everyone near him. He then amused
himself by compiling a pamphlet on West African proverbs, one of which,
picked up in the Yorubas country, ran, oddly enough: "Anger draweth
arrows from the quiver: good words draw kolas from the bag."

The principal event of this holiday was the foundation, with the
assistance of Dr. James Hunt, of the Anthropological Society of London
(6th January 1863). The number who met was eleven. Says Burton, "Each
had his own doubts and hopes and fears touching the vitality of the
new-born. Still, we knew that our case was good.... We all felt the
weight of a great want. As a traveller and a writer of travels I have
found it impossible to publish those questions of social economy and
those physiological observations, always interesting to our common
humanity, and at times so valuable." The Memoirs of the Anthropological
Society, [201] met this difficulty. Burton was the first president, and
in two years the Society, which met at No. 4, St. Martin's Place, had
500 members. "These rooms," Burton afterwards commented, "now offer
a refuge to destitute truth. There any man, monogenist, polygenist,
eugenestic or dysgenestic, may state the truth as far as is in him."
The history of the Society may be summed up in a few words. In 1871 it
united with the Enthnological Society and formed the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain. In 1873 certain members of the old society,
including Burton, founded the London Anthropological Society, and issued
a periodical called Anthropologia, of which Burton wrote in 1885, "My
motive was to supply travellers with an organ which would rescue their
observations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print their
curious information on social and sexual matters out of place in the
popular book intended for the Nipptisch, and indeed better kept from
public view. But hardly had we begun when 'Respectability,' that whited
sepulchre full of all uncleanness, rose up against us. 'Propriety' cried
us down with her brazen, blatant voice, and the weak-kneed brethren fell
away. [202] Yet the organ was much wanted and is wanted still." [203]
Soon after the founding of the Society Burton, accompanied by his wife,
took a trip to Madeira and then proceeded to Teneriffe, where they
parted, he going on to Fernando Po and she returning to England; but
during the next few years she made several journeys to Teneriffe, where,
by arrangement, they periodically met.

Chapter XII.