“Look intently enough at anything,” said a poet to me one
day, “and you will see something that would otherwise escape
you.
day, “and you will see something that would otherwise escape
you.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
What would he see?
Perhaps not
the invisible — not the odors of flowers or the fever germs in
the air — not the infinitely small of the microscope or the infi-
nitely distant of the telescope. This would require not so much
more eyes as an eye constructed with more and different lenses;
but would he not see with augmented power within the natural
limits of vision ? At any rate, some persons seem to have
opened more eyes than others, they see with such force and dis-
tinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where
that of others fails, like a spent or impotent bullet. How
many eyes did Gilbert White open ? how many did Henry Tho-
reau? how many did Audubon ? how many does the hunter,
mat hing his sight against the keen and alert senses of a deer,
or a moose, or a fox, or a wolf ? Not outward eyes, but inward.
We open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general
features or outlines of things — whenever we grasp the special
details and characteristic markings that this mask covers. Science
confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have learned to
discriminate the birds, or the plants, or the geological features
of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes were added.
Of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright
what he sees.
The facts in the life of nature that are transpiring
## p. 2871 (#443) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2871
the query.
about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange
into sentences. Or, the writing is a cipher and he must fur-
nish the key. A female oriole was one day observed very
much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse
stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls,
scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable,
dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding
what she wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and
was presently captured by the farmer. What did she want ? was
What but a horse-hair for her nest, which was in an
apple-tree near by ? and she was so bent on having one that I
have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the horse's
tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season I examined
her nest, and found it sewed through and through with several
long horse-hairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till the
hair was found.
Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic
scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our
eyes are sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw
this little comedy played among some English sparrows, and
wrote an account of it in his newspaper. It is too good not to
be true: A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose-
feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted.
After he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations
over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in
and seized the feather,- and here the wit of the bird came out,
for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a
near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home,
and when her neighbor returned with his mate, was innocently
employed about her own affairs. The proud male, finding his
feather gone, came out of his box in a high state of excitement,
and with wrath in his manner and accusation on his tongue,
rushed into the cot of the female. Not finding his goods and
chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile,
abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and
then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out
of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home
and lined her own domicile with it.
The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recur-
ring to him. His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a
## p. 2872 (#444) ###########################################
2872
JOHN BURROUGHS
new chapter in the progress of the season; things are never
quite the same after one has heard that note. The past spring
the males came about a week in advance of the females. A fine
male lingered about my grounds and orchard all that time,
apparently awaiting the arrival of his mate. He called and
warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within earshot and
could be hurried up. Now he warbled half angrily or upbraid-
ingly; then coaxingly; then cheerily and confidently, the next
moment in a plaintive and far-away manner. He would half
open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly as if beckoning his
mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and
reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree
and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble
the old, old story.
But the female flew to a near tree and ut-
tered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some
dry grass or bark in his beak and flew again to the hole in the
old tree, and promised unremitting devotion; but the other said
"Nay,” and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going,
or rather heard her distant note, he dropped his stuff and cried
out in a tone that said plainly enough, “Wait a minute: one
word, please! ” and flew swiftly in pursuit. He won her before
long, however, and early in April the pair were established in
one of the four or five boxes I had put up for them, but not
until they had changed their minds several times. As soon
the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under their
parents' care, they began to nest in one of the other boxes, the
female as usual doing all the work and the male all the compli-
menting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird
was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had
never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watch-
ing them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she
appeared, the mother bluebird set up that pitiful melodious plaint.
One morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came
with her beak loaded with building material, and alighted above
me to survey the place before going into the box. When she
saw the cat she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could
not keep her hold upon all her material. Straw after straw came
eddying down, till not half her original burden remained. After
the cat had gone away the bird's alarm subsided; till presently,
seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in
her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and without
as
## p. 2873 (#445) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2873
going in to arra
rrange them as was her wont, flew away in evident
relief.
In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much
nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or
golden-shafted woodpeckers, took up their abode. A knot-hole
which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood
being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. The
inside preparations I could not witness, but day after day as I
passed near I heard the bird hammering away, evidently beating
down obstructions and shaping and enlarging the cavity. The
chips were not brought out, but were used rather to floor the
interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but rather nest-
carvers.
The time seemed very short before the voices of the young
were heard in the heart of the old tree,- at first feebly, but
waxing stronger day by day, until they could be heard many
rods distant. When I put my hand upon the trunk of the tree
they would set up an eager, expectant chattering; but if I
climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual
sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a
warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clam-
bered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could
stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbow-
ing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one,
aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked
out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds
seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a
consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's dwelling is not
sweet. When the parent birds came with food, the young one in
the opening did not get it all; but after he had received a por-
tion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one,
he would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evi-
dently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was two or
three days in advance of them. His voice was the loudest and
his head oftenest at the window. But I noticed that when he
had kept the position too long, the others evidently made it
uncomfortable in his rear, and after “fidgeting about awhile he
would be compelled to "back down. " But retaliation was then
easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments at the out-
look. They would close their eyes and slide back into the cavity
as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them.
## p. 2874 (#446) ###########################################
2874
JOHN BURROUGHS
This bird was of course the first to leave the nest. For two
days before that event he kept his position in the opening most
of the time, and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old
ones abstained from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to
encourage his exit. As I stood looking at him one afternoon
and noticing his progress, he suddenly reached a resolution,-
seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear,- and launched forth
upon his untried wings. They served him well, and carried him
about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after, the
next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another,
till only one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits to
him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tired
of the sound. His was the faintest heart of all: then he had
none to encourage him from behind. He left the nest and clung
to the outer bole of the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour
longer; then he committed himself to his wings and went his
way like the rest.
A young farmer in the western part of New York sends me
some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He
says a large gooseberry-bush, standing in the border of an old
hedge-row in the midst of the open fields, and not far from his
house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in suc-
cession; and after an interval of a year, for two seasons more.
This gave him a good chance to observe them. He says the
mother-bird lays a single egg and sits upon it a number of days
before laying the second, so that he has seen one young bird
nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg all in the
nest at once. “So far as I have seen, this is the settled prac-
tice,- the young leaving the nest one at a time, to the number
of six or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of
the dove in many respects. When nearly grown they are cov-
ered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning needles, with-
out a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and
hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious
feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but
handsome. They never open their mouths when approached,
as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving
when touched. ” He also notes the unnatural indifference of the
mother-bird when her nest and young are approached. She
makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent
perfect unconcern.
## p. 2875 (#447) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2875
These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the
cuckoo is occasionally found in the nest of other birds, raise the
inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the
European species, which always foists its egg upon other birds;
or whether on the other hand it be not mending its manners in
this respect.
It has but little to unlearn or forget in the one
case, but great progress to make in the other. How far is its
rudimentary nest — a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks
of weeds — from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely mod-
eled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what a gulf between
its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! Its irregular
manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like our
cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder.
This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of
interesting things as he goes about his work. He one day saw
a white swallow, which is of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a
sparrow, he thinks, fly against the side of a horse and fill his
beak with hair from the loosened coat of the animal.
He saw a
shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking
refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early spring he
saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air,
approach each other, extend a claw, and grasping them together,
fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied
together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft
again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of
love, and that the hawks were toying fondly with each other.
When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk
for insects about cattle and moving herds in the field. My
farmer describes how they attended him one foggy day, as he
was mowing in the meadow with a mowing-machine. It had
been foggy for two days, and the swallows were very hungry
and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of his
machine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like
a brood of hungry chickens. He
says
there was
a continual
rush of purple wings over the "cutter-bar,” and just where it was
causing the grass to tremble and fall. Without his assistance
the swallows would have gone hungry yet another day.
of the hen-hawk he has observed that both the male and
female take part in incubation. I was rather surprised,” he
says, "on one occasion, to see how quickly they change places
## p. 2876 (#448) ###########################################
2876
JOHN BURROUGHS
on the nest. The nest was in a tall beech, and the leaves were
not yet fully out. I could see the head and neck of the hawk
over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawk coming
down through the air at full speed. I expected he would alight
near by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest,
his mate getting out of the way barely in time to avoid being
hit; it seemed almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I
hardly see how they can make such a rush on the nest without
danger to the eggs. ”
The kingbird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will
worry a bear. It is by his persistence and audacity, not by any
injury he is capable of dealing his great antagonist. The king-
bird seldom more than dogs the hawk, keeping above and be.
tween his wings and making a great ado; but my correspondent
says he once saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's back. The
hawk flew as fast as possible, and the kingbird sat upon his
shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,”—
tweaking his feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the
next moment.
