54. Down the Sao Francisco.
The next event was a canoe journey which Burton made alone down the river Sao Francisco from its source to the falls
of Paulo Affonso—and then on to the sea, a distance of 1500 miles—an astounding feat even for him. During these adventures a stanza in his own unpublished version of Camoens constantly cheered him:
"Amid such scenes with danger fraught and pain
Serving the fiery spirit more to flame,
Who woos bright honour, he shall ever win
A true nobility, a deathless fame:
Not they who love to lean, unjustly vain,
Upon the ancestral trunk's departed claim;
Nor they reclining on the gilded beds
Where Moscow's zebeline downy softness spreads." [216]
Indeed he still continued, at all times of doubt and despondency, to turn to this beloved poet; and always found something to encourage.
55. In Paraguay. August 15th to September 15th 1868. April 4th to April 18th 1869.
The year before his arrival in Santos a terrible war had broken out between Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina on the one side and Paraguay on the other; the Paraguayan dictator Lopez II. had been defeated in many battles and Paraguay so long, thanks to the Jesuits and Dr. Francia, a thriving country, was gradually being reduced to ruin. Tired of Santos, which was out of the world and led to nothing, Burton in July 1868 sent in his resignation. Mrs. Burton at once proceeded to England, but before following her, Burton at the request of the Foreign Office, travelled through various parts of South America in order to report the state of the war. He visited Paraguay twice, and after the second journey made his way across the continent to Arica in Peru, whence he took ship to London via the Straits of Magellan. [217] During part of the voyage he had as fellow traveller Arthur Orton, the Tichborne claimant. As both had spent their early boyhood at Elstree they could had they so wished have compared notes, but we may be sure Mr. Orton preserved on that subject a discreet silence. The war terminated in March 1870, after the death of Lopez II. at the battle of Aquidaban. Four-fifths of the population of Paraguay had perished by sword or famine.