last in London I called on them. On
Friday week, 15th November, we start upon our winter's trip. From
here to Brindisi, await the P. and O., then to Malta (ten days), Tunis
(month), Tripoli and Algiers, where I hope at last to see the very last
of The Scented Garden."

166. Tunis and Algiers, November 1889 to March 1890.

At the time stated, Burton, Lady Burton, Dr. Baker and Lisa took steamer
for Brindisi, where they visited Virgil's house, and then made for
Malta. On December 20th they were at Tunis, and Sir Richard ransacked
the bazaar and button-holed people generally in order to get manuscripts
of The Scented Garden, but without success. Nobody had ever heard of it.
[612] At Carthage he recalled that rosy morning when Dido in "flowered
cymar with golden fringe" rode out with Aeneas to the hung, read
Salammbo, and explored the ruins; but Lady Burton had no eyes for
anything but convents, monks and nuns, though she certainly once took
Lisa to a harem, where they learnt how to make Tunisian dishes. The
biblical appearance of everything reminded Burton of his Damascus days.
Seeing a man in a burnous ploughing with oxen and a wooden plough on a
plain where there was no background, he said, "Look, there's Abraham!"
At Constantine, Sir Richard and Lady Burton celebrated their 29th, and
as it proved, their last wedding day. With Algiers, the next stopping
place, which boasted a cardinal's Moorish palace and a Museum, Burton
was in ecstasies, and said he wanted to live there always; but in less
than three weeks he was anxious to get as far away from it as possible.

From Algiers he wrote to Mr. Payne (28th January 1890). After recording
his failure to obtain manuscripts of The Scented Garden at Tunis he
says: "To-day I am to see M. Macarthy, of the Algiers Bibliotheque
Musee; but I am by no means sanguine. This place is a Paris after Tunis
and Constantine, but like all France (and Frenchmen) in modern days
dirty as ditchwater. The old Gaulois is dead and damned, politics and
money getting have made the gay nation stupid as Paddies. In fact the
world is growing vile and bete, et vivent les Chinois! [613] A new
Magyar irruption would do Europe much good."

In a letter to Mr. A. G. Ellis, dated 12th February, 1890, he refers to
the anecdote of the famous Taymor al Wahsh, who, according to a Damascus
tradition, played polo with the heads of his conquered enemies. "Every
guide book," he continues, "mentions my Lord I