Born in 1832, in a small Hungarian town, he began at an early age to study with passion the different dialects of Europe and Asia, endeavoring to discover the relations between the idioms of the East and West. Observing the strong affinity which exists between the Hungarian and the Turco-Tartaric dialects, and resolved to return to the cradle of the Altaic tongues, he went to Constantinople and frequented the schools and libraries with an assiduity which in a few years made of him a true effendi. But the nearer he approached the desired end, the greater was his thirst for knowledge. Turkey began to appear to his eyes only the vestibule of the Orient; he resolved to go on, and to seek even in the depths of Asia the original roots of the idioms and races of Europe. [Footnote 36] In vain his friends represented to him the fatigues and perils of such a tour. Infirm as he was (a wound had made him lame), could he endure a long march over those plains of sand where he would be obliged to fight against the terror of tempest, the tortures of thirst--where, in fine, he might encounter death under a thousand forms? and then, how was he to force his way among those savage and fanatic tribes, who are afraid of travellers; and who a few years before had destroyed Moorcraft, Conolly, and Stoddart? Nothing could shake the resolution of Vambéry; he felt strong enough to brave suffering, and as to the dangers which threatened him from man, his bold and inventive spirit would furnish him the means to avert them in calling to his assistance their very superstitions. Was he not as well versed in the knowledge of the Koran and the customs of Islam as the most devout disciple of the Prophet? He would disguise himself in the costume of a pilgrim dervish, and so would go through Asia, distributing everywhere benedictions, but making secretly his scientific studies and remarks. His foreign physiognomy might, it is true, raise against him some obstacles. But he counted on his happy star, and, above all, on his presence of mind, to succeed at last. These difficulties were renewed often in the course of his adventurous tour; more than once the suspicious look of some powerful tyrant was fixed upon him as if to say: "Your features betray you; you are a European!" The extraordinary coolness, the ingenious expedients to which Vambéry had recourse in these emergencies, give to the story of his travels an interest which novelists and dramatists might envy. To this powerful charm, the work of which we give a rapid sketch unites the merit of containing {199} the most valuable notes on the social and political relations, the manners and character, of the races which inhabit Central Asia. [Footnote 36: The linguistic and ethnographical studies form a separate volume, which the author proposes to publish very soon.] I.