August 11, 2010

An Introduction (in which an unexpected find is made)

The British Library

London

Gentle Reader,

The challenge of bringing Lady “Bulldog” Burton’s writing to a new and wider audience has been a formidable one. Who among us can say that their modern lives have not been touched by this redoubtable Victorian lady? I would like to claim that her papers fell into my hands through diligence and intense academic study. However, I feel the truth must out or, in the words of Lady B herself, “I am bound to be tripped out of the hot-air balloon of a lie into the earthly chasm of truth whilst indulging a glass of claret.”

I came across her neglected journals among the hallowed shelves of the British Library during research into another matter. I had thought to pen a post-colonial novel set in Gabarone, the capital of Botswana. The book was to be centred around a convent and was temporarily titled The Nuns of Gabarone. As I searched for The Big Book of Botswana on the lower shelves of the King’s Library, I came across a small bundle wrapped in a silk garter and a chamois leather from a garage in East Horsley. It had lain undiscovered for some years between a first edition of Essential Commands to Servants in Swahili and a rather inferior copy of Agatha Philbeam’s Guide to Devotional Kneelers 1678–1679 (not November).

The papers were in a poor state but I was instantly gripped by the unique story of an inveterate traveller who did so much to spread the influence of British civilisation throughout the empire towards the end of the nineteeth century. How blessed we have been also to secure the original paintings and sketches by Lady Burton’s companion Jinks. These have been painstakingly restored by my collaborator Sandy Nightingale, whose hours with a sable-hair brush have frankly taken their toll.

I trust you will find the enterprise worthwhile.

Sandi Toksvig

August 21, 2010

Paris to Bordeaux, France

June 9, 1880

Heading south from “Gay Paree” and, indeed, to a large extent it was. Jinks, however, not at all well. I was loath to depart our delightful bolthole in Montmartre as my lessons in the art of le cancan had, I felt, revealed a hitherto unrealised aptitude. Jinks’s chest has been a shocker since that regrettable incident with the young woman from the Folies Bergère, the merkin* and Lord Bartlett (minus his spectacles – a fact which I feel was under-reported in Le Monde). I am fairly confident that anyone attacked by a merkin ejected at high speed would have had a similar reaction. The entire affair was not assisted by the woman beside Lord Bartlett who I believe thought it was a cat. The whole matter was a misunderstanding which should never have been put into the hands of the local judiciary.

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* Ed. Note – It seems a merkin is false hair used to cover the nether regions. A toupee, if you like, for the privates. Despite consultation with the Curator of Underwear at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I regret that I am still somewhat hazy as to its method of attachment.

August 29, 2010

Paris (continued)

Jinks met an artist called Manet in the F-B bar, and showed him this sketch of me. He seemed impressed.

Jinks has been gulping Ayers Cherry Pectoral (“Cures colds, coughs and all diseases of the throat and lungs”) with the gusto of a rabid horse at water, but, alas, to no avail. She heaved and wheezed until people suspected that I was sharing my rooms with an asthmatic goose. I did attempt a brief stint à la Florence Nightingale. I thought the costume fetching but when I tried to soothe my companion’s fevered brow she would keep projecting and spraying. It was with some regret that I realised, with or without the aid of a stout linen handkerchief, I simply cannot “do” moisture. We left the city on a cloud of infection.

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September 4, 2010

Highlight of the trip to Paris

Had tea at Victor Hugo’s place on the Avenue d’Eylau. He is lately returned from exile in Brussels (I’ve never been but I hear the return was wise), where I believe he was given his marching orders for housing socialists. Ever one to put on a broadminded hat, I went anyway. The poor man, however, is not at all what he was and, sadly, is now stricken with cerebral congestion. Priding myself on overlooking such shortcomings, I tried various topics but there was no conversation in him. I even thought to discuss that commune business of a few years ago, but I confess I was a little hazy on detail. As I understand it the people wanted a different calendar, no more church and to stop bankers working at night, which I think tells you everything you need to know about that class of person.

