s and MSS., and
secondly because the rent is paid to the 24th February and I am too poor
to pay two places. Here I cannot separate from his body, and there it
will be in the earth. I am so thoroughly stunned that I feel nothing
outside, but my heart is crucified. I have lost all in him. You will
want to know my plans. When my work is done, say 1st of March, I will
go into a long retreat in a convent and will offer myself to a Sister of
Charity. I do not think I shall be accepted for my age and infirmities,
but will try.... The world is for me a dead letter, and can no more
touch me. No more joy--no further sorrow can affect me. Dr. Baker is
so good to me, and is undertaking my affairs himself as I really cannot
care about them now. Love to both. God bless you both for unvarying
friendship and kindness. Your affectionate and desolate friend, Isabel
Burton.

"I have saved his gold watch-chain as a memorial for you."

So passed from human ken the great, noble and learned Richard Francis
Burton, "wader of the seas of knowledge," "cistern of learning of our
globe," "exalted above his age," "opener by his books of night and day,"
"traveller by ship and foot and horse." [643] No man could have had a
fuller life. Of all travellers he was surely the most enthusiastic.
What had he not seen? The plains of the Indus, the slopes of the Blue
Mountains, the classic cities of Italy, the mephitic swamps of Eastern
Africa, the Nilotic cataracts, Brazil, Abeokuta, Iceland, El Dorado--all
knew well--him, his star-sapphire, and his congested church service:
lands fertile, barren, savage, civilized, utilitarian, dithyrambic. He
had worshipped at Mecca and at Salt Lake City. He had looked into the
face of Memnon, and upon the rocks of Midian, 'graven with an iron pen,'
upon the head waters of the Congo, and the foliate columns of Palmyra;
he had traversed the whole length of the Sao Francisco, crossed the
Mississippi and the Ganges. Then, too, had not the Power of the Hills
been upon him! With what eminence indeed was he not familiar, whether
Alp, Cameroon or Himalaya! Nor did he despise the features of his native
land. If he had climbed the easy Andes, he had also conquered, and
looked down from the giddy heights of Hampstead. Because he had grubbed
in the Italian Pompeii he did not, on that account, despise the British
Uriconium. [644] He ranks with the world's most intrepid explorers--with
Columbus, Cabot, Marco Polo, Da Gama and Stanley.