Josiah said he had a good mind to set up some such thing in Jonesville when he got back, sez he, "I wouldn't name it Feng Shui just like this, I might call it Fine Shue or sunthin' like that. And jest see, Samantha, how handy it would be if the meetin' house went aginst me I would jest git up and lift up my hand and say, 'Fine Shue has decided. It will be as I say.' Or on 'lection day, if I wuzn't put up for office, or when they elect somebody besides me, or at the cheese factory if they put up another salesman, or on the beat, if they wanted another pathmaster, I'd jest call on the Fine Shue and there I'd be. Why, Samantha," sez he, gittin' carried away in his excitement, "I could git to be President jest as easy as fallin' off a log if I could make the Fine Shue work."

"Yes," sez I, "but that is a big if; but do you want to, Josiah, turn back the wheels of our civilization that are creaky and jolty enough, heaven knows, back into worse and more swampy paths than they are runnin' in now?"

"I d'no," sez Josiah, "but it would be all right if it wuz run by a man like me; a Methodist in full standin', and one of the most enlightened and Christian men of the times."

But I lifted my hand in a warnin' way and sez, "Stop, Josiah Allen, to once! such talk is imperialism, and you know I am sot like a rock aginst that. Imperialism is as much out of place in a republic as a angel in a glue factory."

Well, I am in hopes that ten thousand milds of travel will jolt some idees out of his mind.

Being in Shanghai over Sunday, we attended service held by a missionary. It wuz a beautiful service which we all enjoyed. The words of this good Christian man in prayer and praise sounded to our ears as sweet as the sound of waters in a desert land. Over a hundred wuz present, and after service the pulpit wuz moved off and several wuz baptized in water jest as they do in America.

The rich and poor seem to live side by side more than they do in our country, and rich merchants live over their shops; mebby it is to protect them from the Feng Shui, for if that gits on track of a rich man a great part of his wealth is appropriated by the government; it very often borrys their money—or what it calls borryin'.

Shanghai wuz the first place where I see men carryin' fans. When they're not fannin' themselves they put the fan at the back of their neck, for a ornament I guess.

Josiah made a note in his pocket diary: "Mem—To git a fan the day after I git home, to carry it to Jonesville to meetin', to fan myself with it on the way there before Elder Minkley and Brother Henzy. Mem—A red and yaller one." But of this fan bizness more anon.

There are not many wimmen in the streets here. The poorer class of Chinese let their feet grow to the natural size; it is only the aristocracy who bind up their feet.

But my mission to the Empress wore on me. I felt that I must not delay seekin' a augience. And, as it happened, or no, not happened—it wuz to be—one day whilst Josiah and Arvilly and Tommy and I wuz walkin' in a beautiful garden, the rest of the party bein' away on another tower after pleasure and instruction, Josiah and Tommy had gone to see the fish in a fountain a little ways off, and Arvilly wuz some distance away, when all of a sudden I heard a bystander say in a low, awe-struck voice, "There is the Empress."

She wuz walkin' through the garden with two ladies-in-waiting, and a elegant carriage wuz goin' slow a little ways off, givin' her a chance for excercise, I spoze. She wuz dressed in a long, colored silk night-gown—or it wuz shaped like one—though they wear 'em day times, all embroidered and glitterin' with precious stuns. She didn't have her crown on—mebby it wuz broke and away to be fixed—but her hair wuz combed dretful slick and stuck full of jewelled pins and stars, etc. I knowed her by her picture, and also by my feelin's, and I sez to myself, Now is the time for me to onburden myself of the important mission that had been layin' so heavy on my chist. Yes, Duty's apron strings jest drawed me right up in front of her, and I advanced, holdin' out my hand in as friendly a way as if she had come for a all-day's visit to me in Jonesville. Her ladies-in-waitin' kinder fell back, and as I advanced I bowed real low—as low as I dasted to, for I felt that I wouldn't have ketched my feet in the facin' of my dress and fell down at that time for a dollar bill. She's smart; she recognized my lofty sperit, and her greetin' wuz considerable cordial, though held back by her Chinese education.

Sez I, "Empress Si Ann (I d'no but I ort to call her Sarah Ann, that's probable her name docked off by her folks to pet her. But I thought I wouldn't meddle with a pet name; I'd call her Si Ann)."

Sez I, "I set out from Jonesville with a important message for you, and I've bore it over the ocean on a tower and now I lay it at your feet."

I here paused to give her a chance to wonder what it wuz, and get some excited, then I went on, "I felt that I must see you on my own account and Josiah's and the nation's, and tell you not to, oh, not to lay that Piece Conference to us. I have laid awake nights worryin' about it, for fear you'd think that Josiah and I, bein' prominent Americans, had jined in and wuz tryin' to cut China to pieces. But we hadn't a thing to do with it."

I meant to keep Josiah in the background, knowin' the Chinese aversion to mix up the sects in company, but he'd come back and he had to put in his oar here and sez he, "No, they couldn't git me to jine 'em. I wuz down with a crick at the time and Samantha had to nuss me. We had our hands full and we couldn't have jined 'em anyway," he sez.

I wunk at him and stepped on his toe, but nothin' could stop him, and he went on, "I wouldn't have jined 'em anyway, Miss Hein Fong, I wouldn't treat a neighbor so."

"Neighbor?" sez she wonderin'ly.

"Yes," sez he, "you know our land jines on the under side. China jines my paster in the middle, though owin' to the way our land lays we can't neighbor much, and," sez he, "you're enough sight better neighbors than some I've got, your folks are old settlers and have always tended to their own bizness and kep' their cattle and hens to hum, which is more than I can say for all the neighbors whose land jines mine."

But I could see that the ladies-in-waitin' wuz oneasy at havin' a man talkin' to 'em so free and I kinder advanced in front of him and sez:

"Josiah and I wuz dretful tickled with the idee at first when we spozed that conference meant real p-e-a-c-e and tryin' to bring the most beautiful gift of God and joy of heaven nigher to earth. Why, it jest riz us right up, we felt so highly tickled with it. But when we see 'em begin to spell it p-i-e-c-e, and quarrel over the pieces, why, then we turned right agin 'em. Why, good land! even if it wuz right, Josiah has got all the land he wants to work and more too, and as I tell him, what is the use of him or the nation havin' a great lot of land to stand idle and pay taxes on, and keep a gang of hired men to watch. Men and nations can git land poor, I believe."

I see she liked what I said about the Peace Commission, but I wuz afraid she didn't git my idee jest right, so I sez, "I believe in the first on't the Zar's idee come right down from heaven, filtered into his comprehension mebby through a woman's apprehension. But you know how it is, Si Ann, in the berry lot now if there are bushes hangin' full of big ones jest over the fence and somebody else is gittin' 'em all, you kinder want to jine in and git some on 'em yourself, though you may be a perfesser and singin' a Sam tune at the time, specially if the fence is broke down that separates you. I can see how it wuz with that Piece Commission and make allowances for 'em, but we didn't have a thing to do with it and we don't want any of the pieces." My axent carried conviction with it; I see she looked relieved. She didn't say it right out, but I felt that we hadn't fell in her estimation, and I went on:

"And I don't want you to blame Uncle Sam either, Si Ann. I believe he will help you all he can, help you in the right way, too; help you to help yourselves. But your folks have got to brace up and do their part; Uncle Sam will neighbor with you if you give him a chance. He's real good-hearted, though bein' so easy and good-natered, he is deceived lots of times and influenced and led around by them that want to make money out of him, such as the trusts and the liquor power. But he stands ready to neighbor with you, and don't turn your back on him, Si Ann. Don't do anything to get him huffy, for though he hain't quick to git mad, he's got a temper when it's rousted up."

She said sunthin' about Uncle Sam turnin' her folks out and not lettin' 'em step their feet on our sile. I couldn't deny it, and it kinder danted me for a minute how I wuz goin' to smooth that over, but concluded that as in every other emergency in life, the plain truth wuz the best, and I sez in a real amiable voice:

"Si Ann, there is two sides to that jest as there is to every national and neighborhood quarrel. Uncle Sam hain't liked the way your folks have acted with him, and though I dare presoom to say he's some to blame, yet I can see where your folks have missed it. They would flock right over to our place, crowdin' our own folks out of house and home, and expect Uncle Sam to protect 'em, and then they would jest rake and scrape all they could offen us and go home to spend their money; wouldn't even leave one of their bones in our ground. They didn't want to become citizens of the United States, they seemed to kinder want to set down and stand up at the same time, which hain't reasonable if it is done by an American or a Chinee."

She said sunthin' about the masses of other foreigners that Uncle Sam allowed to crowd into our country.

"Well," sez I, "they're willin' to become citizens, the German and English and Irish and Russian and Italian babies grow up Americans. But it wuzn't so with your folks, Si Ann. From the children's little pig-tails down to their little wooden shues they wuz clear China, soaked in, dyed in the wool, born so, and as long as their bones hung together and afterwards, clear China. They kep' themselves jest as fur from American institutions and beliefs as ile stays away from water and wouldn't mix any more. Their bodies stayed on our shores whilst they could make money out of us. But their souls and minds wuz jest as fur removed from our institutions and constitutions as if they wuz settin' in Jupiter with their legs hangin' off. It wuz galdin' to Uncle Sam and finally he had to stop it. But he didn't do it out of meanness. He jest had to, for of course you know your own folks come first."

And thinkin' mebby I'd been too hash describin' her folks I went on, "I spoze mebby that high stun wall of yourn has kinder stiffened and hardened the nature of your folks and made it harder for 'em to change. But you're on the right track now, Si Ann, you have begun to break down that big wall, you've begun to be more neighborly. And don't you ever crouch down and hide behind that great stun wall agin; you jest keep right on bein' neighborly and Uncle Sam will help you."

