OLD DIARY LEAVES, Fourth Series (1887-92)
by Henry Steel Olcott

CHAPTER I

TOURING IN INDIA

(1887)

AMONG my visitors of the next few days was that very learned Sanskrit teacher and author, Pandit Jibbananda Vidyasagara, son of the greatest of Bengali Pandits of his day, the late Taranatba Tarkavachaspati, author of the Sanskrit Lexicon, known to old member of our Society as the one who gave me the sacred thread of the Brahmin, his own gotra and mantra, thus adopting me, so far as possible under the caste rules. His son asked me to partake of food at his house the following day, which I did with pleasure. This is, I believe, a case without precedent, as I was a declared Buddhist, and was asked to sacrifice nothing in the way of religious belief as a condition of the receipt of this distinguished mark of esteem and gratitude of the Brahmins for my services in India towards the Hindu revival.
One of my staunchest Indian friends from the beginning until now is the Honorable Maharajah Sir Jotendro Mohan Tagore, whose guest H.P.B., I, and other Theosophists have been. He is a highly educated

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and thoughtful man, a great lover of religious discussions. In common with all Hindus, he loves the ancient ideal of the spiritual life, in theory, admits its vast superiority over the life of the world. I remember a talk we had one day, during a later visit to, Calcutta, about this very subject, and the good-natured laugh I had at his expense. He had asked me in great seriousness if I could not tell him the most effectual way to reach this high level while still living. "Of course," I replied, "there is one way that can be tried by you, with a fair certainty of gaining your object." "What is it? Do tell me," he unsuspectingly asked. "Well, drive home in that splendid carriage of yours; go up to your marble reception-room, where the silver lustres, the paintings, the mosaics, and other things make it a real princely apartment; call your' lawyers and dispose of your property by gift, keeping back not so much as one jewel; then send to the bazaar and buy the orange cloths, the staff, and the water-pot of a sanyâsi, bid farewell to your family, change your name, and go out in the world as a pauper ascetic; stick to this long enough, as the Buddha did, as Dayânand Saraswati and thousands more have in our own times, and you will find ample recompense for your self-denial and your spiritual striving." A smile came over his refined features as he found how easily he had allowed himself to be entrapped, and he showed no annoyance when I laughed at his dilemma. But I told him, with that affectionate frankness which our long personal friendship permitted, that unless he was

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brave enough to try the sovereign remedy for world-troubles which the Sages had prescribed, and which the experience of hundreds of generations had verified, he had better not think of treading, the Higher Path: the Buddha had said in the Dhammapada: "One is the road that leads to wealth, another the road that leads to Nirvana"; and more familiar to the Christian world is that story in St. Matthew of the rich young man who put to the Christ the very same question as my friend had just put to me, and got the same answer, with the result that "when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions". Moreover, I told my valued friend that if I were in his place I should not run away from my wealth, but should stop and put it to the helping of the world, by which he would get further along the Path than by any amount of asceticism he might attempt. For unless, as the Hindu Shastras declare, he could come to look on gold as no more excellent than clay, the vivid recollection of his relinquished splendor would haunt him always: though he plunged into the heart of the forest, or shut himself up in a Himalayan cavern, or descended to the bottom of the sea, the very air about him would vibrate with the tinkle and chink of gold and silver coin. It is good proof of the innate sweetness of the Prince's, character that he has borne me no ill-will for my sharp frankness. In fact, these millionaires and princes get so much sickening sycophancy that, as a rule, they relish instead of resenting plain advice which has no

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ulterior motive. But sometimes they think you a fool to pretend to despise the idol of their lifelong worship!
On the 23rd (July) I again lectured to an over-flowing audience in the Calcutta Town Hall—whose bad acoustic qualities entitle it to be called "Orators' Despair"—on the theme of "Social Reform on Aryan Lines". Two more lectures were given the next day, and on the 26th I left for Darjeeling, that peerless Himalayan station whose name now recalls the awful catastrophe with which it has recently been visited as the result of a cloud burst, cyclone, and earthquake. At the time of my visit, however, it was in the height of its picturesqueness and beauty, and I had a most enjoyable time. With my host, Babu Chhatra Dhar Ghose, local manager of the Burdwan Maharajah's estates, and President of our local T. S. Branch, I made a return call on that wonderful explorer of Tibet, Sarat Chandra Das, C.I.E., Rai Bahadur, Tibetan Interpreter to Government, etc., etc., who showed me the priceless MSS. and printed books he had brought back from Lhasa, and introduced me to a venerable Lama-Pandit, with whose help he was compiling for Government a Tibetan-English Lexicon, which, when finished, will be his chief literary monument. At the house of my old friend, Babu Srinath Chatterji, Secretary of our Branch, we met Gyen-Shapa, a Tibetan Lama-Ascetic, who has long practised Yoga and developed certain of the siddhis. Srinath Babu had seen him that very morning, while "sitting

