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MY POLITICAL CAREER AND POSITION IN ENGLAND 283

THE TRIUMPH OF MY LABOURS 317

AT THE ENGLISH COURT 329

MY INTERCOURSE WITH SULTAN ABDUL HAMID 343

MY INTERCOURSE WITH NASREDDIN SHAH AND HIS SUCCESSOR 391

THE STRUGGLE'S END, AND YET NO END 411

APPENDICES 459

From London to Budapest

FROM LONDON TO BUDAPEST

I have often been asked how it was that, after the bitter disappointment I had experienced in my native land on my return from Asia, and after the brilliant reception accorded to me in England, I yet preferred to settle down permanently in Hungary.

People have been surprised that I should choose a quiet literary career, whereas my many years of intimate intercourse with various Eastern nations might have been turned to so much better account, and a practical, active career would have been so much more in keeping with my character. All these questions were asked of me at the time in London, but filled as I then became with a sense of oppression and a great longing for home I could not give a satisfactory answer to these queries. Now that the cloud has lifted, and my vision is clear, now that sober reflection has taken the place of former rapture and exultation, the causes which influenced my decision are perfectly clear. I see now that I could not have acted differently; that the step I took was partly the result of my personal inclination and views of life, and partly influenced by the circumstances of my birth and bringing up, and the notions then generally prevailing in Hungary; nor have I cause or ground to regret my decision.

In the first place I have to confess that in England, notwithstanding the noisy, brilliant receptions I had, and all the attention paid to me, no one ever made me any actual proposal with a view to my future benefit, and no one seemed at all disposed to turn to account my practical experiences in the service of the State or of private enterprise. The Memorandum about the condition of things in Central Asia, written at the time in Teheran at the request of the British Ambassador there, had duly found its way to Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister. The gray statesman received me most kindly; I was often a guest at his private house, or dined with him at Mr. Tomlin's, of Carlton House Terrace, or at Sir Roderick Murchison's, of 16, Belgrave Square. At his initiative I was invited to other distinguished houses, for the merry old gentleman was much entertained by my lively conversation and my anecdotes from Asia, which I used to relate after dinner when the ladies had retired. My stories about the white ass of the English Embassy at Teheran, of diplomatic repute, and similar amusing details of court life in Persia and the Khanates of Central Asia, tickled the fancy of the most serious, sober-minded of these high lords, and went the round in the fashionable West End circles. But for all that they saw in me merely the "lively foreigner," the versatile traveller, and if here and there some interest was shown in my future, it amounted to asking what were my latest travelling plans, and when I thought of setting out in search of fresh discoveries. As if I had not been on the go for two-and-twenty years, ever since I was ten years old! as if I had not battled and struggled and suffered enough! And now that for the first time in my life I had lighted on a green bough and hoped to have accomplished something, was I again straightway to plunge into the vague ocean of destiny? "No, no," I reflected; "I am now thirty-two years old, without for one moment having enjoyed the pleasures of a quiet, peaceful life, and without possessing enough to permit myself the luxury of resting on my own bed, or of working comfortably at my own table." This uncertain, unsatisfactory state of things must come to an end sometime; and so the desire for rest and peace necessarily overruled any inclination for great and ambitious plans, and nipped in the bud all projects which possibly might have made my career more brilliant, but certainly not happier than it afterwards turned out.

The kind reader of these pages who is familiar with the struggles and troubles of my childhood, who has followed me in thought on the thorny path of early youth, and knows something of my experiences as self-taught scholar and tutor, will perhaps accuse me of dejection, and blame me for want of perseverance and steadiness of purpose. Possibly I have disregarded the golden saying of my mother, "One must make one's bed half the night, the better to rest the other half." I did give way to dejection, but my resolve, however blameworthy it may be, should be looked upon as the natural consequence of a struggle for existence which began all too early and lasted sadly too long. Man is not made of iron, too great a tension must be followed by a relaxation, and since the first fair half of my life began to near its ending, my former iron will also began to lose some of its force. The wings of my ambition were too weak to soar after exalted ideals, and I contented myself with the prospect of a modest professorship at the University of my native land and the meagre livelihood this would give me.

