artistically would have made a delightful work. As it is, they are
vast storehouses filled with undusted objects of interest and value,
mingled with heaps of mere lumber. His books laid one on the top of
another would make a pile eight feet high!

He is at his best when describing some daring adventure, when making a
confession of his own weaknesses, or in depicting scenery. Lieutenant
Cameron's tribute to his descriptive powers must not be passed by.
"Going over ground which he explored," says Cameron, "with his Lake
Regions of Central Africa in my hand, I was astonished at the acuteness
of his perception and the correctness of his descriptions." Stanley
spoke of his books in a similar strain.

Burton owed his success as a narrator in great measure to his habit of
transferring impressions to paper the moment he received them--a habit
to which he was led by reading a passage of Dr. Johnson's Journey to
the Western Islands. "An observer deeply impressed by any remarkable
spectacle," says Johnson, "does not suppose that the traces will soon
vanish from his mind, and having commonly no great convenience for
writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure and better
accommodation. He who has not made the experiment or is not accustomed
to require vigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how
much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of
imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate
parts will be confused, and how many practical features and
discriminations will be found compressed and conglobated into one gross
and general idea." [530] "Brave words," comments Burton, "somewhat
pompous and diffused, yet worthy to be written in letters of gold."
[531] Very many of Burton's books, pamphlets and articles in the
journals of the learned societies appeal solely to archaeologists, as,
for example Etruscan Bologna, [532] an account of the Etrurian people,
their sharp bottomed wells, the pebble tombs of the poor and the elegant
mausoleums of the wealthy with their figures of musicians and dancing
girls "in garments of the most graceful form, finest texture and
brilliant hues;" reminding us of the days when Veii fell, and its
goddess, who "was light and easily removed, as though she followed
willingly," as Livy, with his tongue in his cheek, says, was conveyed
to Rome; and of the later days when "Lars Porsena of Clusium" poured
southward his serried host, only, acco