Sketches of Central Asia (1868) Additional chapters on my travels, adventures, and on the ethnology of Central Asia

It is three years ago since, in the closing chapter of my Travels in Central Asia, I expressed my surprise and dissatisfaction at the indifference of Englishmen towards Russian...

Tartar muse! Œzbeg Melpomene! This will to many sound passing strange! That poetry should exist in the oldest spots of rudeness and barbarism--that persons in those regions wher...

I think that there are few points upon the whole terrestrial globe, which are of greater importance for our historical researches than the oases of Central Asia. These in the pr...

The last cannon-shot fired by the victorious champions of the Union against their seceding brethren, although it has not entirely put an end to the slave trade in the Western he...

The Turanian people, but especially the already mentioned Turko-Tartaric tribes, have made themselves renowned in antiquity by their warlike disposition, and the wild untractabl...

In arguing about the Russian conquest of Central Asia, we are wont to say that the Court of St. Petersburg, in those far-reaching schemes which she pursues towards the Hindu-Khu...

The young Mollah from Kungrat, who had joined our caravan in order to reach Samarkand, was planning to go and take leave of his native town and kindred whilst we were staying at...

What I have to impart in this chapter on the ancient history of Bokhara is taken out of a Persian MS., brought by the late Sir Alexander Burnes from Bokhara, which bears the nam...

On the evening of the 27th of March, 1863, my excellent friend, the Turkish ambassador in Teheran, gave me a farewell supper, at which all declared--to inspire me, of course wit...

The dervish is the veritable personification of Eastern life. Idleness, fanaticism, and slovenliness, are the features which in him are regarded as virtues, and which everywhere...

"Hadji! Thou hast, I am sure, seen many countries--tell me now, is there another city in the world in which it is so agreeable to reside as Bokhara?" Such was the inquiry with w...

It has frequently been noticed by travellers in Central Asia, and we have likewise remarked upon it, that Bokhara considers itself the great pillar of Islamism, and the only pur...

Struck with astonishment and surprise at the strange, social relations, amongst which I was to-day living for the first time, I was sitting in the early morning hours upon one a...

Joy and sorrow are undoubtedly the mirror, in which not only is the character of a people clearly reflected, but which likewise offers the most faithful image of their manners a...

I cannot conceive it possible to imagine a greater contrast than an Asiatic, and more particularly a Central Asiatic, who, as late as two years ago, wrapt in his national garb o...

"The _Chil menzili Turkestan_, or the Forty Stations across the desert of Turkestan," I often heard my friends say, "are far more troublesome and much more difficult to get over...

The house, or fixed dwelling, has never, up to the present day, gained a firm footing among the nations in Central Asia, not even in those parts where regular settlements have e...

An able critic of my "Travels in Central Asia" wrote--"Mr. Vambéry wandered because he has the wild spirit of dervishism strong within him." On first reading this it struck me a...

The courts of oriental princes have been frequently and variously described. Beginning with the shore of the Bosphorus, where Dolma Bagtsche, Beshiktash and Serayburun furnish t...