The finest mosque in Delhi, and one of the finest in the world, is

the Jumma Musjid. We happened to visit it just as the priests were

calling the faithful to prayer, which they do by ascending to the

foot of the minarets and turning toward Mecca and there chanting

the call. Numerous worshippers came, and having washed in the

pool, went to the Mosque and began their worship on their knees.

Our guide was a Mohammedan, and I asked him what a good man is

required to do daily in the way of external worship. Here is the

programme as he gave it to me: Five times each day he washes hands

and feet and prays; first in the morning when he rises, and then

at one, four, after sunset, and before he goes to bed, repeating

the prayer to Allah and some words from the Koran, and touching

the ground with his forehead no less than thirty-eight times

during the day. This must be done every day, Saturday and Sunday

alike. The prayers are simple exclamations reciting the greatness

of God and the insignificance of his servants, and _ask for

nothing_. How very close to their daily lives must this

constant appeal at short intervals, through each day, bring the

Unknown, unless, as is said to be the case, it becomes a more

matter of form, familiarity breeding contempt.

* * * * *

SAUGOR, GREAT PENINSULAR RAILWAY, February 19.

We are now _en route_ to Bombay from Delhi, a distance of

about thirteen hundred miles. We have been two nights in our

sleeping-car, and shall spend the night on the line and reach

Bombay in the morning. General Grant just passed us going toward

Calcutta, but there was no chance for us to get at him to shake

hands in India. This is the Pacific Railway of India, connecting

Calcutta and all the eastern portion with the western coast, upon

which Bombay is situated. The time between Calcutta and England

has been shortened almost a whole week by its construction. The

railways of India, of which there are at present about nine

thousand miles in operation, were principally constructed under a

guarantee of five per cent, by the Indian Government, and some of

them yield more than that already. In a short time there will be

none that will remain a charge upon the revenues. The government

retained the right, at intervals of twenty or twenty-five years,

to acquire possession and ownership of these lines upon certain

terms, and at no distant day will enjoy large revenues from its

railway property. If the days of guarantees and subsidies be not

hopelessly gone with us, here is an idea worth considering by our

government. Fancy what the ownership of the Union and Central

Pacific lines would mean as recompense for the amounts advanced.

The government has established several model farms in different

provinces, for the purpose of testing articles thought suitable

for cultivation in India, and of diffusing among the natives

improved methods of agriculture. Such farms under able scientific

management must eventually bring to the country what it is best

calculated to produce. The success attendant upon the growth of a

substitute for cinchona is significant. India must have quinine in

large quantities as a preventive of malaria. Experiments prove

that while the genuine article does not thrive here, a kindred

species, possessing nearly the same properties, although to a less

degree, will grow well. This has been cultivated in large

quantities, and I notice that the medical chief orders it to be

used in all dispensaries where quinine has hitherto been required,

although the medical officers are permitted in extreme cases to

order the dearer drug.

We are now traversing a level plain, and as this region was

blessed with rain in season, it seems much more fertile than some

other portions of the country; but the poorest harvests I ever saw

in any part of America would be rated as abundant here. We have

seen everywhere herds of buffaloes, bullocks, and sheep grazing in

fields which seemed to us entirely destitute of everything; not a

green leaf of any kind to be seen, and we could not understand how

animals could even get a mouthful of food in the brown parched

lands. But I am told they do nibble away at the short stalks and

roots of corn or sugar-cane left in the ground when the crop was

cut, and in this way manage to eke out a scanty existence. They

are at best little but skin and bone. When it is merely a question

of keeping life in the body, man and beast alike prove that but

little is required.

While everything about us partakes of a dusty clayey hue, we must

not forget that we see the plains of India in the winter. Let the

blessed Monsoon burst, and these fields, now so parched and dead,

are covered at once "as if the earth had given a subterranean

birth to heaven." As Roderick Dhu's host rose up at the blast of

his bugle, vegetation springs forth, and the land we now wonder at

is no longer barren, but teems with tropical luxuriance. Then come

the snakes and insects to poison and annoy. Last year, sixteen

thousand seven hundred and seventy human beings were reported

killed by snakes, while eight hundred and nineteen only were

killed by tigers.

One has difficulty in imagining such a change in any land as is

implied by these startling figures, for to-day as we travel not a

fly nor insect of any kind is to be seen. If it were not for the

intense heat, which I know I could not endure, I should like to

spend a summer in India, snakes notwithstanding, just to see so

complete a reversal of conditions, for no matter what reflection

may do to tell, as we see India only under winter conditions, we

shall always have a bias to rate it as the miserable, barren land

it appears to us. Travellers should be on their guard against this

tendency, for it leads to many false conclusions. If both sides of

a question need to be considered, all seasons of a country must be

experienced before a true judgment can be passed upon it. This is

especially true of India, where the change is, as it were, from

life to death.

We see wood-gatherers entering the cities, each with a bundle of

sticks, or twigs rather, on his head, the result of the day's

gathering--scarcely one of the sticks thicker than one's finger,

and the great bulk of the bundle composed of mere switches, so

closely is everything shaven in crowded Hindostan. To-day we stood

and looked at a native who had led his goat into the country to

pick up a meal. He bent the boughs of small trees one after

another so that the goat could strip them of their leaves. The

poor skeleton was ravenous. Nothing goes to waste in India, nor

anywhere in the East. Garbage and sewage have value, and all is

swept clean and kept clean in every hole and corner in

consequence. This simplifies life very much. Our elaborate system

of underground pipes, our sewers, drains, and modern conveniences

of all kinds, and our sanitary arrangements which are of such

prime importance to health, and to which we are fortunately giving

so much more attention--these the East wholly escapes. We have to

cure; they have prevention. Human labor at four or five cents per

day (2 to 2 1/2d.) changes the conditions of existence. It pays to

do so many things which, under our rates for labor, cannot be

thought of. I have mentioned that in Japan the refuse of all kinds

from a residence is not only taken away at any hours each day one

fixes, but a small sum is actually paid for it, which the servants

of the establishment consider a perquisite.

* * * * *

BOMBAY, Thursday, February 20.

We reached this city on time this morning, feeling not in the

least fatigued by our three nights in the train. In the evening we

were fortunate enough to stroll down to the pier, where the band

was playing. Nowhere have we seen so varied a concourse of people.

The drive at Calcutta has long been noted as excelling any other

scene in the gorgeousness of its oriental coloring, but this of

the pier at Bombay surpasses by far what we saw there. Calcutta

can boast no wealthy native Parsees, who attend here in large

numbers in fine equipages with servants in livery. The Parsee

ladies especially are resplendent in jewels and color; and the

rich turbaned Mohammedan adds to the variety. The assemblage moved

to and fro among the carriages and along the edges of the broad

pier chatting gayly, while the music seemed to set everything in

motion. Native boatmen in their picturesque garbs passed now and

then plying their trade, carrying a Sahib's portmanteau or a

lady's bundle. I sat down and imagined myself in the midst of all

that I had seen of pretty seaports in grand opera, the ship scene

in L'Africaine, the landing of Desdemona in the Isle of Cyprus,

the fishermen in Masaniello, and I thought I had never seen

anything of this description so pleasing. I lost Vandy in the

crowd, and sat drinking it all in till dark. Certainly among the

fine things in the East is to be ranked the music upon the Apollo

Bunder, Bombay.

* * * * *

FRIDAY, February 21.

We rose early, and were off before breakfast for a drive to the

"Tower of Silence." This is the mountain top where the Parsees

give their dead to be torn by the vultures. We shudder at

cremation, but the sacred fire of the funeral pile as it flames to

heaven has something awe-inspiring about it. Man sprung from the

dust mingles at last with the purer element of fire, and "vanishes

into air, into thin air," leaving no trace behind. But

deliberately to throw our dead out to be torn in pieces and

devoured by vultures--who can endure the thought! And yet many of

the inhabitants here would be most unhappy if denied the

consolation of believing that their bodies were to be served in

this manner. Nor are these poor and ignorant; on the contrary,

next to the English they are the best educated and the principal

merchants in the city. It is simply that they have been taught in

their youth that the earth must not be defiled by contact with the

dead. They cannot bury, therefore, neither can they burn, because

fire, one of the elements, is sacred; neither can they cast their

dead into the sea, for it, too, is holy. There seems to them no

way but this--of getting the birds of the air to come and take the

flesh. We were received at the foot of the mound by a Parsee

guide, who conducted us through every part. The towers, of which

there are five, are approached by long flights of easy stairs. We

entered a door at the top, and the first objects which struck our

eyes were the vultures. They sat motionless, as close together as

possible, on top of the wall of the round tower, with their tails

toward us and their beaks toward the centre of the tower where the

bodies are placed. The wall is about twenty feet high and fifty

feet in diameter. There did not appear to be room for one more

bird upon it, every inch of it being occupied, their bodies almost

touching each other. What a revolting coping they formed to the

otherwise plain round wall. More birds were perched on trees, and

on the other towers; and indeed everywhere we looked these

disgusting objects met our view. At ten o'clock every morning the

dead are taken from the dead-house, rich and poor alike being

previously divested of clothing; and were we to revisit the spot

at that hour, we are told the quiet stillness which pervaded the

grove would be found no longer. We inwardly congratulated

ourselves that the dreaded heat of a Bombay sun had sent us to

this place at so early an hour--ere the repast began--and rapidly

withdrew. It isn't much, yet I would not be robbed of it--such a

disposition of our dead as would still render it possible for us

to say with Laertes:

"_Lay her i' the earth_;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring."

Hard times are everywhere, and produce some strange changes. The

Banyan caste of Suerah has just resolved to abolish caste dinners

after funerals, but if a wealthy Hindoo still wishes to indulge in

these affairs he is permitted to do so after one year has elapsed.

I fear many of the dear departed will never be honored by the

feast after this interval. At marriages hereafter only one feast

is to be given, instead of four, which were formerly considered

the thing. Retrenchment is the word even where caste customs of

long standing are involved.

I note that yesterday a native was fined ten rupees for driving a

lame horse. What a singular race he must think these English!

Before their day he could have done what he liked with horse or

servant, male or female, "because he bought them," and now he

can't even be the judge when to use his horse. The more I see of

the thoroughness of the English Government in the East--its

attention to the minutest details, the exceptional ability of its

officials as evinced in the excellence of the courts, jails,

hospitals, dispensaries, schools, roads, railways, canals,

etc.,--the more I am amazed. I had before no idea of what was

implied by the government of India. It would have been madness for

any other people than the English to undertake it. Not that we

have not in America a class of men of equal organizing power, but

these have careers at home open to them, and could not be induced

to leave their own land. Even if this were not so, America

requires an improved civil service to bring its ablest men

forward. I am sure no such body of officials exists as that

comprising the civil service of India, whether judged by its

purity or its ability.

The British army has been reformed of late years in India to a

degree beyond popular knowledge of the subject. Every one agrees

in attributing the spread of the great mutiny to the fact that

there were at two or three critical points superannuated veterans,

unable to take before it was too late the most obvious measures

for its suppression. In short, it was here just as it was in

Washington when the Civil War began. I remember seeing General

Scott, the commander-in-chief, when Bull Run was lost, carried or

assisted from his carriage across the pavement to his office, he

being too old and infirm to walk. There were others scarcely less

feeble in charge of departments. It was just so in India; but now

mark the change. No man can retain the command of a regiment in

the British army more than five years, nor can generals serve

longer. These officers retire on pensions, and the next in

seniority takes his turn, always provided he passes successfully

the most searching examination at each successive promotion. I was

told that upon a recent examination only two officers out of

thirteen passed. No favoritism is shown, and I have met young men

related to the highest officials to whom it has been kindly

intimated that another career than the army had better be sought.

