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Generalized Least Squares 1st Edition Takeaki Kariya
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Takeaki Kariya, Hiroshi Kurata
ISBN(s): 9780470866986, 0470866985
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.23 MB
Year: 2004
Language: english
Generalized
Least Squares
A complete list of the titles in this series appears at the end of this volume.
Generalized
Least Squares
Takeaki Kariya
Kyoto University and Meiji University, Japan
Hiroshi Kurata
University of Tokyo, Japan
Copyright 2004 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester,
West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning
or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the
terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London
W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should
be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate,
Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to [email protected], or faxed to (+44)
1243 770620.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject
matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering
professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a
competent professional should be sought.
John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
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John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2 Clementi Loop #02-01, Jin Xing Distripark, Singapore 129809
John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd, 22 Worcester Road, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada M9W 1L1
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears
in print may not be available in electronic books.
Kariya, Takeaki.
Generalized least squares / Takeaki Kariya, Hiroshi Kurata.
p. cm. – (Wiley series in probability and statistics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-470-86697-7 (alk. paper)
1. Least squares. I. Kurata, Hiroshi, 1967-II. Title. III. Series.
QA275.K32 2004
511 .42—dc22
2004047963
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Produced from LaTeX files supplied by the author and processed by Laserwords Private Limited,
Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall
This book is printed on acid-free paper responsibly manufactured from sustainable forestry
in which at least two trees are planted for each one used for paper production.
To my late GLS co-worker Yasuyuki Toyooka and to my wife Shizuko
—Takeaki Kariya
Preface xi
1 Preliminaries 1
1.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Multivariate Normal and Wishart Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Elliptically Symmetric Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Group Invariance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
vii
viii CONTENTS
4.6 Empirical Example: CO2 Emission Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.7 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Bibliography 281
Index 287
Preface
Regression analysis has been one of the most widely employed and most important
statistical methods in applications and has been continually made more sophisti-
cated from various points of view over the last four decades. Among a number of
branches of regression analysis, the method of generalized least squares estimation
based on the well-known Gauss–Markov theory has been a principal subject, and is
still playing an essential role in many theoretical and practical aspects of statistical
inference in a general linear regression model. A general linear regression model is
typically of a certain covariance structure for the error term, and the examples are
not only univariate linear regression models such as serial correlation models, het-
eroscedastic models and equi-correlated models but also multivariate models such
as seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) models, multivariate analysis of variance
(MANOVA) models, growth curve models, and so on.
When the problem of estimating the regression coefficients in such a model
is considered and when the covariance matrix of the error term is known, as an
efficient estimation procedure, we rely on the Gauss–Markov theorem that the
Gauss–Markov estimator (GME) is the best linear unbiased estimator. In practice,
however, the covariance matrix of the error term is usually unknown and hence the
GME is not feasible. In such cases, a generalized least squares estimator (GLSE),
which is defined as the GME with the unknown covariance matrix replaced by
an appropriate estimator, is widely used owing to its theoretical and practical
virtue.
This book attempts to provide a self-contained treatment of the unified theory of
the GLSEs with a focus on their finite sample properties. We have made the content
and exposition easy to understand for first-year graduate students in statistics,
mathematics, econometrics, biometrics and other related fields. One of the key
features of the book is a concise and mathematically rigorous description of the
material via the lower and upper bounds approach, which enables us to evaluate
the finite sample efficiency in a general manner.
