This year was the Tichborne trial, and Richard was subpœnaed by him, but his evidence did more good to the family. Amongst other things the Claimant said to Richard, "That he had met me in Rio de Janeiro, and that I had recognized him as a long-lost cousin; but, on fixing the dates, it was proved that I had sailed from Rio for London a week before the Claimant arrived there." We had one very lively meeting at the Royal Geographical Society. He writes—
"Rassam stood up about a native message to Livingstone. Colonel Rigby contradicted, and said there were no Abyssinians in Zanzibar. They began to contradict me, so I made it very lively, for I was angry, and proved my point, showing that my opponents had spoken falsely. My wife laughed, because I moved from one side of the table to the other unconsciously, with the stick that points to the maps in my hand, and she said that the audience on the benches looked as if a tiger was going to spring in amongst them, or that I was going to use the stick like a spear upon my adversary, who stood up from the benches.[9] To make the scene more lively, my wife's brothers and sisters were struggling in the corner to hold down their father, an old man, who had never been used to public speaking, and who slowly rose up in speechless indignation at hearing me accused of making a misstatement, and was going to address a long oration to the public about his son-in-law Richard Burton. As he was slow and very prolix he would never have sat down again, and God only knows what he would have said; they held on to his coat-tails, and were preparing, in event of failure, some to dive under the benches, and some to bolt out of the nearest door."
We went a great deal into Society those ten months, and we saw much of the two best literary houses of the day, where one always met la haute Bohème, the most interesting Society in London, mixed with the best of everything, and those were Lord Houghton's and Lord Strangford's.
About this time we went to visit Mr. ——, our then publisher, at his country-house, where he showed us all that was comfortable and luxurious, with ten horses in the stable—everything else to match. He gave us a large literary dinner, at which Lord Houghton, with his quiet chuckle, called out across the table, "I say, Burton, don't you feel as if we were drinking out of poor authors' skulls?" Upon which Richard laughed, and tapped his own head for an answer.
Richard was very anxious that Alexandretta should be the chief port in Syria, into whose lap the railway would pour the wealth of the province, for it is the only good port the country possesses on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Alexandretta, if freed from its stagnant marshes, would be magnificent; the railway should go to Damascus, Jerusalem, and Aleppo.
With regard to Sir Roderick Murchison, his journal again contained the following, speaking of one of his books:—
"Since these pages went to print Sir R. I. Murchison has passed away, full of years and of honours. I had not the melancholy satisfaction of seeing for the last time our revered Chief, one of whose latest actions was to oppose my reading a paper about the so-called Victoria Nyanza before the Royal Geographical Society; whilst another was to erase my name from the list of the Nile explorers when revising his own biography. But peace be to his manes! I respect the silence of a newly made grave."
We went, for the first time in our lives, and the last, to a great banquet at the Mansion House, which amused us very much. Whenever we wanted to make any remarks at dinner-time we made them in Arabic, thinking that probably no one would understand us. Curiously, the people who sat next to us turned round, and said in Arabic, "Yes, you are perfectly right; we were just thinking the same thing;" and Richard said, "We spoke Arabic thinking nobody would understand us;" and they said, "It is most probable that out of all this huge crowd we are the only four people who happen to speak Arabic, and happen to sit together."
Another very interesting visit we paid was to the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, Wandsworth Common, where the doctor, who was a friend of my husband's, invited us to spend the day and dine with him, and he showed us over everything; but I know that I, for one, felt awfully glad when we left it; some of the faces that I saw there I can see now if I shut my eyes and think.
In 1872, we were on a visit at Knowsley, the Earl of Derby's, and we planted there a cedar of Lebanon, which we had brought; and we went over the alkali works at St. Helen's, very interesting to Richard, who did not know so much of the "Black Country" as we did. We then went to Uncle Gerard's, where we met the Muriettas (now Marchesa de Santurce), and many other pleasant people. Here we went down some coal-pits (265 fathoms) for further information, and we planted more cedars of Lebanon and a bit of Abraham's oak, which we brought from Mamre, some distance from Hebron.