Si Ann looked real good and as if she took every word I said in good part; bein' naterally so smart she would recognize the onselfishness and nobility of my mission, but I see that there wuz a real pert look on one of the ladies' faces as she said sunthin' to one of the other ones, and I mistrusted that they didn't like what I had said about that wall of theirn, and I went on to say to Si Ann:

"Of course you may say that a nation or a woman has a right to do as they've a mind to, but common sense must be used if you are goin' to enjoy yourself much in this world. Now, we had a neighbor in Jonesville that sot out in married life determined not to borrow or lend, dretful exclusive, jest built a high wall of separation round herself and family. But after tryin' it for a year or so she wuz glad to give it up, and many is the cup of tea and sugar I've lent her since, and she borries and lends her washtub now or biler, or settin' hens, or anythin'. And she sez that she and her family takes as much agin' comfort now and are doin' as well agin', for of course the neighbors didn't set so much store by 'em as they did when their ports wuz open, as you may say, and they wuz more neighborly."

I could see by Si Ann's face that she not only enjoyed all I said, but believed a good share on't, and bein' such a case for justice, I felt that I ort to let her know I realized our own nation's short-comin's, as well as hern. Sez I, "I hain't got a word to say to you, Si Ann, about the different castes in your country, when the wimmen in my own land build up a wall between themselves and their kitchen helpers higher than the highest peak of your stun wall and harder to git over, and I don't want to say a word about your folks bindin' down their children's feet to make 'em small as long as our own females pinch down their waists till they're in perfect agony and ten times as bad as to pinch their feet, for the life, the vital organs don't lay in the feet, or hain't spozed to, and so it don't hurt 'em half so much to be tortured. And as long as they drag round yards of silk and velvet through the streets to rake up filth and disease to carry home and endanger their own lives and their families; no, as long as our females do all this I hain't nothin' to say about your dress and customs here, nor I hain't a goin' to cast reflections agin you about your men wearin' night gowns and braidin' their hair down their backs. Good land, Si Ann! you and I know what men be. We are married wimmen and seen trouble. You couldn't stop 'em if you tried to. If Josiah Allen took it into his head to braid his hair down his back, I should have to let it go on unless I broke it up sarahuptishly by cuttin' it off when he wuz asleep, but thank fortin' he hain't got enough so that the braid would be bigger than a pipe stale anyway if he should let it grow out, and he is so dressy he wouldn't like that. But I've tried to break up his wearin' such gay neckties for years and years, and if he should go out and buy one to-day it would most likely be red and yaller."



I felt that China hadn't been used exactly right; I knowed it. Younger nations—new-comers, as you may say—had made light on her and abused her, usin' the very type the Chinese had invented to say they didn't know anything and usin' the gunpowder they had invented to blow 'em up with. I had felt that the Powers hadn't treated 'em well, and I had made up my mind some time ago that when I see the Powers I should tell 'em what I thought on't. Then there wuz the opium trade—a burnin' shame! I wanted to sympathize with her about that, but thought mebby it wuz best to not harrer up her feelin's any more, so I sez in a real polite way:

"I have nothin' further to say now, Si Ann, only to bid you adoo and to tell you that if you ever come to Jonesville be sure and come and see me; I'll be proud and happy to have you."

Here Josiah had to put in his note: "Good-by, Widder!" sez he. If I had had time I would have tutored him; he spoke just as he would to widder Gowdey. I wanted him to act more courtly and formal, but it wuz too late, it wuz spoke. "Good-by, Widder; we'll have to be a-goin'. We've had quite a spell of weather, but it looks some like rain now, and I have a important engagement to-night, and we'll have to be gittin' hum."

But I gently withdrawed him, bowin' very low myself and lookin' dretful smilin' at her.

Like all great monarchs, she wanted to make her visitors a present, and she proposed to send us several drawin's of tea of the kind she used, and a little hunk of opium, though, as I told her, I should never use it in the world only to smoke in a pipe for the toothache; and she also proposed to send us a china sugar-bowl and a piece of the Chinee wall, which last I told her I should value high as a sign that the old things wuz passin' away and better days comin'.

And then I made some more real low bows and Josiah did, bein' wunk at by me, and we withdrawed ourselves from the Presence. But Josiah, always overdoin' things, takin' out his bandanna and a-wavin' it towards her as he bowed most to the ground. But what wuz my surprise as we walked away kinder backward, Josiah mutterin' to me that he should fall flat if he backed off much furder! What wuz my horrow to see Arvilly advance with a copy of her books and present 'em to the Empress. One of the ladies-in-waiting, who seemed to talk English quite considerable, looked at the books and read their titles to her Majesty, who immediately signified her desire to purchase 'em, and before she left the group Arvilly had sold three copies of the "Twin Crimes" and two of the "Wild and Warlike."

Poor Empress! Poor Si Ann! Well might she treasure the last-named book, "The Wild, Wicked and Warlike Deeds of Men." Poor thing! I am afraid she will see plenty of it herself. Them Powers, sometimes, when they git to goin', act like the Old Harry.



CHAPTER XX

The engagement my pardner had spoke on wuz to meet a Chinaman that wuz comin' to see Robert Strong that evenin'. Robert had met him in California, and Josiah seemed dretful anxious to git home so as to dress up for his reception. And I sez, "There is time enough; I shouldn't think it would take you more than two hours to wash your hands and change your neck-tie."

"Well," sez he, in a evasive way, "I—I don't want to be scrimped for time."

So, as Tommy and I wanted to stop along on the way, he left us and went home. Robert had told us a good deal about this man, Mr. Hi-wal-hum; about his wealth and high official standing, and Josiah had been talkin' more or less about him all day; he looked forrered to it. He had said to me: "Samantha, this man is a Potentate, and it stands us in hand to be polite always to Potentates."

Well, I couldn't dispute him nor didn't want to. When we arriv home I thought I would have jest about time to go to my room and wash my face and hands and put on a clean collar and cuffs and change Tommy's clothes. Tommy went on a little ahead of me, and I see him bend down and stretch his little neck forrered and look through the door as if he wuz agast at some sight. And as I come up he put his little fingers on his lips, as I spoze he'd seen me do, and whispered: "Keep still, Grandma; I don't know what Grandpa is doin'."

I looked over his shoulder and thought to myself I should think as much, I should think he wouldn't know. There stood Josiah Allen before the glass and of all the sights I ever see his dress went ahead. He had got on a red woolen underskirt and his dressin' gown over it kinder floated back from it, and he had took out of my trunk a switch of hair that Tirzah Ann had put in, thinkin' mebby I would want to dress my head different in foreign countries; I hadn't wore it at all, and it wuz clear in the bottom of my trunk, but he had got at it somehow and had fastened it onto his head, and it hung down his back and ended with a big broad, red ribbin bow; it was one of Tommy's neck-ties. And he'd got all my jewelry—every mite on't—and had fastened it onto him on different places, and all of Tommy's ribbins to tie his collar with, wuz made into bows and pinned onto him, and my C. E. badge and W. C. T. U. bow of white ribbin, and he had got my big palm leaf fan and had tied a big, red bow on't, and he wuz standin' before the glass fannin' himself and cranin' his neck one way and tother to see how he looked and admire himself, I spoze. And anon he tried to put the fan over his right ear. The idee! a palm leaf fan that wouldn't shet. And he spoke out to himself:

"No, I can't do that, but I can be fannin' myself, all the time fannin' and bowin'." And then he stepped forrerd towards the glass and made a bow so low that his switch flopped over and ketched on the rocker of a chair and he couldn't move either way without jerkin' his braid off.

"Goodness gracious!" I hearn him say, "I never yet tried to be genteel without its being broke up some way," and he gin a jerk and left his switch on the floor. He took it up tenderly and smoothed it out and wuz tryin' to attach it to his head agin. It wuz fastened on by a red ribbin comin' up over his head and tied on top. But at that minute he ketched sight of me and he looked some meachin', but he begun immegiately pourin' our profuse reasons for his costoom and manners.

Sez he, "You know, Robert wants us to meet that high official, and I felt that it would help our relations with China if I should dress up China fashion."

Sez I, "It will help one of your relations if you'll take off that red petticoat of hern, and ribbins and cameos and badges and things."

Sez he, "I am doin' this for political reasons, Samantha, and can't be hampered by domestic reasons and ignorance." And he kep' on tyin' the bow on his foretop.

Sez I, "For the sake of your children and grandchildren won't you desist and not put 'em to shame and make a laughin' stock of yourself before Miss Meechim and Arvilly and all the rest?"

"I shall do my duty, Samantha," sez he, and he pulled out the ribbin of the bow, so that it sot out some like a turban over his forward. "Of course I look very dressy and pretty in this costoom, but that is not my reason for wearin' it; you and Arvilly are always talking about political men who don't come up to the mark and do their duty by their constituents. I am a very influential man, Samantha, and there is no tellin' how much good I shall do my country this day, and the sneers of the multitude shall not deter me."

Sez I, almost fearfully, "Think of the meetin' house, Josiah, where you're a deacon and looked up to; what will they say to hear of this, passin' yourself off for a Chinaman; dressin' up in petticoats and red ribbins!"

Sez he, cranin' his neck round to see the bow hangin' down his back, "Our old forefathers went through worse trials than this when they eat their cartridge boxes and friz themselves at Valley Forge," and he fingered some of them bows and ornaments on his breast agin with a vain, conceited smirk of satisfaction. I wuz at my wits' end; I glanced at the door; there wuz no lock on it; what should I do? Religion and common sense wouldn't move him, and as for my sharpest weepon—good vittles—here I wuz hampered, I couldn't cook 'em for him, what could I do?

Sez he agin, "I only do this for patriotism; I sacrifice myself on the altar of my country," and he fanned himself gracefully, lookin' sarahuptishly into the glass.

"Well," sez I, growin' calm as I thought of a forlorn hope, "mebby it is best, Josiah, and I hain't a-goin' to be outdone by you in patriotism. I too will sacrifice myself." And I proceeded to comb my hair with a firm look on my face. He looked alarmed.

