A NEGLECTED ENGLISHMAN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4433, 4 June 1875, Page 3

A NEGLECTED ENGLISHMAN.

(From the Morning Advertiser,) There is no country which neglects real merit so frequently and so absolutely as England—none which so liberally bestows its bounties upon second and third-rate men, and sometimes absolute pretenders. Ihe most daring explorer cannot find his way up official back-stairs; the most heroic soldier cannot take a salon or a bureau by storm. There are lucky as well as persevering individuals who succeed in the most marvellous way in obtaining far more than their deserts. We have heard of a certain foreigner, now dead, who held a lucrative position for many years in this country, that he so pestered and followed up the late Lord Brougham that he at last obtained the post he sought by simple force of boredom and annoyance. Some men think they ought not to be put in the position of postulants, but that recognition of their services should be spontaneous on the part of the authorities. They are too proud to ask tor that which they consider it is patent they have so eminently deserved that it is a violation of common decency to withhold it; and so they “eat their hearts" in silence, and accept neglect with dignity, if not indifference. We do not intend to apply these remarks strictly to the occasion which has suggested them. If we did not state this, we shouldTpossibly injure the cause which wo are anxious to maintain. We have watched the career of an individual for some thirty-five years with interest and admiration, and we frankly own that we now think it time to express our opinion upon the neglect with which the object of that interest and admiration has been treated. We alone are responsible for the manner in which we record our sentiments. Captain 'Richard Burton, now her Majesty’s consul at Trieste, is, in our judgment, the foremost traveller of the age. We shall not compare his services or exploits with those of any of the men who have occupied a more or less prominent position, and whose services have been recognised by the nation. He has been upwards of thirty years actively engaged in enterprises, many of them of the most hazardous description. We pass over his career in the Bombay Army for nearly twenty years, during which time he acquired that wonderful knowledge of Eastern languages which is probably unequalled hj any living linguist. AVe shall not give even the catalogue of his varied and interesting works, which have been of equal service to philology and geography. His system of bayonet exercise, published in 1855, is, we may observe eti passant the one now in use in the British army. He suffered the fate of too many of his brother officers in the Indian army when it was reduced on changing hands, and when he was left without pension or pay. He was emphatically the first great African pioneer of recent times. It is not our intention to speak disparagingly of the late Captain Speke—far from it ; but it should be remembered that Speke was Burton’s lieutenant, chosen by him to accompany him in his Nile researches, and that when Burton was stricken down with illness that threatened to prove fatal, Speke pushed on a little way ahead, and reaped nearly the whole credit of the discovery. Lake Tanganyika was Burton’s diatovery, and it was his original theory that it contained the sources of the Nile. Never was man more cruelly robbed by fate of his just reward. Could Speke have arrived where he did without even the requisite knowledge of languages, manners of the people, &c., save under Burton’s guidance ? Burton’s pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina was one of the most extraordinary on record. In the expedition to Somali-land; as well as that to the Lake regions of Central Africa, Speke was second in command. In the former both were severely wounded, and cut their way out of surrounding numbers of natives with singular dash and gallantry ; one of the party —Lieutenant Stroyan—being killed. Nor should the wonderful expedition, undertaken alone, to the walled town of Kara, where no European had ever been known to penetrate before, be forgotten. On this occasion Captain Burton actually added a grammar and vocabulary of a language to the stores of the philologists. His journey and work on California and the Mormon country proceeded that of Mr. Hepworth Dixon. He explored the West Coast of Africa from Bathurst on the Gambia to St. Paulo de Loando in Angola, and the Congo River, visiting the Fans. But his visit to Dahomey was still more important, as he exposed the customs of that blood-stained kingdom, and gave information valuable to humanity as well as to civilisation and science. This alone ought to have obtained for him some high honorary distinction ; but he got nothing beyond an expression of satisfaction from the Government then in power. During his four years’ Consulship in Brazil his work was simply herculean. He navigated the River St. Francisco 1500 miles in a canoe, visited the gold and diamond mines, crossed the Andes, and explored the Pacific Coast, affording a vast fund of information, political, geographical, and scientific, to the Foreign Office. Next we find him Consul at Damascus, whore ho did good work in raising English influence and credit. Here he narrowly escaped assassination, receiving a severe wound. He explored Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land, protected the Christian population from a massacre, and was recalled by the effete Liberal Government because he was too good a man; Damascus being reduced to a Vice-Consulate in accordance with their policy of effacement. He is now shelved at Trieste, but has still managed to embellish his stay there by some valuable antiquarian discoveries. If a Consulate is thought a sufficient reward for such a man and such services, we have no more to say. If he has been fairly treated in reference to his Nile explorations, wo have no knowledge of the affair, which we narrowly watched at the time; no discernment and no true sense of justice. When the war with Ashanti broke out, we expressed our opinion that Captain Burton should have been attached to the expedition. During the Crimean War he showed his powers of organisation under General Boatson, whoso chief of the staff he was, in training 1000 irregular cavalry, fit when he left them to do anything and go anywhere. In short, he has done enough for half a dozen men, and to merit half a dozen 0.C.8.’5. G e sincerely trust that the present Government will not fail, amidst other acts of justice and good works, to bestow some signal mark of her Majesty’s favor upon Captain Richard Burton, one of the most remarkable men of the age, who has displayed an intellectual power and bodily endurance through a series of adventures, explorations, and daring feats of travel, which have never been surpassed in variety and interest by any one man, and whose further neglectful treatment, should it take place, will bo a future source of indignant regret to the people of England.