some of the facts presently to be given, she was unaware. But she
was one who easily deceived herself. Whatever she wished, she was apt
to believe. The actual facts compiled from existing documentary
evidence--including Burton's own letters--will now be revealed for the
first time; and it will be found, as is generally the case, that the
unembroidered truth is more interesting than the romance. The story is
strangely paralleled by that of the writing of The Kasidah; or in other
words it recalls traits that were eminently characteristic of Burton.
As early as 1854, as we have seen, Burton and Steinhauser had planned a
translation of The Arabian Nights, Steinhauser was to furnish the prose,
Burton the poetry. They corresponded on the subject, but made only
trifling progress. Steinhauser died in 1866, his manuscripts were
scattered, and Burton never heard of them again. Absolutely nothing more
was done, for Burton was occupied with other matters--travelling all
over the world and writing piles of voluminous books on other subjects.
Still, he had hoards of Eastern manuscripts, and notes of his own on
Eastern manners and customs, which had for years been accumulating
and an even greater mass of curious information had been stored in his
brain. Again and again he had promised himself to proceed, but something
every time hindered.

In November 1881, Burton, who was then at Trieste, noticed a paragraph
in The Athenaeum [341] to the effect that Mr. John Payne, the well-known
author of The Masque of Shadows and of a famous rendering of The Poems
of Francois Villon, was about to issue a Translation of The Book of the
Thousand Nights and one Nights. Burton, who was an enthusiastic admirer
of the Villon and who, moreover, had not relinquished his own scheme,
though it had lain so long quiescent, wrote at once to The Athenaeum a
letter which appeared on 26th November 1881. He said: "Many years ago,
in collaboration with my old and lamented friend, Dr. F. Steinhauser,
of the Bombay Army, I began to translate the whole [342] of The Thousand
Nights and a Night. The book, mutilated in Europe to a collection of
fairy tales, and miscalled the Arabian Nights, is unique as a study of
anthropology. It is a marvellous picture of Oriental life; its shiftings
are those of the kaleidoscope. Its alternation of pathos and bathos--of
the boldest poetry (the diction of Job) with the baldest prose (the
Egyptian of to-day) and finally, its contrast of t