"What do you mean, Samantha?" sez he.

"I won't let you go ahead of me in sacrificing yourself, Josiah. No, I will go fur ahead of what you or anybody else would do; it will most probable kill me, but I shall not falter."

"What is it, Samantha?" sez he, droppin' the fan and approachin' me with agitated mean. "What are you goin' to do? If it is to throw yourself in front of any idol and perish, I will save you if I shed the last drop of blood in my system!"

"Yes," sez I, "you could do great bizness in savin' me, togged out as you are, made helpless by your own folly; but," sez I, in a holler, awful axent, "it hain't that, Josiah; it is fur worse than losin' my life; that wouldn't be nothin' in comparison."

He looked white as a piller case. Sez he: "Tell me to once what you lay out to do."

"Well," sez I, "if you must know, I spoze that it might help our relations with China if I should part with you and wed a China potentate. It would kill me and be bad for the potentate, but if your country's welfare is at stake, if it would help our relations I——"

"Let the relations go to Jericho, Samantha! every one on 'em, and the Potentates! every one on 'em!" and he kicked off them robes quicker than I can tell the tale.

Sez I, "Josiah, you needn't tear every rag you've got on; take 'em off quietly." He'd put 'em on over his own clothes. He obeyed me implicitly, and sez he anxiously, as he laid 'em all on the bed:

"You've gin up the idee, hain't you, Samantha?"

Sez I, "I have for the present, Josiah, I wuz only doin' it to emulate your sacrifice; if you don't sacrifice yourself any further, I shan't."

He hadn't been so good to me for sometime as he wuz for the rest of that day. I only done it to stop his display, and my conscience hain't been quite at rest ever sence about it, but then a woman has to work headwork to keep her pardner within bounds. I wuzn't goin' to have him make a fool of himself before Arvilly and Miss Meechim. Arvilly would never let him hearn the end on't nor me nuther.

Well, we met the potentate in our own clothes and he met us in his own clothes, jest as he and we had a right to. He wuz a real sensible man, so Robert Strong said, and he understood a good deal of his talk and ort to know.

Well, from Shanghai we sailed for Hongkong and then embarked for Point de Galle on the island of Ceylon, expectin' to stop on the way at Saigon in Cochin-China and Singapore.

It wuz dretful windy and onpleasant at first. It is much pleasanter to read about a monsoon in Jonesville with your feet on a base burner than to experience one on a steamer. Everything swayed and tipped and swung, that could, even to our stomachs. We only made a short stop at Saigon—a hotter place I wuz never in. I thought of the oven in our kitchen range and felt that if Philury wuz bakin' bread and meat and beans and got into the oven to turn 'em, she knew a little about the climate we wuz enjoying.

As we ascended the river our ship got a little too near the shore and kinder run its prow into a jungle where the monkeys hung from the tree-tops and made fun of us, I spoze, mad at our invadin' their domain and wanted us to pay, 'tennyrate the muskeeters sent in their bills, sharp ones. Saigon is a pretty place set in its tropical scenery; it has eighty or ninety thousand inhabitants and belongs to France. The natives are small and slower than time in the primer.

Singapore is an island in the straits of Malacca and is twenty-four milds long and fourteen wide; it is a British province ruled by native princes under the Queen. Here the days and nights are of equal length and it rains about every day; it has a mixed population, Chinamen, Malays, Europeans and a few Americans, mebby a hundred thousand in all.

We didn't stay long here, but rode out in what they called a Jherry lookin' like a dry goods box drawed by a couple of ponies.

Josiah sez to me, "I am glad that the Malay coolers wear a little more than the Japans." And the coolies here did wear besides their red loin cloth a narrer strip of white cotton cloth hangin' over their left shoulders. Our hotel wuz a very comfortable one; it consisted of several buildin's two stories high connected by covered halls; it wuz surrounded by handsome trees and beautiful ornamental shrubbery and flowers.

The wide verandas wuz very pleasant, with their bamboo chairs and couches and little tables where you could have tea served. Birds of the most beautiful plumage soared and sung in the trees, and butterflies that looked like flowers on wings fluttered about. You can't tell men from wimmen by their clothes. They all wear earrings and bracelets and nose-rings. Josiah sez to me:

"I have always said, Samantha, that men didn't dress gay enough; a few bracelets and breastpins and earrings would add to a man's looks dretfully, and I mean to set the fashion in Jonesville. It would take ten years offen my age. Jest see how proud the men walk; they feel that they're dressed up; it gives 'em a lofty look."

The men did seem to have a different gait from the females; the wimmen looked more meek and meachin. We didn't stay long in Saigon, but we visited the Whampoo garders and found that they were perfectly beautiful, made by Mr. Whampoo, a rich Chinaman. There wuz fifty acres under most perfect cultivation. Here the Chinese fad of dwarfing and training trees wuz carried to perfection; there wuz trees trained into all sorts of shapes. One wuz a covered carriage about three feet high, with a horse, all tree, but natural as life; and then there wuz pagodas and men and wimmen and animals and birds all growin' and havin' to be trimmed by the patient Chinese gardener. The tree they can use best is a evergreen with a little leaf and a white flower not much bigger than the head of a pin. But there wuz not only every tropical tree you could think on, palm, cocoanut, nutmeg, cinnamon, tea, coffee, and clove bush, but trees and plants from every part of the world, some from America.

Here wuz a Victoria lily in its full beauty, the dark green leaves edged with brown and red, as big round as our washtub, and turned up on the edges about two inches. Each plant has one leaf and one flower. And we see the most lovely orchids here; Dorothy thought them the most beautiful of all. Well, in a day or two we sot out for Ceylon's isle.

As we drew nigh to Ceylon I sez to Josiah: "Did you ever expect, Josiah Allen, to feel

"'The balmy breezes That blow from Ceylon's Isle Where every prospect pleases, And only man is vile?'"

And he sez, holdin' on his hat, "I shouldn't call these breezes very bammy, and you no need to lay such a powerful stress on man, Samantha, that term, man, means wimmen too in this case."

"Yes," sez Arvilly, who wuz standin' nigh, "that term, man, always includes wimmen when there is any blame or penalty attached, but when it sez 'Man is born free and equal,' it means men alone."

"Yes," sez Josiah, smilin' real pleasant, "you've happened to hit it jest right, Arvilly."

"Well," sez I, "do look and enjoy the beauty that is spread out right before you." Our good ship made its way into the harbor of Colombo, through a multitude of boats with men of every color and size at their oars and all gesticulating and jabbering in axents as strange to us as Jupiter talk would be. Some of the boats wuz queer lookin'; they are called dugouts, and have outriggers for the crew to set on. They carry fruit and provision to the steamers in the bay, and take passengers to and fro.

Bein' took by one to terry firmy, we soon made our way through the chatterin' strange lookin' crowd of every color and costoom to a tarven where we obtained food and needed rest, and the next mornin' we sallied out some as we would if we had jest landed on the shores of another planet to explore a new world.

We walked through the streets by big gardens that seemed jest ablaze with color and swoonin' with perfume. The low white houses wuz banked up with drifts of blossom and verdure as the Jonesville houses wuz with snow drifts on a winter day. Sweet voiced birds in gayest plumage swung and soared aloft instead of the ice-suckles that hung from the eaves of Jonesville houses. And instead of Ury clad in a buffalo coat and striped wool mittens walking with icy whiskers and frost-bitten ears to break the ice in the creek, wuz the gay crowd of men, wimmen and children dressed in all the rich colors of the rainbow, if they wuz dressed at all. Solid purple, yellow, green, burnin' colors palpitating with light and cheer under the warm breezes and glowin' sunshine.

Sometimes the children wuz in jest the state that Adam and Eve wuz when they wuz finished off and pronounced good. Sometimes a string and a red rag comprised their toilette, but they all seemed a part of the strange picture, the queer, mysterious, onknown Orient. The gorgeous colorin' of the men's apparel struck Josiah to the heart agin; he vowed that he would show Jonesville the way for men to dress if he ever got home agin. Sez he, "I will show Deacon Henzy and Uncle Sime Bentley that a man can wear sunthin' besides that everlastin' black or gray." Sez he:

"I can dress gay with small expense; I can take one of your white woolen sheets and color it with diamond dye a bright red or a green or yeller at a outlay of ten cents per sheet, and one of my bandannas will make a crackin' good turban. Let me walk into the Jonesville meetin' house with that gorgeous drapery wropped round me, why I should be the lion of the day."

"Yes," sez I, "you would break up the congregation as quick as a real lion would."

"Well, I'll tell you, Samantha, there is beauty in such a costoom that our sombry coats and pantaloons and vests can't come nigh to."

I spoze Ceylon is the most beautiful place in the world, such glow and richness of color, such aboundin' life in the verdure, in the animal and vegetable kingdom. No wonder so many think it wuz the original Garden of Eden; no shovelin' snow for Adam or bankin' up fruits and vegetables for winter's use. No, he could step out barefoot in the warm velvety grass in December, and pick oranges and gather sweet potatoes and cucumbers, and strawberries if Eve took it into her head she wanted a shortcake pie. And little Cain could cut up cane literally, and every way, in January, and Abel pile flowers and fruit on his altar all the year round. But I wonder which of their descendants built these immense magnificent cities layin' fur below forests and billows of turf and flowers.

I wonder how they looked and what language they spoke and what their politics wuz. Arvilly thought they must have been temperance folks. Sez she, "Any city that has reservoirs twenty milds long believed in drinkin' water." We had took a tower to see one of them dug up cities, and sure enough the water reservoir wuz twenty milds long; jest think from that what the size of the hull city must have been, when their waterin' trough, as you may say, wuz as long as America's biggest city. Stately stairways, up which twenty carriages big as our democrat could pass side by side if horses could climb stairs.

