The British Consul at Damascus was at that time my old friend Richard Burton, the famous traveller and linguist, one of the most notable men of my time. We had become known to one another a dozen years before, when I was a clerk in the African, or as it was then called, the Slave Trade, Department of the Foreign Office. In 1861 a fight, anthropological, zoological, and biological, was raging round Du Chaillu’s recently published book on equatorial Africa, and especially upon the question whether the gorilla was a reality or only a fabulous animal, like the “men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” All the great lords of science, such as Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Richard Owen—who backed Du Chaillu—were in the lists, and Burton, always eager for a fray, whether with pen or sword, was on fire to go and ascertain the truth. He was, however, a captain in the Indian army, and so long as he remained a soldier the thing was impossible; so he contrived to be appointed consul at Fernando Po, severing his connection with the authorities of the India Office, who never forgave him. Thus it was that he had to come to the Slave Trade Department of the Foreign Office to be coached up in the recent business of his consulate, and I was able to be of some little use to him in supplying him with documents and information. We became fast friends, I having the greatest admiration for him. Indeed, he was a man possessed of a great power of awakening enthusiasm. He did all that he could to persuade me to go with him to Fernando Po. There was a small office vacant there, which I could easily have obtained, but happily my father put his foot down, and I remained in Downing Street. So far as gorillas were concerned, Burton might as well have stayed behind also, for he found none. Du Chaillu, however, was able to make good all that he had said, and his story was confirmed by a French expedition in the following year.