That near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-
catcher, has one well-known peculiarity: he appears never to con-
sider his nest finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My
alert correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion
skin and make off with it, either deceived by it or else thinking
it a good substitute for the coveted material.
One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon a nest
of whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest, - two
elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My
foot was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I
wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or character-
istic in the ways of the bird, so I came to the place many
times and had a look. It was always a task to separate the
bird from her surroundings, though I stood within a few feet of
her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with
his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks and
leaves, and bits of black or dark brown bark, were all exactly
copied in the bird's plumage. And then she did sit so close and
simulate so well a shapeless decaying piece of wood or bark!
Twice I brought a companion, and guiding his eye to the spot,
noted how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full
view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the
## p. 2877 (#449) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2877
bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a
few inches of her eggs and then, after a moment's pause, hobble
awkwardly upon them.
After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came
into play. I was on hand the next day, I think. The mother-
bird sprang up when I was within a pace of her, and in doing
so fanned the leaves with her wings till they sprang up too; as
the leaves started the young started, and, being of the same
color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird was a try-
ing task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same
tactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young
birds and nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish
down like a young partridge, and soon follow their mother about.
When disturbed they gave but one leap, then settled down, per-
fectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird,
on these occasions, made frantic efforts to decoy me away from
her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast,
,
and a spasm like that of death would run through her tremulous
outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye out
the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not she was
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to
draw my attention as before. When followed she always alighted
upon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The
second or third day both old and young had disappeared.
The whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which
is as awkward as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead
her young about the woods. The latter, I think, move by leaps
and sudden spurts, their protective coloring shielding them most
effectively. Wilson came upon the mother-bird and her
brood in the woods, and though they were at his very feet, was
so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to
give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived some-
thing like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and,
on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill,
seemingly asleep. ” Wilson's description of the young is very
accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a slight
moldiness. ” Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to
get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor
young
It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, motionless
upon the leaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell
once
## p. 2878 (#450) ###########################################
2878
JOHN BURROUGHS
soon
ear or nose.
in hounds and pointers, and yet I know an unkempt youth that
seldom fails to see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. I
think he sees it as as it sees him, and before it suspects
itself seen.
What a training to the eye is hunting! To pick out
the game from its surroundings, the grouse from the leaves, the
gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely, the red
fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit from the
stubble, or the white hare from the snow, requires the best
powers of this sense. A woodchuck motionless in the fields or
upon a rock looks very much like a large stone or bowlder, yet
a keen eye knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile
away.
A man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any
of the wild creatures; but not so sharp an
But in
the birds he finds his match. How quickly the old turkey dis-
covers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly
the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the
bushes, or behind the fence near which he alights! One advan-
tage the bird surely has; and that is, owing to the form, struct-
ure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of vision
- indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the same
instant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces
less than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his
brow and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of
the zenith without a movement of the head; the bird, on the
other hand, takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance.
I find I see, almost without effort, nearly every bird within
sight in the field or wood I pass through (a fit of the wing, a
flirt of the tail, are enough, though the flickering leaves do all
conspire to hide them), and that with like ease the birds see
me, though unquestionably the chances are immensely in their
favor. The eye sees what it has the means of seeing, truly.
You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in
the bush. The eye must have purpose and aim. No one ever
yet found the walking-fern who did not have the walking-fern
in his mind. A person whose eye is full of Indian relics picks
them up in every field he walks through.
One season I was interested in the tree-frogs, especially the
tiny pipers that one hears about the woods and brushy fields-
the hylas of the swamps become a denizen of trees; I had never
seen him in this new rôle. But this season having them in mind,
## p. 2879 (#451) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2879
or rather being ripe for them, I several times came across them.
One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I captured two. They
leaped before me as doubtless they had done many times before,
but though not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were
quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to
find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, I was
hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods in hopes of
overtaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the
treetops, when one of these Lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-
yellowing leaves, leaped near me. I saw him only out of the
corner of my eye, and yet bagged him, because I had already
made him my own.
Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and
decisive gazing; not by a first casual glance, but by a steady,
deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things
discovered You must look intently and hold your eye firmly
to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind.
The sharpshooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal
certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. The
phrenologists do well to locate not only form, color, weight, etc. ,
in the region of the eye, but a faculty which they call individ-
uality — that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every
object its essential character. This is just as necessary to the
naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes spe-
cific points and differences, -it seizes upon and preserves the
individuality of the thing.
We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked
for its specific features. I thought I knew exactly the form of
the leaf of the tulip-tree, until one day a lady asked me to draw
the outlines of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and
to follow it up. Most of the facts of nature, especially in the
life of the birds and animals, are well screened. We do not see
the play, because we do not look intently enough.
Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw a fresh bone
or a piece of meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon
the crows will discover it and be on hand. If it be near the
house or barn, the crow that first discovers it will alight near it,
to make sure that he is not deceived; then he will go away and
soon return with a companion. The two alight a few yards from
## p. 2880 (#452) ###########################################
2880
JOHN BURROUGHS
the bone, and after some delay, during which the vicinity is
sharply scrutinized, one of the crows advances boldly to within a
few feet of the coveted prize. Here he pauses, and if no trick
is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes it and
makes off.
One midwinter I cleared away the snow under an apple-tree
near the house, and scattered some corn there. I had not seen
a bluejay for weeks, yet that very day they found my corn, and
after that they came daily and partook of it, holding the kernels
under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and pecking them
vigorously.
Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes. Still
I was surprised to see how quickly Downy found out some bones
that were placed in a convenient place under the shed to be
pounded up for the hens. In going out to the barn I often dis-
turbed him making a meal off the bits of meat that still adhered
to them.
“Look intently enough at anything,” said a poet to me one
day, “and you will see something that would otherwise escape
you. " I thought of the remark as I sat on a stump in the open-
ing of the woods one spring day. I saw a small hawk approach-
ing; he flew to a tall tulip-tree and alighted on a large limb near
the top. He eyed me and I eyed him. Then the bird disclosed
a trait that was new to me; he hopped along the limb to a small
cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled out
some small object and fell to eating it. After he had partaken
of it some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and
I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly
down as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the
feathers of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes be-
neath the tree. The hawk then — commonly called the chicken
hawk — is as provident as a mouse or squirrel, and lays by a store
against a time of need; but I should not have discovered the fact
had I not held my eye to him.
An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or
commotion among them. In May and June, when other birds
are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about
the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is rob-
bing birds'-nests and he is very anxious that nothing should be
said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry
« Thief, thief” as he. One December morning a troop of them
flew away.
## p. 2881 (#453) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2881
discovered a little screech-owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an
old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a
mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but
they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect
the bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peep-
ing into holes and crannies, both spring and fall. Some unsus-
pecting bird probably entered the cavity, prospecting for a place
for next year's nest, or else looking out a likely place to pass
a cold night, when it has rushed with very important news. A
boy who should unwittingly venture into a bear's den when
Bruin was at home could not be more astonished and alarmed
than a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of a de-
cayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joined the
jays, in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the
fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day
in the old apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm
and approached to within eyeshot. The bluebirds were cautious,
and hovered about uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but
the jays were bolder, and took turns looking in at the cavity and
deriding the poor shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the
entrance of the hole, and flirt and peer and attitudinize, and then
fly away crying “Thief, thief, thief,” at the top of his voice.
I climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just
descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in
and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping
of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a
He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my
forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncom-
fortable. I placed him in the loft of an out-house in hopes of
getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very will-
ing prisoner, scarcely moving at all even when approached and
touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-
closed sleepy eyes.
But at night what a change; how alert, how
wild, how active! He was like another bird; he darted about
with wild fearful eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. I
opened the window, and swiftly, but as silently as a shadow, he
glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps ere this has
revenged himself upon the sleeping jay or blue bird that first
betrayed his hiding-place.
Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston.
V-181
## p. 2882 (#454) ###########################################
2882
JOHN BURROUGHS
WAITING
SER
ERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace ?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone ?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap wherc it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
Republished by courtesy of John Burroughs.
## p. 2883 (#455) ###########################################
2883
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
(1821-1890)
for a
T HAS sometimes been said that the roving propensities of
Sir Richard Burton are attributable to a slight infusion of
gipsy blood; but if this pedigree were to be assumed for all
instinctively nomadic Englishmen, it would make family trees as far-
cical in general as they often are now. At any rate, Burton early
showed a love for travel which circumstances strengthened. Although
born in Hertfordshire, England, he spent much of his boyhood on
the Continent, where he was educated under tutors. He returned
course at Oxford, after which, at
twenty-one, he entered the Indian service.
