hat she must have another
confidential servant companion. Male dwarfs being so unsatisfactory she
now decided to try a full-sized human being, and of the other sex. At
Miss Ellen Wilson's Protestant Mission in Anti-Lebanon she saw just her
ideal--a lissom, good-looking Syrian maid, named Khamoor, or "The Moon."
Chico the Second (or shall we say Chica [236] the First.) had black
plaits of hair confined by a coloured handkerchief, large, dark,
reflulgent eyes, pouting lips, white teeth, of which she was very proud,
"a temperament which was all sunshine and lightning in ten minutes," and
a habit of discharging, quite unexpectedly, a "volley of fearful oaths."
She was seventeen--"just the time of life when a girl requires careful
guiding." So Mrs. Burton, or "Ya Sitti," as Khamoor called her, promptly
set about this careful guiding--that is to say she fussed and petted
Khamoor till the girl lost all knowledge of her place and became an
intolerable burden. Under Mrs. Burton's direction she learnt to wear
stays [237] though this took a good deal of learning; and also to slap
men's faces and scream when they tried to kiss her. By dint of practice
she in time managed this also to perfection. Indeed, she gave up, one
by one, all her heathenish ways, except swearing, and so became a
well-conducted young lady, and almost English. Mrs. Burton was nothing
if not a woman with a mission, and henceforward two cardinal ideas
swayed her namely, first to inveigle the heathen into stays, and
secondly, to induce them to turn Catholics. Her efforts at conversion
were more or less successful, but the other propaganda had, to her real
sorrow, only barren results.

In March 1871, Charles Tyrwhitt Drake, who had spent some months in
England, arrived again in Damascus, and the Burtons begged him to be
their permanent guest. Henceforth Mrs. Burton, Burton and Drake were
inseparable companions, and they explored together "almost every known
part of Syria." Mrs. Burton used to take charge of the camp "and visited
the harems to note things hidden from mankind," Drake sketched and
collected botanical and geological specimens, while Burton's studies
were mainly anthropological and archaeological. They first proceeded to
Jerusalem, where they spent Holy Week, and after visiting Hebron, the
Dead Sea, and other historical spots, they returned by way of Nazareth.
But here they met with trouble. Early in his consulate, it seems, Burton
had protested against