202 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



was urging that the Council of the Association should 

 be requested by the Committee to bring Captain 

 Speke's services to the notice of Government and to 

 ask for their appropriate recognition, when a mes- 

 senger brought a letter for the President, Sir 

 Roderick Murchison. He motioned to the Secretary, 

 who was seated at his left hand, to read it, while he, 

 the President, continued to attend to Sir James. 

 The countenance of the Secretary clearly showed 

 that the letter contained serious news. Sir James 

 Alexander went on speaking, the letter was in the 

 meantime circulated and read by each in turn, in- 

 cluding Captain Burton, who sat opposite to me, and 

 I got it the last, or almost the last of all before the 

 President. It was to say that Speke had accidentally 

 shot himself dead, by drawing his gun after him while 

 getting over a hed^e. 



Burton had many great and endearing qualities, 

 with others of which perhaps the most curious was 

 his pleasure in dressing himself, so to speak, in wolfs 

 clothing, in order to give an idea that he was worse 

 than he really was. I attended his funeral at the 

 Roman Catholic Cemetery near Sheen. It had been 

 arranged by his widow, Lady Burton, a devoted 

 Catholic, and was crowded with her Catholic friends. 

 I did not see more than three geographers among 

 them, of whom Lord Northbrook, a former President 

 of the Society, was one. From pure isolation, we 

 two kept together the whole time. There were none 

 of Burton's old associates. It was a ceremony quite 

 alien to anything that I could conceive him to 

 care for. 



Anyhow, I was glad to be instrumental in pro- 