For nineteen years he was in the Bombay
army corps, the first ten in active service,
principally in the Sindh Survey, on Sir
Charles Napier's staff. He also served in
the Crimea as Chief of Staff to General
Blatsom, and was chief organizer of the
irregular cavalry. For nearly twenty-six
years he was in the English consular serv-
ice in Africa, Asia, South America, and
Europe.
In 1852, when upon leave, Captain
Burton accomplished one of his most strik RICHARD BURTON
ing feats. Disguised as an Afghan Mos-
lem, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, in the hope of
finding out «something of the great eastern wilderness marked (Ruba
el Khala' (the Empty Abode) on our maps. ” For months he success-
fully braved the imminent danger of detection and death. Conspic-
uous among his explorations is his trip of 1856, when with Speke he
discovered the lake regions of Central Africa. The bitter Speke con-
troversy which followed, dividing geographers for a time into two
contending factions, deprived Burton of the glory which he merited
and drew upon him much unfriendly criticism.
He had the true ardor of the discoverer. In First Footsteps in
Eastern Africa' he shows his unhesitating bravery again, when pene-
trating the mysterious, almost mythical walled city of Harar. After
many dangers and exhausting experiences he sees the goal at last.
“The spectacle, materially speaking, was a disappointment,” he says.
## p. 2884 (#456) ###########################################
2884
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
"Nothing conspicuous appeared but two gray minarets of rude shape.
Many would grudge exposing their lives to win so paltry a prize.
But of all that have attempted, none ever succeeded in entering that
pile of stones. ”
Richard Burton carefully worded his varied experiences, and has
left about fifty valuable and interesting volumes. Among the best
known are (Sindh,' 'The Lake Regions of Central Africa, (Two
Trips to Gorilla Land,' and 'Ultima Thule. With his knowledge of
thirty-five languages and dialects he gained an intimate acquaintance
with the people among whom he lived, and was enabled to furnish
the world much novel information in his g, straightforward style.
Perhaps his most noteworthy literary achievement was his fine
translation of the Arabian Nights,' which appeared in 1885. Of this
his wife wrote:-
« This grand Arabian work I consider my husband's Magnum Opus.
We were our own printers and our own publishers, and we made, between
September 1885 and November 1888, sixteen thousand guineas six thou-
sand of which went for publishing and ten thousand into our own pockets,
and it came just in time to give my husband the comforts and luxuries and
freedom that gilded the five last years of his life. When he died there were
four forins left, which I put into the poor-box. ”
This capable soldier and author was very inadequately recom-
pensed. As a soldier, his bravery and long service brought him only
the rank of Captain. In the civil service he was given only second-
class consulates. The French Geographical Society, and also the
Royal Geographical Society of England, each awarded him a gold
medal, but the latter employed him upon only one expedition. At
the age of sixty-five he was knighted. He had no other honors.
This lack of recognition was undoubtedly a mortification, although
toward the end of his career he writes philosophically:-
«The press are calling me (the neglected Englishman,' and I want to
express to them the feelings of pride and gratitude with which I have seen
the exertions of my brethren of the press to procure for me a tardy justice.
The public is a fountain of honor which amply suffices all my aspirations;
it is the more honorable as it will not allow a long career to be ignored
because of catechisms or creed. )
He comforted himself, no doubt, with the belief that his out-
spoken skepticism was the cause of this lack of advancement, and
that he was in some sort a martyr to freedom of thought; but one
may be excused for discrediting this in the face of so many contrary
instances. Capable men too scarce to throw aside for such
things in this century. The real and sufficient reason was his
equally outspoken criticism of his superior officers in every depart-
are
## p. 2885 (#457) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2885
ment. A subordinate may and often does know more than his
masters; but if he wishes the luxury of advertising the fact, he must
pay for it with their ill-will and his own practical suppression.
Lady Burton was also an author; her Inner Life in Syria' and
(Arabia, Egypt, and India) are bright and entertaining. But her
most important work is the Life of Sir Richard F. Burton,'
published in 1892, two years after her husband's death. This un-
organized mass of interesting material, in spite of carelessness and
many faults of style and taste, shows her a ready observer, with
a clever and graphic way of stating her impressions.
THE PRETERNATURAL IN FICTION
From the Essay on (The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night
S
“A
measure
The active world is inferior to the rational soul,” says
Bacon, with his normal sound sense, “so Fiction gives
to Mankind what History denies, and in some
satisfies the Mind with Shadows when it cannot enjoy the Sub-
stance. And as real History gives us not the success of things
according to the deserts of vice and virtue, Fiction corrects it
and presents us with the fates and fortunes of persons rewarded
and punished according to merit. ” But I would say still more.
History paints or attempts to paint life as it is, a mighty maze
with or without a plan; Fiction shows or would show us life as
it should be, wisely ordered and laid down on fixed lines. Thus
Fiction is not the mere handmaid of History: she has a house-
hold of her own, and she claims to be the triumph of Art,
which, as Goethe remarked, is “Art because it is not Nature. ”
Fancy, la folle du logis, is “that kind and gentle portress who
holds the gate of Hope wide open, in opposition to Reason,
the surly and scrupulous guard. ” As Palmerin of England says,
and says well:-“For that the report of noble deeds doth urge
the courageous mind to equal those who bear most commenda-
tion of their approved valiancy; this is the fair fruit of Im-
agination and of ancient histories. ” And last, but not least, the
faculty of Fancy takes count of the cravings of man's nature for
the marvelous, the impossible, and of his higher aspirations
for the Ideal, the Perfect; she realizes the wild dreams and
visions of his generous youth, and portrays for him a portion of
that "other and better world,” with whose expectation he would
console his age.
## p. 2886 (#458) ###########################################
2886
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
The imaginative varnish of The Nights) serves admirably as
a foil to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We
enjoy being carried away from trivial and commonplace charac-
ters, scenes, and incidents; from the matter-of-fact surroundings
of a workaday world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping
and waking, fighting and loving, into a society and a mise-en-
scène which we suspect can exist and which we know do not.
Every man, at some turn or term of his life, has longed for
supernatural powers and a glimpse of Wonderland. Here he is
in the midst of it. Here he sees mighty spirits summoned to
work the human mite's will, however whimsical; who can trans-
port him in an eye-twinkling whithersoever he wishes; who can
ruin cities and build palaces of gold and silver, gems and
jacinths; who can serve up delicate viands and delicious drinks
in priceless chargers and impossible cups, and bring the choicest
fruits from farthest Orient: here he finds magas and magicians
who can make kings of his friends, slay armies of his foes, and
bring any number of beloveds to his arms.
And from this outraging probability and outstripping possi-
bility arises not a little of that strange fascination exercised for
nearly two centuries upon the life and literature of Europe by
"The Nights,' even in their mutilated and garbled form. The
reader surrenders himself to the spell, feeling almost inclined to
inquire, “And why may it not be true ? ” His brain is dazed
and dazzled by the splendors which flash before it, by the sudden
procession of Jinns and Jinniyahs, demons and fairies, some
hideous, others preternaturally beautiful; by good wizards and
evil sorcerers, whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe;
by mermen and mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and
reasoning elephants; by magic rings and their slaves, and by
talismanic couches which rival the carpet of Solomon. Hence, as
one remarks, these Fairy Tales have pleased and still continue to
please almost all ages, all ranks, and all different capacities.
