to do so.”  Thus even a Burton has his limitations.  “He told me,” continues Mr. Kirby, “that he once sat between Sir Henry Rawlinson and a man who had been Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and he spoke to one in Persian, and the other in Russian, but neither of them could understand him.  I have never, however, been able to make up my mind whether the point of the story told against him or against them.[FN#420] Although Burton was a student of occult science, I could never lead him to talk about crystals or kindred subjects; and this gave me the idea that he was perhaps pledged to secrecy.  Still, he related his experiences freely in print.”  Oddly, enough, Burton used to call Mr. Kirby “Mr. Rigby,” and he never could break himself of the habit.  “Apparently,” says Mr. Kirby, “he associated my name with that of his old opponent, Colonel, afterwards Major-General Rigby,[FN#421] Consul at Zanzibar.”  In a letter of 25th March 1885, Burton asks Mr. Kirby to draw up “a full account of the known MSS. and most important European editions, both those which are copies of Galland and (especially) those which are not.  It will be printed in my terminal essay with due acknowledgment of authorship."[FN#422] On April 8th (1885) he says, “I don’t think my readers will want an exhaustive bibliography, but they will expect me to supply information which Mr. Payne did not deem necessary to do in his excellent Terminal Essay.  By the by, I shall totally disagree with him about Harun al Rashid and the Barmecides,[FN#423] who were pestilent heretics and gave rise to the terrible religious trouble of the subsequent reigns.  A tabular arrangement of the principal tales will be exceedingly useful.”

   Chapter XXVII
   May 1885-5th February 1886
   A Glance through “The Arabian Nights”

Bibliography: 

71.  The Thousand Nights and a Night. 1st Vol. 12th September 1885. 10th Vol. 12th July 1886. 72.  Il Pentamerone. (Translated—­not published till 1893). 73.  Iracema or Honey Lips; and Manoel de Moraes the Convert.  Translated from the Brazilian. 1886.

128.  Slaving at the Athenaeum, May 1885.

In May 1885, Burton obtained leave of absence, and on arriving in England he made various arrangements about the printing of The Arabian Nights and continued the work of translation.  When in London he occupied rooms at the St. James’s Hotel (now the Berkeley) in Piccadilly.  He used to say that the St. James’s Hotel was the best place in the world in which to do literary work, and that the finest place in the whole world was the corner of Piccadilly.  Still, he spent most of his time, as usual, at the Athenaeum.  Mr. H. R. Tedder, the Secretary, and an intimate friend of Burton’s, tells me that “He would work at the round table in the library for hours and hours—­with nothing for refreshment except a cup of coffee and a box of snuff, which always stood at his side;” and that he was rarely without a heavy stick with