In England, where a man in his early thirties is, so to speak, still in the first stage of his life, and energy is only just beginning to swell the sails of his bark, my longing for rest was often misunderstood and disapproved of. In London I met a gentleman of sixty who wanted to learn Persian and start a career in India; and I was going to stop my practical career at the age of thirty-two! The difference seems enormous, but in the foggy North man's constitution is much tougher and harder than in the South. My physical condition, my previous sufferings and privations, may to some extent account for my despondency; I had to give in, although my object was only half gained.

Of course this view was quite erroneous. For what has made England great was, and is, this very same prominent individuality, this restless striving and struggling, this utter absence of all fear, hesitation, and sentimentality where the realisation of a preconceived idea is concerned. But unfortunately at that time I was still under the ban of Asiaticism; and although the slowness, indolence, and blind fanaticism of the Asiatics had annoyed me, equally disagreeable to me was the exactly opposite tendency here manifested. I wanted to find the "golden middle way," and unconsciously I was drawn towards my own home, where on the borderland between these two worlds I hoped to find what I sought.

And now, after the lapse of so many years, recalling to mind some personal reminiscences of London society, I seem to recognise in the political, scientific, and artistic world of those days so many traits of a truly humane and noble nature, mixed with the most bizarre and eccentric features which have been overlooked by observers.

One can easily understand that all these trifles were little to my taste. I had always been fond of simplicity and natural manners. All these formalities and superficialities were hateful to me, but at that time I had to yield to necessity and make the best of a bad job; nay, even be grateful to my instructors for their well-meant advice in these matters.

Other travellers, such as Speke, Grant, Kirk and others, I was also proud to reckon among my friends; and in the field of literature I would mention in the first place Charles Dickens, whose acquaintance I made at the Athenaeum Club, and who often asked me to have dinner at the same table with him. Dickens was not particularly talkative, but he was very much interested in my adventures, and when once I declined his invitation for the following evening with the apology that I had to dine at Wimbledon with my publisher, John Murray, he remarked, "So you are going to venture into the 'Brain Castle,' for of course you know," he continued, "that Murray's house is not built of brick but of human brains." Among politicians, artists, actors, financiers, generals--in fact in all classes and ranks of society--I had friends and acquaintances. I had no cause to complain of loneliness or neglect; any one else would no doubt have been supremely happy in my place, and would have made better use also of the general complaisance. But I was as yet absolutely new to this Western world; I was as it were still wrapped in the folds of Asiatic thought, and, in spite of my enthusiasm for modern culture, I had great difficulty in making myself familiar with the principal conditions of this phase of life, with its everlasting rushing and hurrying, the unremitting efforts to get higher up, and the cold discretion of the combatants. In fact, my first visit to England made me feel gloomy and discouraged.

This depression was yet enhanced by the disappointment in regard to the material results of my book, and the rude awakening out of my dreams of comparative prosperity. To judge from the enthusiastic reception of my work both in Europe and America, and after all the laudatory criticisms of the Press, I expected to get from the sale of the first edition a sum at least sufficient to ensure my independence. The newspapers talked of quite colossal sums which my publisher had paid or would pay me, and I was consequently not a little crestfallen when at the end of the year I received the first account, according to which I had made a net profit of ?500, a sum of which I had spent nearly a third in London. The modest remainder, in the eyes of the former Dervish a small fortune, was as nothing to the European accustomed to London high-life, and not by a long way sufficient for the writer, anxious to make a home for himself. The vision of all my fair anticipations and bold expectations vanished as a mist before my eyes, and after having tasted of the golden fruit of the Hesperides, was I to go back to my scantily furnished table, nay, perhaps be reduced again to poverty and the struggle for daily bread? After twenty years of hard fighting I was back again where I was at the beginning of my career, with this difference, that I had gained a name and reputation, a capital, however, which would not yield its interest till much later.

