Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/82

Rh who afterwards gained a great reputation as a linguist and Orientalist. It may have been the incentive communicated from this source that determined Thévenot to visit the East and to devote himself to the acquisition of Eastern languages. The two friends planned a journey together, but at the last moment d'Herbelot was prevented from leaving. Thévenot left Rome in 1655, at the mature age of twenty-two, and passed a considerable time visiting the islands of the Mediterranean, Turkey, the Levant and Egypt. After an absence of seven years, he returned to Paris and published an account of his journey, which appeared in 1664, in two volumes. He had taken pains to acquire several Oriental languages, Turkish, Arabic and Persian, and while staying in Paris, he devoted himself to the study of such sciences as were then within reach. The proof-sheets of his book were scarcely dry when he left for Persia (October 1663). His route lay by Aleppo to Mosul, which he reached about the end of July 1664. From thence he dropped down the Tigris to Bagdad, and struck across by Hamadan to Ispahan, where he arrived in October. Here he remained the guest of Père Raphael till February 1665, when he took the opportunity of going to Bunder Abbas in the suite of Tavernier. The larger portion of the baggage mules were employed in carrying the merchandise of that enterprising traveller to the coast; but it does not appear that he himself joined the party till they were far on the road. They arrived at Bunder together, and here Thévenot was destined to meet with a severe disappointment. The French were at that time making an attempt to revive their East India