A row of tall pillers, ten milds in length, line the roads to some of them cities, and I sez:

"Oh, good land! How I wish I could be a mouse in the wall and see who and what passed over them roads, and why, and when, and where."

And Josiah sez, "Why don't you say you wish you wuz a elephant and could look on? your simely would seem sounder."

And I sez, "Mebby so, for hull rows of carved marble elephants stand along them broad roads; I guess they worshipped 'em."

And he sez, "I wuz alludin' to size."

Robert Strong looked ruther sad as we looked on them ruins buried so deep by the shovel of time. But I sez to him in a low voice:

"There is no danger of the city you're a-rarin' up ever bein' engulfed and lost, for justice and mercy and love shine jest as bright to-day as when the earth was called out of chaos. Love is eternal, immortal, and though worlds reel and skies fall, what is immortal cannot perish."

He looked real grateful at me; he sets store by me.

Everywhere, as you walk through the streets, you are importuned to buy sunthin'; some of the finest jewels in the world are bought here. The merchants are dretful polite, bowin' and smilin', their hair combed back slick and fastened up with shell combs. They wear white, short pantaloons and long frocks of colored silk, open in front over a red waistcoat; sometimes they are bare-footed with rings on their toes; they wear rings in their nose and sometimes two on each ear, at the top and bottom.

Josiah studied their costoom with happy interest, but a deep shade of anxiety darkened his mean as they would spread out their wares before me, and he sez with a axent of tender interest:

"If you knew, Samantha, how much more beautiful you looked to me in your cameo pin you would never think of appearin' in diamonds and rubies."

I sez, "I guess I won't buy any nose-rings, Josiah, my nose is pretty big anyway."

"Yes," he interrupted me eagerly, "they wouldn't be becomin', Samantha, and be in the way eatin' sweet corn on the ear and such."

There are lots of men carryin' round serpents, and I sez to Josiah, "Who under the sun would want to buy a snake unless they wuz crazy?"

"Yes," said Josiah, "Eve made a big mistake listenin' to that serpent; there probable wuzn't but one then, and that's the way they have jest overrun the garden, her payin' attention and listenin' to it. Females can't seem to look ahead."

And I sez, "Why didn't Adam do as you always do, Josiah, ketch up a stick and put an end to it?" I always holler to Josiah if I see a snake and he makes way with it.

But such talk is onprofitable. But Josiah hadn't a doubt but this was the Garden of Eden and talked fluent about it.

One odd thing here in Ceylon is that foxes have wings and can fly. Josiah wanted to get one the worse way; he said that he would willin'ly carry it home in his arms for the sake of havin' it fly round over Jonesville, and sez he, "They are so smart, Samantha, they will git drunk jest as naterally as men do, they would feel to home in America." And they say they do steal palm wine out of bowls set to ketch it by the natives and are found under the trees too drunk to git home, not havin' wives or children willin' to lead 'em home, I spoze, or accomidatin' policemen.

But I sez, "Don't you try to git the animals in America to drinkin', Josiah Allen." Sez I, "I should be mortified to death to see the old mair or Snip staggerin' round as men do, lookin' maudlin and silly; I should despise the idee of lowerin' the animals down to that state."

"Well, well, I don't spoze I can git one of these foxes anyway, though I might," sez he dreamily, "git one real drunk and carry it." But I guess he'll gin it up.

The jungles all round us wuz, I spoze, filled with wild animals. Elephants, tigers and serpents, big and little, besides monkeys and more harmless ones. The snake charmers did dretful strange things with 'em, but I didn't look on. I always said that if snakes would let me alone, I would let them alone. But they brought all sorts of things to sell: embroideries of all kinds, carved ivory, tortoise shell and all kinds of jewels. Paris and London gits some of their finest jewels here.

Men and wimmen are all bejewelled from head to foot, children up to ten years of age are almost always naked, but wearin' bracelets, anklets and silver belts round their little brown bodies, sometimes with bells attached. Some of the poorer natives chew beetle nuts which make their teeth look some like an old tobacco chewer's. They eat in common out of a large bowl and I spoze they don't use napkins or finger bowls. But unlike the poor in our frozen winter cities, as Arvilly said, there is little danger of their starving; warm they will be from year's end to year's end, and the bread tree and cocoanut palm supply food, and the traveller's palm supplies a cool, delicious drink. There is one palm tree here—the talipot—that blooms when about forty years old with a loud noise and immegiately dies. Arvilly said that they made her think of some political candidates.

Dorothy and Robert Strong and Miss Meechim wanted to go to Kandy, the capital of Ceylon, only seventy milds away, to see the tooth of Boodha. Miss Meechim said she wanted to weep over it. She is kinder romantic in spots, and Josiah hearn her and said, soty vosey, to me, "You won't ketch me weepin' over any tooth unless it is achin' like the Old Harry."

But I kinder wanted to see the tooth. I had hearn Thomas J. read a good deal about Prince Siddartha, Lord Buddha, and how he wuz "right gentle, though so wise, princely of mean, yet softly mannered, modest, deferent and tender hearted, though of fearless blood," and how he renounced throne and wealth and love for his people, to "seek deliverance and the unknown light."

I had always pictured him as looking more beautiful than any other mortal man, but of this more anon.

Josiah and Arvilly concluded to go too; it wuz only a four hours' ride. We passed coffee plantations, immense gardens and forests full of ebony trees, the strange banion tree that seems to walk off all round itself and plant its great feet solidly in the earth, and then step off agin, makin' a hull forest of itself, and satin wood trees, and India rubber, bamboo, balsam, bread fruit, pepper and cinchony or quinine bushes, tea and rice plantations. Our road led up the mountain side and anon the city of Kandy could be seen sot down in a sort of a valley on the mountain. We had our dinner at the Queen's Hotel, and from there sallied out to see the sights. Not fur from the hotel wuz a artificial lake three milds round, built by some king. His very name is forgotten, whilst the water of this little lake he dug out splashes up on the shore jest as fresh as ever. All round the lake is a beautiful driveway, where all sorts of vehicles wuz seen. Big barouches full of English people, down to a little two-wheeled cart drawed by one ox. Crowds of people, jewels, bright color, anon a poor woman carrying her baby astride her hip, men, wimmen, children, a brilliant, movin' panorama.

The tooth of Buddha is kep' in a temple called Maligawa, or Temple of the Tooth, and I laid out to have a considerable number of emotions as I stood before it. But imagine a tooth bigger than a hull tooth brush! What kind of a mouth must Lord Buddha have had if that wuz a sample of his teeth? Why, his mouth, at the least calculation, must have been as big as a ten-quart pan! Where wuz the beauty and charm of that countenance—that mouth that had spoke such wise words?

I don't believe it wuz his tooth. I hain't no idee it wuz. No human bein' ever had a mouth big enough to hold thirty odd monsters like that, let alone this noble prince, "with godlike face and eyes enwrapped, lost in care for them he knew not, save as fellow lives." There is a mistake somewhere. There wuz lots of natives round worshippin' it. But I felt that if Prince Siddartha could speak out of Nirvana he would say:

"Don't worship that tooth, Josiah Allen's wife; it hain't mine nor never wuz; but worship the principles of love and compassion and self-sacrifice I tried to teach to my people." And almost instinctively I sez, "I will, Prince Siddartha, I will."

And Josiah sez: "What say, Samantha?" And I sez:

"Let's go out, Josiah, and see the sacred tree, Bo, that they worship."

"I'll go," sez Josiah, "but you won't git me to worship no tree, I can tell you that. I've cleared off too many acres and chopped and sawed too much cord wood to worship a tree."

"Did I ask you to, Josiah?" sez I. "It would break my heart to see you bend your knee to any idol. But this is the oldest tree in the world; it is over two thousand years old."

"Wall, it ort to be cut down, Samantha, if it is that age; it is seasoned and would make crackin' good lumber."

Oh, how oncongenial Josiah Allen is by spells; he seemed to be quite a distance off from me as he made them remarks. But Robert Strong and Dorothy shared my feelin's of reverence for a tree whose mighty branches might have shaded the head of our Lord and whose leaves might have rustled with the wind that swept the brow of Napoleon and Caesar and Pharo for all I knew. There wuz some natives burnin' camphor flowers before it and some on 'em had hung up little lamps in its branches. They say that one hundred thousand pilgrims visit it each year. Well, we driv round some, seein' all the strange, picturesque sights; past tea plantations and a tea factory, the botanical gardens where we driv milds through its beautiful tree shaded avenoos; there are twenty-five thousand kinds of plants here in this garden; some say it is the finest collection in the world. And we driv past some of the native dwellings, and some beautiful villas where Europeans live durin' the warm season, past the library, a beautiful building standing on pillars on the shores of the lake, and by the Governor's palace, handsome enough for any king and queen, and we got back to Colombo middlin' late and tired out. But as tired as Josiah wuz he talked considerable to me about "Bud," as familiar as if he wuz well acquainted with him, but I sez, "You mean B-u-d-d-h, Josiah." But I thought to myself as the Chinese have five thousand different names for him one more wouldn't neither make nor break him.

Well, the next day we embarked for Calcutta. Our steamer stopped two milds off from Madras. The wind was so high we couldn't get any nearer. None of our party went ashore but Robert Strong. He wuz tied into an arm-chair and swung off by ropes down into a little boat that wuz dashin' up and down fur below.

I wouldn't done it fur a dollar bill. The surf boats are deep, made of bark and bamboo, shaped some like our Indian canoes. But no matter how much the winds blew or the boats rocked, lots of native peddlers come aboard to sell jewelry, fans, dress stuffs; and snake charmers come, and fakirs, doin' their strange tricks, that I d'no how they do, nor Josiah don't.

