At the time of my home-coming Hungary had reached but the first stage of internal administration. The Academy, the only national institution which had escaped the Argus eye of absolutism, had rather a political and national than a purely scientific character, and the society desirous for the restitution of its constitutional rights naturally felt more drawn towards the enlightened, more advanced nations of Western lands than towards the obscure districts of the Oxus and their inhabitants. Even in Germany, the home of strictly scientific pursuits, my travels had attracted less attention than in England and Russia, where both political and commercial interests directed the attention of the Government towards these regions, and where a more intimate knowledge of those hitherto inaccessible regions seemed urgently needed.

Therefore, to be perfectly fair and honest, and allowing for the all-pervading interest in the political questions of the day, I had perhaps very little or no cause at all to feel hurt at the coldness and indifference shown to my travels, or to see in it an intentional non-appreciation of my services. But in my despondency, and with the still vivid memory of my reception by the European colonies in Persia and Turkey, a more sober, dispassionate view seemed impossible, and I broke down altogether. The first days of my stay in Pest were bitterly disappointing. I said to myself: "Is this the reward for all I have gone through, all I have suffered? is this the gratitude of a nation in quest of whose origin I have risked my life? this the appreciation of the Academy which I trust has been benefited by my researches?" Thus rudely awakened out of the happy dreams which had been my companions on the homeward journey, I felt bruised and hurt, and my vanity was wounded. To see those beautiful pictures—which my fancy had conjured up, and which had cheered and encouraged me under the greatest privations and in hours of peril—thus mercilessly shivered and dispelled, was indeed one of the most painful experiences of my life. For hours together I brooded over this in my lonely room in the Hôtel de l'Europe. I would not and could not believe that it was actually true, and the wound was all the more sore and irritating as I found myself, after all these years of struggle and exertion, in exactly the same position as before—that is, I was no nearer the solution of the question how to secure a position for myself.

Some advised me to resume the official career I had abandoned in Constantinople; others suggested that I should apply for a professorship in Oriental languages at the Pest University, which would be the easier to obtain since the position of lector had become vacant through the death of Dr. Repiczky. The former of these suggestions was not at all to my taste, for after my adventures, the East had but little attraction for me. Even when on the spot and at the very source of Oriental thought, and beholding the steady decay of the Asiatic world, I clung the more passionately to the energetic life of the West. The professorship seemed a little more attractive, as, before all things, I longed for rest, and I hoped in that capacity to find leisure to work out the linguistic and ethnographical results of my travels. Unfortunately the procuring of a professorial chair in those days was beset with grave difficulties for me. Hungary was ruled from Vienna, and in that centre of administration I, being on intimate terms with the Hungarian emigrants of the East, and never having felt much sympathy for Austria, could hardly expect to find friends and promoters of my interests.

So neither of these two suggestions seemed practicable; and as my English friends in Teheran had advised me to publish the account of my travels in London, and to this effect had liberally supplied me with introductions to different ranks and classes of society in the British metropolis, I soon made up my mind to go to England, and to appear before the London Geographical Society, the best known forum of Asiatic travel. Possibly another reason also induced me to decide upon this plan. After a four weeks' rest the desire for travel was again upon me, and the hopelessness and weariness of my existence made me long for change and adventure. I decided to go, the sooner the better, and, turning away from the field of Eastern vicissitudes, to plunge into the full stream of Western life and action. Very well; but this also was more easily said than done. Travel in the East requires but a knowledge of the languages and the customs, while money is more often dangerous than helpful; but in the West it is just the reverse; and as I had come to Pest devoid of all means, I had a great deal of trouble in collecting the necessary funds to defray my travelling expenses to London. The bitterness of my feelings was not improved thereby. In vain I asked my supposed friends for a small loan, in vain I promised fourfold repayment, in vain I pointed out the advantages which my appearance in the cultured West would confer upon the nation; deaf ears everywhere. The coolness with which my various travelling experiences were received raised doubts in many minds. Ignorance is the mother of suspicion, and as many people thought my adventures fantastic and exaggerated no one cared to advance me any money; and there I stood in my native land more forlorn and helpless than in the wildest regions of Central Asia.