I am therefore not at all surprised that in my desperate frame of mind I clutched at a straw, and looked upon a professorship at Pest and the doctor's chair of Oriental languages as the bark of salvation upon the still turbulent ocean of my life. True, my cold reception at home had somewhat sobered me, and made the realisation of even this modest ambition not quite so easy of attainment, but my longing for my native land and for a quiet corner admitted of no hesitation, no doubt. With incredible light-heartedness I disengaged myself from the embrace of the noisy, empty homage of the great city on the Thames and sped to Pest to present myself to my compatriots after my triumphal campaign in England and crowned with the laurels of appreciation of the cultured West. As may be supposed, my reception was somewhat warmer but not much more splendid than on my return from Asia. Small nations in the early stages of their cultural development often follow the lead of greater, mightier, and more advanced lands in their distribution of blame or praise. The homely proverb, "Young folks do as old folks did," can also be applied to whole communities, and, especially where it concerns the appreciation and acknowledgment of matters rather beyond the intellectual and national limits of the people, such copying or rather echoing of the superior criticism is quite permissible and excusable. On my return from England my compatriots received me with marked attention, but Hungary was still an Austrian province, and in order to attain the coveted professorship I had to go to Vienna and solicit the favour of an audience with the Emperor. The Emperor Francis Joseph, a noble-minded monarch and exceptionally kind-hearted--who was not unjustly called the first gentleman of the realm--received me most graciously, asked some particulars about my travels, and at once granted me my request, adding, "You have suffered much and deserve this post." He made only one objection, viz., that even in Vienna there are but few who devote themselves to the study of Oriental languages, and that in Hungary I should find scarcely any hearers. On my reply, "If I can get no one to listen to me I can learn myself," the Emperor smiled and graciously dismissed me.

I shall always feel indebted to this noble monarch, although, on the other hand, from the very first I have had much to bear from the Austrian Bureaucracy and the fustiness of the mediaeval spirit which ruled the higher circles of Austrian society; perhaps more correctly from their innate ignorance and stupidity. The Lord-High-Steward, Prince A., whom I had to see before the audience, regardless of the recommendations I brought from the Austrian Ambassador in London, received me with a coldness and pride as if I had come to apply for a position as lackey, and while royal personages of the West, and later on also Napoleon, had shaken hands with me and asked me to sit down, this Austrian aristocrat kept me standing for ten minutes, spoke roughly to me, and dismissed me with the impression that a man of letters is treated with more consideration in Khiva and among the Turkomans than in the Austrian capital.

And this, alas! hurt me all the more, as the social conditions at home in my native land were no better. Here also the wall of partition, class distinctions and religious differences rose like a black, impenetrable screen adorned with loathsome figures before my eyes, and the monster of blind prejudice blocked my way. The enormous distance between the appreciation of literary endeavours in the West and in the East grew in proportion as I left the banks of the Thames and neared my native land; for although the public in Hungary warmly welcomed their countryman, re-echoing the shouts of applause from England and France, nay, even looked upon him with national pride, I could not fail to notice on the part of the heads of society and the leading circles a cold and intentional neglect, which hurt me.

The fact that this Hungarian, who had been so much f?ted abroad, was of obscure origin, without family relations, and, moreover, of Jewish extraction, spoiled the interest for many, and they forcibly suppressed any feelings of appreciation they may have had. The Catholic Church, that hotbed of intolerance and blind prejudice, was the first in attack. It upbraided me for figuring as a Protestant and not as a Catholic, as if I, the freethinker, took any interest in sectarian matters!

To justify this humiliation certain circles at home took special care to depreciate me at every possible opportunity. Wise and learned men, for instance, professed to have come to the conclusion that my travels in the Far East, and the dangers and fatigues I had professed to have gone through, were a physical impossibility on account of my lame leg. "The Jew lies; he is a swindler, a boaster, like all his fellow-believers." Such were the comments, not merely in words, but actually printed in black and white; and when I introduced myself officially to the Rector of the University, afterwards Catholic bishop of a diocese, I was greeted with the following gracious words, "Do you suppose we are not fully informed as to the treacherousness of your character? We are well aware that your knowledge of Oriental languages is but very faulty and that your fitness to fill the chair is very doubtful. But we do not wish to act against His Majesty's commands, and to this coercion only do you owe your appointment." Such was the gracious reception I had, and such were the encouraging words addressed to me after the learned Orientalists of Paris and London had loaded me with praise and honour, and after I had accomplished, in the service of my people, a journey which, as regards its perilousness, privations, and sufferings, can certainly not be called a pleasure trip.

