Round the World Part 15

We have just finished, in company with our friends, a three-days'

excursion to Paestum, 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 cla.s.sic 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 Laoc.o.o.n, 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 cla.s.ses 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sociations 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 pa.s.sages 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 cla.s.sical 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 inc.u.mbent 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 G.o.d! 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. Ma.s.ses 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 compet.i.tion 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 amus.e.m.e.nt is the princ.i.p.al 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'hote_; but, after all, what can a man do who leaves his own country, and the duties inc.u.mbent 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 subst.i.tutes 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!) n.o.bly 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.

LONDON.

Our next step brought us to monster London, where we attended the interesting meeting of the British Iron and Steel Inst.i.tute, and being called upon as the only representative of American iron and steel manufacturers present, I had to venture a few remarks.

Whatever England may be justly chargeable with in the past for her neglect of scientific methods and the improvements of the day, it is evident she now occupies the van in this respect.

No one could be present at these meetings without being impressed with the amount and thoroughness of the scientific knowledge now engaged in the iron and steel manufacture of Great Britain. Not less remarkable seemed to me the willingness upon the part of all to report and explain every advance made in the various processes to their fellows. The old idea of trade secrets seems thoroughly exploded, and a free interchange of practice and theory is now seen to be the best for all. I cannot but believe that had the manufacturers of America adopted this policy years ago, many millions squandered in the erection of works at unsuitable locations would have been saved. It struck me as strange that no less a personage than Earl Granville, who has had charge of her Majesty's foreign affairs and been leader in the House of Lords, should have been in attendance and partic.i.p.ated in these meetings.

The company also had the attendance of two dukes; but these were Lord Granville's compeers only in t.i.tle. All of the three, however, rightfully claim to rank with us as iron-masters. The Bessemer medal was presented this year to Peter Cooper, of New York, much to the honor of the donors, I think.

For one shilling, any one curious to know something of the sights of this London, can do so by purchasing a good-sized volume--d.i.c.kens's London. A look at it will soon satisfy one how true it is that compared to London all other cities are but villages. It will very soon count four millions of people under its sway. Every year one hundred thousand are added to the ma.s.s, and not even depressed times seem to limit this increase. The reason for this is patent; there is everything here that there is elsewhere, and much that can be found nowhere else; in every department of life, for earnest work in any special line, or for amus.e.m.e.nt--for sight-seeing, study, or fashion--it is here that the very best of everything is concentrated; the very cream of all the world is here, because no other place is large enough or rich enough to support it. To know the best that has been said and done in the world of the past is no doubt much, as Matthew Arnold says, but there is also much in seeing and living where the best of to-day is said and done, and if possible in the company of those who have said or done any of the best things in any line. Life with G.o.dlike men on earth must be the best preparative for companionship hereafter. This is possible in Britain only in London, for the celebrities and their works are centred here. An unusually large proportion of the population is of the wealthy cla.s.ses, for the height of the average Briton's ambition is, in addition to the essential estate in the country, to be in possession of a mansion in London. After these are acquired, and his wife and daughters have been presented at court, any after- successes may be regarded as details which ornament the solid edifice of position attained; and truly, as far as I have seen human life in any part of the world, I know of no state which in itself seems capable of affording so much pleasure--were happiness dependent upon external circ.u.mstances--as that which rewards successful Britons when with their usual good sense they retire from business.

If the owner of a large estate in Britain with its hundreds of people, who are as it were, under his care, its pretty quaint villages and honeysuckled cottages, its running brooks, its hedge- rows and green fields, all giving him scope for change and improvement--if such a man is not happy and does not enjoy life, let him seek for some more favorable conditions in some other planet than this, say I. I must not attempt to follow our steps through England and Scotland, nor to tell you of the cordial welcomes and thousand kind attentions bestowed upon us. We spent a very, very happy month among dear kind friends, and never enjoyed Merrie England more. My mother and Miss F. joined us in London, and took care of us until we sailed for New York, which we did by the new Cunard steamer Gallia, June 14th, reaching New York on the 24th, exactly eight months from the day we sailed out of the Golden Gate. And now, June 25th, I write these lines at Cresson, on the crest of the Alleghanies, having reached our starting point and earned our right to fellowship with the favored fraternity of globe-trotters.

