ong as we live a glance at them will bring your
house and its life & its sumptuous belongings & rich harmonies of
color instantly across the years & the oceans, & we shall see them
again, & how welcome they will be!

We make our salutation to your Highness & to all members of your
family--including, with affectionate regard, that littlest little
sprite of a Princess--& I beg to sign myself

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

BENARES, February 5, 1896.

They had been entertained in truly royal fashion by Prince Kumar, who,
after refreshments, had ordered in "bales of rich stuffs" in the true
Arabian Nights fashion, and commanded his servants to open them and allow
his guests to select for themselves.

With the possible exception of General Grant's long trip in '78 and '79
there has hardly been a more royal progress than Mark Twain's trip around
the world. Everywhere they were overwhelmed with honors and invitations,
and their gifts became so many that Mrs. Clemens wrote she did not see
how they were going to carry them all. In a sense, it was like the Grant
trip, for it was a tribute which the nations paid not only to a beloved
personality, but to the American character and people.

The story of that East Indian sojourn alone would fill a large book, and
Mark Twain, in his own way, has written that book, in the second volume
of Following the Equator, an informing, absorbing, and enchanting story
of Indian travel.

Clemens lectured everywhere to jammed houses, which were rather less
profitable than in Australia, because in India the houses were not built
for such audiences as he could command. He had to lecture three times in
Calcutta, and then many people were turned away. At one place, however,
his hall was large enough. This was in the great Hall of the Palace,
where durbars are held, at Bombay.

Altogether they were two months in India, and then about the middle of
March an English physician at Jeypore warned them to fly for Calcutta and
get out of the country immediately before the real heat set in.

They sailed toward the end of March, touched at Madras and again at
Ceylon, remaining a day or two at Colombo, and then away to sea again,
across the Indian Ocean on one of those long, peaceful, eventless, tropic
voyages, where at night one steeps on deck and in daytime wears the
whitest and lightest garments and cares to do little more tha