The inhabitants of Pesth are very ungrateful people. Venice bestowed a thousand ducats upon a poet who glorified the splendor of the city of the Doges in two mediocre distiches; Rome gladdened her historian, Gregorovius, with the offer of publishing his work at her own expense; even Belgrade knew how to honor Laboulaye, because he [60]had written a few friendly essays about the metropolis of Servia; the people of Pesth alone did nothing for a writer who had striven unweariedly to bring the beauties of the Hungarian capital near the distant East in the most musical Persian ghasels and quatrains. He lived in their midst, the enthusiastic bard of their renown, but no one troubled himself about poor Ali Hadji Effendi, and the only attention which the authorities showed him consisted in having him occasionally locked up by the policemen for unauthorized peddling. Worthy Ali Hadji Effendi was not blessed with worldly goods; for reasons which Schiller has explained in his “Division of [61]the Earth,” he had not succeeded in obtaining a place in the temple service of the golden calf, and since, in consequence of the defective school system of Hungary, the Persian language is still far too little diffused among the people of Pesth for him to hope to be able to maintain himself respectably by the sale of his poems, he had determined to carry on a little retail business, whose flourishing development was often checked by an act of official rigor. He was an interesting figure, this slender, black-bearded, dreamy-eyed, sunburnt Oriental, who, years ago, established his perambulating wares, sometimes on one street corner of Pesth, [62]sometimes on another and with quiet satisfaction awaited purchasers behind them. A dense throng of school children, maid-servants, and apprentices constantly surrounded him, eyeing with great interest the treasures he displayed. Real glass diamonds glittered in polished brass rings, Turkish and Christian rosaries of amber and coral lay side by side in a tolerance worthy of imitation, small knives, toothpicks, and needle-books completed the stock of wares, with the exception of one evidently unpurchasable show-piece, an exquisitely wrought halberd—which he had to show. Customers were allowed to rummage among the articles at will, and only when [63]some boy, with insolvency written upon his—nose, created too much disorder, did Ali raise his voice, ordering him, in deep, guttural tones, to desist from his mischief. He could support his Persian words with such expressive gestures of the hands that even the most ignorant cobbler’s apprentice instantly understood them. How had Ali Hadji Effendi come to Pesth? The question is not difficult to answer. In the Mohammedan world there is an order of dervishes whose members have all taken upon themselves the vow of a life of constant wandering. The adherents of this order are called Hadjis. The Hadji has no home, or rather his home is the great world of Islam. [64]And Islam never gives up a province which it has once possessed. So, as kings bear the title of provinces which their forefathers lost centuries ago, Islam regards as its own countries where, for a long time, no mosque has raised its slender minaret and airy dome toward the sky. As the seas of former geological periods have everywhere left their shell fish, which are now found on lofty mountain peaks in the midst of continents, the Turkish flood which submerged Europe a century and a half ago has also, after subsiding, everywhere left a trace, the grave of a Mohammedan saint. Ofen cherishes the resting-place of such a saint; Gül Baba, the Father of [65]Roses, sleeps his eternal sleep there, and an ancient, half ruined mosque, which rises above his grave, is the last monument in this neighborhood of the former greatness and power of the Turkish Empire. From the frontiers of China, from India to the Ofner Mountains, stretches an unbroken chain of the graves of saints, and many formerly in Mohammedan soil are now surrounded by unbelievers. But an army of Hadjis is constantly in motion, passing from one saint’s grave to another, and there is no resting-place of a pious Moslem so remote, or so hidden, that some Hadjis do not annually visit it, to throw themselves upon their faces, murmur proverbs from the [66]Koran, humbly praise the goodness and wisdom of Allah, and then continue their aimless pilgrimage. The Orientals have the devout belief that the dead whose graves are now in the land of the infidels would throw themselves over the bridge of hell, in sheer anguish, if they should learn that the crescent had been driven from these regions. Therefore, from time to time, Moslems must visit these graves, in order to maintain their belief that everything remained as it was during their lives, and that the crescent still shone with undimmed radiance. The Hadjis do not beg; in the sunny lands of the East, where the sky and the earth provide [67]for the poor as loving parents care for their infant children, where the shade of the roof above a well, or of a mosque, affords hospitable shelter, and the fig tree by the wayside sweet food, they can spend the whole day in pious, contemplative idleness, but when they enter the inhospitable country of the Giaours, where the sky is as harsh as the manners of the people, and the prison is the only place which affords shelter gratis, they carry on a trade in all sorts of trifles, and thus obtain the means to satisfy their few needs. Ali Hadji Effendi was one of these wandering dervishes; he had seen many lands and peoples; had washed the dust of the roads [68]from his feet in the rivers of three-quarters of the globe; he had listened to the dashing of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Danube, and was versed in the languages of all the nations that dwell in the wide region between the Himalaya and the Caucasus. In his Persian home he had been renowned as a poet, and the street singers still chant his love songs in the squares of Bagdad. One spring, in his journeying, he came to Pesth, where he instantly sought out several well-known Orientalists—Vámbéry, Goldziher, and others—and asked them to write in Persian characters the Hungarian words which would be indispensable for daily use, for instance, [69]reckoning, the names of coins, of his goods, etc. It would scarcely be believed that the Persian dervish knew the Pesth Orientalists, yet it was so. Somewhere in Roumelia, at the foot of the Balkans, or still farther away in Anatolia, a Hadji journeying westward meets such men on their way to the East. They sit silently side by side on the divan or the rush-mat, their fingers play with