CHAPTER XIII

THE STRUGGLE'S END, AND YET NO END

The preceding autobiographical notes give in broad outline the experiences and varied fortunes of my career from childhood to old age. They give, so to speak, the material picture of an unusual life, with all its varieties of light and shade, the struggles and adventures of the tailor's apprentice, private tutor, student, servant, Effendi, Dervish, and international writer. The details of this picture are, after all, but the outside wrappings, the shell, not the core or inner substance. They do not depict adequately the mental struggles and sufferings which have marked all these different phases of my existence, and which each in their turn have deeply influenced my thoughts and reflections. The enumeration of certain facts may, to some extent, gratify one's personal vanity, but since the empty satisfaction of self-glorification is hardly an adequate return for all the bitter sufferings of my past life, I must complete my story by giving expression to my reflections resulting from a careful comparison of certain institutions, manners, and customs in Asiatic and European society. These reflections, the chief factors of the transformation of my mental life, are very possibly shared by many others, and explained in various ways, but the manner in which I gained my experience was rather out of the ordinary, for before me no European or Asiatic ever acted so many different parts on the world's stage in two continents, and I will therefore endeavour to draw a comparison between some institutions, manners, and customs of society in Asia and Europe. I will reveal a picture of my mental condition when, saturated with Asiatic ways of thinking, I made the acquaintance of various European countries, and how, when comparing the two worlds, I came to the conclusion that here, as there, shortsightedness, prejudice, prepossession, and want of objectiveness prevented the forming of sound and just opinions.

When first I left the West to enter the Asiatic world I had but a vague theoretical knowledge of the lands and peoples of Europe, gathered from a study of the literatures of the various Western nations, but I had no practical acquaintance with any of them. My first experiences of Turkish society in Stambul--which, in spite of the introduction of many Western customs, still at bottom bears a decided Asiatic stamp--together with the charm of novelty and my decided Oriental predilections, were in many respects of a pleasing nature. The kindly reception and the friendly treatment extended to the stranger regardless of his antecedents, are bound to charm and captivate the recipient. One feels at once at home everywhere, and a cursory comparison of the two kinds of culture is decidedly in favour of the Old World. Afterwards--that is, when one has spent some time among the Asiatics, and has obtained an intimate knowledge of their views of religion, men, and the world in general--a certain feeling of monotony, indifference, and sleepiness creeps over us. Our blood becomes sluggish, we yawn and fidget while the Oriental, always imperturbable, sits unmoved, with evident satisfaction, gazing up at the sky.

Gradually, the more I became familiar with the inner Asiatic world, these feelings took possession of me. In Persian society these thoroughly Asiatic features worried me, but in Central Asia, where the world is eight hundred years older, I positively shuddered at what I saw. The very things which, on my first acquaintance with Asiatic life, had pleased me, I now recognised as the causes of its decay, its tyranny, and its misery. The Old World, never at any time free from the defects and vices which now, in its ruined condition, stare us in the face, became despicably mean in my estimation, and unworthy of men, and with longing eyes I turned to the West again. I cannot describe the feeling of delight with which I crossed the Eastern borders of our modern world; with each day's journey I breathed more freely. I rejoiced to see the last of the ruins, the misery, the sterility of the older world, and the pictures which to my heated imagination, partly because of their novelty, had had so much fascination for me in my younger days, now made me shudder when I thought of them.

Such was my state of mind on returning from Asia. If before starting on my Oriental travels I had been in a position to obtain a deeper insight into the religious, social, and political conditions of Europe than lay within the reach of the poor, self-taught scholar, my impressions and estimate of Asia might have been different, and the result of my comparative study of the two cultures might have been more of an objective nature. But there, as here, I came as a man, who, under the magic of the first impression, saw everything in a rosy light, and was pleased with everything, and only afterwards, when the cold light of reality and of clearer perception showed me everything in its right light, I began to look upon Europe with quite different eyes, and my opinion about the actions of the Western world became considerably modified. And now, in the evening of my life, roaming the horizon of rich experience with unprejudiced eyes, and noting the light and shady sides of both the Old and the New World, of Asiatic and European culture; now that no personal interests and no prejudices obscure my vision, now I see and judge quite differently, and I count it my duty to acquaint the reader with these modified views, the more so as I know by experience how astonishingly small is the number of critics who, free from the trammels of religion and nationality, have devoted themselves to the comparative study of the old and the new culture. The clatter of the chains can always be heard in the praise or disapproval of our critics. On this side, as on the other, partiality has blocked the way to truth; and since the new century has, in many respects, opened the way to free thought, we can now unreservedly and without fear discuss the good and the evil, the advantages and disadvantages, of the two worlds. Those who have read my travels, and realise the miseries, sufferings, and vicissitudes to which I was exposed through the barbarism, anarchy, and desolation of the Asiatic world, will be surprised that I discovered large spots on the highly-praised sun of our modern culture, and saw caricatures where we expected to find noble ideals for the benefit of humanity. Considering many of my earlier views on these matters, I may be accused of precipitancy and inconsistency, but the judgment of mature age easily redeems the errors of youth, and improvement and perfecting are generally the outcome of former mistakes and errors. After these few remarks I will now try to put into words the impressions made upon me by particular instances of our manners and customs, our religious, social, and political life, all of which have given me much food for thought.

1. RELIGION.

Asia is a religious world _par excellence_. Religion animates all phases and fibres of human existence. It does not confine itself to the relations between Creator and creature, but it also governs political and social life; it penetrates everything; it enters into the most secret thoughts and aspirations of the human mind; it rules the course of the earthly body; it creates laws and orders daily life; it teaches us how to dress, feed, and comport ourselves; also in what manner we must eat, drink, and love--in a word, it is the one all-pervading instrument to secure happiness and to ennoble life. Coming back to Europe after a sojourn of many years under these Asiatic influences, one cannot fail to be struck by the looseness of the religious structure and by the constant efforts made by the State, the Church, and sometimes also by society to strengthen and keep upright the frail, shaky building tottering on its foundation. In Asia this is not necessary. With the exception of the Motazilites and other freethinkers during the first centuries of the Hejira, scepticism and free thought have found no adherents in Islam, and in modern times less than ever. The great masses of the Mohammedans are strictly religious; all discussion in matters of religion is prohibited, except perhaps to the Shiite Mollahs, and highly edifying to me were the hours spent in Ispahan under the plane-trees in the garden of Medressei Shah, where I could converse freely and openly with the Persian clerics about the Divine tradition of the Koran, the immortality of the soul, &c., &c. With Moslems of other nationalities the principle _noli me tangere_ governs all matters of religion, and when we leave this stronghold of faith and come to Europe, where the struggle between faith and knowledge has been going on for hundreds of years, where Spinoza, Voltaire, Gibbon, Draper, Buckle, and many other modern thinkers have been successfully employed on the demolition of the religious structure; where attempts are made to supplant the worship of God with the worship of humanity; the hypocrisy and dissimulation prevailing in our world must strike us painfully. What Christianity and Judaism give us to behold passes all description. In spite of Strauss and Renan, Büchner and Huxley, millions of Westerners pretend to be either Christians or Jews without even believing that there is a God. The majority of Churchmen are so enlightened by modern science that they, least of all, believe in the doctrines they preach and fight for, and the traveller from Asia to Europe must, perforce, ask himself the question, "Why all this hypocrisy, all this dissimulation? Why this persistent closing of one's eyes against the rays of light which our culture, after a hard struggle with the prevailing darkness, has at last revealed?" This incomprehensible love of pretence has in Europe attained to such a pass that in certain leading circles hypocrisy, the religious lie and false pretence are held up as a virtue worthy of imitation, and a meritorious example! This perversity, this vice, I might say, is as incomprehensible to the thoughtful mind as it is unworthy of, and humiliating amid, the much vaunted achievements of Western civilisation. In the circles where these despicable notions are tolerated and extolled as worthy of imitation we hear most of the mighty influence exercised by religion upon the social status of humanity, while it is asserted that the world without this moral police could not exist, because society, even in its lowest state--the savage state--could not exist without its fetish and totem.

During my many years' intercourse with people of various religions, living amongst them in the incognito of Catholic, Protestant, Sunnite, Shiite, and for a short time also as Parsi, I have come to the conclusion that religion offers but little security against moral deterioration, and that it is not seemly for the spirit of the twentieth century to take example by the customs and doings of savages. Not only Lombroso, but many other thinkers, have clearly proved that the majority of criminals are religiously disposed, and that, for instance, the robber-murderer in Spain, before setting to his work, offers a prayer to his patron saint, St. James. In Asia I have noticed the same thing. The most cruel and unprincipled Turkoman robbers were always the first, before setting out on a marauding expedition, to beg from me, the supposed Sheikh, or from some other pious man, a Fatiha (blessing). In the towns of Central Asia, Persia, and Turkey I have found in the thickly-turbaned men of God some of the most consummate villains and criminals, while the plain Osbeg and Osmanli, who only knows religion in its external form, shows himself a man full of generosity and goodness of heart. In all the Islamic world Mecca and Medina are known as the most loathsome pools of wickedness and vice. Theft, murder, and prostitution flourish there most wantonly. I have noticed the same in the large pilgrim haunts, Meshed and Kum, and it is a well-known saying, "He who wants to forsake his Christianity should make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Rome."

With us in Europe the relation between morality and religion is a similar one, and how it is possible that, in the face of the revealed facts, states and societies give themselves the trouble to discover in religion a panacea against vice and a standard of morality must remain a mystery to any thinking man.

Remarkable and inexplicable it certainly remains why in Western lands, with the prevailing scepticism in the cultured world, far more tolerance or indifference is shown towards the freethinker than towards people who hold different religious views from our own. In Asia the hatred of and fanaticism against those of another creed are the outcome of strong faith, and since these are fostered and upheld by the Government, antagonistic feelings, though probably deeper rooted, do not express themselves so vehemently or so frequently as with us. Our laws and our notions of decency guard against the outbreak of passion, but they cannot break the power of prejudice even in the breast of the most cultured. When we consider the relations of the Christian West towards the Moslemic East, it will strike us that the sympathies of Europeans, however unprejudiced they may think themselves, when it comes to the political questions of the day will always be more on the side of the Christian than of the Mohammedan subjects of Turkey, although the Mohammedan subjects of the Porte have to suffer more from the despotism of the Government than the Christians under the protection of the Western Powers. The European still looks upon the Mohammedan, Brahmanist, Buddhist, &c., as an inferior being whose faith he ridicules and blackens and whom he could not under any circumstances regard as his equal, and in spite of the protection extended by our laws to those of another creed, the follower of the doctrines of Mohammed, Buddha, and Vishnu feels always uncomfortable, strange, and restricted in Western lands. And the Jews do not fare much better, although they have adopted the language, manners, and customs of the various lands of Europe.

In the history of the Moslemic East, for instance, persecutions and violent outbreaks against the Jews are far less frequent than with us in the West, not merely in the Middle Ages but even in quite modern times. Enlightened Europe, mocking at the fanaticism of Asia, has of late years published, under the title of Anti-Semitism, things against the Jews which defy repetition; they form one of the darkest stains on the escutcheon of the modern world of culture. Even our most eminent freethinkers, agnostics, and atheists are not without blame in this matter; and the absurd excuse that the Jews are hated and persecuted not on account of their belief, but on account of their exclusiveness and strongly marked nationality, is ridiculous on the face of it, for all over Europe the Jew adopts the national proclivities of his native land, and often, _plus catholique que le pape_, he shows himself more patriotic than his Christian countryman. In consideration of these facts it is surprising that the Jew, treated as a stranger everywhere in Europe, still persists in ingratiating himself into the national bond. Why does he not accept the fact and simply say, "Since you want none of me I remain Jew, and you can brand me as a cosmopolitan if you like." There is no doubt that this innate prejudice of the Christian world finds its root in those virtues and characteristics which have enabled the Jews to accomplish so much, and which as the natural result of oppression may be seen in all oppressed people. "He who violently throws down the flaming torch to extinguish it will burn his fingers at the fiercer burning flame," as a German poet pithily remarks. Tyrants generally harm themselves most by their tyranny, and when the ruling Christian world considers itself justified in taking up arms against the professedly more highly gifted, more energetic, and persevering children of the so-called Semitic race, it is grossly mistaken. The Jew in Turkey, Persia, and Central Asia is more purely Semitic, more staunchly religious than his co-religionist in Europe, and yet I do not know any more miserable, helpless, and pitiful individual on God's earth than the _Jahudi_ in those countries. Where is the Semitic sharpness, the Semitic energy and perseverance, which the European puts down and fears as dangerous racial characteristics? The poor Jew is despised, belaboured and tortured alike by Moslem, Christian, and Brahmin, he is the poorest of the poor, and outstripped by Armenians, Greeks and Brahmins, who everywhere act the same part which in Europe has fallen to the lot of the Jew for lack of a rival in adversity. I repeat, Anti-Semitism in Europe is a vile baseness, which cannot be justified by any religious, ethnical, or social motives, and when the Occident, boasting of its humaneness and love of justice, always tries to put all that is evil and despicable on to poor, starved, depraved Asia, one forgets that with us the sun of a higher civilisation truly has dawned, but is not yet risen high enough to illumine the many dark points and gloomy corners in this world of ours.

