In August, 1832, Newman had a big class of boys every afternoon to whom he taught English and Geography; he mentions that "into the latter" he puts "a vast miscellany, physical, political, historical," from his knowledge and power of talk.
On 18th Sept., 1833, he left Bagdad. There is no entry in his diary between this and the last one in August, 1832, four months earlier. No word of his parting with his friends; no word of his reluctance to give up his missionary work.
But there is, I think, a good deal more in these words written on 18th
September than meets the eye:—
"I am on my way to England for reasons partly personal" (I think this hints at a hope not altogether dead, which had been his close companion through his two years of absence), "partly connected with the interests of my Bagdad friends, and my imagination is in England."
In his journey through Teheraun and thence to Tabreez, he passed through the celebrated rock of Besittoun. The sculptures there are said to represent the conquest of Darius Hystaspis.
"Our caravan did not go close enough to see the sculptures; we were probably half a mile off, but the muleteers were careful to point to them and talk of them. So too in going from Babylonia into Media by the ancient pass of Zagros, they were eager to draw my attention to the sculptures in lofty, apparently inaccessible rocks. 'Your uncle made those,' said a muleteer. At first I did not understand, but I found he meant by my uncle some infidel. No true believer, he said, could have done it…. The pass must be very ancient, and it is by far the noblest work I have seen in Asia."
The next letter is from Constantinople, 9th April, 1833.
"I am on my way to England, but do not know how long I may stay there." In his journey from Erzeroom to Scutari, he says he "became a mere animal"; he could only think of his horse's feet and his horse's footing. He never felt secure, for this reason: that the Tartar's horse, behind whom he rode, in the "ladder road" [Footnote: A "ladder road" is made by the horses all following each other in one track, and each trying to step in the steps made by the first horse.] beside the precipices, through the snow, "fell eleven times with him," and more than once fell over him. Frank Newman says his fear of falling prevented him from being able to admire the scenery, when, as often, it was grand and striking. "The Tartar starts at a fast walk, gets gradually into a shuffle, and studies the pace and power of all the beasts; at last he takes a sharp trot, but slackens before any of them lose breath. His great problem is, that the weakest horse of the set (who really sets the pace) shall come in well at last…. I never imagined I could have gained a power of sleeping for an hour, or two hours, and at last even for ten minutes … in our last week, in which I had no regular night sleep. He" (the Tartar) "could not sleep, for he had two horses carrying gold … but he dozed famously while on horseback. Dr. Kidd used to tell us that the wrist, the eyelid, and the nape of the neck went to sleep before the brain—a charitable excuse for one who drops a Prayer Book in church from drowsiness. I wish I could get Dr. Kidd to tell me whether the knee does not (at least by habit) remain awake after the brain is asleep, for I never saw the Tartar loose in the saddle even when he was all nidnodding." Then comes again the suggestion of the doubt which beset Newman that the way in which his mission party at Bagdad, and some Church Missionary workers at Constantinople laboured, was not a way which could long endure. That difficulties in the future inevitably must come as lions in the path. "Constantinople itself looks to me like mere card-houses—bright blue and bright red; and they are not much better. By being perched up so steep, they force themselves on the eye…. Perhaps I am out of humour: Constantinople is so dreadfully dear to one who comes from Asia (I pay ten piastres, or half-a-crown, for my mere bed—full London price). It is also very chilly and raw…. Yet I do enjoy the bed with sheets, it is an inexpressible luxury. How I have longed for it, but in vain, when suffering fever, to be able really to undress! But I must not write of such matters, nor of more serious ones that distract my judgment and distress me.
"I have seen the American Missionaries here. He" (Mr. Goodall) "gives himself entirely to promote the self-reform of the Armenian Church. This fundamentally agrees with what Mr. Hartley, of the Church Missionary Society, told me was the Society's proceeding against the Greek Church…. It also agrees with Groves's plan at Bagdad. I cannot censure it: I must approve it: yet I have a painful belief that it cannot long go on in the friendly way they all design…. This zeal of the Americans for Turkish Christianity is a new and striking phenomenon."
The last entry in the Personal Narrative occurs on 14th April, 1833, before Newman had left Constantinople. Very shortly after he departed, and not very long after, all his connection with this two years and a half missionary journey was a thing of the past.