Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and SamarcandVámbéry, Ármin
History
Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand
Vámbéry, Ármin
Asia, Central -- Description and travel; Vámbéry, Ármin, 1832-1913 -- Travel -- Asia, Central
The reader will easily understand in what tone of mind I again entered
that edifice which, ten months before, I had left with my head full of
such vague and adventurous plans. The intelligence that my benefactor
Haydar Efendi had left Teheran affected me very much, although his
successor, Ismael Efendi, accredited as _Chargé d'affaires_ at the
Persian Court, {294} gave me an equally kind and hearty reception.
This young Turkish diplomatist, well known for his particularly fine
breeding and excellent character, rendered me by his amiability
eternally his debtor. He immediately vacated for me an entire suite of
rooms at the Embassy, so that the comforts I enjoyed during two months
in Teheran made me forget all the hardships and sufferings of my most
fatiguing journey; indeed, I soon found myself so strong again that I
felt capable of commencing a similar tour. No less kindness and favour
awaited me at the English Embassy. The distinguished representative of
the Queen, Mr. Alison, [Footnote 91] as well as the two secretaries,
Messrs. Thompson and Watson, really rejoiced at the happy and
successful termination of my journey; and I have to thank their kind
recommendations alone, that on my arrival in England, to publish the
narrative of my travels, I met with so much unhoped-for, and I may
add, too, so much unmerited support. Nor can I omit here also to offer
my acknowledgments for the courtesy shown to me by the Imperial
_chargé d'affaires_, the Count Rochechouart.
[Footnote 91: This gentleman had, by an act of great generosity, the
same winter that I returned to Teheran, caused much sensation in the
Persian capital. Such a lesson is the best that can be given to
Orientals, and far more meritorious and pregnant of consequence than
all the hypocritical morality of which others make a vaunt.]
[Interview with the Shah; The Kavvan ud Dowlet and the Defeat at
Merv]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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