I have met many officers, and the impression made upon me is an

exceedingly favorable one. I do not believe that in case of war

now the blunder of those in command would have to be atoned for by

the superior fighting qualities of the rank and file, as was

notoriously the case during the Crimean War. The promotion of

General Wolseley means business. The Duke of Cambridge, because he

is a royal duke, is allowed to reign, but Wolseley is to govern.

I was struck with the full length portraits of the real man and

the sham in last year's Royal Academy. General Winfield Scott in

all his glory was not more brilliant than the duke, military hat

in hand with its white waving plumes, booted and spurred, his

breast a mass of decorations, "Old Fuss and Feathers" over again.

Beside him was a man in plain attire, about as ornamental as

General Grant; but this was the man of war, one of those very rare

characters who does what there is to do--in Egypt as in

Abyssinia--and never fails.

Bombay and Calcutta are again rivals for supremacy. Bombay Island,

upon which Bombay City stands, another of the keys of the world,

was given to Britain by Portugal as part of the dower of Catherine

of Braganza when she married Charles II. Think of a woman giving

anything for the privilege of marrying such a wretch! but so

little was it esteemed that the government gave it in 1688 to the

East India Company for a rental of £10 per annum. It was

subsequently made the principal seat of their power, but it had no

access to the interior, and Calcutta, which stands at the mouth of

a river system of inland transportation rivalled only by that of

our smoky Pittsburgh, soon eclipsed it. There was no chance for

Bombay against this natural advantage, and she had to succumb; but

now, since railways have penetrated the interior, and especially

since the opening of the Suez Canal route has brought Bombay so

very much nearer to Europe, the struggle for supremacy has begun

anew. The European traffic now goes mainly to her, and Calcutta

gets her portion by rail through her ancient rival. In 1872 the

exports and imports of Bombay were £50,000,000, and those of

Calcutta £54,000,000; so you see it is not going to be a walk over

for Calcutta, though her population still exceeds that of her

challenger by about a hundred thousand. It is water _vs_.

rail on a large scale, and the result will be looked for with

interest. I think the former capital, once dethroned, will

eventually regain the crown; but there is plenty of room for both,

and the rivalry between them should be a generous one.

Bombay is by far the finest city in the East, but it has been

inflated more than any other, and is now undergoing severe

contraction. Its public buildings would do credit to any European

capital. Government concluded to sell the land fronting on the bay,

which had been used as the site of an antiquated fort, and such was

the rage for speculation at the time that five million dollars'

worth of land was disposed of and enough retained to give Bombay a

beautiful little park and a long drive along the beach. Government

took the money and erected on part of the land retained the

magnificent buildings referred to. We met one gentleman who had

bought one hundred thousand dollars' worth of the new lots, for

which he admitted he could not get today more than twenty thousand

dollars. But Bombay is only learning the universal lesson which the

world seems to need to have repeated every ten or twelve years. It

is fortunate that this city is our last in India, because it so far

excels any other. Nowhere else is such oriental richness to be seen.

The colors of the masses as they move rapidly to and fro remind you

of the combinations of the kaleidoscope. The native women of the

lowest order work in gangs, and it is their dress which chiefly

brightens the scene. A dark-green tight-fitting jacket, a magenta

mantle festooned about the body and legs in some very graceful

manner and reaching to the knees, the feet and legs bare to the

knees, a purple veil on the head but thrown back over the

shoulders--this is the dress as well as I can describe it. The habit

of carrying loads upon the head makes them as straight as arrows,

and as they march along with majestic stride they completely eclipse

the poor-looking male, who seems to have had his manhood ground out

of him by generations of oppression, while his companion has passed

through subjugation without losing her personal dignity.

It seems homelike to see street railways, of which there are

several prosperous lines here. For this enterprise an American

gentleman has to be thanked. All classes ride together, and caste

in Bombay gets serious knocks in consequence. From Bombay as a

centre civilization is destined to radiate. A palpable breach has

already been made in the solid walls which have hitherto shut

India from the entrance of new ideas, and through this gate the

assaulting columns must eventually gain possession; but it will

not be within the span of men now living, nor for several

generations to come. The Sailors' Home and the hospitals of the

city are highly creditable, and among the charitable institutions

I must not forget the Hindoo hospital for wretched animals, where

some of each kind are tenderly cared for, to signify the reverence

paid by this sect to all kinds of life, for the meanest form is

sacred to them. We had a curious illustration of this while in

Benares examining the richest specimens of the delicate

embroideries for which that city is celebrated. A little nasty

intruder showed itself on one of the finest, and a gentleman with

us involuntarily reached forth to kill it, but the three Hindoos

caught his arm at once, and exhibited great anxiety to save the

insect. One of them did get it, and taking it to the window set it

at liberty. It was Uncle Toby and the troublesome fly over again,

as immortalized by the genius of Sterne: "Get thee gone, poor

devil! there is room enough in the world for thee and for me,"

quoth Uncle Toby. And does not Cowper say--

"I would not enter on my list of friends

(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."

Well, these Hindoos wouldn't do it either. Let them be credited

accordingly, heathen though they be.

It begins to grow too hot here; I could not live one season in

India--that I am convinced of. The tropical sun has no mercy,

piercing through thick pith helmet, white umbrella, and driving

one into the house. We are to leave none too soon. This evening we

were surprised to see, as we strolled along the beach, more

Parsees than ever before, and more Parsee ladies richly dressed;

all seemed wending their way to the sea. It was the first of the

new moon, a period sacred to these worshippers of the elements;

and here on the shores of the ocean, as the sun was sinking in the

sea, and the slender silver thread of the crescent moon was

faintly shining in the horizon, they congregated to perform their

religious rites. Fire was there in its grandest form--the sun--and

water in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean outstretched before

them. The earth was under their feet, and wafted across the sea

the air came laden with the perfumes of "Araby the Blest." Surely

no time nor place could be more fitly chosen than this for lifting

up the soul to the realms beyond sense. I could not but

participate with these worshippers in what was so grandly

beautiful. There was no music save the solemn moan of the waves as

they broke into foam on the beach,

"With their ain eerie croon

Working their appointed work,

And never, never done."

But where shall we find so mighty an organ, or so grand an anthem?

How inexpressibly sublime the scene appeared to me, and how

insignificant and unworthy of the Unknown seemed even our

cathedrals, "made with human hands," when compared to this looking

up through Nature unto Nature's God! I stood and drank in the

serene happiness which seemed to fill the air. I have seen many

modes and forms of worship, some disgusting, others saddening, a

few elevating when the organ pealed forth its tones, but all poor

in comparison to this. Nor do I ever expect in all my life to

witness a religious ceremony which will so powerfully affect me as

that of the Parsees on the beach at Bombay. While I gazed upon the

scene I stood conscious only that I was privileged to catch a

glimpse of something that was not of the earth, but, as I

sauntered homeward, Wordsworth's lines came to me as the fittest

expression of my feelings. The passage is too long to quote at

length; besides I have to confess I cannot at this moment recall

it all. But he tells first how in his youth Nature was all in all

to him, "nor needed a moral sense unborrowed from the eye," but

later the inner light came; and hear him in his maturer years:

"For I have learned

To look on Nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A Presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things."

"The still sad music of humanity!"--it was that I heard sounding

in the prayers of those devout Parsees and in the moan of that

mighty sea. Sweet, refreshing it was, though tinged with sadness,

as all our more precious musings must be, "since all we know is,

nothing can be known."

In one of my strolls along the beach I met a Parsee gentleman who

spoke excellent English. From him I learned that the disciples of

Zoroaster number only about two hundred thousand, and of those no

fewer than fifty thousand are in Bombay. They were driven from

Persia by the Mohammedans and settled here, where they have

prospered.

They do not intermarry with other sects, believe in one God, and

worship the sun, moon, earth, and stars only as being the visible

angels of God, as he termed them. In themselves these are nothing,

but are the best steps by which we can ascend to God. Good men will

be happy forever; bad men will be unhappy for a long time after

death, and very bad men will be severely punished. But I was

delighted to be assured that no one will be punished forever, all

life being sacred to God because he made it, and all life must

eventually be purified, return to its Maker, and be merged in Him.

Parsees cannot burn the dead, because fire should not be prostituted

to so vile a use. They cannot bury, because the earth should not be

desecrated with the dead, neither should the sea; and therefore God

has provided vultures, which cannot be defiled, to absorb the flesh

of the dead. I said to him that the mere thought of violence offered

to our dead caused us to shudder. "Then what do you think of the

worms?" he asked. This was certainly an effective estoppel. "It

comes to this," he continued, "a question of birds or worms." "You

are right" (I had to admit it), I said; "after all, it's not worth

disputing about." When I had asked him a great many questions, I

suppose he thought turn-about was fair play, and he began to

cross-examine me upon many points of Christian doctrine, which I did

my best to put in the proper form. We finally agreed that no good

men or good women of any form of religion would be eternally

miserable, and upon this platform we said good-bye and parted.

On looking around, I saw that we had become the centre of quite a

circle of Parsees, Hindoos, and Mohammedans, who had been

attracted by our conversation, their earnest bronze faces,

surmounted by the flaming red turbans, so very close to mine,

forming with the gorgeous colors of their flowing robes, a picture

I shall not soon forget. They opened a way of egress, and Sahib

passed out of the throng amid their salaams, evidently an object

of intense curiosity.

Our excursion to the Caves of Elephanta was very enjoyable. They

are decidedly worth seeing. Here is the strongest contrast to the

grand open-air worship of the Parsees, for the Hindoos sought to

hide their worship in caves which shut out the light of day, and

to seek their gods in the dark recesses. The carved figures and

columns of the Temple are fine, the principal idol being of great

size--a huge representation of the Hindoo Trinity of Brahma,

Vishnu, and Siva, which make the three-headed god. The effect of

such a monster, seen dimly by the lighted torch, upon ignorant

natures, could not but be overpowering. When examined closely

there is nothing repulsive in the faces; on the contrary, the

expression of all three is rather pleasing than otherwise, like

that of Buddha. It is evident that the gods of the Hindoos are

good natured, kind, and disposed to forgiveness.

* * * * *

BOMBAY, Monday, February 24.

We sailed at six in the evening by the splendid Peninsula and

Oriental mail steamer Pekin. The city was bathed in the rays of a

brilliant sunset as we steamed slowly out of the harbor, and we

bade farewell to India when it looked the fairest.

And now for something on the great Indian Question, for it would

never do for a traveller to visit India and not to have his

decided opinion upon matters and things there, and his clearly-

defined policy embracing the management of the most intricate

problems involved in the government of two hundred and fifty

millions of the most ignorant races known, and all founded upon a

few weeks' hurried travel among them. There is, however, a much

more extensive class who are even more presumptuous, for they have

just as complete a policy upon this subject, although they have

never seen India at all.

The vast country we know as India, then, is held and governed, not

as one country, but district by district. One province, for

instance, has a native ruler with whom England has nothing

whatever to do except that, by right of treaty, she sends a

political agent to his court, supported in some cases, and in

others not, by a certain number of soldiers. This Resident is

expected to confer with and advise the Rajah, and keep him and his

officials from outrageous courses. Especially are they prevented

from warring upon neighboring States. In extreme cases, when

counsel and remonstrance avail not, the government has had either

to depose the ruling Rajah and substitute another, as in the

recent affair of the Rajah of Baroda, or to confiscate the

province and merge it in the Empire, as in the case of the King of

Oude. But what must be borne in mind is that no two native rulers

govern alike. Laws and customs prevailing in one province are

unknown in another. Land is held by one tenure in one place, and

by an entirely different system in another. India is therefore not

one nation, but a vast conglomeration of different races and

principalities, each independent of the other, differing as much

as France does from Germany, and much more than England does from

America. Add to this the fact that the people of any one district

are not a homogeneous community, but subdivided into distinct

castes, which refuse to intermarry or even to eat with one

another, and a faint idea of the magnitude of the Indian question

will begin to dawn upon one.

