Madame de Novikoff, née Olga Kireef, did her utmost to discredit me in England, and in order to blunt the point of my anti-Russian pen, she suddenly discovered that I was no Hungarian, but a fraudulent Jew who had never been in Asia at all, but only wished to undermine the good relations between England and Russia. This skilled instrument of Russian politics on the Thames, rejoiced in the friendship of Mr. Gladstone, but her childish attacks on me have had little effect in shaking my position and reputation among the British public.
With the exception of such incidents I had reason to be content with the criticism of my adventurous journey.
APPENDIX II MY SCIENTIFIC-LITERARY ACTIVITY
My many years of practical study of the Asiatic world, of which I have attempted to give an account in the preceding pages, were necessarily followed as soon as I had leisure and quiet by a period of literary activity. During those years of travel such a vast amount of material had been accumulating that I must needs put some of it in writing, and relate some of the things I had seen and experienced. And now that the beautiful summertime of my life is past, and I look back upon that period of literary work, I must preface my account of these labours by stating that in point of quantity, quality, and tendency these productions were quite in keeping with my previous studies. A self-educated man, without any direction or guidance in my studies, without even a definite object in view, my literary career must necessarily also be full of the weaknesses, faults, and deficiencies of the self-made man. Just as there are poets by nature, so I was a scholar by nature, but as there is not and could not be a "scientifica licentia," in the same way as there is a "poetica licentia," so the difficulties I had to fight against were proportionally as great as the deficiencies and blunders which criticism rightly detected in my works. Hasty and rash as I had been in acquiring knowledge (for which a powerful memory and a fiery zeal are chiefly to blame), I was equally impatient to accomplish the work on hand. When once I had begun to write a book, I gave myself neither rest nor peace until I saw it finished and printed on my table, regardless of the saying, "Nonum prematur in annum." Unfortunately my labour lay chiefly in as yet unfrequented regions of philology and ethnography, consequently the authorities at my disposal were very limited, and the few that were available were hardly worth consulting, so I did not trouble with them.
Besides, to make a thorough study of ancient authorities went quite against the grain with me. I did not care to be always referring to what others had said and done and to enter into minute speculations and criticisms in regard to them. To use the expression—I objected to chew the cud that others had eaten. From a strictly scientific point of view this was no doubt a grave fault in me. It has always been the novel, the unknown, and untold which attracted me. Only quite new subjects took my fancy, only in those regions did I burn with desire to earn my literary spurs, and although I had not much fear of any one overtaking me in the race, I was for ever hurrying and hankering after novelty and originality, not to say fresh revelations. I was always in a rush, and so did not give the necessary care and attention to the work on hand. When in the biographical notices about my insignificant person, which have appeared from time to time, I see myself described as a learned man, this most unfitting qualification always surprises me, for I am anything but learned in the ordinary sense of the word, and could not possibly be. To be a scholar one needs preparation, schooling, and disposition, all of which I lacked; of a scholar one can say, "Non nascitur sed fit," while all through my life, in all my sayings and doings I have always acted under the influence of my naturally good or bad qualities, and have been solely guided by these. The dark side and the disadvantages of such a character do undoubtedly weigh heavily, but the mischief done is to a certain extent rectified by its very decided advantages. Lack of caution makes one bold and daring, and where there is no great depth, there is the greater extension over the area one has chosen for one's field of operation. In this manner only can it be explained why my literary activity encompassed such various regions of Oriental knowledge, and why I could act as philologist, geographer, ethnographer, historian, ethnologist, and politician all at once. Of all the weaknesses and absurdities of the so-called learned guild, the conventional modesty of scholars has always been the most hateful and objectionable to me. I loathed nothing so much as the hypocritical hiding of the material advantage which scholars as much as, if not more than other mortals have in view, and nothing is to my mind more despicable than the professed indifference to praise and recognition; for we all know that scholars and writers are the vainest creatures born.
Since I am not a professional scholar, I need not be modest according to the rules of the trade, and as I am about to speak of my literary activity, and discuss and criticise my own work, I will leave scholarly modesty quite out of the question, and freely and frankly give my opinion on the products of my pen.
1. Travels in Central Asia.
This work, which appeared in several editions in various European and Asiatic languages, is interesting reading because of the curious methods of travel and the novelty of the adventures. Incognito journeys had been made before my time to Mecca and Medina by Burton, Burckhart, Maltzan, Snouck-Hurgronje, and others, but as a Dervish living on alms, and undergoing all the penalties of fakirdom, I was certainly the first and only European. However interesting the account of my adventures may be, the geographico-scientific results of my journey are not in adequate proportion to the dangers and sufferings I underwent. Astronomical observations were impossible, neither was I competent to make them. Orography and hydrography were never touched upon. The fauna and flora were closed books to me, and as for geology, I did not even know this science by name before I came West. But on the other hand, I can point out with pleasure that in certain parts of Central Asia I was the first European traveller, and have contributed many names of places to the map of the region, and furnished many facts hitherto unknown about the ethnographical relations of the Turks in these parts. What made my book of travels popular was unquestionably the account of my adventures and the continual dangers in which I found myself. The European reader can hardly form any conception of my sufferings and privations; they evoked the interest and the sympathy of the cultured world; but he who has read the preceding pages, and is acquainted with the struggles of my childhood and youth, will not be surprised that the early schooling of misery and privation I underwent had sufficiently hardened me to bear the later heavy struggles. The difference between the condition of a poor Jew-boy and a mendicant Dervish in Central Asia is, after all, not very great. The cravings of hunger are not one whit easier to bear or less irksome in cultured Europe than in the Steppes of Asia, and the mental agony of the little Jew, despised and mocked by the Christian world, is perhaps harder than the constant fear of being found out by fanatical Mohammedans. As my first publication was so much appreciated, I enlarged, at the instigation of my friends, my first account, and published—