LINGUISTIC STUDIES.I had now reached my twentieth year, and I was richly rewarded for all the pains I had taken when I was able for the first time to read and understand, without the aid of a dictionary, a short Turkish poem. It was not, indeed, the contents of the Oriental muse, quite inaccessible as yet for me, which kindled my enthusiasm, but rather the fruits, the sweet fruits of my labours, which afforded me such abundant satisfaction, and acted as an incentive spurring me to press forward into the field of Oriental science. All my musings, endeavours, thoughts and feelings tended towards the Land of the East, which was beckoning to me in its halo of splendour. My spirit had been haunting ever so long its fairy fields, and, sooner or later, my body was sure to follow it. For one who had still to struggle for his daily bread, in his European home, it required considerable boldness to think of a journey to the East, a land many hundred miles away. I will not deny that even the boldest flights of youthful enthusiasm, and the all-powerful desire of getting to know strange countries and customs, had to halt at the stumbling-block raised by poverty, and that luring fancy kept dazzling my eyes for many a day before I seriously set to work to carry out my cherished scheme. But a firm resolve with me is almost always like the avalanche which is being precipitated from the lofty summits of the Alps—beginning with but an insignificant ball of snow set in motion by a favourable breeze, but soon swelling into a tremendous mass which carries before it every impediment, crushing and driving before it with irresistible force everything standing in its way. Such was the impulse which I received through the patronage of Baron Joseph Eötvös, known in Europe as a writer of high merit. This generous countryman of mine was not a man of wealth, but his influence procured me a free passage to the Black Sea. He gave me also a modest obolus and some old clothes. My knapsack, bursting with books, was soon buckled on, and I embarked in a steamer for Galacz, from which place I was to go to Constantinople, the immediate object of my journey.
II.
THE FIRST JOURNEY.
Who can describe the feelings of a young man, barely twenty-two years old, who up to this day had been buffeted about by fortune, finding himself all of a sudden hastening towards the goal of his most cherished wishes, with (say) fifteen Austrian florins in his pocket, and about to enter upon a life full of uncertainty, in a distant region, amongst a strange people, who were rude and savage, and were beginning only then to seek a closer acquaintanceship with the nations of the West? My soul was agitated alternately by feelings of fear and hope, of curiosity and pain. Nobody accompanied me to the landing-place to see me off, nobody was there waiting for me, no warm presence of a friendly hand nor a mother's loving kiss cheered me on in the journey on which I was to start.
I had, thus, reason enough to feel somewhat depressed; nor could I entirely shake off this feeling; but I had no sooner come on deck, and begun to mix with the people, forming the national kaleidoscope one is always sure to meet on a voyage along the Lower Danube, and got an opportunity of conversing in Servian, Italian, Turkish and other languages of which I had had hitherto only a theoretical knowledge, than every vestige of my former downheartedness gradually vanished. I was now in my element. Add to this that I soon became the object of general admiration owing to the fluency of my conversation in different languages; the crowd being always sure to stand in a sort of awe of every polyglot. They formed a ring around me, trying to guess at my nationality, and received rather sceptically my statement that I had never been abroad.
I was, of course, very much amused at the gaping crowd, but I managed to derive some more solid advantages from the manifestation of the good opinion which my fellow travellers entertained for me; for, when the dinner-bell was rung, and I preferred to remain behind on the deck with a perturbed expression of countenance, some enthusiastic disciple of Mercury was sure to get hold of the so-called youthful prodigy and pay him his meal.
In the absence of such well-disposed stomachic patrons, I would lounge about in the neighbourhood of the kitchen of the ship, the masters of which are for the most part Italians. A few stanzas from Petrarca or Tasso sufficed to attract the attention of the cuoco (cook). A conversation in pure Tuscan soon followed, and the upshot was a well-filled plate of maccaroni or risotto, capped by a piece of boiled or roasted meat. "Mille grazie, signore" (a thousand thanks, sir), meant that I would come in the evening, to claim a continuation of the favour shown me. The good Italian would shove his barrett of linen on one side, give a short laugh, and proved by his answer, "Come whenever you like," that the seed of my linguistic experiments had not fallen on a barren soil.
