less his letters
from Trieste are a sort of Tristia--or as the flippant would put
it--Triestia. Indeed, he read and re-read with an almost morbid interest
both the Tristia and the Ex Ponto. [272] Ovid's images seemed applicable
to himself. "I, too," he said, "am a neglected book gnawed by the moth,"
"a stream dammed up with mud," "a Phalaris, clapped, for nothing in
particular, into the belly of a brazen bull." Like Ovid, too, he could
and did pronounce his invective against the Ibis, the cause of all his
troubles, that is to say, Rashid Pasha, whose very name was as gall and
wormwood. His fate, indeed, was a hard one. The first linguist of his
day, for he spoke twenty-eight languages and dialects, he found himself
relegated to a third-rate port, where his attainments were absolutely
valueless to anybody. The greatest of travellers, the most indefatigable
of anthropologists, the man who understood the East as no other
Englishman had understood it--was set to do work that could in those
days have been accomplished with ease by any raw and untravelled
government official possessed of a smattering of German and Italian. But
the truth is, Burton's brilliant requirements were really a hindrance
to him. The morbid distrust of genius which has ever been incidental
to ordinary Government officialism, was at that time particularly
prevalent. The only fault to be found with Burton's conduct at Damascus,
was that, instead of serving his own interest, he had attempted to serve
the interests of his country and humanity. By trimming, temporizing,
shutting his eyes to enormities, and touching bribes, he might have
retained his post, or have been passed on to Constantinople.

When time after time he saw incompetent men advanced to positions of
importance, his anger was unrestrainable, "Why," he asked bitterly, "are
the Egyptian donkey-boys so favourable to the English?" Answer, "Because
we hire more asses than any other nation."

Trieste is a white splash between high wooded mountains and a dark
precipice rising from a sea intense as the blue of the gentian. The
population was about 140,000, mostly Italian speaking. Nominally they
were Catholics, and of genuine Catholics there might have been 20,000,
chiefly women. "Trieste," said Burton, "is a town of threes--three
quarters, three races (Italian, Slav and Austrian), and three winds
(Sirocco, Bora, and Contraste)." One brilliant man of letters had been
connected with the town, namely