delight and interest. By every step which brought me nearer to the
frontier of Hungary, I met new friends and fresh admirers, for the news
of my successful travels in Central Asia had already spread throughout
Europe, and had in particular roused the attention of my countrymen,
with whom the dim lore of their Asiatic descent is not all unknown, and
who were now most anxious to get fresh information from the seat of
their ancestors, the cradle of the Magyar race. On my arrival in Pesth,
I was met first by Baron Joseph Eötvös, the Vice-President of our
Academy, my noble-hearted patron, who had assisted me in my juvenile
struggles, who had encouraged me to my travels, and who was now full of
joy in seeing me safe, although he was much worn-out by fatigues at
home. Baron Eötvös, the greatest literary genius of Hungary of the
present century, the author of the brilliant philosophical work "The
Reigning Ideas of the Nineteenth Century," did not at all conceal from
me the difficulties I should yet have to contend with. "Go at once to
London," he said, "and being provided, as you are, with letters of
introduction to the leading personalities, you are almost sure of a warm
reception, and of a real acknowledgment of your merits." Well, this plan
had matured in me since my leaving Teheran, where the late Sir Charles
Alison, and particularly Mr. Thompson, the present British Minister at
the Persian Court, had likewise given to me similar suggestions. I
therefore took the firm decision to go to England as soon as possible--I
mean to say as soon as I got the necessary means for the journey. This
equipment proved, however, not an easy task. Marks of recognition in the
papers, invitations to dinner-parties, &c., were not wanting on my
arrival at Pesth; but the funds for my journey to London were not so
easily got, and I was obliged to leave my Tartar behind in the care of a
friend and to proceed alone to England. It was certainly a great pity
not to be able to bring Mollah Ishak--this was the name of the
Tartar--to the banks of the Thames, for he would have made a capital
figure at Burlington House, before the Royal Geographical Society; but I
had to accommodate myself to imperious necessity, and taking with me
only my notes and a few Oriental manuscripts, I left Hungary towards the
end of May, and proceeded without stopping to England.
XXXI.
IN ENGLAND.
Only a couple of weeks having elapsed since I emerged from the depths of
Asia to the very centre of Europe, and since I exchanged the life of a
travelling dervish for that of a strictly Europeanized man of letters,
it may easily be conceived what extraordinary effects this sudden
transformation wrought upon me. I shall try to describe some of the
prominent features of this change, although I hardly believe that my
feeble pen is equal to the task. It was before all the idea of having
renounced the life of a wanderer, and of being henceforward unable to
change by abode daily, which gave me great trouble. The firm and stable
house and its furniture seemed to me like fetters, and filled me with
disgust after a few days' stay. Then came the aversion I felt to the
European dress, particularly to the necktie and stiff linen, which were
quite an ordeal to me, accustomed as for years I had been to the wide
and comfortable Asiatic garb, which gives not the slightest restraint
whilst its wearer is either sitting or walking. Not even the food, and
still less the manner of eating, had any attraction for me, who for
years and years had used his fingers as knife and fork, and who had now
to observe the European table etiquette with all its rigour. And what
should I say about all the multifarious differences between the manners
and habits of Europe and those of Asia? I really felt like a child, or
like some semi-barbarous inhabitant of Asia or Africa on his first
introduction into European society, and I really do not know whether I
should laugh at my awkwardness in that time, or whether I should admire
the forbearance shown to me by English society during the first weeks of
my appearance in London.
