Published in 1861, this work in the third person, dictated by Joseph Wolff (1795–1862) to friends, is an epic miscellany of stories. Wolff, the son of a rabbi, had a peripatetic Middle European childhood. He converted to Christianity in 1812, studying Near Eastern languages in Vienna and Tübingen, and theology in Rome - until he was expelled by the Inquisition for heretical views. He eventually moved to England, working for the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. Beginning his mission in the Middle East, he later travelled to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, India, and the United States, where he preached to Congress. His eventful career saw him variously shipwrecked, enslaved, and forced to walk without clothes for 600 miles following a robbery. In 1847 he settled more quietly in a Somerset vicarage. Though characteristically orientalist (and with possible embellishments), this work remains an invigorating depiction of a lifetime's adventure.
Contents
Preface; 1. Birth; 2. State of religion at Vienna; 3. Prince Hohenlohe and his doings; 4. Rome and its society; 5. Returns to Vienna; 6. Gibraltar; 7. Desert; 8. Jerusalem; 9. Lady Hester Stanhope and her prophet; 10. Mesopotamia; 11. Arrives at Bagdad; 12. Ispahan; 13. Leaves Dublin for London; 14. Sir Charles Napier; 15. The Levant; 16. Advance towards Bokhara; 17. Burchund; 18. Meshed the Holy; 19. Bokhara; 20. Dangers of the way; 21. The Punjaub and Sikhs; 22. Sir Jeremiah and Lady Bryant; 23. Cashmere; 24. Delhi; 25. Route from Buxur to Calcutta; 26. Hyderabad; 27. Captain Moore, R.N.; 28. Monks at Goa; 29. Summary of eastern missions; 30. Detained in Abyssinia by the illness of Gobat; 31. Bombay; 32. Obligation to British officers; 33. Route from Erzoom to Teheran; 34. Route through Khorassan to Bokhara in clerical dress; 35. Abd-ul-Samut-Khan; 36. Escape from Bokhara.
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