A WILD, ROMANTIC AND SOLEMN LIFE'...
Isabel arrived in Damascus on December 31, 1869, with a lot of luggage and five dogs. It is she herself who recounts that, since adolescence, she had dreamed of living free among Bedouin chiefs, of breathing the desert air, of sleeping under a tent, of having horses and weapons... In her diary she had also written that in Syria she expected to find 'the Garden of Eden, the Promised Land, a city with rounded domes and slender minarets, with the golden crescent reproduced everywhere on backgrounds of various shades of green...' She was disappointed to see barren mountains covered with horrible shrubs and streets full of rubbish traveled by stray and feral dogs. Richard had chosen as his residence a large house at the foot of the mountains in the Kurdish village of Salihiyya because he did not want to stay inside the walled city, whose gates were closed at night. The house was on the bank of a river, had a garden, an orchard with lemon and orange trees and a patio with a beautiful fountain. The dogs that Isabel had brought from England were a large Saint Bernard, two bull terriers and two yarboroughs. To them were soon added a camel, a white donkey, three goats, a lamb and a Persian cat, to form a small zoo. And then there were the chickens, the turkeys, the geese, the ducks, the guinea fowl... Someone had given them a panther cub, which had been caught in a trap in the desert. At night it slept at the foot of their beds, by day it hunted the other animals trying to tear them to pieces. Unfortunately, it came to a bad end because a local peasant poisoned it and they mourned it like a son. Isabel loved horses in particular, of which she said she was able to understand the feelings and thoughts. She had a dozen of them and admitted finding it difficult to resist the offer of a thoroughbred horse as a gift, while she had no difficulty refusing jewels. She organized receptions for local people of every race and creed, during which she served lemonade and sherbets and offered the narghile and cigarettes. She accompanied her husband on excursions in the surrounding mountains. She dressed as a man to be more comfortable and she liked being mistaken for his son. Outside their house there was always a queue of beggars and sick people, whom she treated with the few medicines she had. She gave quinine to those who were suffering from malaria, calomel to those who had intestinal parasites, she treated and bandaged bites and wounds. She visited the neighborhoods where cholera was raging and administered a little opium to the victims.
When Richard began to become passionate about archaeology, she followed him on his expeditions with shovel and spade, even though she did not particularly like digging. From the subsoil came skulls, bones, tombstones with inscriptions, columns and many other ruins. Richard drew the maps of the archaeological zones, helped by Edward Henry Palmer and by Charles Francis Tyrwhitt-Drake. Together with them he visited the temples of Baalbek in Lebanon, those of Palmyra and the Greek village of Bludan, perched on the mountain. Their meals consisted of raw onions, eggs fried in clarified butter, sour milk to quench their thirst. At night, all around their tents, they heard the howls of jackals. 'I cannot forget the enchanting nights in the desert, the donkeys, the camels, the fillies, the horses tied to stakes emitting sounds, kicking, digging the ground with their hooves... the piled-up loads, the great fires, the dark tents, the Turkish soldiers, the people with clothes of different fashions, the men with fierce and wild faces lying here and there or engaged in barbaric dances and songs... Richard recited passages from the Thousand and One Nights, Palmer sang Arab poems, Drake practiced magic to amaze the Mogharibehs... I have seen respectable sheikhs roll on the ground and shout with joy, forgetful of their usual oriental solemnity. It seemed they no longer wanted to let my husband leave, whom they had nicknamed Brother of the Lion, dedicating verses to him...'
Unfortunately, however, not everyone loved Burton who, on the other hand, was not particularly suited to being a diplomat, a post that requires prudence in handling delicate matters. He had taken a stand against some Jewish usurers, whose practice had previously been tolerated. He had also been involved, persuaded by Isabel, in a collective baptism ceremony, the account of which to his superiors had then been distorted to cause him harm. Surely the decision to remove him was already in the air, but this last episode made it definitive. Richard said he had always wanted to be on the side of truth and justice, with honesty and independence, but a choice of that kind does not always accord with the post of consul...
In April 1871 Richard and Isabel decided to go to Palestine for Easter. In those years, the Holy Land was under Turkish government and there were various religions competing to secure the tombs and holy places. For him that journey was an archaeological exploration, for her it was a pilgrimage that led her to contemplate the holy places and to meditate on their spiritual meaning. In her diary, Isabel recounts that she was unable to hold back her tears as she knelt before them. Observing the places her mother had told her about while holding her on her knees, brushing with her hand the buildings and monuments linked to the history of Jesus gave her a very strong emotion. Unfortunately these impulses of her soul were spoiled by the comments of Richard, an iconoclast as always, and by those of his companions Drake and Clermont-Ganneau, prone to doubting everything. Visitors from all over the world entered the small chapel where the tomb of the Savior was, only the English did not do so, Isabel recounts. They stood outside observing the people who prayed as if they were watching practitioners of a strange Hindu rite. From Isabel's diary emerges disdain towards the scientific world and displeasure that her husband shared its theories. According to her, scientists studied only a part of the mosaic of Creation, without understanding the whole. In this way, the sacrifice of Christ had been useless. One day when she had fallen asleep in a cave at Bethesda from great tiredness she dreamed of Jesus Christ putting his hands on her head. Suddenly, she felt flooded by a torrent of happiness.
When the confirmation arrived that he had been replaced, Richard left for Beirut, while Isabel, as always, remained to pay the bills and to pack the luggage. Once her commitments were finished, she decided to join him, despite the difficulties of the journey. Richard welcomed her with an expression of joy on his face and thanked her with the phrase: 'Bon sang ne peut mentir!', which represents a fine demonstration of esteem towards her... Then he left for London, where Isabel joined him on October 14, 1871. She brought with her a packet of letters from friends in Damascus protesting against Burton's removal. But since she feared she had been the main cause of the revocation measure, she immediately went to the officials who had made the decision. They confirmed their fear of a possible war of religion because of that collective baptism. Meanwhile Burton had already left for Iceland to explore the sulphurous springs.
Just in those days, the consular seat of Trieste, a city which at that time was also the port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had become vacant. When the post was offered to him, he accepted, considering it an intermediate step towards Morocco. On October 24, 1872 he therefore embarked for Trieste, while Isabel made the journey overland some time later. They met, quite by chance, on the steamboat that from Venice went to Trieste. 'What are you doing here?' Richard asked her as he held out his hand. 'I could ask you the same question!' she replied, returning his friendly handshake. Then they continued together the journey towards Trieste.