As it is only natural that small communities on the lower steps of civilisation are either too lazy or too incapable to think, and are guided in their opinion by the views of the higher and leading ranks of society, I am not surprised that in certain circles of Hungary for years together I was looked upon with suspicion, and that my book of travels, which in the meantime had been translated for several Eastern and Western nations into their mother-tongue, was simply discredited at home. Similar causes have elsewhere, under similar conditions, produced similar effects. When the nickname of "Marco Millioni" could be given to the celebrated Venetian who traded all over Asia, why should I mind their treatment of me in Hungary, where, apart from national archaeological considerations, nobody evinced any great interest in the distant East? Among the millions of my countrymen there was perhaps no more than one who had ever heard the names of Bokhara and Khiva, and under the extremely primitive cultural conditions of those days geographical explorations were not likely to excite very great interest. The nation, languishing in the bonds of absolutism, and longing for the restoration of Constitutional rights, was only interested in politics; and, since the few scientists, who in their inmost minds were convinced of the importance of my undertaking, had become prejudiced by the reception I had received abroad and were now filled with envy, my position was truly desperate, and for years I had to bear the sad consequences of ill-will. When the first Turkish Consul for Hungary appeared in Budapest he was asked on all sides whether it was really true that I knew Turkish, and when he replied that I spoke and wrote Turkish like a born Osmanli, everybody was greatly surprised. One of my kind friends and patrons said to me in reply to my remark that I should talk Persian with Rawlinson, "You can make us believe this kind of thing, but be careful not to take in other people." A few weeks later Rawlinson took me for a born Persian, but at home they said it was unheard of for a Hungarian scientist to be able to speak Persian. So deplorably low was the standard of Hungarian learning in those days!

Under these conditions the reader may well be surprised, and I must confess that I am surprised myself now, that my deeply-wounded ambition did not revolt against these saddest of all experiences, but that I meekly bore these constant insults and calumnies. This extraordinary humility in the character of a man who in every fibre of his body was animated by ambition and a desire for fame, as I was in those days, has long been an enigma to me. I have accused myself of lack of courage and determination, and I should blush for shame at the memory of this weakness if it were not for the extenuating circumstance that I was utterly exhausted and wearied with my twenty years' struggle for existence, and that my strong craving for a quiet haven of rest was a further extenuation. What did I care that my supposed merits were not appreciated at home, since in the far advanced West the worth of my labours had been so amply recognised? Why should I trouble myself about the adverse criticism of my rivals and ill-wishers since I had at last found a quiet corner, and in possession of my two modestly furnished rooms could comfort myself with the thought that I had now at last found a home, and with the scanty but certain income of some eighty florins per month I could sit down in peace to enjoy the long wished-for pursuit of quiet, undisturbed literary labour? When I had completed the furnishing of my humble little home, and, sitting down on the velvet-covered sofa, surveyed the little domain, which now for the first time I could call my own, I experienced a childish delight in examining all the little details which I had provided for my comfort. Thirty-three years long I had spent in this earthly vale of misery, a thousand ills, both physical and mental, to endure, before it was granted me to experience the blissful consciousness, henceforth no longer to be tossed about, the sport of fortune, no longer to be exposed to gnawing uncertainty, but quietly and cheerfully to pursue the object of my life, and by working out my experiences to benefit the world at large. To other mortals, more highly favoured by birth, my genuine satisfaction and delight may appear incomprehensible and ridiculous: one may object that I longed for rest too soon, and that the small results were scarcely worthy of all the hard labour. But he whom Fate has cast about for years on the stormy ocean hails with delight even the smallest and scantiest plot of solid land, and he who has never known riches or abundance enjoys his piece of dry but certain bread as much as the richest dish.

