t, and finally decided upon The
Scented Garden--Man's Heart to Gladden. Sir Richard's Translation was
from the Algiers manuscript, a copy of which was made for him at a cost
of eighty pounds, by M. O. Houdas, Professor at the Ecole des Langues
Orientales Vivantes. This was of the first twenty chapters. Whether a
copy of the 21st Chapter ever reached Sir Richard we have not been able
to ascertain. On 31st March 1890, he wrote in his Journal: "Began, or
rather resumed, Scented Garden," [600] and thenceforward he worked at
it sedulously. Now and again the Berber or Kabyle words with which the
manuscript was sprinkled gave him trouble, and from time to time he
submitted his difficulties to M. Fagnan, "the erudite compiler of
the Catalogue of Arabic books and MSS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale
d'Alger" and other Algerian correspondents. Lady Burton describes her
husband's work as "a translation from Arabic manuscripts very difficult
to get in the original" with "copious notes and explanations" of
Burton's own--the result, indeed, of a lifetime of research. "The first
two chapters were a raw translation of the works of Numa Numantius [601]
without any annotations at all, or comments of any kind on Richard's
part, and twenty chapters, translations of Shaykh el Nafzawi from
Arabic. In fact, it was all translation, except the annotations on the
Arabic work." [602] Thus Burton really translated only Chapters i. to
xx., or one-half of the work. But it is evident from his remarks on
the last day of his life that he considered the work finished with the
exception of the pumice-polishing; and from this, one judges that he was
never able to obtain a copy of the 21st Chapter. Lady Burton's statement
and this assumption are corroborated by a conversation which the writer
had with Mr. John Payne in the autumn of 1904. "Burton," said Mr. Payne,
"told me again and again that in his eyes the unpardonable defect of
the Arabic text of The Scented Garden was that it altogether omitted
the subject upon which he had for some years bestowed special study." If
Burton had been acquainted with the Arabic text of the 21st Chapter he,
of course, would not have made that complaint; still, as his letters
show, he was aware that such a manuscript existed. Having complained to
Mr. Payne in the way referred to respecting the contents of The Scented
Garden, Burton continued, "Consequently, I have applied myself to remedy
this defect by collecting all manner o