The Life of Sir Richard Burton Part 2

Here, as everywhere, there was more pistol practice, and the boys plumed themselves on having discovered a new vice--that of opium-eating, while their father made the house unendurable by the preparation of sulphuretted hydrogen and other highly-scented compounds. It was recognised, however, that these chemical experiments had at least the advantage of keeping Colonel Burton employed, and consequently of allowing everybody a little breathing time at each stopping-place. In the spring of 1840, Colonel Burton, Mr. Du Pre and the lads set out for Schinznach, in Switzerland, to drink the waters; and then the family returned to England in order that Richard and Edward might have a university education. Their father, although not quite certain as to their future, thought they were most adapted for holy orders. Their deportment was perfect, the ladies admired them, and their worst enemies, it seems, had never accused them of being "unorthodox in their views." Indeed, Mrs. Burton already pictured them mitred and croziered.

For a few weeks the budding bishops stayed with "Grandmama Baker," who with "Aunt Sarah" and "Aunt Georgiana," and Aunt Sarah's daughters, Sarah and Elisa, was summering at Hampstead; and filled up the time, which hung heavy on their hands, with gambling, drinking and love-making.

Chapter II. October 1840-April 1842, Oxford

6. Trinity College, October 1840.

Edward was then placed under a clergyman at Cambridge--The Rev. Mr.

Havergal, whose name, to that gentleman's indignation, the brothers turned into "a peculiar form of ridicule." [44] Richard was to go to Trinity College, Oxford. Neither, as we have seen, had been suitably prepared for a University career. Richard, who could speak fluently French, Italian, and modern Greek, did not know the Apostles' Creed, and what was even more unusual in a prospective clergyman, had never heard of the Thirty-nine Articles. He was struck with the architecture of the colleges, and much surprised at the meanness of the houses that surrounded them. He heretically calls the Isis 'a mere moat,' the Cherwell 'a ditch.' The brilliant dare-devil from Italy despised alike the raw, limitary, reputable, priggish undergraduates and the dull, snuffling, smug-looking, fussy dons. The torpor of academic dulness, indeed, was as irksome to Burton at Oxford as it had been to FitzGerald and Tennyson at Cambridge. After a little coaching from Dr. Ogle and Dr.

William Alexander Greenhill [45], he in October 1840, entered Trinity, where he has installed in "a couple of frowsy dog-holes" overlooking the garden of old Dr. Jenkins, the Master of Balliol.

"My reception at College," says Burton, "was not pleasant. I had grown a splendid moustache, which was the envy of all the boys abroad, and which all the advice of Drs. Ogle and Greenhill failed to make me remove. I declined to be shaved until formal orders were issued by the authorities of the college. For I had already formed strong ideas upon the Shaven Age of England, when her history, with some brilliant exceptions, such as Marlborough, Wellington and Nelson, was at its meanest." An undergraduate who laughed at him he challenged to fight a duel; and when he was reminded that Oxford "men" like to visit freshmen's rooms and play practical jokes, he stirred his fire, heated his poker red hot, and waited impatiently for callers. "The college teaching for which one was obliged to pay," says Burton, "was of the most worthless description.

Two hours a day were regularly wasted, and those who read for honours were obliged to choose and pay a private coach."

Another grievance was the constant bell ringing, there being so many churches and so many services both on week days and Sundays. Later, however, he discovered that it is possible to study, even at Oxford, if you plug your ears with cotton-wool soaked in glycerine. He spent his first months, not in studying, but in rowing, fencing, shooting the college rooks, and breaking the rules generally. Many of his pranks were at the expense of Dr. Jenkins, for whose st.u.r.dy common sense, however, he had sincere respect; and long after, in his Vikram and the Vampire, in which he satirises the tutors and gerund-grinders of Oxford, he paid him a compliment. [46]

Although he could not speak highly of the dons and undergraduates, he was forced to admit that in one respect the University out-distanced all other seats of learning. It produced a breed of bull-terriers of renowned pedigree which for their "beautiful build" were a joy to think about and a delirium to contemplate; and of one of these pugnacious brutes he soon became the proud possessor. That he got drunk himself and made his fellow collegians drunk he mentions quite casually, just as he mentions his other preparations for holy orders. If he walked out with his bull-terrier, it was generally to Bagley Wood, where a pretty, dizened gipsy girl named Selina told fortunes; and henceforward he took a keen interest in Selina's race.