Why deny it? In my many years' intercourse with the people of both these worlds, religion has not had a beneficial influence upon me. I have found in it nothing to ennoble man, not a mainspring of lofty ideals, and certainly no grounds for classifying and incorporating people according to their profession of faith or rather according to their interpretation and understanding of the great vital question as to the exact manner in which one should grope about in the prevailing darkness. If the division into many nationalities of people belonging to the same race and living under the same sky is an absurdity, how much more foolish is it to be divided on the point of a fanciful interpretation of the inscrutable mystery, and a fruitless groping into the unfathomable problem? The question of nationality will be further discussed presently, and as regards religion I will only add here that the ethical standard of faith, although much higher in Asia than in Europe, can after all have but a problematic influence, and only on intellects whose culture enables them to form high ideals, and to whom, being of a poetic or sentimental or indolent temperament, a roaming in loftier spheres seems a necessity. Beyond this, religion in Asia as in Europe reveals itself in outward show, miracles and mysteries, and where these are absent there is no true religion. Many of the ceremonies, usages, and superstitions which as an Orthodox Jew I practised in my youth I have discovered again one by one in faithful counterfeit amongst Catholic and Orthodox Christians, Moslems, Fire-worshippers, and Hindus, and nothing to my mind is more ridiculous than the revilings of one religion against another about these childish external things. So, for instance, as a pious Jew, I was always careful on Saturdays not to pass the Ereb, _i.e._, the line which marks the closer limit of the town, with my wallet full. Overstepping this cordon might be looked upon as a business transaction and a violation of the Sabbath; with a handkerchief on my loins and my eyes fixed on a bit of twine hanging between two sticks, I ventured, however, to take my walks abroad on the Sabbath day. Many years later I travelled from Samarkand to Herat in company with some Hindustani, who, having transacted some financial business in Bokhara, now with full pouches were returning to their sunny home on the Ganges. These Vishnu-worshippers, with the yellow caste-sign on their brow, used at night at the halting-place to separate themselves from the rest of the caravan. Small sticks about a finger in length were stuck in the ground to form a circle round them with a thin twine stretched from point to point, (for, like the Ereb, this line represented the cordon between them and the world of unbelievers), and behind this imaginary wall they prepared and ate their food without any fear of its being defiled by the glances of the heathen. As a child I was taught to look with disgust upon swine's flesh, and later, as Mohammedan, I had to feign horror and aversion at the very mention of the word Khinzir (swine). In my youth the wine prepared by a Christian was Nesekh (forbidden), as a Shiite, notwithstanding my ravenous hunger, I could not touch the food which the hand of a Christian had handled. Not only among Jews and Asiatic religionists, however, but even Christianity, whether in Europe or in Asia, is full of such flagrant superstitions and absurdities which are thrown in the teeth of those of another persuasion. The Abbé Huc tells us in his Book of Travels, that once on the borders of Tibet he sought a night's quarter and was directed to the house of a Buddha-maker. This led the French missionary to make some scoffing remark about the manufacturing of gods in Buddhism. I had a similar experience at St. Ulrich's in the Grödnerthal, in strictly Catholic Tyrol, for in my search for a house to put up at in that charmingly situated Alpine place I was directed successively to a Mary-maker, a God-maker, and a Christ-maker, for in this district live the best-known manufacturers of crosses and saints. In the Mohammedan world, knowing that I was acquainted with Europe, I have often been asked whether it was really true that the Franks worshipped a god with a dog's head, practised communism of wives, and such like things. In Tyrol, on the Achensee, where I lived among the peasants, I was asked if on my many travels I had ever visited the land of the Liberals, where the goat does duty as god, as the anti-Liberal minister had given the simple peasants to understand.

In many other respects the religions of the East and of the West agree in point of degeneracy, and it is incomprehensible how and with what right our missionaries manage to convince the Asiatics of the errors of their faith and to represent Christianity as the only pure and salvation-bringing religion. If our missionaries could point to our Western order and freedom as the fruit of Christianity, their insistence would be somewhat justified, but our modern culture has developed not _through_ but _in spite of_ Christianity. The fact that Asia in our days is given up as a prey to the rapacity of Europe is not the fault of Islam or Buddhism or Brahminism. The principles of these religions support more than Christianity does the laws of humanity and freedom, the regulations of State and society, but it is the historical development and the climate, the conditions of the soil, and, above all, the tyrannical arbitrariness of their sovereigns which have created the cliffs against which all the efforts of religion promotors must be wrecked.

After all this I need not comment any further upon my own confession of faith, which is contained within the pages of this autobiography. To my thoroughly practical nature one grain of common sense is of more value than a bushel of theories; and it has always been trying to me to go into questions the solution of which I hold _à priori_ to be impossible, and I have preferably occupied myself with matters of common interest rather than with the problems of creation, the Deity, &c., which our human understanding can never grasp or fathom. I have honoured and respected all religions in so far as they were beneficial and edifying, _i.e._, in so far as they endeavoured to improve and ennoble mankind; and when occasion demanded I have always, either out of respect for the laws of the land, or out of courtesy to the society in which I happened to be, formally conformed to the prevailing religion of the land, just as I did in the matter of dress, although it might be irksome at times. In matters of secondary importance, religious and otherwise, I have strictly adhered to the principle, "_Si fueris Romæ romano vivito more_," and to the objections raised by religious moralists to my vacillating in matters of religion I can but reply: A vacillating conviction is, generally speaking, no conviction at all, and he who possesses nothing has nothing to exchange. Nothing to me is more disgusting than the holy wrath with which hypocrisy in Europe censures and condemns a change of religion based on want of conviction. Are the clergy, pastors, and modernised rabbis so fully convinced of the soundness of the dogmas they hold, and do they really believe that their distortions of face, their pious pathos and false enthusiasm can deceive cultured people of the twentieth century? When certain Europeans in their antiquated conservatism still carry high the banner of religious hypocrisy, and although possessing a good pair of legs prefer to go about on the crutches of Holy Scripture, we have no occasion to envy them their choice. The idea of carrying the lie with me to the grave seems to me horrible. The intellectual acquisitions of our century can no longer away with the religion of obscure antiquity; knowledge, enlightenment, and free inquiry have made little Europe mistress of the world, and I cannot see what advantage there can be in wilfully denying this fact, and why, in the education of the young, we do not discard the stupefying system of religious doctrine and cultivate the clear light of intellectual culture. Those who have lived among many phases of religion, and have been on intimate terms with the adherents of Asiatic and European creeds, are puzzled to see the faint-heartedness and indecision of the Western world; and if there be anything that has astonished me in Europe, it is this everlasting groping and fumbling about in matters of religion and the constant dread lest the truth, acknowledged by all thinking men, should gain the victory. For governing and ruling the masses religion may perhaps remain for some time to come a convenient and useful instrument, but in the face of the progress in all regions of modern knowledge and thought it becomes ever clearer and more evident that this game of hide-and-seek cannot go on very much longer. The spirit of the twentieth century cries, "Let there be light!" The light must and shall come!

2. NATIONALITY.

Frail and brittle as is the foundation of the partition wall dividing the religions of Europe, the same may be said of the boundaries of nationalities which separate people into various corporations. If nationality were a question of common origin, based on consanguinity, _i.e._, on natural proclivities, there would be nothing to say against the idea of unity and cohesiveness. Mankind would be divided into different families separated by certain conspicuous racial characteristics; such separation, based on natural causes, would be quite justifiable. But in the various nationalities, as we now see them in Europe, there is not a symptom of any such idea; their ethnical origin lies in obscurity. These nations are an agglomeration of the greatest possible mixture of kindred and foreign elements, and, according to the longer or shorter process of development, it is at most their common language, customs, and history which constitute the so-called national stamp. If we observe a little more closely the European nations of our time we shall find that the older the influence of culture the sooner the national crystallisation of such a country began, and consequently is still in process in the later-developed Eastern portion of Europe. The French are a mixture of Iberians, Ligurians or Gauls, Kelts, and eventually also Phoenicians, and the German Franks, who found this ethnical conglomeration in ancient Gaul and gave it the present national name. In the German national corporation there are many nationalities whose German origin is by no means proved. A large portion of Eastern Germany was Slavonic; Berlin, Leipsic, Dresden, Chemnitz, &c., point to a Slavonic origin, and the oldest inhabitants of Steiermark, Kärnten, and the Eastern Tyrol were Slavs. In Italy we find a most curious mixture of Etruscans, Latins, Greeks, Slavs, Arabs, and Germans, which in course of time Church and State have amalgamated and impressed with the stamp of linguistic unity, although the typical features of the various fragments are not obliterated even now. In Hungary Ural-Altaic fragments have mixed with Slavs and other Aryans, and in spite of numerical minority the Magyar element, through its warlike propensities, has for centuries maintained the upper hand and gradually absorbed the foreign elements. The real ground-element of the Magyar nation, however, it would be almost impossible to discover.

The strongly mixed character of the English people is universally known, and when we look a little more closely at the gigantic Russian Empire we shall find that in the small nucleus of the Slavonic provinces, Tartars, Bashkirs, Kirghiz, Buriats, Votiaks, Cheremiss, Suryanes, Shuvashes, Greeks, Ostiaks, Voguls, Caucasians, &c., have been swallowed up. The growth of the Russian nation is of comparatively modern date and still in process. At the time of Peter the Great the entire population of Russia was estimated at thirty millions; _now_ the number of Russians alone is over eighty millions.

And now I ask, in the face of all the above difficulties, can there be a question of consanguinity in the various nationalities, and what is there to insure a feeling of brotherly fellowship? Those who argue in favour of this point bring forward the national peculiarities, the outcome of their common language, customs, and historical antecedents, all of them psychical causes, and nationality is represented as a moral and not as a material conception. Very well, we will accept this, only let us remember that language, like all other psychical things, is subject to changes, and we must not be astonished if Islam, ignoring all former national restrictions, seeks to classify the human race only according to profession of faith, and has advanced the thesis, "All true believers are brothers." In the Mohammedan organisation the various shades of nationality practically do not exist, in obedience to the maxim: "_Hubb ul watan min el iman_." Patriotism proceeds from religion; at any rate they are always of secondary importance. When Islam, inspired by such lofty ideas, can accomplish this, why cannot we, under the powerful protection of our modern culture, produce some equivalent in our Western lands, and, putting aside national restrictions, create a cultural bond and united corporation, excluding all national hatred and discord? This indeed would be one of the most ideal forms of national life, and its realisation in the distant future is not at all an impossibility. But as yet, alas! we have not reached this exalted station of peace and happiness. Behold in our cultured West the uninterrupted struggle of great and mighty nationalities against smaller and weaker ones--a struggle in which Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fittest" is fully justified. No one likes to act the part of the weaker, doomed to destruction; none wants to be absorbed by others, and the inferior in numbers have to defend their claim for existence as a political nation upon historical grounds. It is the rapacity and the tyranny of the great nations which have called forth and justify the fight for existence in the smaller ones, for why should not all want to preserve their individuality, all want to be entirely free in promoting the intellectual and material development of their own commonwealth? And this being so, there can, for the present, be no question of cosmopolitan tendencies. This fact becomes more conspicuous where it concerns a small ethnical island surrounded by the wild waves of a mighty ethnical sea, which threaten to destroy it, as we see exemplified in Hungary. Encompassed by German, Slav, and Roman elements, it has for centuries skilfully and successfully held its own, and the preservation of its national independence is an absolute necessity, as otherwise a collision between the three large national bodies just mentioned would be unavoidable, and the existence of a buffer-state must therefore be hailed as a fortunate coincidence. All lovers of peace and of quiet expansion of Western culture in the East must hail with joy the buffer afforded by the Hungarian State, and all true friends of culture must heartily desire the growth of Hungary. In this spirit I have always preserved my Hungarian patriotism, and will do so to the end of my days, although for many decades of years I have occupied myself with questions of universal interest, and have kept aloof from home politics. It is not surprising that the patriotism of a cosmopolitan differs considerably from that of his stay-at-home compatriots. But the keen interest in the affairs of the various nations with whom the traveller comes into contact hardly ever succeeds in suppressing or weakening in him his warmer feelings for the weal and woe of his native land. The tears I have shed in my younger days over the cruel sufferings and mortifications inflicted upon my native land by Austria's absolutism would have promoted a more luxurious growth of the plant of patriotism, if I had always remained at home and had had intercourse with Hungarians only. But even when one's horizon has widened one may still cling lovingly to one's native sod. One does not so lightly agree with Tolstoy, who maintains that patriotism is a crime, for although there are proverbs such as "_Ubi bene ibi patria_," or its English equivalent, "If you happen to be born in a stable, it does not follow that you are a horse," the cosmopolitan, be he ever so infatuated, always in the end is glad to get home again.

