ion of the Hindoos. Having become acquainted with each other by
several months' intercourse, one day he sat a long while at my house as
if absorbed in deep thought, and when he was ready to leave he asked if
I would allow him to recite a Hindoo proverb in Sanskrit. In doing this
he proved himself to be a fine elocutionist, and it seemed to me that I
had never heard more music in prose, although I could not, of course,
understand a single word of it.

[Illustration: DR. MAITRA READING SANSKRIT.]

I asked him for a translation, and the next day he sent me one with the
assurance that he intended to apply the proverb to me. It reads thus:
"Do not enter into a very intimate acquaintance with anybody; but if you
do, see that your friend is not a stranger; but if he is a stranger, see
to it that he is not an educated man; but if he is educated, never part
from him; but if fate compels you to part from him, then try to control
that which we cannot control, that is, die, for death alone can make up
for the loss of such a good man." I have told this to show not only the
Hindoo's conception of the happiness of death, but also his exquisite
politeness and delicacy of feeling.

When a Hindoo wishes to pay an elderly man or woman his respect or in
some manner honor them, he calls them father or mother, or, if they are
his equals in age, brother or sister. Even to-day, when my former clerks
write to me they call me father, and ask me to remember them to their
dear mother, that is, my wife.

[Illustration: MY CHIEF CLERK.]

On a few occasions some Hindoo princes and nobles would arrange special
entertainments and fetes for me, or rather in honor of the country
represented by me, and on such occasions the invitation was not limited
to me, but was extended to my friends also, so that I could take with me
of these as many as I pleased.

The Tagore family had a beautiful country house outside the city, where,
one day shortly after my arrival, a party was given in honor of myself
as representing the United States. Among the friends who accompanied me
on this occasion was the Danish traveler, D'Irgens-Bergh, whose
acquaintance I had made on my journey from Naples to Alexandria. The
villa might more correctly have been called a palace, for it was on a
grand scale and a perfect gem of architectural beauty. The floors and
walls of all apartments were of marble. A beautiful and finely kept park
surrounded the palace, and here, on the eveni