h, 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 Sund