[lit-ideas] "The Book of Sword" & The River Plate Days of Sir R. Burton, K. C. M. G.
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:00:24 EDT
Along with Michael Holroyd's book -- the author I met when he made it to the
Argentine pampas with wife, among other things, to see if they could claim
some of the lands of the landowing "Drabbles" -- I was having a look at Rice's
bio of Capt. Burton, and come across this reference:
"The book of the sword" by R. Burton.
Chatto & Windus, 1884 -- "repr. with annotations", Rice writes.
I was surprised (in a nice way) to learn Burton spent quite some time in
Buenos Ayres (mostly drunk, on account of his 'mate', Blunt.
"Burton wentdown to Buenos Aires [in 1860], a town withhout sewerage (such
an expected complaint by now!) whose streets were "long, narrow, and ill
ventilated". He was in a depressed state of mind, drinking heavily and
expressing
open hostility to everyone he met. He was [very] haggard, shabby, and
unkempt. [His mate Blunt] was distressed by Burton's appearance. "He seemed to
me a
bronken man". "His dress and appearance were those suggesting a released
convict. He reminded me by turns of a black [Burton was a gypsy] leopard, caged
but unforgiving, and again, with his close cut poll ... He wrote a rusty black
coat with a crumpled black silk stock, his throat destitute of collar, a
costume [gaucho? JLS] which his muscular frame and immense chest made
singularly
and incongruously hideous, above it a countentance the most sinister I have
ever seen, dark, cruel, treacherous, with eyes like a wilde beast's. I sat up
many nights with him, talking all things in Heaven and Earth, or rather
listening while he talked till he grew dangerous in his cups, and revolver in
hand
would stagger home to bed. In his talk he affected an extreme brutality, and
if one could have believed the whole of what he said, he had indulged IN
EVERY VICE."
"Burton set off with two other friends on an extended exploration of the
Argentine pampas. This period has not been documented. He seems to have
written
no letters and there are no journals, essays, government reports, articles,
or disgressions on languages. There was not even the customary book about his
travels. He is said to have been involved in knife fights with gauchos and to
have escaped being murdered by brigands. There was a report of another fight
in which he was badly wounded in killing four men, but this was the kind of
story that Burton liked to tell when drinking or even under more staid
circumstances at dinner parties to shock the guests".
Now, Geary, a bibliophile of South Americana (He lives near 'The Border') --
provided the South Americana are 'mildy erotic or worse" might know more
about "the lost years" of Burton on the pampas.
I suspect that the character fascinated the father of Jorge Luis Borges.
Jorge Borges Senior, a lawyer of Buenos Aires, owned the Burton Club edition
of
"The Thousand Nights and A Night" that proved to be masturbatory material for
the younger Borges (see "Borges: A literary biography" by Emir Monegal, NY:
Dutton).
Cheers,
JL
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