vate letter, says, "Conwell is the funniest
chap I ever fell in with. He sees a thousand things I never thought of
looking after. When his letters come back in print I find lots in them
that seems new to me, although I saw it all at the time. But you don't
see the fun in his letters to the papers. The way he adapts himself to
all circumstances comes from long travel; but it is droll. He makes a
salaam to the defunct kings, a neat bow to the Sudras, and a friendly
wink at the Howadji, in a way that puts him cheek-by-jowl with them
in a jiffy. He beats me all out in his positive sympathy with these
miserable heathen. He has read so much that he knows about everything.
The way the officials, English, too, treat him would make you think he
was the son of a lord. He has a dignified condescension in his manner
that I can't imitate."

Part of the time Bayard Taylor was his traveling companion, and there
grew up between these two kindred spirits an intimate friendship that
lasted until Taylor's death.

All through the trip he carried books with him, and every minute not
occupied in gathering material for his letters was passed in reading
the history of the scenes and the people he was among, in mastering
their language. Such close application added an interesting background
of historical information to his letters, a breadth and culture, that
made them decidedly more valuable and entertaining than if confined
strictly to what he saw and heard. It was on this journey that he
heard the legend from which grew his famous lecture, "Acres of
Diamonds," which has been given already three thousand four hundred
and twenty times. It gave him an almost inexhaustible fund of material
on which he has drawn for his lectures and books since.

During his absence his second child, a son, Leon, was born. He
returned home for the briefest time, and then completed the tour by
way of the West and the Pacific. He lectured through the Western
States and Territories, for already his fame as a lecturer was
spreading. He visited the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, Sumatra,
Siam, Burmah, the Himalaya Mountains, India, returning home by way of
Europe. His Hong Kong letter to "The Tribune," exposing the iniquities
of the labor-contract system in Chinese emigration, created quite a
stir in political and diplomatic circles. It was while on this trip
he gathered the material for his first book, "Why and How the Chinese
Emigrate." It was reviewed as the bes