It is this mass which England has to rule and keep firmly in order

with her sixty thousand troops, and which constitutes the

government of India the most difficult problem with which, I

believe, statesmen have to deal. The amount of knowledge,

statesmanship, tact, temper, patience and resource absolutely put

in requisition by the men who rule India equals, I feel sure, that

required for the government of the whole of civilized Europe

combined; for it is always easy to govern a homogeneous people,

the rulers being of the people themselves, and having the good of

their respective countries at heart. It seems to me that an

unnecessary element of danger arises from the fact that these

Rajahs are permitted to maintain no fewer than three hundred

thousand native troops, mainly to swell their importance. The

question of enforcing reductions in these armaments is now under

consideration, I observe, but I should decidedly say with Hamlet.

"Oh! reform it altogether."

I would not allow a Rajah to keep more than one hundred armed

troops, except as a body-guard, beyond the number actually

required to enforce order. Upon this point I have decided views.

The existence of Rajahs is perhaps a necessary evil. They are

maintained in consequence of a well-grounded reluctance on the

part of the government to assume the task of governing more

territory. It is to be regretted that it has been necessary to

extend the sway so far already; nevertheless, the day will come

when the petty courts must be swept away, as they have been in

Japan and Germany, and the whole country given the benefits of

uniform rule. It is estimated that the Rajahs tax the people to an

extent equal to the revenues of the government--about $300,000,000

per annum: of this much is squandered in upholding their state--a

grievous exaction from so poor a country. This will soon be one of

the burning questions of India.

The Rajah of Jeypoor draws from the people $6,000,000 per annum,

and one or two others exceed this sum. Poor fellow! the other day

he had to marry his tenth wife--a sister of two of his previous

wives, for whom no suitable husband could be found. There were but

two families in the realm, I believe, of the proper rank, and

neither happened just then to have a nice young man on hand. The

disgrace of having an unmarried woman in the family was not to be

borne, and the old Rajah had to husband her, as he had her other

sister some time ago. Although so well provided with wives, he has

never been blessed with an heir, and at his death his first wife

will adopt a son, who will be his successor.

What do I think of India? is asked me every day; but I feel that

one accustomed to the exceptional fertility and advantages of

America--a land so wonderfully endowed that it seems to me more

and more the special favorite of fortune--is very apt to underrate

India. We saw it after two years of bad harvests, and a third most

unpromising one coming on. Judged from what I saw, I can only say

that I, as a lover of England, find it impossible to repress the

wish that springs up at every turn, Would she were safely and

honorably out of it! Retiring now is out of the question; she has

abolished the native system in large districts, and must perforce

continue the glorious task of giving to these millions the

blessings of order.

Her withdrawal would be the signal for internecine strife, and

such a saturnalia of blood and rapine as the world has never

known; but were the question whether Britain should to-day accept

India as a gift, and I had the privilege of replying, then,

"Declined with thanks;" and yet it is the fashion just now to call

India "the brightest jewel in the crown." The glitter of that

jewel may be red again some day. I have heard only two reasons

advanced in favor of India as an English possession. The first is,

it furnishes official station and employment for a large number

who would otherwise have no field; but I think there is yet plenty

of unoccupied territory in which these gentlemen can find work if

they can hold their own in the struggle for existence. Besides,

the official class requires less protection, not greater, than it

has hitherto been favored with, if the true interest of England is

to be considered.

The second reason is a commercial one, and it is pointed out that

the trade of England is thereby extended; to which it may be said

in reply that the occupation of foreign countries and the

subjugation of foreign races are in no measure required by the

demands of trade. The possession of small islands at proper points

secures all this. Hong Kong and a small strip at Shanghai and one

or two other ports, afford all the facilities required for England

to obtain the trade. Penang on the west of the Malay Peninsula,

Singapore at the south end, do the same. All of these have the

precious silver thread surrounding them, and can be held easily by

Britannia against the world without and native races struggling

within for independence, as they are bound to do some day.

There is another view to be taken of this question by a well-

wisher of Britain which cannot be ignored. She, the mother of

nations and champion of oppressed nationalities, necessarily

occupies a false position in India; there she must assume the

_rôle_ of the conqueror. I do not speak of this to disapprove

of it, or even of the Press Laws recently adopted; to avert still

greater evils she is compelled to go to any length. Nevertheless,

it is a false position; the stars in their courses fight against

it, and sooner or later England will retire from it. In short, the

pole-star of Indian policy is to bend every energy to the sowing

of seed which will produce a native class capable at first of

participating in the government, and which will eventually become

such as can be trusted with entire control, so that England may

stand to India as she stands to-day to Canada and Australia. There

is one course for England, and one only, and this let her adopt

speedily. Let her call around her Indian government the best men

of India, explain to them her aim and end, show them how noble her

aspirations are; point to Canada and Australia as proofs of her

colonial system, and say, To this condition we hope to bring your

country. Can you resist our appeal to come and help us?

Since all this was written the Ilbert bill question has arisen. It

will be understood at once that such a measure is believed by me

to be emphatically a step not only in the right direction, but in

the only direction, if grave dangers are to be avoided in India.

Let me tell my English readers that, travelling as I did, an

American, and not, in Indian parlance, as one of the governing

class--one of the usurpers--I had many opportunities of hearing

educated natives speak the thoughts of their hearts, which to an

Englishman's ears would have been treason. Such trustworthy

indications of the forces moving under the crust should be

considered as invaluable by the rulers of India. While, therefore,

educated natives give assent to the claims made for English rule,

that it keeps order and enforces justice as far as its courts can

reach, they are yet antagonistic to it. It is the old story: You

have taught people to read, and placed before them as types of

highest excellence our rebels, Cromwell, Hampden, Sidney, Russell,

Washington, Franklin. In so far as a native Indian dwells

contentedly while his country is ruled by a foreign race, by just

so much do we despise him in our heart, for loyalty to England

means treachery to his country, and one cannot depend upon

traitors.

If India were told that the chief delight of England was not to

hold dependencies but to bring forth nations competent to govern

themselves--a much grander mission--and were England slowly, but

steadily to introduce, little by little, the native element in

government whenever practicable--and that it is practicable to do

so in every department to a greater or less degree I am

convinced--then I should feel that sufficient pressure had been

relieved to give hope that peace would reign there. The greatest

danger England will have to contend with in every measure taken

toward this great end will be the violent opposition of the Anglo-

Indian. It will be difficult to carry reform against the advice of

The only class which seems competent to advise, viz., such

Englishmen as have had experience of India. I hold such to be

Totally incompetent as a class to take proper views of Indian

problems--such men as Sir Richard Temple are the exception. His

articles upon India seem to me most salutary and to denote a

statesmanlike grasp of a subject of paramount importance to

England. The reason why the Englishman in India is likely to be

entirely wrong in his views of Indian government is because he

sits on the safety valve of the terrible boiler. He hears every

now and then the sharp rush of the confined steam, which startles

the ear as it passes. When it is proposed to relieve the pressure

and allow more steam to escape he is frightened, and protests that

his position would thereby become unendurable.

But we who stand afar off and know the play of the forces in that

boiler, as I know them from sources sealed to him, see that the

steam must be allowed vent in constantly increasing volume if a

terrible catastrophe is to be averted. John Bright, of all English

public men of the first rank, seems to me to understand the Indian

problem best; hence the interest he takes in it--an interest which

every public man would share did he realize the situation England

occupies in Hindostan.

I have before referred to the fact that the Anglo-Indian

authorities protested against railway travel being conducted

without special reference to caste, and that they were overruled

by the Home Government. The result is that more impression has

been made upon caste, and is made daily and hourly, by the rush of

every grade to get the best seats in the same carriage, than by

all other influences combined. The Home Office judged more wisely

than those who were too close to the problem to get a clear view;

and so it must be in every measure calculated to elevate the

people of India to a higher stage of civilization. In my opinion

England can scarcely move too rapidly in the imperative task of

attaching able natives, as these arise, to her side, and giving

them power--at least the danger is that she will move too slowly

rather than too fast.

The business of colonizing, as a whole, does not appear to me to

pay. As a mission there is none so noble or to be compared with

it, next to governing well at home; but beyond this England's

share of the material good looks small. If the colony is rich and

prosperous it sets up for itself; if weak and unsuccessful, it

becomes a Natal, and calls upon the generous-hearted mother for

assistance. The gain to the colonies is obvious; nothing could be

finer for them; and if it be clearly understood that England

elects to play the tender nurse and receive her reward in the

consciousness of doing good--all right. Let her continue! But if

it be thought that these dependencies enhance her own power and

promote her prosperity, the sooner the books are balanced the

better. Only one prayer, May heaven keep America from the

colonizing craze! Cuba! Santo Domingo! avaunt, and quit our sight!

From another point of view one keeps inquiring whether all the

advantages flowing from the introduction of English ideas, as far

as these can really be introduced in the government of subject

races--whether, after all, the result is, upon the whole, for the

real permanent good of these inferior races. To the uninformed

man, who has never been beyond his own island, it seems fanciful,

perhaps, to raise this question. English civilization, freedom,

civil and religious liberty, order, law, Christianity--these not

beneficial, think you! Softly, my friend, softly. These may be

growths admirable for English-speaking people who can assimilate

them, but yet unsuitable for the Hottentot. You press man's food

upon babes to their injury, may be. The true evolutionist must

regard these attempts with sorrow.

Speaking broadly, I do not believe that it is in the power of

England--and of course much less of any other country--to confer

upon another race benefits which are not more than cancelled by

the evil which usually follows from her interference. Rob even the

lowest people in development today of the necessity of governing

themselves, take this responsibility away from them, as

interference does take it away, and the natural growth of that

people is not only checked, but it is diverted into channels

foreign to it.

If colonization can follow occupation it is a different matter--

the interference is temporary, and Australians, Canadians and

Americans soon come forth and govern themselves, the native-born

soon grow patriotic, and work out their own destiny. In such

cases England's share is her glory, a glory of which no other

nation partakes, for she alone is the grand old mother of nations,

God bless her! It is different with India. No one pretends that

Our race can ever obtain a foothold there. Conquerors the English

are, and conquerors they must remain as long as they remain at

all, which I ardently trust may not be long; not longer than the

natives are willing to accept the task of self-government.

Meanwhile surely no further rash responsibilities should be taken

upon herself by England. She can do most good by example. The

little islands of Hong Kong and Singapore, and the other Straits

Settlements, Shanghai, and even Ceylon, which is not too

big--these teach the races of the East what western civilization

means, and serve as models to which they can move with such

differentiation as circumstances require and without losing the

inestimable advantages of thinking and acting for themselves. Even

Christianity will make more progress from such examples than if

through the efforts of a paid propaganda we try to _force_ it

upon people. Rob them of this freedom to act, to accept, and to

reject, and all that England can give in return will not atone for

the injury she inflicts. A nation should have much to offer in

exchange, more than I see that any nation has, which stifles in

the breast of the most ignorant people in the world the sacred

germ of self-development.

The total acreage under wheat in India is not much, if any, less

than that of the United States, and the average yield about the

same--thirteen bushels per acre. The quality is excellent. America

cannot afford to ignore this potential rival. The cheaper labor of

India is quite an element in her favor, but cheap labor is not

always cheap. One educated Minnesotan, with his machinery, must

count for many spindle-shanked Hindoos with their wooden rakes.

India's remoteness from Europe and the lack of inland

transportation facilities, give America the vantage-ground. The

present low price of wheat in Liverpool today, however, warns our

western friends that there are other great sources of supply.