With industry and perseverance, energy and untiring zeal, I could conquer anything except the stupidity of human nature galled by envy. The more I worked to keep up my literary repute and the repute I had gained as traveller, the more furiously raged my opponents, and the more they endeavoured to discredit me, and to accuse me of all imaginable mistakes and misrepresentations. Once when I complained about this to Baron E?tv?s, this noble and high-minded man rightly remarked, "The regions of your travels and studies are unknown in this land, and you cannot expect society to acknowledge its ignorance and incapacity to understand. It is far easier and more comfortable to condemn one whom it does not understand as a liar and a deceiver." Now this was exactly my position; all the same it grieved me to meet with so much opposition on every side. Not in any period of my life, when some public acknowledgment on the part of the Academy or of the newly-established Hungarian Government would have been such a help to one of my almost childish sensitiveness, had I ever received the slightest token of appreciation of my labours. Twelve years after my return from Central Asia I was elected ordinary member of the Academy, and then only after several quite insignificant men had preceded me, and I simply could not be passed over any longer. Others of higher birth, but without any literary pretensions, were made honorary members or even placed on the directing staff. As regards the State's want of appreciation of my work, although I may now look upon it as of no significance, it made me feel very sore at the time, especially during the Coronation festivities when Hungarian literati and artists were picked out and I was utterly ignored. At other times they were glad enough to distinguish me as the only Magyar who had brought Hungarian knowledge on to the world's stage, and had been instrumental in making the name of the Hungarian Academy known to the Western world. I could give many other proofs of this intentional neglect and ignoring of my claims, but why should I weary the reader any longer with revelations of wounded vanity? The conviction that I had become a stranger in my own land impressed itself more and more upon me; the false position in which I was placed must necessarily become more and more conspicuous. No wonder, then, that I grew indifferent towards the place which formerly had been the object of all my desires, and I now began to long for England, the foreign land where I was better understood and more appreciated, and where I had found more interest in my studies and more encouragement of my efforts.

Nothing, therefore, was more natural than that in these circumstances I should undertake a journey abroad, to cheer and comfort myself by personal contact with congenial society. These motives drew me towards Germany, France, and particularly England. In Germany I made the acquaintance of distinguished Orientalists whose theoretical knowledge excited my admiration as much as their practical incapacity and awkwardness surprised me. They were kind, modest, worthy men, who, since I was outside their particular set, met me very pleasantly, but they looked very doubtful when I seemed not to be acquainted with their theories or betrayed an insufficient knowledge of their treatises, notes, and glossaries. They listened to me, but I saw at once that they looked upon me as a dilettante, outside the pale of learning. This opinion of my literary accomplishments was not altogether unjust, for I was and remained always a practical Orientalist, and these theorists might have remembered that a mere bookman could not possibly have travelled through so many Islamic lands as Dervish and faced all dangers and vicissitudes in close intercourse with the people.

I had occasion later on to meet the Emperor in the salon of the Princess Mathilde, but I must honestly say that I could not discern a trace of that greatness of which for years I had heard so much. He could be affable and pleasant; between taciturnity and gravity he simulated the deep thinker, but his pale eyes and artificial speech soon betrayed the adventurer who had been elevated to his exalted position by the inheritance of a great name and the wantonness of the nation. His minister, Count Drouyn de Lhuys, was somewhat more inquisitive and better informed; but the most interesting personality of my Parisian acquaintance was decidedly the great Guizot, to whom I was introduced in the Rue de Bac at the salon of Madame Mohl. The old gentleman, then in his 78th year, was full of sparkling humour, and his memory was quite marvellous. He seemed to be most amused to hear me hold a lively conversation in various European and Asiatic languages, and he made a point of bringing me in contact with several more nationalities with the object of confusing me. Monsieur Guizot took a warm interest in me; at his suggestion I was invited to the various salons, but all these civilities could not chain me to the Parisian world. In the leading themes, belle lettres, music, and plastic art, I was an ignoramus and had not a word to say; the superfine manners of society worried me, for I missed here the lively interest in things Asiatic which in the London circles, in spite of the no less strict etiquette, was constantly evinced. Men such as Barth?lemy de St. Hilaire, Garcin de Tassy, Pavet de Courteille, and other experts, had a strong fascination for me, but generally speaking France left me cold, for I missed even the great cosmopolitan ideas, the lively interest in the movements of mankind in the far-away corners of the globe, and I realised that national vanity would not so easily admit a stranger to its platform.

