Im Fernen Osten, Reisen des Grafen Bela Szechenyi in den Jahren 1877-1880

Abstract

AFTER rambling for more than three years over great part of Japan and China, the forerunners of Count Szechenyi's party reached the Irawadi delta in March, 1880, in such a plight that they were actually refused admission to Jordan's Hotel in Rangoon. The expedition was undertaken, not to seek the cradle of the Magyar race in Central Asia, as was given out at the time, but simply to seek distraction from a heavy domestic affliction experienced by the Count in 1876. It was organised with the disregard of economic considerations so characteristic of the open-handed Hungarian nobility, and consisted originally of four members—the Count, Balint de Szent Kotolna, philologist, Ludwig von Loczy, geologist and Gustav Kreitner, geographer. Unfortunately Balint got no further than Shanghai, where his health completely broke down. Hence the linguistic results were nil notwithstanding the sensational story circulated in some American papers regarding a Magyarspeaking nomad tribe said to have been discovered in the Gobi desert. These marauders were stated to have captured and condemned the whole party to death. But on overhearing them casually exchange a few words in Hungarian, the nomad chief, overcome with emotion, fell on his knees, and addressed Count Bela “in the purest Magyar,” acknowledging him and his associates as their long-lost brethren, descendants of the warlike hordes, who migrated westwards ages ago, but whose memory was still kept alive in the yurts of their Asiatic kinsmen. This story throws a curious light on the analogous statements long current in popular writings touching the Irish, Welsh, and Basque-speaking Delawares, Algonquins, Guaranis, and other American aborigines. The only difference is that in these critical times such veracious accounts have no longer much chance of surviving their authors.

Im Fernen Osten, Reisen des Grafen Bela Szechenyi in den Jahren 1877-1880.

Von Gustav Kreitner, Mitglied der Expedition. Two Vols. (Vienna, 1881.)