Burton had for several years been acquainted with the African traveller V. Lovett Cameron,[FN#338] and in August 1881 they met accidentally at Venice.  A geographical conference was being held in the city and representatives from all nations were assembled; but, naturally, the first geographer of the day, Captain Burton, was not invited either to speak or even to be present.  On the morning of the conference, Burton, Mrs. Burton and Cameron gave themselves the treat of going over to the Lido for bathing and breakfast; and being in puckish mood, the two men, notwithstanding the great crowd of pleasure seekers, took off their shoes and stockings, turned up their trousers, and made sand castles.  “Look, nurse,” bawled Burton to his wife, “see what Cammy and I have done!” “If you please, nursey,” whined Cameron, “Dick’s snatched away my spade.”  At that moment Lord Aberdeen, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and a party of grave antiquaries and geographers, mostly run to nose, spectacles, and forehead, arrived on the scene; with the result of infinite laughter, in which Burton and Cameron joined heartily; and henceforward Mrs. Burton answered to no name but “Nursey.”  Burton, however, was justly indignant on account of his not having been invited to the conference, and his revenge took the shape of a pungent squib which he wrote on his card and left in the Congress Room.  Next day, while Burton and Cameron were strolling in front of St. Mark’s, a Portuguese gentleman came up and saluted them.  To Burton’s delight it was his old friend Da Cunha, the Camoens enthusiast; and then ensued a long argument, conducted in Portuguese, concerning Burton’s rendering of one of Camoens’ sonnets, Burton in the end convincing his friend of its correctness.  Having parted from Da Cunha, they ran against an Egyptian officer who had just visited Mecca and brought back a series of photographs.  The conversation this time was conducted in Arabic, and Burton explained to the Egyptian the meaning of much of the ritual of the pilgrimage.  “As a cicerone,” says Cameron, “Burton was invaluable.  His inexhaustible stock of historical and legendary lore furnished him with something to relate about even the meanest and commonest buildings."[FN#339] There were trips about the green canals in a long black gondola on the day and night of the regatta, when the Grand Canal and St. Mark’s were illuminated, all of which Burton enjoyed thoroughly, for round him had gathered the elite of Venice, and his brilliant personality, as usual, dazzled and dominated all who listened to him.

104.  John Payne, November 1881.