Madras has more than half a million inhabitants, and it looked well from the steamer: handsome villas, beautiful tropical trees, and hull forests of cactus ablaze with their gorgeous blossoms. It bein' Sunday whilst on our way from Madras to Calcutta the captain read service, and afterwards made his Sunday inspection of the crew. The sailors and cooks wuz Hindus, the stewards English and Scotch. The crew had on short white trousers, long white jackets and white caps, all on 'em wuz barefooted.

We sailed acrost the Bay of Bengal, where I spoze Bengal tigers wuz hidin' in the adjacent jungles, though we didn't meet any and didn't want to. And so on to the Hoogly River; one of the mouths of the Ganges, and on to Calcutta.

Calcutta is over four thousand milds from Hongkong. And oh, my heart! how fur! how fur from Jonesville. Most fourteen thousand milds from our own vine and apple trees and the children. It made my head turn round so that I tried to furgit it.



CHAPTER XXI

As we approached Calcutta we seemed to be travellin' through big gardens more beautiful than our own country can boast of; rich, strange, tropical trees and shrubs and flowers grew luxuriant around the pleasant villas. The English district with its white two-story houses made me think some of an American village. We went to the Great Eastern Hotel, right opposite the gardens of the Viceroy's palace.

We had pleasant rooms that would have been pretty hot, but great fans are swung up in our room and the hired help swing 'em by a rope that goes out into the hall. It beats all how much help there is here, the halls seemed full on 'em, but what would our hired help say if we made 'em dress like these Hindus? They wear short pantaloons that don't come down to their knees and then they wind a long strip of white cloth round their thighs and fasten it round their waist, leavin' their right shoulder and arm bare naked. An American family of four livin' in Calcutta have thirty servants, ten of 'em pullin' at these punkeys or fans. They don't eat in the house of their employer; but in a cabin outside.

There is a long, beautiful street called The Strand, shaded by banyan and palm trees; on one side on't is the park so lovely that it is called the Garden of Eden, full of beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers, pagodas, little temples and shrines. Josiah and I and Tommy went there in the evenin' and hearn beautiful music. Josiah wanted to ride in a palanquin. It is a long black box and looks some like a hearse. I hated to see him get in, it made me forebode. But he enjoyed his ride, and afterwards I sot off in one, Josiah in one also nigh by with Tommy. One side of it comes off so you can git in and set on a high cushion and read or knit. I took my knittin' and most knit one of Josiah's heels whilst I rid by palaces and elephants and camels and fakirs and palm trees. Oh, Jonesville yarn! you never expected to be knit amid seens like this. I can knit and admire scenery first rate, and my blue and white yarn seemed to connect me with Jonesville in some occult way, and then I knew Josiah would need his socks before we got home.

Seein' that the other ladies did so I had throwed my braize veil gracefully over my head instead of my bunnet. The natives are as fond of jewels here as they are in Ceylon. Women with not a rag on down to their waists will have four or five chains on, and bangles on their naked arms. They spend all their earnin's on these ornaments and wear 'em day and night. Well, seein' they don't have any other clothes hardly, mebby it is best for 'em to keep holt on 'em.

We went by some wimmen preparin' manure for fuel; it wuz made into lumps and dried. The wimmen wuz workin' away all covered with chains and bangles and rings; Josiah looked on 'em engaged in that menial and onwelcome occupation, and sez he:

"To see wimmen to work in the barnyard, Samantha, has put a new idee into my head."

I never asked him what it wuz, but spozed it had reference to Philury and mebby me, but I shall never go into that work, never.

One day we went to the American mission school and see the native children settin' flat on the floor. Josiah wuz awful worked up to see 'em settin' down in such a oncomfortable posture, and he said to me that if he had some tools and lumber he would make 'em some seats. But that is their way of settin' to study their lessons.

Among 'em wuz a little girl with a red spot on her forward, indicatin' that she wuz married, but don't spoze that she had gone to keepin' house yet. Girls are married sometimes at six or seven, but their husbands don't claim 'em till they're ten or twelve. Good land! they're nothin' but babies then; I used to hold Tirzah Ann on my lap at that age. Widders never marry again, and are doomed to a wretched life of degradation and slavery; I guess that is the reason why some on 'em had ruther be burnt up with their relics than to live on to suffer so. How much they need the religion of love and mercy our Saviour come to teach! Our missionaries are doin' a blessed work, literally loosin' the chains of the captives, and settin' at liberty them that are bound.

One evenin' we met a bridal procession, the groom was ridin' in a peacock-shaped gilt chariot drawed by four horses, accompanied by a band of music; a big crowd of friends follered him, and coolies bearing torches; it seemed as if he wanted to show himself off all he could. When they got to the house of the bride, they took her in a closed palanquin and meached away to the house of the groom. As in some other countries, females play a minor part in the tune of life; wimmen and children can't eat at the table with their husband and father, and he sets to the table and she sets down on the floor.

Miss Meechim exclaimed loudly about the awful position of wimmen here, but Arvilly told her that "though wimmen at home had crep' up a little so she could set to the table and pour the tea, yet at banquets of honor she wuz never seen and at the political table, where men proudly sot and partook, wimmen still sot on the floor and couldn't git a bite."

Miss Meechim didn't dain a reply, but turned her talk onto the dretful idee of widders bein' burnt with their dead husbands. The English won't allow it where they can help it, but it is still practised in way back regions, and Arvilly said that she believed that some American widders, who had had their property took from them by the family of the deceased and had their unborn children willed away from 'em by law, suffered enough sight more than they would if they had burnt themselves up with their relics; to say nothin' of widders bein' burnt up twice in America, first through their own fiery agony, and then seein' their children sot fire to by whiskey dealt to 'em by the will of the rulers of the land.

Arvilly always would have the last word. Miss Meechim kinder snorted and tosted her head and held in.

I spoze it wuz partly on Robert Strong's account, he bein' high connected and rich, that we wuz all invited to a garden party gin by Mr. and Miss Curzon, she that wuz Miss Leiter, who used to be one of our neighbors, as you may say, out in Chicago, U.S. And then I spoze that it wuz partly on my account, they'd hearn of me, without any doubt, and craved a augience. Josiah thought that it wuz on his account that we wuz invited; he thinks he is a ornament to any festive throng.

But 'tennyrate invited we wuz, and go we did, the hull caboodle on us, all but Tommy, who stayed to home with the good English maid that Miss Meechim had hired to take Aronette's place, but never, never to fill it.

Oh, Aronette! sweet girl! where are you? Where are you? So my heart called out time and time agin; sometimes in the dead of night on my wakeful pillow, and anon when I wuz lookin' for her in places that I didn't want to find her. So did Dorothy's heart call out to her. I knew she wuz lookin' for her always, seekin' her with sad eyes full of tears, looking, longing for the playmate of her childhood, the loving, gentle helper and companion of her youth.

Miss Meechim didn't speak of her so often as she thought of her, I believe; but she grew thin after her loss, and when grief for a person ploughs away your flesh you can call yourself a mourner. She lost five pounds and a half in less than a month; next to Dorothy she loved her.



Arvilly openly and often bewailed the loss of the one she loved next to Waitstill Webb; I wuzn't anywhere in Arvilly's affections to what she wuz, though she sets store by me, and Tommy cried himself to sleep many a night talking about her, and wonnerin' where she wuz, and if somebody wuz abusin' her, or if she wuz to the bottom of the ocean. Why, he would rack my mind and pierce my heart so I would have to give him candy to get his mind off; I used pounds in that way, though I knew it wuz hurtful, but didn't know what to do.

We often thought and spoke of poor Lucia, too, and that poor broken-hearted father who wuz searching through the world for her and would never stop his mournful search till he found her, or till death found him, but our hearts didn't ache for her as they did for the loss of our own.

Martha wuz a kind, good girl, but she wuzn't Aronette, our dear one, our lost one. She wuz jest a helper doin' her work and earnin' her wages, that wuz all, but she was good natured and offered to look after Tommy, and we all went to the Viceroy's reception and garden party and had a real good time.

The palace of the Viceroy is a beautiful structure. It is only two stories high, but each story full and running over with beauty. I d'no but the widder Albert's house goes ahead of this, but it don't seem as if it could, it don't seem as if Solomon's or the Queen of Sheba's could look any better. Though of course I never neighbored with Miss Sheba, bein' considerable younger than she, and never got round to visit the widder Albert, though I always wanted to, and spoze I disappointed her that year when I wuz in London, and kep' by business and P. Martin Smythe from visitin' her.

Miss Curzon is a real handsome woman, and always wuz when she was a neighborin' girl, as you may say, in Chicago, but the high position she's in now has gin nobility to her mean, and the mantilly of dignity she wears sets well on her.

She seemed real glad to see me; she had hearn on me, so she said, and she said she had laughed some when she read my books, and had cried too, and I sez, "I hope you didn't cry because you felt obleeged to read 'em, or somebody made you."

And she sez, "No," and she went on furder to say how they had soothed the trials of a relative, aged ninety, and had been a stay and solace to one of her pa's great aunts.

And a bystander standin' by come up and introduced himself and said how much my books had done for some relations of his mother-in-law who had read 'em in Sing Sing and the Tombs. And after considerable such interestin' and agreeable conversation Miss Curzon branched off and asked me if there wuz any new news at home.

And I sez, "No; things are goin' in the same old way. Your pa's folks are in good health so fur as I know, and the rest of the four hundred are so as to git about, for I hear on 'em to horse shows and huntin' foxes acrost the country and playin' tee or tee he."

She said, "Yes, golf wuz gettin' to be very popular in America." And I went on with what little news I could about the most important folks. Sez I:

"Mr. and Miss Roosvelt are well, and well thought on. He is a manly man and a gentle gentleman. The sample of goodness, loyalty and common sense they are workin' out there in the White House ort to be copied by all married men and their wives. If they did the divorce lawyers would starve to death—or go into some other business.

