of a lifetime of research.  “The first two chapters were a raw translation of the works of Numa Numantius[FN#601] without any annotations at all, or comments of any kind on Richard’s part, and twenty chapters, translations of Shaykh el Nafzawi from Arabic.  In fact, it was all translation, except the annotations on the Arabic work."[FN#602] Thus Burton really translated only Chapters i. to xx., or one-half of the work.  But it is evident from his remarks on the last day of his life that he considered the work finished with the exception of the pumice-polishing; and from this, one judges that he was never able to obtain a copy of the 21st Chapter.  Lady Burton’s statement and this assumption are corroborated by a conversation which the writer had with Mr. John Payne in the autumn of 1904.  “Burton,” said Mr. Payne, “told me again and again that in his eyes the unpardonable defect of the Arabic text of The Scented Garden was that it altogether omitted the subject upon which he had for some years bestowed special study.”  If Burton had been acquainted with the Arabic text of the 21st Chapter he, of course, would not have made that complaint; still, as his letters show, he was aware that such a manuscript existed.  Having complained to Mr. Payne in the way referred to respecting the contents of The Scented Garden, Burton continued, “Consequently, I have applied myself to remedy this defect by collecting all manner of tales and of learned material of Arab origin bearing on my special study, and I have been so successful that I have thus trebled the original manuscript.”  Thus, as in the case of The Arabian Nights, the annotations were to have no particular connection with the text.  Quite two-thirds of these notes consisted of matter of this sort.

Mr. Payne protested again and again against the whole scheme, and on the score that Burton had given the world quite enough of this kind of information in the Nights.  But the latter could not see with his friend.  He insisted on the enormous anthropological and historical importance of these notes—­and that the world would be the loser were he to withold them; in fact, his whole mind was absorbed in the subject.

   Chapter xxxv
   15th October 1888 to 21st July 1890
   Working at the “Catullus” and “The Scented Garden”

Bibliography: 

78.  Catullus translated 1890, printed 1894. 79.  The Golden Ass and other works left unfinished.

162.  Switzerland 15th October 1888.

From London the Burtons proceeded first to Boulogne where Sir Richard visited the haunts of his early manhood and called upon his old fencing master, Constantin, who was hale and well, though over eighty; and then to Geneva, where he delivered before the local Geographical Society what proved to be his last public lecture.  From Geneva he wrote several letters to Mr. Payne.  In that of November 21st, his mind running on the Bandello, he says, “You would greatly oblige me by jotting down when you have a moment to spare the names of reverends and ecclesiastics who have written and printed facetious books.[FN#603] In English I have Swift and Sterne; in French Rabelais, but I want one more, also two in Italian and two in German.”