The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
blast, roaring and sweeping round the walls and over the roofs of the houses with the frantic violence of a typhoon. There is a horror in the sound, and then the prospect from the windows! It reminds one of Firdausi's vast idea that one layer has been trampled off earth and added to the coats of the firmament. You close every aperture and inlet, in the hope of escaping the most distressing part of the phenomenon. Save yourself the trouble, all such measures are useless. The finer particles with which the atmosphere is laden would pass without difficulty through the eye of a needle; judge what comfortable thoroughfares they must find the chinks of these warped doors and the crannies of the puttyless munnions.
"It seems as though the dust recognized in our persons kindred matter. Our heads are powdered over in five minutes; our eyes, unless we sit with closed lids, feel as if a dash of cayenne had been administered to them; we sneeze like schoolboys after a first pinch of 'blackguard;' our epidermises are grittier than a loaf of provincial French bread, and washing would only be a mockery of resisting the irremediable evil.
"Now, Mr. Bull, if you wish to let your friends and old cronies at home see something of the produce of the East, call for a lighted candle, and sit down to compose an 'overland letter.' It will take you at least two hours and a half to finish the four pages, as the pen becomes clogged, and the paper covered every few minutes; moreover, your spectacles require wiping at least as often as your quill does. By the time the missive comes to hand it will contain a neat little cake of Indus mud and Scinde sand moulded in the form of paper. Tell Mrs. Bull that you went without your tiffin—lunch I mean—that you tried to sleep, but the novel sensation of being powdered all over made the attempt an abortive one—that it is impossible to cook during a dust-storm—and that you are in for a modification of your favourite 'intramural sepulture,' if the gale continues much longer. However, your days are safe enough; the wind will probably fall about five or six in the afternoon—it is rare that it does not go down with the sun—and even should it continue during the night, it will be a farce compared to what we are enduring now."
He passes in Maharátta.
There was great excitement on June 20th, 1844, when the Sepoys of the 64th Regiment mutinied at Shikapur and beat their officers. The station was commanded by Major-General Hunter, C.B. Most of his experience was in studs. When campaigning with Sir Charles Napier, the latter sent to him for something to eat, and the reply was a ham and a round of press beef. The "devil's brother," as the Sindís called him, cut a slice out of the ham and another out of the beef, and then sent the remainder back to the owner. On June 27th a general order established vernacular examination, making it every officer's duty to learn something more or less of the language. In September I went down to Bombay to pass an examination in Maharátta, and on October 15th I distanced some six competitors.
Richard produced another Chapter on India when he was sick, in 1888, for Mr. Hitchman, which is the one the biographer used, having objected to some of the other parts, whilst I have used the original manuscript just as it was given to me in 1876.
1. The general orders of the Commander-in-Chief—
"To rank from date of sailing from Gravesend to the ship by which they proceeded in the following order, viz.:—
| "Charles Thompson, per barque John Knox | June 18, 1842. |
| Richard Francis Burton, per barque John Knox | June 18, 1842. |
| The latter appointed to the 14th Regiment B.N.I. | Sept. 24, 1842. |
| The latter transferred to 18th B.N.I. | Oct. 25, 1842. |
| No. 106, date of arrival at Bombay | Oct. 28, 1842." |
2. He was assistant garrison surgeon, serving under Superintendent Surgeon A. C. Kane. The latter's name evidently subjected him to a variety of small witticisms, especially when he was called in to treat a certain A. Bell.
3. Amongst natives, caste is so powerful in India that it even affects Mlenchha, or outcast races.
4. For description of pattymar, see "Goa and Blue Mountains," by R. F. Burton.
5. Colonel Yule gives an illustration of these gates in his second volume of "Marco Polo."
6. I was at this time a child in the schoolroom; we had no knowledge of each other's existence; I therefore had no part in the matter. He did not tell me of it until we had been married for some time, as he wished, he said, to see if he was paramount in my mind, and that I would make the sacrifice for him, which was necessary for our marriage later on. He then said, "that if a man had a religion, it must be the Catholic; it was the religion of a gentleman—a terrible religion for a man of the world to live in, but a good one to die in." I have often wondered that this step never excited any comment; he wrote of it freely; he spoke of it freely until his latter years; but as he did not like me to do so, I never did. Nobody ever dared to question his action till after he was dead; but when the master-mind, the witty tongue was powerless, when the scathing pen the strong right sword-arm could no longer wield, people fell foul of me for speaking of it as a simple and natural fact. I never called him a devout practical Catholic; I only said he was received into the Church, and that he meant to have its rites at the time of his death.—I. B.
CHAPTER VII.
THE REMINISCENCES WRITTEN FOR MR. HITCHMAN IN 1888—INDIA.
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