Dr. Hawkesworth observes that these Fairy Tales find favor
"because even their machinery, wild and wonderful as it is, has
its laws; and the magicians and enchanters perform nothing but
what was naturally to be expected from such beings, after we
had once granted them existence. ” Mr. Heron (rather supposes
the very contrary is the truth of the fact. It is surely the
strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous character of the
supernatural agents here employed, that makes them to operate
## p. 2887 (#459) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2887
as
we
so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities, sympathies, and in
short, on all the feelings of our hearts. We see men and women
who possess qualities to recommend them to our favor, subjected
to the influence of beings whose good or ill will, power or weak-
ness, attention or neglect, are regulated by motives and circum-
stances which we cannot comprehend: and hence we naturally
tremble for their fate with the same anxious concern
should for a friend wandering in a dark night amidst torrents
and precipices; or preparing to land on a strange island, while
he knew not whether he should be received on the shore by
cannibals waiting to tear him piecemeal and devour him, or by
gentle beings disposed to cherish him with fond hospitality. ”
Both writers have expressed themselves well; but meseems
each has secured, as often happens, a fragment of the truth and
holds it to be the whole Truth. Granted that such spiritual
creatures as Jinns walk the earth, we are pleased to find them so
very human, as wise and as foolish in word and deed as our-
selves; similarly we admire in a landscape natural forms like
those of Staffa or the Palisades, which favor the works of archi-
tecture. Again, supposing such preternaturalisms to be around
and amongst us, the wilder and more capricious they prove, the
more our attention is excited and our forecasts are baffled, to be
set right in the end. But this is not all. The grand source of
pleasure in fairy tales is the natural desire to learn more of
the Wonderland which is known to many as a word and nothing
more, like Central Africa before the last half-century; thus the
interest is that of the “personal narrative” of a grand explora-
tion, to one who delights in travels. The pleasure must be
greatest where faith is strongest; for instance, amongst imagin-
ative races like the Kelts, and especially Orientals, who imbibe
supernaturalism with their mothers' milk. "I am persuaded,"
writes Mr. Bayle St. John, that the great scheme of preter-
natural energy, so fully developed in The Thousand and One
Nights,' is believed in by the majority of the inhabitants of all
the religious professions both in Syria and Egypt. ” He might
have added, by every reasoning being from prince to peasant,
from Mullah to Badawi, between Marocco. and Outer Ind. ”
Dr. Johnson thus sums up his notice of The Tempest":
“Whatever might have been the intention of their author, these
tales are made instrumental to the production of many char-
acters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with
## p. 2888 (#460) ###########################################
2888
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and
accurate observation of life. Here are exhibited princes, court-
iers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is
the agency of airy spirits and of earthy goblins, the operations of
magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures on a desert island,
the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt,
and the final happiness of those for whom our passions and
reason are equally interested. ”
We can fairly say this much and far more for our Tales,
Viewed as a tout ensemble in full and complete form, they are
a drama of Eastern life, and a Dance of Death made sublime by
faith and the highest emotions, by the certainty of expiation and
the fullness of atoning equity, where virtue is victorious, vice is
vanquished, and the ways of Allah are justified to man. They are
a panorama which remains ken-speckle upon the mental retina.
They form a phantasmagoria in which archangels and angels,
devils and goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle
with men of earth; where flying horses and talking fishes are
utterly realistic: where King and Prince meet fisherman and
pauper, lamia and cannibal; where citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch
meets knight; the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and
pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the pro-
curess; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist,
and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the
scoffer, and the debauchee-poet like Abu Nowas; where the
courtier jests with the boor, and where the sweep is bedded with
the noble lady. And the characters are finished and quickened
by a few touches swift and sure as the glance of sunbeams. ”
The whole is a kaleidoscope where everything falls into picture;
gorgeous palaces and pavilions; grisly underground caves and
deadly wolds; gardens fairer than those of the Hesperid; seas
dashing with clashing billows upon enchanted mountains; valleys
of the Shadow of Death; air-voyages and promenades in the
abysses of ocean; the duello, the battle, and the siege; the woo-
ing of maidens and the marriage-rite. All the splendor and
squalor, the beauty and baseness, the glamor and grotesqueness,
the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and baseness of
Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab pas-
sions— love, war, and fancy — entitle it to be called Blood,
Musk, and Hashish. And still more, the genius of the story-
teller quickens the dry bones of history, and by adding Fiction
## p. 2889 (#461) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2889
to Fact revives the dead past; the Caliphs and the Caliphate
return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst Asmodeus kindly removes
the terrace-roof of every tenement and allows our curious glances
to take in the whole interior. This is perhaps the best proof of
their power. Finally the picture-gallery opens with a series of
weird and striking adventures, and shows as a tail-piece an idyllic
scene of love and wedlock, in halls before reeking with lust and
blood.
A JOURNEY IN DISGUISE
From The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah)
HE thoroughbred wanderer's idiosyncrasy I presume to be a
Tya
» and
locality,” equally and largely developed. After a long and
toilsome march, weary of the way, he drops into the nearest
place of rest to become the most domestic of men. For a while
he smokes the “pipe of permanence with an infinite zest; he
delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long
sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and
wonders at the demoralization of the mind which cannot find
means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a
newspaper.
But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a
paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees, Viator loses appe-
tite, he walks about his room all night, he yawns at conversa-
tions, and a book acts upon him as a narcotic. The man wants
to wander, and he must do so or he shall die.
After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I
perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered
my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was
“all before me,” and there was pleasant excitement in plunging
single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh,
whose heart fell victim to a new “jubbeh ” which I had given in
exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in consideration of
a certain monthly stipend the affections of a brother and reli-
gious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa,
and to accompany me in the capacity of private chaplain to
the other side of Kaf. I politely accepted the brüderschaft,"
but many reasons induced me to decline his society and serv-
ices. In the first place, he spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon.
## p. 2890 (#462) ###########################################
2890
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
Secondly, it was but prudent to lose the “spoor” between Alex-
andria and Suez. And thirdly, my brother” had shifting eyes
(symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a
flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which led me
to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage. Phre.
nology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often
among civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and
features is impeded by the external pressure of education, acci-
dent, example, habit, necessity, and what not. But they are
tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind
of man in his natural state, a being of impulse in that chrysalis
stage of mental development which is rather instinct than reason.
But before my departure there was much to be done.
The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilized, and unpleas-
antly so: nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present
middle state between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition
against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all “violence” is vio-
lently denounced; and beheading being deemed cruel, the most
atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offenses which
in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to a beyship or
a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Fai-
zoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be
flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates;
when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the
dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a
government order prevents you from using vituperative language
to the natives” in general; and the very donkey-boys are be-
coming cognizant of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed.
Still the old leaven remains behind; here, as elsewhere in
“ morning-land,” you cannot hold your own without employing
The passport system, now dying out of Europe, has
sprung up, or rather revived, in Egypt with peculiar vigor. Its
good effects claim for it our respect; still we cannot but lament
its inconvenience. We, I mean real Easterns.
We, I mean real Easterns. As strangers --
even those whose beards have whitened in the land — know abso-
lutely nothing of what unfortunate natives must endure, I am
tempted to subjoin a short sketch of my adventures in search of
a Tezkireh at Alexandria.
Through ignorance which might have cost me dear but for
my friend Larking's weight with the local authorities, I had
neglected to provide myself with a passport in England; and it
your fists.
## p. 2891 (#463) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2891
was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and
an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from
the consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me to be an
Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor,
aged thirty, and not distinguished — at least so the frequent
blanks seemed to denote — by any remarkable conformation of
eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. And here
let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty
Britain - the mistress of the seas— the ruler of one-sixth of man-
kind - should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her
protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernized “civis
sum Romanus” without putting my hand into my pocket, in order
that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously
from a revenue of fifty-six millions! Oh the meanness of our
magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!
My new passport would not carry me without the Zabit or
Police Magistrate's counter-signature, said the consul.
Next day
I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor)
of Alexandria, at whose gate I had the honor of squatting at
least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the
information that the proper place to apply to was the Diwan
Kharijiyeh (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly
lost. On the morning of the third I started as directed for the
place, which crowns the Headland of Figs. It is a huge and
couthless shell of building in parallelogrammic form, containing
all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their
glaring whitewashed faces upon a central court, where a few
leafless wind-wrung trees seem struggling for the breath of life
in an eternal atmosphere of clay, dust, and sun-blaze.
The first person I addressed was a Kawwas or police officer,
who, coiled comfortably' up in a bit of shade fitting his person
like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic Kaif. ” Hav-
ing presented the consular certificate and briefly stated the
nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right
course to pursue for a visá.
They have little respect for Dervishes, it appears, at Alex-
andria! M'adri” (Don't know), growled the man of authority,
without moving anything but the quantity of tongue necessary
for articulation.
Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,- by
bribe, by bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perse-
## p. 2892 (#464) ###########################################
2892
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
1
verance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is
the peculiar province of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved
for other reasons to be patient. I repeated my question in
almost the same words. “Ruh! ” (Be off) was what I obtained
for all reply. By this time the questioned went so far as to
open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my hands, and
looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud “Ruh ya
Kalb! ” (Go, O dog! ) converted into a responsive curse the little
speech I was preparing about the brotherhood of El-Islam and
the mutual duties obligatory on true believers. I then turned
away slowly and fiercely, for the next thing might have been a
cut with the Kurbaj [bastinado], and by the hammer of Thor!
