We made a ten days' delightful journey to England. At Krainberg began the beautiful scenery, hills and dales, grey stone, sheets of snow, pines, wheat-fields and cattle below, clouds and rain above, with a burst of sunlight through, the river rushing by us, the peaks of the Triglav in the clouds, the railway three thousand feet high. We were both delighted and glad we came. Loads of Sunday people in costume filled the stations till we got on to Villach. There is nothing like the Austrian Tyrol for lovely scenery, which begins at Krainberg, becomes perfect at Tarvis, and declines at Lienz. The Drau is a nice river before it marries the Danube; it is brisk and full of life.
At Villach the scenery and the gorges of the Drau were dressed in rainbow suit, mist and sunshine together. Lienz was very charming; we took a very great fancy to it, and from hence went on to Toblach, which opens into the magnificent gorge of the Cortina d'Ampezzo, which leads to the Dolomites. This time we were not so stupid as to go to the big Hôtel Toblach, because we were ill-treated last time; so we came to the Gasthof Ampezzo, rough but comfortable, with good native cooking, and a beautiful view up the valley of Ampezzo, where we had Forellen (the mountain trout), good black cock, and excellent wine (Offner). Then we went on to Innsbrück. We had one of those Aussichtswagen at the end of the train, all of glass, so that you can see the view, which was delightful, crossing the Brenner. The Brenner was full of snow amphitheatres, deep gorges, firs in spring suits, and tower-shaped rocks. The heat was very great; there are seventeen tunnels on this crossing, some as long as four or five minutes. Dull old Innsbrück was reached at last, where one feels as if the clouds were resting on the top of one's head.
Innsbrück has a good hotel (Europa), but ridiculously dear. Here we found some old Trieste friends, Baron and Baroness von Puthon, née Comtesse de Bombelles; so we decided to pass a whole day at Innsbrück, and to go on to Bâle the following day. Here in the Cathedral are the bronze antique statues of the Imperialties of Austria from earliest times, which I have before mentioned. We left the next day, and went through the Arlberg tunnel, running through a most picturesque country. The carriages are high and good, the ventilation excellent. Landeck is the last station before entering the tunnel—it occupies eighteen minutes by the express—and Arlberg is the station at which you come out. The tunnel is lighted by a lamp at every mile. In going through the Arlberg Richard remarked that the ground was rotten, and later on this was more than confirmed. Feldkirch is the last Austrian, and Bocks is the first Swiss station. The road is pretty, but not equal to the other passes. The train then runs all along the lakes until Zurich, after which the country is very common till Bâle. The Euler is an old-fashioned but good hotel close to the Bâle station. We now went in for a nineteen hours' journey by express from Bâle to Boulogne and Folkestone—baggage is visited on the frontier at Delle. The train had wagon-lits, but it shook and lurched as if the carriages were very badly coupled. We stayed at Folkestone, as usual, to see Richard's sister and niece, and found the local Exhibition going on.
In London we simply resumed our work of a few months before. Richard attended the levée on the 25th. He notices some pleasant dinners that were given to us by Mr. Christie, and the poet Mr. St. Clair Baddeley at Albert Mansions, at Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft's, where we met the Oscar Wyldes, and lots of other pleasant people.
My so-called edition of the "Arabian Nights" was now being brought out. It was a very melancholy time for me, my father being dead, and we were, as is usual, dividing the property, packing up, and breaking up the old home, which had been our refuge on all the holidays of our married life.
He wrote—
"Arrived in London, we had to realize the blow that had befallen us. The good old father, Henry Raymond Arundell, had quietly passed away, little short of eighty-seven, and we met to dine and drink a silent toast to his memory on his eighty-seventh birthday; the home, which had been the family point de réunion since 1861, was now to be given up. This house was the link that held the family together, and once separated, people hardly ever reunite upon the same terms. All will understand how painful are such final breakings-up. On returning home, nothing so saddens the heart of the exile as the many empty chairs round the table. After a few visits to country houses, we found ourselves compelled to make sundry trips to Oxford. I had already memorialized the vice-chancellor and the curators of the Bodleian Library for the loan of the Wortley Montagu manuscripts of the 'Arabian Nights.' Not a private loan, but a temporary transference to the India Office under the charge of that excellent librarian, Dr. R. Rost. This led to the usual long delays, and finally, on November 1st, came a distinct refusal, which was the more offensive because a loan had been lately made to another applicant, an Anglo-Indian coloured subject. The visits were essentially unpleasant. The Bodleian is the model of what a reading library should not be, and the contrast of its treasures with their mean and miserable surroundings is a scandal. In autumn the University must be closed at three p.m., lights not being allowed; the student must transfer himself to its Succursale, the Ratcliffe, which as a salle de lecture is even worse. The 'Rotunda' is damp in the wet season, stuffy during the summer heats, and the cave of Eolus in windy weather. Few students except the youngest and strongest can endure its changeable nerve-depressing atmosphere. Nor did Oxford show well in point of climate; the air is malarious, and the resolute neglect of sanitation is a serious obstacle to students at this so-called Seat of Learning. Moreover, the ancient University had now become a mere collection of finishing schools, or rather a huge board for the examination of big boys and girls.
"The old Alma Mater had always been to me a durissima noverca. Although the late Mr. Chandler, of Pembroke College, had stoutly opposed all lending of Bodleian books and manuscripts, he thoroughly sympathized with me, and he said to my wife, 'Who could have foreseen, when opposing all loans and laying down laws to limit the facilities of students, that directly afterwards Richard Burton would turn up and want an Arabic manuscript, a manuscript, moreover, which no man in the University can read, although it boasts of two Arabic professors?'
"It was in vain to seek for a copyist at Oxford, and those who offered themselves in London I found by no means satisfactory. At last my wife hit upon the bright idea of photographing the pages required, and imparted her idea to Mr. Chandler, and Chandler thought it was a most valuable hint to the University. He not only carried it out, but he insisted on bearing all the expenses himself, despite my earnest wish to do so. The University should be grateful for this solution of the question. Books are now no longer lent, but photographs can always be obtained."
His Last Appeal to Government.
On the 1st of July we went to a party at Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Wylde's, and there Richard met a man with whom he used to play chess thirty-five years ago. Richard arrived at playing three games blindfold; but after he left the Army he gave it up, because he wanted his brain for other things. I have already said that Richard, after his recall from Damascus, never tried but for four things. He wanted to be made a K.C.B. in 1875, and I exerted myself very much, in writing to all the Ministers and getting it backed up by all our big friends (some fifty), and again in 1878; but it was refused. He wanted to be Commissioner for the Slave Trade in 1880. He then asked for Marocco in 1885, which we considered was as good as promised; and on the 2nd of July, 1886, we had the mortification of finding that Lord Rosebery had given it away to Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Kirby-Green. Richard said on hearing it, in his usual generous way, "Next to getting it one's self, the best thing is to know that a friend and a good man has got it;" but when he came home and told me, he said, "There is no rise for me now, and I don't want anything; but I have worked forty-four years for nothing. I am breaking up, and I want to go free." So this year (1886) we occupied ourselves in entreating the Ministry to allow him to retire on his pension four years before his time. It was backed up by the usual forty-seven or fifty big names, and it was not pretence in any of the three cases; they did write, but it was refused. One Minister, in friendly chaff, wrote and said, "We don't want to annex Marocco, and we know that you two would be Emperor and Empress in about six months."