He spent most of his time, however, in the fencing saloons of an Italian named Angelo and a Scotchman named Maclaren; and it was at Maclaren's he first met Alfred Bates Richards, who became a life friend. Richards, an undergraduate of Exeter, was a man of splendid physique. A giant in height and strength, he defeated all antagonists at boxing, but Burton mastered him with the foil and the broad-sword. Richards, who, like Burton, became a voluminous author [47] wrote long after, "I am sure, though Burton was brilliant, rather wild, and very popular, none of us foresaw his future greatness."

Another Oxford friend of Burton's was Tom Hughes, author of Tom Brown's Schooldays; the man who, in Burton's phrase, "taught boys not to be ashamed of being called good," [48] and he always revered the memory of his tutor, the Rev. Thomas Short. [49] Burton naturally made enemies as well as friends, but the most bitter was that imaginary person, Mrs.

Grundy. This lady, whom he always pictured as an exceedingly stout and square-looking body with capacious skirts, and a look of austere piety, had, he tells us, "just begun to reign" when he was at Oxford, although forty years had elapsed since she first made her bow [50], and set everybody asking, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" Mrs. Grundy had a great deal to say against Richard Burton, and, life through, he took a peculiar delight in affronting her. The good soul disapproved of Burton's "foreign ways" and his "expressed dislike to school and college life," she disapproved of much that he did in his prime, and when he came to translate The Arabian Nights she set up, and not without justification, a scream that is heard even to this day and in the remotest corners of the kingdom.

If Richard was miserable at Oxford, Edward was equally so at Cambridge.

After the polish and politeness of Italy, where they had been "such tremendous dandies and ladies' men," the "boorishness and shoppiness,"

of Oxford and Cambridge were well-nigh unendurable. Seizing an early opportunity, Richard ran over to Cambridge to visit his brother. "What is the matter, Edward," enquired Richard. "Why so downcast?" "Oh, d.i.c.k,"

moaned Edward, "I have fallen among epiciers. [51]"

7. Expelled, April 1842.

The dull life at Oxford was varied by the occasional visit of a mesmeric lecturer; and one youth caused peals of canorous laughter by walking round in a pretended mesmeric sleep and kissing the pretty daughters of the dons.

The only preacher Burton would listen to was Newman, then Vicar of St.

Mary's; of Pusey's interminable and prosy harangues he could not bear even to think. Although unable to bend himself to the drudgery of Oxford, Burton was already forming vast ambitions. He longed to excel as a linguist, and particularly in Oriental languages. Hence he began to teach himself Arabic; and got a little a.s.sistance from the Spanish scholar Don Pascual de Gayangos. When he asked the Regius Professor of Arabic to teach him, he was rebuffed with the information that it was the duty of a professor to teach a cla.s.s, not an individual. He spent the vacation with his Grandmother Baker in Great c.u.mberland Place, and he and his brother amused themselves about town with other roisterers, chiefly in gambling. Returned to Oxford he applied sedulously to the acquisition of foreign languages. He says, "I got a simple grammar and vocabulary, marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely necessary, and learnt them by heart.... I never worked more than a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the brain lost its freshness. After learning some three hundred words, easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy book-work and underlined every word that I wished to recollect.... Having finished my volume, I then carefully worked up the grammar minutiae, and I then chose some other book whose subject most interested me. The neck of the language was now broken, and progress was rapid. If I came across a new sound, like the Arabic Ghayn, I trained my tongue to it by repeating it so many thousand times a day. When I read, I invariably read out loud, so that the ear might aid memory. I was delighted with the most difficult characters, Chinese and Cuneiform, because I felt that they impressed themselves more strongly upon the eye than the eternal Roman letters." [52] Such remarks from the man who became the first linguist of his day are well worth remembering. For p.r.o.nouncing Latin words the "Roman way" he was ridiculed, but he lived long enough to see this p.r.o.nunciation adopted in all our schools. The long vacation of 1841 was spent at Wiesbaden with his father and mother. Here again the chief delights of Richard and his brother were gambling and fencing; and when tired of Wiesbaden they wandered about the country, visiting among other places Heidelberg and Mannheim. Once more Richard importuned his father to let him leave Oxford and enter the army, but Colonel Burton, who still considered his son peculiarly fitted for the church, was not to be moved. Upon his return to England, however, Burton resolved to take the matter into his own hands. He laid his plans, and presently--in April 1842--an opportunity offered.