In general, the efficiency of a GLSE is measured by relative magnitude of
its risk (or covariance) matrix to that of the GME. However, since the GLSE
is in general a nonlinear function of observations, it is often very difficult to
evaluate the risk matrix in an explicit form. Besides, even if it is derived, it is
often impractical to use such a result because of its complication. To overcome
this difficulty, our book adopts as a main tool the lower and upper bounds approach,
xi
xii PREFACE
which approaches the problem by deriving a sharp lower bound and an effective
upper bound for the risk matrix of a GLSE: for this purpose, we begin by showing
that the risk matrix of a GLSE is bounded below by the covariance matrix of the
GME (Nonlinear Version of the Gauss–Markov Theorem); on the basis of this result,
we also derive an effective upper bound for the risk matrix of a GLSE relative to
the covariance matrix of the GME (Upper Bound Problems). This approach has
several important advantages: the upper bound provides information on the finite
sample efficiency of a GLSE; it has a much simpler form than the risk matrix
itself and hence serves as a tractable efficiency measure; furthermore, in some
cases, we can obtain the optimal GLSE that has the minimum upper bound among
an appropriate class of GLSEs. This book systematically develops the theory with
various examples.
The book can be divided into three parts, corresponding respectively to Chap-
ters 1 and 2, Chapters 3 to 6, and Chapters 7 to 9. The first part (Chapters 1
and 2) provides the basics for general linear regression models and GLSEs. In
particular, we first give a fairly general definition of a GLSE, and establish its
fundamental properties including conditions for unbiasedness and finiteness of
second moments. The second part (Chapters 3–6), the main part of this book,
is devoted to the detailed description of the lower and upper bounds approach
stated above and its applications to serial correlation models, heteroscedastic mod-
els and SUR models. First, in Chapter 3, a nonlinear version of the Gauss–Markov
theorem is established under fairly mild conditions on the distribution of the
error term. Next, in Chapters 4 and 5, we derive several types of effective upper
bounds for the risk matrix of a GLSE. Further, in Chapter 6, a uniform bound
for the normal approximation to the distribution of a GLSE is obtained. The
last part (Chapters 7–9) provides further developments (including mathematical
extensions) of the results in the second part. Chapter 7 is devoted to making a
further extension of the Gauss–Markov theorem, which is a maximal extension
in a sense and leads to a further generalization of the nonlinear Gauss–Markov
theorem proved in Chapter 3. In the last two chapters, some complementary topics
are discussed. These include concentration inequalities, efficiency under elliptical
symmetry, degeneracy of the distribution of a GLSE, and estimation of growth
curves.
This book is not intended to be exhaustive, and there are many topics that are
not even mentioned. Instead, we have done our best to give a systematic and unified
presentation. We believe that reading this book leads to quite a solid understanding
of this attractive subject, and hope that it will stimulate further research on the
problems that remain.
The authors are indebted to many people who have helped us with this work.
Among others, I, Takeaki Kariya, am first of all grateful to Professor Morris
L. Eaton, who was my PhD thesis advisor and helped us get in touch with the
publishers. I am also grateful to my late coauthor Yasuyuki Toyooka with whom
PREFACE xiii
I published some important results contained in this book. Both of us are thankful
to Dr. Hiroshi Tsuda and Professor Yoshihiro Usami for providing some tables and
graphs and Ms Yuko Nakamura for arranging our writing procedure. We are also
grateful to John Wiley & Sons for support throughout this project. Kariya’s portion
of this work was partially supported by the COE fund of Institute of Economic
Research, Kyoto University.
Takeaki Kariya
Hiroshi Kurata
1
Preliminaries
1.1 Overview
This chapter deals with some basic notions that play indispensable roles in the
theory of generalized least squares estimation and should be discussed in this
preliminary chapter. Our selection here includes three basic notions: multivariate
normal distribution, elliptically symmetric distributions and group invariance. First,
in Section 1.2, some fundamental properties shared by the normal distributions are
described without proofs. A brief treatment of Wishart distributions is also given.
Next, in Section 1.3, we discuss the classes of spherically and elliptically sym-
metric distributions. These classes can be viewed as an extension of multivariate
normal distribution and include various heavier-tailed distributions such as mul-
tivariate t and Cauchy distributions as special elements. Section 1.4 provides a
minimum collection of notions on the theory of group invariance, which facilitates
our unified treatment of generalized least squares estimators (GLSEs). In fact, the
theory of spherically and elliptically symmetric distributions is principally based
on the notion of group invariance. Moreover, as will be seen in the main body of
this book, a GLSE itself possesses various group invariance properties.