With these and similar feelings I spent my first days in the English
metropolis. My first care was to hand over the letters of introduction I
got in Teheran to those distinguished _savants_ and politicians who were
connected with Central Asia, and who had a pre-eminent interest in the
results of my travels. My first visit was to _Sir Henry Rawlinson_, who
was then, and is even now, the greatest living authority on all
scientific and political questions associated with Central Asia. He
received me in a most affable manner in his house in Berkeley Street,
Berkeley Square, where he was living at that time; and although I was
able to lead an English conversation, still for the sake of better
fluency I preferred Persian, of which Sir Henry, late ambassador of
Great Britain in Persia, was a perfect master, and which he really
handled with exquisite refinement. The topic of our conversation was of
course Bokhara, Khiva, Herat, and Turkestan, places of which the learned
decipherer of the cuneiform inscriptions of Behistan had an astounding
store of information. My details about the capture of Herat by Dost
Mohammed Khan, about the campaign of the Emir of Bokhara against
Kokhand in favour of Khudayar Khan, and particularly the rumours I heard
about the approach of the Russian detachment under Tchernayeff, were the
topics in which he seemed most interested. It was a kind of
cross-examination which I had to go through; and after a conversation of
nearly an hour's length, I took leave with the full conviction that my
first _début_ was not an unsuccessful one. The next call I made was upon
_Sir Roderick Murchison_, the President of the Royal Geographical
Society at that time, whose house, at 16, Belgrave Square, gave me for
the first time an idea of the comfort and luxury surrounding an English
literary man of distinction. I need scarcely say that Sir Roderick,
whose amiability is world-wide known, received me, not like a foreigner
introduced to him by his friend, but like a fellow-traveller--as became
the good-hearted patron of all those whose efforts were directed towards
the furthering of geographical knowledge. He did not care much about the
languages, the manners, and the habits of Asiatic people, but rather
about orographical and hydrographical facts; and he actually showed some
disappointment on hearing from me that I neither brought cartographical
sketches nor specimens of the geological formations. Having been asked
whether I had brought some drawings with me, I answered not quite to his
satisfaction, that I carried only a small pencil not larger than the
half of my thumb with me, concealed under the wadding of my dervish
dress, and that if people had noticed my making any use of this
contrivance, I certainly should not have had the pleasure of my present
interview with him. The good old man was unable to realize the great
dangers I ran in my disguise, for he always thought of his own journey
to the Ural, executed under the princely protection of the Emperor of
Russia--he being provided with ample means from home. The topic which
he most decidedly shunned was politics; for whenever I touched the
question of the Russian approach to the frontiers of India, and of the
very near term of Russian encroachment upon Central Asia, he immediately
said smilingly, "Oh, you must not believe that; the Russians are a nice
people; their Emperor is an enlightened, noble prince, and the Russian
plans in Asia cannot mean mischief against the interests of Great
Britain." As to the enlightened character of the late Russian Emperor,
nobody had any doubt. His esteem and consideration for science had an
eloquent symbol in the pair of magnificent malachite vases which were in
the house of Sir Roderick Murchison, who was much liked at the Court on
the Neva; but, as events have since proved, these were only testimonials
of personal feelings, which had no influence whatever upon the course of
politics in Asia. Excepting that this single difference of opinion
occurred, my first meeting with the President of the Royal Geographical
Society succeeded beyond all my expectations. He invited me to lecture
before the society at its concluding meeting, and asked me to dinner on
an early evening. I confess the kind manner in which this noble-hearted
gentleman treated me during my sojourn in London, and the rich
hospitality which I so frequently enjoyed in his house, will be ever
green in my memory.
The third man upon whom I called was the late Viscount Strangford, the
wonderful Oriental linguist and the brilliant writer. I say on purpose
wonderful, for I rarely met a man in my life whose almost supernatural
ability to speak and to write many European and Asiatic languages caused
me so much astonishment. Our conversation began in the Turkish of
Constantinople, in that refined idiom, whereof six or eight words out of
every ten are certainly either Arab or Persian, only the others
belonging to the genuine Turkish stock. To use this language in an
elegant way, it is requisite to adapt one's mode of thinking entirely to
that of thoroughbred Orientals, to have besides a proficiency in the
standard works of Mohammedan literature, and, above all, to have moved a
good deal in the so-called Effendi society. It is certainly no
exaggeration to say that Lord Strangford, fully adequate to these
exigencies, would have been taken by everybody for a downright Effendi,
had it not been for the peculiarly Celtic shape of his head, and for the
way in which he used to turn it to the right and to the left of his
shoulders. Finding that I had come fresh from the East, where for many
years I used Turkish as a colloquial and literary language, he was
delighted to renew with me all his reminiscences of a long stay on the
Bosphorus, and particularly to have somebody who was able to give him
oral information about the language and literature of Central Asia, in
which he was so much interested. Having flattered myself with the hope
that I should become the only authority in Europe on Eastern-Turkish,
the reader may fancy my astonishment when I heard from the mouth of an
English nobleman the recital of such poems as those of Nevai, which had
hitherto escaped my attention, and when he gave me the explanation of
words which I had vainly looked for in the Eastern dictionaries. Lord
Strangford was quite a riddle to me; for apart from his knowledge in
Eastern tongues, he spoke almost all European languages; he was a
Sclavonic scholar, he knew Hungarian, nay, even the language of the
Gipsies; and what struck me most was his vast information concerning the
various literatures and histories of these peoples. No wonder,
therefore, that I felt from the beginning a particular attraction to the
learned Viscount, and that he also, as I afterwards had ample
opportunity to learn, took a fancy to me and became my most zealous and
disinterested supporter in England. Envy and jealousy had no place in
the noble heart of Lord Strangford; he gave himself all possible pains
to introduce me everywhere, and to level the ground before me, and the
standing I gained in London society was entirely due to his exertions.