Even Mr. Hugo’s excellent companion Juliette says he is most odd now. Apparently he often greets visitors by singing excerpts from his novel Les Misèrables! Understandably this drives them from the room before so much as a sherry has been poured. His daughter Adele, of course, eloped to America some years ago, only to return certifiably insane. It is, I believe, not an uncommon experience.

In general the food in Paris has improved, considering it is less than ten years since the people of the city were forced to eat the population of the zoo. (I understand eland to be palatable but they say there is almost nothing of edible value on a parakeet.) Always interesting to speculate – if it weren’t for the invention of sturdy iron cages things might so easily have been the other way round.

Baron Haussmann has made quite a difference to the cities. Boulevards all over the place and they say the sewers make the rats proud. I was offered a tour but I am of the firm opinion that it is vulgar to venture underground until required to do so in a box.

After our aborted tea with the Hugos, Jinks insisted on visiting the Père-Lachaise Cemetery. Here, in the north-east corner, one can view the Mur des Fédérés, the federalists’ wall, where 147 members of the commune were shot and then buried where they fell. The nearby café serves a perfectly respectable scone.

* Ed.Note – Few recipes from the great eating of the zoo have survived. Nerfs de Daim, a soup made from the sinews of the Axis deer was said to be high in flavour and gelatinous but “took a monstrous deal of boiling”. Tripang or Japanese sea-slug strongly divided opinion, with some declaring it unpalatable and others eating it with delight, saying it was the near equal of turtle. Kangeroo ham was terribly salty and not very tender while the Ris de veau à l’oseille de Dominique was gone in a moment.

September 11, 2010

En route to Bordeaux

By great good fortune, as we travelled south, we chanced upon Lady Julia Charles (One of the Chelsea Charleses and the author of Three Years Spent Wandering in the Northern Provinces of China with but a Single Valet), and she instantly pronounced the cure.

We alighted at Bordeaux and were advised to prepare ourselves for an evening perambulation. Unsure of our intended destination and mindful of Jinks’s health, I wore my warmest cloak while she merely carried my absolute essentials in a small portmanteau.

Holding a dim oil lamp and a large stick, Lady Charles led us with some boldness, and in the dark of night, through the back streets near the Garonne River until we arrived at a low den of her acquaintance.

A small Oriental gentleman gave us admission and I knew in an instant where we had arrived.

“Une fumerie d’opium Chinoise!” I gasped. “A Chinese opium den,” I whispered to Jinks, whose French, frankly, is no better than one could hope for. Lady Charles nodded. I was in a state of some horror. We had arrived in a lair of iniquity, the haven of the poppy, the haunt of the fleur de mort.

A small Chinese woman persuaded us into silk pyjamas of the Orient whilst I continued to make some protestation.

“But my dear Lady Charles, opium smoking cannot be condoned. It is known to throw whole families into ruin, dissipate every kind of property and quite likely ruin man himself.”

“True,” she replied sagely, “but Jinks’s cough is very bad.”

It is the burden of the employer that one must occasionally march the road of discomfort for one’s charges. Knowing the gift of the poppy as a universal cough suppressant, I felt I had no choice but to soldier on. Seeking only the health of my devoted companion I allowed our descent into the smoking room.

Slavish to a firm belief in the maxim “Anything worth doing is worth doing well”, I will pass on to you that opium is most efficiently smoked in the reclining position. We lay on large divans in the silk-lined room whilst a chef prepared “L’allumage de la pipe”. For reasons I cannot quite fathom, I regret that I have scant detail about the remainder of the evening. I do recall that the pipe has a considerable odour. Not unpleasant but rather creamy.

Lady Charles, normally a woman of some fortitude, seemed quite glass-eyed with the enterprise. Indeed, her familiarity with the entire operation suggested a constitution regularly racked with consumptive coughing.

The effect on Jinks was singular. Her rather poor French improved dramatically. I think she was still under the weather though, for she was eventually carried from the cellar crying, “L’esprit des Buddhas morts habite dans mon cervau.” (“The spirit of dead Buddhas live in my brain.”)