My Political Career and Position in England

MY POLITICAL CAREER AND POSITION IN ENGLAND

Many people have wondered how the various professions of Orientalist, ethnographer, philologist, and political writer could all be united in one and the same person, and that I applied myself to all these literary pursuits has often been made a matter of reproach. Personally, I cannot see either virtue or advantage in this odd mixture of study, but I have gone on with it for years, and I will now shortly mention the reasons which induced me thereto. I have already related how, during my first stay in Constantinople, I became a Press correspondent, and how, through constant intercourse with the political world, I entered the list of writing politicians. My interest in political affairs has never flagged; indeed, it rose and became more active when, on account of my personal experiences in Persia and Central Asia, I became, so to speak, the authority for all such information concerning them as related to the political questions of the day, and of which even initiated politicians were ignorant. The traveller who keeps his eyes open necessarily takes a practical view of all that goes on in social, political, and intellectual life, and it is perfectly impossible that the wanderer, entirely dependent upon his own resources for years together, and mixing with all classes and ranks of society, should cultivate merely theoretical pursuits. To me the various languages were not merely an object, but also a means, and when one has become practically so familiar with foreign idioms in letter and in speech that one feels almost like a native, one must always retain a lively interest in their respective lands and nations, one shares their weal and woe, and will always feel at home among them. Of course, it is quite another thing for the theoretical traveller, whose object is of a purely philological or archaeological nature. To him land and people are secondary matters, and when he has procured the desired theoretical information, and left the scene of operation, he forgets it all the sooner, since he has always remained a stranger to his surroundings, and has always been treated as such.

This could never be the case with me. I had so familiarised myself with Osmanli, Persian, and East Turkish that I was everywhere taken for a native. In those three languages my pen has always been busy up to an advanced age, and I believe there is hardly another European who has kept up such varied correspondence with Orientalists in distant lands.

The middle classes and the aristocracy of England thought differently, however. Regardless of all scornful and derisive remarks I had now for twenty years pursued my political campaign with unremitting zeal, and had always had the interest of England at heart. Many, therefore, looked upon me as a true friend, and although I was stamped by some as a fanatic, an Anglomaniac, or even a fool, the majority saw in me a writer who honestly deserved the respect and recognition of the country; a man who in spite of his foreign extraction should be honoured as a promoter of Great Britain's might and power. Cold, proud, and reserved as the Britisher generally appears before strangers, I must confess that at my public appearances both in London and in the provinces I have always been received with the utmost cordiality and warmth.

Without desiring or seeking it I was acknowledged in England as the Asiatic politician and the staunch friend of the realm. Year after year I received invitations to give lectures about the present and the future condition of England in Asia, and when, tired of writing, I longed for a little change and recreation, I travelled to England, where in various towns--London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c.--I gave lectures for a modest honorarium. On these occasions I drew the attention of the public to their commercial and political interests in the Orient, and urged them to exercise their civilising influence over Asia. Foreigners who for years together concern themselves about the weal or woe of a land not their own belong certainly to the rarities, and consequently I was received everywhere in England with open arms and made much of by all classes of society.

This was very patent during the critical time in the spring of 1885, and the ovations I received in London and other towns of the United Kingdom I shall never forget. On the 2nd of May I gave a lecture in the great hall of Exeter Hall about the importance of Herat. On my arrival I found the house full to overflowing with a very select audience. Lord Houghton, who presided at this meeting, thanked me in the name of the nation, and the next day almost all the newspapers had leading articles about the services I had rendered, and the resoluteness with which I always met the woeful optimism and blunders of leading politicians led astray by party spirit.

A few days later I spoke under the auspices of the Constitutional Union, before an aristocratic Conservative gathering in Willis's Rooms, on the subject, "England and Russia in Afghanistan, or who shall be lord and master in Asia?" The heads of English aristocracy were present, and when on the platform behind me I recognised a duke, many lords, marshals, generals, ex-ministers, and several famous politicians and writers of Great Britain I was really overcome.

My thoughts wandered back into the past. I remembered the chill autumn night, which I, a beggar, spent under the seat on the promenade at Presburg. I thought of the scorn, the contempt, and the misery to which I had been exposed as the little Jew boy and the hungry student, and comparing the miserable past with the brilliant present, I could not help marvelling at the strange dispensations of fate. Modesty forbids me to speak of the manner in which Lord Hamilton, Lord Napier of Magdala, Lord Cranbrook, and others expressed themselves both before and after my lecture about my person and my work, but I repeat it, my modesty is not the feigned, hateful modesty of the craft. Suffice it to say that I had the satisfaction of warning the proud English aristocracy against the sinful optimism of the Liberals then in power. If this episode stands out as the crowning point of my political labours it also shows the magnanimity and noble-mindedness of the Englishman where it concerns the impartial acknowledgment of merit and the interests of his fatherland!