Amongst the introductions which I had brought with me from Teheran was
one to Mr., now Sir Henry, Layard, another to the late Sir Justin Sheil,
formerly Ambassador at Teheran, and recommendations to several men of
note connected in some way or other with the interior of Asia. Sir Henry
Layard who was at that time Under Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, received me in his open, straightforward, British manner. Not
many years having elapsed since the politician of high standing was
himself a traveller in Asia, he behaved towards me like a colleague and
like a former brother in arms. The same I must say in reference to the
late Sir Justin Sheil and Lady Sheil; the latter was kind enough to give
me the necessary hints as to the complicated laws and social tone of the
West End; in one word, all my friends helped together to shape out of
the rough material of the _ci-devant_ dervish the lion of the London
season. No easy task of course, if you consider that the said dervish,
although a European by birth, had never before been west of his own
country, and that his education and his continual studies were not made
to facilitate such a change in his life. But what does not man attempt
for the sake of success? Necessity and assistance had soon transformed
the lame Mohammedan beggar into an admired lion of the British
metropolis; and the man, who but a few months before had to wander about
in tatters and to beg his daily bread by chanting hymns and by bestowing
blessings upon true believers in Asia, became the wonder of the richest
and the most civilized society of the Western world!
It is the details of this extraordinary change that I have to relate to
my gentle reader.
The account of my adventures having become known in strictly scientific
circles, my friends thought it necessary to bring me before the larger
public, and the first forum in which I had to appear was the Royal
Geographical Society. There was, however, a rather curious hindrance to
the final settlement, an incident which I cannot leave untold. A few
days after my arrival in London I noticed that some of my friends began
to have a shy look, and that they treated me with a good amount of
caution, if not suspicion. Having just finished the career of a
dangerous disguise, and being accustomed to the suspicious looks of men,
I did not at first feel disconcerted; but the fact nevertheless excited
my curiosity, and speaking just then with General Kmethy, my countryman
of Kars renown and a popular member of London Society at that time,
about the strange attitude of people, I was told by the good man, in a
half-laughing and joking manner, that I was probably unaware of the
serious danger in which I found myself in London. I heard then that
some, even the best of my friends, on seeing my sun-burned, swarthy
face, and on hearing my unmistakably genuine Persian and Turkish
conversation, got rather suspicious about me, and took me for some
Persian vagabond who had learned English in India, and who, after having
succeeded in getting letters of introduction, was now playing a comedy
for English scholars and diplomatists. It was only the formal assurance
of General Kmethy that I was a countryman of his and a member of the
Hungarian Academy, which dissipated the doubts that had arisen. "Is it
not strange?" said I to myself. "In Asia they suspected me to be a
European, and in Europe to be an Asiatic; languages have really an
immense power of fascination!" This difficulty having been removed and
an unimpaired confidence having set in, I began to work out a short
account of my travels in English, to be read before the Royal
Geographical Society--a paper which Mr. Laurence Oliphant, who was
acting at that time as foreign secretary of the Society, was kind enough
to revise. I must say that it was with a good deal of impatience and
anxiety that I looked forward to the evening of my first _début_ before
a select English audience such as the members of the London Geographical
Society have been always, and are even now. My anxiety was the much more
justified, as it happened that on the same evening a political question
of a far-reaching interest, namely, whether England should side with
Denmark in her struggle with Germany, was to be discussed in the House
of Parliament, and my friends as well as myself apprehended the presence
of a very small audience at our proceedings. The usual dinner at
Willis's Rooms which preceded our meeting went off tolerably well. My
health was proposed by Sir Roderick Murchison in very kind terms and
drunk with much cheering; and, when I returned thanks, I concluded my
little speech by conferring a Mohammedan blessing upon the dinner
party--reciting the first Surah of the Koran with all the eccentricity
of the Arabic guttural accent, and with all the queerness of genuine
Moslem gesticulation. I need scarcely say that my mode of recital
elicited a good deal of merriment. We left the table and went straight
to Burlington House.
Here I found a meeting much larger than I expected, an attendance which
I ascribe to the novelty of the whole case. Before all, it was the sight
of a European who had wandered about in the interior of Asia in the
disguise of a holy beggar without a penny in his pocket, and who had
succeeded in penetrating countries hitherto little or not at all known.