British flesh and blood could never have stood that.
the invisible — not the odors of flowers or the fever germs in
the air — not the infinitely small of the microscope or the infi-
nitely distant of the telescope. This would require not so much
more eyes as an eye constructed with more and different lenses;
but would he not see with augmented power within the natural
limits of vision ? At any rate, some persons seem to have
opened more eyes than others, they see with such force and dis-
tinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where
that of others fails, like a spent or impotent bullet. How
many eyes did Gilbert White open ? how many did Henry Tho-
reau? how many did Audubon ? how many does the hunter,
mat hing his sight against the keen and alert senses of a deer,
or a moose, or a fox, or a wolf ? Not outward eyes, but inward.
We open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general
features or outlines of things — whenever we grasp the special
details and characteristic markings that this mask covers. Science
confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have learned to
discriminate the birds, or the plants, or the geological features
of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes were added.
Of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright
what he sees.
The facts in the life of nature that are transpiring
## p. 2871 (#443) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2871
the query.
about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange
into sentences. Or, the writing is a cipher and he must fur-
nish the key. A female oriole was one day observed very
much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse
stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls,
scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable,
dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding
what she wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and
was presently captured by the farmer. What did she want ? was
What but a horse-hair for her nest, which was in an
apple-tree near by ? and she was so bent on having one that I
have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the horse's
tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season I examined
her nest, and found it sewed through and through with several
long horse-hairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till the
hair was found.
Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic
scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our
eyes are sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw
this little comedy played among some English sparrows, and
wrote an account of it in his newspaper. It is too good not to
be true: A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose-
feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted.
After he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations
over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in
and seized the feather,- and here the wit of the bird came out,
for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a
near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home,
and when her neighbor returned with his mate, was innocently
employed about her own affairs. The proud male, finding his
feather gone, came out of his box in a high state of excitement,
and with wrath in his manner and accusation on his tongue,
rushed into the cot of the female. Not finding his goods and
chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile,
abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and
then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out
of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home
and lined her own domicile with it.
The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recur-
ring to him. His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a
## p. 2872 (#444) ###########################################
2872
JOHN BURROUGHS
new chapter in the progress of the season; things are never
quite the same after one has heard that note. The past spring
the males came about a week in advance of the females. A fine
male lingered about my grounds and orchard all that time,
apparently awaiting the arrival of his mate. He called and
warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within earshot and
could be hurried up. Now he warbled half angrily or upbraid-
ingly; then coaxingly; then cheerily and confidently, the next
moment in a plaintive and far-away manner. He would half
open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly as if beckoning his
mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and
reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree
and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble
the old, old story.
But the female flew to a near tree and ut-
tered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some
dry grass or bark in his beak and flew again to the hole in the
old tree, and promised unremitting devotion; but the other said
"Nay,” and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going,
or rather heard her distant note, he dropped his stuff and cried
out in a tone that said plainly enough, “Wait a minute: one
word, please! ” and flew swiftly in pursuit. He won her before
long, however, and early in April the pair were established in
one of the four or five boxes I had put up for them, but not
until they had changed their minds several times. As soon
the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under their
parents' care, they began to nest in one of the other boxes, the
female as usual doing all the work and the male all the compli-
menting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird
was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had
never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watch-
ing them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she
appeared, the mother bluebird set up that pitiful melodious plaint.
One morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came
with her beak loaded with building material, and alighted above
me to survey the place before going into the box. When she
saw the cat she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could
not keep her hold upon all her material. Straw after straw came
eddying down, till not half her original burden remained. After
the cat had gone away the bird's alarm subsided; till presently,
seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in
her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and without
as
## p. 2873 (#445) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2873
going in to arra
rrange them as was her wont, flew away in evident
relief.
In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much
nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or
golden-shafted woodpeckers, took up their abode. A knot-hole
which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood
being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. The
inside preparations I could not witness, but day after day as I
passed near I heard the bird hammering away, evidently beating
down obstructions and shaping and enlarging the cavity. The
chips were not brought out, but were used rather to floor the
interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but rather nest-
carvers.
The time seemed very short before the voices of the young
were heard in the heart of the old tree,- at first feebly, but
waxing stronger day by day, until they could be heard many
rods distant. When I put my hand upon the trunk of the tree
they would set up an eager, expectant chattering; but if I
climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual
sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a
warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clam-
bered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could
stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbow-
ing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one,
aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked
out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds
seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a
consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's dwelling is not
sweet. When the parent birds came with food, the young one in
the opening did not get it all; but after he had received a por-
tion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one,
he would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evi-
dently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was two or
three days in advance of them. His voice was the loudest and
his head oftenest at the window. But I noticed that when he
had kept the position too long, the others evidently made it
uncomfortable in his rear, and after “fidgeting about awhile he
would be compelled to "back down. " But retaliation was then
easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments at the out-
look. They would close their eyes and slide back into the cavity
as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them.
## p. 2874 (#446) ###########################################
2874
JOHN BURROUGHS
This bird was of course the first to leave the nest. For two
days before that event he kept his position in the opening most
of the time, and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old
ones abstained from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to
encourage his exit. As I stood looking at him one afternoon
and noticing his progress, he suddenly reached a resolution,-
seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear,- and launched forth
upon his untried wings. They served him well, and carried him
about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after, the
next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another,
till only one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits to
him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tired
of the sound. His was the faintest heart of all: then he had
none to encourage him from behind. He left the nest and clung
to the outer bole of the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour
longer; then he committed himself to his wings and went his
way like the rest.
A young farmer in the western part of New York sends me
some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He
says a large gooseberry-bush, standing in the border of an old
hedge-row in the midst of the open fields, and not far from his
house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in suc-
cession; and after an interval of a year, for two seasons more.
This gave him a good chance to observe them. He says the
mother-bird lays a single egg and sits upon it a number of days
before laying the second, so that he has seen one young bird
nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg all in the
nest at once. “So far as I have seen, this is the settled prac-
tice,- the young leaving the nest one at a time, to the number
of six or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of
the dove in many respects. When nearly grown they are cov-
ered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning needles, with-
out a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and
hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious
feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but
handsome. They never open their mouths when approached,
as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving
when touched. ” He also notes the unnatural indifference of the
mother-bird when her nest and young are approached. She
makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent
perfect unconcern.
## p. 2875 (#447) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2875
These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the
cuckoo is occasionally found in the nest of other birds, raise the
inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the
European species, which always foists its egg upon other birds;
or whether on the other hand it be not mending its manners in
this respect.
It has but little to unlearn or forget in the one
case, but great progress to make in the other. How far is its
rudimentary nest — a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks
of weeds — from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely mod-
eled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what a gulf between
its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! Its irregular
manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like our
cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder.
This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of
interesting things as he goes about his work. He one day saw
a white swallow, which is of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a
sparrow, he thinks, fly against the side of a horse and fill his
beak with hair from the loosened coat of the animal.
He saw a
shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking
refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early spring he
saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air,
approach each other, extend a claw, and grasping them together,
fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied
together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft
again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of
love, and that the hawks were toying fondly with each other.
When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk
for insects about cattle and moving herds in the field. My
farmer describes how they attended him one foggy day, as he
was mowing in the meadow with a mowing-machine. It had
been foggy for two days, and the swallows were very hungry
and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of his
machine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like
a brood of hungry chickens. He
says
there was
a continual
rush of purple wings over the "cutter-bar,” and just where it was
causing the grass to tremble and fall. Without his assistance
the swallows would have gone hungry yet another day.
of the hen-hawk he has observed that both the male and
female take part in incubation. I was rather surprised,” he
says, "on one occasion, to see how quickly they change places
## p. 2876 (#448) ###########################################
2876
JOHN BURROUGHS
on the nest. The nest was in a tall beech, and the leaves were
not yet fully out. I could see the head and neck of the hawk
over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawk coming
down through the air at full speed. I expected he would alight
near by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest,
his mate getting out of the way barely in time to avoid being
hit; it seemed almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I
hardly see how they can make such a rush on the nest without
danger to the eggs. ”
The kingbird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will
worry a bear. It is by his persistence and audacity, not by any
injury he is capable of dealing his great antagonist. The king-
bird seldom more than dogs the hawk, keeping above and be.
tween his wings and making a great ado; but my correspondent
says he once saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's back. The
hawk flew as fast as possible, and the kingbird sat upon his
shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,”—
tweaking his feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the
next moment.
