GEOGRAPHY AND EAST AFRICA 203 



curing a Government Pension of ^300 a year for 

 Lady Burton, and in this way. At a meeting of the 

 Council of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir 

 Mountstuart E. Grant Duff, the then President, said 

 that private information had reached him (of which 

 he mentioned some details) that Government would 

 be disposed to grant a pension to Lady Burton if a 

 good case could be made out relating to Burton's 

 services to science, and if the Council of the Society 

 were to back it. Would any one undertake to carry 

 this through ? No one answered, so he addressed 

 himself to me personally, asking if I would. I 

 expressed a cordial desire to help, but feeling at the 

 moment too ignorant of the views of competent 

 authorities concerning Burton's linguistic knowledge 

 (on which much emphasis had been laid), and of 

 much else that might with advantage be advanced 

 in his favour, was unable to answer off-hand, but 

 willingly undertook to inquire and report. This I 

 did, asking the opinions of many, with the result that 

 Burton's knowledge of vernacular Arabic and other 

 languages was considered to be unequalled, but not 

 his classical knowledge of them, and that it was better 

 to rest 1 his claims on his wide discursiveness rather 

 than on any one specified performance. I followed 

 this advice, and my Report formed the basis of the 

 proposed application, which in due course gained its 

 end. My own acquaintance with Lady Burton was 

 slight, and my memories of her husband refer chiefly 

 to his unmarried days. 



Several of us subscribed to have a public memorial 

 of Speke, and obtained a plot in Kensington Gardens 

 to place it. It now stands in the form of an obelisk, 