The voyage round the world should be made sailing westward from London or New York, as this gives the traveller the prevailing winds in his favor; at least after he reaches New York, for the Atlantic is never quite blessed with steady winds from the west.

The trade-winds waft the traveller on his way when he goes toward the west; should he take the contrary direction and start via England to the East, he must experience many rough days and nights upon the sea. We saw the steamers from England battling against the monsoon, which only served to push us steadily and smoothly on. Let all my readers make due note of this--westward, not eastward. Another even greater advantage, at least to those who, like myself, are affected by heat, is obtained by taking the westward course: the various countries can be visited in months during which no extreme heat is possible. The best time to start from San Francisco is early in September, so that j.a.pan is reached about the first of October, which is a delightful month in that pretty toy-land, neither too hot nor too cold. A month will enable the tourist to see all that is specially interesting--Yokohama, Yeddo, Kiobe, Kioto, Osaka, Nagasaki, and some of the notable inland sights. This brings him to China (Shanghai) the middle of November. After a few days there, a trip up the Yangtse, on one of the excellent American style of river boats, some six hundred miles to Hang-Kow, should not be missed, as one gets by this the best possible look at the Chinese at home. Hong Kong, the next stage, is reached, say early in December. Here you do Canton, Macao, and other interesting points, and reach Singapore, almost at the equator, and eat your Christmas dinner directly below your friends at home. If the reports from Java are favorable, a tempting excursion to that interesting island can be made from Singapore; but when we were at Singapore Europeans were being brought there from Java, and hurried north to cool places as the only cure for maladies contracted in that island. Therefore we abandoned our intended trip thither.

The traveller can decide whether to take steamer from Singapore via Bankok, Siam, and do that coast of Asia, and reach Calcutta from the west, or to follow our course via Ceylon. If he has plenty of time, the former may enable him to see more of India; but our experience was that there is more to see by any route than can be properly taken in upon one journey. If the wanderer follow us to Ceylon, we advise him to cross from Colombo to Southern India by steamer to Philipopolis, and go up through Southern India by land to Madras, as this will give him an opportunity to see the strange architecture and many customs peculiar to that region. We did the princ.i.p.al sights of India, but we advise any of our readers who make the journey, instead of returning from Delhi as we did, to go further north to Amritsir, and as far toward Cabool as the rail may extend. Simla upon the hills should also be visited. We often regret that we had not a week or two more to spend in India. We were rather late in the season, and Bombay was getting hot--indeed, it is always rather hot anywhere at the equator--but with the exception of a few hours at midday no great inconvenience was found, and the nights and the mornings were pleasant.

By the time the traveller has reached Egypt, and seen Alexandria and Cairo, he will be disposed, if our condition be any guide, to rest and be thankful, consigning any further extended travels to some future time when he has fully digested what he has gathered in his wanderings, and is fresh. When he touches pretty Catania, on his way west, he will feel for the first time that he is once more, as it were, at home among his own kith and kin, and has been quite long enough among strangers. Going round the world yields one exquisite pleasure which cannot be experienced upon any other tour. Our way over the long seas has not to be retraced. The farther we go, the nearer we come to home; every day's journey away from those we love, is also one day's step nearer to them. I think, also, that no amount of travel in detached portions of the world enables one to contemplate the world and the human race as a whole. One must traverse the ball round and round to arrive at a broad, liberal, correct estimate of humanity--its work, its aims, its destiny.

Go, therefore, my friends--all you who are so situated as to be able to avail yourselves of this privilege--go and see for yourselves how greatly we are bound by prejudices, how checkered and uncertain are many of our own advances, how very nearly all is balanced. No nation has all that is best, neither is any bereft of some advantages, and no nation, or tribe, or people is so unhappy that it would be willing to exchange its condition for that of any other. See, also, that in every society there are many individuals distinguished for traits of character which place them upon a par with the best and highest we know at home, and that such are everywhere regarded with esteem, and held up as models for lower and baser natures to emulate.