the beads of the rosary, and their lips softly murmur passages from the Koran. Suddenly one raises his voice and says: “Brother! You are going toward the West, to the land of the unbelievers. If you reach the city of the Magyars, Pesth, go to the great palace on the bank of [70]the Danube. It is called the Academy. Mention the names of Vámbéry and Goldziher Effendi, and you will be taken to men who fear God and are kind to strangers.” The other answers: “Brother, you are directing your steps eastward and will reach Benares. Walk through the bazaar there, and where you see the shop of a dealer in weapons, between two silk merchants, enter and greet him; you will be well treated.” So the Hadjis bear the fame of hospitable men to distant quarters of the world, and wherever they meet one another they exchange addresses. Ali Hadji Effendi was soon at home in Pesth. What great trouble was necessary for the purpose? [71]His patrons obtained from the authorities permission for him to remain, and he could pursue his business. Every morning he came from his night quarters with his wares, and wandered through the streets. Wherever he found shade and a clean spot he unfolded his rug, sat down with crossed legs, arranged his goods, and, with Oriental patience, awaited customers. Nothing could disturb his equanimity. If the children teased him, he smilingly shook his finger at them. To a boy who once thrust a pin through his turban from behind, he addressed a very edifying and moral lecture in the Persian language, summing up the instruction at the close in the two words “Nem szip” (not [72]right), which he uttered with a grave shake of the head. He could not be roused to anger; it was impossible to irritate him. If a soldier came, who wanted to give his sweetheart, usually one of the Slavonic race, a surprise, and wished to buy a brass ring with glass, or even a silver one, set with turquoise, Ali waited quietly till he had selected something, and then named the price, about twenty-three kreuzers. The purchaser, usually in a shout, as if the Persian could understand German better if spoken in a loud than in a low tone, made his offer, but Ali did not say another word and would not have accepted twenty-two kreuzers and a half for the ring. Not until the sum [73]which he had named was paid in full did he deliver the article and receive the money, which, without counting, he thrust into his belt. He never allowed any haggling, this was a principle of his business, and it may readily be supposed that, under such circumstances, his receipts were not large from customers who mainly belonged to the servant class. If he thought he had made enough, or if the time seemed long, he spread an old piece of sack cloth over his wares and lay down on his carpet to sleep. He had no fear of thieves, and the kindness and honesty of the public had never disappointed him. Often, too, the poetic inspiration seized him, and then he drew [74]from his girdle a small yellow book and wrote Persian verses in it. If, at such a time, customers attempted to interrupt him, he waved them off with a gesture of the hand, and remained for hours utterly oblivious of his surroundings. When the poem was finally finished, he beckoned to the bystanders until they formed a dense circle around him, and declaimed his verse in a half song. His ears feasted on the melody of his own creation. In the zeal of reading aloud he rose, his eyes flashed, his voice trembled, he explained single verses, described to his listeners the beauty of an image, the wit of a turn of speech, and when he had finished and his glance wandered over the spectators, who [75]were staring at him in astonishment, he smilingly protested, “Szip, szip!” (Fine, fine!), pointing to the little book with his finger. On the very first day of his sojourn in Pesth he composed a ghasel of four lines, a literal translation of which would run as follows: “O city on the Danube, home of men with open hand, Thy loins the river girdles like unto a silver band, Thy head the mountains, diadem of emerald green, doth grace, Alas, that the crescent from thee must now avert its face.” One day a hard-hearted policeman arrested him and drove him to the town-hall. There he cleared himself and was released [76]in a few hours. He avenged himself on the rude fellow with the following sarcastic ghasel: “As the laden camel through the streets of Samarcand men drive, So here, mistaking a command, to urge me on they strive. The armed policeman, swearing, doth press me toward the gaol, Yet he, too, is also driven: for folly drives his soul.” Daily he composed a song in praise of the city of Pesth and of Hungary. He described the beauty of the Ofner Mountains, the majesty of the giant river, the splendor of the palatial buildings, the proud men, the fair women; and when he had a series of ghasels he went to his patrons and read them aloud to them. Often, too, he carried his [77]goods home at midday and paid a visit to Vámbéry or Goldziher. Removing his slippers outside the door, he silently entered the room, mutely greeted the occupant by touching his brow, lips, and breast with his hand, then went to the book-case, took from the place he knew so well the heroic verse of Firdusi, the divine poems of Hâfiz, or the mocking ones of Omar Khayyám, sat down on the floor with crossed legs, read the Persian writers for an hour, then closed the volume, restored it to its place and, with another silent greeting, went away. Thus one whole summer passed, autumn came, the leaves began to fall from the trees, and the swallows [78]were preparing to depart. Our Hadji Ali Effendi soon felt too cold in his blue calico caftan, and one day he was no longer seen in the streets of Pesth. He had drawn his girdle closer, wound his turban anew, taken in his hand the knotted staff which had been his companion from Küenlün to the Blocksberg, and set forth again on his pilgrimage. Outside the city he had paused, raised his hand to his brow, his lips, and his breast, and then silently continued his way eastward without another backward glance. But perhaps, years later, some beautiful almeh will sing in the bazaar of Bassora, to the music of the mandolin, the song which the traveling dervish composed in [79]praise of the hospitable city in the distant West, and the visitors to the market, seated in a circle around, will nod their heads approvingly to the rhythm of the verse: “O city on the Danube, home of men with open hand, Thy loins the river girdles like unto a silver band, Thy head the mountains, diadem of emerald green, doth grace, Alas, that the crescent from thee must now avert its face.”