The Oxford races of that year were being looked forward to with exceptional interest because of the antic.i.p.ated presence of a noted steeplechaser named Oliver, but at the last moment the college authorities forbade the undergraduates to attend them.

Burton, however, and some other lawless spirits resolved to go all the same, and a tandem conveyed them from the rear of Worcester College to the race meeting. Next morning the culprits were brought before the college dignitaries; but the dons having lectured Burton, he began lecturing them--concluding with the observation that young men ought not to be treated like children. As a consequence, while the other offenders were merely rusticated, Burton was expelled. [53] He made a ceremonious bow, and retired "stung with a sense of injustice," though where the injustice comes in, it is difficult to see. His departure from Oxford was characteristic. He and Anderson of Oriel, one of the other offenders, hired a tandem in which they placed their luggage, and then with "a cantering leader and a high-trotting shaft horse" they rode through the High Street, and so on to London, Burton artistically performing upon a yard of tin trumpet, waving adieux to his friends and kissing his hands to the shop girls. About the same time Edward, also for insubordination, had to leave Cambridge. Thus Burton got his own way, but he long afterwards told his sister, Lady Stisted, that beneath all his bravado there lay a deep sense of regret that such a course had been necessary.

Chapter III. April 1842-20th February 1847, Sind

8. To Bombay, 18th June 1842.

On his arrival in London, Burton, in order to have an hour or two of peace, coolly told his people that he had been given an extra vacation, "as a reward for winning a double first." Then occurred a quite un-looked-for sequel. His father insisted on giving a dinner in honour of the success, and Burton, unwillingly enough, became the hero of the moment. At table, however, a remark from one of the guests revealed the precise truth--with the result of an unpleasant scene; but eventually it was deemed advisable to let Burton have his own way and exchange the surplice for the sword. The Indian Service having been selected, a commission was purchased for 500, and Burton presently found himself Ensign to the 18th Regiment, Bombay Native Infantry. Delirious with joy, he applied himself vigorously to Hindustani under a dirty, smoky Scotch linguist, named Duncan Forbes. While thus employed he made the acquaintance of two persons who just them enjoyed a remarkable reputation, namely John Varley [54], the water colour painter and occultist, and the Rev. Robert Montgomery. [55] An artist of undoubted genius, Varley usually got fair prices for his pictures, but the expenses of a numerous family kept him miserably poor. Then he took to "judicial astrology," and eventually made it a kind of second profession. Curious to say, some of his predictions came true, and thanks to this freak of fate he obtained more fame from his horoscopes than from his canva.s.ses. He "prognosticated," says Burton, "that I was to become a great astrologer." Straightway Burton buried himself in astrological and cabalistic books [56], studied the uncanny arts, and became learned in "dark spells and devilish enginery," but his own prophecies generally proved to be of the Moseilima type; that is to say, the opposite invariably happened--a fatality that pursued him to the end of life. The Rev. Robert Montgomery, with whom also he became acquainted, was the fashionable preacher and author whom Macaulay cudgelled so pitilessly in the Edinburgh Review. Burton's aunts, Sarah and Georgiana, [57] who went with the crowd to his chapel, ranked the author of "Satan, a Poem," rather above Shakespeare, and probably few men have received higher encomiums or a greater number of wool-work slippers.

