ious students of Moslem manners," and not for the
general public, from whom, indeed, its price alone debarred it. [494]
He says: "It is bad enough in the text of the tales to find that Captain
Burton is not content with plainly calling a spade a spade, but will
have it styled a dirty shovel; but in his notes he goes far beyond this,
and the varied collection of abominations which he brings forward with
such gusto is a disgrace and a shame to printed literature.... The
different versions, however, have each its proper destination--Galland
for the nursery, Lane for the library, Payne for the study and Burton
for the sewers." [495]

Burton's spirited reply will be found in the last volume of his
Supplemental Nights. Put compendiously, his argument is: "I had
knowledge of certain subjects such as no other man possessed. Why should
it die with me? Facts are facts, whether men are acquainted with them
or not." "But," he says, "I had another object while making the notes
a Repertory of Eastern knowledge in its esoteric form. Having failed
to free the Anthropological Society [496] from the fetters of mauvaise
honte and the mock-modesty which compels travellers and ethnographical
students to keep silence concerning one side of human nature (and that
side the most interesting to mankind) I proposed to supply the want in
these pages.... While Pharisee and Philistine may be or may pretend to
be 'shocked' and 'horrified' by my pages, the sound commonsense of a
public, which is slowly but surely emancipating itself from the prudish
and prurient reticences and the immodest and immoral modesties of the
early 19th century, will in good time do me, I am convinced, full and
ample justice."

In order to be quite ready, should prosecution ensue, Burton compiled
what he called The Black Book, which consisted of specimens, of, to use
his own expression, the "turpiloquium" of the Bible and Shakespeare. It
was never required for its original purpose, but he worked some portions
into the Terminal Essay to The Arabian Nights. [497] And here it may
be said that when Burton attacks the Bible and Christianity he is
inconsistent and requires to be defended against himself. The Bible, as
we have seen was one of the three books that he constantly carried about
with him, and few men could have had greater admiration for its more
splendid passages. We know, too, that the sincere Christian had his
respect. But his Terminal Essay and these notes appeared