After having seen all our friends off, we went up to Opçina, where I sent out thirty-four thousand circulars for the "Arabian Nights." [Sidenote: _Richard's Second Attack of Gout_.] Towards the end of December, Richard had a fresh breaking out of the gout; we found that rubbing him with cod-liver oil did him a lot of good. It was a sad Christmas, but he got better the day after Christmas Day; only, as he would walk about without much clothing, and would eat sucking pig, he went back to bed ill; so then we tried Mattei's remedies, and his electricity. On the 15th of December we lost a great friend in the Duchess of Somerset. On St. Silvester night we were not able to keep our usual engagement. We had one glass of champagne together in his room, and the servants went through a very usual ceremony in Trieste of forming procession, and chevying the evil spirits with sticks and brooms out of the house down the stairs, and out of the street door, and inviting the good spirits and good luck to come and dwell with us. Richard notices poor Sir Charles Sebright's death, aged seventy-seven, on the 10th of October. One of Richard's great delights was the setter at Opçina (so often mentioned), named Fazán. He was so fond of us that on Saturday, as he was perfectly sure we should arrive about four, about two o'clock he would go to the wood stack, draw a great block of wood out with his teeth, and carry it to Daneu, the master of the inn, and, wagging his tail, would run and put it down before the stove, as much as to say, "Light the fire; they will be cold when they come up;" then he would fetch another bit, and come and sit before the gate at about half-past three to wait for our arrival, and he never left us, night or day, as long as he was there. During Richard's gout attacks it frequently occurs in his journals, "I feel too well to-day to be altogether right;" and next day, surely, he would have some attack of gout. It was so difficult for him to understand that he could not do what he did when he was twenty-five, and to get him to train down to what he could do, not what he _used_ to do. We now tried a new thing that seemed very good, and that is fusel oil, which is of the dregs of whisky; it is deadly poison to drink, but it acts splendidly on gouty limbs; and then we tried sulphur foot-baths. 1885.