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in dhârana," i.e., meditating, rise from the ground and remain, self-supported; in the air. I visited him twice more, and, with Srinath as interpreter, managed to get a good deal of interesting information from him about Tibetan lamaseries and lamas. There is, in almost all lamaseries, a school of Yoga under an adept teacher, and the feat of self-levitation is not uncommon among them. The height to which one can rise in the air depends upon his natural temperament in part, and largely on the length of practical training. His own Teacher could rise as high as the walls of the lamasery, and several of his fellow-pupils could levitate themselves higher than himself. A strict discipline, physical and moral, must be followed, and great attention is paid to diet. Such phenomena are performed in private, vulgar display being strictly forbidden. Needless to say, the curiosity of casual travellers, and especially of the beef-eating, peg-drinking European explorer, is not gratified: search as they may, they would never see a real adept, to know him as such, as the cases of Rockhill, Captain Bower, the Due d'Orleans, and Mr. Knight1 sufficiently attest.
Sarat Babu's Narrative of a Journey to Lhasa in 1881-82 is one of the most interesting books of travel I have ever read It teems with accounts of dangers faced, obstacles surmounted, life imperilled, new peoples met, and plans and projects fully achieved, yet is free from bombast and vain boasting; in this, resembling that

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1See Theosophist, vol. xvi, pp. 173 and 305.

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peerless book of Nansen's, Farthest North1 Leaving his home at Darjeeling, November 7th, 1881, he crossed the Himalayas by the Kangla Chhen pass on the 30th of November, after undergoing great hardships, and reached Tashi-Lhunpo, the capital of the Tashi Lama2 (whose Master of Ceremonies one of our own revered Mahatmas is). After living here several months, he managed to get permission to visit Lhasa, was received by the Dalai Lama, collected a large number of the most important Buddhist works, and, surmounting innumerable obstacles on the return journey to the Sikkim frontier, reached his home on 27th December, 1882. I noticed in the shape of his head a peculiarity which struck me in Stanley, the African explorer, viz., a marked fulness of the temples over the articulations of the jaw bones, a sign to physiognomists of hardiness of constitution, the power of resisting disease. Sarat Babu's whole body conveys the impression of physical toughness, and the reading of his Report to Government after meeting him, fully corroborated my first

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1 [It is worthy of note that since these lines were penned the feat of Sarat Chandra Das has been emulated, if not surpassed, by that of the Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi, whose marvelous sojourn in Tibet is related in his work, Three Tears in Tibet, of which the Morning Post writes that it is strongly reminded of Chandra Das's book, though the pupil has "put his notes together with more literary skill than his mentor". The author visited Sarat Chandra Das at Darjeeling before commencing his great adventure, and, through the help of the veteran explorer, was put in touch with a neighboring Lama, from whose family he acquired colloquial Tibetan.—ED.] [1910].
2 [The recent work of Sven Hedin, and his impressions of the Tashi Lama, should not be overlooked by those interested in this subject.—ED.] [1910].

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impressions in this respect. His thorough mastery of the Tibetan tongue, helped by his semi-Mongolian type of face, enabled him to travel to Tashi-Lhunpo and Lhasa in the character of a Tibetan Doctor. I had ample proof of his fluency myself when he served me as interpreter in my talk with the learned Lama-Pandit and with the head cooly, who had taken our beloved Damodar from Darjeeling to the distant station in Sikkim, where he was to meet with the high functionary who had promised to take him safely to the place where our Mahatma was to take charge of him as resident pupil.
On 1st August I left delightful Darjeeling and its bracing air, and plunged down the mountain by steam tram to the terminus station of Siliguri, where the mercury stood so high as to make the contrast very trying. I lodged and bad my meals at the station that evening and the next two days, and enjoyed the novel experience of lecturing on "Theosophy and Religion" to a good audience on the railway platform! I then proceeded towards Noakhally, in the Gangetic Delta; but was stopped at Khulna, where I had to wait for the boat. Being a perfect stranger in those parts I had anticipated a quiet and uneventful evening, but a clerk who had read my name on my portmanteau, having spread the news, my room at the dâk bungalow was soon crowded with educated Bengalis, who stopped until 10 o'clock to talk philosophy, after which they went home to dine, and left me free to do the same. Rising at 4 the next morning, I left by the

