I returned to Aden on Feb. 9th, 1855, and was followed about a week afterwards by Lieut. Speke. He was thoroughly disgusted with his journey, and he brought back a doleful tale of trouble. He had adopted, by my advice, a kind of half-eastern dress, as did Colonel Belly and his officers, when visiting El Riyaz, the head-quarters of the Wahhabis; and he attributed to this costume all his misfortunes. He came back, determined that no such feature as the Wady Nogal existed: yet M. Guillain (ii. 493) saw between Dra Salih and Ra’as el Khayl, the valley, and its stream debouching upon the coast. He had recorded his misadventures in a diary whose style, to say nothing of sentiments and geographical assertions, rendered it, in my opinion, unfit for publication, and I took the trouble of re-writing the whole. Published as an Appendix to ‘First Footsteps in East Africa,’ it was in the third person, without the least intention of giving offence, but simply because I did not wish to palm upon the reader my own composition as that of another person. Unhappily, however, an article from a well-known pen appeared in Blackwood (p. 499, October, 1856), and contained these words:—
‘A resumé of Mr Speke’s observations is appended to Mr Burton’s book, but it lacks the interest of a personal narrative; and we much regret that the experiences of one whose extensive wanderings had already so well qualified him for the task, and who has shown himself so able an explorer, should not have been chronicled at a greater length, and thrown into a form which would have rendered them more interesting to the general reader.’
This brand was not foolishly thrown: it kindled a fire which did not consume the less fiercely because it was smothered. Some two years afterwards, when in the heart of Africa, and half delirious with fever, my companion let fall certain expressions which, to my infinite surprise, showed that he had been nursing three great grievances. The front of the offence was that his Diary had been spoiled. Secondly, he felt injured because he had derived no profit from a publication which had not proved ‘paying’ to me. Thirdly, he was hurt because I had forwarded to the Calcutta Museum of Natural History, as expressly bound by my instructions, his collection, of which he might easily have kept duplicates. My companion had a peculiarity more rarely noticed in the Englishman than in the Hibernian and in the Teuton—a habit of secreting thoughts and reminiscences till brought to light by a sudden impulse. He would brood, perhaps for years, over a chance word, which a single outspoken sentence of explanation could have satisfactorily settled. The inevitable result was the exaggeration of fact into fiction, the distortion of the true to the false. Let any man, after long musing about, or frequent repetition of, a story or an adventure, consult his original notes upon the matter, and if they do not startle him, I shall hold him to be an exception. And if he keep no journal, and be withal somewhat hard of persuasion, he will firmly hold, in all honour and honesty, to the latest version, modified by lapse of time. I made this remark more than once to my companion, and he received it with an utter incredulity which clearly proved to me that his was a case in point.
The next adventure was a savage melée at Berberah, on April 19th, 1855, when we were attacked by Somali plunderers. Here again I unwittingly offended Lieut. Speke’s susceptibilities by saying in the thick of the fight, ‘Don’t step back, or they’ll think we are running!’ As usual, I was never allowed to know that he was ‘chagrined by this rebuke at his management’ till his own account of the mishap appeared before the public. The story, as he tells it, reads very differently from his written report still in my possession, and he gives the world to understand that he alone of the force had attempted to defend the camp. The fact is, he had lost his head, and instead of following me when cutting my way through the enemy, he rushed about, dealing blows with the butt of an unloaded revolver. His courage was of that cool order which characterizes the English rather than the French soldier. The former, constitutionally strong-nerved and self-reliant, goes into action reckless of what may happen, and unprepared for extremes: when he ‘gets more than he bargains for’ he is apt, like unimaginative men generally, to become demoralized. The Frenchman, with a weaker organization, prepares himself to expect the worst; and when the worst comes, he finds it, perhaps, not so bad as he expected.
Lieut. Speke escaped as by a miracle, and recovered as wonderfully from eleven spear-wounds, one of which was clean through the thigh. Returning to England, we both volunteered for the Crimean campaign; and he found his way to the Turkish Contingent, I to the Bashi Buzuks. When peace was concluded he agreed to explore, in company with Capt. Smyth, of the Bengal Army, Circassia and other parts of Central Asia. We met, however, in London, and he at once proposed to dismiss his new plans for another African expedition.
The reader has seen, in the earlier chapters of this book, the troubles attending our departure, and the obstacles opposed by the Court of Directors to Lieut. Speke again becoming my companion; it has also been explained how the difficulties were removed. My companion did not, however, ‘take kindly’ to the Second Expedition. Even at the beginning of our long absence from civilized life I could not but perceive that his former alacrity had vanished: he was habitually discontented with what was done; he left to me the whole work of management, and then he complained of not being consulted. He had violent quarrels with the Baloch, and on one occasion the Jemadar returned to him an insult which, if we had not wanted the man, he would have noticed with a sword-cut. Unaccustomed to sickness, he could not endure it himself nor feel for it in others; and he seemed to enjoy pleasure in saying unpleasant things—an Anglo-Indian peculiarity. Much of the change he explained to me by confessing that he could not take interest in an exploration of which he was not the commander. On the other hand, he taught himself the use of the sextant and other instruments, with a resolution and a pertinacity which formed his characteristic merits. Night after night, at the end of the burning march, he sat for hours in the chilling dews, practising lunars and timing chronometers. I have acknowledged in becoming terms, it is hoped, the value of these labours, and the benefit derived from them by the Expedition. The few books—Shakespere, Euclid, and so forth—which composed my scanty library, we read together again and again: he learned from me to sketch the scenery, and he practised writing a diary and accounts of adventure, which he used to bring for correction. These reminiscences forcibly suggest to me the Arab couplet—
علمته الرمايه كليوم
فلمّا امشتدّ ساعده رمانى
‘I taught him archery day by day—
When his arm waxed strong, ’twas me he shot.’