ron's nickname 'The Wild
Beast,' and possibly the legend was invented by way of comment. He drove
away all the Persian swordsmiths, and from his day no 'Damascus blade'
has been made at Damascus. I have found these French colonies perfectly
casual and futile. The men take months before making up their minds
to do anything. A most profligate waste of time! My prime object in
visiting Tunis was to obtain information concerning The Scented Garden,
to consult MSS. &c. After a month's hard work I came upon only a single
copy, the merest compendium, lacking also Chapter 21, my chief Righah
(the absurd French R'irha) for a week or ten days [for the sake of
the baths] then return to Algiers, steam for Marseilles and return to
Trieste via the Riviera and Northern Italy--a route of which I am dead
sick. Let us hope that the untanned leather bindings have spared you
their malaria. You will not see me in England next summer, but after
March 1891, I shall be free as air to come and go." At Hammam R'irha,
Burton began in earnest his translation of Catullus, and for weeks
he was immersed in it night and day. The whole of the journey was a
pleasurable one, or would have been, but for the cruelty with which
animals were treated; and Burton, who detested cruelty in all forms, and
had an intense horror of inflicting pain, vented his indignation over
and over again against the merciless camel and donkey drivers.

As the party were steaming from Algiers to Toulon, a curious incident
occurred. Burton and Dr. Baker having sauntered into the smoke room
seated themselves at a table opposite to an old man and a young man who
looked like, and turned out to be, an Oxford don. Presently the don,
addressing the old man, told him with dramatic gesticulations the
venerable story about Burton killing two Arabs near Mecca, and he held
out his hand as if he were firing a pistol.

Burton, who had long known that the tale was in circulation but had
never before heard anyone relate it as fact, here interrupted with,
"Excuse me, but what was the name of that traveller?"

"Captain Burton," replied the don, "now Sir Richard Burton."

"I am Burton," followed Sir Richard, "and I remember distinctly every
incident of that journey, but I can assure you I do not remember
shooting anybody."

At that, the don jumped up, thanked him for giving the story denial,
and expressed his happiness at being able to make the great traveller's
acquaintance. [614]

On March