Lady Charles seemed unperturbed. “Really, my dear?” she said, grasping Jinks by the ankles. “I dreamt I was an odalisque and it was heavenly.”

Suffice to say, I cannot help but recommend the enterprise. Jinks’s cough is entirely cleared and we depart on the morn for Bayonne.

September 20, 2010

Pamplona, Spain July 7, 1880

If I have learnt a lesson in travelling to Spain, albeit briefly, it is:

1. Not to go again.

2. Never to trust an inferior guidebook.

Unable to locate either a Murray or a Baedeker guide to the region I was reduced to the words of wisdom of one Henry O’Shea. I should have been suspicious that Mr. Baedeker did not even think the area worthy of publication. Although Mr. O’Shea’s ruminations are allegedly published in Edinburgh, their superficial and misleading character suggest to me that he is perhaps an Australian.

We arrived by train from Bayonne. Bordeaux to Bayonne (6 hours on the omnibus train). Bayonne to Alsasua – a station on the Madrid and Burgos Railway (5 hours 30 minutes). Then Alsasua to Pamplona (2 hours) on a line belonging to the Grand Central – owner, M. M. Rothschild. (Why rich men with no knowledge of catering must dabble in railways confounds me. The buffet is hideously inferior.) The ferro carriles (railway) passes through no town of importance although it crosses several very picturesque valleys watered by the Borunda and other minor streams. Soon after Zuaste we reached Pamplona (pop. 22,896 – each and every one of them, I feel, not entirely well).

Stayed at a small inn called the Fonda de Europa, which can be found in the Paseo de Valencia. Here they serve endless carne cocida (boiled meat) for the mesa rodonda (table d’hôte). I realise that I now know the words for boiled meat in six languages – and don’t care for it in any of them.

September 26, 2010

Pompey

History of the city

Originally called Pompeiopolis or Pompey’s City, having been founded by Mr. Pompey himself in 75 bc. This was corrupted by the Moors to Banbalunah, which I think is less of a corruption and more a disgraceful lack of attention to spelling. Before that it was called Iruña, which in the local Basque language simply means “The City”. Patently a place of no discernible character, it is the capital of the Navarre district. Not a promising citadel. A sort of 1400-foot-high boil on a fertile plain of the Agra River, squeezed within a tight girdle of walls.

For reasons I can’t fathom it has been much fought over. The Arabs went backwards and forwards for years, then the Vascones took charge. Charlemagne popped in for a bit and burnt the walls, which was not popular so he left. Back came the Moors with more matches. All very tense with lots of fighting. It made everyone quite upset. Indeed, one wounded captain (I have no idea on which side) became quite deranged and stayed on to found the Jesuits. I can’t believe they are an entirely bright people. Apparently, in 1808, a group of French grenadiers with occupation on their minds started a snowball fight outside the city walls, whereupon the people came to watch and the French grabbed the drawbridges and took the town. An obvious ruse to my thinking.

Pompey the Great

I must confess to having little patience with the details of history but I quite took to what little I read of Pompey the Great. Such a nice title for a start. You know where you are with a name like that. One would feel confident in dispatching a dinner invitation to anyone called Something the Great. His real name was Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, which I think is less successful and you can see why a change was necessary.

He was born in 106 bc, which is practically before any of my friends. Naturally he came from money, albeit Roman money, which I realise no one would count as much. He joined the army – so useful for a young man wanting to travel – and traipsed all over Europe in his sandals and white sheet of a dress. He was obviously a good sort. They say he cleared the sea of pirates in three months. What splendid fun. It all went wrong in the end and the Egyptians cut off his head. I haven’t tried Egypt yet, but Jinks and I shall certainly approach the place with caution and something stout tied around the neck.

The Cathedral is the principal sight of Pamplona. It was built in 1397 by Charles the Noble, although presumably not on his own. He and his wife, Queen Leonora de Trastâmara, are entombed inside. He with a lion at his feet, she with two dogs, and both with the largest noses I have witnessed hewn from marble. I cannot help but feel the sculptor, one Jean de Loome of Tournai, was a confident fellow either not in need of further royal patronage or simply desirous of somewhere to hang his hat.

