Later Burton’s curiosity was aroused by the news that Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the British Museum, had shown Mr. Kirby an edition of Alaeddin in Malay.[FN#544] “Let me know,” he says, “when you go to see Mr. Ellis.  I especially want to accompany you, and must get that Malay version of Alaeddin.  Lord Stanley of Alderley could translate it.”

It was about this time that Burton decided to make a new and lavishly annotated translation of The Scented Garden.  To the Kama Shastra edition of 1886 we have already referred, and we shall deal fully with the whole subject in a later chapter.

On October 6th the Burtons heard Mr. Heron Allen lecture on palmistry at Hampstead.  For some weeks Burton was prostrated again by his old enemy, the gout, but Lord Stanley of Alderley, F. F. Arbuthnot, and other friends went and sat with him, so the illness had its compensations.  A visit to Mr. John Payne, made, as usual, at tea time, is next recorded, and there was to have been another visit, but Burton, who was anxious to get to Folkestone to see his sister, had to omit it.

On January 10th 1887, he writes to Mr. Payne as follows: 

“That last cup of tea came to grief, I ran away from London abruptly, feeling a hippishness gradually creep over my brain; longing to see a sight of the sun and so forth.  We shall cross over next Thursday (if the weather prove decent) and rush up to Paris, where I shall have some few days’ work in the Bibliotheque Nationale.  Thence to Cannes, the Riviera, &c.  At the end of my 5th Vol. (Supplemental) I shall walk in to Edin[burgh] Review.[FN#545] ...  I hope you like Vol. x. and its notices of your work.  I always speak of it in the same terms, always with the same appreciation and admiration.”

On January 13th 1887, the Burtons reached Paris, where Sir Richard had the pleasure of meeting Herr Zotenberg, discoverer of the Arabic originals of Alaeddin and Zayn al Asnam; and thence they proceeded to Cannes, where the state of Burton’s health gave his wife great uneasiness.  She says, “I saw him dripping his pen anywhere except into the ink.  When he tried to say something he did not find his words.”  An awful fit of “epileptiform convulsions,” the result of suppressed gout, followed, and the local doctors who were called in came to the conclusion that Burton could not recover.  They thought it better, however, that their opinion should be conveyed to him by a perfect stranger, so they deputed Dr. Grenfell Baker, a young man who was then staying at Cannes, to perform the painful duty.

Dr. Baker entered the sick room and broke the news to Burton as best he could.

“Then you suppose I am going to die?” said Burton.

“The medical men who have been holding a consultation are of that opinion.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Burton said, “Ah, well!—­sit down,” and then he told Dr. Baker a story out of The Arabian Nights.  Dr. Baker remained a fortnight, and then Sir Richard, who decided to have a travelling medical attendant, sent to England for Dr. Ralph Leslie, who a little later joined him at Trieste.