Until 1873, only ten years ago, an export duty was laid upon

Indian wheat. The amount exported in that year was valued at only

£167,000; last year, 1882, the exports were £8,869,000

($45,000,000), more than one-third as much as the United States

exported in that year ($112,000,000), to which, however, should be

added $35,000,000 worth of wheat flour exported, making the total

United States export $157,000,000. It must be remembered that

India has scarcely yet entered the race with us for the supremacy

in this department, for while we have 110,000 miles of railway

with 55,000,000 of people, she has 250,000,000 of people with only

10,000 miles of rail. This may seem alarming to the untravelled

Yankee, but let him possess his soul in patience. It is a very

safe wager that notwithstanding this seemingly uncalled-for

disparity in railway facilities, the American railway system is

still to increase at a far greater ratio than the Indian. Last

year only three hundred and eighty-seven miles of line were built

in India as against our six thousand, and even my friend, William

Fowler, M.P., in his most interesting article in the

_Fortnightly Review_ for February, 1884, "India, Her Wheat,

and Her Railways," to which I beg to refer such of my readers as

are specially interested in this subject--even he only suggests

that twelve hundred miles should be built every year in India; to

secure which he urges the government to give a guarantee upon

$50,000,000 per year, in order to obtain the necessary capital,

which he admits cannot be obtained otherwise. This the government

is not likely to do until the people rule England and sweep away

the privileged classes, who live mainly through wars, and would be

relegated to obscurity were the resources of England once spent

for peaceful development, as those of Republican America are.

Friend Fowler will get a vote to add millions to England's burden

by an Afghan or Zulu war, or even to squander her means upon

worthless members of a more than useless royal family and its

dependents of the court long before he will get a pound for his

Indian railways. The Republic will hold control of the world's

wheat market for a hundred years and more, but prices must rule

lower in consequence of India. Beyond that let posterity wrestle

with the question.

As to cotton, of which America holds a firmer grasp upon the

world's supply than it appears she does of wheat, India is not an

impossible second if from any cause the American supply were

forced to extreme prices. During the civil war in the United

States, cotton cultivation in India, as I have before said,

reached an extraordinary development. In 1866 the exports amounted

to thirty-seven millions of pounds sterling, $185,000,000; now the

average has fallen to about $40,000,000 per year. If the staple

were equal to the American, India would be formidable as a rival,

but it is not, and consequently the growth of cotton in the South

seems sure to increase as rapidly as ever.

After six days' delightful sail we had our first glimpse of Arabia

this morning, and are now skirting the Arabian coast. Aden was

reached Sunday morning, and we drove out to the native town and

saw the tanks said to have been constructed thousands of years

ago. It rains only once in every year or two, and a supply of

water is obtained by storing the torrents which then flow from the

hills. A more desolate desert than that which surrounds the city

surely does not exist. Aden itself illustrates how the whirligig

of time revolves. Before the discovery of the passage round the

Cape of Good Hope it was the chief entrepôt for the trade between

Europe and Asia. It fell into insignificance when the stream of

traffic left for the new route around the Cape of Good Hope; but

now the Suez Canal, which restores the original route via the Red

Sea, to its former supremacy, once more raises Aden to her former

commanding position. The population, which in 1839 had dwindled to

fewer than a thousand, now numbers nearly thirty thousand.

Aden is just one of those natural keys of the world which England

should hold, and I doubt not will hold to the last. The town

stands upon a narrow peninsula composed of desolate volcanic

rocks, five miles long from east to west, and three from north to

south, connected with the main land by a neck of flat sandy ground

only a few feet high. The town itself is surrounded by precipitous

rocks, which really make it a natural fortress impregnable against

attack. All that I urge against conquest in general is

inapplicable here, and I say let England guard such spots. As long

as she does she is mistress of the sea. Her influence at such

points is always for good. The thirty thousand natives of Aden,

for instance, may now be considered subjects of Britain by their

own act. They have flocked to the town attracted by the advantages

to be derived from a residence there, just as the Chinese have

done at Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. There is no coercion in

the matter. One foreigner electing to come under the British flag

is worth ten thousand held down by force, whether considered as an

element of strength to the Empire, or as conducive to its glory.

This is the market of the world for ostrich feathers. We saw

droves of the birds wandering about Aden and its suburbs at home

in the sand. The natives keep ostriches as their chief dependence,

and we are besieged at every turn with offers of rare

feathers--feathers--feathers--nothing but feathers.

Our trip on the Pekin was the most delightful we ever had at sea;

even Vandy was well, and gained by the journey. We had very

agreeable company on board, and were especially fortunate in our

neighbors, Mr., Mrs., and Miss G., of Edinburgh, at table. The

ship was crowded with officers and officers' wives and children

returning from India to England, for children must be taken home

out of the climate of India. Nothing can exceed the discipline and

general management of the Peninsula and Oriental ships. Promotion

from the ranks is the rule, and they certainly are served by a

class of men which it would be difficult to equal elsewhere. The

Cunard line is probably the only counterpart of the Peninsula and

Oriental line in existence.

This was our first experience of life upon a vessel crowded with

various ranks of English people. On the Atlantic our steamer

acquaintances are with few exceptions Americans. The contrast is

great in one respect: the tendency of the English passengers is to

form themselves into a great number of small cliques. No doubt

this tendency prevails to some extent upon the Atlantic also, but

then congenial tastes and education form the divisions there and

every one is in his proper sphere. Upon the Pekin we found that

rank and position formed a strong element in the case--regardless

of merit. Vandy and I being republicans, not caring a rap about

either birth or position, and without social status in England,

seemed to be the only cosmopolitans on board. From the major-

general and family down to the clerk of a mercantile house and his

nice wife and children, we had the free run of the ship. But when

we met intelligent and interesting people in one or the other

grade, and proposed to make them known to others, as, had both

parties been Americans, would have given much pleasure, and from

whose acquaintance mutual benefit would have resulted, we found

that the miserable barriers of artificial distinction stood in the

way.

I wished two young ladies to know each other, for they were akin

in education, manners, feelings, and accomplishments, and one

morning I said to the one who surely was not the less desirable

acquaintance: "You and Miss----should know each other; would you

not like to make her acquaintance? If so, I shall ask her, and I

am sure she would be pleased to make yours. Both will be the

gainers."

"Mr. Carnegie, excuse me, but she is a major-general's daughter,

the advance must come from her. If she ever expresses a wish to

know me, then you come to me and I'll tell you. This is the proper

thing, you know."

Happy American young ladies, into whose pretty heads the thought

would never enter that another would be so silly as to stand upon

position, and if by any chance it did momentarily arise, it would

be scouted as inconsistent with one's own self-respect as a woman.

England will never be truly homogeneous till throne and

aristocracy give place to the higher republican form.

India claims many victims. We had yesterday a young man near us

who had been in India only a short time, and who was returning

invalided. Poor fellow! He lay in the hatchway in his easy-chair

from morning until night, gazing wistfully over the sea toward his

beloved England. There he would soon get well. Only last night as

I passed to bed I stopped to encourage him, telling him how finely

we were dancing along homeward. At dawn I heard the pulsations of

the engine cease for a few moments only, but in those moments he

had been cast into the sea. Scarcely any one knew of his death

except the doctor and a few of the crew; not a soul on board knew

anything of him; he was an entire stranger to all. But think of

the mother and sisters who were to meet him on arrival and convey

him "to the green lanes of Surrey!" See them hastening on board

and casting anxious glances around! No one will know them, but

every one will suspect who they are, and what their errand, and

instinctively avoid them--for who would be the messenger to strike

a mother down with a word? The death and burial were sad--sad

enough; but the real tragedy is yet to be played in Southampton,

when the living are to envy the fate of the dead, who, "after

life's fitful fever," sleeps so well in the depths of the Indian

Ocean.

* * * * *

SUEZ, Friday, February 28.

We reached Suez at six o'clock in the morning, and anchored within

the bay. An enterprising sailboat captain came alongside and

offered to take us across the bay to the town in time to catch the

only train leaving for Cairo for twenty-four hours. It was two

long hours' sail, but the breeze was strong, and Vandy and I

resolved to try it, bargaining with the captain, however, upon the

basis of no train no pay. The few passengers on deck at that early

hour gathered to give the adventurers a farewell cheer, and we

were off. We made it just in time, and grasping a bottle of wine

and some bread at the station--for we had had no breakfast--we

started for Cairo.

The railway runs parallel to the Suez Canal, which, by the way,

was a canal in the days of the Pharaohs, but, of course, much

smaller and only used for irrigation. We saw the top-masts of

several steamers above the sandy banks as they crawled slowly

through the desert. How great the traffic already is and with what

strides it grows is well known. Its capacity can at any time be

doubled by lighting it with electricity, but at present vessels

are compelled by rule to lie still after sunset. All is dead

through the night. In a few years this will be changed; and indeed

the canal must be widened ere long and made a double track

throughout to accommodate the continual stream of ships plying

between the East and the West. At present it is just like one of

our single-track railways with sidings or passing places. The

distance from end to end is only about a hundred miles, but ships

sometimes take three and even four days to squeeze through. This

must be remedied. Twenty-four hours seems to be about the proper

time-table. When past Ismailia, the line leaves the canal and runs

westward through the land of Goshen. After the parched plains of

India, it was refreshing once more to look upon "deep waving

fields and pastures green." We were within the regions watered by

the Nile, and the harvests resembled those of the carse of Gowrie.

We reached Cairo on time, and our first inquiries were about our

friends, Mr. H., Miss N., and party, who were expected there from

their three months' excursion upon the Nile. Fortunately, we found

their dalbeah anchored in the stream, and we drove to it without

delay. Sure enough, as we reached the bank, there lay the Nubia,

that little gem, with the Stars and Stripes floating above her. We

were rowed on board only to find that our friends were in the

city. However, we made ourselves at home in the charming saloon,

and awaited their return. Unfortunately, some sailor on shore had

told them of two strangers going aboard, and there was not the

entire surprise we had intended; but if there was no surprise

there was no lack of cordial welcome, and we realized to the

fullest extent what a world of meaning lies in the quaint simile,

"as the face of a friend in a far-off country."

This reunion at Cairo was one of the fine incidents of our tour.

Many months ago we had parted from Mr. H. and family, and half in

jest appointed Cairo as our next meeting-place. They went in one

direction, we in another, and without special reference to each

other's movements it had so turned out that we caught them here.

It was a narrow hit, however, as they were to leave next day for

Alexandria; and had we remained on the Pekin, as all the other

passengers did, and not undertaken the sail across the bay, we

should have missed them. We grasped hands once more and sat down

to dinner, the Nile gurgling past, the Pyramids with their forty

centuries looking down upon us, and here was one more happy band

drawing more closely to each other since separated from friends at

home, enacting over again such scenes as the famous river has

witnessed upon its bosom for thousands of years--one generation

going and another coming, but the mysterious Nile remaining to

welcome each succeeding host; and thus,

"Thro' plots and counterplots--

Thro' gain and loss--thro' glory and disgrace--

...still the holy stream

Of human happiness glides on!"

Today sight-seeing was subordinated to the rare pleasure of

enjoying the company of our friends, but we all drove through

Cairo streets and saw one memorable sight--the great college of

Islam, where more than ten thousand students are constantly under

preparation as priests of the Prophet. We saw them in hundreds

sitting on their mats in the extensive open courts, all busily

engaged in learning to recite the Koran to masters, or listening

to professors who expounded it. Their intense earnestness soon

impresses you. From this centre radiate every year thousands of

these propagandists, scattering themselves over Arabia and to the

farthest boundaries of Islam, and even beyond, warring upon

idolatry and proclaiming the unity of God. No one can fail, I

think, to receive from such a visit as we paid a much higher

estimate of the vitality of Mohammedanism, and, having seen what

it has to supplant, we cannot refrain from wishing these

missionaries God-speed. The race rises step by step, never by

leaps and bounds. Upon this point I am much impressed by a

paragraph from a lecture delivered by Marcus Dodd, D.D., at the

Presbyterian College, London, which seems to me to take a wider

and sounder view than one usually finds from such a source, and is

therefore specially pleasing. He says: "The great lesson in

comparative religion which we learn from the connection of Judaism

and Christianity is that men are not always ripe for the highest

religion; that there is a fulness of time which it may take four

thousand years to produce. The Mosaic religion, imperfect as it

was, compared with Christianity, was better for Israel during its

period and preparation than the religion of Christ would have

been." Then, referring to the Mohammedan religion, he says: "It is

not denied that this religion did at once effect reforms which

Christianity had failed to effect. It accomplished more for Arabia

in a few years than Christianity had accomplished for centuries.

