rfect
mother, one in whom there was no spot or blemish, whose love was his stay
and support, whose life was the light of the world to him; in it her
ashes lie, and to the Mohammedan millions of India it is a holy place; to
them it is what Mount Vernon is to Americans, it is what the Abbey is to
the English.

Major Sleeman wrote forty or fifty years ago (the italics are mine):

"I would here enter my humble protest against the quadrille and
lunch parties which are sometimes given to European ladies and
gentlemen of the station at this imperial tomb; drinking and dancing
are no doubt very good things in their season, but they are sadly
out of place in a sepulchre."

Were there any Americans among those lunch parties? If they were
invited, there were.

If my imagined lunch-parties in Westminster and the tomb of Washington
should take place, the incident would cause a vast outbreak of bitter
eloquence about Barbarism and Irreverence; and it would come from two
sets of people who would go next day and dance in the Taj if they had a
chance.

As we took our leave of the Benares god and started away we noticed a
group of natives waiting respectfully just within the gate--a Rajah from
somewhere in India, and some people of lesser consequence. The god
beckoned them to come, and as we passed out the Rajah was kneeling and
reverently kissing his sacred feet.

If Barnum--but Barnum's ambitions are at rest. This god will remain in
the holy peace and seclusion of his garden, undisturbed. Barnum could
not have gotten him, anyway. Still, he would have found a substitute
that would answer.

CHAPTER LIV.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a
bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth
$4 a minute.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

A comfortable railway journey of seventeen and a half hours brought us to
the capital of India, which is likewise the capital of Bengal--Calcutta.
Like Bombay, it has a population of nearly a million natives and a small
gathering of white people. It is a huge city and fine, and is called the
City of Palaces. It is rich in historical memories; rich in British
achievement--military, political, commercial; rich in the results of the
miracles done by that brace of mighty magicians, Clive and Hastings. And
has a cloud kissing monument to one Ochterlony.

It is a flu