If there be anything likely to weaken or shake one's patriotism, it is the narrow-mindedness and ridiculous prejudice of the Christian West against its fellow-countrymen of a different creed. I will take my own case as example. I was all ablaze with enthusiasm when in my childhood I became acquainted with the life of the national heroes of Hungary. The heroic epoch of 1848 filled my youthful heart with genuine pride, and even later in 1861, when I returned from Constantinople by the Danube boat, on landing at Mohacs I fell on my knees and kissed the ground with tears of true patriotic devotion in my eyes. I was intensely happy and in a rapture of delight, but had soon to realise that many, nay most people questioned the genuineness of my Hungarianism. They criticised and made fun of me, because, they said, people of Jewish origin cannot be Hungarians, they can only be Jews and nothing else. I pointed to the circumstance that in matters of faith, like most cultured people, I was really an agnostic and had long since left the precincts of Judaism.

I spoke of the dangers I had faced in order to investigate the early history of Hungary, surely a test of patriotism such as but few would be able to show. Many other arguments I brought forward, but all in vain; everywhere and on all occasions an ominous sneer, an insidious shrug of the shoulders, an icy indifference, or a silence which has a more deadly effect than any amount of talk. Add to this the deep and painful wound inflicted by the adverse criticism at home upon me and my travels, and I would ask the reader, Could I under these conditions persist in my national enthusiasm, could I stand up to defend Hungarian patriotism with the same ardent love of youth when as yet I had no anticipation of what was to happen to me? Even the most furious nationalist could not easily answer this question in the affirmative. Not his Jewish descent, but the prejudiced, unreasonable, and illiberal Christian world is to blame when the man of Jewish origin becomes cosmopolitan; and I am not sure whether those Jews who, in spite of the blunt refusals they receive, persist in pushing themselves within the national framework must be admired as martyrs or despised as intruders. The law, at all events, makes no difference, but usage and social convenience do not trouble themselves much about the law; and in this all European countries are alike, with the exception of England, where liberalism is not an empty term, where the Jew feels thoroughly English and is looked upon as such by the true Briton. I frankly admit that the weakening and ultimate loss of this warm national feeling deprives us of one of the most noble sentiments of humanity; for, with all its weakness and prejudices, the bond of national unity possesses always a certain charm and attraction; and through all the painful experiences of my life, the thought that the short-sightedness of society could not deprive me of my national right to the soil of my birth has comforted and cheered me. The land where I saw the light of day, where my cradle stood, and where I spent the golden days of childhood, is, and ever remains my Fatherland. It is my native soil, its weal and woe lie close to my heart, and I have always been delighted when in some way or other I could help a Hungarian.

3. SOCIETY.

If my ideas about religion and nationality are at variance with the prevailing notions in Western lands, this is still more the case with regard to our social standing. The European who has been in Asia for some length of time feels freer and less restricted there than in Europe, in spite of the anarchy, barbarism, and tyranny prevailing in the East. In the first place, as stranger and guest he has less to suffer from the despotism of the Government and the oppressive national customs. He stands under the protection of the dreaded West and is not subject to the laws of the land. He lives as an outlaw truly, and has to look after himself, but then he has the advantage of not being bound by any party spirit; no class prejudice exists here. In the East the highest in the land has to condescend to his inferiors, even princes are not exempt from this law, which is in accordance with the patriarchal spirit of the Government. I have witnessed simple peasants rebuking their landlord, without the latter daring to say a word of protest. With us in Europe the tax-paid official behaves not as the servant but the master of the public, and his arrogance is often very offensive. But still more objectionable is the conduct of the uneducated born aristocrats, who, on the strength of the problematic services of their forefathers, often without the least personal merit, exhibit an amount of pride as if the course of the universe depended upon them. I have never quite been able to understand why the born aristocrat should claim this exceptional position, which nowadays is not so much a matter of national law as of public opinion. If these privileges are a recognition and reward for services rendered, and to be continued from generation to generation, the harm done to society is incalculable, for the offspring only very seldom possess the intellectual heirloom of their ancestors, very seldom come up to the position they occupy, and moreover stand in the way of those better fitted to fill it. Of course in opposition to these views the succession theory is advanced, and in my discussions on this point I have often been met with the argument that as in the vegetable and animal kingdom there are superior species, this natural law also applies to the human race. The maxim, "_Fortes creatur fortibus_," is quoted, but one forgets that human strength, thanks to the advanced spirit of the age, consists now no longer in physical but in psychical qualities, and that greatness and perfection of intellectual power can be obtained only by study, zeal, and persevering intellectual labour--not exactly a favourite pastime of the born aristocrat, generally speaking. _Vir non nascitur sed fit_, says the old proverb; and although admitting advantages of birth in horses, dogs and other quadrupeds, we cannot do the same for the human race of the twentieth century.

What has been accomplished so far in literature, art, science and intellectual advancement generally is for the greater part the work of people not favoured by birth, but who in the hard struggle for existence have steeled their nerves and sharpened their wits. In the dark ages of crude thought, when the greatest amount of hereditary physical strength displayed in plundering, murdering and pillaging bore away the palm, there was some sense in hereditary aristocracy, but in modern times privileges of birth are nonsense, and where they do exist they are a disgrace to humanity, and a melancholy sign of the tardiness of society in certain countries. Curiously enough, even in our days people try to justify the existence of hereditary nobility by referring to the historical development of certain States. For instance, the decay and retrogression of Asiatic nations is attributed to the lack of an hereditary aristocracy, and Japan is quoted as an example of the mighty influence of inherited nobility. But the example is not to the point. The fact that Japan, in spite of the great natural endowments of its people, was up to the middle of the nineteenth century closed against all influences from the West, is due solely and entirely to the strictly feudal system of the land; and any one studying the struggle between the Daimos and Mikado-ism will perceive that in this Albion of the Far East modern civilisation and the elevation of the State have been introduced against the will and in spite of the nobility. If pedigreed nobility is really so essential to the well-being of a State, how can we account for the lamentable decay of Persia, where there has always been such a strongly pronounced aristocracy?

Holding such views it is only natural that I could never quite fit into the frame of Hungarian society, where aristocratic predilections predominate. In the springtime of 1848 the Hungarian Parliament, infected by the prevailing spirit of the age, did indeed abolish the rights of hereditary nobility, and, as was supposed, quite voluntarily. But as the middle class element has always been feebly represented in Hungary, and consequently public opinion never could exercise much persuasive force, this law is little more than a show-piece, and has never been really effective. As in the Middle Ages the tone-giving elements were looked upon as the real representatives of the Hungarian race in the motley chaos of nationalities, and therefore _ipso facto_ belonged to the nobility, so it is now the social tendency of the country to look upon genuine Hungarian descent as an undeniable sign of nobility, and since the Government takes no measures to put a stop to the mischief--in fact, is not particularly chary in the grant of letters of nobility--every one who possibly can do so tries to prove his genuine unadulterated Hungarian descent by procuring a letter of nobility. This tendency, far from being a healthy sign, reminds one forcibly of a return to mediæval ways; it nips in the bud all notions of freedom; it cannot be to the benefit of our beautiful land and our gifted nation; it cannot help forward its healthy development, that much at least is clear as the day. Just as in the natural law a body cannot find a solid basis on a pointed but only on a flat surface, so also the peace, safety, and well-being of a State can not be securely founded on the heads of society but on the broad basis of the people. The present tendency of Hungarian society is, therefore, not at all to my liking. However, as autobiographer, I will not enter into any social-political discussions, but I cannot help saying that I, the self-made man, could not possibly live in close communion with such a society. He who has fought the hard fight and, _per aspera ad astra_, has endeavoured to succeed, does not find satisfaction for his ambition in a closer union with a caste which has long since lost its original significance. _Altiora peto!_ And this worthier and higher recognition we are all entitled to claim, when we are conscious of having rendered ever so slight a service to our fellowmen and have contributed ever so little to the intellectual or material well-being of our country or of humanity in general. The chase after orders and decorations, the natural outcome of this aristocratic tendency, although quite the fashion not only in Hungary but in other countries of Europe as well, has never been my ambition either. If sovereigns were pleased to confer such distinctions upon me I have respectfully locked them up in my box, because a public refusal of them seemed to me making a useless parade of democracy, and because no one is entitled to respond to a courtesy with rudeness. I have never been able to understand how certain men, grown old in wisdom and experience, can find pleasure in bedizening themselves from head to toe with decorations and parading their titles. One calls it apologetically, "The vanity of scholars." But the learned should not commit themselves to such childish, ridiculous weakness. Official distinctions are very much like a command on the part of the State, "Honour this man!" which is quite superfluous, for he who is really worthy of honour will be honoured without any such authoritative command. But enough of this; all these and many other social peculiarities both at home and abroad have never had any attraction for me. To respect a man according to the length of his pedigree, or to honour him according to the superiority of his official dignity, is a thing beyond the capacity of the self-made man. Only the prerogatives of mind and heart command respect, they only are genuine, for they are not dependent on the whim or favour of others, but are based on character or honest labour.

It should also be noted that in Hungary society is far more absorbed in politics than is generally the case, and that science and intellectual labour of any kind are of secondary importance. From the point of view of utility my countrymen are perfectly right, for Hungary, in spite of its glorious past as an independent State, has a hard battle to fight with its neighbour, Austria; and since it is necessary for a nation to establish itself politically before it can take part in the labour of improving mankind at large, it is very natural that the mind of the nation should be set on political matters, and politics be looked upon as an eminently national question. But apart from this I could never get on with my literary studies at home because my favourite subject, the practical knowledge of the East, never excited much interest in Hungary. What does Hungary care about the rivalry between England and Russia in Central Asia, and what possible benefit can it derive from the literary, historical, and ethnographical details of inner Asiatic nations? Whatever my labours have yielded of interest in regard to the primitive history of Hungary, I have given to the public; but as the greater part of my literary activity was the result of my practical knowledge of Asia, the products of my pen have received far more notice outside of Hungary than at home. I have often been asked why as Hungarian by birth I did not confine myself exclusively to Hungarian topics, and why I entered the region of international literature? At home also I have often been blamed for this, but my critics seemed to forget that my preparatory and my later studies were international in themselves, and that with the best will in the world I could not have confined myself to purely national interests. And so it came about that mentally I remained a stranger in my native land, and in the isolation of the subject of my studies I lived for years confined to my own society, without any intellectual intercourse, without any interchange of ideas, without recognition! It was not an enviable position. I was a stranger in the place where I had passed my youth; a stranger in Turkey, Persia and Central Asia; as a stranger I made my _début_ in England, and a stranger I remained in my own home; and all this because a singular fate and certain natural propensities forced me to follow a career which, because of its uncommonness, put me into an exceptional position. Had I persevered in the stereotyped paths of Orientalism, _i.e._, had I been able to give my mind exclusively to the ferreting out of grammatical niceties, and to inquiring into the speculations of theoretical explorers, I could have grown my Oriental cabbages in peace in the quiet rut of my professional predecessors. But how can one expect that a man who as Dervish, without a farthing in his pocket, has cut his way through the whole of the Islam world, who on the strength of his eminently practical nature has accommodated himself to so many different situations, and at last has been forced by circumstances to take a sober, matter-of-fact view of life--how can one expect such a man to bury himself in theoretical ideas, and to give himself up to idealistic speculations? A bookworm I could never be! When I was young, and fancy carried me away into higher spheres, I could derive a certain amount of pleasure from abstract questions, but in after years, when the bitter gravity of life forced me to take a realistic view of things, I preferably chose that region of literature where not merely laurels, but also tangible fruits, were to be found. I took into consideration that in the face of the expected opening up of Asia, and the animated interest of our world in the occurrences of the East, the discussion of the practical questions of the day would be more to the purpose, more likely to attract attention, and to be appreciated by the world at large than the theoretical investigation of past events, however significant in themselves. This is the reason why at an early date, without giving up my linguistic studies, I devoted myself to Asiatic politics.

Orthodox and narrow-minded philologists may object to this divergence from the trodden path, but I say, "_Chacun à son gout_," and every man has a perfect right to exert himself in the direction best suited to his tastes and his necessities. To me it was of the greatest moment not only to gain experience and fame, but above all, independence. I have never quite understood why the desire to become independent through the acquisition of earthly goods should be so objectionable in a scholar, for surely independence is the first requirement of human existence.