It abolished at a stroke the idolatry which Christianity had

fought in vain." It is to such men as Mr. Dodd that we are to look

to keep religion abreast of the age.

Max Müller says: "In one sense every religion was a true religion,

being the only religion which was possible at the time, which was

compatible with the language, the thoughts, and the sentiments of

each generation, which was appropriate to the age of the world."

The Brahman has found the same truth. "Men of an enlightened

understanding well know," says he, "that the Supreme has imparted

to each nation the doctrine most suitable for it, and He,

therefore, beholds with satisfaction the various ways in which He

is worshipped." In other words, religion is the highest expression

of which a people is capable. There is no reason why we should not

try to prepare a people for a better one, but note this, _they

must be prepared_. To _force_ new religions upon any race

is a sad mistake. In a late address on missionary methods in

India, Rev. Phillips Brooks said: "That which makes people

distrust foreign missions is the testimony that the Europeans in

India will not trust the Christianized Indian. It is not strange

that some poor creature should bring discredit on the religion he

professes. He worships in strange houses and in a strange way. He

kneels in American-style churches and is taught by men full of

American ideas. Christianity will never be the religion of India

until it comes there imbued with the spirit of the day. In time

there must come forth an Indian Christianity, rich, full of power

and goodness. The missionaries want this, and are perfectly aware

it must come. The influence that now goes to India carries with it

the curse as well as the blessing. Let the divisions of church

creeds be kept at home, and _let the Indian religion be

developed from within_."

We visited several mosques, but they are such poor affairs

compared to those of India that we took little interest in them.

While the other countries we have thus far visited have all

appeared stranger than expected, this is not so with Egypt.

Everything seems to be just as I had imagined it. We know too much

about the land of the Pharaohs to be taken thoroughly by surprise.

Perhaps there is something in our having seen so much that our

perceptions are no longer as keen as when we landed in Japan. The

appetite for sight-seeing becomes sated, like any other, and I

fear we are not as impressionable as before. So we decide not to

visit Turkey and Greece upon this trip but to take these when

fresh. The crowds of squalid wretches who surround us at every

turn, clamoring for backsheesh; the mud hovels in which they

manage to live, and the coarse food upon which they exist; the

mass of greasy, unwashed rags which hang loosely upon them--such

things no longer excite our wonder, or even our pity. We have seen

so much of such misery before that I fear we begin to grow

callous.

Cairo, as a city, is most picturesque, with its commanding

citadel, and its hundreds of mosques with their slender spires and

conspicuous minarets; while surrounding all this in the desert lie

the ruins of older cities and of tombs and temples innumerable.

The Desert of Sahara reaches to the very gates of the city on the

east. The city lies between that and the Nile; then comes a narrow

strip of green about ten miles in width, and after that the

boundless Libyan Desert. The Pyramids stand upon the very edge of

this desert, so that it is sand, sand, sand! everywhere around the

city of the Caliphs, save and except this little green border

along the Nile. But indeed the whole of Egypt is only a narrow

green ribbon stretching along the river for some six hundred

miles, and widening at the delta, where the waters divide and

reach the sea by various channels. All the rest is sand. Egypt has

not more cultivable soil than Belgium, and would not make a fair

sized State with us.

The Khedive Ismail was determined to make Cairo a miniature Paris,

and we see much that recalls Paris to us. The new boulevards, the

opera-house, circus, cafés, new hotel--all show how much has

already been done in this direction; but he is in hard straits

just now, and the cry there, as elsewhere, is for retrenchment and

reform. The new streets are Parisian, but it is in the old, narrow

streets of the city that one sees oriental life distinctively

Egyptian in its character. Indeed these are sights of Cairo which

I enjoy most. Muffled ladies pass by, resembling nothing I can

think of so much as big black bats as they sit man-fashion on

their donkeys, wrapped in black silk cloaks; men in gorgeous

silks, also on donkeys, ride along, while laden camels and asses

carrying large panniers of clover slowly pick their way through

the crowd. Harem ladies, too (there is the weight which pulls

Egypt down), roll slowly by in their covered carriages, preceded

by the running Lyces. I never saw such a miscellaneous throng in

any street before.

The great event of a visit to Cairo is Pyramid Day. The Pyramids

are eight miles distant, and an early start has to be made to

insure a return in season. Yesterday was our day. These wonders do

not impress one at first--few really stupendous works ever do; and

even when at their base you think but meanly of their magnitude,

so much so that you never hesitate as to whether you will ascend

Cheops, the largest. Three Arabs, whose duty it is to assist you,

are at once assigned to you by the Sheikh; two of these take your

hands, while the third stands behind to "boost" you up at the

moment the others pull. It is a hard climb even when so assisted,

and many who start are fain to content themselves with getting up

one third the distance. I think I rested three times in making the

ascent, and each time I found my feeling of disappointment growing

beautifully less; while by the time the shout came from my Arabs

announcing that they were on the top stone, I was filled with

respectful admiration for Cheops, I assure you, and whatever one

may say about the equator, I feel sure no one will ever hear me

speak disrespectfully of the Pyramids.

They are without doubt the greatest masses ever built by man.

Cheops is four hundred and fifty feet high, and covers thirteen

acres at the base, tapering to the top, which is only about thirty

feet square, where one false step would be certain death, as,

contrary to my opinion at first, I saw that one in falling could

not possibly rest on any of the layers of projecting stone. I do

not like high places, and I felt, while on the top, I would give a

handsome sum just to be safe on level ground again. But I got

down, or rather was taken down by my three attendants, without

much difficulty, and after luncheon we went into the centre of the

pile--a work of considerable trouble--and saw the sarcophagus.

Attempts have been made to invest the Pyramids with some

mysterious meaning, but, I take it, there will be no more of this,

since an explanation is now given which meets every objection.

They are simply the tombs of various kings, and differ in size

because the kings ruled for different periods of time. The mode of

procedure was this: When a king came to the throne he began to

build his tomb; perhaps this was an excellent way of keeping

before him the fact that he also must surely die, and that ere

long; successive courses of stone were built around the pile, one

course per year, and when the king died the building ceased, his

successor taking care to finish the course under progress at the

death of his predecessor; hence the great size of Cheops, for the

monarch who constructed it reigned forty-two years and built his

forty-two courses. This Pyramid is either sixty-five hundred or

five thousand years old, according as you decide for one or

another mode of computation. Either date will, however, entitle it

to the honors of a hoary old age. The old Arabian proverb, "That

all things fear Time, but Time fears the Pyramids," holds good no

longer, for "the tooth of Time" is slowly but surely

disintegrating even these masses. The entire finishing course of

huge stone blocks, from top to bottom of Cheops, has already

crumbled away, and lies in dust at the base. This is also the case

with the second in size, except that a portion still clings around

its top; this will fall some day, and leave it stripped like its

greater neighbor.

Our Arab guide told us, as he pointed to the numerous monograms

carved on the top of Cheops, that a lover who cuts the initials of

his adored there, and calls upon Allah to prosper his suit, is

certain to win her. Would you believe it, soon after this I saw

Vandy secretly carving away.

The Sphinx--the mysterious Sphinx--which has baffled all

inquisitive inquirers for centuries without number, stands in the

sand only a. short distance from Cheops. Imagine, if you can, with

what feelings one gazes upon it. It is as old as the Pyramids,

perhaps older, and there it still looks out upon the green and

fertile banks of the Nile with the Libyan Desert behind. Its

countenance has the same benignant cast, but it tells neither of

sorrow nor of anger, neither of triumph nor of defeat. It tells

you of no human passion, and yet seems to tell you of all--_the

end of all_--and yet it is not a sad face. It is every thing

and yet nothing. I never was so utterly unable to vivify an image

with at least some imaginings. It could be made one thing or

another, but no sooner had I thought it indicated one sentiment

than a second look made the idea seem absurd. Like so many

countless thousands before me, I gave it up. You cannot extract

anything from that face. I thought the lesson might be in its

position, and I pleased myself with drawing one from that. There

this mystery stands, gazing only upon what is rich and fertile and

instinct with life, the life-giving Nile rolling before it, and

the fields of golden grain in view. Its back turned resolutely to

the dreary sandy waste of death behind; and so it said to me as

plainly as if it could speak, This is your lesson: let the dead

past bury its dead; look forward only upon that which has life and

grows steadily towards perfection. It is upon the bright things of

life we must fix our gaze if we would be of use in our day and

generation.

When in Alexandria we visited with deep interest the site of the

famous Alexandrian Library, in which lay stored the most precious

treasures of the world. Had it escaped destruction, how many

questions which have vexed scholars would never have arisen, and

how much ground which it has been necessary for genius to

reconquer would have come to us as our heritage!

The Cleopatra's Needle now in New York, the counterpart of the one

in London, was still in Alexandria when we were there. Seventeen

hundred years before Christ this huge monolith, which is cut out

of solid rock, was erected at Heliopolis, and it was transported

thence several hundred miles to its present site. It measures

sixty-eight feet in height, and is not less than eight feet square

at its base--one solid shaft of granite; but this is exceeded by

the one still at Thebes, which is a hundred feet high. It struck

me as a notable coincidence that the ingenious Frenchman who first

proved the truth of the supposed hieroglyphic alphabet should have

done so by assuming that the name repeated so frequently upon a

certain stone extolling the virtues of Ptolemy Soter, must be that

of the famous Cleopatra, and so it proved. Thus this extraordinary

woman, who filled the world with her name during her life, and for

centuries after, once more renews her tenure by linking herself

with the world's history two thousand years after her death.

The museum in Cairo is said to comprise more Egyptian antiquities

than are possessed in the world besides. It is filled with

mummies, sarcophagi, jewelry, coins and statues, one wooden statue

shown being no less than four thousand six hundred years old.

Anything less than five thousand years of age one gets to consider

rather too modern to suit his taste. Upon some of the lids of the

tombs the inscriptions are as fresh as if cut yesterday. Egypt

furnishes the earliest records of our race, because the dry sands

of the desert on each side of the Nile, blowing over the cities of

the past until these were completely buried, hermetically sealed

them, and this preserved them from decay, and would have done so

for ages yet to come. Is it any wonder that this narrow strip,

filled with buried cities, should have given rise to a body of men

who devote themselves to the search for rich spoils of the past

and to deciphering the inscriptions? You meet occasionally an

Egyptologist, and seem to know him instinctively.

But grand as is Egypt's past, and varied as her fortunes have

been, it may surely be said that never during all her misfortunes

has she occupied a position as deplorable as that which saddens

the traveller of today. If any one wants to see what personal rule

in its fullest development is capable of producing, let him visit

Egypt. The condition of its finances is notorious, but we did not

expect to witness such convincing proofs of insolvency.

The Khedive has been maintaining a standing army of sixty thousand

men, but it has not been paid for more than two years.

Retrenchment having been insisted upon by England and France, it

was resolved to reduce the force to some eight thousand, and

orders of dismissal were accordingly issued. But about two hundred

officers who were in Cairo and had not yet been paid, entered the

Prime Minister's chambers a few days before our arrival in the

city, clamoring for their dues, and refused to leave until paid.

Some slight violence was even used toward that functionary, and

the English agent, who came manfully to his assistance, was

roughly pushed about. It was finally arranged to pay all dismissed

soldiers two months of their arrears. The train upon which we

travelled from Cairo carried many of these men to their homes.