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boat for Barisâl, and after a pleasant sail down the: river Bairab, which reminds one of the low-banked rivers of Ceylon, I got there at 5 p.m. and was put up at the dâk bungalow. Again I was caught by some local Hindu gentlemen, and pressed to give a lecture at 7 p.m. in the large schoolhouse. It only needed the sending around of tom-tom beaters and criers to collect a crowd, as I found on entering the hall, where fully a thousand people had gathered. My discourse was interpreted into Bengali by a Calcutta graduate named Aswini Kumar Dutt, with a fluency and fire that amazed me. I have always ranked him among the three or four very best interpreters I have had in India.
The Noakhally boat failing to arrive, I was obliged to stop over at Barisâl. My rooms were crowded all day with inquirers, and I had to give a second lecture the next evening to an audience quite as large as the first one. It was on emerging from the hall, and while standing in the verandah, that I heard the reverberations of that mysterious phenomenon called the "Barisâl Gun". Not one of the explanations thus far put forth by scientific men seems to explain the wonderful noises. Elsewhere1 have discussed at sufficient length the Barisâl Gun, and the several scientific and quasi-scientific attempts at explanation. I think their palpable insufficiency was shown. For the benefit of later subscribers, it may be briefly stated that the "Gun" sounds are identical as to loudness

1 See Theosophist, vol. ix, p. 703, and xi, p. 409.

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and vibratory quality with those of a cannot-shot. They have the same peculiarity of suddenness of explosion without any premonitory rumbling to prepare the listener for what is to come. In my case the first explosion came so suddenly and so loud thought that I thought a gun had been fired in the village, and within a few hundred yards of me. My first supposition was that an 8 o'clock gun was habitually fired there as at other stations where there are military cantonments, but on looking at my watch I found 8.45, so that could not be the case. Presently a second report came, and then, at short intervals, five more, making seven in all. Upon asking what this all meant I was, for the first time in my life, told about the "Barisâl Gun". Bearing in mind the physical peculiarity of the sounds, the reader will be amused to learn that the following explanations have been gravely offered: the action of the tide (on the beach of the Bay of Bengal, 65 miles away); the surf; the crumbling of river banks (alluvial and only a few feet high); the crash of falling cliffs (non-existent); the impact of wind in caves or hill corners (non-existent anywhere near Barisâl); echoes reverberating from rock boards ("in the mind's eye, Horatio"); the escape of steam puffs from submarine volcanoes; electrical detonations. Even the explosion of fireworks at local weddings has been mentioned, but not the bursting of soda-water bottles—a last hint which is respectfully offered without charge to materialistic scientific guesser. While it is easy to say what the phenomenon is not,

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it is not at all easy to say what it is, but I am best satisfied with the theory that the Barisâl Gun is due to the action of elementals, and has some relation to an event or events which probably occurred in that vicinity long ago, certainly beyond the memory of the present generation, for old men told me that they had been hearing them ever since their boyhood. Sometimes they occur in the rainy season, sometimes not, as in the present case, when the day had been sunshiny, and the atmosphere seemed too clear and the stars too bright to tempt one to adopt the theory of an electric disturbance. I noted the fact that I heard seven distinct explosions at regular intervals, and that the number was said to be unusual; which to my mind, as an occultist, seemed to mark a purpose on the part of some controlling Intelligence to give me a friendly salute. And no more guns were heard that night, nor the next day or night, nor so long as I was in the place. I tried two or three times to have a serious talk with H. P. B. about the matter, but each time something happened to interrupt our conversation. She once said it was an exhibition of the power of the "Sons of Fohat," and referred me to The Secret Doctrine, but her ideas seemed to me so vague that I at last put the subject aside, and there it lies ready for the study of Mr. Leadbeater and his fellow-students of the Finer Forces of Nature. A couple of years or so ago, the matter was referred to in Nature by Dr. Francis Darwin, who asked for information. I sent him the back numbers of the Theosophist in question,