Strictly adhering to the principle, "_Nulla dies sine linea_," my pen has in the end procured me the material means for loosening the bonds in which the poor writer had languished for so many years. Sixty years had to pass over my head before I could declare, "Now at last I am free from all material care, henceforth no Government, no princely favour, no human whim, can check my thoughts." For the pursuit after filthy lucre, however humiliating and despicable it may appear, is, and ever has been, a cruel necessity, indispensable to the attainment of even the loftiest, noblest ideals. I cannot explain how or why, but in my inmost mind, in every fibre of my nature, I have always been a passionate, fanatical supporter of independent ideas. An English writer, Sidney Whitman, says that this passion is an outcome of my Jewish origin, because the Jews have always been conspicuous for their notions of independence. Possibly; but I attribute it in my case rather to the oppression, the ignominy, the insults to which I was exposed in my youth. Nor did I fare much better in after years. Everywhere and always I have had much to suffer from poverty, social prejudice, and the tyranny of Governments; and when at last, having overcome all, I attained to intellectual and material independence, I felt supremely happy in the enjoyment of my dearly bought liberty, and in this enjoyment found the only worthy reward for the hard struggle of my life. I have made no concealment of my views as to the prejudices, the weaknesses, the obscurantism, and the ignorance of society, and I did not care when on account of my views about religion, nationality, aristocracy, &c., so contrary to the generally conceived notions, I was looked upon as eccentric, extravagant, sometimes even as not quite in my right mind. I held, and ever will hold, to my principles, purified in the hard struggle for existence. And if the struggle for my material wants is at an end the mental struggle goes on always, and will probably continue to the last breath of my life.

"The Struggle's End, and yet no End." Thus I have entitled this last portion of my autobiography. And I am not sorry that it should be so, for what would life be worth without struggle, especially for those who from their earliest youth to their old age have trodden the rough paths of life, and been accustomed to fight hard for the smallest ray of sunshine on their work. Yet after all I must honestly confess that there is more pleasure in the actual strain and effort than in the final accomplishment. Amid the pangs of hunger and all the sad circumstances of my adventurous life, work has been my only comfort, hope, and solace; it always came to my rescue, and I owe to it all that I have accomplished in this world. In this full assurance I have gladly sacrificed all pleasures, both private and social, for the sake of work. In spite of my joviality I was never a society man--I mean, cared for drawing-room life or for the social evenings of scholars and writers--because I found that in the former mostly frivolous, useless matters were discussed, and in the latter with much instructive and intellectual conversation, spirituous drinks--which I have always abominated--play an important part. Only very rarely have I visited the theatre, for when I was young I should have liked to go, but had not the means, and as I advanced in years the theatre lost its attraction for me, and being an early riser, I made it a rule to go to bed at nine o'clock. Generally speaking, I kept the question of utility in the foreground, and if a thing did not commend itself as particularly profitable or beneficial, I left it alone. In this manner and with these views of life I have finished a somewhat fantastic career. I have often been asked whether from the very first I worked with some particular purpose in view whether the certain hope of success bore me along, or whether I was surprised at the final result. To those really interested in my destiny I reply as follows: At first naturally the instinct of self-preservation urged me on, for with an empty stomach one may be able to indulge in dreams, but one cannot work. The world's literatures, read in their respective languages, were a great delight to me, but with an empty stomach and teeth chattering with cold the desire for intellectual food is soon subdued by a longing for physical nourishment and a warm corner. In course of time all this was changed. As I was able to satisfy my material wants, in that same measure the desire for knowledge increased, and ambition grew with it. To outstrip my fellow-labourers with a higher degree of knowledge, to make myself prominent by certain intellectual qualities, to pose as an authority, and by some special accomplishment to excite the admiration and the applause of the public--all this led me into the devil's clutches. For years I wildly pursued this course with feverish restlessness, and during this time fell my incognito life in Stambul, my dangerous journey to Samarkand, and my _début_ in England and the rest of Europe. One may well say, "Surely such varied and unexpected results made you pause for a moment, surely you stopped to reflect and to ask yourself the question, 'What will all this lead to?'" No, I never stopped to think. One by one the different phases of my almost romantic career were left behind; the poor Jew boy became a European celebrity; but I cared not. Forward, ever forward, for ambition is insatiable; it leaves one no time for reflection, nor is retrospection one of its favourite pastimes; it is not the past, but the future, which occupies all our thoughts. With such ideas in my mind, my sojourn on the shores of the beautiful Danube was of necessity only in appearance a _buen retiro_, but certainly no _otium cum dignitate_. Apart from my studies, which occupied several hours a day, my active pen, often against my will, brought me in contact with the most distant regions of the globe. I kept up a lively correspondence with people of various rank and degree in Turkey, Persia, Central Asia, India, China, Japan, America, and Australia; and were I to mention the different occasions which called forth this interchange of letters, it would give a true and amusing picture of the joys and the sufferings of a literary worker. Sometimes it was a Japanese politician who urged me on to have a dig at Russia, pointing out the common danger which threatened both Hungary and Japan if Russia's power were allowed free growth. Then, again, a malcontent Hindustani blamed me for having taken the British tyrant under my wing; while another Hindustani praised me for duly acknowledging the spirit of liberty and justice which animated the Raj, _i.e._, the English Government. A Persian who has read in the diary of his sovereign about my personal relations with the king, asks me for my recommendation and protection, and while one Turk showers praise upon me for my Turcophile writings, another Turk insults me for having accepted the hospitality of the hated Sultan Abdul Hamid. A Tartar from Yalta, who addresses me as the opponent of Russia and the student of Moslem dithyrambs, begs for a copy of my _Sheibaniade_, as he has not the means to buy one. So it goes on day after day, but worst of all the poor international writer fares at the hands of the Americans. The number of autograph collectors is astonishing, and many are kind enough to enclose an American stamp or a few cents for the reply postage. And then the questions I am asked! Could I inform them of the hour of my birth, in order to account for my adventurous career? And I do not even know what year I was born! An American surgeon asks me to send him a photograph of my tongue, that from its formation he may draw his conclusions as to my linguistic talent, and so on, and so on. As most of these letters have to be answered, one may readily imagine the amount of time and patience this often awkward correspondence absorbs, and it is more in after life that this side of international authorship becomes such a nuisance.

This reverse side of the medal one has to put up with, however; it supplies some bright interludes also. Questions referring to my motley career require more careful consideration. Many of my friends and acquaintances have been curious to know how I bore the enormous difference between my present position and the naked misery of my childhood, and whether, generally speaking, I often thought of all my past sufferings and struggles. Well, to tell the truth, the recollections of the past form the sweetest moments of my life. It is quite like a novel when I think of the beginning of my career and then look at the end, but as the transformation has been a gradual and slow progress, and as I have never doubted the intimate connection between labour and wages, the steady progress from worse to better has but seemed natural to me, and the really wonderful part in it was the disposition of a kind destiny. "_Labor omnia vincit_" has always been my device, not forgetting the other saying, "_Sors bona, nihil aliud_"; for that on my journey through the Steppes I did not die of thirst, that I was able to undergo the fatigues of those long marches on foot through the deep sand with lame legs, and that I escaped the executioner's axe of the tyrants of Khiva and Bokhara, I attribute solely to my lucky star. Without this star all my perseverance, patience, ambition, linguistic talent, and intellectual activity would have been fruitless. But as concerns the recollection of those past sufferings and struggles I must honestly say that a retrospective glance has always given me the greatest pleasure; the more so where, as in my case, I have both mentally and physically an unbroken view of my past career. In spite of the seventy years which have gone over my head, I feel physically perfectly composed and in good health, and without complaining with Sadi that:--

"Medjlis tamam shud ve b'akhir resid umr,"

_i.e._, "the measure of my years is full, and only now fortune begins to smile." I have in the prime of my life enjoyed to the full all the spiritual and worldly pleasures of existence. If there be anything which makes the approaching evening of one's life empty and unpleasant it is the grief henceforth no longer to be fit for work and labour. The desire to overcome the unconquerable is gone; the beautiful delusive pictures on the rosy horizon of the future have disappeared; henceforth it is the past only which offers me the cup of precious, sweet delight. No wonder, then, that I can spend hours by myself in pleasant retrospection, enjoying the visions of my brain. I see myself as the schoolboy of Duna Szerdahely, hurrying along towards the Jewish school, leaning on my crutch and warming my half-numbed fingers on frosty winter mornings with the hot potatoes which I carried in my pocket for breakfast. Again I see myself laden with distinctions at the royal table in the palace of Windsor or Yildiz; dining from massive golden plates, and honoured by the highest representatives of Western and Eastern society. Then there arises before my mind the picture of my miserable plight as mendicant student spending the cold autumn night under the seat on the promenade at Presburg, and trembling with cold and fear; and scarcely has this gloomy picture faded from my view when I behold in its place the meeting-hall in London where the heads of England's proud aristocracy listen to my speech on the political condition of affairs in Central Asia, and loudly applaud. Seated all alone in my lonely room I see myself once more in the turmoil of life, and gazing in the richly-coloured kaleidoscope I am now intoxicated with bliss, then again trembling with fear. In clear outline, in the smallest details I enjoy those blissful moments of delivery from terrible distress, the threatening danger of lifelong slavery, or a martyr's awful death, which so often have stared me in the face. Whenever the scene of my audience with the Emir of Bokhara, or of the agonies of thirst in the Khalata desert, and the terrible image of Kulkhan, the Turcoman slave-dealer, come before me in my dreams, even to this day I look anxiously round and rejoice when I find that it is only a dream and not reality.

Fate has truly played me many queer tricks. And now, in the evening of my life, looking back upon the dark and the bright moments of my long career, I say with the English that my life has been "a life worth living," and would gladly go through the whole comedy again from beginning to end, and for a second time undergo all the labour, the fatigues, the mortal dangers.... So mighty and overpowering is the thirst for adventure in one's youth, and the consciousness of a fortunate escape from threatening danger is so deliciously exciting, that even in one's old age one can gloat over the recollection of it.

Once having tasted the charms of a life of adventure, the longing for it will ever remain, and a calm sea never seems as beautiful and sublime as the furiously whipped waves of a stormy ocean. There are natures not made for rest, they need perpetual motion and excitement to keep them happy. I belong to this latter category. I never did care for a quiet, peaceful existence, and I am glad to have possessed these qualities, for through them I have gained the two most precious jewels of human life--experience and independence--two treasures inseparably connected, and forming the true nucleus of human happiness. And now the evening of my life has come; the setting sun is casting warning shadows before me, and the chilliness of the approaching night becomes perceptible, I sit and think of all the dangers, difficulties, and troubles of the day that it is past and in the possession of my two jewels I feel fully rewarded for all I have gone through. It has been my good fortune to contribute my mite to the enlightenment and improvement of my fellow-creatures; and when I made the joyful discovery that my books were being read all over Europe, America, and Australia, the consciousness of not having lived in vain filled me with a great happiness. I thought to myself, the father professor of the gymnasium at St. Georghen was wrong after all when he said, "Moshele, why dost thou study? It would be better for thee to be a butcher!" But more precious than all these good things is my dearly-bought experience.

My eye is still undimmed and my memory still clear, and even as in past years, so now two worlds with all their different countries, peoples, cities, morals, and customs rise up before my eyes. As the bee flies from one flower to another, so my thoughts wander from Europe to Asia and back again; everywhere I feel at home; from all sides well-known faces smile recognition; all sorts of people talk to me in their mother-tongue. Thus encompassing the wide world, feasting one's eyes on the most varied scenery--this, indeed, is a delight reserved for travellers only, for travelling is decidedly the greatest and noblest enjoyment in all the world. And so I have no reason to complain of my lot, for if my life was hard the reward was abundant also, and now at the end of it I can be fully satisfied with the result of my struggles.

Appendices

APPENDIX I

EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC ECHOES OF MY INCOGNITO TRAVELS

In spite of all the slights I had to put up with, the first years after my return from Asia passed very pleasantly in beautiful Budapest. It gave me keen pleasure to see my books about my travels, and my ethnographical and political essays before me, in various European and Asiatic languages; and the voice of criticism, whether favourable or otherwise, had ceased to trouble me. But one thing was of special interest to me, viz., the effect which the reports of my travels would have in the Far East--that is, in Central Asia--for I felt sure that the news of the happy conclusion of my incognito would reach the borders of the Zerefshan, by way of India, or of Russia. That I was not mistaken in my supposition was proved by news received in later years from that neighbourhood. The first information came from the Russian diplomatist, Herr von Lankenau, who, shortly after the victory of the Russian arms at Samarkand, was sent by General Kauffmann to Bokhara to negotiate with the Emir, Mozaffareddin. Herr von Lankenau settled the principal conditions of the peace between Russia and Bokhara, and then spent some time in the Khanate near the Zerefshan.

He had also been an eye-witness of the events that had taken place there, including the revolt of the Crown Prince of Bokhara, Kette Töre, who was overcome in 1869; and four years later, when he returned to Germany, he published some of his experiences in the _Frankfürter Zeitung_ of June, 1872, entitled, _Rachmed Inak, Moral Pictures from Central Asia; from the Russian of H. von Lankenau_. In No. 11 of the above-named paper we read the following: "In the whole of the Khanate he (viz., Rachmed Inak) was the only person not deceived by the disguise of the foolhardy Vambéry. This traveller says that when he presented himself before Rachmed, who was then managing the affairs of the whole of Bokhara, in the absence of the Emir, he could not look that sharp-sighted governor in the eyes without fear and trembling, knowing that his secret was either discovered or in danger of discovery. When we once asked Rachmed Inak (a title bestowed on him later) if he remembered a pious pilgrim Hadji, with a very dark face, and lame, who had gone to Bokhara and Samarkand five years before, he replied, smiling, 'Although many pilgrims go to those holy places every year, I can guess which one you mean. He was a very learned Hadji, much more so than all the other wise men in Bokhara.'

