. The rooms of the Anthropological Society, No. 4, St.
Martin's Place, now offer a refuge to destitute truth. There any man,
monogenist or polygenist, eugenestic or dysgenestic, may state the
truth as far as is in him. We may truly call these rooms
'Where, girt by friend or foe,
A man may say the thing he will.'
All may always claim equally from us a ready hearing, and what as
Englishmen we prize the most, a fair field and plenty of daylight.
(Cheers.)
"And how well we succeeded--how well our wants have been supplied by
the officers of our society, we may judge by this fact: During the
last twenty days not less than thirty members have, I am informed by
my friend Mr. Carter Blake, been added to the five hundred of last
month. I confidently look forward to the day when, on returning from
South America, I shall find a list of fifteen hundred names of our
society. We may say _vires acquirit eundo_, which you will allow me to
translate, 'We gain strength by our go,' in other words, our progress.
This will give us weight to impress our profession and opinions upon
the public. Already the learned of foreign nations have forgotten to
pity us for inability to work off the grooves of tradition and habit.
And we _must_ succeed so long as we adhere to our principles of fair
play and a hearing to every man. (Cheers.)
"I would now request your hearing for a few words of personal
explanation, before leaving you for some years. I might confide it to
each man separately, but I prefer the greatest possible publicity. It
has come to my ears that some have charged me with want of generosity
in publishing a book which seems to reflect upon the memory of poor
Captain Speke. Without entering into details concerning a long and
melancholy misunderstanding, I would here briefly state that my object
has ever been, especially on this occasion, to distinguish between
_personal enmities_ and _scientific differences. I did not consider
myself bound to bury my opinions in Speke's grave; to me, living,
they are of importance._ I adhere to all I have stated respecting
the Nile sources; but I must change the form of their expression. My
own statement may, I believe, be considered to be moderate enough.
In a hasty moment, I appended one more, which might have been
omitted--as it shall from all future editions. I may conclude this
painful controversial subject, by stating that Mr. Arthur Kinglake, of
Weston-super-Mare, writes to me that a memorial bust of my lamented
companion is to be placed this year in the shire-hall, Taunton, with
other Somersetshire heroes, Blake and Locke. I have seen the bust in
the studio of Mr. Papworth, and it is perfect. If you all approve, it
would give me the greatest pleasure to propose a subscription for the
purpose before we leave this room. (Cheers.)
"And now I have already trespassed long enough upon your patience. I
will not excuse myself, because I am so soon to leave you. Nor will
I say adieu, because I shall follow in mind all your careers; yours,
my Lord Stanley, to that pinnacle of greatness for which Nature and
Fate have destined you; and yours, gentlemen and friends, each of you,
to the high and noble missions to which you are called. Accompanied
by your good wishes, I go forth on mine with fresh hope, and with a
vigour derived from the wholesome stimulus which you have administered
to me this evening. My Lord Stanley, my lords and gentlemen, I thank
you from my heart.
"[Here followed twenty-five speeches. Dr. Hunt, the President,
concluded:] He should be very sorry if they were to separate on that
occasion, when they had met to bid farewell to Captain Burton, without
drinking the health of one on whom they all looked with respect
and admiration--Mrs. Burton. (Loud cheers.) He felt it, therefore,
to be their duty to join most heartily in drinking long health and
prosperity to Mrs. Burton, and may she be long spared to take care of
her husband when far away in South America. Those who paid homage to
her paid homage also to him, whom they had met to honour, and the more
they knew of him the more they respected him. (Loud cheers.)
"Captain Burton: I only hope in the name of Heaven that Mrs. Burton
won't hear of this. (Laughter.)
"Dr. Hunt said that as Captain Burton refused to respond to the toast
in a proper manner, he must return thanks for Mrs. Burton. She begged
him to say that she had great difficulty in keeping her husband in
order, but that she would do what she could to take care of him,
and to make him as innocent a man as they believed him to be. (Loud
laughter.)
"Lord Stanley then left, and the company soon afterwards separated."
NILE.
[Sidenote: _He speaks his Mind about the Nile._]
Richard's speech alluded to the following. I take it from his private,
not his published writings:--
"I have five main objections to Jack's theory about the Nile:--
"1. There is a difference of levels in the upper and in the lower part
of the so-called lake. This point is important only when taken in
connection with the following:--
"2. The native report that the Mwerango river rises from the hills in
the centre of the so-called lake.
