The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
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.
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.