The traveller will not see in all his wanderings so much abject, repulsive misery among human beings in the most heathen lands, as that which startles him in his civilized Christian home, for nowhere are the extremes of wealth and poverty so painfully presented. He will learn, too, if he be observant, that very little is required after all to make mankind happy, and that the prizes of life worth contending for are, generally speaking, within the reach of the great ma.s.s.

Did you ever sum up these prizes and think how very little the millionaire has beyond the peasant, and how very often his additions tend not to happiness but to misery! What const.i.tutes the choice food of the world? Plain beef, common vegetables and bread, and the best of all fruits--the apple; the only nectar bubbles from the brook without money and without price. All that our race eats or drinks beyond this range must be inferior, if not positively injurious. Dress--what man, or rather what woman wears--is less and less comfortable in proportion to its frills and its cost, and no jewel is so refined as the simple flower in the hair, which the village maid has for the plucking. All that women overload themselves with beyond this range is a source of unhappiness. To be the most simply attired is to be the most elegantly dressed. So much for true health and happiness in all that we eat, and drink, and wear.

If we extend the inquiry to the luxuries and adornments of life, is there any music--which of course comes first--comparable in grandeur to that of the wave, stirring the soul with its mighty organ tones as it breaks upon the beach, or any so exquisitely fine as that of the murmuring brook which sings its song forever to every listener upon its banks, while above birds warble and the zephyr plays its divine accompaniment among the trees! We spend fortunes for picture-galleries, but what are the tiny painted copies compared to the great originals, the mountains, the glens, the streams and waterfalls, the fertile fields, the breezy downs, the silver sea! These are the gems of the universal gallery, the common heritage of man, the property of the humblest who has eyes to see, and as free as the air we breathe. We have our conservatories and spend our thousands upon orchids, but which of nature's smiles ranks with the rose and the mignonette, the daisy and the bluebell, and the sweet forget-me-not blooming for all earth's children, and which grow upon the window-sill of the artisan and which the laborer blesses at his cottage door!

If we go higher still in the scale, we find that the companionship of the G.o.ds is not denied to the steady wage-receiving man, for Shakespeare and our Burns and our Scott can be had for sixpence per volume. In this blessed age in which we are privileged to live even the immortals are cheap and visit the toiler. We see the rich rolling over the land in their carriages, but blessed beyond these is the man who strolls along the hedge-rows. The connoisseur in his gallery misses the health-giving breeze which brings happiness to the devotee who seeks the original afield. The lady in her overheated conservatory knows nothing of the joyous rapture of her more fortunate sister who gathers the spoils of the glen. Ah, my friends, ponder well over this truth: the more one dwells with her, the more one draws from her, the closer one creeps to her bosom, the sweeter is nature's kiss. From man's neglect of her for meaner subst.i.tutes come most of the disappointment and unhappiness of life. The ma.s.ses of mankind are happy all round the world because their pleasures are drawn so largely from sources which lie open to all. The rich are not to be envied, for truly "there is no purchase in money" of any real happiness. When used for our own gratification, it injures us; when used ostentatiously, it brings care; when h.o.a.rded, it narrows the soul. Nature has not provided a means by which any man can use riches for selfish purposes without suffering therefrom. There is only one source of true blessedness in wealth, and that comes from giving it away for ends that tend to elevate our brothers and enable them to share it with us. Nature is gloriously communistic after all, G.o.d bless her! and sees that a pretty fair division is made, let man h.o.a.rd as he may. The secret of happiness is renunciation.