"3. The general belief that there is a road through the so-called lake.
"4. The fact that the southern part of the so-called lake floods the
country for thirteen miles, whereas the low and marshy northern shore
is not inundated.
"5. The phenomena that the so-called lake swells during the dry period
of the Nile, and _vice versâ_.
"It would of course have been far more congenial to my feelings to
have met Jack upon the platform, and to have argued out this affair,
openly, before the Association of Science. I went down fairly to
seek this contest on September 13th, 1864. The first day was devoted
to other subjects, and the second day our grand exposition of our
separate views was to come off, and the rooms of the Section E were
crowded to suffocation.
"All the great people were with the Council, I alone was uninvited; so
I remained on the platform with my wife, notes in hand, longing for
the fray, but when they filed in twenty minutes later, the melancholy
announcement was made of his death. I had seen him between one and
three p.m., and at four p.m. he was a corpse! I was so shocked, so
pained, I could not speak, and remained so for a long while. His
death sealed my lips, but I am not bound to bury my opinions in his
grave; and when I at last dared to speak, I addressed a public already
horribly prejudiced by the partisans of Jack, who know nothing about
chivalry, and have spoken of me in terms which I never used towards my
dead friend. In short, all my achievements were ignored and forgotten.
Everybody is mentioned with honour, but the Pioneer of discovery in
these wild regions is carefully ignored. I am now about to leave
Europe for some years, and I cannot allow errors which are generally
received, to remain as they are, but I do not stand forth as an enemy
of the departed. No man better than I, can appreciate the noble
qualities of energy, courage, and perseverance which he so eminently
possessed, who knew him for so many years, who travelled with him as
a brother, till the unfortunate rivalry respecting the Nile sources
arose like a ghost between us, and was fanned to a flame by the enmity
and ambition of so-called friends. I do not wish to depreciate the
services of Jack, nor Captain Grant--they brought us back a new three
hundred and fifty geographical miles; but as to the _Nile_ sources, I
consider the problem wholly unsolved. Jack and Captain Grant seemed
to forget that the _more my_ expedition did, the better for them, as
well as for me. The result of Jack's expedition is a blank space on
the maps, covering nearly twenty-nine thousand miles and containing
possibly half a dozen waters. Had Jack and Captain Grant really
seen--which they did not--three sides of the Nyanza, they would have
left unexplored fifty thousand square geographical miles, a space
somewhat larger than England and Wales.
"Knowing Jack as I do, I cannot understand why he sent Captain
Grant, without valid apparent reason, on July 19th, 1862, to the
head-quarters of King Kamrasi of Unyoro, right away _from_ the Lakes,
unless Jack was determined _alone_ to do the work, and to have no one
to contradict him. The _Westminster Review_ remarks of that: 'Grant
will have little to regret, and Burton will be more than revenged
should Tanganyika, and not the Nyanza, prove to be the head of the
Nile.'
"From Alexandria Jack telegraphed in April, 1863, to the F.O. these
big words:--'Inform Sir Roderick Murchison that all is well, that we
are in latitude 14° 30' upon the Nile, and that the Nile is settled.'
The startling assertion caused a prodigious sensation at the main
meeting, May 11th, 1863. Jack was fêted in Egypt by his Highness
the Khedive and by his Majesty of Piedmont, and was presented with
a medal bearing the gratifying inscription, 'Honor est a Nilo.' At
Southampton he was received by the civic authorities and sundry
supporters, including Colonel Rigby of Zanzibar, who, for purely
private reasons, had supported Jack against _me_. On June 22nd, 1863,
Jack received an ovation in the shape of a special meeting of the
Royal Geographical Society, when the windows were broken in by the
eager crowd. By-and-by people began to cool their enthusiasm. Despite
all that Jack had done to me, I was the first to give flattering
opinions of the exploration, until the personal account Jack gave,
told me how little had been done. It was something to have passed over
three hundred and fifty untrodden miles, but it would take a great
deal more than that to settle the Nile problem. Jack tried to crush
all expressions of thought. A welcome to Jack was put forth in 1863
by _Blackwood's Magazine_, a periodical from which, for reasons _best
known to myself_, I never expected, nor wanted to receive justice. The
author of 'The Welcome,' who sought advertisement, wrote: 'We were the
first to satisfy ourselves with Captain Speke's geographical views.'
