"He has been in active service of one kind or another--in each distinguishing himself--for twenty-seven years. Any one of these services would have ensured most men some high reward, but he remains, at forty-eight years of age, a simple Consul in her Majesty's service, without so much as a decoration or an honour of any kind. "It will be objected that a military K.C.B. cannot be made. "To this I have to reply, that Captain Burton was nineteen years in the Bombay army--the first ten years in active service, serving five of those years in the Scinde Survey on Sir Charles Napier's staff. He joined his regiment when marching upon Mooltan to attack the Sikhs, and only returned home when compelled by a severe attack of ophthalmia--the result of mental and physical over-fatigue. "In 1853 he published a system of bayonet exercise--which is actually the one adopted at present by the Horse Guards--which was acknowledged by an order on the Treasury for the sum of one shilling. "In the Crimea he was Chief of the Staff to General Beatson, and was the chief organizer of the Irregular Cavalry, and at the moment of their disbanding had four thousand sabres in perfect training, ready to do anything and go anywhere. "In 1861 he came under the reduction when the Indian army changed hands, and his whole nineteen years were swept out as if they had never been, without a vestige of pay or pension. For all this a K.C.B. would be a compensation. "During the times he was not in active military service he was serving his country, humanity, science, and civilization in other ways, by opening up lands hitherto unknown, and trying to do good wherever he went. "Baker and Grant have been rewarded for _one_ expedition; Speke _would_ have been had he lived; Livingstone _will be_ when he returns; and Captain Burton only is left out in the cold. It is forgotten that he was the first to lead the way--that he, so to speak, opened the oyster, while Baker, Speke, and Grant appear to have taken the pearl; yet every news we get from Livingstone proves that Captain Burton's original theory was the right one, and that _his_ Lake Tanganyika is the true head source of the Nile, for which all the others have been decorated. Again, it must be remembered that each of these men have made _one_ expedition, and got a large reward, whilst Captain Burton has made several, most of which were at the risk of his life; for instance-- "1. Mecca and Medinah. "2. Somali-land, East Africa (badly wounded, and lost all his effects). Speke second in command. "3. The Lake Regions of Central Africa (Speke again second in command). The first attempt to discover the Sources of the Nile. Three years absent, twenty-one fevers, temporary paralysis, and total blindness. "4. California and the Mormon Country. "For eight years and a half Captain Burton has been in the Consular Service--