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"but have heard nothing, from him since. Perhaps he was shocked by the other contents of our heterodox publication.
The Noakhally boat still not arriving, I was able to form a local Branch with excellent members under the name of the Barisâl T.S. It finally transpired that the missing boat had been disabled and was lying up for repairs, so I had to give up my Noakhally visit for the present and return to Khulna, whence I continued on to Calcutta, reaching there on the 12th. The next morning I took boat for Midnapur, but my visit was cut short by the steamer grounding in the canal and having to wait for the next tide, so the two lectures on the programme had to be given at one public meeting. I spoke on "The Spiritual Life" and “Karma,” and I was kept on my legs two hours and a half. A special discourse to Hindu boys was given on the next morning, and at 8 p.m. I left by the same steamer for Calcutta. On the 17th I lectured at the Oriental Institute, and the same evening sailed by the "Euphrates" for Chittagong. She proved to be as buoyant as a cork, and rolled so badly that we had scarcely a moment of quiet. We reached our destined port on the third day and a grand reception was given me. The principal native gentlemen came aboard to welcome me, and the jetty presented a very gay appearance with the picturesquely dressed crowd that had come to cheer their white friend. On the 21st, at 7 a.m., I lectured to 1,500 people on

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"Theosophy," and at 5 p.m., to as large a crowd, on "Body, Mind, and Soul". There was a third lecture on the 22nd and some admissions to membership. The next day I went by country rowing-boat to Pahartali, an island village 16 miles distant, the inhabitants all Buddhists, of the race of Maghs. The house assigned to me was a hut of bamboo frame and matting sides, the roof thatched with grass. The Mahamuni T.S. was formed the next day, with Babu Krishna Chandra Chowdry, a well-known leader and reformer of that community, as Secretary and Treasurer. The Maghs are the descendants of Arakanese fathers and Bengali mothers, the country having been conquered by an invading army from Arakan, who remained there and settled down. My lecture at Pahartali was given in a shamiana, or open pavilion, which has great advantages in tropical climates, where as much air as possible is indispensable for comfort. Many people present, I was told, had come in from distances of 30 and 40miles to hear what I had to say about their religion. There is a gigantic image of the Buddha in the local temple, which has a royal diadem on its head, a feature I had never seen in any of my travels in Buddhist countries. True, one sees crowned images of the Bodhisattva, i.e., the entity who finally evolved up to the Buddhahood, in the Kapilavastu birth, but never of the perfected World-Savior. I, myself, have an artistically modelled brass statuette of the Bodhisattva as King of the Tusita heaven, sitting in Padmasan, which was given me by the Tibetan Envoy to the

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Indian Government, who was here some years ago, and who had received it from the Dalai Lama himself. There is a copper plate beneath the figure, on which the conventional symbol of the Diamond Throne is engraved, and behind it, in the hollow of the image, a roll of Tibetan paper on which the Dalai Lama wrote with his own hand some prayer-charms or mantrams for the protection of the handsome young envoy from all harm from evil-wishers. This figure wears many jewels, on head, neck, breast, upper arm, wrist, waist, and ankles—huge ones in the old Indian style. The hair is built up in a towering mass with pendent locks hanging over the shoulders and down to the upper arm. The hands are laid together in the lap, and support a flowery ornamented vase or statuette, showing the "Three Gems" of Buddhist symbology. Altogether it is a precious curio for our little museum at Adyar.
As Noakhally could not be reached by boat from Barisâl, and as the earnest friends there had well deserved an official visit, I went thither from the other side of the Delta, driving in an open spring-cart through a heavy rain, through a tiger-infested country part of the way, and going on thence all night in a common springless ox-cart, so shore in the body that to sleep I had to stick my legs out in front as far as my knees. At 4 a.m. we got to Mahajan's Haut, where we took a heavy country boat up the river, in which I had twenty-eight hours for sleeping and resting before reaching Noakhally at 11 a.m. on the 27th.

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My reception was extremely cordial, and I was most hospitably entertained. At 3 p.m. I received and replied to addresses in Bengali and English at the T.S. Hall, a neat structure in bamboo poles and chicks, or screens, and thatched roof, which had cost the Branch Rs. 600. A lecture was given at 4.30 under the chairmanship of the local (European) Magistrate, in the Native Theatre, and in the evening a representation was given of that touching old Indian drama, Prahlad Charita, by amateurs who displayed real histrionic talent. But my self-possession was sorely tried by a Prelude composed in my honor, which embodied a striking incongruity. The curtain rose upon a forest scene, in which was seen an ancient Rishi (Bharata Rishi) sitting in deep meditation beneath a tree. Anon are heard joy-songs, and from the two sides enter a number of Chelas, who cluster about the Yogî and recall him to consciousness. Asked why they are singing so joyously, he is told that "Colonel Olcott, the friend of the Aryan religion, has come to the place". The Yogî answers that this is the fulfilment of ancient prophecy and the dawn of a brighter day for India. He then rises, takes a flower-wreath from the hand of a disciple (sishya), comes forward to the footlights, and beckoning to me to approach, throws the garland over my neck, uttering a blessing at the same time. The, comical anachronism involved seemed to have struck no one but myself and the European Magistrate sitting beside me. But the intention to show the national love for myself was so evident that the inclination to

