Arminius Vambery, his life and adventures Part 14

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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.surance 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 _debut_ 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. .h.i.therto 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 quant.i.tative 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 a.s.sembly 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 n.o.body has ever tormented thee so much as I did in those thirty-five minutes; n.o.body 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 Athenaeum 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 sc.r.a.ps 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. a.s.sisted 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, ent.i.tled "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.

Upon the invitation of the friends I had in the meantime made I also went to satisfy the curiosity of leading political men, who were anxious to hear details about the threatening collision between England and Russia in the distant East, of which I threw out only a few hints in the concluding chapter of my book, but which nevertheless had aroused the greatest attention. It was in this way that I came into connection with politics and with the political men of that time, such as Members of Parliament, political writers, retired civilians and military officers of India, and, consequently, got the opportunity of an interview with Lord Palmerston, to whom I had already been cursorily introduced at a dinner-party in the house of Sir Roderick Murchison. His Lordship received me at his home in Piccadilly, and my visit was therefore of a strictly private character. He did not address me exactly as he did the late Dr. Livingstone, to whom he said, "You had a nice walk across Africa!" But his first remark was, "You must have gone through nice adventures on your way to Bokhara and Samarkand!" And he really listened with greatest attention to all that I said about Dost Mohammed Khan, about the haughtiness of the Emir of Bokhara and about the dangers I ran in the last-named town. On touching the question of the Russian advance towards Tashkend, I took the map out of my book which was on the table, and pointed to Chimkent as the place where the Russians stood at that time; but his Lordship showed, or at least feigned, great incuriosity, trying always to turn the thread of conversation to other insignificant topics. Whenever I thought I had caught his attention he immediately came forward with the question, "And did you not betray your European character?" or "How could you stand that long trial and those privations?" or with similar remarks. It was only after renewed attacks upon his taciturnity that he dropped, in a careless manner, a few allusions either to the barbarous state of affairs in Central Asia or to my over-sanguine opinions of the Russian strength in that quarter of the world. He succeeded in showing outward indifference, but he was far from convincing me of its existence. In my interview with Lord Clarendon I fared much better. It took place late in the Autumn of 1864, when the famous note of Prince Gortschakoff, after the Russian capture of Tashkend, had been made known, and when the public opinion of England seemed to have been roused suddenly from its stupor. His Lordship was frank enough to admit the truth of what I said in the last chapter of my book; but he added at the same time what has since become the standing principle of optimists in England: "Russia's policy in Central Asia is framed in the same way as ours in India; she is compelled to move gradually from the North to the South, just as we were obliged to do in our march from the South to the North. She is doing services to civilization, and we do not care much even if she takes Bokhara."

x.x.xII.

IN PARIS.

After being wearied by the endless series of dinner-parties in London--or, as a friend of mine jestingly remarked, after having been properly hunted down as the lion of the season--I felt the great necessity of extricating myself from the splendid, but to me the already tiresome, English hospitality; and I went over to Paris to have a look about in French society. This became the much easier for me--Count Rechberg, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, having provided me with a letter of introduction to Prince Metternich, who was then accredited to the court of the Emperor Napoleon, and Count Rochechouart, the French Envoy at Teheran, having given me a similar letter to the Count Drouyn de L'huys, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. I had, moreover, the good fortune to be introduced by my English friends to many other literary men of distinction, such as M. Guizot, M. de Thiers, M. Jules Mohl, and others, all of whom received me very politely--although their first reception impressed me with the feeling that the ground upon which I stood in Paris was quite different to that of London. The French have never indulged a particular foible of geographical discovery; a traveller holds with them an interesting individuality, but is not the great man, as in England, where the successful explorer is somewhat like what the German means when he speaks of "_grosser Gelehrte_," or the Frenchman when he speaks of "_un grand savant_." Whereas the English have a particular consideration for the man who has made himself a name on the field of practical observations, or who has enriched any branch of science with new data collected on the spot, the French, and more particularly the Germans, have always a predilection for the theoretical investigator, for the man who, absorbed in his library, is able to write big books with numerous notes; in one word, in England the spirit of Raleigh, Drake, and Cook is still alive, whilst in France and Germany travellers and explorers have only very recently come into fashion.