"We now told him that the pilgrim was a European, and showed him Vambéry's book, translating to him the part in which the noted traveller speaks of Rachmed himself.

"'I was quite aware of the fact,' answered Rachmed, 'but I knew too that he was not dangerous, and I did not want to ruin such a learned man. It was the Mollahs' own fault that they did not guess whom they had with them. Who told them to keep their eyes and ears shut?'"

Now this Rachmed (more correctly Rahmet), whom I mentioned before (see page 207), appears to have risen in rank since my departure from Central Asia, for Herr von Lankenau speaks of him as "Bek" (governor) of Saadin, a district in the Khanate of Bokhara. I find it quite natural that he should have remembered me, but his statement that he spared my life on account of my erudition must be taken _cum grano salis_. I do not wish to affirm that I was not suspected by a good many; the number of efforts made to unmask me prove the contrary; but no one really detected me on account of my fortunate talent for languages, just as in Turkey and Persia I was hardly ever taken for a European. Had the people of Bokhara discovered my identity I should certainly not now be in a position to write my memoirs!

Many years later, in 1882, I received the second piece of information as to the effect of my incognito on the inhabitants of Central Asia, through the publications of Mr. Edmund O'Donovan, a correspondent of the _Daily News_, who travelled in Asia from 1879 to 1881, and after his return to England published in 1882 a book of two volumes, entitled, _The Merv Oasis: Travels and Adventures East of the Caspian during the Years 1879 to 1881, including Five Months' Residence among the Tekkes of Merv_.

In the first volume of this book, on page 221, we find the following: "I usually confined myself to my dwelling" (the author is speaking of his stay among the Yomuts in Gömushtepe, where I myself had been), "making notes or conversing with the numerous visitors who invaded Durdi's residence. This was the same in which Vambéry had lived, for, notwithstanding that he succeeded in passing through unrecognised, as a European, the inhabitants afterwards learned his true character, doubtless from the Russians of the naval station at Ashurada close by. I heard of the famous Hungarian from a person named Kan Djan Kelte, the son of Kocsak, his former host. He described the traveller as being like Timsur Lenk, the great Central Asian conqueror, _i.e._, somewhat lame. Of course this knowledge of Vambéry was not arrived at until some time after his departure from among the Yomuts, as otherwise it might have fared badly with him, and he certainly would not at that time have been allowed to pass on. The most singular fact in connection with this matter was, that when I asked for the date of Vambéry's arrival at Gömushtepe my informer could give me only a very vague reply. This is characteristic of the Turkomans."

Of course this notice by the English traveller interested me very much. Kan Djan (the Khandjan mentioned in my book) had not the slightest idea of my disguise. He and the other Turkomans imagined me to be a genuine, pious, and inspired Osmanli from Constantinople, from whom many people begged letters of introduction to the Ottoman Embassy at Teheran, letters which I willingly gave. Two of them were given back to me after my return, by Haidar Effendi, then ambassador at the Persian Court, and I treasure them as valuable mementos.

There is no doubt there would have been little hope for me had my identity been discovered, and I learned later from pilgrims who stopped at Khandjan how vexed the Turkomans were at being cheated out of such a windfall. But they were certainly much mistaken, for though the Shah, at the instance of the Emperor Napoleon III., had to pay 12,000 ducats ransom for Monsieur de Bloqueville, who was captured at Merv while in the Persian service, no one would have paid a penny for my ransom; and as, on account of my infirmity, I was useless for the slave market, a strong ass being worth more than a lame Hadji, it would not have been worth while to capture me.

Quite recently I heard of the third effect of my incognito in Afghanistan, and I must own I was not a little astonished. Readers of my book about my travels may remember that I had a strange adventure in Herat, when the governor of the province, Prince Yakub Khan, a son of Shir Ali Khan, then Emir of Afghanistan, who had already seen many Englishmen, distinguished my European features from those of all my Tartar companions, and tried to unmask me. That he should have found me out has always been a marvel to me, for in the poor student, in whose eyes only hunger and misery were visible, there was really very little to show European origin.

Now the mystery has been solved. Yakub Khan, who succeeded to his father's throne after so many vicissitudes, was so unfortunate that at the very beginning of his reign the English ambassador, Sir Louis Cavagnari, with his whole suite, was murdered by a fanatic mob in Kabul. Upon this the English took possession of his capital. Yakub Khan was taken to India as prisoner, and in the escort which accompanied the dethroned prince was Colonel Robert Warburton, a very able officer, and decidedly the one who best knew the border tribes, and who had been posted for years at the entrance to the Khyber Pass.

This officer (later Sir Robert Warburton), after his return to England, published his experiences in a book entitled _Eighteen Years in the Khyber (1879 to 1898), with Portraits, Maps, and Illustrations_. London: John Murray, 1900. In this book we read on pp. 89-90 the following:--

"After being introduced to Emir Yakub Khan, and seeing that all his wants were satisfied, I ventured to ask a question harking back to the time when Arminius Vambéry, after having seen Khiva and Bokhara, arrived at Herat and appeared in Sardar Muhammed Yakub Khan's presence. Mr. Vambéry, in his book, states that, having given the benediction, he sat down next to the Sardar, and pushed his wazir to one side with a good deal of violence.

"The young Sardar, peering into his face, said: '_Walla au billa Faringhi hasti_.' This Vambéry denied, and the conversation was then changed. Having reminded Amir Yakub Khan of the above circumstance, I asked him if he had identified Mr. Vambéry as a European, and on what grounds. The ex-Emir said: 'I was seated in an upper chamber watching a parade of my troops, and the band was playing on the open ground in front of my window. I noticed a man beating time to the music of the band with his foot. I knew at once that he must be a European, as Asiatics are not in the habit of doing this. Later on, when this man came into my darbar, I charged him with being a Faringhi, which he denied. However, I did not press the matter, being afraid that if suspicion had been roused against him, his life might not have been safe.'

"The same circumstance has been told to me by Sardar Muhammed Hassan Khan, six weeks before Emir Yakub Khan's arrival at Jellalabad. It may be noted that Sardar Yakub Khan and he were both at Herat when Mr. A. Vambéry journeyed there after his wonderful adventures and vicissitudes in Central Asia. Strange it must seem to have associated hourly for months throughout his dangerous travels in Khiva and Bokhara with his Dervish companions, to have shared in all their meals and joined in all their prayers, and yet to have defied all detection; and then to have been discovered by one keen-eyed observer for beating time with his foot to the music of an improvised European band, playing in the glacis of the fortress of Herat!"

Yes, Sir Robert Warburton's surprise is quite justified. I am astonished myself that such a thing should have happened to me, and that Melpomene should have betrayed me. I can only explain this by the fact that I, who have always been a lover of music, upon hearing the strains of European music for the first time after many years, unconsciously began to beat time with my foot. Under the influence of those sounds recalling the West, I had entirely forgotten hunger, misery, and the dangers that threatened me especially among the fanatic Afghans, so forcible an impression did these tones from home make upon me in that foreign country.

Besides these three authentic bits of news, which I heard by chance, I also received other vague information through pilgrims from Central Asia who visited the Bokhara-Tekkesi (monastery) in Constantinople. My incognito travels have become quite legendary in Turkestan.

Hadji Bilal, my most intimate friend in the pilgrims' caravan with which we travelled, who visited Mecca and Medina in the seventies, remained firm in his belief in my Moslemism; he even asserted that if I had adopted an incognito at all, it was decidedly rather in Europe than in Asia, and that my _Christianity_ was apocryphal. How far he was right in his supposition the reader of these memoirs can judge for himself.

In the matter of prejudice, superstition, and fanaticism, there is only this difference between the West, which is so proud of its civilisation, and uncultivated Asia, that in the West human passions are restrained by the laws of more advanced civilisation, and the adherents of foreign religious or political opinions, are exposed to less dangers in public life than in Asia where lawlessness and anarchy afford no protection.

Unfortunately I made bitter experiences in this respect. Where my origin was unknown, my career so full of struggles found much more acknowledgment than in those circles in which I, as a Jew, was defamed, and from the very beginning marked as a liar and deceiver. It was the same with my political opinions. Until the Franco-Russian alliance was strengthened I had many friends in France, but I lost them all the moment I took up my position as anti-Russian writer, in England's interest in Asia. Even in England I was made to feel the effect of political quarrels amongst the various parties. Mr. Ashton Dilke, a furious Liberal and a pro-Russian, in conjunction with Herr Eugen Schuyler, secretary to the American Embassy at St. Petersburg (whose ancestor took a prominent part against England in the American War of Independence), took it into his head to represent my journey through Central Asia as fiction, and attacked me in the _Athenæum_ No. 2,397. He asserted that I, a connoisseur of Oriental languages, had never been in Bokhara nor Samarkand, and had written my book with no other foundation than the facts I had collected in the Bosphorus, and as a proof of this assertion it was said that I had described the famous nephrit stone on the tomb of Timour as green, whereas in reality it was blue. Little or no notice was taken of this attack by my friends in England, and I was not a little surprised when the noted Russian orientalist, Mr. W. Grigorieff, declared in _Russki Mir_ that this attack on the authenticity of my journey was ridiculous and inadmissible, and designated me as an audacious and remarkable traveller of recent date, though he had sharply criticised my _History of Bokhara_ some time before.

Considering my strongly marked opposition to Russia, this trick of holding out a saving hand seems rather strange; but the kindness evinced missed its aim, for my political works continued to be anti-Russian.

Also Mr. Schuyler, the American diplomatist, in spite of the hatred he bore to England, changed his tone in time; for when he visited Budapest in 1886, I received the following letter from him:--

"BUDAPEST, HOTEL KÖNIGIN VON ENGLAND, "_Monday, November 8, 1886_.

"DEAR MR. VAMBÉRY,--

"If you are willing to overlook some hasty criticisms of mine when I was in Central Asia, and will receive me, I shall be most happy to call upon you.

"Believe me, dear sir, yours most sincerely, "EUGENE SCHUYLER."

Of course I overlooked the "hasty criticisms," gave Mr. Schuyler a warm reception, and have corresponded with him ever since. I have only mentioned this incident to prove how very unstable criticism sometimes is, and how very often the private interests of religion or of politics can lead to the attack on a man's character and his honour.

A certain Professor William Davies (?) took it into his head to give lectures as pseudo-Vambéry, and for the sake of greater resemblance even feigned lameness, but was unmasked by my deceased friend, Professor Kiepert, on the 22nd of January, 1868; others again tried to represent me as an impostor, and discredited the result of my dangers and privations from personal motives.

I have had endless opportunities of studying human nature in all its phases. It seemed as though an unkind fate refused to remove the bitter chalice from my lips, and if, in spite of all, I never lost courage, nor my lively disposition, I have only my love of work to thank for it; it drew a veil over all that was unpleasant, and permitted me to gaze joyfully from my workroom on the outside world. Unfavourable criticism, which no man of letters can escape, least of all an explorer who has met with uncommon experiences, never offended or hurt me. But what was most unpleasant was the thorn of envy the pricks of which I was made to feel, and the attacks made with evil designs, in which the Russian press excelled.

Madame de Novikoff, _née_ Olga Kireef, did her utmost to discredit me in England, and in order to blunt the point of my anti-Russian pen, she suddenly discovered that I was no Hungarian, but a fraudulent Jew who had never been in Asia at all, but only wished to undermine the good relations between England and Russia. This skilled instrument of Russian politics on the Thames, rejoiced in the friendship of Mr. Gladstone, but her childish attacks on me have had little effect in shaking my position and reputation among the British public.

With the exception of such incidents I had reason to be content with the criticism of my adventurous journey.

APPENDIX II

MY SCIENTIFIC-LITERARY ACTIVITY

My many years of practical study of the Asiatic world, of which I have attempted to give an account in the preceding pages, were necessarily followed as soon as I had leisure and quiet by a period of literary activity. During those years of travel such a vast amount of material had been accumulating that I must needs put some of it in writing, and relate some of the things I had seen and experienced. And now that the beautiful summertime of my life is past, and I look back upon that period of literary work, I must preface my account of these labours by stating that in point of quantity, quality, and tendency these productions were quite in keeping with my previous studies. A self-educated man, without any direction or guidance in my studies, without even a definite object in view, my literary career must necessarily also be full of the weaknesses, faults, and deficiencies of the self-made man. Just as there are poets by nature, so I was a scholar by nature, but as there is not and could not be a "_scientifica licentia_," in the same way as there is a "_poetica licentia_," so the difficulties I had to fight against were proportionally as great as the deficiencies and blunders which criticism rightly detected in my works. Hasty and rash as I had been in acquiring knowledge (for which a powerful memory and a fiery zeal are chiefly to blame), I was equally impatient to accomplish the work on hand. When once I had begun to write a book, I gave myself neither rest nor peace until I saw it finished and printed on my table, regardless of the saying, "_Nonum prematur in annum_." Unfortunately my labour lay chiefly in as yet unfrequented regions of philology and ethnography, consequently the authorities at my disposal were very limited, and the few that were available were hardly worth consulting, so I did not trouble with them.

