commanded him to come to her secretly on the
following morning, if he desired a successful
issue to his suit.

While the youth remained awake through
the night, reflecting on his good fortune, the
maiden, likewise awake, occupied herself in
stealing from her father a magic knife, which
she gave to her adorer when he came according
to appointment, and they both vowed eternal
love and fidelity. She then directed him to
take a horse which belonged to her, and to ride
with all speed to the Will's wood, where he
would find a certain tricipital hill, and after that
a meadow bright with pearls, with horses of the
most various colours grazing upon it. From
these horses he was to choose three of the
desired colours, and if they proved restive and
unwilling to be caught, he was to draw out the
knife so that the sun might shine upon it, and
thus light up all the meadow: when all the
animals would come to him of their own accord.
The horses secured, he was to proceed to the
middle of the meadow, where he would find a
cypress-tree, with a root of brass, boughs of
silver, and leaves of gold. From the root, cut
with the magic knife, a torrent of gold coin
would issue, which would fully enable him to
comply with the emperor's terms.

These minute directions were strictly followed,
and the success of the adventurer was
complete. Nay, so greatly was the king struck
with admiration when he saw the horses arrive
laden with the golden treasure, that he could
not help asking the suitor what he required in
the shape of dowry? "Give me the princess
herself and the knife," said the gallant youth,
"and I will ask no more." So the princess
and the knife were given, and all parties were
satisfied.

THE HUNGARIAN DERVISH.

MR. ARMINIUS VÁMBÉRY is a young Hungarian,
studious of men's tongues, and versed in
divers languages of Europe and Asia. Impelled
by scientific thirst for search into certain Asiatic
relationships of the language of Hungary, he
went eastward, lived for some years among
the Turks at Constantinople—familiar in their
houses, studious in their schools and libraries—
until he could transform himself into a very good
facsimile of a Turkish Efendi, barring the more
European aspect of his countenance. Then he
said to his soul that he would rise up and go into
the wild innermost parts of Central Asia, and
would there study races of men, who, if they
had the faintest idea who he was, and what
he was about, and perhaps also if they hadn't
any such idea, were likely to kill or enslave him.
He went and saw and did come back alive,
after a perilous expedition, accomplished with
much control over the quick course of blood at
the age of one-and-thirty, in the sedate character
of a holy dervish. Having worked his way
round, often over paths untrodden by any
European traveller, from Samarcand to Herat,
from Herat he came to London, where he has
been triumphantly received by the Geographical
Society, and by society in general. Now, he has
told his adventures, Hungarian as he is, in an
English book of Travels in Central Asia. Some
day he will tell the philological world what he
has learnt from the tongues of Turkestan. That
will be for the few. But all the world, in
England at any rate, understands and appreciates
courage shown in the carrying out of whatever
good design a man has really at heart, and has
ears for a tale of the successful achievement of
an honest purpose, under rare conditions of life,
in the face of danger.

At Teheran, Mr. Vámbéry was hospitably
entertained by Haydar Efendi, representative of
the Sublime Porte at the court of Persia. It is
an old custom of the Turkish embassy in
Teheran to accord a small subsidy to the
mendicant hadjis and dervishes who pass every
year through Persia in considerable numbers,
receiving nothing from the Persians. This
brought to the embassy, ragged Tartars from the
remotest parts of Turkestan; and Mr. Vámbéry,
who went by the name of Reshid Efendi, took
so much pleasure, on behalf of his own studies,
in exciting these people to friendly conversation,
that he became known among them as a man
treating the dervishes as brethren, and probably
himself a dervish in disguise. Thus it came to
pass that the hadjis and dervishes were apt to
send through Reshid Efendi their petitions to
the Turkish minister, and one day, on the
twentieth of March, in the year 'sixty-three,
four hadjis visited him with a request that he
would introduce them to the minister, in order
that they might complain of an unlawful
exaction of tribute suffered by them at the hands
of the Persians. "We desire," they said, "no
money from his excellency; we pray only that
for the future our brethren may go unmolested
to the Holy Places." Their spokesman was
Hadji Bilal (a hadji means one who has made
the pilgrimage to Mecca), from Little Bokhara,
or Chinese Tartary, where, ragged as was his
pilgrim's dress, he was Court Imam of the
Vang, or Chinese governor, of the province of
Aksu. He was twice a hadji, for he had twice
visited the Holy Sepulchre. He was the chief
man in the caravan, which consisted, he said, of
twenty-four persons, "young and old, rich and
poor, men of piety, learned men and laity; still
we live together with the greatest simplicity,
since we are all from Khokand and Kashgar,
and have among us no Bokhariot, no viper of
that race." There was a faithful simplicity of
manner in the four ragged pilgrims, who were
about to return through Central Asia to their
homes, which caused Mr. Vámbéry to resolve to
cast in his lot with them. But no Oriental
would believe an Efendi capable of taking a
dangerous and tedious journey for no better
motive than a thirst for knowledge. Mr.
Vámbéry, therefore, told the Tartars that he
had long silently, but earnestly, desired to visit
Turkestan: not merely to see the only source
of Islamite virtue that still remained undefiled,