and how, when comparing the two worlds, I came to the conclusion that here, as there, shortsightedness, prejudice, prepossession, and want of objectiveness prevented the forming of sound and just opinions. When first I left the West to enter the Asiatic world I had but a vague theoretical knowledge of the lands and peoples of Europe, gathered from a study of the literatures of the various Western nations, but I had no practical acquaintance with any of them. My first experiences of Turkish society in Stambul--which, in spite of the introduction of many Western customs, still at bottom bears a decided Asiatic stamp--together with the charm of novelty and my decided Oriental predilections, were in many respects of a pleasing nature. The kindly reception and the friendly treatment extended to the stranger regardless of his antecedents, are bound to charm and captivate the recipient. One feels at once at home everywhere, and a cursory comparison of the two kinds of culture is decidedly in favour of the Old World. Afterwards--that is, when one has spent some time among the Asiatics, and has obtained an intimate knowledge of their views of religion, men, and the world in general--a certain feeling of monotony, indifference, and sleepiness creeps over us. Our blood becomes sluggish, we yawn and fidget while the Oriental, always imperturbable, sits unmoved, with evident satisfaction, gazing up at the sky. Gradually, the more I became familiar with the inner Asiatic world, these feelings took possession of me. In Persian society these thoroughly Asiatic features worried me, but in Central Asia, where the world is eight hundred years older, I positively shuddered at what I saw. The very things which, on my first acquaintance with Asiatic life, had pleased me, I now recognised as the causes of its decay, its tyranny, and its misery. The Old World, never at any time free from the defects and vices which now, in its ruined condition, stare us in the face, became despicably mean in my estimation, and unworthy of men, and with longing eyes I turned to the West again. I cannot describe the feeling of delight with which I crossed the Eastern borders of our modern world; with each day's journey I breathed more freely. I rejoiced to see the last of the ruins, the misery, the sterility of the older world, and the pictures which to my heated imagination, partly because of their novelty, had had so much fascination for me in my younger days, now made me shudder when I thought of them.