The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
Reminiscences." He abhorred difference of opinion, and was furious with me for assuring him that "Habash" and "Abyssinia" are by no means equivalent and synonymous terms; he had been enlightening the "Porte" with information that Turkey had never held a foot of ground in "Habash," when the Turk, as my visit to Harar showed, had been an occupant, well hated, as he was well known. And when in a rage he was not pleasant; his eyes flashed fury, his venerable locks seemed to rise like the quills of a fretful porcupine, he would rush round the room like a lean maniac using frightful language—in fact, "langwidge," as the sailor hath it—with his old dressing-gown working hard to keep pace with him, and when the fit was at its worst, he would shake his fist in the offender's face.
The famous Ambassador struck me as a weak, stiff-necked, and violent old man, whose strength physically was in his obstinate chin, together with a "pursed-up mouth and beak in a pet," and morally in an exaggerated "respectability," iron-bound prejudices, and profound self-esteem. He had also a firm respect for rank and the divine right of Kings; witness his rage, when the young naval lieutenant, Prince of Leiningen, was ordered by a superior officer to "swab decks." He lived long enough to repent the last step of his official life. After peace was concluded, a visit to the Crimea greatly disgusted him. With a kind of bastard repentance, he quoted John Bright and the Peace Party in his sorrow at having brought about a Campaign whose horrors contrasted so miserably with its promised advantages.
In the next Russian-Turkish War he remembered that some ten thousand English lives and £80,000,000 had been sacrificed to humble Russia, whose genius and heroism had raised her so high in the opinion of Europe, only to serve the selfish ends of Louis Napoleon, to set up Turkey and the Sultan ("Humpty-dumpty," who refused to be set up), and to humour the grudges of two rancorous old men. So he carefully preached non-intervention to England. He took his seat in the House of Lords, but spoke little, and when he spoke he mostly broke down. Of his literary failures I have already spoken. Yet this was the "Great Eltchi" of Eöthen, a man who gained a prodigious name in Europe, chiefly by living out of it.
After seeing all that was to be seen at Therapia and Constantinople, I embarked on an Austrian Lloyd steamer, and ran down to the Dardanelles, then the head-quarters of the Bashi-Bazouks. The little town shared in the factitious importance of Gallipoli, and other places more or less useful during the war; it had two Pashas, Civil and Military, with a large body of Nizam or Regulars, whilst the hillsides to the north were dotted with the white tents of the Irregulars. General Beatson had secured fair quarters near the old windmills, and there had established himself with his wife and daughters. I at once recognized my old Boulogne friend, although slightly disguised by uniform. He looked like a man of fifty-five, with bluff face and burly figure, and probably grey hair became him better than black. He always rode English chargers of good blood, and altogether his presence was highly effective.
There had been much silly laughing at Constantinople, especially amongst the grinning idiot tribe, about his gold coat, which was said to stand upright by force of embroidery. But here he was perfectly right, and his critics perfectly wrong. He had learnt by many years' service to recognize the importance of show and splendour when dealing with Easterns. And no one had criticised the splendid Skinner or General Jacob of the Sind Horse, for wearing a silver helmet and a diamond-studded sabretache. General Beatson had served thirty-five years in the Bengal army, and was one of the few amongst his contemporaries who had campaigned in Europe during the long peace which followed the long war. In his subaltern days he had volunteered into the Spanish Legion, under the Commander, General Sir de Lacy Evans. After some hard fighting there, and seeing not a few adventures, he had returned to India. When the Crimean War broke out he went to Head-quarters at once, and, for the mere fun of the thing, joined in the Heavy Cavalry charge.