"In January, 1864, Jack's book appeared, 'The Discovery of the Sources
of the Nile.' It sold like wildfire at first, and then suddenly
dropped, like the stick of the firework. Then Messrs. Blackwood
brought out 'What led to the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile,'
and people were saying that 'non-discovery would be the fitting
term;' and the second stick fell from the rocket. I understood then
the danger to which I had exposed myself by _not travelling alone_,
when I perceived that a lake, seen only for twenty miles, at the
southern edge, was prolonged by mere guesswork to two hundred and
forty miles to the north--enough to stultify the whole Expedition.
Had we met at Bath, the discussion which _must_ have resulted would
have brought forth a searching scrutiny upon _both our Expeditions_,
and mine would have been found to have been a genuine article; as
it is, I am obliged to remain dumb upon many points upon which, if
Jack had been alive, I should certainly have spoken. After so long a
silence upon the subject, I am justified in drawing public attention
as to what was effected by _my_ Expedition, in which I was not only
unaided, but I may say hindered. I went into the country ignorant of
it, its language, trade, manners, and customs, preceded only by a
French naval officer, who was murdered almost directly he landed. My
friend Hamerton, the Consul at Zanzibar, was dying. Without money, or
support, or influence, lacking in the necessaries of life, I led the
most disorderly caravan that ever man could gather together, into the
heart of Eastern Africa, and discovered the Tanganyika and the Nyanza
Lakes. I brought home sufficient information to smooth the path of
all who chose to follow me. They had but to read 'The Lake Regions
of Central Africa' (2 vols., 1860), and the whole of Vol. XXXIII. of
the _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_ (Clowes and Sons,
1860), to know all about it. Dr. Beke called mine emphatically 'a
memorable expedition;' but, except for a few esteemed friends, my
work has been ignored and forgotten. _My_ labours rendered the road
easy for Jack and Captain Grant. I opened the line to Englishmen, and
they had but to follow me.
"I bring no charge against Jack of asserting what he does not believe.
In his Taunton speech he declared that, 'as the _real_ discoverer,
he had in 1857 hit the Nile on the head, and in 1863 drove it down
to the Mediterranean,' and he believed these words as firmly and as
unreasoningly as he did in his Victoria Nyanza Lake or his 'Mountains
of the Moon.' His peculiar habit of long brooding over thoughts and
memories, secreting them until some sudden impulse brought them forth,
may explain this great improbability. He could not grasp a fact; hence
his partial eclipse of the moon on the 5th and 6th of January, 1863,
which did not occur. A 'luxurious village' was a mass of dirty huts,
a 'king of kings' is a petty chief, a 'splendid port' is a display of
savagery. The French of those parts are barbarians, with little more
knowledge than their neighbours.
"Captain Grant also has never acknowledged the vast benefits which
the second Expedition derived from mine. I therefore mean to produce
a small volume, called 'The Nile Basin,'[2] in which I shall
distinctly deny that any 'misleading, by my instructions from the
Royal Geographical Society as to the position of the White Nile,'
left me unconscious of the vast importance of ascertaining the Rusizi
river's direction. The fact is Jack was deaf and almost blind, I was
paralytic, we were both helpless, and I may add penniless; we did our
best to reach it, and we failed.
"I must also again allude to Jack's 'Mountains of the Moon.' He
published a sketch-map in _Blackwood's Magazine_, September and
October, 1859, which showed a huge range estimated to rise six or
eight thousand feet high. At first the segment of a circle, it
gradually shaped itself into a colt's foot, and effectually cut off
all access from the Tanganyika to the Nile; then he owns in his book,
p. 263, to having built up these mountains on solely geographical
_reasonings_, deriving from the same source the Nile, the Congo, and
the Zambesi. Now, Captain Grant afterwards said that the mountains
were the work of the engraver, and that Jack was amused by them; but
if he had looked into the map-room of the Royal Geographical Society,
he would have found Jack's own map, showing the lunar horseshoe in all
its hideousness. Now, in the map done by Stanford, the Mountains of
the Moon are placed in the northern extremity of the Lake Tanganyika;
but in his _own_ map, published in his _journal_, he altered their
position, and inserted them round the western north-sides of the more
northern Lake Rusizi, which was manifestly a widening of the river;
and again he said, p. 324, 'It was a pity I did not change the course
I gave to the Maraungu river, _i.e._ making it an effluent, and not
an influent; I forgot my lesson, and omitted to do so;' and when he
inquires of the natives whether this river runs _into_ or _out_ of the
lake, he says, 'Because they all say it runs into the lake, _I_ am
quite convinced that it runs out of the lake,' which, to say the least
of it, is an extraordinary train of reasoning.
