As for myself, I took refuge in a chardak ( cabin where the boundary guards reside), and spent the night there. In the morning, my equipage was brought up by the efforts of the soldiers, with the aid of a great number of oxen, fetched from the neighbouring village. Who could have imagined that the coachman and the horses would have been alive after such a terrible fall ? And yet the former was only hurt, and the latter lamed ; but the coach was broken, and required repairs.
I cannot conclude this first part of my adventures without giving some account of the deep impression I experienced on treading again the soil of my native country, after an absence of so many years, in which I had had to struggle against so many difficulties. But the feelings of my heart reached their highest pitch, on entering those rooms in which I had passed my earliest happy age, and not missing either of my dear and beloved parents. My voice faltered, and tears began to flow down my cheeks, when I saw once more, after an absence of twenty years, my father, mother, brothers and sisters, pressed them to my throbbing heart, received their welcome, and felt their kisses. As they were informed of the day of my arrival, they had postponed the christening of my brother's daughter, and fixed it for the moment of my return, in order to heighten the solemnity of that ceremony, and to have me for her godfather. For that purpose, we went that very afternoon to the principal church, in which I had myself been christened, where a multitude of the citizens were already assembled to witness the holy act, the news of my arrival having spread through the town with the rapidity of lightning ; some were attracted by curiosity, eager to see me in my extraordinary and splendid oriental costume. I also fancy that many of them were desirous of knowing whether I had lost the fluency with which I formerly spoke the languages of our country ( Saxon, German, Hungarian, and Walachian ). When they heard me speak them with the same facility as formerly, the interest they took in my person was still further increased. My parents
