old English Catholic, or even a
Catholic, he has neither money nor prospects." She might also have added
that he was apt to respect mere men of intellect more than men of wealth
and rank, an un-English trait which would be sure to militate against
his advancement.

Miss Arundell bravely defended her lover, but without effect. A few days
later she again met her old gipsy crone Hagar Burton, who repeated her
sibylline declaration. As Miss Arundell never, by any chance, talked
about anything or anybody except Burton, and as she paid liberally for
consulting the Fates, this declaration necessarily points to peculiar
acumen on the part of the gipsy.

At one of their meetings Miss Arundell put round Burton's neck a steel
chain with a medal of the Virgin Mary and begged him to wear it all his
life. Possessing a very accommodating temperament in matters that
seemed to himself of no vital importance, he consented; so it joined the
star-sapphire and other amulets, holy and unholy, which, for different
purposes, he carried about the world.

That this medal had often acted as a preservative to Burton she was in
after life thoroughly convinced.

Chapter IX. December 1856-21st May 1859, The Unveiling of Isis

Bibliography:

15. Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa. 16. Vol. 33 of the Royal
Geographical Society.

36. To Fuga. January to March 1857.

The fame of a soldier having been denied him, Burton now turned his
thoughts once more to exploration; and his eagerness for renown is
revealed conspicuously in some verses written about this time. They
commence:

"I wore thine image, Fame,
Within a heart well fit to be thy shrine!
Others a thousand boons may gain;
One wish was mine."

He hoped to obtain one of its smiles and then die. A glorious hand
seemed to beckon him to Africa. There he was to go and find his destiny.
The last stanza runs:

"Mine ear will hear no other sound,
No other thought my heart will know.
Is this a sin? Oh, pardon, Lord!
Thou mad'st me so."

He would obtain the fame of a great traveller; the earth should roll up
for him as a carpet. Happy indeed was Isabel Arundell when he placed the
verses in her hand, but melancholy to relate, he also presented copies
to his "dear Louisa," and several other dears.

He now read greedily all the great geographers, ancient and modern,
and all the other important books bearing on African exploration. If h