Having been sworn in at the East India House, Burton went down to Greenwich, whence on 18th June, 1842, after being "duly wept over," he, in company with his beautifully built bull-terrier of renowned pedigree, set sail for Bombay. He divided his time during the voyage, which lasted four months, between studying Hindustani and taking part in the quarrels of the crew. This was the year of the murder of Sir William Macnaughten by the Afghans and the disastrous retreat of the British from Cabul; consequently the first request of the voyagers on reaching Bombay (28th October 1842) was for news about Afghanistan. They learnt that the prestige of the British arms had been restored by Pollack, and that the campaign was ended.

To Burton, who had counted on being sent to the front, this was a burning disappointment. He found Bombay marvellously picturesque, with its crowds of people from all parts of the world, but before many days had pa.s.sed he fell ill and had to be transferred to the Sanitarium, where he made the acquaintance of an old Pa.r.s.ee priest who a.s.sisted him in his Hindustani. Even in these early days we find him collecting material of the kind that was to be utilised in his Arabian Nights. He was struck, for example, with the fine hedges of henna whose powerful and distinctive odour loaded the atmosphere; and with the immense numbers of ravenous kites and grey-headed crows that swooped down on dead and even dying animals.

9. Baroda. The Bubu.

After six weeks' rest, having received orders to join his regiment, which was then stationed at Baroda, he engaged some Goanese servants and made the voyage thither in a small vessel called a pattymar. It took them four days to march from the Tankaria-Bunder mudbank, where they landed, to Baroda; and Burton thus graphically describes the scenery through which they pa.s.sed. "The ground, rich black earth... was covered with vivid, leek-like, verdigris green. The little villages, with their leafy huts, were surrounded and protected by hedge milk bush, the colour of emeralds. A light veil, as of Damascene silver, hung over each settlement, and the magnificent trees were tipped by peac.o.c.ks screaming their good-night to the son." The sharp bark of the monkey mingled with the bray of the conch. Arrived at Baroda, he lodged himself in a bungalow, and spent his time alternately there with his books and on the drill ground. He threw himself into his studies with an ardour scarcely credible--devoting twelve hours a day to Hindustani, and outwearying two munshis.

At that time it was quite the custom for the officers, married as well as single, to form irregular unions with the Hindu women. Every individual had his Bubu; consequently half-caste children were not uncommon; but Burton was of opinion that this manner of life had advantages as well as disadvantages. It connected, he says, "the white stranger with the country and its people, gave him an interest in their manners and customs, and taught him thoroughly well their language."

Like the rest, Burton had his Bubu. Still, he was no voluptuary.

Towering ambition, enthusiasm, and pa.s.sion for hard work trampled down all meaner instincts. Languages, not amours, were his aspiration, and his mind ran on grammar books rather than ghazels; though he confesses to having given whole days and nights to the tender pages of Euclid.

Indeed, he was of a cold nature, and Plutarch's remark about Alexander applies equally to him: "For though otherwise he was very hot and hasty, yet was he hardly moved with l.u.s.t or pleasure of the body." When the officers were not on the drill ground or philandering with their dusky loves, they amused themselves shooting the black buck, tigers, and the countless birds with which the neighbourhood abounded. The dances of the aphish-looking Nautch girls, dressed though they were in magnificent brocades, gave Burton disgust rather than pleasure. The Gaikwar, whose state processions were gorgeous to a wonder, occasionally inaugurated spectacles like those of the old Roman arena, and we hear of fights between various wild animals. "c.o.c.king" was universal, and Burton, who as a lad had patronised this cruel sport, himself kept a fighter--"Bhujang"--of which he speaks affectionately, as one might of an only child. The account of the great fight between Bhujang and the fancy of a certain Mr. Ahmed Khan, which took place one evening "after prayers," may be read by those who have a taste for such matters in Burton's book Sind Revisited. [58] When Bhujang died, Burton gave it almost Christian burial near his bungalow, and the facetious enquired whether the little mound was not "a baby's grave."