While the army is not paid, we see on every hand unmistakable

proofs of the Khedive's reckless personal extravagance. Here lies

his grand steam yacht rotting in the harbor. In the station we

noticed the imperial cars stowed away; on the river his large

summer boat; and every other remarkably fine house in Cairo seemed

to be one or another of the Khedive's palaces or harems. The man

does not seem to have had the faintest idea of what was due to his

country, or, even worse, what was due to himself. But take the

greatest and best man in the world, surround him by people who

assure him morn, noon and night that he differs from other men,

and has a born right to their obedience--make a khedive, or czar,

or king out of him--if kind nature has not made a fool of him at

the start, men will do it, and if he has brains, brutality will

soon be added to his folly. If he hasn't brains, then he becomes

the fool pure and simple. George Washington himself would have

been spoiled by royal notions in less than six months--good as he

was and sound republican to boot.

One becomes indignant with a people so supine as to endure such

waste and oppression. Everything is taxed, and the masses of the

people are ground down to the lowest stage compatible with mere

animal existence. England and France have been compelled recently

to take strong measures in order to prevent impending ruin. The

Khedive not long since dismissed the only one of his ministers who

seemed to comprehend the state of affairs, but I see the faint

remonstrance of these powers has sufficed to reinstate him; in

other words, the Khedive has been told he is a figure-head, to

reign, not to govern, and we may hope for an improvement in

consequence. The population is only five millions, and it is

estimated that at least two millions more could be supported by

the country; so it seems that only good government is required to

restore Egypt to prosperity.

The tenure of land is an important question just now, and men's

minds are disposed to give the subject consideration. Mr. George's

exciting book has attracted surprising attention. "Thou shalt not

sell the land of the Lord thy God for ever," seems likely to prove

correct. Egypt has a land history of much significance. Anciently

the land was the property of the priests, and of the king and the

military class. Although there were no castes, still the fact that

the son usually followed his father's occupation, served the

purpose of caste. Even Joseph did not purchase the land of the

priests when he bought all the rest. Before the time of Mehemet

Ali, say up to about a hundred years ago, a kind of feudal system

prevailed, but by the massacre of the Mamelukes the feudal system

was destroyed. Mehemet Ali seized almost all the landed property,

and gave the owners pensions for life. There is scarcely such a

thing as private tenure of land now in Egypt.

This little bit of cultivated land has actually borrowed in the

last fifteen years no less than £80,000,000 sterling

($400,000,000). Twelve hundred miles of railway have been built,

and numerous canals, harbors, and lighthouses constructed; but the

amount spent in useful works bears but a small proportion to that

squandered. The greatest item of all, however, is the discount

paid upon the five successive loans by which funds were obtained.

None of these loans cost less than 12 per cent, per annum, while

the one for railways cost 26 per cent, per annum. These rates, I

believe, are calculated upon the issue prices; what commissions

the bankers received is unknown. A report upon the finances states

that the Government received only about one-half the amount of the

loans.

I have referred to the discontent which had shown itself in the

army during our stay in Cairo. How rapidly events have travelled

since then! The rise of a popular leader, Arabi, who possessed the

confidence, or at least, who was accepted by the people as their

only instrument of reform,--effectually put down by the English

Government, which surely was misled by its agents in Egypt.

Now that England has been so foolish as to interfere, but two

courses are open. She must either rule Egypt as she does India,

or, what would be infinitely better both for Egypt and for

England, retire, and allow the people of Egypt to undertake the

management of their own affairs. This would be unfortunate for the

bondholders, no doubt, but it would sooner or later secure for

Egypt those institutions for which she is suited. I am convinced

that England is to see the day, and that ere long, when she will

bitterly repent ever having thrown her power in the scale against

men who revolted at a state of affairs against which revolt was

meritorious, and gave to the world the best proof that sufficient

sound timber existed in Egypt to form the nucleus of firm national

institutions. England's position in Egypt is all wrong. She of all

nations should know that there are stages in the life of nations

where oppression can be overthrown only by violent means. Ah! John

Bright proved himself here once more the true statesman. Had his

advice been followed, how different might have been the result!

But ere the Egyptian question is settled we may see stranger

events still than those which have surprised us.

The cry from the moment you set foot in Egypt until the steamer

sails is "Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" Give! give! give! Crowds

surround you at every place, and from child to withered eld it is

an incessant chorus. If one is weak enough to give a piastre he is

done for; the crowd increases, and the roars of the beggars with

it. There is no place in Egypt which can be enjoyed, owing to this

nuisance; even on the top of the Pyramid the evil is unabated.

Travellers must be to blame for such an annoyance. For our part we

resolved never to give anything to a beggar, and adhered strictly

to the rule, which preserved us from many a fierce attack; but the

objects begging were sometimes piteous-looking enough to haunt

one.

The surest means of obtaining a livelihood as a beggar in Egypt is

to feign idiocy, which, I am told, is frequently done. Idiots are

regarded as saints, and are never restricted in their movements,

maniacs alone being confined, and they are often met with in the

streets. My Swedenborgian friends might account for the absence of

sense being held proof positive of the saintly character by urging

that idiots were certainly free from one of the worst evils of

this generation denounced by the Swedish Seer as "self-derived

intelligence."

The never ending work of creation is finely illustrated in the

remarkable depression of the northern shore of Egypt, which is

continually going on, notwithstanding the vast deposits from the

many mouths of the Nile annually discharged upon it, while on the

southern shore, near Suez, a contrary phenomenon is observable.

The consequence of this movement is seen in the ruins of places on

the Mediterranean shore, and the drying up of large portions of

the Gulf of Suez. Indeed the bed of the Red Sea may be traced for

miles north of the town of Suez, which is now at the head of the

gulf, and places far north of the town were on the coast in

historic times. An equally remarkable change is observable in the

level of the Nile. Two thousand years B.C. it is found that at

Semneh the mean height of the famous river was twenty-three feet

greater than it is to-day. Imagine what results would flow from a

change of the level of the Mississippi twenty-three feet higher or

lower than now! It would change the continent. While such

startling changes are found right under our own eyes, surely we do

not require the "doctrine of catastrophes" to explain the creation

of this little ball--the earth! The silent, irresistible,

unchanging laws of Nature suffice.

We arrived too late to get a run up the Nile, as the boats had

ceased to ply for the season. There remained but Cairo and

Alexandria to visit, and a few days spent at each place exhausts

the sights; but we concluded that nothing could be more enjoyable

than a three-months' sail upon the Nile, in one's own boat,

breathing the remarkably pure and dry air as it comes from the

desert, moving day by day from one to another scene of the far

past, and at night enjoying the unequalled sunsets, when it seems,

as some one has beautifully said, that "the day was slowly dying

of its own glory." This is the trip of trips for an invalid, or

for one overtaxed by work or oppressed with sorrow; and for a

bridal tour--to give the lovers plenty of time and opportunity to

become thoroughly acquainted with each other--it can be highly

recommended.

The rapid rise of our western rivers is very different from the

gradual swelling of the Nile, which begins at Khartoum, at the

junction of the White and Blue Niles, as early as April each year,

but which is not felt at Cairo until after the summer solstice,

while the greatest height is not reached till autumn. A good flood

gives a rise of forty feet at the first cataract, and about

twenty-five at Cairo; a scanty rise is when only between eighteen

or twenty feet occurs at Cairo. The inundation is good if it is

between twenty-four and twenty-seven feet; if beyond the latter it

becomes a destructive flood. Upon such a narrow margin--the rise

of a few feet more or less in the Nile--depends the entire crop of

Egypt! Once for a period of seven years (A.D. 457-464), the rise

failed and seven years of famine ensued. A great engineering work,

designed to regulate the inundation by means of a _barrage_

across both branches of the river below Cairo, was begun some

years ago, but, I believe, has been abandoned. When Egypt reaches

good government from within herself, not through foreigners, one

of its first works should be to complete the barrage. Surplus

water will then be allowed free escape, and inundations prevented.

When the flow is scanty, egress at the river mouths will be

retarded, and thus Egypt will be secured regular harvests. We

watch men at work everywhere raising water from narrow ditches to

higher levels, that all parts may be irrigated from the fruitful

Nile. We could get no estimate of the amount of water which one

man can raise in a day; but when human labor is so cheap, we

guessed that it was, upon the whole, an economical mode. At all

events a complete revolution in the management of land, and

probably of its tenure, must precede the general use of machinery

for this purpose. The "shadoof" of today is the same in form as

that used by the ancient Egyptians. Two columns of mud, or brick,

erected at the side of the ditch, support a beam of wood, across

which is a pole with a weight at one end, and a rude wooden bowl-

shaped bucket, suspended by a stick, at the other. A man stands

under the bucket and pulls it down into the water. The weight

helps him to push it up to the ditch above, where it is emptied.

The operation is very quickly performed, and the bucket kept

constantly going. It would be hard to beat these ancient Egyptian

shadoofs by any device requiring human labor where the amount of

water required is small. Water-wheels, driven by bullocks or cows,

and sometimes by one animal only, are sometimes used. There is

also a double shadoof worked by two men, and even steam pumps are

used in extreme cases where the volume of water desired is

unusually large. Steam, no doubt, is ultimately to drive out the

shadoof, ancient as it is. We had a strange meeting at Cairo upon

entering the breakfast-room the morning after our arrival. Whom

should we be placed opposite to but my friend the Rev. Mr. D., of

Dunfermline, my aunty's minister, nae less! He was _en route_

to the Holy Land with his father-in-law; but we had several days

together at Cairo, and talked upon many subjects, from theology to

town affairs. I had received a telegram the day of his departure

which told me my mother was to sail from New York that very day to

join me in Scotland, as had been arranged, and we drank her health

and wished her _bon voyage_ in good style.

Before bidding farewell to the East, I wish to indulge in just a

few general reflections. Life there lacks two of its most

important elements--the want of intelligent and refined women as

the companion of man, and a Sunday. It has been a strange

experience to me to be for several months without the society of

some of this class of women--sometimes many weeks without even

speaking to one, and often a whole week without even seeing the

face of an educated woman. And, bachelor as I am, let me confess

what a miserable, dark, dreary, and insipid life this would be

without their constant companionship! This brings everything that

is good in its train, everything that is bright and elevating. I

cannot satisfy myself as to what the man of the East has to

struggle for, since he has dethroned woman and practically left

her out of his life. To see a wealthy Chinaman driving along in

his carriage alone was pitiable. His efforts had been successful,

but for what? There was no joy in his world. The very soul of

European civilization, its crown and special glory, lies in the

elevation of woman to her present position (she will rise even

higher yet with the coming years), and this favor she has repaid a

thousand-fold by making herself the fountain of all that is best

in man. In life, without her there is nothing. Much as the lot of

woman in the East is to be deplored, that of man is still more

deplorable. The revenge she takes is terrible, for she drags down

with her, in her debasement, the higher life of man. I had noted

the absence of music as one great want. Not an opera nor a

concert--not even a hand-organ. Scarcely a sweet sound in all our

journey. When we found an English church or a regimental band, we

rejoiced. I went to hear the organ upon every occasion, and was

seldom absent when the band played; but were women there as with

us, wouldn't music spring forth also! so that even this want I am

disposed to attribute to the first cause.

The absence of a regularly recurring day of rest ranks next in

importance, I believe, in the list of causes which keep the East

down in the scale of nations. With few exceptions, the race is

doomed to a life of unremitting toil--from morning till night, and

every day without respite; for festival and fête days recurring at

long, irregular intervals are no substitute for the one regular

day to which labor looks forward with us. The prospect of one day

of rest frequently intervening gives a toiler something bright to

look forward to, without which his life must stretch before him as

one unceasing, unvarying drag. In this one blessed day his slavery

ceases, the shackles fall. He is no longer a brute--fed and

clothed solely because of his physical powers, his capacity to

bear burdens--but a higher being, with tastes, pleasures, friends.