In October, 1854, the Duke of Newcastle, then Minister of War, addressed him officially, directing him to organize a Corps of Bashi-Bazouks, not exceeding in number four thousand, who were to be independent of the Turkish Contingent, consisting of twenty-five thousand Regulars under General Vivian. So, unfortunately for himself, he had made the Dardanelles his Head-quarters, and there he seemed to be settled with his wife and family. Mrs. Beatson was a quiet-looking little woman, who was reputed to rule her spouse with a rod of iron in a velvet case; and the two daughters were charming girls who seemed to have been born on horseback, and who delighted in setting their terriers at timid aides-de-camp, and teaching their skittish little Turkish nags to lash out at them when within kicking distance. General Beatson at once introduced me to his Staff and officers, amongst whom I found some most companionable comrades. There were two ex-Guardsmen, poor Charles Wemyss, who died years after, chronically impecunious, in London, and Major Lennox-Berkeley, who is still living. Of the Home army were Lieut.-Colonel Morgan, ex-cavalry man, and Major Synge. The Indian army had contributed Brigadier-General De Renzi, Brett, Hayman, Money, Grierson, and others. Sankey, whom I had known in Egypt, and whose family I had met at Malta, had been gazetted as lieutenant-colonel. There was also poor Blakeley of the Gun, who afterwards died so unhappily of yellow fever at Chorillos, in Perú.
But there were unfortunately black sheep among the number. Lieut.-Colonel Fardella had only the disadvantage of being a Sicilian, but Lieut.-Colonel Giraud, the head interpreter, was a Smyrniote and a Levantine of the very worst description, and, worse still, there was a Lieut.-Colonel O'Reilly, whose antecedents and subsequents were equally bad. He had begun as a lance-corporal in one of her Majesty's regiments, which he had left under discreditable circumstances. In the Bashi-Bazouks he joined a faction against General Beatson, and when the war was over he openly became a Mussulman, and entered the Turkish service. He left the worst of reputations between Constantinople and Marocco, and Englishmen had the best reason to be ashamed of him. In subsequent years to the Massacre of Damascus, the English Government had chosen out Fuad Pasha, a witty, unscrupulous, and over-clever Turk, and proposed him as permanent Governor-General of the Holy Land, or to govern in a semi-independent position, like that of the Khedive of Egypt.
No choice could be worse, except that of the French, who favoured with even more inaptitude, by way of a rival candidate, their Algerian captive, the Emir Abd el Kadir, one of the most high-minded, religious, and honourable of men, who was utterly unfit to cope with Turkish roguery and Syrian rascaldom. The project fell through, but till his last day Fuad Pasha never lost sight of it, and kept up putting in an appearance, by causing perpetual troubles amongst the Bedawi and the Druzes.
This man O'Reilly was one of his many tools, and at last, when he had brought about against the Turkish Government an absurd revolt of naked Arabs, upon the borders of the Hamah Desert, he was taken prisoner and carried before Rashíd Pasha, then the Governor-General, and in his supplications for pardon he had the meanness to kneel down and kiss the Turk's foot.
But worse still was the position of the affairs which met my eyes at the Dardanelles. Everything had combined to crush our force of Irregulars. First, there was the Greek faction, who naturally hated the English, and adored the Russians, and directed all the national genius to making the foreigners fail. Their example was followed by the Jews, many of them wealthy merchants at the Dardanelles, who in those days, before the Juden-hetze, loved and believed in Russia and had scanty confidence in England. The two Turkish pashas were exceedingly displeased to see an Imperium in Imperio, and did their best to breed disturbance between their Regulars and the English Irregulars. They were stirred up by the German Engineers, who were employed upon the fortifications of the Dardanelles, and who strongly inoculated them with the idea that France and England aimed at nothing less than annexation.
Hence the Pashas not only fomented every disturbance, but they supplied deserters with passports and safe-conducts. The French played the friendly-foelike party; the envy, jealousy, and malice of the Gr-r-r-ande Nation had been stirred to the very depths by the failure of their Algerine General Yousouf in organizing a corps of Irregulars, and they saw with displeasure and disgust that an Englishman was going to succeed. Accordingly Battus, their wretched little French Consul for the Dardanelles, was directed to pack the local Press at Constantinople (which was almost wholly in the French interests) with the falsest and foulest scandals. He had secured the services of the Journal de Constantinople, which General Beatson had with characteristic carelessness neglected to square, and his cunningly concocted scandals found their way not only into the Parisian, but even into the London Press.
But