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laugh was overcome by a feeling of gratitude for this friendly ceremony.
Another lecture was given on the next day and my rooms were crowded with inquirers, of whom a number, including Nobin Chandra Sen, the great Bengali poet, joined the Society. At night I embarked on the steamer at Taktakally after a drive of 6 miles, and on the 29th got to Barisâl, slept on the Khulna-Barisâl boat, spent the next day on the river, took train for Calcutta, and got there at 5 a.m. on the 31st.
On 1st September there was a meeting of the Ladies’ T.S. at the house of Mr. Janaki Nath Ghosal, a very well-known and influential Calcutta gentleman, whose wife I have spoken of elsewhere as one of the loveliest and most intellectual women of modern India. Miss Anna Ballard, the American journalist, then living at Calcutta, accompanied me.
One morning I went with my host, our long-tried, faithful colleague, Babu Norendronath Sen, to the Esplanade to see him feed his pets. I have often seen people in the public gardens of Paris feeding the birds, but Norendro Babu feeds every morning the cows, crows, mynas, and other birds, the fishes in the ponds, and the ants which swarm in the grass of the wide Esplanade. The animals and birds all seem to know his carriage, and gather together to his usual feeding-ground, and the fishes swim towards him in the pond. This thing has been going on for years, quietly and unostentatiously, unheralded by the reporter, unnoticed by the crowd. One could hardly find a

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stronger example of the tender compassion sometimes felt by men towards the lower creatures.
My long tour was now nearing its close, the only portion to be covered being the Coromandel Coast. On 4th September I sailed in the B. I. steamer "Khandalla" for Bimlipatam, and after stops at Gopalpur and Calingapatam, got there on the evening of the 8th. Landing on the 9th, I found the Maharajah of Vizianagram's landau waiting for me and drove to his capital, where the Dewan, P. Jagannathraz, gave me hospitality. The next day I was kindly received at the Palace by His Highness, who put a gilt garland around my neck and engaged in a long discussion on religious matters. He presided at my lectures on that day and the next, and kept me talking with him privately in his library from 3 until 8 p.m. on the question of the existence of the soul, about which he seemed rather skeptical. Before my departure from Vizianagram, he sent me a generous present for the Headquarters expense account, and wished me every success for our movement. His carriage took me to the seaport of Vizagapatam, a distance of 36 miles. My host there was Mr. Jaggarow, son of the late A. V. Nursingrow, F.R.A.S., F.R.G.S., the owner of a very fine, well-equipped astronomical observatory, which since his death has been given to the Government of India, and is now one of the chief meteorological and astronomical stations. At his house I assisted at an alchemical experiment by a native doctor named Bulushu Soobbiah,

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who claimed to be able to reduce beaten silver to a white powder, for use as a medicine. Not having any silver ready, we decided to experiment on tin. The process was as follows: He made on a piece of canvas a layer of margosa leaves, half an inch thick; on that was a layer of the same thickness of saffron; on this the tin was placed, and the whole was then rolled into a sort of sausage and tied around with stout twine. This was burnt for two hours in a heap of dried cow-dung fuel, four cubits in circumference and one cubit high. Upon taking out the "sausage" we found that some of the tin was calcined, but most of it only melted. The alchemist said that the fuel was not of good quality, else all the tin would have been calcined.
Rajah Gajapati Row, a well-known figure in the Madras Presidency, lives at Vizagapatam, and we exchanged friendly visits.
The two lectures I gave in this place attracted very large audiences, including an unusually large number of Europeans, who seldom attend Hindu meetings of the sort on account of the marked antipathy of the two races. On my way from the shore to the offing to board the "Ethiopia," on which I had booked my passage to Cocanâda, I had a narrow escape from what might have been a tragic accident. The surf Tan very high, and three big rollers had to be crossed in the masulah boat in which I was. These boats are famous for surf work along the Indian coast, being not nailed or pinned, but tied together with coir (cocoanut fibre) yarn and caulked in the seams.