Life becomes worth living. The man puts on his best clothes--and

there is much in this--the woman gives her cottage an extra

brushing up. Something extra is prepared for dinner--there is a

great deal in this, too--and, in short, the day is marked by a

hundred little differences from those of labor--a stroll in the

fields, a visit to relatives, or a meeting with neighbors at

church, all in their best; and then the swelling organ and the

choir--these things lie closely at the root of all improvements;

and if ever the race is to be lifted to a higher platform--and who

shall dare doubt it?--the weekly day of rest will prove itself an

agency in the good work only second to the elevation of woman.

The best mode of improving its most precious hours for the toiling

masses is therefore a question of infinite moment, apart

altogether from the question of its divine character, and viewed

only as a human enactment of the highest wisdom. It would seem

clear that to make this only respite from manual labor a day

exclusively set apart for the mournful duty of bemoaning our

manifold shortcomings--which must at best give rise to gloomy

thoughts--would defeat the purposes I have indicated. I want a

compromise--church service in the morning, with a sermon "leaning

to the side of mercy," as Sidney Smith suggested, which meant that

it should not exceed twenty minutes, for, as one wit says, "a

minister who can't strike ile in twenty minutes should quit

_boring_"--and then the fields and streams for the toilers

who are cooped up in factories and workshops all the week long, or

a visit to picture galleries, museums, or to musical concerts of a

high order in huge centres--for in London and a village it is not

the same question at all--to anything that would tend to brighten

their existence. I am now convinced that there is an important

change to be made in the mode of keeping our Sundays--the

cessation of labor, as far as it is possible, to remain a cardinal

point, but better facilities to be provided for cultivating the

higher tastes of our poor workers, that the day may be to them

indeed "the golden jewel which clasps the circle of the week."

One more observation upon the East and I am done: the work that

England is doing there. You know that she has in one way or

another obtained the keys to the East. Some islands she owns; some

small strips of the mainland she also has acquired and governs; at

Shanghai, Hong Kong, and other points in China; at Singapore,

Penang, Ceylon, Aden, Malta, and indeed all through our journey,

we stand now and then on British soil. And wherever the meteor

flag floats, there you find order, freedom, schools, churches,

dispensaries, clean streets, hospitals, newspapers, justice; and

under that flag you will find thousands of Chinamen and Malays,

Indians, Cingalese, Arabs--indeed men of all races--settled and

enjoying the blessings of good government. No revolution there, no

slavery, no arbitrary arrest, nor forced levy. As a native lawyer

in India said to me--he talked freely because of our American

look--"There is between natives under English rule perfect

justice; but," he added, "every one must behave himself. There is

no war nor plundering when one settles under them, for these

English _won't stand any nonsense, and they will have

peace_."

England, therefore, has planted throughout the East small models

of perfectly governed little States, enjoying all the blessings of

the highest civilization. Daily and hourly these teach their

lesson to the native races, and when they do acquire this

lesson--and who that believes in the progress of mankind can doubt

but the day must come?--they will look westward with grateful

hearts and say, "All this we owe to thee, noble England!"

But while this is true, there is another phase of England's work

to which I have referred in my remarks upon India. The source of

England's good work springs from example. It is where the native

races are drawn to her standard, as at the many points named,

where their freedom is not destroyed, that great results can alone

be looked for. This is the very reverse of England's position in

India. She stands there as the destroyer of native institutions,

and forces her views upon an unwilling people wholly unprepared to

receive them, instead of resting, as at Hong Kong, Singapore,

Aden, and such places, saying to the natives, "Come, try our

system, and, if you like it, remain and share its benefits."

Nothing but good can result from the latter, and nothing really

good can flow from the former; the injury done must more than

absorb any temporary gains. Force is no remedy; and some of these

years, unless the ablest natives are induced to participate in the

government of India, and soon allowed the chief control, England

will rise to a rude awakening.

* * * * *

ALEXANDRIA, Friday, March 14.

Off at nine this morning for Naples, taking Sicily _en

route_. The voyage was a smooth one, and we landed at Catania

upon the morning of the fourth day. As we stepped ashore we felt

in a moment that we were once more within the bounds of

civilization. What a difference between this and the East! And

there frowned Mount Etna, ten thousand feet above the sea level,

thirty miles distant, and yet seemingly so near we thought that we

could almost walk over to its base after breakfast. We ascended a

small hill in the centre of the city--which, by the way, has a

population of a hundred thousand--and there lay Sicily spread out

before us in all its wondrous beauty. Lemon and orange groves in

full bearing, and fields of vines just budding; and in the town

clean paved streets and pavements, which are unknown in the East;

people with shoes and stockings on; statues and fountains, and a

good old cathedral; harps and violins, and the chime of church

going bells. Ah! Western civilization is not a mistake, nor a

myth, nor a thing of doubtful value, as we can testify. At least

so thought two happy travellers in Sicily that bright balmy

morning, as they felt how blessed a thing it was to be once more

in a civilized country.

The pretty island of Sicily (Sechelia, as the Italians pronounce

it) contains nearly three millions of people--nearly as many as

Scotland--and supports them almost entirely by the produce of the

land, for manufactures are little known. The olive and the vine

are everywhere, and the crops of oranges and lemons go to most

parts of the world. An English gentleman told us he had bought

oranges in the season for one cent per dozen. There is one item of

export of rather peculiar character--sulphur--which is obtained

from the volcano. We saw it drawn through the streets in large

blocks.

Only two hundred years ago an eruption of Mount Etna took place,

and 27,000 people were buried by the lava. We saw where the stream

had rushed down from the crater through part of the town, and far

into the sea--almost a mile in width, and thirty miles from its

source, bearing destruction to everything in its course, and yet

to-day fine new houses stand upon the cold lava, and away up and

along the sides of the volcano for miles are to be seen cottages

clustering thickly together, the inmates busily engaged in

cultivating their vineyards. It was only a few days ago--the

monster gave a warning and shook these houses; but they still "sit

under their vine and sing the merry songs of peace to all their

neighbors"--these merry, light-hearted Sicilians!--as if they had

Mount Etna under perfect control.

The railway skirts the shores of the island for its entire

length--some fifty miles--and a more beautiful ride is not to be

seen in all the world. It is a succession of fine old castles, in

perfect ruin, upon every petty promontory, and we go through

nothing but orange and lemon groves and vineyards. We pass at the

base of Mount Etna; but although all was smiling in the valleys

below, its top was enveloped in dark clouds and busy with the

thunder and the storm.

Messina is a very quaint Italian city. The funeral services of a

distinguished lady were in progress when we stepped into the

cathedral, which was illuminated with hundreds of candles--I think

I might say almost a thousand--the interior being one mass of

light, which shone with strange effect upon the rich black velvet

with which the walls were draped. A lady in our party counted the

carriages as they passed, and told us there were fifty-three, most

of which would compare favorably with those of New York or London.

This will give you some idea of the richness of Messina, which we

had thought to be an unimportant town.

The Sicilians are strict Roman Catholics and completely under the

dominion of that faith. There is scarcely a trace of dissent to be

found. When we were about to sail from Messina for Naples a priest

walked upon the deck and collected contributions from the devout

passengers, for which in return he was expected to give to our

good ship the august protection of Holy Mother Church. We noticed

that all the passengers contributed and received his blessing with

much solemnity. Faith is still there. They were going to

sea--probably a first experience to most if not all of them, and

were naturally apprehensive. Should we have a stormy night, no

doubt, notwithstanding their bargain with the priest, some will

resolve with good Dame Partington that under like circumstances

if ever she set her foot on dry land she would never again trust

herself "so far out of the reach of Providence." But my mother

remembers well that when a member of the congregation was about to

start from Dunfermline to London, a rare event in those days,

though not so very long ago, that his safety was always prayed for

in church. I mentioned this to Vandy when he was deploring the

ignorance and, as he thought, the impiety of the Sicilians. We are

not entirely free from superstition ourselves, and were in the

last generation where the Sicilians are in this.

The scene in "The Tempest," the enchanted isle, must have been in

the neighborhood of Sechelia, and surely no fitter region in all

the world could be found; indeed I found sweet Sechelia so

enchanting that I voted it the very spot, and selected my

Prospero's Cave on the glittering shore within sight of Mount

Etna.

* * * * *

BAY OF NAPLES, Thursday, March 20.

Early morning! Yes, my dear friends, it is round. Here stands

Mount Vesuvius in full view this morning, making for itself pure

white clouds of steam, which float in the otherwise clear,

cloudless sky of Italy. No entering the crater now as we did

before, for the volcano is no longer at rest. Vandy and I shake

hands and recall our pledge made in the crater years ago, and say,

"Well, that is now fulfilled, and may life only have for us in its

unknown future another such five months of unalloyed happiness

(save where the dark shades of death among friends at home have

saddened the hours) as those we have been so privileged to enjoy."

It is well never to be without something to look forward to, and

speculate upon; and by a happy chance Vandy and I have hit upon

our next excursion, when we shall have earned another vacation by

useful work. The very thought of it already brings us pleasure.

And so, all hail, sunny Italia! What a picture this Bay of Naples

is! We sail past our former haunts, Capri and Sorrento, and are

soon in our hotel at Naples, where we are delighted to rejoin our

friends.

From this time forth it is impossible but that a change must occur

in the character of these notes. There is a first time to

everything, and it is first impressions which I have endeavored

honestly to convey; but my first impressions of Europe were

obtained years ago. The gloss and enthusiasm of novelty are

wanting. The sober second thought is proverbial; but there is a

sober second sight as well, and it is this I am about to take.

Besides this, Europe is more familiar to everybody than the East.

Many know it through personal experience, and I shall therefore

content myself with giving the salient features of our homeward

progress from this point.

We find Naples, Sorrento, Capri, and all the pretty spots around

the bay much improved since our last visit. The people seem to us

to be remarkably fine-looking, but perhaps this is mainly owing to

the miserable races we have been seeing lately. The museum which

contains the principal treasures found at Pompeii and Herculaneum

is greatly improved, and one has no difficulty now in determining

just how the people of those cities lived. There are even models

of the houses shown. The frescoes and sculptures are far finer

than I had remembered them, and indeed there are so many articles

of furniture and domestic utensils that one cannot help admitting

that those who argue that man travels in a circle just as the

world goes round, and never advances, have some ground for their

theory in these remarkable productions of the first century. We

are in the land of music, sure enough!--Here is the list of operas

to be performed to-night, apart from numerous dramatic

performances: "Norma," "Sonnambula," "La Belle Hélène," "Martha."

You will please take it for granted that our nights here, with few

exceptions, will be spent hearing one or another opera, for of all

the pleasures of civilized society which we have missed most in

our travels, we rank first after the absence of refined women the

total absence of music. We hunger for sweet sounds.

We were fortunate this time in getting into the Blue Grotto--the

sea being quite smooth. The reflections upon the rocky roof were

not as fine as we expected; but Miss N. pronounced the water "the

prettiest blue that ever was," and she is an authority upon color.

While at Capri we ascended to the villa of Tiberius, on the edge

of a perpendicular cliff nearly two thousand feet high. It was

from this rock that ruler was wont to throw his victims into the

sea. He found they never troubled him again. And now I write amid

the orange groves of Sorrento, where we have been spending a few

days.

We have just finished, in company with our friends, a three-days'

excursion to Pæstum, embracing the famous drive along the coast to

Amalfi. Certainly I know nothing of the kind in the world equal to

this road in grandeur, and if any of you ever visit Naples I advise

you to let nothing interfere with your going to Amalfi. At Sorrento

we joined our friends, Mr. H. and party, and our Windsor Hotel

delegation was further and happily augmented by Mr. and Mrs. I. and

family. Can you wonder that our daily excursions were delightful?