Besides, to make a thorough study of ancient authorities went quite against the grain with me. I did not care to be always referring to what others had said and done and to enter into minute speculations and criticisms in regard to them. To use the expression--I objected to chew the cud that others had eaten. From a strictly scientific point of view this was no doubt a grave fault in me. It has always been the novel, the unknown, and untold which attracted me. Only quite new subjects took my fancy, only in those regions did I burn with desire to earn my literary spurs, and although I had not much fear of any one overtaking me in the race, I was for ever hurrying and hankering after novelty and originality, not to say fresh revelations. I was always in a rush, and so did not give the necessary care and attention to the work on hand. When in the biographical notices about my insignificant person, which have appeared from time to time, I see myself described as a learned man, this most unfitting qualification always surprises me, for I am anything but learned in the ordinary sense of the word, and could not possibly be. To be a scholar one needs preparation, schooling, and disposition, all of which I lacked; of a scholar one can say, "_Non nascitur sed fit_," while all through my life, in all my sayings and doings I have always acted under the influence of my naturally good or bad qualities, and have been solely guided by these. The dark side and the disadvantages of such a character do undoubtedly weigh heavily, but the mischief done is to a certain extent rectified by its very decided advantages. Lack of caution makes one bold and daring, and where there is no great depth, there is the greater extension over the area one has chosen for one's field of operation. In this manner only can it be explained why my literary activity encompassed such various regions of Oriental knowledge, and why I could act as philologist, geographer, ethnographer, historian, ethnologist, and politician all at once. Of all the weaknesses and absurdities of the so-called learned guild, the conventional modesty of scholars has always been the most hateful and objectionable to me. I loathed nothing so much as the hypocritical hiding of the material advantage which scholars as much as, if not more than other mortals have in view, and nothing is to my mind more despicable than the professed indifference to praise and recognition; for we all know that scholars and writers are the vainest creatures born.

Since I am not a professional scholar, I need not be modest according to the rules of the trade, and as I am about to speak of my literary activity, and discuss and criticise my own work, I will leave scholarly modesty quite out of the question, and freely and frankly give my opinion on the products of my pen.

1. _Travels in Central Asia._

This work, which appeared in several editions in various European and Asiatic languages, is interesting reading because of the curious methods of travel and the novelty of the adventures. Incognito journeys had been made before my time to Mecca and Medina by Burton, Burckhart, Maltzan, Snouck-Hurgronje, and others, but as a Dervish living on alms, and undergoing all the penalties of fakirdom, I was certainly the first and only European. However interesting the account of my adventures may be, the geographico-scientific results of my journey are not in adequate proportion to the dangers and sufferings I underwent. Astronomical observations were impossible, neither was I competent to make them. Orography and hydrography were never touched upon. The fauna and flora were closed books to me, and as for geology, I did not even know this science by name before I came West. But on the other hand, I can point out with pleasure that in certain parts of Central Asia I was the first European traveller, and have contributed many names of places to the map of the region, and furnished many facts hitherto unknown about the ethnographical relations of the Turks in these parts. What made my book of travels popular was unquestionably the account of my adventures and the continual dangers in which I found myself. The European reader can hardly form any conception of my sufferings and privations; they evoked the interest and the sympathy of the cultured world; but he who has read the preceding pages, and is acquainted with the struggles of my childhood and youth, will not be surprised that the early schooling of misery and privation I underwent had sufficiently hardened me to bear the later heavy struggles. The difference between the condition of a poor Jew-boy and a mendicant Dervish in Central Asia is, after all, not very great. The cravings of hunger are not one whit easier to bear or less irksome in cultured Europe than in the Steppes of Asia, and the mental agony of the little Jew, despised and mocked by the Christian world, is perhaps harder than the constant fear of being found out by fanatical Mohammedans. As my first publication was so much appreciated, I enlarged, at the instigation of my friends, my first account, and published--

2. _Sketches from Central Asia_,

in which on the one hand I elaborated the account of my adventures with fresh incidents, and on the other introduced those ethnographical, political, and economic data which I was unable to incorporate in my traveller's account written in London, as the documents needed for this were left behind at home in Pest. With this book, likewise translated in several languages, I attracted more attention in scientific circles, in consequence of which I was nominated honorary member of a geographical society; but still from a scientific point of view this book does not deserve much attention, for in spite of many new data, it is altogether too fragmentary, and bears the unmistakable stamp of _dilettantism_. To be an expert ethnologist I ought to have known much more about anthropology and anatomy, and particularly the want of measurements indispensable to anthropological researches, made it impossible for me to furnish accurate descriptive delineations. Only the part about the political situation, _i.e._, the rivalry between England and Russia in Central Asia, was of any real value. This part, which first appeared in the columns of the periodical _Unsere Zeit_, was freely commented upon and discussed in official and non-official circles. To this article I owe my introduction into political literature, and at the same time the animosity of Russia, I might say the violent anger which the Russian press has ever since expressed at the mention of my name. In Chapter VIII. I have referred more fully to this part of my literary career, and will only mention here that I did not enter upon this course with any special purpose in view, or with any sense of pleasure. All I cared for was to make known my purely philological experiences, and accordingly as soon as I returned from London I set to work upon my--

3. _Chagataic Linguistic Studies._

The fact that I, a self-taught man, with no scholastic education--a man who was no grammarian, and who had but very vague notions about philology in general should dare to venture on a philological work, and that, moreover, in German; that I should dare to lay this before the severe forum of expert philology--this, indeed, was almost too bold a stroke, wellnigh on a par with my journey into Central Asia. Fortunately at that time I was still ignorant of the _furor teutonicus_, and the spiteful nature of philologists. I was moving, so to speak, on untrodden ground, for with the exception of the specimen Chagataic passages published by Quatremere in his _Chrestomathie Orientale_, and what was published in the original by Baber and Abulghazi, East Turkish was an entirely unknown language to Western Orientalists. I began by giving specimens of national literature, proverbs, and the different dialects of Turkish inner Asia. Then I gave a whole list of East-Turkish books of which no one in Europe had ever heard, and I published the first East-Turkish dictionary which the French scholar Pavel de Courteille incorporated in his later issued work, _Dictionnaire Turk-Oriental_. He says in his preface, "J'avoue tout de suite, que j'ai mis à contribution ce dictionnaire, en insérant dans mon travail autant que je le pouvais, le livre le plus instructif qui fait grand honneur à son auteur," as he called this my first philological production (Preface, p. xi.). But still more did it surprise me to find that the Russian Orientalist, Budagow, who was so much nearer akin to this branch of philology, used my work in his elaborate dictionary; and so, although the critical press took little notice of my first philological efforts, I was nevertheless encouraged to persevere, and began to realise that without being a scholarly linguist one can yet do useful work in this line. "It is but the first step that costs," says the proverb. My Chagataic linguistic studies were soon followed by isolated fragments on this subject, and the more readily they were received the deeper I endeavoured to penetrate into the ancient monuments of the Turkish language. As a result of these efforts appeared my--

4. _Uiguric Linguistic Monuments_,

which was one of the hardest and best paying labours I accomplished in Turkology, and which advanced me to the title of specialist in Turkish languages. From the _Turkish Grammar_ by Davids, and an article of Joubert's in the _Journal Asiatique_, I had heard of the existence of a mysterious Uiguric manuscript, and when Lord Strangford, moreover, drew my attention to it, and advised me to try and decipher it, I burned with ambition, and did not rest until I had secured the loan of this precious manuscript from the Imperial Library at Vienna. The faint, uncertain characters, the value of which I had to guess in many cases, the curious wording, and the peculiarly original contents of the text, exercised an overpowering charm over me. For more than a year I gazed daily for hours at the sybillic signs, until at last I succeeded bit by bit in reading and understanding the manuscript. My joy was boundless. I immediately decided to publish the deciphered portion, and when, after much trouble and expense, for the type had first to be made, I saw the imposing quarto before my eyes, I really believed I had accomplished an important work. I was strengthened in this idea by the extremely appreciative comments of my colleagues, and yet it was but a delusion, for my knowledge of the dialects in the northern and north-easterly frontier districts of the Turkish languages, was not sufficient to enable me to understand the entire manuscript, and to accomplish the deciphering of the entire document. My better qualified and more thoroughly versed successor, Dr. W. Radloff, was able to show better results at once, and the only satisfaction that remains to me from this laborious task is the fact that to me belongs the right of priority; and that Dr. Radloff, following in my footsteps, attained after thirty years a higher standpoint and wider view, is due in a large measure to the fact that in course of time he managed to secure a copy of the _Kudatku Biliks_ written in Arabic characters, and consequently more legible.

And so my _Uiguric Linguistic Monuments_, in spite of many faults and defects, ranks among the showpieces of my scientific-literary activity. In any case I had proved that without being a schooled philologist one can be a pioneer in this line. Following up this only partially successful experiment, I continued for some time my researches in the field of Turkology. I wrote an--

5. _Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language_,

the first ever written on this subject of philology, in which, without any precedent, I collected, criticised and compared, until I succeeded in finding out the stems and roots, and ranged them into separate families. On this slippery path, on which even the greatest authorities in philology sometimes stumble, and by their awkward fall bring their colleagues with them and amuse the world, I, with my inadequate knowledge of the subject, stumbled and slipped all the oftener. In spite of all this, however, even my bitterest rival could not deny that I had succeeded in unravelling the etymology of a considerable number of Turkish words, and in giving a concrete meaning to many abstract conceptions. So mighty is the magic charm of discovery that for months together, by day and by night, I could think of nothing but Turkish root-words, and as I generally worked from memory, and never in my life, so to speak, took any notes, it was a real joy to me to follow up the transitions and changes of an idea to its remotest origin. As a matter of fact this kind of study, apart from my inadequate knowledge, was not at all in keeping with my tendencies. Under the delusive cover of etymological recreation the dry monotony of the study soon became irksome, and I was quite pleased when this etymological pastime led me to the investigation of the--

6. _Primitive Culture of the Turko-Tartar People._

Here I felt more at home and stood on more congenial ground, for here philology served as a telescope, with which I could look into the remotest past of Turkish tribe-life, and discover many valuable details of the ethnical, ethical and social conditions of the Turk. As I have made up my mind to be entirely frank and open in this criticism of my own work, I am bound to say that I consider this little book one of the best productions of my pen. It abounds in valuable suggestions, mere suggestions unfortunately, about the ethnology of the Turk, which could only flow from the pen of a travelling philologist who united to a knowledge of the language, a penetration into the customs, character and views in general of the people under consideration, and who had it all fresh in his mind and could speak from practical experience. The recognition which this little book received from my fellow-philologists was most gratifying to me, and was the chief cause which led me to write about--

7. _The Turkish People in their Ethnological and Ethnographical Relationship._

In this work, planned on a much larger scale, I endeavoured to incorporate my personal experiences of the Turks in general, and also to introduce the notes and extracts gleaned on this subject from European and Asiatic literature. In both these efforts I had certain advantages over others. In the first place no ethnographer had ever had such long and intimate intercourse with members of this nation, and secondly, there were not many ethnographers who could avail themselves as well as I could of the many-tongued sources of information. Here again I found myself on untrodden paths, and the accomplished work had the general defects and charms of a first effort. On the whole it was favourably criticised, and I was therefore the more surprised that the book had such a very limited sale. I flattered myself I had written a popular book, or at least a book that would please the reading public, and I was grievously disappointed when, after a lapse of ten years, not three hundred copies had been sold. I came to the conclusion that the public at large troubles itself very little about the origin, customs and manners, the ramifications and tribal relationships of the Turks, and that geography and ethnography were only appreciated by the reading public as long as they were well flavoured with stirring adventures. In my book about the Turkish people I gave a general survey of all the tribes and branches of the race collectively, and although no such work had ever been written about any other Asiatic tribal family, I was mistaken as to its success. In spite of my favourable literary position in England, all my endeavours to issue an English edition of this work were in vain.

East Turkish, both in language and literature, being one of my favourite studies, and always giving me new thoughts and ideas, I published simultaneously with my _Turkish People_, an Ösbeg epic poem entitled--

8. _The Sheibaniade_,

which I copied from the original manuscript in the Imperial Library at Vienna during several summer vacations, and afterwards printed at my own expense. The copying was a tedious business. The writing of 4,500 double stanzas tried my eyes considerably, but the historical and linguistic value of the poem were well worth the trouble. It is a unique copy. Neither in Europe nor in Asia have I ever heard of the existence of a duplicate, and it was therefore well worth while to make it accessible for historical research. The beautiful edition of this work, with facsimile and a chromo-photographic title page, cost me nearly fourteen hundred florins, and as scarcely sixty copies were sold I did not get back a fourth of the sum laid out upon it. The scientific criticism was limited to one flattering notice in the _Journal Asiatique_. The rest of the literati, even Orientalists, hardly deigned to take any notice of my publication, for the number of students of this particular branch of Oriental languages was, and is still, very small in Europe; even in Russia it does not yet receive the attention it so richly deserves.

