The outer or material part of the _incognito_ was thus easily assumed, but the moral part presented more serious difficulties than I expected. Although I had had the opportunity, for some years past, of studying the contrast between European and Asiatic modes of life, and the critical position in which I found myself made it incumbent upon me ever to be strictly on my guard, nevertheless, I could not avoid committing many glaring mistakes. The difference between Eastern and Western society does not consist merely in language, physiognomy, and dress. We Europeans eat, drink, sleep, sit, and stand, nay, I feel inclined to say, laugh, weep, sigh, and gesticulate otherwise than Eastern people. These things are visible trifles, but in reality difficult ones, and yet they are as nothing when compared with the effort required to disguise one's feelings. When travelling, people are naturally of a more eager and excitable temperament than in everyday life, and therefore it costs the European an unspeakable effort to conceal his curiosity, admiration, or any kind of emotion, when brought into intercourse with the indolent orientals, who are for ever indifferent to all and everything around them. Besides, the object of my travelling was merely to travel, whilst that of my friends was to reach their distant homes. My individual person excited their interest only during the first moments of our acquaintance, while to me they were each a continual study; and it certainly can never have entered the head of any one of them that, whenever we laughed and joked most intimately together my mind would just then be doubly occupied. No one but he who is practically acquainted with the East, can have any idea of the difficulty of entering into all these marked differences. I had been pretty well schooled by a four years' residence at Constantinople; yet there I played merely the part of an amateur, whilst here I dared not deviate even a hair's breadth from reality. Nay, I will make no secret of the fact, that during the first few days the struggle, though short, was severe, and that repentance and remorse seized me at every fresh difficulty. However, my mind, being stimulated by vanity, was in that state of excitement when everything had to give way before the irresistible impulse of its ardour; and, supported in its triumph by a sound constitution, it was enabled to bear easily whatever might happen.