The Dervish pilgrims regarded this Rose-father with very special devotion. Without money, without any knowledge of the language of the country, they braved all dangers and privations to visit his grave. Some said that he was brother to Kadriye, others that he belonged to the Dshelali order. After spending some days at the humble shrine of the saint, since then beautifully restored, they would come to pay their respects to me also, and I was pleased to receive them. Nothing could be more entertaining than to watch the suspicious glances cast upon me by these tattered, emaciated Moslems. My fluency of speech in their several languages, added to the fame of my character as a Dervish, puzzled them greatly, and, encouraged by my cordiality, some made bold to ask me how much longer I intended to keep up my incognito among the unfaithful, and whether it would not be advisable for me to return to the land of the true believers. In reply I pointed to the life and the work of Sheikh Saadi, the celebrated author of the _Gulistan_ who, himself a Dervish, lived in various lands amid various religions in order to study mankind, and who left behind him a world-known name. Among these dervishes, although possessed of all the peculiarities and attributes of fanaticism, I detected a good deal of scepticism and cosmopolitanism, carefully hidden, of course, but to my mind fully justifying the proverb: "_Qui multum peregrinatur raro santificatur_" ("He who travels much, rarely becomes a saint"). These pilgrims, many of whom in their inmost mind shared my views, carried my name into the remotest regions of the Islamic world. The travelling dervishes may be called the living telegraph wires between the upper and lower strata of the Mohammedan world. From the Tekkes (convents) and bazaars, where they mix with people of every class and nationality, the news they bring travels far and wide, and reaches the inmost circles of family life. And so it came about that many years later I was receiving letters from several Asiatics never personally known to me. Through these relations with the middle classes of the Moslem world I afterwards came in contact with the higher ranks of Asiatic society. FOOTNOTE: [3] See "_An Indian Journalist_," being the Life and Letters of Dr. S. O. Mookerjee, Calcutta, 1895, pp. 306-315. UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 2 (of 2), by Arminius Vambéry