I can therefore not blame myself that I was urged on in this branch of my literary career by the hope of moral or material gain; it was simply my personal liking and predilection which made me pursue these subjects. Only occasionally, when forced thereto by material needs, perhaps also sometimes for the sake of a change, I left my favourite study and turned to literary work which could command a larger public and give me a better chance of making money by it.

Thus it came about that soon after my return from Central Asia I published the account of my--

9. _Wanderings and Experiences in Persia._

But this was familiar ground, fully and accurately described elsewhere, both geographically and ethnographically. It was at most my exciting personal adventures as pseudo-Sunnite amongst the Shiites which could lay claim to any special interest, perhaps also to some extent its casual connection with my later wanderings in Central Asia; for the rest, however, this volume has little value, and with the exception of England, Germany, Sweden, and Hungary, where translations appeared, it has attracted no notice to speak of. Not much better fared my--

10. _Moral Pictures from the Orient._

This had already appeared in part in a German periodical, _Westermann's Monthly_, and was further enlarged with sketches of family life in Turkey, Persia, and Central Asia, interspersed with personal observations on the religious and social customs of these people. As far as I know there are, besides the original German edition, a Danish and a Hungarian translation of this work, but although much read and discussed, this book has not been of much, if any, material benefit to me, beyond the honorarium paid me by the "Society of German literature." With this book I have really contributed to the knowledge of the Orient in the regions named just as with my--

11. _Islam in the Nineteenth Century_

I directed the attention of the reading public to those social and political reforms which our intervention and our reformatory efforts in the Moslem East have called forth; but practically both the one and the other were failures. It was not at all my intention to write a sort of defence of Islam, as was generally imagined, but I endeavoured, on the contrary, to show up the mistakes, weaknesses and prejudices which characterised this transition period, indeed I ruthlessly tore away the veil; but on the other hand I did not hesitate to lay bare our own neglects and faults. My object was to correct the judgment of Europe in regard to the Moslem society of Asia, and to point out that with patience and a little less egotism and greed we should accomplish more; that we are not yet justified in looking upon Islam as a society condemned to destruction, and in breaking the staff over it. As a purely theoretical study, perhaps also on account of my very liberal religious notions expressed therein, I have not been able to publish this book in England; hence the circle of readers was very limited, but all the more select, and I had the satisfaction of having stirred up a very serious question.

A book which, to my great surprise, had an extraordinary success was my publication in English of the--

12. _Life and Adventures of Arminius Vambéry, written by Himself_,

which in a very short time passed through seven editions, and was extraordinarily popular in England, America and Australia. It is in reality one of my most insignificant, unpretentious literary efforts, written at the request of my English publisher, and is by no means worthy of the reception it had. This made me realise the truth of the proverb: "_Habent sua fata libelli_," for the book is nothing but a recapitulation of my wanderings, including my experiences in Turkey and Persia, which were now for the first time brought before the English public. But what chiefly secured its friendly reception was a few short paragraphs about my early life, a short _resumé_ of the first chapter of the present work, and these details from the life of a self-made man did not fail to produce an impression upon the strongly developed individuality of the Anglo-Saxon race. I am not sure how many editions it went through, but I have evident proofs of the strong hold this book had upon all ranks and classes of English-speaking people. Comments and discussions there were by the hundred, and private letters expressive of readers' appreciation kept flowing in to me from the three parts of the world.

Curiously enough this book excited interest only with the Anglo-Saxons; to this day it has not been translated in any other foreign language, not even in my Hungarian mother-tongue. Society in Eastern Europe still suffers from the old-world delusion that nobility of blood is everything, and considers that it could not possibly condescend to be edified by the experiences of a poorly-born man of obscure origin; but the Anglo-Saxon with his liberal notions revels in the story of the terrible struggles of the poor Jewish boy, the servant and the teacher, and of what he finally accomplished. This is the chief reason which made the most insignificant of my books so popular with the Anglo-Saxons, a book with which I promulgated more knowledge about Moslem Asia than with all my other works put together, more even than many highly learned disquisitions of stock-Orientalists.

I will not deny that the unexpected success of this book was my principal inducement in writing the present Autobiography.

In my various literary productions I had chiefly aimed at a diffusing of general knowledge about the Moslem East, but at home (in Hungary) I had often been reproached with absolute neglect as regards the national Magyar side of my studies. I therefore decided to publish my views about the--

13. _Origin of the Magyars_

in a separate volume. In different scientific articles I had already hinted at the manner in which I intended to treat this still open question. I pointed out that Árpád and his warriors who, towards the close of the ninth century founded what is now Hungary, were most certainly Turkish nomads forming a north-westerly branch of the Turkish chain of nationalities; that they pushed forward from the Ural, across the Volga, into Europe, and established in Pannonia what is now the State of Hungary. The ethnology and the language of the Magyars is a curious mixture of dialects, for the Turkish nomads during their wanderings incorporated into their language many kindred Finnish-Ugrian elements, and in the lowlands of Hungary they came upon many ethnological remains of the same original stock. All these various elements gradually amalgamated and formed the people and the language of Hungary as it is now. Considering this problematic origin, and the elasticity of philological speculation, it stands to reason that much has been written and argued in Hungary about the origin of the nation. Many different views were held, and at the time that I joined in the discussion, the theory of the Finnish-Ugrian descent of the Magyars held the upper hand. My labour, therefore, was directed against these, for on the ground of my personal experiences in the manner of living and the migrations of the Turkish nomads in general, based upon historical evidence, I endeavoured to prove the Turkish nationality of Árpád and his companions. I conceded the mixed character of the language with the reservation, however, that in the amalgamation not the Finnish-Ugrian but the Turko-Tartar element predominated. Philologists opposed this view in their most zealous and ablest representative, Doctor Budenz, a German by birth; he pleaded with all the enthusiasm of an etymological philologist for the eminently Ugrian character of the Magyar tongue. The arguments of the opposing party were chiefly based upon what they considered the sacred and fundamental rules of comparative philology; but to me these threw no light upon the matter, and were not likely to convince me of my error. The struggle, which my fanatical opponents made into a personal matter, lasted for some time, but the old Latin proverb: "_Philologi certant, lumen sub judice lis_," again proved true in this case. The etymological Salto Mortales and the grammatical violence of the opposing school had rudely shaken my confidence in the entire apparatus of comparative philology. I realised that with such evidence one might take any one Ural-Altaic language and call it the nearest kindred tongue of the Magyar. The etymological connection between the Tartar words "tongue" and "navel"--because both are long, hanging objects--and the use of fictitious root-words to explain the inexplicable, with which my learned opponent tried to justify his theory, were altogether too fantastic and too airy for my practical notions. So I gave up the struggle and satisfied myself with the result that the home-bred Magyars were no longer exclusively considered to be of Finnish-Ugrian extraction, as used to be the case, and that even my bitterest opponent had to allow the possibility that Árpád and his warriors were originally Turks.

The learned world outside naturally took but little part in this essentially Magyar controversy, and I was, therefore, all the more pleased to see Ranke, the Nestor of German historical research, siding with me. He referred to the historical evidence of one Ibn Dasta and Porphyrogenitus, who had declared that the Magyars overrunning Hungary at the close of the ninth century were Turks. In Hungary itself the majority of the public shared my views, and the seven hundred copies of the first edition of my book were sold in three days.

This, of course, was due more to the national and political than to the purely scientific interest of the question, since the Magyars, proud of their Asiatic origin, very much disliked, nay even thought it insulting that their ancestors should have to claim blood-relationship with poor barbarians of high northern regions, living by fishing and hunting, Ostiaks, Vogules, and such like racial fragments. The Hungarian priding himself on his warlike spirit, his valour, and his independence, would rather claim relationship with Huns and Avars, depicted by the mediæval Christian world as terror-spreading, mighty warriors; and the national legend correctedly accepted this view, for as my further researches revealed, and as I tried to prove in my subsequent book, entitled--

14. _Growth and Spread of the Magyars_,

the present Magyar nation has proceeded from a gradual, scarcely definable settlement of Ural-Altaic elements in the lowlands of Hungary. Originally as warriors and protectors of the Slavs settled in Pannonia, they became afterwards their lords and masters, something like the Franks in Gaul and the Varangians in Russia, with this difference, however, that the latter exchanged their language for that of their subjects, and became lost among the masses of the subjugated people, while the Magyars to this day have preserved their language and their national individuality intact, and in course of time were able to establish a Magyar ethnography. Looking at it from this point of view, not Asia but the middle Danube-basin becomes the birthplace of Magyarism. Its mixed ethnography, formerly known by various appellations, became through its martial proclivities a terror to the Christian West, and compelled Charlemagne to bring a strong Christian coalition against it in the field. This first crusade of the Occident, bent but did not break the power of the Ural-Altaic warriors, who ruled from the Moldau as far as the borders of Upper Austria; for the remnants retiring behind the Theis soon after received reinforcements from a tribe of Turks known as the "Madjars," _i.e._, Magyars, under the command of Árpád, whose descendants accepted Christianity and established the Hungary of the present day, both politically and ethnically.

Curiously enough this ethnological discussion was not at all agreeable to my so-called paleo-Magyar compatriots. The romantic legend of the invasion of Árpád into Pannonia with his many hundred thousand warriors, sounds more beautiful in the ears of the Magyar patriots, than their prosaic derivation from a confused ethnical group; as if there were any single nation in Europe which is not patched and pieced together from the most diverse elements, and only in later times has presented itself as an undivided whole. In the Hungarians, however, this childish vanity is the more ridiculous since it is much more glorious, as a small national fragment, to play for centuries the _rôle_ of conqueror, and in the strength of its national proclivities to absorb other elements, than to conquer with the sword and then to be absorbed in the conquered element as Franks, Varangians, and others have been. Truly nations, as well as individuals, have to pass through an infant stage, and I am not surprised that this conception of mine, and my solution of the ethnological problem, did not find much favour in Hungary.

Before concluding this review of my scientific-literary activity, I should mention that I also have ventured into the regions of history, a totally unknown field to me, wherein, as is the case with many hazardous expeditions, I betrayed more temerity than forethought. My book on the--

15. _History of Bokhara_,

in two volumes, published in German, Hungarian, English, and Russian, has done more harm than good to my literary reputation. The motive for writing this book was the purchase of some Oriental manuscripts I discovered in Bokhara, which, I thought, were unknown in Europe. To some extent this was the case, for of _Tarikhi Narshakhi_, and the history of _Seid Rakim Khan_ both of which furnish rich material for the history of Central Asia, our Orientalists had never heard. But in the main I was working under a delusion, owing to my insufficient literary knowledge; some passages, especially in the ancient history of Central Asia, had already been worked out by learned scholars, and it was only about modern times that I could tell anything new.

Professional critics were merciless. They seemed to take a malicious pleasure in running me down; especially was this the case in Russia, where I was already hated for my political opinions and activity. The Oriental historian, Professor Grigorieff, made a special point of proving the worthlessness of my book, and tried to annihilate the anti-Russian publishers. The second _criticus furiosus_ was Professor von Gutschmid, a learned man, but also a nobleman of the purest blood, who for his God and king entered the arena, and also wanted to wreak his anger upon me because he took me for a German renegade, and for my desertion of the bonds of Germanism considered me worthy of censure. For his well-deserved correction of my scientific blunders I am grateful to the man, but I deny the accusation of being a renegade. I have never quite understood why in Germany the honour of German nationality should be forced upon me; why I should be taken for a Hamburger, a Dresdener, a Stuttgarter, since my ancestors for several generations were born Hungarians, and my education had been strictly Magyar.

It is this very Magyar education, and the complete amalgamation of myself with the ruling national spirit of my native land which induced me to Magyarise my German name, as has been the custom with us for centuries. Considering that Germans with purely French, Italian, Danish, Slav, and other names figure in German literature and politics, without the purity of their German descent being at all questioned, one might readily regard the Hungarian custom of Magyarising our names as childish and unmotived. Yet this is not so. Small nations like Hungary, constantly threatened with the danger of denationalisation, all the more anxiously guard their national existence in the sanctity of their language, and tenaciously hold to their national characteristics. With such people it is quite natural that they should lay more stress than is absolutely necessary upon the outward signs. The Hungarian born, who in his feelings, thoughts, and aspirations, owns himself a true Hungarian, desires also in name to appear as a Hungarian, because he does not want to be mixed up with any foreign nationality, as might easily be the case with a prominent writer. On these grounds Petrovich has become Petöfi, Schedel Toldy, Hundsdorfer Hunfalvi, etc., and for this reason also I Magyarised my name.

But to come back to my _History of Bokhara_, I must honestly confess that the ambition of writing the first history of Transoxania brought me more disillusionment than joy, for in spite of the praise bestowed upon me by the uninitiated, I had soon to realise that I had not studied the subject sufficiently, and had not made enough use of available material.

