I have often been asked how it came about that, after my long and varied career in Asia as well as in Europe, I made up my mind to settle quietly down in Hungary and to look upon the Chair of Oriental Languages at the University of Pesth as a fit reward for my extraordinary struggles in life. It was during my first audience with the Emperor-King of Austro-Hungary that the kind-hearted monarch asked me whether I intended to remain in the country, and what he could do in my favour. On having alluded to my desire for a professorship at the Hungarian University, his Majesty suggested that such out-of-the-way studies were not much cultivated even at Vienna, how then could I hope to find an audience at Budapest? I remarked upon that, if nobody else would learn, I should learn myself. The Emperor fully understood, and he kindly remarked, "Your sufferings deserve a remuneration, and I shall look into your case." Two or three months had scarcely elapsed, when I got my appointment with the modest salary of one hundred pounds a year, which sum the Hungarian Minister for Public Instruction very soon doubled; and this, together with the income derived from the small sum I got for the English, French and German editions of my book, fully sufficed to cover my expenses—nay to enable me to found a family. When it became public that I intended to marry, people generally said, "What an unhappy idea; and what a pity for that poor girl!" People took it for sure that I must get tired of matrimony in a very short time, and that I should leave home, family, wife and everything, to run again after adventures in the interior of Asia. Well, people were grossly mistaken, for neither was I an adventurer by natural impulse, nor were all the praises bestowed upon me strong enough to drive me again into the wilderness, or to instigate me to renew my wanderings. It is true I was but thirty-two years old when I returned to Europe, and although temporarily worn out by fatigue, I regained my former strength in one year; but already I had spent twenty years in wanderings of all sorts, and the idea of possessing my own room, my own furniture, and my own library, made me exceedingly happy. I revelled in the thought of being able to write down and to publish those of my explorations which interest but a small community, but are of so much more value.