Methley Began To Rally Very Soon After We Had Reached
Constantinople; But There Seemed At First To Be No Chance
Of his
regaining strength enough for travelling during the winter, and I
determined to stay with my comrade until he
Had quite recovered; so
I bought me a horse, and a "pipe of tranquillity," {7} and took a
Turkish phrase-master. I troubled myself a great deal with the
Turkish tongue, and gained at last some knowledge of its structure.
It is enriched, perhaps overladen, with Persian and Arabic words,
imported into the language chiefly for the purpose of representing
sentiments and religious dogmas, and terms of art and luxury,
entirely unknown to the Tartar ancestors of the present Osmanlees;
but the body and the spirit of the old tongue are yet alive, and
the smooth words of the shopkeeper at Constantinople can still
carry understanding to the ears of the untamed millions who rove
over the plains of Northern Asia. The structure of the language,
especially in its more lengthy sentences, is very like to the
Latin: the subject matters are slowly and patiently enumerated,
without disclosing the purpose of the speaker until he reaches the
end of his sentence, and then at last there comes the clenching
word, which gives a meaning and connection to all that has gone
before. If you listen at all to speaking of this kind your
attention, rather than be suffered to flag, must grow more and more
lively as the phrase marches on.
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