Thanks to the intervention of my noble patron, Baron Eötvös, Count Emil Desewffy, President of the Academy, was at last persuaded to advance me a few hundred florins from the Library Fund of the Society—a helping hand indeed in my sore necessity, if only that hand in taking me by the arm had not left behind black stains which for ever have disfigured this deed of charity. The money was given me on condition that I should deposit my Oriental manuscripts, the treasured results of my travels, with the president, and praiseworthy as this precaution and zeal for the property of the Academy on the part of the noble president may seem, it had a most injurious and mortifying effect upon me. When I took my bagful of manuscripts to the Count's house I could not help remarking, "So you do not believe me; you take me for a vagabond without any feeling of honour; you think that I take the money of the Academy and do not mean to pay it back—I who have been slaving and suffering for the good of the Academy as few have done before me, and who now as the fruit of my researches want to see the Hungarian nation—hitherto almost unknown on the world's literary stage—recognised as a fellow-labourer in the great harvest field of European culture! I, the fanatical enthusiast, have to give a guarantee for a paltry few florins!" No, it was too much; I felt grievously hurt and my patriotism had been deeply wounded. One may imagine that I was not in the most amiable frame of mind as I left the city for which I had yearned so many years, and if the hope of recognition in England had not buoyed me up, the black spectre of disappointment would have been still blacker. And, I ask the kind reader, was it strange that I began to think that all this humiliation and mistrust, all this cruel misapprehension, and this wilful ignoring of all my trouble and labour was due to my obscure origin and the ill-fated star of my Jewish descent? This hypothesis may possibly be a mistaken one, for I believe that true Magyar explorers of Christian faith would have fared no better in the intellectual morass of the Hungary of those days. But the painful suspicion was there, and could not easily be banished.

With my modest viaticum, lent to me on security, I was soon on the way, and on the journey from Pest to London I fortunately received many tokens of a favourable turn in my affairs. In Vienna I gathered from the notices about me in the daily papers that my journey had created a good deal of interest. At home jealous, narrow-minded people, even from the Academy circle, had published scornful remarks about me on the day after my arrival, and amongst other things blamed me for appearing in the Academy hall with my fez on, not considering that, being used to the heavy turban, my head had to get gradually used to the lighter covering of Europe. But the foreign papers were enthusiastic in their praise and appreciation of my endeavours. In my progress Westward these good signs gradually increased. At Cologne I was interviewed by the Kölnische Zeitung; and in the railway carriage from Dover to London my travelling companions were interested to hear of the purpose of my journey, and one of these was a man whose identity has remained a mystery to me to this day. He was a Mr. Smith according to his card, and seemed so pleased to make my acquaintance that on our arrival in the capital he took me to the Hotel Victoria, engaged a splendid room for me, and that evening and the next day entertained me with regal hospitality. Then he found a private house for me, and, as I afterwards learned, paid the first month's rent for me. After he had seen me comfortably settled this kind-hearted man took leave of me. Who was this Mr. Smith? From that day till now I have not been able to find out. I have never seen him again. And indeed his was a deed of charity. But for him how should I have managed in this English Babel, with my small means and absolute ignorance of Western ways and customs.

