"you wonder
how I can get on without an interpreter and not knowing Arabic. I do not
believe in man's free will; and therefore believe all things are from
God and pre-ordained. Such being the case, the judgments or decisions
I give are fixed to be thus or thus, whether I have exactly hit off all
the circumstances or not. This is my raft, and on it I manage to float
along, thanks to God, more or less successfully." [302]

On another occasion Gordon wrote, "It is a delightful thing to be a
fatalist"--meaning, commented Burton, "that the Divine direction and
pre-ordination of all things saved him so much trouble of forethought
and afterthought. In this tenet he was not only a Calvinist but also a
Moslem." [303]

88. Jane Digby the Second.

The patent Pick-me-up having failed, and the Burtons being still in
need of money, other schemes were revolved, all more or less chimerical.
Lastly, Burton wondered whether it would be possible to launch an
expedition to Midian with a view to searching for gold. In ancient times
gold and other metals had been found there in abundance, and remains of
the old furnaces still dotted the country. Forty cities had lived by the
mines, and would, Burton averred, still be living by them but for the
devastating wars that had for centuries spread ruin and destruction. He,
reasoned, indeed, much as Balzac had done about the mines of Sardinia
as worked by the Romans, and from no better premises; but several of his
schemes had a distinctly Balzacian aroma, [304] as his friend Arbuthnot,
who was writing a life of Balzac, might have told him. Burton himself,
however, had no misgivings. His friend, Haji Wali, had indicated, it
seems, in the old days, the precise spot where the wealth lay, and
apparently nothing remained to be done except to go and fetch it.

Haji Wali had some excellent points. He was hospitable and good-natured,
but he was also, as Burton very well knew, cunning and untrustworthy.
The more, however, Burton revolved the scheme in his mind, the more
feasible it seemed. That he could persuade the Khedive to support him
he felt sure; that he would swell to bursting the Egyptian coffers and
become a millionaire himself was also taken for granted, and he said
half in earnest, half in jest, that the only title he ever coveted was
Duke of Midian. There were very eager ears listening to all this castle
building. At Trieste, Mrs. Burton had taken to her bosom another Jane
Digby--a cre