The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 2 (of 2): By His Wife, Isabel BurtonBurton, Isabel, Lady
History
The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 2 (of 2): By His Wife, Isabel Burton
Burton, Isabel, Lady
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Scholars -- Great Britain -- Biography
if he would have listened to that arrangement at first.
[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE BURTON DIED.]
[Sidenote: _Scorpions_.]
We swam and bathed all the summer; but Richard and I found for the
first time that it did not agree with us, and that our long swimming
days were over. I was playing with a little puppy in early August
which bit me in play, and drew blood, but in a couple of days I woke
with headache and very sick, and shooting pains all up the arm, and
we thought I had got hydrophobia. The arm was swelled, scarlet, very
painful, and I felt light-headed. I sent for a doctor, who examined the
bite, and found I had been bitten by a scorpion, of which our new house
was full, just in the same place that the tooth of the dog had broken
the skin. He rubbed in laudanum. I had several doses of bromide of
potassium, and got all right. I was stung three times after that, which
produced the same effect; but we soon exterminated the scorpions.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE BURTONS' DRAWING-ROOM AT TRIESTE. _From
a Photograph by Dr. Baker_.]
We used to read and write a great deal in the garden, and very often
used to spend the greater part of the day there.
[Sidenote: _"Gup"_.]
He notices Sir William Williams of Kars died on the 26th of July, aged
eighty-three, and the great earthquake at Casamicciola, in the island
of Ischia, took place on the 28th. Poor Haji Wali died on the 3rd of
August, at the age of eighty-four. He was Richard's companion in the
days of Midian.
On the 12th of August arrived our new Consular Chaplain (the Rev. Mr.
Thorndike), a charming, gentlemanly, and devout man, who had been in
the army.
Richard's friend, Mr. George Paget, now arrived--he had bought a house
at Scutari.
On the Emperor's birthday, 18th of August, there were two rows in the
town between Austrians and Italians.
On Friday, the 24th, the Comte de Chambord (Henri V.) died. No need to
comment upon such a misfortune.
Further on in August there was an Italian regatta, and we had a
delightful dinner on the P. and O. _Lombardy_, the Lascar crew rowing
us to San Bartolo to supper and back. We then had a visit from Mr.
Lavino, correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_, whom we had met so
often in Vienna, and Mr. Oswald from the Foreign Office.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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