Ed. Note – Jinks’s sketch of the tomb of Charles the Noble differs in many respects from the actual memorial. While not wishing to cast doubt on Jinks’s involvement in Lady B’s Grand Tour, it is almost as though she never saw the monument.

October 2, 2010

Souvenirs

Jinks has developed a positive passion for the irritating habit of the souvenir. I find it vulgar to collect the detritus of foreign climes, but she will not be swayed from her purpose. There is a Lord Elgin fever about her desire to return home with half of Europe by her side. Her latest acquisition is a pair of castanets. (From the Spanish castañuelas, diminutive of castaño or chestnut. My Spanish is proceeding apace although I have yet to find anyone I wish to converse with.) These hollowed-out pieces of wood are designed to sit in the hand and be clapped together as a musical instrument. So far Jinks has not proved adept at this and, indeed, her right-hand index finger has swollen to alarming proportions. They say the Romans played something similar called crótalo. I begin to suspect it was the undoing of Pompey in Egypt.

I had come to Spain with the vague notion of furthering my interest in dances of the Continent. I was not sure if this would be possible. The wretched Mr. O’Shea assured me that, “Pamplona is very dull and the only amusement is on the tennis courts.”

I must say I consider tennis to be undignified and venture to suggest that it will never be a sport for the English to excel at.

It was with the flamenco in mind that I ventured out just after 7.30 one morning from my inn where meat boiling began at a surprisingly early hour. Dressed in a rather brilliant red cloak (I have often found colour a good calling card with native peoples), I set forth for my paseitos (Spanish stroll) with some excitement. I should tell you that pedestrianism is unknown in Spain and scarcely to be thought of. Consequently I was surprised when, wandering along the Cuesta de San Domingo, I noticed quite a gathering of men and young boys catching the morning air.

“Encierro!” they called to me. “Encierro!”

“And a very good morning to you,” I replied, enjoying the local exchange. Spanish is a tricky tongue and I have only a few essential phrases but thought it was important to make the effort.

To be continued . . .

October 9, 2010

Pamplona, Spain (continued)

It was as the clock struck eight in the Chapel Sta. Cruz that I heard a whooshing noise above my head. A rather large rocket appeared in the sky followed by something akin to thunder. Inexplicably, the men and boys behind began to run. They began to run towards me.

Brigands! I thought. The entire town is composed of brigands. When confronted by immediate danger an Englishwoman has only one choice – to face the onslaught and recall the many uses of a properly projected parasol. It was as I turned that I noticed the second rocket and, indeed, the bulls.

I have the same fondness for animals that any woman of breeding might adopt. I believe they can be charming, but become less so the nearer they are to you and the further from a plate. Behind the fast-approaching mob of males was an even speedier collection of bovines. Rather cross bovines. At a quick guess I would have said each thundering bundle of muscle and fury weighed some 1200 pounds, but it was not a moment to stop and ruminate. The men ran, the bulls ran, and, indeed, forsaking all propriety, I began to run. Down the Mercaderes and Estafeta roads and into the bullring.

I suspect my fitness resulting from arduous attention to the can-can may offer some explanation for my arrival ahead of both mob and mad biche. In the ring of the toreadors, the bulls were swept into an enclosure and I found myself much cheered by the local populace who had gathered rather as artisans do on Derby Day.

The autoridad in charge was most gracious. Apparently, this “run with the bulls” has been an annual event since the sixteenth century. Not only was I the first woman to have participated but also the first inglesa to have made such a good show of it.

Before the bull fighting proper began, he said a few words that sounded lovely but could have meant anything, so I gave a short reply in Spanish which began rather confidently with a ringing “El pueblo de Pamplona . . . ” and then deteriorated into declarations that I knew where the post office was, that my linen had not been returned from the laundry and that the wine for the fish course was most clearly corked. These were the only phrases that sprang to mind from my conversational dictionary.