* * * * *

ROME, March 26.

Rome once more! What a change! A miniature Paris has been added to

old Rome since we first saw it, and even old Rome itself is

modernized completely. Much of the picturesque is lost, but well

lost, since it brings us clean streets, improved dwellings, and

all the accompaniments of progress; but, notwithstanding its now

greater likeness to modern cities, it is not with these Rome vies.

Her empire is not of to-day, but over the mighty past she alone

holds undisputed sway, and the spirit of ages gone still infuses

itself into everything in Rome. I thought even modern structures

were unlike their fellows elsewhere, as if the mere fact that they

stood in Rome invested them with a peculiar halo of classic

dignity and importance. Then Rome still has to boast of so many of

the best things which the world has to show. No other cathedral is

so grand as St. Peter's nor so beautiful as St. Paul's; no other

"bit of color" is equal to the Transfiguration; no other heroic

statue is to be compared with the Augustus; nowhere else is so

sweet a girl-face as the Cenci; no other group is to be named with

the Laocoon, no other fresco with the Aurora; and where is there

another Moses, or Apollo Belvedere, or Antinous, or where is there

vocal music so heavenly as that of the Pope's choir? Nowhere. And

so it comes that the world still flocks to Rome, and must continue

its pilgrimage hither to this Mecca for a thousand years to come;

and artists by the score, day after day, multiply copies of these

wonders of art, the recognized "best" in their various classes

which man has yet brought forth. All these works, and others

unmentioned, I returned to with enhanced pleasure. They all seemed

greater and finer to me than when I saw them before. I had not

forgotten them, while the mass of mediocre works had left no

trace.

It is thus that the true fire of genius vindicates its right to

immortality. Generations may come and go, fashions and tastes may

change, but "a thing of beauty" remains "a joy forever." While the

statues and pictures of Rome, therefore, gave me far greater

pleasure than before, I have to confess that the historical

associations gave me much less. When in Rome before I was

overflowing with Shakespeare, Byron and Macaulay, and would wander

away alone and recite to myself on the appropriate sites the

passages connected with them. This time I fear our friends proved

too congenial. We dwelt too much in the happy present to give

ourselves up to the historical past; but I do not think one gets

the sweetest juices out of Rome unless he gives way to the

melancholy vein now and then, and "stalks apart in joyless

reverie."

Another reason for the difference suggests itself. One fresh from

Egypt, where he has been digging among the five thousand years

B.C., and lost in amazement at what the race was even then

producing, must experience some difficulty in getting up a

respectable amount of enthusiasm for structures so recent as the

time of Christ; the "rascally comparative" intrudes to chill it

with its cold breath.

There is a third reason, perhaps--and reasons do seem as plenty as

blackberries, now that I begin to write them down--we are so near

home the echoes of business affairs begin to sound in our ears. We

snuff the battle as it were afar off. It is impossible to become

so entirely absorbed in the story of the Cenci as to prevent the

morning's telegram from home intruding, and so it came about that

this time we did less moralizing than before. We were fortunate in

being in Rome during Easter Week, which gave us an opportunity to

hear the best music; and certainly there is no choir for vocal

music which can rank with that of the Pope. It is the only choir I

ever heard which I felt the finest organ would spoil. It produces

a strange and powerful effect, the music itself seeming to be of a

peculiar order unlike any other. One of our young ladies,

describing her feelings to a friend, said that at one time she

felt she was really in heaven; but when the "Miserere" broke

forth, she knew she was only a poor sinner struggling to get

there.

We visited, with our friends, the various studios. In painting

there does not appear to be a high standard of excellence. The

Roman school does not stand well, but in statuary it is better. A

young American artist, Mr. Harnisch, seemed to me to be doing the

most creditable work. His busts have already given him reputation,

and he has a figure now in plaster, "Antigone," which I rate as

the best classical statue in process of completion which we saw.

This young artist is not probably as good a manager as some of his

more pretentious countrymen, and, I fear, we are to wait some time

before a Congressional committee can be induced to give him a

commission; but in the opinion of real Italian sculptors he is an

artist. There are those who have "adorned" our public edifices

with huge works to whom certainly no one outside of America would

apply the name. We shall hear of Mr. Harnisch by-and-by; he is

young, and can wait. I was highly gratified at making the

acquaintance of Dr. Smiles, author of "Self-Help," and that

favorite of mine, "The Scotch Naturalist," and other valued works.

He is a most delightful companion and a true Scotchman, and hadn't

we "a canny day thegether" at Tivoli! Through him I met Mr.

William Black, who is a small, young man, with a face that lights

up, and eyes that sparkle through his spectacles. Mr. Petty, R.A.,

and he were doing Italy together, and no doubt we are to see

traces of their travels in their respective lines ere long.

* * * * *

FLORENCE, Wednesday, April 9.

We spent a few days in Florence, but it rained almost continually,

as indeed it has done all winter. This has been the most

disagreeable season ever known in Italy, we hear from every

quarter. Sight-seeing requires sunshine: but we nevertheless did

the galleries, and were delighted with the masterpieces for which

the city is famed. The statuary, however, is much inferior to that

of Rome. In the way of painting I was most interested in comparing

the numerous Madonnas of Raphael, and seeing how he, at last,

reached "the face of all the world" in the San Sisto. He seems to

have held as loyally as a true knight to his first love. His

Madonnas have all the same type of face. You could never hesitate

about their authorship. Emphatically they are one and all

"Raphael's Madonnas," and very much alike--even the one which the

Grand Duke loved so fondly as to take it about with him wherever

he travelled is only a little sweeter than the rest. It is a

strange fact that it was not by painting Madonnas at all the

master obtained his inspiration. He painted the portrait of a

lady, which is still seen in the Pitti Palace, from whose face he

drew the lacking halo of awe and sublimity. He idealized this

woman's face, and the San Sisto came to satisfy all one can

imagine about the Madonna. But the face of Christ! Who shall paint

it satisfactorily? No one. This is something beyond the region of

art. A divine-human face cannot be depicted, and all the efforts I

have seen are not only failures which one can lament, but many are

caricatures at which one becomes indignant. I was greatly pleased

that a true artist, Leonardo da Vinci, realized this, and painted

his Christ with averted head. Every great painter in older times

seems to have thought it incumbent upon him to paint a Christ, and

consequently you meet them everywhere. As for the "Fathers"

(_i.e._, Jehovah) one sees, these seem to me positively

sacrilegious. I wonder the arms of the men who ventured upon such

sacred ground did not wither at their sides. To paint old men with

tremendous white flowing beards--a cross between Santa Claus and

Bluebeard--and call them God! Here is materialism for you with a

vengeance. These audacious men forgot that _He_ was not seen

in the whirlwind, neither in the storm, but never seen at all;

only _heard in the still_, small voice.

Of course I visited Mrs. Browning's grave in Florence. I had the

melancholy satisfaction of hearing, from one who knew her

intimately, many details concerning her life here. Mr. Browning

left Florence the day after she died, leaving the house, his

books, papers, and even unfinished letters, as they were when he

was called to her bedside the night before, and has never

returned; nor has he ever been known to mention her name, or to

refer to the blow which left him alone in the world. He seems to

have been worthy even of a love like hers. We stayed over two days

at Milan to see friends, and while there ascended to see once more

the celebrated cathedral. It is finer--I do not say grander--but

much finer, especially as seen from the roof, than any other

building in Europe.

From Milan we went to Turin, and spent a day there, as we had

never seen that city. It is prettily situated, very clean, with

regular streets, but without any special objects of interest. The

splendid view of the snow-clad Alps, and the fertile valley of the

Po, as seen from the monastery, fully repaid us for the day given

to Turin. We leave Italy in the morning. It is impossible not to

like the country and to be deeply interested in its future. While

it has made considerable progress since the genius of Cavour made

it once more a nation, still its path is just now beset with

dangers. A standing army of six hundred thousand and all the

concomitants of royalty to maintain, and a large national debt

upon which interest has to be paid--these require severe

taxation, and even with this the revenues show a deficit. That

last resort, paper currency, has been sought, and now the

circulating medium--although "based on the entire property of the

nation," as our demagogues phrase it--is at a discount of ten per

cent., which threatens to increase.

But the chief trouble arises from the religious difficulty--that

sad legacy from the past, of which, fortunately, a new land like

America knows nothing. The Pope and all strict Catholics stand

coldly aloof from the government, ready to give trouble whenever

opportunity offers. But I have faith in Italy. She will conquer

her enemies, and once again be a great power worthy of her

glorious past. All her troubles, however, are not to seek.

* * * * *

PARIS, Thursday, May 1.

Now comes somewhat of a return to the more prosaic side of life.

We made an excursion to the famous iron and steel works of the

Schneider Company at Creuzot. What a concern this is, and how

small we all are upon the other side of the Atlantic! Fifteen

thousand five hundred men are employed here. We saw fifteen steam

hammers in one shop. The mill for rolling only is 1,500 by 350

feet, filled with trains. The giant, however, is the 80-ton steam

hammer, with its huge appliances. Masses of steel 35 tons in

weight are handled as readily as we move a rail ingot. One ingot

of steel weighing 120 tons was shown to us. This monster hammer is

required only for armor plate and guns--war material. The happier

demands of peaceful industry are met with ordinary machinery. Long

may it be, therefore, before America can boast an engine of even

half the size. Our visit to Creuzot was both interesting and

instructive. Mr. Schneider and his officers were most cordial and

attentive to us.

We spend a few days in Paris, which shows even more than the other

cities we have revisited the march of improvement. It is farther

beyond competition in its line than it ever was. I appreciate its

attractions more than I have done upon previous visits; but one

must be exceptionally strong who can persist in leading an earnest

and useful life here, where so much exists to persuade one that

after all amusement is the principal thing to be sought for. Most

of the American residents seem to me to sink naturally to the

level of thinking most--or certainly talking most--of the newest

opera, or even the best ballet, or where is to be found the best

_table d'hôte_; but, after all, what can a man do who leaves

his own country, and the duties incumbent upon him there, to

become a man about town here, with no work in the world to do.

Good Americans come here when they die, it is said. I think it

would be well for most of them if they did postpone their journey

until then.

As we have travelled through France bands of the "Reserves" have

been constantly seen repairing to their camps. Every Frenchman

now, without exception, must serve as a soldier and drill at least

one month every year. No substitutes are allowed. Soldiers!

soldiers everywhere! Not a petty town at which we have stayed over

night but has its barracks--its troops who parade its streets

every morning. The entire male population is being trained so as

most skilfully to murder, upon the first favorable opportunity,

such of their fellow-Christians who may happen to be called

Germans, while in Germany a similar state of affairs is rendered

necessary to prevent the success of their "brothers'" intention.

You see there was a frontier that was not "scientific," and it was

"rectified" a few years ago; but these rectifications, of all

things in the world, never remain rectified, and so we are to

awake some fine morning to find the "civilized" Christian (!)

nations (save the mark!) nobly engaged in butchering each other,

even if this is the nineteenth century and we all worship Christ

and have the same Father in heaven. That thoughtful educated

people, even in England and America, can still deliberately send a

son "to the army," to be taught the butchering trade, his victims

being human, always saddens me when I think of it. The progress of

the world has not only been slow but small, till the profession of

arms, as it is called, is held to be unfit except for men of

brutal natures.

In Italy it is much the same. She has 600,000 men under arms, and

is drilling others, while Russia has just ordered an addition to

her hosts exceeding five-fold the entire American army. England's

war expenditure this year exceeds that of only five years ago by

$30,000,000, which is more than America spends for her army

altogether. And so the whole of Europe is armed and arming, as if

conscious that a storm is about to burst, or at least that such a

stupendous drain upon her productive resources has to be endured

to insure safety. Happy America! she alone seems to occupy a

position free from grave and imminent dangers.

* * * * *