The morning call., 1894-01-14
NOTABLE MAN.
The Career of Captain Sir
= Richard Burton.
SOLDIER, TRAVELLER, AUTHOR
His Wonderful Adventures Among
-. the Arabs-The Journey
to Mecca.

: .pen of Lady Burton, puOllSheu oy tue
-. Appletons, present the life of her lllustrl-
: Gus husband in a more complete form than
=: had previously been given to readers. out
, it is not altogether satisfactory WORK.
=: Her husband is too obviously idolZed. and
!: we imagine that the man must have other
sides TO his nature only imperfectly re-
vealed by his wife. Some other bographer
will in time take up this fascinating sub
ject. What the man did is well and forci-
:sbly shown in The library OF volumes of
which he is the author. but bis private
:; and inner life is now partially revealed.
and great must be the admiration evoked
=: by the study of so singular career.
= - Captain Sir Richard Burton may be
described as one of the very remark
a.nle men of this century. He was
: great traveller, whose life was a per-
petual round of adventure; a linguist
:+wbo knew twenty-nine tongues, besides
dialects - almost as many tongues as
MeUofanti or Elhu Burritt, and made
IN linitely greater use of them; litterateur
:: nf rare gifts of expression and thought,
having extraordinary range of subject in
'>nfstoTy. criticism, archaeology, philolOgy,
lore of every kind about persons and
races, and their customs, beliefs and char
#Gcter, and withaI n man in whom the
. had the talent to command and inspire en-
= IhuSlaSm, and who delighted in deeds OF
bravery ana daring; diplomatist whose
: cnfetsdemerlt was too much candor and
: 0utspoken courage; restless mortal
whose career was one lnceSsant activity
and strain of work: man, ID brief, who
did some things like Napoleon or Nelson,
that never were done before and probably
:; never will be done again
BurtOn's feats of going as a pilgrim to
NJ ~ 70 os,x-o II
: ard his monumental translation of the
- Arabian Nights, entitle him to the fame
tnat few can claim in this century. His
journey 10 Tanganyika, " hich he first de-
scrlbed, was the prelude to the exploiting
of Africa, with which we are familiar in our
time, and had he been encouraged and
> supported by the English Government and
The Royal Geographical Society, most Of
the honOrS which fell to Livingstone,
-Speke, Grant, Baker and Stanley might
have been his. Wherever lie went, in
West Africa, Palestine, North and South
=. america, India, Arabia and Abyssinia,
this man did great service as a geographer
and close observer OF peoples and their
habits and customs.
He was traveller who could lose his
own identity and become as one of the
people among whom he was sojouruing,
and thus could probe their i8nermost life.
He could be such an ARAB that The tribes
of Bedawi looked to him as one TT to lead
from the Arabian Nights" He could De
d Neapolitan, using their patois; a gypsy,
who was accepted as one of the roaming !
brotherhood; Buddhist, an Afghan, a
: Persian. an Oriental Of a dozen types, so
: aCcus omed to act IN the character he as
:: sumed as to be disguised beyond detection
equally Versed IN the mysteries of the
: Oriental religions and Isamism and !
j Judaism, as we'll as Catholicism. lie was
cosmopolitan in a very broad sense-at |
home in roaming, yet constantly studiOus |
and puTposetul; scornlEg mere success
:. which was based on the greed of money,
and running into the opposite extreme of !
indifference TO wealth by being generous,
reckless, headstrong aud craftless in deal
= ing with the world and especially those
who could advance his fortune. AS man
Of action and sagacity he was fitted to rule
and lead, but in diplomacy he was too un-
conventional and straightforward for gov
ernment bureaus, accustomed to shift
ness and dissimulatiOD. Burton had sue
cess but also a great deal Of failure. One
!: need not marvel at the sunshine and
shadow. Contrasts were characteristic of
the man.
In the photographed outline of his
early life presented by Mrs. Burton IN her
recently published work the geneaogy of
the BurtOns forms fascinating chapter
The grandfather and his brother settled in
Ireland. both belonging to the church and
the latter being Bishop of KIllala. 1t was
"
grandmother, who was partly French,
Burton carried his blood relationship to
the MOntmorencys and DrelinCourts, and to
Louis XIV. who had a morganatic mar
Tlage with the Huguenot Countess of
: MOntmOrency. HIS father, Joseph Meter
Vile Burton, was Northumberland in the
Thirty-siXth Regiment and saw service in
Sicily under Sir John Moore, and his
mother was Miss Beckwit Baker of Not
tlnghamshire. who was related to the
~ Il, s1.E,t
Burton saws his mother was plain and that,
''just like Proyy,'' the children took after
heT Whereat Mrs. Burton says in foot
note, Richard was the handsomeSt and
most attractive man / have ever SEEN" and
" she adds that he grew handsOmer every
year Of his life. The mother had for
tune of S150O00. but every farthng was
tied uD fortunately so that the father, who
was Of a speculative turn. could not spend
it on the Stock Exchange.
Burton was born in Herts, England, in
1921. The father was obliged to leave the
army on half pay, because he would not
give evidence against Queen Caroline,
whom he had known in Genoa, There
after the family led very roaming life in
Europe. When Richard was months old
the family moved to Tours, in the Tour
aine country, and there be passed his
boyhood. He had an early introduction
TO the classics. for he began Latin al 3
and Greek at 4. short period of school
ing IN England resulted so badly that Bur
ton pere determined to rear his children
abroad, and be moved about in France,
Switzerland and Italy. and while depend
ing upon tutors as formal instructors the
children picked up much of their own edu-
cation in the tongues and dialects of
Europe, wherever they went. In Naples
Richard and his brother learned to eat
macaroni and to chaff like laZZaroni, and
in Pau they learned the Bearnais dialect,
and also ProveHcale. They became very
expert fencers and took sword training
with masters whenever they got an oppor-
tunitv.
A friend of the family in England tested
A.. the brothers in classics with this result:
"The professor put me through my PAGES
in Virgil andIHomer and found me lament
aoly deficient l did not even know who
Isis wasI Worse STILL it was found out
that /, who spoke French and Italian and
their dialects ike a native. who had
considerable smatlering of BearDais, Span
ism and Provencale, barely knew the
Lords Prayer. broke down 10 the Apostles
Greed and had never heard of the Thirty