"I set store by 'em both. Theodore tries to quell the big monopolies and look out for the people. I've advised him and he has follered my advice more or less. But you can't do everything in a minute, and the political bosses and the Liquor Power are rulin' things about the same as ever. Big trusts are flourishin', Capital covered with gold and diamonds is settin' on the bent back of Labor, drivin' the poor critter where they want to, and the Man with the Hoe is hoein' away jest as usual and don't get the pay for it he'd ort to." And here Arvilly broke in (she had been introduced), and sez she, "Uncle Sam is girdin' up his lions and stands with a chip on his shoulder ready to step up and take a round with any little republic that don't want to be benevolently assimilated."

But I spoke right up, and sez, "He is a good-hearted creeter, Uncle Sam is, but needs a adviser time and agin, and not bein' willin' to let wimmen have a word to say, I d'no what will become on him; bime-by mebby he'll see that he had better hearn to me."

Jest then we hearn a bystander standin' nigh by us talkin' about the last news from Russia, and I sez to Miss Curzon, "It is too bad about the war, hain't it?" And she sez, "Yes indeed!" She felt dretful about it, I could see, and I sez, "So do I. You and I can't stop it, Miss Curzon; a few ambitious or quarrelsome or greedy politicians will make a war and then wimmen have to stand it. There hain't nothin' right in it, seein' they are half of the world, and men couldn't have got into the world at all if it hadn't been for wimmen, and then when wimmen has got 'em here, and took care on 'em till they can run alone, then they go to bossin' her round the first thing and makin' her no end of trouble, makin' wars and things." And she said she felt jest so, too. "But," sez I, "excuse me for introducin' personal and political matters on festive boards" (we wuz standin' on a kind of a platform built up on the green and velvety grass). Sez I, "I am real glad to see you lookin' so well, and your companion, too." She did look handsome as a picter, and handsomer enough sight than some, chromos and such. And seein' that she had so many to talk to, I withdrawed myself, but as I kinder backed myself off I backed right into Arvilly, who wuz takin' out the "Twin Crimes" out of her work-bag, and I sez, "Arvilly, you shall not canvass Miss Curzon to-night."

And she sez, "I'd like to see you stop me, Josiah Allen's wife, if I set out to do anything." She looked real beligerent. But I got her into a corner and appealed to her shiverly and pity, and finally I got her to put her book up in her work-bag. Arvilly is good-hearted if you know how to manage her. I knew Miss Curzon would be tired enough to drop down before we all got away, without being canvassed, if she has got two hundred hired help in the house.

Well, we roamed along through the beautiful walks, sweet with perfume and balmy with flowers, brilliant with innumerable lights, and thronged with a gaily dressed crowd and the air throbbing with entrancing strains of music.

Robert Strong looked noble and handsome that night; I wuz proud to think he belonged to our party. He didn't need uniforms and ribbons and stars and orders to proclaim his nobility, no more than his City of Justice needed steeples. It shone out of his liniment so everybody could see it. It seemed that he and Mr. Curzon wuz old friends; they talked together like brothers.

Dorothy wuz as sweet as a posy in her pretty pink frock, trimmed with white rosies, and her big, white picture hat—the prettiest girl there, I thought; and I believe Robert thought so, too—he acted as if he did. And Miss Meechim wuz in her element. The halls of the noble and gay wuz where her feet loved to linger. And she seemed to look up to me more than ever after she see my long interview with Lady Curzon, as she called her.

Josiah and I returned to our tarven, but the rest of the party wanted to stay some later. We wanted dretfully to go to Benares, and on to Agra so's to see that wonderful monument to Wedded Love—the Taj Mahal—I spoze the most beautiful building in the hull world; and certainly it is rared up to as noble a sentiment; and its being a kind of rareity, too, made me want to see it the worst kind.

But we had loitered so on our travels that we had to hurry up a little in order to arrive at the Paris Exposition the Fourth of July—United States day. I felt that I couldn't bear to git there any later and keep France a-waitin' for us, a-worryin' for fear we wouldn't git there at all, so we went post-haste from Calcutta to Bombay and from there to Cairo and on to Marseilles; though we laid out to stop long enough in Cairo to take a tower in Jerusalem. Holy Land, wuz I, indeed, to see thee?

We wuz considerable tired when we got to Bombay. The railroads in Injy are not like the Empire Express; though, as we drew near Bombay, the scenery wuz grand; some like our own Sierra Nevada's.

Only a few milds back from the railroad, tigers, panthers and all sorts of fierce animals wuz to home to callers, but we didn't try to visit 'em. At some places the trees along the road wuz full of monkeys, chatterin' and talkin' in their own language which they understood, so I spoze; and there wuz the most beautiful birds I ever saw. The climate wuz delightful, some like June days in dear Jonesville.

Bombay is on an island, with many bridges connecting it to the mainland. We went to a tarven close to Bombay Bay; the wide verandas full of flowers and singin' birds made it pleasant. We got good things to eat here; oh, how Josiah enjoyed the good roast beef and eggs and bread, most as good as Jonesville bread. Though it seemed kinder queer to me, and I don't think Miss Meechim and Arvilly enjoyed it at all to have our chamber work done by barelegged men.

I told Josiah that I didn't know but I ort to have a Ayah or maid whilst I wuz there, and he said with considerable justice that he guessed he could ayah me all that wuz necessary.

And so he could, I didn't need no other chaperone. But the Bombay ladies never stir out without their Ayah, and ladies don't go out in the streets much anyway.

The market here in Bombay wuz the finest I ever see; it has a beautiful flower garden and park attached to it, and little rills of clear water run through the stun gutters. Tropical fruit and vegetables of all kinds wuz to be seen here. The native market wimmen didn't have on any clothes hardly, but made it up in jewelry. Some on 'em weighin' out beef to customers would have five or six long gold chains hanging down to their waist. Bombay has a population of about a million, a good many English, some Hindus, Persians, Chinese, Siamese, Turks, and about one-tenth are Parsees, sun-worshippers. They are many of them wealthy and live in beautiful villas a little out of the city; they are very intelligent and firm friends of the English.

The Parsees dress in very rich silks and satin, the men in pantaloons of red or orange and long frocks of gorgeous colored silk; they wear high-pinted black caps, gold chains and rings and look dretful dressy.

Josiah loved their looks dearly, and he sez dreamily, "What a show such a costoom would make in Jonesville; no circus ever went through there that would attract so much attention," and he added, "their idees about the sun hain't so fur out of the way. The sun duz give all the heat and light we have, and it is better to worship that than snakes and bulls."

My land! had that man a idee of becomin' a Parsee? I sez, "Josiah Allen, be you a Methodist deacon, or be you not? Are you a-backslidin' or hain't you?" Sez I, "You had better ask the help of him who made the sun and the earth to keep you from wobblin'."

He wuz real huffy and sez, "Well, I say it, and stick to it, that it is better to worship the sun than it is to worship snakes," and come to think it over, I didn't know but it wuz.

The Parsees live together in big families of relations, sometimes fifty.

They do not bury their dead, but put 'em up in high towers, called Towers of Silence. And I believe my soul that I'd ruther be put up in the sky than down in the mouldy earth.

Jest a little way from this Tower of Silence is the spot where the Brahmans burn their dead; there are so many that the fires are kep' burnin' all the time. And a little ways off is the place where the English bury their dead.

And I d'no but one way is as good as another. The pale shadder of the real tower of silence has fell on 'em all and silenced 'em. It don't make much difference what becomes of the husk that is wropped round the wheat. The freed soul soarin' off to its own place wouldn't care what become of the wornout garment it dropped in its flight.

But to resoom: We all went out for a drive through the streets; Josiah and I and Arvilly and little Tommy in a little two-wheeled cart settin' facin' each other drawed by two buffalo cows. Robert and Dorothy and Miss Meechim occupied another jest ahead on us. The driver sot on the tongue of the wagon, and would pull their tails instead of whippin' 'em when he wanted 'em to go faster. The cows' ears wuz all trimmed off with bells and gay streamers of cotton cloth, and their tails had big red bows on 'em, and Josiah whispered to me:

"You see, Samantha, if I don't get some ear and tail trimmin' for old Brindle and Lineback when I git home; our cows are goin' to have some advantage of our tower if they couldn't travel with us. And," sez he, "what a show we could make, Samantha, ridin' in to meetin' behind 'em; bells a-jinglin' and ribbins a-flyin', I dressed in a long silk frock and you all covered with jewelry."

"Well," sez I (wantin' to break up the idee to once), "if we do that, I must be buyin' some jewelry right away."

"Oh, Samantha," sez he anxiously, "can't you take a joke? I wouldn't drive anything but the old mair for love or money. And your cameo pin is so beautiful and so becoming to you."

We went by a good many Parsees in that drive, and Arvilly sez, "They look so rich somehow, I believe I shall try to canvass some on 'em." And that afternoon about sundown she seein' one on 'em goin' into a little garden she follered him in; he wuz dressed in such a gorgeous way that she wuz almost sure of a customer, but jest as she wuz gettin' the "Twin Crimes" out of her work-bag, he took off his outer frock, lain it down on the ground and knelt down, facin' the sunset, and sprinkled his head, breast and hands three times from a little dish he had with him, and then begun to pray and kep' up his devotions for half an hour, and Arvilly of course not wantin' to break up a meetin' put her book into her work-bag and went away. I kinder like the idee of their worshippin' under the blue dome of heaven, though of course I didn't like their idee of worshippin' the created instead of the Creator. In travellin' through these countries more and more every day did I feel to thank the Lord that I wuz a member of the M. E. meetin' house in Jonesville, U. S., a humble follower of him who went about doing good, but I didn't feel like goin' on as Miss Meechim did. How she did look down on the Parsees and compared 'em to the Piscopals to their immense disadvantage.

But Arvilly, the iconoclast, sez, "These Parsees boast that there is not a pauper or woman of bad character in the hull of their sect, and I wonder if any other religious sect in America could say as much as that, Miss Meechim?"