I fared somewhat better with my second purely historical work, published simultaneously in America and England--

16. _The Story of Hungary._

In this I had but the one object in view, namely to introduce the history of my native land into the series called "The Story of the Nations." As I wrote only a few chapters myself, and am indebted for the rest to Hungarian men of the profession, I can only lay claim to the title of editor, but this literary sponsorship gave me much pleasure, for the _History of Hungary_, which first appeared in English, and was afterwards translated into different languages, has had a sale it could never have had in Hungary itself. The service hereby rendered to my compatriots has, however, never been appreciated at home; the very existence of the book has been ignored.

This closes the list of my personal publications, partly scientific, partly popular, in the course of twenty years. Of my journalistic activity during this same term, I have spoken already (Chap. VIII.).

I cannot hide the fact that as I increased in years my creative power visibly decreased. What I learned in the sixties, or rather tried to learn, did not long remain in my memory, and could not be called material from which anything of lasting value could be made. Only the custom of many years' active employment urged me on to labour, and under the influence of this incitement appeared my smaller works.

1. _The Travels and Adventures of the Turkish Admiral Sidi Ali Reis, in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Persia, during the years 1553-1556._ London, 1899.

2. _Noten Zu den Alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei und Siberiens._ Helsingfors, 1899. (Notes to the Old Turkish Inscriptions of Mongolia and Siberia.)

3. _Alt-Osmanische Sprachstudien._ Leiden, 1901. (Old Osmanli Linguistic Studies.)

It never entered my mind to try to attract the special attention of the profession with these unassuming contributions. It is not given to all, as to a Mommsen, Herbert Spencer, Ranke, Schott, and others, to boast of unenfeebled mental powers in their old age. _Sunt atque fines!_ And he who disregards the approach of the winter of life is apt to lose the good reputation gained in better days.

APPENDIX III

MY RELATIONS WITH THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD

I will here shortly relate in what manner I became connected with the Mohammedans of India. My own depressing circumstances at the time of my sojourn in Asia had given me a fellow-feeling with the downtrodden, helpless population of the East, and the more I realised the weakness of Asiatic rule and government, the more I was compelled to draw angry comparisons between the condition of things there and in Western lands. Since then my judgment of human nature has become enlarged, and consequently more charitable, but at the time I am speaking of, the more intimately I became acquainted with the conditions of the various countries of Europe the more clearly I seemed to see the causes of the decline in the East. Our exalted Western professions of righteousness and justice after all did not amount to much. Christianity seemed as fanatical as Islam itself, and before very long I came to the conclusion that our high-sounding efforts at civilisation in the East were but a cloak for material aggression and a pretext for conquest and gain. All this roused my indignation and enlisted my sympathies with the peoples of the Islamic world. My heart went out in pity towards the helpless victims of Asiatic tyranny, despotism, and anarchy, and when an occasional cry was raised in some Turkish, Persian or Arabic publication for freedom, law and order, the call appealed to me strongly and I felt compelled to render what assistance I could. This was the beginning of my pro-Islamic literary activity, and as a first result I would mention my work on _Islam in the Nineteenth Century_, followed by several short articles. Later I proceeded from writing to public speaking, and I delivered lectures in various parts of England, a specimen of which was my lecture in Exeter Hall, in May, 1889, when I took for my subject "The Progress of Culture in Turkey." The fame of these lectures resounded not only in Turkey but also among the Moslems of South Russia, Java, Africa and India; for the day of objective unbiassed criticism of Islam was gradually passing away. In India the free institutions of the English had awakened among the Mohammedan population also an interest in the weal or woe of their religious communities. In Calcutta the "Mohammedan Literary Society," under the presidency of the learned Nawab Abdul Latif Bahadur, was already making itself prominent, and shortly after my lecture at Exeter Hall, I received an account of the history of the Society, and its president, in a warmly worded letter accompanying it, expressed his thanks for my friendly interest in the affairs of Islam. I made use of this opportunity to address a letter to the Mohammedans of India, explaining the grounds for my Moslem sympathies, encouraging the Hindustani to persevere in the adopted course of modern culture, and by all means to hold fast to the English Government, the only free and humane power of the West. This letter ran as follows:--

"BUDAPEST UNIVERSITY, "_August, 12, 1889_.

"MY DEAR NAWAB,--I beg to acknowledge with many, many thanks the receipt of the valuable and highly interesting pamphlets you so kindly sent me, on the rise, growth and activity of the Mohammedan Literary Society of Calcutta. Being deeply interested in the welfare and cultural development of the Mohammedan world, I have long watched with the greatest attention the progress of the Society created and so admirably presided over by yourself. I need scarcely say that I much appreciate the opportunity now afforded me of entering into personal relations with a man of your abilities, patriotism, and sincere devotion to your fellow countrymen.

"The greater part of my life has been devoted to the study of Mohammedan nations and countries, and I feel the keenest interest in the work of the Calcutta Literary Society of Mohammedans, which proves most eloquently that a nation whose sacred book contains the saying, 'Search for wisdom from the cradle to the grave,' will not and cannot lag behind in culture, and that Islam still has it in its power to revive the glory of the middle ages, when the followers of the Koran were the torchbearers of civilisation.

"From a political point of view, also, I must congratulate you on what you have done in showing your co-religionists the superiority of Western culture as seen in the English administration, in contrast to the dim or false light shed abroad from elsewhere. I am not an Englishman, and I do not ignore the shortcomings and mistakes of English rule in India, but I have seen much of the world both in Europe and Asia, and studied the matter carefully, and I can assure you that England is far in advance of the rest of Europe in point of justice, liberality, and fair-dealing with all entrusted to her care.

"You and your fellow-workers among the Indian Mohammedans, the successors of Khalid, may justly pride yourselves on having introduced Monotheism into India; it is your privilege and your duty by advice and example to lead the people of Hindustan to choose suitable means for modernising your matchless but antiquated culture. Would that Turkey, which is fairly advanced in modern science, could become the instructor and civiliser of the Mohammedan world; but Turkey, alas, is surrounded by enemies and weakened by continual warfare. She has to struggle hard for her own existence and has no chance of attending to her distant co-religionists, much to the grief of her noble and patriotic ruler whom I am proud to call my friend.

"In default of a Moslem leader you have done well to adopt English tutorship in India, and you who are at the head of this movement are certainly rendering good service both to your people and to your faith by encouraging your fellow-believers to follow in the path of Western culture and education. I have not yet quite given up the idea of visiting India, and, circumstances permitting, of delivering some lectures in the Persian tongue to the Mohammedans of India. If I should see my way to doing so, I should like to come under the patronage of your Society, and thus try to contribute a few small stones to the noble building raised by your admirable efforts.

"Pardon the length of this epistle, which I conclude in the hope of the continuance of our correspondence, and I also beg you kindly to forward to me regularly the publications of your Society.

"Yours faithfully, "(_Sig._) A. VAMBÉRY.

"To Nawab Abdul Latif Bahadur, C.I.E., Calcutta."

I had no idea that this letter would cause any sensation, and I was much surprised to see it published shortly after as a separate pamphlet, with an elaborate preface, and distributed wholesale among the Mohammedans of India. "The leading political event of India"--thus commenced the preface--"is a letter, but not an official or even an open letter. We are not referring to the address of the Viceroy in _propria persona_--as distinguished from the powerful state engine entitled the 'Governor-General in Council'--to the Maharaja Pertap Singh of Cashmere, for this letter has now been before the public some weeks. The letter we call attention to does not come from high quarters, is not in any way an official one; it is a private communication from a poor, though eminent European pandit (scholar). It was published yesterday in the morning papers and appears in this week's edition of _Reis and Rayyet_. We refer to Professor Vambéry's letter to Nawab Abdul Latif Bahadur, &c."

The Indian press occupied itself for days with this letter; it was much commented upon and regarded both by Englishmen and Mohammedans as of great importance. I was invited to visit India as the guest of the Mohammedan Society. I was to be attended by a specially appointed committee, and to make a tour in the country, give public lectures and addresses, and be generally _fêted_. In a word, they wanted to honour me as the friend of England and of Islam. Nawab Abdul Latif Bahadur said in a letter dated Calcutta, 16 Toltollah (12th August), 1890:--

"Your name has become a household word amongst us, and, greatly as we honour you for your noble, unflinching advocacy of Islam in the West, we shall esteem it a high privilege to see you with our own eyes, and listen to you with our own ears."

Remembering the struggles of my early youth, and with a vivid recollection of the insults and humiliations to which I, the Jew boy, had been subjected in those days, there was something very tempting to me in the thought of going to India, the land of the Rajahs, of wealth and opulence, as an admired and honoured guest. But I was no longer young. I was nearly sixty years old, and at that age sober reality is stronger than vanity. The alluring vision of a reception in India, with eulogies and laurel-wreaths swiftly passed before my eyes, but was instantly dismissed. I declined the invitation with many expressions of gratitude, but kept up my relations with the Mohammedans of India, and also with the Brahmans there, as shown in my correspondence with the highly-cultured editor of the periodical _Reis and Rayyet_, Dr. Mookerjee,[3] with Thakore Sahib (Prince) of Gondal, and other eminent Hindustani scholars and statesmen.

The fact that many of these gentlemen preferably wrote in English, and that some of them even indulged in Latin and Greek quotations, surprised me much at first, for I had not realised that our Western culture had penetrated so far even beyond the precincts of Islam. England has indeed done great things for India, and Bismarck was right when he said, "If England were to lose Shakespeare, Milton, and all her literary heroes, that what she has done for India is sufficient to establish for ever her merit in the world of culture."

My pro-Islamic writings have found much appreciation among the Turkish adherents of the Moslem faith, and my name was well known in Turkey, as I had for many years been writing for the Turkish press, and was in correspondence with several eminent persons there. In consequence of my anti-Russian political writings I had constant intercourse with Tartars from the Crimea and other parts of Russia, who even consulted me in their national and religious difficulties. Some of them asked me for introductions to the Turkish Government, and touching was the sympathy I received from the farthest corners of the Islamic world when once I was confined to bed with a broken leg. Mohammedans from all parts, Osmanlis, Tartars, Persians, Afghans, Hindustanis, in passing through Budapest, scarcely ever failed to call upon me, and to express their gratitude for what little I had done in their interest. Some even suspected me of being a Dervish in disguise, and of using my European incognito in the interests of Islam. This supposition was, I think, mainly due to the stories circulated by some Dervish pilgrims, from all parts of the Islamic world, to the grave of Gülbaba (Rose-father), at Budapest, to whom, as the living reminders of my former adventures, I always gave a most cordial reception.

The Mohammedan saint just mentioned, according to the account of the Osmanli traveller Ewlia Tshelebi (1660), had lived in Hungary before the Turkish dominion, and was buried at Budapest. Soliman's army had revered his grave just as Mohamed II. did that of Ejub in Constantinople after the conquest, and it is touching to note the deep veneration with which this pioneer of Islam is regarded by all true believers in the old world. Turks, Arabs, Persians, Afghans, Indians, Kashmirians, even Tartars from Tobolsk have come to Budapest as pilgrims to his grave, and yet the actual tenets of his faith have never been very clearly defined. At the Peace of Passarowitz the Osmanli stipulated that his grave should be left untouched, and on the other hand the Persian King, Nasreddin Shah, claimed him as a Shiite saint, and even made preparations to restore and embellish his grave.

The Dervish pilgrims regarded this Rose-father with very special devotion. Without money, without any knowledge of the language of the country, they braved all dangers and privations to visit his grave. Some said that he was brother to Kadriye, others that he belonged to the Dshelali order. After spending some days at the humble shrine of the saint, since then beautifully restored, they would come to pay their respects to me also, and I was pleased to receive them. Nothing could be more entertaining than to watch the suspicious glances cast upon me by these tattered, emaciated Moslems. My fluency of speech in their several languages, added to the fame of my character as a Dervish, puzzled them greatly, and, encouraged by my cordiality, some made bold to ask me how much longer I intended to keep up my incognito among the unfaithful, and whether it would not be advisable for me to return to the land of the true believers. In reply I pointed to the life and the work of Sheikh Saadi, the celebrated author of the _Gulistan_ who, himself a Dervish, lived in various lands amid various religions in order to study mankind, and who left behind him a world-known name. Among these dervishes, although possessed of all the peculiarities and attributes of fanaticism, I detected a good deal of scepticism and cosmopolitanism, carefully hidden, of course, but to my mind fully justifying the proverb: "_Qui multum peregrinatur raro santificatur_" ("He who travels much, rarely becomes a saint"). These pilgrims, many of whom in their inmost mind shared my views, carried my name into the remotest regions of the Islamic world. The travelling dervishes may be called the living telegraph wires between the upper and lower strata of the Mohammedan world. From the Tekkes (convents) and bazaars, where they mix with people of every class and nationality, the news they bring travels far and wide, and reaches the inmost circles of family life. And so it came about that many years later I was receiving letters from several Asiatics never personally known to me. Through these relations with the middle classes of the Moslem world I afterwards came in contact with the higher ranks of Asiatic society.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] See "_An Indian Journalist_," being the Life and Letters of Dr. S. O. Mookerjee, Calcutta, 1895, pp. 306-315.

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.