Paris society was more impressed with the novelty of my _manner_ of travelling--namely, my having a.s.sumed the disguise of a dervish--than with the travels themselves; it viewed me in the light of a rather curious adventurer. I was spoken of as a man of restless spirit and of romantic proclivities, and I was gazed upon as some modern Robinson Crusoe. What heightened my reputation most was my happy gift of speaking many European and Asiatic languages. Happening one evening to meet in the _salon_ of M. Guizot the representatives of ten different nationalities, and having conversed with them fluently in their mother languages, I was regarded by many as a real miracle. As to the intrinsic value of my reception in France, I noticed in the very beginning that I should remain a stranger there, for Bokhara and Samarkand, Uzbegs and Turkomans are totally unknown, except among a few learned men, in the best French society. Nevertheless, my book, which came out in a French translation under the t.i.tle "Voyage d'un Faux Derviche," had a pretty good sale.

After having been introduced to some of the best circles, I was told by Prince Metternich that the Emperor would like to give me an audience; having read the English edition of my book, he would like to ask me a few questions. One afternoon the Prince took me to the Tuileries, and we had just entered the gate of the Pavillon d'Horloge, when I saw Napoleon III. on the staircase as he took leave of the Queen of Spain, who had called upon him. On noticing Prince Metternich, with whom the imperial family was on very good terms, the Emperor seized his arm, and beckoning in a friendly manner to me, walked to the interior apartments. The Prince remained behind with the Empress, whom I found surrounded by a stately group of court ladies, in the midst of whom she was decidedly the tallest and the finest. I was led by the Emperor to a room which seemed to be his study; he sat upon an arm-chair, and bade me also to sit before a writing-desk filled with a large quant.i.ty of books, papers, maps, &c., not in any particular order. After having fixed me for a while with his whitish-grey eyes, he addressed me in a very slow voice, saying that he congratulated me on the courage I had shown in my perilous undertaking, and that having read my book he was the more astonished on finding that my slight and seemingly weak frame was not at all in proportion to the great hardships I had endured. I remarked upon this, that I was never ill in my life, and that I did not walk in Central Asia upon my legs, but upon my tongue, for it was only my linguistic study which had rescued me out of the clutches of the Central Asian tyrants. "I supposed that that must have been the case,"

said the Emperor; "but I believe there is also a good deal of dramatic skill in you, for otherwise you would not have played successfully the part of a mendicant dervish." The conversation turned to the ethnical conditions of Central Asia; and the Emperor, who had finished at that time his "Life of Caesar," said that he was anxious to know whether the Parthians were really the ancestors of the present Turkomans; he was inclined to believe so, but he had been unable hitherto to establish their ident.i.ty. From the Turkomans we pa.s.sed over to the ruins of Balkh.

I noticed that the imperial author was tolerably versed in the writings of Arrian as well as in Roman antiquities in general; but his knowledge of the modern geography of Asia was sadly deficient. He had only very dim notions about the princ.i.p.al names of towns and rivers, and he had palpably to take particular care not to betray his ignorance. On speaking of the Yaxartes I alluded to the serious political complication which might arise in the near future from the advance of Russia towards India, and although he tried in the beginning to conceal his interest in that question, he nevertheless listened with great attention, and afterwards remarked that he could hardly believe in a collision between England and Russia in that quarter of the world; at least not very soon,--for whereas the English had already got a firm standing in India, as proved by the Sepoy revolution of 1857, Russia was only on the eve of her conquests. Diverting our conversation from the Anglo-Russian rivalry, he continued to ask me sundry questions about Persia and Herat, and seemed to be much pleased when I a.s.sured him that the Persian people knew a good deal about _Napliun_, as they called Napoleon I., and that they look upon his great-uncle as a national hero, descended from Rustem, and that they laugh at the French, who vindicate him as their countrymen. I remained nearly half an hour with the Emperor. I am sorry to say he did not make upon me at all the impression of such a great man as he was then throughout the world supposed to be.

