Professor Arminius Vambery, who died on Sunday in his eighty-second
year, was famous as an Orientalist, traveller, friend of kings, lover of England, and hater of Russia. Lame from birth, the son of a poor Hungarian Jew, but endowed with an extraordinary gift for acquiring languages, he supported himself as a beggar-student and tutor until his mastery of Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, as well as of Oriental manners, enabled him to undertake his memorable journey on foot throughout Central Asia in the disguise of a dervish. The University of Pesth endowed a chair of Oriental Languages for him which he held for over fifty years, and his travels were, published in London, where he paid periodical visits until quite recently. More than once he stayed with King Edward at Sandringham, he was a frequent contributor to the Nine- teenth Century, and, though he shared the Russophobe views of David Urquhart, his friendship for England and the English survived the cementing of the Triple Entente.
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