1
2 PRELIMINARIES
where S(n) denotes the set of n × n positive definite matrices and a the transpo-
sition of vector a or matrix a. We say that y is distributed as an n-dimensional
multivariate normal distribution Nn (µ, ), and express the relation as
L(y) = Nn (µ, ), (1.1)
if the probability density function (pdf) f (y) of y with respect to the Lebesgue
measure on R n is given by
1 1 −1
f (y) = exp − (y − µ) (y − µ) (y ∈ R n ). (1.2)
(2π )n/2 ||1/2 2
When L(y) = Nn (µ, ), the mean vector E(y) and the covariance matrix Cov(y)
are respectively given by
E(y) = µ and Cov(y) = , (1.3)
where
Hence, we often refer to Nn (µ, ) as the normal distribution with mean µ and
covariance matrix .
Proposition 1.1 Suppose that L(y) = Nn (µ, ). Let A be any m × n matrix such
that rank A = m and let b be any m × 1 vector. Then
L(Ay + b) = Nm (Aµ + b, AA ). (1.4)
Thus, when L(y) = Nn (µ, ), all the marginal distributions of y are normal. In
particular, partition y as
y1
y= with yj : nj × 1 and n = n1 + n2 ,
y2
and let µ and be correspondingly partitioned as
µ1 11 12
µ= and = . (1.5)
µ2 21 22
Then it follows by setting A = (In1 , 0) : n1 × n in Proposition 1.1 that
Clearly, a similar argument yields L(y2 ) = Nn2 (µ2 , 22 ). Note here that yj ’s are
not necessarily independent. In fact,
PRELIMINARIES 3
Proposition 1.2 If L(y) = Nn (µ, ), then the conditional distribution L(y1 |y2 ) of
y1 given y2 is given by
−1
L(y1 |y2 ) = Nn1 (µ1 + 12 22 (y2 − µ2 ), 11.2 ) (1.6)
with
−1
11.2 = 11 − 12 22 21 .
Let O(n) be the group of n × n orthogonal matrices (see Section 1.4). By using
Proposition 1.1, it is shown that the distribution of y remains the same under
orthogonal transformations as long as the condition (1.7) is satisfied. Namely, we
have
Proposition 1.3 If L(y) = Nn (0, σ 2 In ) (σ 2 > 0), then
a2 = a a
for a vector a.
4 PRELIMINARIES
Proposition 1.4 Suppose that L(y) ∈ {Nn (0, σ 2 In ) | σ 2 > 0}, and let
x ≡ y and z ≡ y/y with y2 = y y. (1.9)
Then the following three statements hold:
(1) L x 2 /σ 2 = χn2 , where χn2 denotes the χ 2 (chi-square) distribution with
degrees of freedom n;
(2) The vector z is distributed as the uniform distribution on the unit sphere U(n)
in R n , where
U(n) = {u ∈ R n | u = 1};
Language: English
BY HIS WIFE,
ISABEL BURTON.
WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS,
ILLUSTRATIONS, AND MAPS.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INDIA.
CHAPTER III.
THE DECCAN.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
SPIRITUALISM.
CHAPTER VI.
ON LEAVE IN LONDON.
CHAPTER VII.
ON SLAVERY.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
RICHARD ON HOME RULE AND THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION.
CHAPTER XIII.
WE LEAVE ENGLAND.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHANGES.
CHAPTER XV.
AT MONTREUX.
M. Elisée Réclus—Our Swiss outing—Trieste again—Maria-Zell—
Austrian Lourdes—Semmering—Home again—Malta—Tunis—
Carthage—Constantine—Sétif—Bouira—Algiers—Hammam R'irha—
Things one would rather have left unsaid—Marseilles—Hyères—Nice
—Home—Our last trip—Switzerland—Davos-Platz—Ragatz—St.
Moritz—Maloja—We descend into Italy homewards.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
APPENDICES.
