886, a very extraordinary thing happened [503]--it was a
telegram addressed 'Sir Richard Burton!' He tossed it over to me and
said, 'Some fellow is playing me a practical joke, or else it is not for
me. I shall not open it, so you may as well ring the bell and give it
back again.' 'Oh no,' I said, 'I shall open it if you don't.'"

It was from Lord Salisbury, conveying in the kindest terms that the
queen had made him K.C.M.G. in reward for his services. He looked very
serious and quite uncomfortable, and said, "Oh, I shall not accept it."
[504] His wife told him, however, that it ought to be accepted because
it was a certain sign that the Government intended to give him a better
appointment. So he took it as a handsel.

143. Burton at 65.

Having accompanied Sir Richard Burton to the meridian of his fame, we
may fitly pause a moment and ask what manner of a man he was at this
moment. Though sixty-five, and subject to gout, he was still strong and
upright. He had still the old duskened features, dark, piercing eyes,
and penthouse brows, but the long and pendulous Chinaman moustaches had
shrunk till they scarcely covered his mouth. The "devil's jaw" could
boast only a small tuft of hair. There were wrinkles in "the angel's
forehead." If meddlesome Time had also furrowed his cheeks, nevertheless
the most conspicuous mark there was still the scar of that great gash
received in the ding-dong fight at Berbera. His hair, which should have
been grizzled, he kept dark, Oriental fashion, with dye, and brushed
forward. Another curious habit was that of altering his appearance.
In the course of a few months he would have long hair, short hair, big
moustache, small moustache, long beard, short beard, no beard. Everyone
marked his curious, feline laugh, "made between his teeth." The change
in the world's treatment of him, and in his circumstances, is noticeable
to his countenance. In photographs taken previous to 1886 his look
betrays the man who feels that he has been treated neglectfully by an
ungrateful world for which he had made enormous sacrifices. Indeed,
looking at the matter merely from a pecuniary standpoint, he must have
spent at least L20,000 of his own money in his various explorations.
He is at once injured, rancorous, sullen, dangerous. All these pictures
exhibit a scowl. In some the scowl is very pronounced, and in one
he looks not unlike a professional prize-fighter. They betray a mind
jaundiced, but defiant