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."