"Mr. Macqueen, an old and scientific geographer, was told by an Arab
who had been to Unyamwezi, 'It is well known by all the people there,
that the river which goes through Egypt takes its source and origin
from the Lake Tanganyika.' Dr. Beke, an old and scientific traveller,
quotes De Barros: 'The Nile has its origin in a great lake, the
Tanganyika, and after traversing many miles northwards, it enters a
very large lake which lies under the equator.' This would, I believe,
be the Bahr el Ghazal, or the Luta Nzigé. With regard to the levels,
the Tanganyika is allowed but 1844 feet, but during our exploration
the state of our vision would, I am sure, explain a greater difference
than the fraction of a degree. At Conduci, a harbour on the East
African coast, a common wooden bath instrument boiled at 2˙14° Fahr.:
this would give a difference of about 1000 feet. The Nyanza was made
3550 feet high by my expedition, that of Jack raised it to 3745 feet.
"Mr. Macqueen, F.R.G.S., author of the 'Geographical Survey of
Africa,' wrote a very able review on Jack's expedition with Captain
Grant, and I shall reprint it in the 'Nile Basin' from the _Morning
Advertiser_. In it he speaks in unmeasured terms about the cruelty of
the manner in which he crushed Consul Petherick with his ill-temper,
vanity, and jealousy, having used him in his own service all he
could. Petherick wrote: 'To add insult to injury, flesh and blood
cannot bear it, and, whilst not wishing to depreciate the labours of
others, I am determined to maintain my own;' and Mrs. Petherick wrote
an account of Jack's dining with them. They had a tremendously large
ham, which they had brought from England, cooked. They were to wait
with boats, well armed and provisioned, until Jack should appear at
Gondokoro. They waited long beyond their time, they spent their money,
they lost their health, they sacrificed their own trade, and Jack,
having helped himself to what he wanted, treated them _de haut en
bas_. Mrs. Petherick writes: 'We always meant to open this ham when we
met Speke. During dinner I endeavoured to prevail on Speke to accept
our aid, but he drawlingly replied, "I do not wish to recognize the
'succour-dodge.'"' She adds, 'The rest of the conversation I am not
well enough to repeat. I grow heartsick thinking of it after all our
toil. Never mind, his heartlessness will recoil upon him yet. I soon
left the table, and would never dine with them again.'
"But when Jack got home, and was in the full fling of his triumph,
his unfounded charges influenced the Government, who had employed
Petherick to convey assistance and advice to Jack, whose flippant
conduct caused this man and his wife to be thrown overboard without
pity, his private fortune wasted, his character as a merchant and a
public servant blasted, being also deprived of his Consulship. Mr.
Macqueen, in his paper, said that Speke left England on a great and
noble enterprise. He was patronised and supported by the British
Government, by the Royal Geographical Society, and the good wish and
sanguine hopes of the public. He says it is incredible that any
man, but especially a man who had gone a thousand miles to see the
position of the outlet of the Nile supposed to be in that spot, should
have remained five months within eight miles of it, without hearing
or seeing something certain about the great object of his search, or
have found some means to see it. He says, 'All that he brought back
was the sacrifice and ruin of zealous associates, first Burton, then
Petherick, Grant treated as a cipher, and a mass of intelligence, if
such it can be called, so muddled and confused that we do not believe
he understands it himself. We regret the miserable termination which
the second great African exploration has had; we lament the time that
has been lost, and the money that has been spent; but the only person
to blame for its poor results is Captain Speke himself.'"
The following five maps, brought up to 1867, are inserted with the kind
permission of the Royal Geographical Society, whose property they are.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[1] "Träume sind Schäume."
[2] Which he did in 1864.--I. B.