It was when talking upon such subjects that he was at his best. It was upon his knowledge of ritual and ceremonial that he chiefly relied for the success of his venturesome pilgrimage. There are so many nations professing Mohammedanism that an imperfection in language or accent might be of small account. But the slightest error in ritual would have led to immediate detection and death. One such occasion did occur. He was detected, but it was not he that was killed. I asked him whether the story was true; his answer was: “Well! they do say the man died.” But then Burton would delight in making people believe that he had committed a murder. If the tale was true it was a case of his life or that of the spy. So he was perhaps justified. One morning he came to me with a roll of MSS. under his arm. “There,” he said, “you shall have the first sight of this.” It was the first two or three chapters of his translation of the “Arabian Nights.” He assured me that he had shown the translation to nobody. Privately printed, it brought him in ten thousand pounds. During several years after he was appointed to Trieste I saw him but seldom, and only from time to time when he came home on leave. But in 1890 I spent part of the winter in Algiers, and found myself in the same hotel with him in Mustapha Supérieur. He was then sadly broken in health, having had some sort of stroke which made it difficult for him to walk; but he used to hold a kind of Court every evening in the hall of the hotel, surrounded by a number of visitors upon whom he could lavish some of his most amazing tales. There were times when he and I would be alone together, and then he talked a great deal about his future prospects and consulted me as to sending in his resignation and taking his pension. He harped upon this over and over again. At last one day he brought me a sealed packet, put it into my hands and said: “There! you were the first man to whom nineteen years ago I showed the ‘Arabian Nights;’ now you must look at this; no one else has seen it; keep it under lock and key till you give it back to me.” I took it upstairs. It was the much talked of “Scented Garden” which Lady Burton afterwards at his death destroyed. I gave it back to him the next day. “What do you think of it?” he asked. “Well, my dear Burton, if you really mean to print that, I should advise you to wait till you have resigned and secured your pension.” Burton was delighted with the answer. “Yes,” he said, with conscious pride, “I think I have shocked Mrs. Grundy this time.” It was the old story! Always the uncontrollable desire to startle and to shock! There is, or used to be, a club in Paris called “Les Épatants.” What a fitting president of such a club Burton would have made! To _épater_ was meat and drink to him.