In the zeal with which I had taken up the political questions of England all these points did not present themselves to me till afterwards. There was one incident with regard to this matter which deserves mention. When, after the conclusion of the last Afghan War, 1880, the Liberal party came into power, they did all they could to upset the politics of their opponents, and decided to give back to the Afghans the important frontier station, Kandahar. I then addressed an open letter to Lord Lytton, at that time Viceroy of India, in which I warned him against this step, and pointed out the danger which would ensue. This letter was reproduced by the whole Press, and a few days after I read in the German papers the following despatch:

"An important meeting being held to-day in favour of the continuance of the occupation of Kandahar, a letter of Vamb?ry's to Lytton has come very opportunely. It is therein stated that to give up Kandahar would do irreparable damage to England's prestige in Asia, for the Asiatics could look upon it only as a sign of weakness. Vamb?ry further asserts that the occupation of Kandahar under safe conditions would decidedly not show a deficit, but, on the contrary, be profitable to India, for the Kandaharis are the best traders of all Central Asia. Finally, Vamb?ry points out that the Russians, even without the occupation of Merv, would within a few years stand before the gates of Kandahar."

Lord Lytton himself wrote to me as follows about this matter.--

"DEAR PROFESSOR VAMB?RY,--"I am very much obliged to you for your interesting and valuable letter about Kandahar, and you have increased my obligation by your permission to publish it, of which I have availed myself. I little thought, when I had the honour of making your acquaintance many years ago at Lord Houghton's , that I should live to need and receive your valued aid in endeavouring to save England's Empire in the East from the only form of death against which not even the gods themselves can guard their favourites--death by suicide. I fear, however, that its present guardians, who have Moses and the prophets, are not likely to be converted--even by one of the dead. At least, the only form of conversion to which they seem disposed, is one which threatens to reverse the boast of Themistocles by converting a great Power into a little one.

"Believe me, dear Professor Vamb?ry, "Very sincerely yours, "LYTTON."

This extraordinary and almost phenomenal energy must surely excite the admiration of any thinking man interested in the history of humanity. When even Rome in the zenith of its glory impresses us with the magnitude of its power, how could the actions and operations of Albion, so infinitely greater, mightier and more impressive, leave us indifferent? These and similar ideas from the very first attracted me towards England; I felt interested in all her doings, and when it came to the question of the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Asia, I naturally always took the side of England. Besides, could I, or dare I, have acted differently considering the outrageous interference of Russia in the Hungarian struggle for independence in 1848, and also mindful of the fact that the government of the Czar, that frightful instrument of tyranny, that pool of all imaginable slander and abuse, that disgrace to humanity, must on no account be strengthened and supported in its thirst for conquest? In proportion as the dominion of the Czar grows in Asia, so do his means increase for checking the liberty of Europe, and the easier will it be for Russia to perform acts of benevolence and friendship towards those of our sovereigns who long for absolutism. England's greatness can never damage, but rather profit us; as the worthy torch-bearer of nineteenth-century culture no liberal-minded man will follow her successful operations in Asia with envious eyes.

I must not omit to mention some of the very characteristic proofs of friendship I received on this lecturing tour from private individuals hitherto absolutely unknown to me. At several railway stations the door of my compartment suddenly opened and dainty luncheon baskets plentifully filled were pushed in with inscriptions such as: "From an admirer," or, "from a grateful Englishman." The most remarkable of all these tokens of appreciation was the hospitality shown me by Mr. Russell Shaw in London. He offered it me by letter in Budapest, and on my arrival in London I was met at the station by a footman, who handed me a letter, in which Mr. Shaw put his carriage at my disposal. The footman looked after my luggage, we drove to the West End, stopped at No. 26, Sackville Street, and I was led to the richly furnished apartments made ready for my reception. Here I found everything that could make me comfortable; the finest cigars, liqueurs, a beautiful writing-table, stamps, &c.; everything was put at my disposal, and I had scarcely finished my toilet when the cook came to ask what were my favourite dishes, and what time I wished to lunch and to dine. Not until afternoon did my host appear, after he had begged permission to introduce himself. Of course I received Mr. Shaw in the most friendly manner in his own house. He left me after having asked me to invite as many guests as I liked, and freely to dispose of his kitchen, cellar, and carriage. For three weeks I remained in this hospitable house. Mr. Shaw hardly ever showed himself, and only on the day of my departure he paid me another visit, asked if I had been comfortable and satisfied about everything, and, wishing me a prosperous journey, he left me. I have never seen him again. He was unquestionably a true type of English amiability!