Index.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Daneu's Inn, Opçina, in the Karso.
Akkas.
Sir Richard Burton, 1879.
By Madame Gutmansthal de Benvenuti, Trieste.
Stave of Music.
Sir Richard Burton in 1880.
House at Trieste, where Burton died.
Lady Burton.
THE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD
BURTON.
CHAPTER I.
TRIESTE—HIS FOURTH AND LAST CONSULATE.
"It is not given to every man to go to Trieste. The fact need not
cause universal regret, inasmuch as the chief Austrian port on
the Adriatic shares with Oriental towns the disagreeable
character of presenting a fair appearance from a distance, and
afflicting the traveller who has become for the time a denizen,
with a painful sense of disenchantment. Perhaps the first
glimpse of Trieste owes something to contrast, as it is obtained
after passing through a desolate stony wilderness called the
Karso. As the train glides from these inhospitable heights
towards Trieste, the head of the Adriatic presents a scene of
unrivalled beauty. On the one side rise high, rugged, wooded
mountains, on a ledge of which the rails are laid; on the other is
a deep precipice, at whose base rolls the blue sea, dotted with
lateen sails, painted in every shade of colour, and adorned with
figures of saints and other popular devices. The white town
staring out of the corner covers a considerable space, and
places its villa-outposts high up the neighbouring hills, covered
with verdure to the water's edge.
"Trieste is a polyglot settlement of Austrians, Italians, Slavs,
Jews, and Greeks, of whom the two latter monopolize the
commerce. It is a City dear and unhealthy to live in, over-
ventilated and ill-drained. It might advantageously be called the
City of Three Winds. One of these, the Bora, blows the people
almost into the sea with its fury, rising suddenly, like a cyclone,
and sweeping all before it; the second is named the Scirocco,
which blows the drainage back into the town; and the third is
the Contraste, formed by the two first-named winds blowing at
once against each other. Alternating atmospherically between
extremes of heat and cold, Trieste is, from a political point of
view, perpetually pushing the principles of independence to the
verge of disorder.
"Arrived at the railway station, there is no need to call a cab and
ask to be driven to the British Consul's, since, just opposite the
station and close to the sea, rises the tall block of building in
which the Consulate is situated. Somewhat puzzled to choose
between three entrances, the stranger proceeds to mount the
long series of steps lying beyond the particular portal to which
he is directed. There is a superstition, prevalent in the building
and in the neighbourhood, that there are but four stories,
including but one hundred and twenty steps. Whoso, after a
protracted climb, finally succeeds in reaching Captain Burton's
landing, will entertain considerable doubts as to the correctness
of the estimate. A German damsel opens the door, and inquires
whether the visitor wants to see the Gräfin or the Herr Consul.
"Captain and Mrs. Burton are well, if airily, lodged on a flat
composed of ten rooms, separated by a corridor adorned with a
picture of our Saviour, a statuette of St. Joseph with a lamp, and
a Madonna with another lamp burning before it.[2] Thus far the
belongings are all of the Cross; but no sooner are we landed in
the little drawing-rooms than signs of the Crescent appear.
Small but artistically arranged, the rooms, opening into one
another, are bright with Oriental hangings, with trays and dishes
of gold and silver, brass trays and goblets, chibouques with
great amber mouthpieces, and all kinds of Eastern treasures
mingled with family souvenirs. There is no carpet, but a Bedouin
rug occupies the middle of the floor, and vies in brilliancy of
colour with Persian enamels and bits of good old china. There
are no sofas, but plenty of divans covered with Damascus stuffs.
Thus far the interior is as Mussulman as the exterior is
Christian; but a curious effect is produced among the Oriental
mise en scène by the presence of a pianoforte and a compact
library of well-chosen books. There is, too, another library here,
greatly treasured by Mrs. Burton, to wit, a collection of her
husband's works in about fifty volumes. On the walls are many
interesting relics, models, and diplomas of honour, one of which
is especially prized by Captain Burton. It is the brevet de pointe
earned in France for swordsmanship. Near this hangs a picture
of the Damascus home of the Burtons, by Frederick Leighton.