When I had become somewhat familiar with the British metropolis I presented my letters of introduction to Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society; Sir Henry Rawlinson, the greatest authority on Central Asiatic affairs; Sir Henry A. Layard, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Sir Justin Sheil, former Ambassador at Teheran, and last, but not least, Lord Strangford, the great authority on the Moslemic East. All gave me a hearty welcome, and interrogated me upon the details of my travels and the condition of things in Central Asia. Pleased as I was with the interest shown by these experts, I was not a little surprised to find everywhere, instead of the anticipated ice-crust of English etiquette a hearty and sincere appreciation of my labours. I realised at once that here I was in my element, and that I had hit upon the best market for the publication of my travelling experiences. And how could it be otherwise? England, with its widespread colonies, with its gigantic universal trade, and its lively interest in anything that happens in the remotest corners of the earth, England is, and remains, the only land of great, universal ideas. Here the fostering of geographical and ethnographical knowledge is closely connected with the commercial, political, and national concerns of the people, and as with the wide view they take of things the question of practical usefulness triumphs over petty national jealousies, it is quite natural that the Britishers do not trouble themselves about the origin and antecedents of their heroes; and in the case of the Frenchman, German, or Hungarian who happens to have enriched their knowledge of lands and peoples, gladly forget the title of "foreigner," otherwise not particularly liked in England. I noticed all this during the first few days of my stay in England, and necessarily this prominent feature of the English national character came later on even more strikingly and, in my case, advantageously to the foreground. With the exception of one small, rather amusing episode, there was not the slightest hitch in my reception. My strongly sunburnt face, but more still my thorough knowledge of Persian and Turkish, which I spoke without the slightest accent, made some people suspicious as to my European, i.e., Hungarian descent. Some Orientalists would take me for a disguised Asiatic, and for some time they withheld their confidence, but when General Kmetty, a countryman of mine, then living in London, who had known me in Constantinople, allayed their doubts their appreciation was all the greater, and two weeks after my arrival on the banks of the Thames I had quite a crowd of friends and acquaintances, who spread my fame by word of mouth and pen, and transformed the former Dervish suddenly into a celebrity and a lion of London society.

This episode is not without its comical side, and shows how an inborn talent for languages, or rather for talking, may deceive even the cleverest expert in finding out people's nationalities. In Asia they took me for a Turk, a Persian, or Central Asiatic, and very seldom for a European. Here in Europe they thought I was a disguised Persian or Osmanli, such is the curious sport of ethnical location!

I made my début by a lecture at Burlington House, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, before a large and select audience. Here I delivered my first speech in English, with a strong foreign accent, as the Times remarked next day, but still I spoke for an hour and made myself understood. From that evening dates my title of "Explorer," and with it came a considerable change in my material condition. Instead of having to seek a publisher, I was literally overrun by men of the craft and inundated with offers. Absolutely inexperienced as I was in such matters, I took advice with my friends, and Lord Strangford decided this momentous question for me, and very kindly introduced me to John Murray, rightly called the "prince of publishers." A short conversation with him settled the whole matter. The contract was simply that after deducting the printing costs I was to receive half of the nett proceeds, and when the first edition was sold I should have the right to make other arrangements. These conditions seemed bad enough, but as Lord Strangford said, it was not so much the question now to make money by it as to get my book introduced into society; and as Murray only published the intellectual products of the fashionable world, my connection with him would be to my advantage in other ways, that is, it would serve as an introduction to society. For England, the land of strict formalities and outward appearances, this view was perfectly correct. The publishing offices in Albemarle Street, where Murray had his business place then, were known as the literary forum of the élite. The Queen was at that time in negotiation with Mr. Murray about the publication of the late Prince Consort's Memoirs, and Lord Derby was publishing his translation of Homer with him. Any dealings with this house raised the author at once to the position of a gentleman, even if they did not provide him with the means to act as such. When my arrangements with Murray were completed and he said, "You can draw upon me," I seemed all at once changed from a beggar into a Crœsus. I accepted his offer and at once drew a cheque for £50, followed later on by larger amounts, and this sudden transformation of my financial position very nearly turned my brain. Fortunately my friends explained to me just in time that this offer of the publisher's was a mere act of courtesy, that I must not build any false hopes upon it, that it would have its limits, and that I should not really know how I stood until the first accounts were squared.

In my excess of joy I had given but little thought to this important question. One must have been in the rushing stream of London high-life, one must have gone through the everlasting feastings, the dinners, luncheons, parties, balls, &c., which fall to the lot of a society lion during the so-called "season," to understand how little time one has for thinking, and how a constant intercourse with millionaires makes one fancy one's self in possession of inexhaustible wealth. Day after day the post brought piles of invitations to lunch, or dinner, races, hunting-parties, visits to beautiful country-houses, and all imaginable pleasures and recreations. Hardly a tenth part of the people who thus offered me hospitality I knew personally. I was received everywhere as a friend and old acquaintance, and overwhelmed with attentions of all sorts. One recommended me to another, and the draconic law of fashion made it everybody's imperative duty to entertain the stranger who was about to publish in England the result of his perilous travels, and give England the first benefit of them, and in this manner to show him the gratitude of the nation.