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His knowledge of the squatters he got by working for them and living with them; what he knew of police and convicts and bushrangers he learned in doing police duty; the life of the Burtons, as told in 'Jim Burton's Story, was that which the author saw during his boyhood round his father's old rectory on Chelsea Embankment. 'He seemed to me, says Mrs.
'Polly, pray lower the umbrella; we are going to meet some respectable people, and we actually are too dirty to be seen. I have really been eating dust. 'They must be equally dusty, said Polly, sagely. 'Why, it is the Burtons, from Tacitas ranch! The Burton ranch wagon was drawn up, as its driver recognised Dr.
We crossed the car-barn tracks at a gallop. The cop rode abreast of us now. "Cut it out, Bill," he warned. "You see?" she crowed. "You will wind up in jail and give the papers another scandal. Why didn't you stop at the car barns?" "Because we are going to Mountaindale," he explained cheerily; "where the nice people drive. Perhaps we shall see the John Quincy Burtons again as we come back."
He could not have indulged in rhetorical flourishes at the expense of accuracy, as in the familiar passage professing to give the Australian view of 'our trees without shade, our flowers without perfume, our birds who cannot fly, our beasts who have not yet learned to walk on all fours. A comparison of Marcus Clarke's too often quoted description with the sketches of landscape given in, say, the twentieth, twenty-eighth and thirty-sixth chapters of Geoffry Hamlyn and at the beginning of the third volume of The Hillyars and the Burtons curiously illustrates how far the appreciation of Australian scenery depends upon the point of view of the observer.
Among the friends of the Burtons was the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, who with her husband became one of Letchford's best patrons. The princess won Sir Richard's heart by her intelligence, her beauty and grace; and "his conversation was never so brilliant, and his witticisms were never so sparkling as in her presence."
The Khedive sent a special train to meet him on his return from Midian, and the Burtons went at once to Cairo, where they were received with great eclat. From Cairo the Burtons went back to Trieste, or rather to Opcina, for a brief rest, and then proceeded to London. From London they went to Dublin, where they joined the annual meeting of the British Association.
Du Pre set upon them with horsewhips, whereupon the graceless but agile youths ran to a neighbouring house and swarmed to the top of a stack of chimneys, whence partly by word and partly by gesticulation they arranged terms of peace. In 1836, the Burtons left for Pau in the South of France; and while there Richard lost his heart to the daughter of a French baron.
On his return in 1858 he devoted himself industriously to literature, and wrote a number of novels of much more than average merit, including Geoffrey Hamlyn , The Hillyars and the Burtons , Ravenshoe , and Austin Elliot . Of these Ravenshoe is generally regarded as the best.
Early in 1873 the Burtons visited Vienna chiefly in order to see the great Exhibition. The beauty of the buildings excited their constant admiration, but the dearness of everything at the hotels made Burton use forcible language. On one occasion he demanded he never asked for anything a beefsteak, and a waiter hurried up with an absurdly small piece of meat on a plate.
On February 21st the Burtons left Bombay and journeyed by way of Poona to Hyderabad, where they were hospitably entreated by Major Nevill, the Commander-in-Chief of the Nizam's troops, and Sir Salar Jung, the Prime Minister.
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