His hero was the eagle-faced little veteran and despot, Sir Charles Napier, generally known from his Jewish look as "f.a.gin," and from his irascibility as "The Devil's Brother," and after the war with Sind, the chief event of which was the battle of Meeanee (February 21st), where Sir Charles and Major Outram defeated the Ameer, his admiration grew almost to worship; though he did not actually see his hero till some months later. According to Punch the news of the battle was transmitted to headquarters in one word: "Peccavi." A quarrel then broke out between the great English leaders, and Western India was divided into the two opposing camps of Outramists and Napierists, Burton, of course, siding with the latter. In April, Burton returned to Bombay to present himself for examination in Hindustani, and having pa.s.sed with honour [59]

he returned to Baroda, where he experienced all the inconveniences attendant on the south-west monsoon. The rain fell in cataracts. Night and day he lay or sat in a wet skin; the air was alive with ants and other winged horrors, which settled on both food and drink, while the dust storms were so dense that candles had to be burned in mid-day.

However he applied himself vigorously to Gujarati [60], the language of the country, and also took lessons in Sanskrit.

"I soon," he says, "became as well acquainted as a stranger can with the practice of Hinduism. I carefully read up Ward, Moor, and the publications of the Asiatic Society... and eventually my Hindu teacher officially allowed me to wear the Brahminical thread." He learnt some of the Hindu text books by heart, including the Tota-kahani [61], which gave him a taste for "parrot books," [62] on which he became an authority; while the study of the Baital-Pachisi led to his writing Vikram and the Vampire. [63] All this application caused his fellow officers to call him "The White n.i.g.g.e.r."

Although, in after years, Burton often made bitter attacks on Christianity, and wrote most scathingly against the Roman Catholic priesthood, and the cen.o.bitic life of the monks, yet at times he had certain sympathies with Roman Catholicism. Thus at Baroda, instead of attending the services of the garrison chaplain, he sat under the pleasant Goanese priest who preached to the camp servants; but he did not call himself a Catholic. In August he visited Bombay to be examined in Gujarati; and having pa.s.sed with distinction, he once more returned to Baroda--just in time to join in the farewell revels of his regiment, which was ordered to Sind.

10. Karachi. Love of Disguise.

On board the Semiramis, in which the voyage was performed, he made the acquaintance of Captain Scott, nephew of the novelist--a handsome man "with yellow hair and beard," and friendship followed. Both were fond of ancient history and romance, and Burton, who could speak Italian fluently and had knowledge of the ca.n.a.lization of the Po Valley, was able to render Scott, whose business was the surveyal of Sind, the precise a.s.sistance he just then required. Burton also formed a friendship with Dr. John Steinhauser, afterwards surgeon at Aden. Then, too, it was at Karachi that he first saw his hero, Sir Charles Napier.

Though his ferocious temper repelled some, and his Rabelaisisms and kindred witticisms others, Sir Charles won the admiration and esteem of almost all who knew him. It was from him, to some extent, that Burton acquired the taste, afterwards so extraordinarily developed for erotic, esoteric and other curious knowledge. Napier intensely hated the East India Company, as the champions of his detested rival, Major Outram, and customarily spoke of them contemptuously as the "Twenty-four kings of Leadenhall Street," while Burton on his part felt little respect for the effete and maundering body whose uniform he wore and whose pay he drew.

Karachi [64], then not much better than a big village, was surrounded by walls which were perforated with "nostril holes," for pouring boiling water through in times of siege. There were narrow lanes, but no streets--the only open place being a miserable bazaar; while owing to the absence of sewers the stench was at times unendurable. Near the town was a great shallow artificial pond which abounded in huge sleepy crocodiles, sacred animals which were tended by a holy fakir, and one of Burton's amus.e.m.e.nts was to worry these creatures with his bull terrier.

Tired of that pastime, he would muzzle a crocodile by means of a fowl fastened to a hook at the end of a rope, and then jump on to its back and take a zig-zag ride. [65] The feat of his friend, Lieutenant Beresford, of the 86th, however, was more daring even than that. Here and there in the pond were islets of rank gra.s.s, and one day noticing that the crocodiles and islets made a line across the pond, he took a run and hopped from one crocodile's back on to another or an islet until he reached the opposite side, though many a pair of huge jaws snapped angrily as he pa.s.sed.