fosse, in Richmond, where he was miserable, and during the later time a travelling tutor was provided for the two boys in the person of an Oxford undergraduate, H. R. Dupre, afterwards rector of Shellingford, whom they seem to have treated badly. Such knowledge as he acquired was picked up from French and Italian masters, or from less reputable sources. As a boy he learnt colloquially half a dozen languages and dialects, and also the use of the small-sword. A cosmopolitan he remained to the last.
The father had destined both his sons for the church, and so, while the younger was entered at Cambridge, Richard Francis matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, on 19 Nov. 1840, when already well on in his twentieth year. Before getting rooms in college, he lived for a short time in the house of Dr. William Alexander Greenhill [q. v. Suppl.], then physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary. Here he met John Henry Newman, whose churchwarden Dr. Greenhill was, and also Dr. Arnold of Rugby. It was Dr. Greenhill who started him in the study of Arabic, by introducing him to Don Pascual de Gayangos, the Spanish scholar. Burton’s academical career was limited to five terms, or little more than one year. With his continental education and his obstinate temper, he was not likely to conform to the monastic conventions then prevailing at Oxford. The only place where he was really at his ease seems to have been the newly opened gymnasium of Archibald Maclaren. Many of the stories current of his wildness are probably exaggerated. It is certain that he deliberately contrived to be rusticated, in order that he might achieve his ambition of going into the army instead of the church. In after life he never regarded the university as an injusta noverca. He was glad to revisit Oxford, to point out his former rooms in college, and to call on one of his old tutors, the Rev. Thomas Short.
At the beginning of 1842, when the first Afghan war was still unfinished, there was little difficulty in obtaining for Burton the cadetship that he desired in the Indian army. He set sail for India round the Cape on 18 June 1842, accompanied by a bull terrier of the Oxford breed, and landed at Bombay on 28 Oct. He was forthwith posted as ensign to the 18th regiment of the Bombay native infantry, on the cadre of which he remained (rising to the rank of captain) until he accepted a consular appointment in 1861, His military service in India was confined to seven years. His first station was Baroda, the capital of a native principality in Gujarat, ruled by a Maratha chief known as the Gaikwar. Here he initiated himself into oriental life, quickly passing examinations in Hindustani and Gujarathi, which qualified him for the post of regimental interpreter within a year, and practising swordsmanship, wrestling, and riding with the sepoys. At the end of 1843 the regiment moved to Sind. Burton was fortunate in getting into the good graces of Sir Charles Napier, the governor, one of the few men whom he regarded as a hero. While his regiment languished in pestilential quarters he was appointed assistant in the Sind survey, under his friend Captain Scott, nephew of Sir Walter. This was the formative period of Burton’s life, during which the process of initiation into orientalism, begun at Baroda, was perfected. For some three years off and on he had a commission to wander about what is still the most purely Muhammadan province in India. Having learnt all that he could from the regimental munshi and the regimental pandit, he now attached to himself private teachers, in whose company he lived for weeks the life of a native, or—as his brother officers expressed it—like a ‘white nigger.’ The intimate familiarity with Muhammadan manners and customs thus acquired was afterwards of service to him in his adventurous journey to Meccah and in annotating the ‘Arabian Nights.’ A private report on certain features of native life, which he wrote at the request of Sir Charles Napier, reached the secretariat at Bombay, and undoubtedly interfered with his official advancement. During this period he qualified in four more languages—Marathi, Sindhi, Punjabi, and Persian—and also studied Arabic, Sanskrit, and Pushtu, the language of the Afghans. To Burton’s vigorous mind the acquisition of a new language was like the acquisition of a new feat of gymnastics, to be gained by resolute perseverance. But languages were valued by him only as a key to thought. Arabic opened to him the Koran, Persian the mystic philosophy of Sufi-ism. He even practised the religious exercises and ceremonies of Islam in order that he might penetrate to the heart of Musalman theology.
The routine of his life was twice broken by the hope of active service, which he was destined never to see. In January 1840 he rejoined his regiment, which had been ordered to take part in the first Sikh war; but peace was proclaimed before the force from Sind entered the Punjab. Again, when the second Sikh war broke out in April 1848, he volunteered his services as interpreter, but his application was refused. Between these dates he had taken two years’ leave to
