her East. The weather has been pleasant until within the last
few days. But now it is becoming very warm, and as we have yet to go
through the Straits of Malacca near the equator before turning north,
we must expect some discomfort. I have been very much pleased with
English rule and English hospitality in India. With that rule two
hundred and fifty millions of uncivilized people are living at peace
with each other, and are not only drawing their subsistence from the
soil but are exporting a large excess over imports from it. It would be
a sad day for the people of India and for the commerce of the world if
the English should withdraw. We hope to be in Hong Kong by the middle
of April, and farther north in China as soon thereafter as possible.
When a good climate is reached we shall regulate our further movements
by the reports of weather on seas to be traversed, and climate of
places to be visited. At present, however, we expect to reach San
Francisco about the first half of July. Although homesick to be settled
down I dread getting back. The clamor of the partisan and so-called
independent press win be such as to make life there unpleasant for a
time.

Mrs. Grant joins me in love to you, Mary, and the children.

I have to-day written a letter to Mr. Corbin.

Very truly yours,

U.S. GRANT.

P.S. Julia asks me to add, to tell Mary that the English speak in the
highest terms of the work being done all through this country by the
missionaries, especially in an educational way. They say they are doing
much good.

[To his niece, Clara Cramer.]

New York City,
Sept. 27th, 1883.

MY DEAR CLARA:

On my return from the trip over the North Pacific Railroad to the
Pacific Coast last Friday, I found your excellent and welcome letter,
with enclosures. Your aunt was very much pleased with your letter and
poetry as well as with your essay. They all do you great credit, and I
think you can well sustain yourself as a writer with any young lady of
your age in this or any other land.

My trip over the northern route to the Pacific about completes my
personal observation of every part of our country. I was not prepared
to see so rich a country or one so rapidly developing. Across the
continent where but a few years ago the Indian held undisputed sway,
there is now a continuous settlement, and every ten or fifteen miles a
town or city, each with spires of the school house and the church. The
soil for almost the entire