When he reached Gazzeh, Burton found Sir Charles Warren already in the
field, and he did not want to be interfered with, so that Burton came
home again and spent Christmas with his wife at Trieste. Thus ended
1882. Isabel notes: "After this year misfortunes began to come upon
us all, and we have never had another like it."
Early next year the Burtons left their flat in Trieste, where they had
been for over ten years. Something went wrong with the drainage for one
thing, and Burton took an intense dislike to it for another; and when
he took a dislike to a house nothing would ever induce him to remain in
it. The only thing to do was to move. They looked all over Trieste in
search of something suitable, and only saw one house that would do for
them, and that was a palazzo, which then seemed quite beyond their
means; yet six months later they got into it. It was a large house
in a large garden on a wooded eminence looking out to the sea. It
had been built in the palmy days of Trieste by an English merchant
prince, and was one of the best houses in the place. It had a good
entrance, so wide that it would have been possible to drive a carriage
into the hall. A marble staircase led to the interior, which contained
some twenty large rooms, magnificent in size. The house was full of air
and light, and the views were charming. One looked over the Adriatic,
one over the wooded promontory, another towards the open country, and
the fourth into gardens and orchards.
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