Ármin Vámbéry - Sketches of Central Asia (1868)

SKETCHES OF CENTRAL ASIA.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS

ON

MY TRAVELS, ADVENTURES ,

AND ON THE

ETHNOLOGY OF CENTRAL ASIA .

BY

PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF PESTH

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
Wm. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE,
PALL MALL, LONDON.

1868.

[All rights reserved.]

Lewis and Son, Printers, Swan Buildings, Moorgate Street.

In the reviews of my "Travels in "Central Asia," which have issued from the European and American press, I have generally been reproached with scantiness of details and scrappiness of treatment;in a word, with having said much less than I could have said about my journey from the Bosphorus to Samarkand,so rich in varied adventures and experiences.

Now, I will not deny that such a charge has not been quite unfairly levelled against me.

While I was writing my memoirs, during the first three months of my stay in London, after my year-long wanderings in Asia, I had very great trouble in accustoming myself to the idea of being firmly settled down. I always kept fancying myself bound on the morrow to pack up and extend my travels with the caravan: hence my irresolution and hasty procedure. Moreover, I was quite a stranger in the domain of travelling, and deemed it my duty now to keep something back for mere decency; anon to leave out something else, as of inferior interest. Hence many an episode was left untouched, many a picture remained but a feeble sketch.

To make up for this defectif sparingness in words be really a defectI have written the following pages. They contain only supplementary papers, partly about my own adventures, partly on the manners and rare characteristics of the Central Asiatic peoples, linked together in no particular connection. It would naturally have been better to offer these pages in the place of the former volume; and yet the slightest notice of a country so little known to us as Turkestan, which political questions will soon bring into the front of passing questions, will always have its uses; and "meglio tardi che mai."

A. V.

Pesth ,
2nd December, 1867.

The dervish is the veritable personification of Eastern life. Idleness, fanaticism, and slovenliness, are the features which in him are regarded as virtues, and which everywhere are represented by him as such. Idleness is excused by allusion to human impotence; fanaticism explained as enthusiasm in religion; and slovenliness justified by the uselessness of poor mortals in struggling against fate. If the superiority of European civilization over that of the East was not so clearly established, I should almost be tempted to envy a dervish, who, clad in tatters and conversing in a corner of some ruined building, shows, by the twinkling in his eye, the happiness he enjoys. What a serenity is depicted in that face; what a placidity in all his actions; what a complete contrast there is between this picture and that presented by our European civilization! In my disguise as a dervish it was chiefly this unnatural composure which made me nervous, and in the imitation of which I made, of course, the greatest mistakes. I shall never forget one day at Herat, when, after reflecting on the happiness of the early termination of the painful mask I had been wearing for so many months, I suddenly jumped up from my seat, and in a somewhat excited state began to pace up and down the old ruin which gave me shelter. A few minutes afterwards I perceived that a crowd of passers by had collected at the door, and that I was the object of general astonishment. Seeing my mistake, I blushingly resumed my seat. Soon afterwards several people came up to ask me what was the matter with me, whether I was well, &c. The good people thought I was deranged; for, to oriental notions, a man must be out of his senses if, without necessity or a special object in view, he suddenly leaves his seat to pace up and down a room.

As the dervish represents the general character, so he does the different peoples of the East. It is true, Mahomedanism enforces the dogma: "El Islam milleti wahidun"all Islamites are one nation; but the origin and home of the different sects are easily recognised. Bektashi, Mewlewi, and Rufai, are principally natives of Turkey; because Bektash, the enthusiastic founder of the Janissaries, Moola Djelaleddin Rumi, the great poet of the Mesnevi, lived, and are buried in Turkey; the Kadrie and Djelali are most frequently met with in Arabia; the Oveisy, and Nurbakhshi Nimetullah in Persia; the Khilali and Zahibi in India; and the Nakishbendi and Sofi Islam in Central Asia. The members of the different fraternities are bound together by very close ties; apprentices (Murid) and assistants (Khalfa) have to yield implicit obedience to the chief (Pir), who has an unlimited power over the life and property of his brethren. But these fraternities do not in the least trouble themselves about secret political or social objects, as is sometimes asserted in Europe by enthusiastic travellers, who have even discovered Freemasons amongst the Bedouin tribes of the Great Desert. The dervishes are the monks of Islamism; and the spirit which created and sustains them is that of religious fanaticism, and they differ from each other only by the manner in which they demonstrate their enthusiasm. For instance; whilst one of these religious orders commands constant pilgrimages to the tombs of saints, the other lays down stringent rules for reflection on divine infinity and the insignificance of our existence. A third compels his votaries to occupy themselves day and night with repeating the name of of God (Zikr) and hymns (Telkin); and it cannot surprise us to learn that the greater number of a company which has continually been calling out with all its might: "Ja hu! Ja hakk! La illahi illa hu! are seized with