During his delightful trip, which completely recovered his health, he fell in with the Tichborne Claimant, and travelled with him for a week, and never having seen the real man, and as he appeared very gentlemanly, and when he gambled, lost his money and won it without any emotion, he concluded that he was the real thing until he came home. He acquired all the history of the ins and outs of the war, and later produced his book on Paraguay—"Letters from the Battle-Fields of Paraguay," which did not see the light till 1870.
I had, as usual, all my work cut out for me. First I was to try and work the Iporanga mines in London, whole mountains of lead and quicksilver, also gold and copper (twenty-eight square miles). I was to bring out his "Highlands of Brazil," the "Journey of Lacerda," and a second edition of "Mecca," "Uruguay;" "Iracema," and "Manoel de Moraes."
I also had a small adventure on the way home at Bahía. I went ashore with a friend from the ship to dine with "Charley Williams," my husband's friend. He was very fond of keeping a menagerie; besides having his garden stocked with wild beasts, his hall contained cages of snakes, amongst them two rattlesnakes. After we had dined in his chacara, he insisted on showing me his snakes, and he quietly took one up (out of its cage) near its head. He was used to doing this, but whether he was agitated or what I cannot say, but the snake slipped through his hand, and bit him on the wrist. The friend had bolted upstairs the moment the cage was opened; Mr. Williams just had time to dash it back into the cage and lock it, and staggered against the wall.
Richard had always taught me how to be ready on such emergencies travelling up the country, but the only thing in the hall was a box of wooden lucifer-matches, so I struck them one after another, and kept cramming them into the mark on his wrist made by the snake till I had made a regular little hole. I tied my handkerchief tightly above it, called out loudly for the servants, told them what had happened, and to go and get a bottle of whisky. By degrees I got the whole bottle down his throat, and then my friend and I and the negroes kept walking him up and down for about three hours. We then allowed him to go to bed, and next morning he was no worse for what had happened. I think the bite must have been very feeble not to have done more harm—probably the snake had only time to graze the skin; anyway, the dear old man was so pleased, he brought me home a riding-whip of solid silver up to the lash, which I keep now as a memento.
We had a bad sea and, strong trade winds most of the way; the ship, was horribly lively off Finisterre, and the hatches down. We found, it bitterly cold in August, and on the 1st of September my family met me at Southampton. They were then all puffing and panting and fanning themselves on account of the "tropical weather," as they called it, and I found it so bitterly cold, I had to have several blankets and a big fire, showing the difference of the climates. There was great amusement when my sisters came on board. I took them to my cabin, which was considered the best in the ship. The Captain was showing it off, when one of them, who had never been, at sea in her life, turned round to me and said, "Now, Isabel, do you really mean to say that you have lived in that housemaid's closet for a month, and slept on that shelf?" The Captain laughed. "Really, ladies," he said, "this is considered a very swell ship, and everybody fights for that cabin."
Lord Derby gives Richard Damascus.
I did my work well, carrying out everything according to Richard's directions, and Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, whose sound sense and great judgment knew exactly the man to suit the post, and the post to suit the man, gave him the long-coveted Consulship of Damascus, and was brave enough not to heed the jealousy and spite which did its best to prevent his being allowed to take the post. The Missionaries raised up their heads on the one side, and the people who wanted it for their friends, did all they could to persuade Lord Stanley that it would displease the Moslems, because he had been to Mecca. Richard was delighted when he got the intelligence of his transfer from Brazil to Damascus. He heard it casually in a café at Lima, where he was congratulated, having missed most of his letters. He hastened back at once, and he wrote and guaranteed to Lord Stanley that all would be well with the Moslems, as it had ever been from the starting of his career in 1842 up to the present time, 1868—a period of twenty-six years; consequently the appointment was signed, with a thousand a year. Richard's prospects were on the rise, and it was hinted that if he succeeded there he might eventually get Marocco, Teheran, and finish up at Constantinople. In fact, we were on the zenith of our career.
I had one very pleasant dinner at Mr. Froude's to meet Giffard Palgrave, Mr. Ruskin, and Carlyle. I brought out Richard's "Highlands of Brazil" for Christmas. I was not successful with the mines, and I found no market for the Brazilian translations, though I published two of them.
Amongst other things I must not forget—