erected a chapel
for them--her oratory--where the Bishop "gave her leave to have mass and
the sacraments." Her chief convert, and he wanted converting very badly,
was an inhuman, pusillanimous coal-black dwarf, 35 years of age, called
Chico, [211] who became her right-hand man. Just as she had made him to
all appearance a good sound Catholic she caught him roasting alive her
favourite cat before the kitchen fire. This was the result partly of
innate diablery and partly of her having spoilt him, but wherever she
went Mrs. Burton managed to get a servant companion whom her lack of
judgment made an intolerable burden to her. Chico was only the first of
a series. Mrs. Burton also looked well after the temporal needs of the
neighbourhood, but if she was always the Lady Bountiful, she was rarely
the Lady Judicious.

52. Aubertin. Death of Steinhauser, 27th July 1866.

The Burtons resided sometimes at Santos and sometimes at Sao Paulo,
eight miles inland. These towns were just then being connected by
railway; and one of the superintendents, Mr. John James Aubertin, who
resided at Sao Paulo, became Burton's principal friend there. Aubertin
was generally known as the "Father of Cotton," because during the days
of the cotton famine, he had laboured indefatigably and with success
to promote the cultivation of the shrub in those parts. Like Burton,
Aubertin loved Camoens, and the two friends delighted to walk together
in the butterfly-haunted forests and talk about the "beloved master,"
while each communicated to the other his intention of translating The
Lusiads into English. Thirteen years, however, were to elapse before
the appearance of Aubertin's translation [212] and Burton's did not see
print till 1880. In 1866 Burton received a staggering blow in the loss
of his old friend Dr. Steinhauser, who died suddenly of heart disease,
during a holiday in Switzerland, 27th July 1866. It was Steinhauser,
it will be remembered, with whom he had planned the translation of The
Arabian Nights, a subject upon which they frequently corresponded. [213]

53. The Facetious Cannibals.

Wherever Burton was stationed he invariably interested himself in the
local archaeological and historical associations. Thus at Santos he
explored the enormous kitchen middens of the aboriginal Indians; but the
chief attraction was the site of a Portuguese fort, marked by a stone
heap, where a gunner, one Hans Stade, was carried off by the cann