That near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-
catcher, has one well-known peculiarity: he appears never to con-
sider his nest finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My
alert correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion
skin and make off with it, either deceived by it or else thinking
it a good substitute for the coveted material.
One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon a nest
of whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest, - two
elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My
foot was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I
wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or character-
istic in the ways of the bird, so I came to the place many
times and had a look. It was always a task to separate the
bird from her surroundings, though I stood within a few feet of
her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with
his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks and
leaves, and bits of black or dark brown bark, were all exactly
copied in the bird's plumage. And then she did sit so close and
simulate so well a shapeless decaying piece of wood or bark!
Twice I brought a companion, and guiding his eye to the spot,
noted how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full
view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the
## p. 2877 (#449) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2877
bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a
few inches of her eggs and then, after a moment's pause, hobble
awkwardly upon them.
After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came
into play. I was on hand the next day, I think. The mother-
bird sprang up when I was within a pace of her, and in doing
so fanned the leaves with her wings till they sprang up too; as
the leaves started the young started, and, being of the same
color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird was a try-
ing task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same
tactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young
birds and nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish
down like a young partridge, and soon follow their mother about.
When disturbed they gave but one leap, then settled down, per-
fectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird,
on these occasions, made frantic efforts to decoy me away from
her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast,
,
and a spasm like that of death would run through her tremulous
outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye out
the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not she was
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to
draw my attention as before. When followed she always alighted
upon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The
second or third day both old and young had disappeared.
The whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which
is as awkward as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead
her young about the woods. The latter, I think, move by leaps
and sudden spurts, their protective coloring shielding them most
effectively. Wilson came upon the mother-bird and her
brood in the woods, and though they were at his very feet, was
so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to
give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived some-
thing like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and,
on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill,
seemingly asleep. ” Wilson's description of the young is very
accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a slight
moldiness. ” Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to
get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor
young
It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, motionless
upon the leaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell
once
## p. 2878 (#450) ###########################################
2878
JOHN BURROUGHS
soon
ear or nose.
in hounds and pointers, and yet I know an unkempt youth that
seldom fails to see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. I
think he sees it as as it sees him, and before it suspects
itself seen.
What a training to the eye is hunting! To pick out
the game from its surroundings, the grouse from the leaves, the
gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely, the red
fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit from the
stubble, or the white hare from the snow, requires the best
powers of this sense. A woodchuck motionless in the fields or
upon a rock looks very much like a large stone or bowlder, yet
a keen eye knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile
away.
A man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any
of the wild creatures; but not so sharp an
But in
the birds he finds his match. How quickly the old turkey dis-
covers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly
the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the
bushes, or behind the fence near which he alights! One advan-
tage the bird surely has; and that is, owing to the form, struct-
ure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of vision
- indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the same
instant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces
less than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his
brow and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of
the zenith without a movement of the head; the bird, on the
other hand, takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance.
I find I see, almost without effort, nearly every bird within
sight in the field or wood I pass through (a fit of the wing, a
flirt of the tail, are enough, though the flickering leaves do all
conspire to hide them), and that with like ease the birds see
me, though unquestionably the chances are immensely in their
favor. The eye sees what it has the means of seeing, truly.
You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in
the bush. The eye must have purpose and aim. No one ever
yet found the walking-fern who did not have the walking-fern
in his mind. A person whose eye is full of Indian relics picks
them up in every field he walks through.
One season I was interested in the tree-frogs, especially the
tiny pipers that one hears about the woods and brushy fields-
the hylas of the swamps become a denizen of trees; I had never
seen him in this new rôle. But this season having them in mind,
## p. 2879 (#451) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2879
or rather being ripe for them, I several times came across them.
One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I captured two. They
leaped before me as doubtless they had done many times before,
but though not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were
quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to
find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, I was
hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods in hopes of
overtaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the
treetops, when one of these Lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-
yellowing leaves, leaped near me. I saw him only out of the
corner of my eye, and yet bagged him, because I had already
made him my own.
Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and
decisive gazing; not by a first casual glance, but by a steady,
deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things
discovered You must look intently and hold your eye firmly
to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind.
The sharpshooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal
certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. The
phrenologists do well to locate not only form, color, weight, etc. ,
in the region of the eye, but a faculty which they call individ-
uality — that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every
object its essential character. This is just as necessary to the
naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes spe-
cific points and differences, -it seizes upon and preserves the
individuality of the thing.
We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked
for its specific features. I thought I knew exactly the form of
the leaf of the tulip-tree, until one day a lady asked me to draw
the outlines of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and
to follow it up. Most of the facts of nature, especially in the
life of the birds and animals, are well screened. We do not see
the play, because we do not look intently enough.
Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw a fresh bone
or a piece of meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon
the crows will discover it and be on hand. If it be near the
house or barn, the crow that first discovers it will alight near it,
to make sure that he is not deceived; then he will go away and
soon return with a companion. The two alight a few yards from
## p. 2880 (#452) ###########################################
2880
JOHN BURROUGHS
the bone, and after some delay, during which the vicinity is
sharply scrutinized, one of the crows advances boldly to within a
few feet of the coveted prize. Here he pauses, and if no trick
is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes it and
makes off.
One midwinter I cleared away the snow under an apple-tree
near the house, and scattered some corn there. I had not seen
a bluejay for weeks, yet that very day they found my corn, and
after that they came daily and partook of it, holding the kernels
under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and pecking them
vigorously.
Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes. Still
I was surprised to see how quickly Downy found out some bones
that were placed in a convenient place under the shed to be
pounded up for the hens. In going out to the barn I often dis-
turbed him making a meal off the bits of meat that still adhered
to them.
“Look intently enough at anything,” said a poet to me one
day, “and you will see something that would otherwise escape
you. " I thought of the remark as I sat on a stump in the open-
ing of the woods one spring day. I saw a small hawk approach-
ing; he flew to a tall tulip-tree and alighted on a large limb near
the top. He eyed me and I eyed him. Then the bird disclosed
a trait that was new to me; he hopped along the limb to a small
cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled out
some small object and fell to eating it. After he had partaken
of it some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and
I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly
down as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the
feathers of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes be-
neath the tree. The hawk then — commonly called the chicken
hawk — is as provident as a mouse or squirrel, and lays by a store
against a time of need; but I should not have discovered the fact
had I not held my eye to him.
An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or
commotion among them. In May and June, when other birds
are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about
the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is rob-
bing birds'-nests and he is very anxious that nothing should be
said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry
« Thief, thief” as he. One December morning a troop of them
flew away.
## p. 2881 (#453) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2881
discovered a little screech-owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an
old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a
mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but
they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect
the bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peep-
ing into holes and crannies, both spring and fall. Some unsus-
pecting bird probably entered the cavity, prospecting for a place
for next year's nest, or else looking out a likely place to pass
a cold night, when it has rushed with very important news. A
boy who should unwittingly venture into a bear's den when
Bruin was at home could not be more astonished and alarmed
than a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of a de-
cayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joined the
jays, in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the
fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day
in the old apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm
and approached to within eyeshot. The bluebirds were cautious,
and hovered about uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but
the jays were bolder, and took turns looking in at the cavity and
deriding the poor shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the
entrance of the hole, and flirt and peer and attitudinize, and then
fly away crying “Thief, thief, thief,” at the top of his voice.
I climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just
descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in
and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping
of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a
He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my
forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncom-
fortable. I placed him in the loft of an out-house in hopes of
getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very will-
ing prisoner, scarcely moving at all even when approached and
touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-
closed sleepy eyes.
But at night what a change; how alert, how
wild, how active! He was like another bird; he darted about
with wild fearful eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. I
opened the window, and swiftly, but as silently as a shadow, he
glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps ere this has
revenged himself upon the sleeping jay or blue bird that first
betrayed his hiding-place.
Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston.
V-181
## p. 2882 (#454) ###########################################
2882
JOHN BURROUGHS
WAITING
SER
ERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace ?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone ?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap wherc it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
Republished by courtesy of John Burroughs.
## p. 2883 (#455) ###########################################
2883
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
(1821-1890)
for a
T HAS sometimes been said that the roving propensities of
Sir Richard Burton are attributable to a slight infusion of
gipsy blood; but if this pedigree were to be assumed for all
instinctively nomadic Englishmen, it would make family trees as far-
cical in general as they often are now. At any rate, Burton early
showed a love for travel which circumstances strengthened. Although
born in Hertfordshire, England, he spent much of his boyhood on
the Continent, where he was educated under tutors. He returned
course at Oxford, after which, at
twenty-one, he entered the Indian service.