A few days later I called upon M. Drouyn de L'huys, who showed a more eager interest in the Central Asian question than his master. He started by asking me whether it was true that I had given a memorandum to Lord Palmerston on the Central Asian question, and whether I really believed in the imminent danger of collision between the two great European Powers in the distant East. I answered that I had not given, nor was I asked to write any communication to the British Government, and as far as I noticed from my conversation with the Prime Minister of the Queen of England, they had got on the other side of the Channel quite different views from those I held on the question.

Besides these two official receptions, I have to mention my interview with the Prince Napoleon, who received me in the Palais Royal, and who, whilst seated under the life-size portrait of his great-uncle, seemed to be watching to discover whether I noticed the likeness said to exist between him and his uncle. Well, I was really struck with the striking similitude existing between the prominent features of both. The two heads resembled each other, however, only in a very external form; and there was a difference in which the Emperor's cousin would never believe, and from this unbelief derived so many disagreeable adventures in his life. I need scarcely say that these official visits did not answer much to my taste. But still less did I like the intruding call of reporters, who interviewed me and published the next day totally false reports of my conversation with them, which I had afterwards to I contradict, particularly as some of them announced that I was entrusted by Lord Palmerston with a secret mission to the Tartars, and other similar nonsense. One writer--if I remember well, a Polish prince--went even so far as to write a novel about my travels, in which I was represented as a champion of romantic propensities, with whom a Tartar princess fell in love, and who, having obtained in this way some throne in Asia, was now on a political errand in Europe to secure the friendship of England and France in the contest against Russia. I laughed heartily at these exalted reports; but in the end I got tired of a dubious sort of reputation, and I left France to proceed through Germany to my native country, where I should have to decide whether I should settle down quietly or whether I should plunge again in new adventures and revisit the interior of Asia.

x.x.xIII.

IN HUNGARY.

I have often been asked how it came about that, after my long and varied career in Asia as well as in Europe, I made up my mind to settle quietly down in Hungary and to look upon the Chair of Oriental Languages at the University of Pesth as a fit reward for my extraordinary struggles in life. It was during my first audience with the Emperor-King of Austro-Hungary that the kind-hearted monarch asked me whether I intended to remain in the country, and what he could do in my favour. On having alluded to my desire for a professorship at the Hungarian University, his Majesty suggested that such out-of-the-way studies were not much cultivated even at Vienna, how then could I hope to find an audience at Budapest? I remarked upon that, if n.o.body else would learn, I should learn myself. The Emperor fully understood, and he kindly remarked, "Your sufferings deserve a remuneration, and I shall look into your case." Two or three months had scarcely elapsed, when I got my appointment with the modest salary of one hundred pounds a year, which sum the Hungarian Minister for Public Instruction very soon doubled; and this, together with the income derived from the small sum I got for the English, French and German editions of my book, fully sufficed to cover my expenses--nay to enable me to found a family. When it became public that I intended to marry, people generally said, "What an unhappy idea; and what a pity for that poor girl!" People took it for sure that I must get tired of matrimony in a very short time, and that I should leave home, family, wife and everything, to run again after adventures in the interior of Asia. Well, people were grossly mistaken, for neither was I an adventurer by natural impulse, nor were all the praises bestowed upon me strong enough to drive me again into the wilderness, or to instigate me to renew my wanderings. It is true I was but thirty-two years old when I returned to Europe, and although temporarily worn out by fatigue, I regained my former strength in one year; but already I had spent twenty years in wanderings of all sorts, and the idea of possessing my own room, my own furniture, and my own library, made me exceedingly happy. I revelled in the thought of being able to write down and to publish those of my explorations which interest but a small community, but are of so much more value.

I may conclude with the saying, "Dixi et salvavi animam." I hope I shall never have to repent the extraordinary fatigues and troubles with which I had to proceed on the th.o.r.n.y path; and if the last rays of the parting sun of my life approach, I still shall say, "It was a hot, but a fine day, sir!"

THE END.