Is it surprising, then, that these and other spontaneous expressions of appreciation made my political labours appear to me in quite a different light from what I had ever thought or expected? I realised, of course, that it was not only my political writings which made me of so much weight, but that it was founded on my purely scientific labours, which, although unknown to the public at large, had won me credit with the influential and governing circles of England. Political writings, after all, can only be appreciated as an excursion from the regions of more serious literature; and just as newspaper writing in itself is naturally not highly rated, so strictly and exclusively theoretical writing bears rather too often the character of sterility. True, not every science can be animated and popularised by practical application, but when the study has to be kept alive by active intercourse with far distant nations, politics, as the connecting link between theory and practice, become an absolute necessity, and the lighter literary occupation is as unavoidable as it is energising and beneficial in its effect upon the mind.

I had the good fortune never to have sought or known what is vulgarly called entertainment, recreation, or diversion. As in the years of my trying apprenticeship I had to spend eight or ten hours a day in teaching, and devoted six hours to my private studies, so, thanks to my perfectly healthy constitution, I have been able till close upon the sixties to work at first for ten and later on for six hours daily, apart from the time spent in reading the newspapers and scientific periodicals. During the whole of my life I have only very rarely visited the theatre, and concerts were not in my line either, as I had no knowledge of the higher art of music. Social evenings, where I might have refreshed myself in conversation with my fellow-labourers, and have profited by an interchange of ideas, would have been very welcome to me, but in my native land, where society had only political aspirations and ideals at heart, there was no one who cared for the practical science of the East, no one interested in the actual condition of Asia, and with the few scholars, mostly philologists, who in the evenings used to frequent the ale-houses, I could not associate, because spirituous drinks and excess of any kind have always been obnoxious to me. A home--a "sweet home"--in the English sense of the word, has never fallen to my lot, even on ever so modest a scale, for my wife, a homely, kind-hearted, and excellent woman, was ill for many years, and if it had not been for the beautiful boy with whom she presented me, I should never have known what domestic happiness was. My study and my library were the stronghold of my worldly bliss, the fortress from which I looked upon three continents, and by a lively correspondence with various lands in Europe, Asia, and America, could maintain my personal and scientific relationships. Mentally I lived continually in the most diverse lands and tongues, and through my correspondence with Turks, Persians, Ozbegs, Kirgizes, Germans, French, English, and Americans, I could remain conversant with the different idioms, and also continually be initiated in the smallest details of the political, commercial, and religious relationships of those distant lands. My post was, as it were, the link of union between the distant regions in which I had lived, and where I always loved to dwell in fancy.

This was not the case when I began my literary career. German Orientalists, unquestionably the most learned and solid in the world, have always occupied themselves preferably with the past of the Asiatic civilised world, with textual criticisms of well-known classical works and grammatical niceties in the Semitic and Aryan tongues, while the practical knowledge of the East, until quite lately, for want of national political interest, was not at all encouraged. England, on the other hand, on account of her Indian Empire, and her many commercial ties all over the Asiatic continent, has for long enough evinced a lively interest in the manners and customs of the Orientals, and since English writers have dealt largely with these, the general public has been interested mostly in this branch of Oriental literature. Of course the former traveller, once retired into his library, cannot so easily come forward with new practical suggestions. It is but seldom that he can offer a new contribution, and in spite of the excellent honorarium, the productions of his pen become gradually less, and do not give him a secured existence as is the case, for instance, with literary writers, or scholars who can write in an interesting and popular style upon some subject which is of all-engrossing interest in everyday life.

The Triumph of my Labours

THE TRIUMPH OF MY LABOURS

From reading the preceding pages the reader will easily gather how it was that, after so many years of hard fighting and struggling, my labour brought its own triumph and gave me the gratification of my dearest wishes.

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