Another advantage to be derived from a journey round the world is, I think, that the sense of the brotherhood of man, the unity of the race, is very greatly strengthened thereby, for one sees that the virtues are the same in all lands, and produce their good fruits, and render their possessors blessed in Benares and Kioto as in London or New York; that the vices, too, are akin, and also that the motives which govern men and their actions and aims are very much the same the world over. In their trials and sufferings, as in their triumphs and rejoicings, men do not differ, and so the heart swells and the sympathies extend, and we embrace all men in our thoughts, leaving not one outside the range of our solicitude and wishing every one well. The j.a.panese, Chinese, Cingalese, Indians, Egyptians, all have been made our friends through individuals of each race of whom we have heard much that was good and n.o.ble, pure lives, high aims, good deeds, and how can we, therefore, any longer dwell apart, believing our own land or our own people in any respect the chosen of G.o.d! No, no; we know now in a sense much more vivid than before that all the children of the earth dwell under the reign of the same divine law, and that for each and every one that law evolves through all the ages, the higher from the lower, the good from evil, slowly but surely separating the dross from the pure gold, disintegrating what is pernicious, consolidating what is beneficial to the race, so that the feeling that formerly told us that we alone had special care bestowed upon us gives place to the knowledge that every one in his day and generation, wherever found, receives the truth best fitted for his elevation from that state to the next higher, and so

"Ilka blade of gra.s.s keps its ain drap o' dew,"

and grows its own fruit after its kind. For these and many other reasons, let all thoughtful souls follow my example and visit their brethren from one land to another till the circle is complete.

The unprecedented advance made by western nations in the past and present generations, upon which we continually plume ourselves, is shared by the world in general. Wherever we have been, one story met us. Everywhere there is progress, not only material but intellectual as well, and rapid progress too. The oldest inhabitant has always his comparison to offer between the days of his youth and the advantages possessed by the youth of to-day. Matters are not as they were. We saw no race which had retrograded, if we except Egypt, which is now in a transitional state, and will ultimately prove no exception to the rule. The whole world moves, and moves in the right direction--upward and onward--the things that are better than those that have been and those to come to be better than those of to-day.

The law of evolution--the higher from the lower--is not discredited by a voyage round the world and the knowledge of what is transpiring from New York round to New York again gives us joy this morning as we sum it all up.

The trip has been without a single unpleasant incident. We have not missed one connection, nor ever been beyond the reach of all the comforts of life, nor have we had one unhappy or even lonely hour.

Every day has brought something new or interesting. And sitting here in our quiet mountain home this morning, I feel that there is scarcely a prize that could be offered for which I would exchange the knowledge obtained and the memories of things seen during my trip. One of the great pleasures of travel in the East is the unbounded hospitality--excessive kindness--everywhere met with. Will the numerous kind friends to whom we are so deeply indebted--a host far too great to name--please accept this general acknowledgment as at least a slight evidence that their goodness to us is not unappreciated? At every stage of our travels I have been struck with the cheering thought, that notwithstanding the indisputable fact that a vast amount of misery seems inseparable from human life, still the general condition of mankind is a happy one. Even the Hindoo in India, or the Malay in the Archipelago--and these seem to exist under the worst conditions--each of these constantly sees cause to bless his good fortune and render thanks--sincere, heartfelt thanks--to a kind Providence for casting his life in pleasant places, and not in damp, foggy England, or amid American frosts and snows. We have their sincere sympathy, I a.s.sure you. Nor is patriotism a peculiarly western virtue. No matter who or what he is, the man of the East in his heart exalts his own country and his own race, and esteems them specially favored of the G.o.ds. And indeed it is with nations as with individuals: as none are entirely good, so none are entirely bad. The unseen power is at work in all lands, evolving the higher from the lower and steadily improving all, so the traveller finds much to commend in every country, and seeing this he grows tolerant and liberal, and able more heartily to sing with Burns--

"Then let us pray that come it may-- As come it will, for a' that-- That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, for a' that; For a' that, and a' that, It's coming yet, for a'that, That man to man, the warld o'er Shall brothers be, for a' that."

In which hope, nay, in the confident and inspiring belief in the sure coming of the day of the Brotherhood of Man, I lay down my pen and bring to a close this record of my tour round the world.