"As the guest is inspecting this bright bit of colour, he will be
roused by the full strident tones of a voice skilled in many
languages, but never so full and hearty as when bidding a friend
welcome. The speaker, Richard Burton, is a living proof that
intense work, mental and physical, sojourn in torrid and frozen
climes, danger from dagger and from pestilence, 'age' a person
of good sound constitution far less than may be supposed. A
Hertfordshire man, a soldier and the son of a soldier, of mingled
Scotch, Irish, and French descent, his iron frame shows in its
twelfth lustre no sign of decay. Arme blanche and more
insidious fever have neither dimmed his eye nor wasted his
sinews.
"Standing about five feet eleven, his broad deep chest and
square shoulders reduce his apparent height very considerably,
and the illusion is intensified by hands and feet of Oriental
smallness. The Eastern, and indeed distinctly Arab, look of the
man is made more pronounced by prominent cheek-bones
(across one of which is the scar of a sabre-cut), by closely
cropped black hair just tinged with grey, and a pair of piercing
black, gipsy-looking eyes. A short straight nose, a determined
mouth partly hidden by a black moustache, and a deeply
bronzed complexion, complete the remarkable physiognomy so
wonderfully rendered on canvas by Leighton only a couple of
seasons ago. It is not to be wondered at that this stern Arab
face, and a tongue marvellously rich in Oriental idiom and
Mohammedan lore, should have deceived the doctors learned in
the Korán, among whom Richard Burton risked his life during
that memorable pilgrimage to Mecca and Medinah, on which the
slightest gesture or accent betraying the Frank would have
unsheathed a hundred khanjars.
"This celebrated journey, the result of an adventurous spirit
worthy of a descendant of Rob Roy Macgregor, has never been
surpassed in audacity or in perfect execution, and would suffice
to immortalize its hero if he had not, in addition, explored Harar
and Somali-land, organized a body of irregular cavalry in the
Crimea, pushed (accompanied by Speke) into Eastern Africa
from Zanzibar, visited the Mormons, explored the Cameroon
Mountains, visited the King of Dahomey, traversed the interior
of Brazil, made a voyage to Iceland, and last but not least,
discovered and described the Land of Midian.
"Leading the way from the drawing-rooms or divans, he takes
us through bedrooms and dressing-rooms, furnished in Spartan
simplicity with little iron bedsteads covered with bearskins, and
supplied with reading-tables and lamps, beside which repose
the Bible, the Shakespeare, the Euclid and the Breviary, which
go with Captain and Mrs. Burton on all their wanderings. His
gifted wife, one of the Arundells of Wardour, is, as becomes a
scion of an ancient Anglo-Saxon and Norman Catholic house,
strongly attached to the Church of Rome; but religious opinion
is never allowed to disturb the peace of the Burton household,
the head of which is laughingly accused of Mohammedanism by
his friends. The little rooms are completely lined with rough deal
shelves, containing, perhaps, eight thousand or more volumes
in every Western language, as well as in Arabic, Persian, and
Hindustani. Every odd corner is piled with weapons, guns,
pistols, boar-spears, swords of every shape and make, foils and
masks, chronometers, barometers, and all kinds of scientific
instruments. One cupboard is full of medicines necessary for
Oriental expeditions or for Mrs. Burton's Trieste poor, and on it
is written, 'The Pharmacy.' Idols are not wanting, for elephant-
nosed Gunpati is there cheek by jowl with Vishnu.
"The most remarkable objects in the rooms just alluded to are
the rough deal tables, which occupy most of the floor-space.
