SKETCHES OF CENTRAL ASIA.

SKETCHES
OF
CENTRAL ASIA.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS

ON

MY TRAVELS, ADVENTURES,

AND ON THE

ETHNOLOGY OF CENTRAL ASIA.

BY

ARMINIUS VÁMBÉRY,

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.

PREFACE.

In the reviews of my "Travels in "Central Asia,"which have issued from the European and Americanpress, I have generally been reproached with scantinessof details and scrappiness of treatment;—in aword, with having said much less than I could havesaid about my journey from the Bosphorus to Samarkand,—sorich in varied adventures and experiences.

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

While I was writing my memoirs, during the firstthree months of my stay in London, after my year-longwanderings in Asia, I had very great trouble inaccustoming myself to the idea of being firmly settleddown. I always kept fancying myself bound on themorrow to pack up and extend my travels with thecaravan: hence my irresolution and hasty procedure.Moreover, I was quite a stranger in the domain oftravelling, and deemed it my duty now to keep something[vi]back for mere decency; anon to leave out somethingelse, as of inferior interest. Hence many anepisode was left untouched, many a picture remainedbut a feeble sketch.

To make up for this defect—if sparingness in wordsbe really a defect—I have written the following pages.They contain only supplementary papers, partly aboutmy own adventures, partly on the manners and rarecharacteristics of the Central Asiatic peoples, linkedtogether in no particular connection. It would naturallyhave been better to offer these pages in the placeof the former volume; and yet the slightest notice ofa country so little known to us as Turkestan, whichpolitical questions will soon bring into the front ofpassing questions, will always have its uses; and"meglio tardi che mai."

A. V.

Pesth,
   2nd December, 1867.

CONTENTS.