Secondly, it was the curiosity to hear a foreigner, only a few days in
England, address an English meeting in the language of the country; and
last, if not least, it was the interest the British public felt at that
time in Bokhara, the place of the martyrdom of two heroic sons of Great
Britain--I mean of Conolly and Stoddart--and the town from which the
Rev. Dr. Joseph Wolff had only returned a few years previously, after
his most extraordinary adventures. Suffice it to say that the meeting
was most respectable from a quantitative point of view. Sir Roderick
opened it with a good humour quite in accord with his jolly and radiant
after-dinner face; and whilst Mr. Clements Markham read my paper in his
magnificent stentorian voice, I had plenty of leisure to observe the
assembly and to prepare for the speech which had to follow. On being
asked by the President to come before the public and to give an oral
account of what had just been read, I confess that I experienced
something of the position in which I stood before the Emir of
Bokhara--with the essential difference of course, that in case of a
failure the bloody tyrant would have handed me over to the executioner,
whilst the indulgent English public would have expressed its displeasure
by benignant laughter. I collected, therefore, all my linguistic powers,
and, after the utterance of the first ten or fifteen words, the flood of
oration went off uninterruptedly. For more than half an hour I spoke
with animation of the salient incidents of my adventurous journey to
Samarkand. Oh, glorious language of Shakespeare and Milton! I am sure
nobody has ever tormented thee so much as I did in those thirty-five
minutes; nobody has murdered the Queen's English in such a cruel way as
the ex-dervish in Burlington House! And yet the English audience showed
itself exceedingly kind towards the reckless foreigner. I was much
applauded and cheered; and when, following the summons of Sir Roderick,
I gave to the meeting my blessing with the genuine Arabic text, the
whole society burst into a fit of laughter, which made the walls nearly
tremble. Then followed the long business of handshaking and
congratulations; and though all the futilities of this world may
disappear from me, Lord Strangford's "Well done, dervish!" will never
cease to resound in my ear like the sweetest music I ever heard in my
life.
From this moment dates the beginning of my career in England. What
followed was only the effect of this first successful step. In the
report of the next morning's papers I noticed only a few reproaches of
my foreign accent; as to the account of my travels there was a unanimous
approval and admiration. No wonder, therefore, that a few weeks sufficed
to make my name familiar over the whole of the United Kingdom. London
society vied in the manifestation of all kinds of acknowledgment.
Invitations to dinner-parties and to visit in the country literally
poured in upon me, even from persons whom I never saw or met in my life;
and it happened frequently that I had to write thirty letters of refusal
and acceptance in one day. I got calls from all sorts of persons with
well-sounding names, who, provided with a card of one of my friends,
came to my humble lodging in Great Portland Street or to the Athenæum
Club, where I enjoyed the hospitality of a guest, to shake hands and to
have a conversation with me. Infinite was the number of those letters in
which I was asked for my likeness or for my autograph.
Surprised by these various kinds of distinction, at the outset I
endured the burdens of my reputation with patience, nay with a good
amount of satisfaction, but in the end they began to be a little too
wearisome--particularly as I had to write the account of my journey and
to work up the meagre notes written on small paper scraps with lead
pencil, which loose sheets, by having been worn concealed under the
wadding of my beggar-dress, were somewhat obliterated and had become
hardly legible. Assisted by a happy gift of memory, I succeeded,
however, in writing down my adventures; and in three months I had
revised the proof-sheets of my first book, entitled "Travels in Central
Asia." The task, I frankly own, cost me more trouble and exertion than
many of the most trying parts of my travels. Only those who for months
and years have moved about freely in the open air, and who have learned
to appreciate the charms of a continually wandering life with all its
exciting adventures--only those will know with what unspeakable pangs
and sufferings a former traveller can shut himself up in a room, from
which he sees only a small bit of the sky, and sit down to write
consecutively for hours every day for weeks and months! I need scarcely
say that I breathed more freely after having finished my book, and
handed it over to Mr. John Murray, who became my publisher on the
recommendation of Lord Strangford, and who behaved towards me in a
satisfactory way. The honorarium of five hundred pounds which I got, and
of which I spent nearly the half in London, did not make me rich at all.
The truth is, my material situation was not very much changed: a dervish
in Asia, I remained a _fakir_ in Europe; but I gained by my book
something more valuable than money, namely, the acknowledgments of the
English public, and fame and reputation over the whole European and
American Continents.