whence we
were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a
French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was
she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of
the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a
letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the
flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should
be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an
important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a
relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the
expectant administration, not from the one still in power and
antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.

His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the
_Iroquois_, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left
in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell
ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in
command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached
in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's
permission to proceed by Suez to Europe, instead of by the usual
route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the
way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested
turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go
into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning
the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the
ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of
twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been
a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I
had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the
works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers
during that period of awful suspense.

Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my
arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which
has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that
intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead
of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men
everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to
self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go
directly to Paris when I did leave N