1 ADVENTURES, DISCOVERIES, EXPERIMENTS,
2 AND
3 HISTORICAL SKETCHES.
4 However agreeable it may be to return home after an absence
5 of many years, and after having escaped many dangers and
6 endured many toils, to tread again the soil of one's native
7 country, enriched with knowledge and experience ; still, it is
8 not without a feeling of emotion, that we recall those scenes of
9 danger and fatigue to our recollection. They flit past us like
10 dissolving views, which appear only to vanish, yet still leave
11 behind them deep traces of the past.
12 It was a secret impulse, an inward voice, which urged me
13 towards the East, where the first man lived of whom history
14 makes mention, where culture was first practised, and where
15 arts and sciences flourished ; where religion — that heavenly light
16 — began to spread its rays. Patriam fug ere, peregre proficiaci.
17 I left my native town of Kronstadt, in Transylvania, in the
18 spring of 1815. After having crossed Bukovina, Moldavia,
19 and Walachia (where I remained above a year), I arrived,
20 in the autumn of 1816, at Varna, on the Black Sea, whence
21 I embarked for Constantinople. This was my first voyage.
22 Being aware that the distance from Varna to Constantinople
23 was short, I did not apprehend it could be attended witli
24 danger. On arriving at Varna, I was informed that several
25 Turkish vessels were bound for Constantinople, on one of
26 which I embarked. Besides seventeen Arnauts (Albanian-