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Ordinarily they are very safe, and I have made many trips in them between ship and shore. But this time, after we had passed the first roller and were atop of the second, the boat's prow was lifted so high up and the roller slipped from under her so quickly that she came down on the water with a tremendous blow, and one of the planks split from the cutwater to the bilge and the water began to pour in. All the rowers but one were, flung into the bottom and lay there in a mess together. I shouted to them to pick themselves up and go back to their oars, tore the calico covers off the stern cushions and made them stuff them into the crack, set half the men to bailing while the other half tugged desperately to get the boat's head around, did my best with the steering oar, put a safety-belt on Babula, and had him tie the handle of my cashbox to the boat, so that if she foundered there would be a rather better chance of recovering it and the Society's rupees inside, which were my chief concern just then. We finally got the boat around, rode over the roller a second time, and, by dint of very great exertions, just managed to beach her, half full of water. Another boat being soon procured, I started again, and this time reached the steamer without mishap. What made the accident most serious of all was that the sea swarmed with sharks, of which I saw some on our way out to the vessel.
Cocanâda, the birthplace of T. Subba Row, was reached the next morning, and after the usual lectures, receptions, and admissions to membership, I continued

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my journey southward by canal, landing at Rajah-mundry, where I found a deep interest in our movement to prevail. During my stay of four days in the place, crushing audiences attended my lectures, in spite of the fact that the committee charged for admission, in the hope of avoiding the great rush of the first day. A large and strong Branch was formed, with one of the best men in India as President.
On the 24th I left by special boat for Bezwada, and spent the whole day and half the next slowly moving down the Godavery Canal. Friends intercepted me at Ellore, the beginning of the Krishna Canal, and induced me to lecture and to form a new Branch, under the name of the "Gupta Vidya T. S." Bezwada was reached on the 28th, and stopping there two days I organised a Branch, after which I moved on by bullock-cart to Guntur, an important place, the scene of much missionary activity. Among my callers after my first lecture was the Rev. Mr. S., a Presbyterian missionary, whose case was a very hard one. For two years past he and his wife had been persecuted by the other missionaries, their pay stopped, and every effort made to drive them out of India, because, on discovering that the senior missionary had been behaving immorally with some of the women converts, they had tried their best to have him tried and removed. The policy of expediency, however, prevailed over that of justice, and these two honest Christian workers had been reduced to the direst straits. He had worked at carpentering and other odd jobs and she had done

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sewing, but there were days when they had to go hungry. The Hindu community held the worthy couple in respect and told me these facts, so I had my cook prepare a good dinner for them, and sent it over and invited myself to come and help eat it. They received me with affectionate kindness as a compatriot and sympathiser, and Mrs. S. expressed the wish that I might leave the error of my beliefs and join them as a missionary; a proposal which made me laugh, and make them the counter-proposal that they should disconnect themselves from a party where such iniquities could prevail, and join me as earnest Theosophists!
On 3rd October I presided at the anniversary of our local Branch's Sanskrit School, which was established by the good Mr. C. Sambiah Chetty, and had then 193 pupils, who had gained the unusual proportion of 97 and 82½ per cent of passes, as against the average of 75 per cent. The same day I left for Bezwada by bullock-cart, and thence went on by special boat on the canal to Masulipatam, where I arrived on the 5th. My reception here was enthusiastic. The boat was bedecked with flowers, I landed under a leaf-pandal or canopy, there were ornamental arches, complimentary addresses, and jubilation generally. That evening I lectured to 3,000 people, among whom were all the local padris (missionaries), and to another monster audience on the next day, after which I formed the Masulipatam T. S. On the 7th I was honored with visits by the Revs. Stone, Clarke, and Peel, of the Church of England Mission, and enjoyed a friendly

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talk of three hours with them. An address to Hindu boys about their religion closed my public labors, and my last night at Masulipatam was spent on my mats on the stone quay, where I slept the sweet sleep of the weary. On the 8th I embarked on the B. I. coaster "Umballa," got caught in the tail of a cyclone, and had a nasty wet and comfortless time of it. But the next morning we were off Madras Harbor, and I had hoped that my troubles were over for the year, but the sea was so rough that we could not enter, and had to steam off and on the whole day, in sight of our haven, yet unable to reach it. The next morning, however, I got ashore, and with a feeling of immense relief saw once more our lovely Adyar, on the 262nd day from that on which the tour began. Whom should I find there but Mr. Alexander Fullerton, of New York, who had come to help me as Private Secretary. How that scheme prospered will be seen in the next chapter. Meanwhile, the reader who has followed me throughout my journeyings will appreciate the significance of the entry of October 11th in my Diary—"Blessed rest".