J. J. Benjamin

He then traveled through Syria, Babylonia, Kurdistan, Persia, the Indies, Kabul, and Afghanistan, returning in June 1851, to Constantinople, and then back to Vienna, where he stayed briefly before heading to Italy.

The same work, revised and enlarged, was subsequently published in German under the title Acht Jahre in Asien und Afrika (Hanover, 1858), with a preface by Meyer Kayserling.

As the veracity of his accounts and the genuineness of his travels were attacked by some critics, he amply defended himself by producing letters and other tokens proving his journey to the various Oriental countries named.

Benjamin relates only what he has seen; and, although some of his remarks show insufficient scholarship and lack of scientific method, his truthful and simple narrative gained the approval of eminent scholars like Humboldt, Petermann, and Richter.

Worn out by fatigues and privations, which had caused him to grow old before his time and gave him the appearance of age, he died poor in London; and his friends and admirers had to arrange a public subscription in order to save his wife and daughter from misery.