Friedrich Martin von Bodenstedt (1819-1892) was born in Hanover in 1819. He studied at Gottingen, Munich, and Berlin and worked as a tutor in Moscow, where he also studied Slavic languages. In 1840s he traveled in the Crimea, Ottoman Empire, and the Caucasus before settling down as professor of Slavic languages at the University of Munich. His most popular work, "The morning-Land or a thousand and One Days in the East," was published in 1851 and reflect his experiences of traversing the Russian Empire and visiting Georgia. The book enjoyed critical acclaim, with many lauding the author for his poetic language.
Some Moscow friends, who had followed the new Governor [Mikhail Vorontsov, appointed in 1844] into Georgia, paid me the compliment of celebrating my arrival at the old town of the Kyros, by a cheerful banquet. And by way of giving me a foretaste of Georgian life, all the arrangements of the table were made in the Asiatic style.
Young Georgians, in picturesque costume, served the viands [food]; a slender Armenian presented, in gigantic buffalo-horns embellished with silver, the fiery, blood-red wine of Kachetos [Kakheti]; a Persian minstrel in blue Talar and lofty pyramidal cap, with a shrewd and finely moulded face, and the tips of his fingers painted blue, played on the Tshengjir [a stringed instrument], and sang to it the lovely odes of Hafiz.
On whatever side I turned my astonished eye, I discovered something new and surprising. I really lived through one of the tales of the "Thousand and One Nights," which I had so often read and dreamed over in my childhood. In exhilarating succession we were entertained with eating, laughing, narrating, playing and singing, but most of all—drinking.
Wonderfully did the love-inspiring songs of the bard of Shiraz entrance us with their minstrel tones; brighter and brighter beamed from within, the reflection of the blood-red Kachetish [Kakhetian] wine in the faces of the guests; its fire had also its effect on me, but my exhausted frame longed for repose. For a fortnight I had not seen a bed, and had spent the damp nights partly on the saddle, partly on miserable carpets in more miserable mountain-huts. Tired out with travel, my eyes closed again and again; and when I could no longer resist the inroads of sleep, I left the company in order to retire to my dwelling. It was only when I rose to depart that I felt the full influence of the wine, and this in my legs more than in my head; for the Kachetish wine has the peculiarity of never producing headache, whereas it oppresses the lower part of the body with singular heaviness. I certainly should never have reached my destination, had not some of the gentlemen taken me under their friendly care, and led me through the unpaved, dog-howling streets of Tiflis, in safety to my dwelling.
It was a moonlight, fragrant night; one of those magical nights that are only to be seen under a Georgian sky, where the moon shines so clear, its lustre seems more like a sunlight softened down by some mystic, fairy-woven veil. The long walk through the cool night air had somewhat refreshed and revived me; with ineffable alluringness did the stars twinkle down from the crystal sky; deep lay the city beneath me in legendary beauty; and between them the Kyros [Kura/Mtkvari] rolled his glancing waves.
A strong temptation offered itself to me of enjoying the lovely landscape before my windows for a moment longer; a door led out of my chamber to a high gallery running round the house. I had not observed that the gallery, quite a new erection, was only partially completed, whilst in several places the boards lay unjoined and unfastened on the beams that formed the basis of the superstructure.
After considerable exertion I opened the door leading to the gallery—the verses of Pushkin were humming in my head:
"On Grusia's hill-tops nightly darkness lies,
Before me Kyros' waves are foaming, etc.
I stepped out, the board on which I trod tottered beneath my feet—a shock—a shriek—and bleeding and moaning, I lay in the court below.
Of the immediate consequences of this fall, which had nearly cost me my life, I will be silent; for to keep a journal of one's sufferings is to suffer doubly. Suffice it to say that I was dangerously injured in several parts of my body, and that it required a painful cure and careful nursing before I was again sufficiently recovered to divert myself with reading and study.
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