Miss Meechim turned her head away and sniffed some; she hates to enter into a argument with Arvilly, but she wuz gittin' real worked up and I don't know how it would have ended, but I spoke right up and quoted some Bible to 'em, thinkin' mebby that it might avert a storm.

Sez I, "Charity vaunteth not itself. Charity thinketh no evil, suffereth long and is kind."

I meant both on 'em to take it, and I meant to take some on't myself. I knowed that I wuz sometimes a little hash with my beloved pardner. But a woman, if she don't want to be run over has to work every way to keep a man's naterel overbeariness quelled down. I worship him and he knows it, and if I didn't use headwork he would take advantage of that worship and tromple on me.

But though Arvilly didn't canvass the Parsee, she sold several copies of the "Twin Crimes" to English residents who seemed to hail the idee of meeting a Yankee book-agent in the Orient with gladness.



CHAPTER XXII

Dorothy and Miss Meechim and Robert Strong went over to an island on the bay to see the caves of Elephanta, the great underground temple, one hall of which is one hundred and fifty feet long, the lofty ceilin' supported by immense columns, and three smaller halls, the walls of all on 'em richly sculptured.

Whose hands made them statutes? I don't know nor Josiah don't and I guess nobody duz. There wuz a thoughtful look on Dorothy's sweet face when she came home, and Robert Strong too seemed walkin' in a reverie, but Miss Meechim wuz as pert as ever; it takes more than a cave to dant her.

One place in Bombay I liked first rate, a hospital for dumb animals, it is kep' by a sect called the Jains. Sick animals of all kinds are cared for: horses, cows, dogs, cats, rats and I spoze any ailin' creeter from a mouse up to a elephant is nursed with tender care.

Sez Josiah, "No matter what her creed is, Samantha, that Jane is a good creeter and is doin' a great work, I would send the old mair here in a minute if she wuz took with consumption or janders or anythin', if it wuzn't so fur, and I'd tell Jane jest how much I thought on her for her goodness."

Sez I, "Josiah, it is a sect, not a female."

But he wouldn't gin in and talks about Jane a sight now when he recalls about the horrers of vivisection or when he sees animals abused and horses driv too hard and overloaded—he always sez:

"I would like to have Jane see that, I guess Jane would put a stop to that pretty lively."

Well, it shows Josiah's good heart.

The Hindus have several temples in Bombay. One of the great days is the Festival of the Serpents. Snake charmers bring to this place the deadly snakes which are then fed to propitiate them, by the priests, I spoze.

Oh, how Miss Meechim went on about the idee of worshippin' snakes, and it wuz perfectly dretful to me too, I must confess. But Arvilly always puttin' her oar in and always hash on our govermunt, sez:

"Why, what is this different from what we do in America?"

Miss Meechim's eyes snapped, she wuz madder than a wet hen, but Arvilly went on, "Every 'lection time hain't the great serpent of the liquor power fed and pampered by the law-makers of our country?"

Miss Meechim didn't reply; I guess she dassent, and I didn't say anything, and Arvilly went on:

"Our serpent worship is as bad agin as these Hindus', for after their snakes are fed and worshipped they shet 'em up agin so they can't do any harm. But after lawmakers propitiate the serpent with money and influence, they let it loose to wreathe round the bright young lives and noble manhood and crunch and destroy 'em in its deadly folds, leavin' the slime of agony and death in its tracks all over our country from North to South, East to West. It don't look well after all this for an American to act horrified at feedin' a snake a little milk and shettin' it up in a box." She wuz fairly shakin' with indignation, and Miss Meechim dast as well die as dispute her agin. And I didn't say a word to harrer her up any more, for I knew well what she had went through.

We only stayed a few days in Bombay, and then took the steamer and went straight acrost the Arabian Sea, stopping at Aden for a little while, and then up the Red Sea; on one side on us, Arabia, and on the other, Africa.

Aden, where we stopped for a short time, is a dreary lookin' little place with seventy or eighty thousand natives livin' a little back from the shore, while the few English people there live near the coast. Beautiful ostrich feathers are obtained there from the many ostrich farmers living near, as well as the Mocha coffee, which made over a Jonesville stove by a Jonesville woman has so often cheered the heart and put to flight the worrisome passions of a Josiah. But in most of these tropical countries, where you'd think you could git the best, I didn't find coffee half so good as I made it myself, though mebby I ortn't to say it.

We saw some wonderful jugglers here. They will draw out great bunches of natural flowers from most anywhere that you wouldn't expect 'em to be, and call birds down or out of some place onseen by us; mebby they come from the mysterious gardens of a Carabi's home, and those great bunches of roses, I d'no from what invisible rose bushes they wuz picked; mebby they growed up tall and stately on either side of the Ether avenues that surround us on every side. Mebby Carabi lives right under the shade of some on 'em, but 'tennyrate some of these flowers they made out of nothin' I took right into my hands, great, soft, dewy roses, with seemin'ly the same dew and perfume on 'em they have when picked in our earthly gardens. And we saw some wonderful divers there; they did such strange things that it wuz fairly skairful to see 'em. If you would throw a small coin down into the water, they would dive way down, down with both hands full of balls and bring up the coin in their teeth, showing that they picked it up offen the bottom without touching their hands to it. Good land! I couldn't do it to save my life in our cistern or wash bowl, let alone the deep, deep sea.

As we entered the Red Sea we passed through the narrer channel called The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, Gate of Tears, named so on account of the many axidents that have happened there. But we got through safely and sailed on towards Suez.

So we went on past the coasts of Abyssinia, Nubia. Fur off we see Mount Sineii, sacred mount, where the Law wuz given to Moses.

Oh, my soul, think on't! To see the very spot where Moses stood and talked to the Almighty face to face. It is only three hundred milds from Suez.

We sailed directly over the place where the Israelites passed over dry shod whilst their enemies, the Egyptians, wuz overwhelmed by the waters. The persecuted triumphant and walkin' a-foot into safety, while Tyranny and Oppression wuz drownded.

I wish them waters wuz swashin' up to-day and closin' in on the Oppressor, not to drownd 'em, mebby, but to give 'em a pretty good duckin'. But I spoze the walls of water like as not is risin' on each side on 'em onbeknown to them, and when the time comes, when the bugle sounds, they will rush in and overwhelm the armies of Greed and Tyranny and the oppressed. Them that are forced to make brick without straw, or without sand hardly, will be free, and go on rejoicin' into the land of Promise.

But to resoom: It is three thousand milds from Bombay to Suez, but it wuz all safely passed and we found ourselves in Cairo in a most comfortable hotel, and felt after all our wanderings in fur off lands that we agin breathed the air of civilization almost equal to Jonesville.

We found some letters here from home. I had a letter from Tirzah Ann and one from Thomas Jefferson. His letter wuz full of gratitude to heaven and his ma for his dear little boy's restored strength and health. He and Maggie wuz lookin' and waitin' with eager hearts and open arms to greet us, and the time wuz long to 'em I could see, though he didn't say so.

Tirzah Ann's letter contained strange news of our neighbor, Miss Deacon Sypher. Her devotion to her husband has been told by me more formally, it is worthy the pen of poet and historian. She lived and breathed in the Deacon, marked all her clothes, M. D. S., Miss Deacon Sypher. Her hull atmosphere wuz Deacon, her goal wuz his happiness, her heaven his presence.

Well, a year ago she got hurt on the sidewalk to Jonesville, and the Deacon sued the village and got five hundred dollars for her broken leg. He took the money and went out to the Ohio on a pleasure trip, and to visit some old neighbors. It made talk, for folks said that when she worshipped him so he ort to stayed by her, but he hired she that wuz Betsy Bobbett to stay with her, and he went off on this pleasure trip and had a splendid good time, and with the rest of the money he bought a span of mules. Miss Sypher wuz deadly afraid of 'em. But the Deacon wanted 'em, and so they made her happily agonized, she wuz so afraid of their heels and their brays, and so highly tickled with the Deacon's joy. Well, it turned out queer as a dog, but just after we started on our trip abroad Tirzah said that the Deacon fell and broke his leg in the same place and the same spot on the sidewalk; the Jonesvillians are slack, it wuzn't mended proper. And Miss Sypher thought that she would git some money jest as he did. She didn't think on't for quite a spell, Tirzah writ. She wuz so bound up in the Deacon and never left his side night or day, nor took off her clothes only to wash 'em for two weeks, jest bent over his couch and drowged round waitin' on him, for he wuz dretful notional and hard to git along with. But she loved to be jawed at, dearly, for she said it made her think he would git along, and when he would find fault with her and throw things, she smiled gladly, thinkin' it wuz a good sign.

Well, when he got a little better so she could lay down herself and rest a little, the thought come to her that she would git some money for his broken leg jest as he had for hern. She thought that she would like to buy him a suit of very nice clothes and a gold chain, and build a mule barn for the mules, but the law wouldn't give Miss Deacon Sypher a cent; the law said that if anything wuz gin it would go to the Deacon's next of kin, a brother who lived way off in the Michigan.

The Deacon owned her bones, but she didn't own the Deacon's!

And I wonnered at it as much as Tommy ever wonnered over anything why her broken limb, and all the emoluments from it, belonged to him, and his broken leg and the proprietary rights in it belonged to a man way out in the Michigan that he hadn't seen for ten years and didn't speke to (owin' to trouble about property), and after Miss Deacon Sypher had worshipped him and waited on him for thirty years like a happy surf.

Well, so it wuz. I said it seemed queer, but Arvilly said that it wuzn't queer at all. She sez: "One of my letters from home to-day had a worse case in it than that." Sez she, "You remember Willie Henzy, Deacon Henzy's grandchild, in Brooklyn. You know how he got run over and killed by a trolley car."

