It would be ÁrminiusVambéindeed unfair should I conceal from you the fact that travelling in the interior of Asia does not at all belong to the class of enterprises called pleasure trips or vacation tours; for it involves a good deal of trouble and fatigue, of privation and suffering. A man brought up under better circumstances and accustomed to lead a comfortable life must be prepared to nourish his body on the most incredible food, to front all inclemencies of weather, and, what is most difficult, to renounce his notions of cleanliness. Of course a European is only gradually trained for such an extraordinary life of hardships; it is only by getting gradually from bad to worse that we are able to withstand the most trying situations; and if, reading the following pages, you should be astonished at what I went through and what I had to suffer, please to note that in spite of the great poverty in which I spent my childhood my task would not have come to a successful end if my progress from Hungary to Central Asia had not taken place gradually and after a temporary sojourn in the countries I had to pass on my way. Well, the preparation was certainly lengthy and wearisome, but in spite of that preparatory school the whole undertaking was extremely hazardous, and my sufferings were really such as could hardly be described. The account, which you will read in the following pages and all that I have written, contains scarcely the half of the adventures I went through in Europe and in Asia, and ought to be taken only for the outlines of a career I intend to sketch, but will not publish in my lifetime.
I do not need to add that I do not repent at all of having spent the best portion of my life in visiting different Asiatic countries, and of having been an eye-witness of many strange and highly interesting customs and habits of men. The joy and in most satisfaction which I felt whilst looking on the scenes for which my earliest juvenile fancy longed, that same joy I derive now from the recollection of those bygone adventures, and I feel really happy in unfolding the delightful and variegated picture of my former life. Should my young readers in England find an enjoyment in these pages, and should I have succeeded in imparting to them any knowledge of the distant Asiatic world, I shall feel certainly the more happy; for, according to the Oriental, to receive is only a single pleasure, but to give is a twofold one.