If here in Europe we have been under the impression that the experiences gained in these visits to Western lands would be used in the interests of Western culture and for the civilising of his own land, we have been far too sanguine in our expectations, for these pleasure trips of Oriental sovereigns have never benefited their respective countries. On the contrary, they drain the land's resources. With his three journeys to Europe Nasreddin Shah has utterly ruined the finances of Persia, already in a very unsound condition. They did not lead to any profitable innovations, and it is a well-known fact that the travels of his son Mozaffareddin Shah were paid for by a Russian loan, originally intended for the economic and administrative amelioration of the land. No, these Asiatic demigods do not lie on a bed of roses. Their life is bare and lonely, their enjoyment full of anxiety and fear, the hundreds of thousands who writhe before them in the dust and do them homage with bombastic titulations are their greatest enemies, and the worst victims of despotism are the despots themselves. Can one be surprised that I brought no rosy reminiscences from the Oriental courts? The Struggle's End, and yet no End CHAPTER XIII 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,