Still, they seemed to ring out well and I was rewarded with a tail and two ears from one of the pursuing beasts now safely dispatched to the great bull run in the sky. A charming memento which, sadly, began to smell in our luggage and which Jinks threw from our train compartment as we traversed a viaduct.

We were escorted to the railway station by a mêlée of picadors, banderilleros and espadas who pleaded with us to endure another day of the fiesta. We declined and headed north as fast as possible. A charming peasant people but I venture to suggest that no Englishwoman in her right mind will ever voluntarily spend leisure time south of the Pyrénées.

Ed. Note – Los Sanfermines:

The bull-running fiesta (overlooked by Mr. O’Shea in his preoccupation with tennis courts) celebrates one Saint Fermin. He was, apparently, the son of a Roman senator and the first Bishop of Pamplona. Fermin was consecrated by San Saturnino who was martyred by being dragged about by a bull. Fermin himself travelled to the Gauls as a missionary and was beheaded in Amiens for his trouble. Lady Burton believed that such stories explained why England is so low on producing saints. In a scrap of correspondence I have found to her milliner complaining of the poor quality of ostrich feathers, she also ruminated on Fermin’s troubles with the bull and eventual beheading. She wrote, “I cannot imagine such an event occurring anywhere in Britain and certainly not in the Home Counties where people might hear of it.”

Critical Spanish phrases

¿Dónde estâ el correo? – Where is the post office?

¿Qué calor? – Isn’t it warm?

Encierro – The running of the bulls.

¡Corvé, tonto! – Run, you fool.

Disculde joven, pensé que usted llevaba una sombrilla –

I am so sorry, young man, I thought you were carrying a parasol.

¿Tiene usted uno con imagen de la Virgen Maria? –

Have you got one with the Virgin Mary on?

No sea absurda, soy Inglés – Don’t be absurd, I’m English.

Mosquito – Mosquito.

October 18, 2010

Aix-les-Bains, France

July 31, 1880

I am sometimes given to wonder why I travel with Jinks at all. While it useful to have someone who can sort my collars and cuffs and cord the luggage, I am not at all sure it is always worth the trouble. I have explained to her that were it not for my kindness she might have to suffer the degradation of becoming, heaven forfend, a governess, but the remarks seem to fall on stony ground.

Our trip to Aix-les-Bains has been memorable thanks in large part to the presence of Miss Phillipa Dennell of the United States. It is a sad fact that pretty young women abroad often have to change hotels when young gentlemen tourists become too attentive. Without wishing to be unkind, it gives you some idea of the challenge Miss Dennell presented to the world, that upon our arrival at the Hôtel de France we found she had resided in the same room for some months with no trouble at all. We had arrived at the behest of our dear Lady Charles, who had strongly advised us to take the waters and to avoid Miss Dennell at all costs.

“She is a bluestocking of quite the worst kind. Not only unconventional but untidy. She rides the omnibus any old how and has been known to sit in the lounge talking for hours with her feet on the fender.”

The place was awash with the English come to “take the cure”. They limped about amusing themselves by referring to the town as Aches and Pains and they smelt relentlessly of sulphur. Not an odour which even the most ardent user of imported toilet soap can carry off with aplomb. Jinks did not want any treatments. She said she had grave scruples about all medical interference. I have to say that upon arrival in the town I felt absolutely fine, but after a single consultation began to have some doubts about my health. The bill alone made me feel queasy in the extreme.

Our dinner table was a curious mix. There was “Dr.” David Young of Guildford in Surrey. A retired major from the Army, he had been in the area for some time. He spent his days practising doctoring on the local peasants. He was not a real doctor, never having studied medicine, but there was a general consensus that what he lacked in expertise he certainly made up for in kindness. His advanced deafness made him a slightly tiresome dinner companion and did make one fret somewhat for any patient attempting to relate the exact nature of their complaint.

Aix-les-Bains (to be continued . . .)

The Travels of Lady "Bulldog" Burton

by Sandi Toksvig & Sandy Nightingale. Why not buy the book?