"Yes," sez I, "sweet little creeter; Sister Henzy told me about it with the tears runnin' down her cheeks. They all worshipped that child, he wuz jest as pretty and bright as he could be, and he wuz the only boy amongst all the grandchildren; it is a blow Deacon Henzy will never git over. And his ma went into one faintin' fit after another when he wuz brought home, and will never be a well woman agin, and his pa's hair in three months grew gray as a rat; it 'most killed all on 'em."

"Well," sez Arvilly, "what verdict do you think that fool brought in?"

"What fool?" sez I.

"The law!" sez Arvilly sternly. "The judge brought in a verdict of one dollar damages; it said that children wuzn't wage-earners and therefore they wuzn't worth any more."

I throwed my arms 'round Tommy onbeknown to me, and sez I, "Millions and millions of money wouldn't pay your grandma for you." And Tommy wonnered and wonnered that a little boy's life wuzn't worth more than a dollar.

"Why," sez I, "the law gives twenty dollars for a two-year-old heifer."

"Yes," sez Arvilly, "the law don't reckon Willie Henzy's life worth so much as a yearlin' calf or a dog. But they can do jest as they please; these great monopolies have spun their golden web round politicians and office-seekers and office-holders and rule the whole country. They can set their own valuation on life and limb, and every dollar they can save in bruised flesh and death and agony, is one more dollar to divide amongst the stockholders."

"Well," sez I, "we mustn't forgit to be megum, Arvilly; we mustn't forgit in our indignation all the good they do carryin' folks from hether to yon for almost nothin'."

"Well, they no need to act more heartless than Nero or King Herod. I don't believe that old Nero himself would done this; I believe he would gin two dollars for Willie Henzy."

And I sez, "I never neighbored with Mr. Nero. But if I could git holt of that judge," sez I, "he would remember it to his dyin' day."

"He wouldn't care for what you said," sez Arvilly; "he got his pay. There hain't any of these big monopolies got any more soul than a stun-boat."

It is only nine hours from Suez to Cairo. How often have I spoke of the great desert of Sarah in hours of Jonesville mirth and sadness, little thinkin' that I should ever cross it in this mortal spear, but we did pass through a corner on't and had a good view of the Suez Canal, about which so much has been said and done. For milds we went through the Valley of the Nile, that great wet nurse of Egypt. The banks on either side on't stand dressed in livin' green. There wuz a good many American and English people at the tarven in Cairo, but no one we knew. In the garden at the side of the tarven wuz a ostrich pen where a number of great ostriches wuz kep', and also several pelicans walked round in another part of the garden.

Tommy and I stood by the winder, very much interested in watchin' the ostriches, and though I hain't covetous or proud, yet I did wish I had one or two of them satiny, curly feathers to trim my best bunnet in Jonesville, they went so fur ahead of any sisters in the meetin' house.

Josiah hadn't see 'em yet; he wuz layin' on the lounge, but he sez: "I don't see why you're so took up with them geese."

"Geese!" sez I; "look here, Josiah Allen"—and I took a cookie I had got for Tommy—"see here; see me feed these geese ten feet from the ground." He could see their heads come up to take it out of my hand.

"Good land!" sez he, "you don't say they stretch their necks clear up here." And he jined in our astonishment then and proposed that he should be let down from the winder in a sheet and git me a few feathers. But I rejected the idee to once. I sez: "I'd ruther go featherless for life than to have a pardner commit rapine for 'em."

And he sez: "If some Egyptian come to Jonesville and wanted a rooster's tail feather, we wouldn't say nuthin' aginst it."

But I sez: "This is different; this would spile the looks of the ostriches."

And he said there wuz sunthin' said in the Bible about "spilin' the Egyptians." But I wouldn't let him wrest the Scripters to his own destruction, and told him I wouldn't, and then sez I, "I never could enjoy religion settin' under a stolen feather."

As you pass through these picturesque streets memories of them that have made this city historic crowd upon your mind. You think of Saladin, Christian, Mameluke and Islamite.

You think of the Bible and you think of the "Arabian Nights," and you almost expect to see the enchanted carpet layin' round somewhere, and some one goin' up to the close shet doors sayin', "Open sesame."

And as you stroll along you will hear every language under the sun, or so it seems, and meet English, Italian, French, Bedowins, soldiers, footmen, Turks, Arabs, all dressed in their native costumes. Anon close shet up carriages in which you most know there are beautiful wimmen peerin' out of some little corner onbeknown to their folks; agin you meet a weddin' procession, then a trolley car, then some Egyptian troops, then some merchants, then mysterious lookin' Oriental wimmen, with black veils hangin' loose, then a woman with a donkey loaded with fowls, then some more soldiers in handsome uniform.

Agin every eye is turned to see some high official or native prince dressed in splendid array dashin' along in a carriage with footmen runnin' on before to clear the way. And mebby right after comes a man drivin' a flock of turkeys, they feelin' jest as important and high-headed to all appearance.

The air is delightful here, dry and warm. No malaria in Egypt, though nigh by are sulphur baths for anybody that wants them, and also a cure for consumptive folks.

In goin' through the streets of Cairo you will see bazars everywhere; slipper bazars, carpet and rug, vase and candle, and jewelry bazars; little shops where everything can be bought are all on sides of you.

But if you go to buy anything you get so confused as to the different worth of a piaster that your head turns. In some transactions it is as much agin as in others. Josiah got dretful worked up tryin' to buy a silk handkerchief. Sez he to the dealer:

"What do you mean by it, you dishonest tike, you? If you should come to Jonesville to buy a overcoat or a pair of boots, and we should wiggle round and act as you do, I wouldn't blame you if you never come there to trade a cent with us agin."

The man kep' bowin' real polite and offered some coffee to him and a pipe, and Josiah sez:

"I don't want none of your coffee, nor none of your pipes, I want honesty, and I can tell you one thing that you've lost my trade, and you'll lose the hull of the Jonesville trade when I go home and tell the brethren how slippery you be in a bargain."

The man kep' on bowin' and smilin' and I told Josiah, "I presoom he thinks you're praisin' him; he acts as if he did." And Josiah stopped talkin' in a minute. But howsumever he wouldn't take the handkerchief.

Miss Meechim and I—and I spoze that Robert Strong wuz to the bottom of it—but 'tennyrate, we wuz invited to a harem to see a princess, wife of a pasha. Robert thought that we should like to see the inside of an Indian prince's palace, and so we did.

Miss Meechim of course woudn't consent to let Dorothy go anywhere nigh such a place, and I guess she disinfected her clothes before she see Dorothy when she got back; 'tennyrate, I see her winder up and her dress hangin' over a chair. Arvilly didn't want to go, and as she wuzn't invited, it made it real convenient for her to not want to. And of course I couldn't take my pardner. Why, that good, moral man would be flowed from by them wimmen as if he had the plague. Dorothy and Robert wuz a-goin' to Heliopolis and offered to take Tommy with 'em. And Miss Meechim and I accordin'ly sot off alone.

The palace stood in beautiful grounds and is a noble-lookin' building. We wuz met at the entrance to the garden by four handsome native girls with beautiful silk dresses on, handsome turbans, satin slippers and jewelry enough for a dozen wimmen.

They took our hands, each on us walkin' between two on 'em, for all the world as if we wuz prisoners, till we got to the gates of the palace, and here two black males, dressed as rich as a president or minister, met us, and four more gayly dressed female slaves.

These girls took Miss Meechim's cape and my mantilly and laid 'em away. Then we went through a long hall and up a magnificent marble staircase, with a girl on each side on us agin jest as if we wuz bein' took to jail. We then went into a large beautiful room where the Princess' Lady of Honor wuz tryin', I spoze, to be jest as honorable as she could be. But to my surprise she handed us the first thing some coffee and pipes to smoke. But such a pipe never entered Jonesville. Why, the pipe stem was six feet long, amber and gold, diamonds and rubies. Good land! it wuz most enough to get a perfessor and a member of the W.C.T.U. to smokin'. But I wuzn't to be enticed; I sort o' waved it off graceful and drinked a little coffee, which wuz good, and if you'll believe it the little holders that held our cups wuz all covered with diamonds. Then six more slaves, jest as pretty, with jest as fine clothes and with as many jewels, came to tell us the Princess would see us. And we went with them through room after room, each one seemin'ly more elegant than the others, till we reached the door of a great grand apartment, and here the Princess wuz surrounded by more slaves, dressed handsomer than any we'd seen yet.

She come forward to meet us and led the way to a beautiful divan, where we sot down. Here they offered us some more of the beautiful jewelled pipes agin, and agin I stood firm and so did Miss Meechim, but the Princess smoked a little. But the tobacco wuz perfumed so delightfully that there wuz no tobacco smell to it.

Then coffee wuz passed agin in a jewelled cup and agin I sipped a little on't, thinkin' like as not it would keep me awake it wuz so strong, but knowin' that I had got to be polite anyway in such a time as this.

She talked quite good English and we had a pleasant visit with her, and anon she took each on us by the hand—for all the world they acted as if we wuz infants and couldn't walk alone—and led us through the magnificent rooms with lofty mirrors, furniture covered with costly Persian cloth embroidered with gold and silver, great rugs of the most exquisite color and texture, mounds of flowers, baskets and vases everywhere running over with them, makin' the air sweet with their perfume.

In one room there wuz no winders, the walls bein' made of glitterin' mirrors sot in gilded frames, light comin' down through stained glass in the gilded ceiling.

On the Princess' toilet table wuz a large gold tray holdin' a basin of perfumed water, and white silk towels embroidered in gold and silver.

I remembered my crash and huck-a-buck towels and thought to myself I didn't know what she would do if she ever come to see me, unless I took one of Josiah's silk handkerchiefs for her to wipe her hands on. But concluded I would do that if she ever paid my visit. And I thought the minute I got home I would paint the bowl of the pipe we had used for tizik, a pale blue or pink, and dry some extra fine mullen leaves and catnip blows, they smell real sweet to me, and I knew they would be good for her bronkial tubes anyway. And I laid out to make up in a warm welcome what we lacked in luxury.