n making a tour of Europe, combining business with pleasure,
and had inspected nearly all the great cotton mills in England and
on the continent, picking up points for their own improvement.
They are intelligent and enterprising men and their reputation
for integrity, ability and loyalty to the British government
has frequently been recognized in a conspicuous manner.
Our most notable shipmate was the Right Honorable Lord Lamington,
recently governor of one of the Australian provinces, on his way
to assume similar responsibility at Bombay, which is considered
a more responsible post. He is a youngish looking, handsome man,
and might easily be mistaken for Governor Myron T. Herrick of
Ohio. One night at dinner his lordship was toasted by an Indian
prince we had on board, and made a pleasant reply, although it
was plain to see that he was not an orator. Captain Preston,
the commander of the ship, who was afterward called upon, made
a much more brilliant speech.
The prince was Ranjitsinhji, a famous cricket player, whom some
consider the champion in that line of sport. He went over to
the United States with an English team and will be pleasantly
remembered at all the places he visited. He is a handsome fellow,
25 years old, about the color of a mulatto, with a slender athletic
figure, graceful manners, a pleasant smile, and a romantic history.
His father was ruler of one of the native states, and dying, left
his throne, title and estates to his eldest son. The latter,
being many years older than Ranjitsinhji, adopted him as his
heir and sent him to England to be educated for the important
duty he was destined to perform. He went through the school at
Harrow and Cambridge University and took honors in scholarship
as well as athletics, and was about to return to assume his
hereditary responsibility in Indian when, to the astonishment
of all concerned, a boy baby was born in his brother's harem,
the first and only child of a rajah 78 years of age. The mother
was a Mohammedan woman, and, according to a strict construction
of the laws governing such things among the Hindus, the child
was not entitled to any consideration whatever. Without going
into details, it is sufficient for the story to say that the
public at large did not believe that the old rajah was the father
of the child, or that the infant was entitled to succeed him
even if he had been. But the old man was so pleased at the birth
of the baby that he immediate
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