On the 19th of February, 1888, he deplores the death of the Rev. George Percy Badger, D.C.L., the eminent Oriental scholar, at seventy-three.
On the 5th of March we bade adieu to all the charming friends we had made there, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we drove to Mattuglie to take the train for Trieste. The superintendent of the railway, our friend Mr. Thomas, made a charming arrangement for us. From Mattuglie to St. Peter's is only two or three hours, but St. Peter's, on an elevation, is an ice-bound place in winter; there you have to stand about for an hour or more in a miserable little station, waiting for the night-mail for Trieste. I coaxed him into giving us a large saloon with tables and beds most luxuriously fitted up, a carriage behind for the servants, and a compartment behind for the baggage, so that when we got into the train, Dr. Baker and I had nothing to do but to put Richard to bed, and we congratulated ourselves warmly on the arrangement, because, as we neared St. Peter's, the train passed through walls of snow much higher than itself, down which a howling wind came as through a funnel, whilst our saloon was perfectly warm. When we got to St. Peter's we were detached and shunted, a nice hot dinner was served to us in the carriage, and we got Richard into Trieste without the slightest hurt.
We were now reading "Mohammed Benoni," the work of Mr. Pedicaris, of Marocco.
On the 12th of March, 1888, he notices "the first swallows over the sea at sunset."
Mr. Thayer wrote to the Tribune from Trieste, under date of March 17—
"Lady Burton's expurgated edition of 'The Thousand Nights and One Night' is now complete in six handsome volumes. The last of the copy for Sir Richard's supplementary volumes of the 'Nights' will be sent to England next week. His motto has been for forty years, 'Without haste, without rest,' and as soon as the 'Nights' are ended, he will begin in earnest, what must prove to be a work of remarkable interest, his autobiography. His life, detailed by himself, if his conversation affords the means of judging, must be as fascinating as a romance. Its scenes range from the jungles of India to the tropical swamps of South America, from the snows of Iceland to the mephitic moraines of Central and Western Africa. Two years ago, his health was so broken that his friends feared he might not be able even to complete the 'Nights,' and we quite despaired of ever enjoying his autobiography; but now the case is happily altered, for, though still far from well, through the care and solicitude of his noble wife and his excellent physician, we have every reason to hope that his enormous power of continuous mental labour will carry him through the work."
On the 19th of March, 1888, his sixty-seventh birthday, Richard finished his last volume of the supplemental "Nights" (the sixteenth volume), but it did not come out till the 13th of November, 1888, and during the intervening months he corrected proofs, and began writing what he called "chow-chow"—odds and ends that he had been waiting to finish up. We were exceedingly relieved, because he had always had such a fear of not living to keep his engagements, and we had received money for it.
On the 2nd of April we began a second "reviewers reviewed" on the "Arabian Nights" critics (the first one was on the "Lusiads;" Richard having been roughly handled, had raised our ire).