VAMBERY, ARMIN (1832-1913), Hungarian Orientalist and traveller, was born of humble parentage at Duna-Szerdahely, a village on the island of Shutt, in the Danube, on March 19, 1832. He was educated at the village school until the age of 1 2, and owing to congenital lameness had to walk with crutches. At an early age he showed remarkable aptitude for acquiring languages, but straitened circumstances compelled him to earn his own living. After being for a short time apprentice to a ladies' tailor, he be came tutor to an innkeeper's son. He next entered the unter gymnasium of St. Georgen, and proceeded thence to Pressburg. Meanwhile he supported himself by teaching on a very small scale, but his progress was such that at i6 he had a good knowledge of Hungarian, Latin, French and German, and was rapidly acquir ing English and the Scandinavian languages, and also Russian, Serbian and other Slavonic tongues. At the age of 20 he set up as teacher of European languages in Constantinople, and shortly afterwards became a tutor in the house of Pasha Hussein Daim. Under the influence of his friend and instructor, the Mollah Ahmed Effendi, he became, nominally at least, a full Osmanli, and enter ing the Turkish service, was afterwards secretary to Fuad Pasha. After spending six years in Constantinople, where he published a Turkish-German Dictionary (1858) and various linguistic works, and where he acquired some 20 Oriental languages and dialects, he visited Tehran; and then, disguised as a dervish, joined a band of pilgrims from Mecca, and spent several months with them in rough and squalid travel through the deserts of Asia. He suc ceeded in maintaining his disguise, and on arriving at Khiva went safely through two audiences of the khan. Passing Bokhara, they reached Samarkand, where the emir, whose suspicions were aroused, kept him in audience for a full half-hour; but he stood the test so well that the emir was not only pleased with "Resid Effendi" (Vambery's assumed name), but gave him handsome presents. He then reluctantly turned back by way of Herat,
where he took leave of the dervishes, and returned with a caravan to Tehran, and subsequently, in March 1864, through Trebizond and Erzerilm to Constantinople. By the advice of Prokesch-Osten and Eiitvos, he paid a visit in the following June to London; there his daring adventures and linguistic triumphs made him the lion of the day. In the same year he published his Travels and Adventures in Central Asia. In connection with this work it must be remembered that Vambery could write down but a few furtive notes while with the dervishes, and dared not take a single sketch; but the weird scenes, with their misery and suffering, were se strongly impressed on his memory that his :book is convincing by its simplicity, directness and evidence of heroic endurance. Vim bery also called the attention of politicians to the movements of Russia in Central Asia. From London he went to Paris ; then returning to Hungary, he was appointed professor of Orienta] languages in the University of Budapest : there he settled down, contributing largely to periodicals, and publishing a number of books. He died at Budapest on Sept. 15, 1913.
His travels have been translated into many languages, and hi autobiography, Arntinius Vambery, his Life and Adventures (1883; 9th ed., 1914) , was written in English. Amongst the best known of his works, besides those alluded to, are Wanderings and Adventures in Persia (1867) ; Sketches of Central Asia (1868) ; History of Bokhara (1873) ; Manners in Oriental Countries (1876) ; Primitive Civilization of the Turko-Tatar People (1879) , Origin of the Magyars (1882) , The Turkish People (1885) ; Hungary (1887), with Heilprin, and Western Culture in Eastern Lands (1906).