not as pleasant as they might have been.

The date of our first appearance on English soil was March 12th, and
prior to the game on that occasion we were given a reception and
luncheon in the Club House of the Surrey County Cricket Club at
Kensington Oval, which is the personal property of the Prince of Wales,
and one of the most popular of the many cricket grounds the are to be
found within the vicinity of the world's greatest metropolis. The
committee appointed to receive the players on this occasion embraced
among others the Duke of Beaufort, Earl of Landsborough, Earl of
Coventry, Earl of Sheffield, Earl of Chesborough, Lord Oxenbridge, Lord
Littleton, Lord Hawke, Sir Reginald Hanson, Bart., Sir W. T. Webster,
Attorney General, the Lord Mayor, American Consul General, American
Charge d'Affaires, and Dr. W. D. Grace, the world-famous cricket player,
with whom I had become well acquainted during the trip of 1874. It had
rained that morning and when we left the hotel in drags for the grounds
the streets of London were enveloped in a fog so thick that one could
almost cut it with a knife, while the prospects of a ball game seemed to
the most of us exceedingly dubious. Arriving at the Club House we were
presented to the different members of the reception committee, who, in
spite of the high-sounding titles that they bore, were a most affable
lot of men, and to many of the most prominent club members, all of whom
gave us a warm welcome and made us feel thoroughly at home. Lord
Oxenbridge, a fine specimen of the English nobility, acted as chairman
of the assemblage, and after luncheon proposed the toasts of "The Queen"
and "The President of the United States," both of which were drank with
enthusiasm. Lord Lewisham then proposed "The American Ball Teams," to
which Mr. Spalding responded, this being followed by the health of the
chairman, proposed by the Hon. Henry White, United States Charge
d'Affaires, after which we made our way through the crowds that thronged
the reception rooms and corridors to the dressing rooms, where we donned
our uniforms and put ourselves in readiness to play ball. When we
marched out on the grounds we were somewhat surprised at the size of the
crowd that greeted us, some 8,000 people having assembled to witness the
game, and this in spite of the fact that it was still foggy and the
grounds soft, black and sticky. To play good ball under such
circumstances was all but impossible, and yet I have ta