They are almost like kitchen or ironing tables. There may be
eleven of them, each covered with writing materials. At one of
them sits Mrs. Burton, in morning négligé, a grey choga—the
long loose Indian dressing-gown of soft camel's hair—topped by
a smoking-cap of the same material. She rises and greets her
husband's old friend with the cheeriest voice in the world. 'I see
you are looking at our tables. Every one does. Dick likes a
separate table for every book, and when he is tired of one he
goes to another. There are no tables of any size in Trieste, so I
had these made as soon as I came. They are so nice. We may
upset the ink-bottle as often as we like without anybody being
put out of the way. These three little rooms are our "den,"
where we live, work, and receive our intimes, and we leave the
doors open that we may consult over our work. Look at our
view!' From the windows, looking landward, one may see an
expanse of country extending for thirty or forty miles, the hills
covered with foliage, through which peep trim villas, and
beyond the hills higher mountains dotted with villages, a bit of
the wild Karso peering from above. On the other side lies spread
the Adriatic, with Miramar, poor Maximilian's home and hobby,
lying on a rock projecting into the blue water, and on the
opposite coast are the Carnian Alps capped with snow.
"'Why we live so high up,' explains Captain Burton, 'is easily
explained. To begin with, we are in good condition, and run up
and down the stairs like squirrels. We live on the fourth story
because there is no fifth. If I had a campagna and gardens and
servants, horses and carriages, I should feel tied, weighted
down, in fact. With a flat, and two or three maidservants, one
has only to lock the door and go. It feels like "light marching
order," as if we were always ready for an expedition; and it is a
comfortable place to come back to. Look at our land-and-sea-
scape: we have air, light, and tranquillity; no dust, no noise, no
street smells. Here my wife receives something like seventy very
intimate friends every Friday—an exercise of hospitality to which
I have no objection, save one, and that is met by the height we
live at. There is in every town a lot of old women of both sexes,
who sit for hours talking about the weather and the cancans of
the place, and this contingent cannot face the stairs.'
"In spite of all this, and perhaps because of it—for the famous
Oriental traveller, whose quarter of a hundred languages are
hardly needed for the entry of cargoes at a third-rate seaport,
seems to protest too much—one is impelled to ask what
anybody can find to do at Trieste, an inquiry simply answered
by a 'Stay and see,' with a slap on the shoulder to enforce the
invitation. The ménage Burton is conducted on the early-rising
principle. About four or five o'clock our hosts are astir, and
already in their 'den,' drinking tea made over a spirit-lamp, and
eating bread and fruit, reading and studying languages. By noon
the morning's work is got over, including the consumption of a
cup of soup, the ablution without which no true believer is
happy, and the obligations of Frankish toilette. Then comes a
stroll to the fencing-school, kept by an excellent
broadswordsman, an old German trooper. For an hour Captain
and Mrs. Burton fence in the school, if the weather be cold; if it
is warm, they make for the water, and often swim for a couple
of hours.
"Then comes a spell of work at the Consulate. 'I have my
Consulate,' the Chief explains, 'in the heart of the town. I don't
want my Jack-tar in my sanctum; and when he wants me, he
has usually been on the spree and got into trouble.' While the
husband is engaged in his official duties, the wife is abroad
promoting a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a
necessary institution in Southern countries, where—on the
purely gratuitous hypothesis that the so-called lower animals
have no souls—the uttermost brutality is shown in the treatment
of them. 'You see,' remarks our host, 'that my wife and I are like
an elder and younger brother living en garçon. We divide the
work. I take all the hard and scientific part, and make her do all
the rest. When we have worked all day, and said all we have to
say to each other, we want relaxation. To that end we have
formed a little "Mess," with fifteen friends at the table d'hôte of
the Hôtel de la Ville, where we get a good dinner and a pint of
the country wine made on the hillside for a florin and a half. By
this plan we escape the bore of housekeeping, and are relieved
from the curse of domesticity, which we both hate. At dinner we
hear the news, if any, take our coffee, cigarettes, and kirsch
outside the hotel, then go homewards to read ourselves to
sleep; and to-morrow da capo.'