For nineteen years he was in the Bombay
army corps, the first ten in active service,
principally in the Sindh Survey, on Sir
Charles Napier's staff. He also served in
the Crimea as Chief of Staff to General
Blatsom, and was chief organizer of the
irregular cavalry. For nearly twenty-six
years he was in the English consular serv-
ice in Africa, Asia, South America, and
Europe.
In 1852, when upon leave, Captain
Burton accomplished one of his most strik RICHARD BURTON
ing feats. Disguised as an Afghan Mos-
lem, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, in the hope of
finding out «something of the great eastern wilderness marked (Ruba
el Khala' (the Empty Abode) on our maps. ” For months he success-
fully braved the imminent danger of detection and death. Conspic-
uous among his explorations is his trip of 1856, when with Speke he
discovered the lake regions of Central Africa. The bitter Speke con-
troversy which followed, dividing geographers for a time into two
contending factions, deprived Burton of the glory which he merited
and drew upon him much unfriendly criticism.
He had the true ardor of the discoverer. In First Footsteps in
Eastern Africa' he shows his unhesitating bravery again, when pene-
trating the mysterious, almost mythical walled city of Harar. After
many dangers and exhausting experiences he sees the goal at last.
“The spectacle, materially speaking, was a disappointment,” he says.
## p. 2884 (#456) ###########################################
2884
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
"Nothing conspicuous appeared but two gray minarets of rude shape.
Many would grudge exposing their lives to win so paltry a prize.
But of all that have attempted, none ever succeeded in entering that
pile of stones. ”
Richard Burton carefully worded his varied experiences, and has
left about fifty valuable and interesting volumes. Among the best
known are (Sindh,' 'The Lake Regions of Central Africa, (Two
Trips to Gorilla Land,' and 'Ultima Thule. With his knowledge of
thirty-five languages and dialects he gained an intimate acquaintance
with the people among whom he lived, and was enabled to furnish
the world much novel information in his g, straightforward style.
Perhaps his most noteworthy literary achievement was his fine
translation of the Arabian Nights,' which appeared in 1885. Of this
his wife wrote:-
« This grand Arabian work I consider my husband's Magnum Opus.
We were our own printers and our own publishers, and we made, between
September 1885 and November 1888, sixteen thousand guineas six thou-
sand of which went for publishing and ten thousand into our own pockets,
and it came just in time to give my husband the comforts and luxuries and
freedom that gilded the five last years of his life. When he died there were
four forins left, which I put into the poor-box. ”
This capable soldier and author was very inadequately recom-
pensed. As a soldier, his bravery and long service brought him only
the rank of Captain. In the civil service he was given only second-
class consulates. The French Geographical Society, and also the
Royal Geographical Society of England, each awarded him a gold
medal, but the latter employed him upon only one expedition. At
the age of sixty-five he was knighted. He had no other honors.
This lack of recognition was undoubtedly a mortification, although
toward the end of his career he writes philosophically:-
«The press are calling me (the neglected Englishman,' and I want to
express to them the feelings of pride and gratitude with which I have seen
the exertions of my brethren of the press to procure for me a tardy justice.
The public is a fountain of honor which amply suffices all my aspirations;
it is the more honorable as it will not allow a long career to be ignored
because of catechisms or creed. )
He comforted himself, no doubt, with the belief that his out-
spoken skepticism was the cause of this lack of advancement, and
that he was in some sort a martyr to freedom of thought; but one
may be excused for discrediting this in the face of so many contrary
instances. Capable men too scarce to throw aside for such
things in this century. The real and sufficient reason was his
equally outspoken criticism of his superior officers in every depart-
are
## p. 2885 (#457) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2885
ment. A subordinate may and often does know more than his
masters; but if he wishes the luxury of advertising the fact, he must
pay for it with their ill-will and his own practical suppression.
Lady Burton was also an author; her Inner Life in Syria' and
(Arabia, Egypt, and India) are bright and entertaining. But her
most important work is the Life of Sir Richard F. Burton,'
published in 1892, two years after her husband's death. This un-
organized mass of interesting material, in spite of carelessness and
many faults of style and taste, shows her a ready observer, with
a clever and graphic way of stating her impressions.
THE PRETERNATURAL IN FICTION
From the Essay on (The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night
S
“A
measure
The active world is inferior to the rational soul,” says
Bacon, with his normal sound sense, “so Fiction gives
to Mankind what History denies, and in some
satisfies the Mind with Shadows when it cannot enjoy the Sub-
stance. And as real History gives us not the success of things
according to the deserts of vice and virtue, Fiction corrects it
and presents us with the fates and fortunes of persons rewarded
and punished according to merit. ” But I would say still more.
History paints or attempts to paint life as it is, a mighty maze
with or without a plan; Fiction shows or would show us life as
it should be, wisely ordered and laid down on fixed lines. Thus
Fiction is not the mere handmaid of History: she has a house-
hold of her own, and she claims to be the triumph of Art,
which, as Goethe remarked, is “Art because it is not Nature. ”
Fancy, la folle du logis, is “that kind and gentle portress who
holds the gate of Hope wide open, in opposition to Reason,
the surly and scrupulous guard. ” As Palmerin of England says,
and says well:-“For that the report of noble deeds doth urge
the courageous mind to equal those who bear most commenda-
tion of their approved valiancy; this is the fair fruit of Im-
agination and of ancient histories. ” And last, but not least, the
faculty of Fancy takes count of the cravings of man's nature for
the marvelous, the impossible, and of his higher aspirations
for the Ideal, the Perfect; she realizes the wild dreams and
visions of his generous youth, and portrays for him a portion of
that "other and better world,” with whose expectation he would
console his age.
## p. 2886 (#458) ###########################################
2886
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
The imaginative varnish of The Nights) serves admirably as
a foil to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We
enjoy being carried away from trivial and commonplace charac-
ters, scenes, and incidents; from the matter-of-fact surroundings
of a workaday world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping
and waking, fighting and loving, into a society and a mise-en-
scène which we suspect can exist and which we know do not.
Every man, at some turn or term of his life, has longed for
supernatural powers and a glimpse of Wonderland. Here he is
in the midst of it. Here he sees mighty spirits summoned to
work the human mite's will, however whimsical; who can trans-
port him in an eye-twinkling whithersoever he wishes; who can
ruin cities and build palaces of gold and silver, gems and
jacinths; who can serve up delicate viands and delicious drinks
in priceless chargers and impossible cups, and bring the choicest
fruits from farthest Orient: here he finds magas and magicians
who can make kings of his friends, slay armies of his foes, and
bring any number of beloveds to his arms.
And from this outraging probability and outstripping possi-
bility arises not a little of that strange fascination exercised for
nearly two centuries upon the life and literature of Europe by
"The Nights,' even in their mutilated and garbled form. The
reader surrenders himself to the spell, feeling almost inclined to
inquire, “And why may it not be true ? ” His brain is dazed
and dazzled by the splendors which flash before it, by the sudden
procession of Jinns and Jinniyahs, demons and fairies, some
hideous, others preternaturally beautiful; by good wizards and
evil sorcerers, whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe;
by mermen and mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and
reasoning elephants; by magic rings and their slaves, and by
talismanic couches which rival the carpet of Solomon. Hence, as
one remarks, these Fairy Tales have pleased and still continue to
please almost all ages, all ranks, and all different capacities.
