'That evening,'
says Schliemann, 'he recited to us about a hundred lines of the
poet, observing the rhythmic cadence of the verses. Although I
did not understand a syllable, the melodious sound of the words
made a deep impression upon me, and I wept bitter tears over my
unhappy fate. Three times over did I get him to repeat to me those
divine verses, rewarding his trouble with three glasses of whisky,
which I bought with the few pence that made up my whole wealth.
From that moment I never ceased to pray God that by His grace I
might yet have the happiness of learning Greek.'
To one whose heart was filled with such a passion for learning, no
obstacle could prove insuperable. Yet for many a day the Fates seemed
most unpropitious. Ill-health drove him to emigrate to Venezuela,
but his ship was wrecked on the Dutch coast, and he became the
errand-boy of a business house in Amsterdam. Here in his first
year of service he managed, while going on his master's errands,
to learn English in the first six months and French in the next,
and incidentally to save for intellectual purposes one half of
his salary of 800 francs. The mental training of the first year
enabled him to learn Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese with
much greater rapidity, each language being acquired in six weeks. In
1846 he was sent by another firm as their agent to St.
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