"To the remark that this existence, unless varied by journeys to
Midian and elsewhere, would be apt to kindle desires for fresher
woods and newer pastures, Captain Burton replies, 'The
existence you deprecate is varied by excursions. We know every
stick and stone for a hundred miles round, and all the pre-
historic remains of the country-side. Our Austrian Governor-
General, Baron Pino de Friedenthal, is a first-rate man, and
often gives us a cruise in the Government yacht. It is, as you
say, an odd place for me to be in; but recollect, it is not every
place that would suit me' (1877).
"The man, who, with his wife, has made this pied à terre in
Trieste is a man unlike anybody else—a very extraordinary man,
who has toiled every hour and minute for forty-four and a half
years, distinguishing himself in every possible way. He has done
more than any other six men in her Majesty's dominions, and is
one of the best, noblest, and truest that breathes.
"While not on active service or on sick leave, he has been
serving his country, humanity, science, and civilization in other
ways, by opening up lands hitherto unknown, and trying to do
good wherever he went. He was the pioneer for all other living
African travellers. He first attempted to open up the Sources of
the Nile. He 'opened the oyster for the rest to take the pearl'—
his Lake Tanganyika is the head basin of the Nile.
"He has made several great expeditions under the Royal
Geographical Society and the Foreign Office, most of them at
the risk of his life. His languages, knowledge, and experience
upon every subject, or any single act of his life, of which he has
concentrated so many into forty-four and a half years, would
have raised any other man to the top of the ladder of honour
and fortune.
"We may sum up his career by their principal heads.
"Nineteen years in the Bombay Army, the first ten in active
service, principally in the Sindh Survey on Sir Charles Napier's
staff. In the Crimea, Chief of the Staff to General Beatson, and
the chief organizer of the Irregular Cavalry.
"Several remarkable and dangerous expeditions in unknown
lands. He is the discoverer and opener of the Lake Regions of
Central Africa, and perhaps the Senior Explorer of England.
"He has been nearly twenty-six years in the Consular service in
the four quarters of the globe (always in bad climates—Africa,
Asia, South America, and Europe), doing good service
everywhere. It would be impossible to enumerate all that
Captain Burton has done in the last forty-four years; but we
cannot pass over his knowledge of twenty-nine languages,
European and Oriental—not counting dialects—and now that
Mezzofante is dead, we may call him the Senior Linguist. Nor
can we omit the fact that he has written about fifty standard
works, a list of which will appear at the end of this Memoir. (See
Appendix A.)
"He is a man incapable of an untruth or of truckling to what
finds favour. His wife tells us in her 'Inner Life of Syria' that
'humbug stands abashed before him,' that he lives sixty years
before his time, and that, 'born of Low Church and bigoted
parents, as soon as he could reason he began to cast off
prejudice and follow a natural law.' Grace aiding the reason of
man—upright, honourable, manly, and gentlemanly, but
professing no direct form of belief, except in one Almighty
Being, God—the belief that says, 'I do that because it is right—
not for hell nor heaven, nor for religion, but because it is right—
a natural law of Divine grace, which such men unconsciously
ignore as Divine intelligence: yet such it is.'
"Perhaps this is the secret of our finding so distinguished a
soldier, Government envoy, Foreign Office commissioner, author,
linguist, benefactor to science, explorer, discoverer, and
organizer of benefits to his country and mankind at large,
standing before the world on a pedestal as a plain unadorned
hero, sitting by his distant fireside in a strange land, bearing
England's neglect, and seeing men who have not done a tithe of
his service reaping the credit and reward of his deeds—nay, of
the very ideas and words that he has spoken and written. For
years he has thought, studied, and written, and in all the four
quarters of the globe has been a credit to his country. For years
he has braved hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, wild beasts, savage
tribes; has fought and suffered, carrying his life in his hand, for
England's honour and credit, and his country's praise and
approbation, and done it nobly and successfully. But, like many
of the greatest heroes that have ever lived, his country will deny
him the meed of success whilst he lives, and erect marble
statues and write odes to his memory when he can no longer
see and hear them—when God, who knows all, will be his
reward."
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