Dr. Hawkesworth observes that these Fairy Tales find favor
"because even their machinery, wild and wonderful as it is, has
its laws; and the magicians and enchanters perform nothing but
what was naturally to be expected from such beings, after we
had once granted them existence. ” Mr. Heron (rather supposes
the very contrary is the truth of the fact. It is surely the
strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous character of the
supernatural agents here employed, that makes them to operate
## p. 2887 (#459) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2887
as
we
so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities, sympathies, and in
short, on all the feelings of our hearts. We see men and women
who possess qualities to recommend them to our favor, subjected
to the influence of beings whose good or ill will, power or weak-
ness, attention or neglect, are regulated by motives and circum-
stances which we cannot comprehend: and hence we naturally
tremble for their fate with the same anxious concern
should for a friend wandering in a dark night amidst torrents
and precipices; or preparing to land on a strange island, while
he knew not whether he should be received on the shore by
cannibals waiting to tear him piecemeal and devour him, or by
gentle beings disposed to cherish him with fond hospitality. ”
Both writers have expressed themselves well; but meseems
each has secured, as often happens, a fragment of the truth and
holds it to be the whole Truth. Granted that such spiritual
creatures as Jinns walk the earth, we are pleased to find them so
very human, as wise and as foolish in word and deed as our-
selves; similarly we admire in a landscape natural forms like
those of Staffa or the Palisades, which favor the works of archi-
tecture. Again, supposing such preternaturalisms to be around
and amongst us, the wilder and more capricious they prove, the
more our attention is excited and our forecasts are baffled, to be
set right in the end. But this is not all. The grand source of
pleasure in fairy tales is the natural desire to learn more of
the Wonderland which is known to many as a word and nothing
more, like Central Africa before the last half-century; thus the
interest is that of the “personal narrative” of a grand explora-
tion, to one who delights in travels. The pleasure must be
greatest where faith is strongest; for instance, amongst imagin-
ative races like the Kelts, and especially Orientals, who imbibe
supernaturalism with their mothers' milk. "I am persuaded,"
writes Mr. Bayle St. John, that the great scheme of preter-
natural energy, so fully developed in The Thousand and One
Nights,' is believed in by the majority of the inhabitants of all
the religious professions both in Syria and Egypt. ” He might
have added, by every reasoning being from prince to peasant,
from Mullah to Badawi, between Marocco. and Outer Ind. ”
Dr. Johnson thus sums up his notice of The Tempest":
“Whatever might have been the intention of their author, these
tales are made instrumental to the production of many char-
acters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with
## p. 2888 (#460) ###########################################
2888
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and
accurate observation of life. Here are exhibited princes, court-
iers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is
the agency of airy spirits and of earthy goblins, the operations of
magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures on a desert island,
the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt,
and the final happiness of those for whom our passions and
reason are equally interested. ”
We can fairly say this much and far more for our Tales,
Viewed as a tout ensemble in full and complete form, they are
a drama of Eastern life, and a Dance of Death made sublime by
faith and the highest emotions, by the certainty of expiation and
the fullness of atoning equity, where virtue is victorious, vice is
vanquished, and the ways of Allah are justified to man. They are
a panorama which remains ken-speckle upon the mental retina.
They form a phantasmagoria in which archangels and angels,
devils and goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle
with men of earth; where flying horses and talking fishes are
utterly realistic: where King and Prince meet fisherman and
pauper, lamia and cannibal; where citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch
meets knight; the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and
pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the pro-
curess; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist,
and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the
scoffer, and the debauchee-poet like Abu Nowas; where the
courtier jests with the boor, and where the sweep is bedded with
the noble lady. And the characters are finished and quickened
by a few touches swift and sure as the glance of sunbeams. ”
The whole is a kaleidoscope where everything falls into picture;
gorgeous palaces and pavilions; grisly underground caves and
deadly wolds; gardens fairer than those of the Hesperid; seas
dashing with clashing billows upon enchanted mountains; valleys
of the Shadow of Death; air-voyages and promenades in the
abysses of ocean; the duello, the battle, and the siege; the woo-
ing of maidens and the marriage-rite. All the splendor and
squalor, the beauty and baseness, the glamor and grotesqueness,
the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and baseness of
Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab pas-
sions— love, war, and fancy — entitle it to be called Blood,
Musk, and Hashish. And still more, the genius of the story-
teller quickens the dry bones of history, and by adding Fiction
## p. 2889 (#461) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2889
to Fact revives the dead past; the Caliphs and the Caliphate
return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst Asmodeus kindly removes
the terrace-roof of every tenement and allows our curious glances
to take in the whole interior. This is perhaps the best proof of
their power. Finally the picture-gallery opens with a series of
weird and striking adventures, and shows as a tail-piece an idyllic
scene of love and wedlock, in halls before reeking with lust and
blood.
A JOURNEY IN DISGUISE
From The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah)
HE thoroughbred wanderer's idiosyncrasy I presume to be a
Tya
» and
locality,” equally and largely developed. After a long and
toilsome march, weary of the way, he drops into the nearest
place of rest to become the most domestic of men. For a while
he smokes the “pipe of permanence with an infinite zest; he
delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long
sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and
wonders at the demoralization of the mind which cannot find
means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a
newspaper.
But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a
paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees, Viator loses appe-
tite, he walks about his room all night, he yawns at conversa-
tions, and a book acts upon him as a narcotic. The man wants
to wander, and he must do so or he shall die.
After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I
perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered
my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was
“all before me,” and there was pleasant excitement in plunging
single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh,
whose heart fell victim to a new “jubbeh ” which I had given in
exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in consideration of
a certain monthly stipend the affections of a brother and reli-
gious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa,
and to accompany me in the capacity of private chaplain to
the other side of Kaf. I politely accepted the brüderschaft,"
but many reasons induced me to decline his society and serv-
ices. In the first place, he spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon.
## p. 2890 (#462) ###########################################
2890
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
Secondly, it was but prudent to lose the “spoor” between Alex-
andria and Suez. And thirdly, my brother” had shifting eyes
(symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a
flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which led me
to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage. Phre.
nology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often
among civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and
features is impeded by the external pressure of education, acci-
dent, example, habit, necessity, and what not. But they are
tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind
of man in his natural state, a being of impulse in that chrysalis
stage of mental development which is rather instinct than reason.
But before my departure there was much to be done.
The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilized, and unpleas-
antly so: nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present
middle state between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition
against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all “violence” is vio-
lently denounced; and beheading being deemed cruel, the most
atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offenses which
in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to a beyship or
a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Fai-
zoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be
flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates;
when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the
dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a
government order prevents you from using vituperative language
to the natives” in general; and the very donkey-boys are be-
coming cognizant of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed.
Still the old leaven remains behind; here, as elsewhere in
“ morning-land,” you cannot hold your own without employing
The passport system, now dying out of Europe, has
sprung up, or rather revived, in Egypt with peculiar vigor. Its
good effects claim for it our respect; still we cannot but lament
its inconvenience. We, I mean real Easterns.
We, I mean real Easterns. As strangers --
even those whose beards have whitened in the land — know abso-
lutely nothing of what unfortunate natives must endure, I am
tempted to subjoin a short sketch of my adventures in search of
a Tezkireh at Alexandria.
Through ignorance which might have cost me dear but for
my friend Larking's weight with the local authorities, I had
neglected to provide myself with a passport in England; and it
your fists.
## p. 2891 (#463) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2891
was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and
an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from
the consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me to be an
Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor,
aged thirty, and not distinguished — at least so the frequent
blanks seemed to denote — by any remarkable conformation of
eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. And here
let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty
Britain - the mistress of the seas— the ruler of one-sixth of man-
kind - should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her
protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernized “civis
sum Romanus” without putting my hand into my pocket, in order
that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously
from a revenue of fifty-six millions! Oh the meanness of our
magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!
My new passport would not carry me without the Zabit or
Police Magistrate's counter-signature, said the consul.
Next day
I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor)
of Alexandria, at whose gate I had the honor of squatting at
least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the
information that the proper place to apply to was the Diwan
Kharijiyeh (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly
lost. On the morning of the third I started as directed for the
place, which crowns the Headland of Figs. It is a huge and
couthless shell of building in parallelogrammic form, containing
all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their
glaring whitewashed faces upon a central court, where a few
leafless wind-wrung trees seem struggling for the breath of life
in an eternal atmosphere of clay, dust, and sun-blaze.
The first person I addressed was a Kawwas or police officer,
who, coiled comfortably' up in a bit of shade fitting his person
like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic Kaif. ” Hav-
ing presented the consular certificate and briefly stated the
nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right
course to pursue for a visá.
They have little respect for Dervishes, it appears, at Alex-
andria! M'adri” (Don't know), growled the man of authority,
without moving anything but the quantity of tongue necessary
for articulation.
Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,- by
bribe, by bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perse-
## p. 2892 (#464) ###########################################
2892
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
1
verance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is
the peculiar province of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved
for other reasons to be patient. I repeated my question in
almost the same words. “Ruh! ” (Be off) was what I obtained
for all reply. By this time the questioned went so far as to
open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my hands, and
looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud “Ruh ya
Kalb! ” (Go, O dog! ) converted into a responsive curse the little
speech I was preparing about the brotherhood of El-Islam and
the mutual duties obligatory on true believers. I then turned
away slowly and fiercely, for the next thing might have been a
cut with the Kurbaj [bastinado], and by the hammer of Thor!
British flesh and blood could never have stood that.
