“20_th June_, 1864—­Went with Captain Leith to Poona to visit the Free Church Mission Schools there, under the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, Gardner, etc.  A very fine school of 500 boys and young men answered questions very well....  All collected together, and a few ladies and gentlemen for whom I answered questions about Africa.  We then went to a girls’ school; the girls sang very nicely, then acted a little play.  There were different castes in all the schools, and quite mixed.  After this we went to College, where young men are preparing for degrees of the University under Dr. Haug and Mr. Wordsworth; then to the Roman Catholic Orphanage, where 200 girls are assembled, clothed, and fed under a French Lady Superior—­dormitory clean and well aired, but many had scrofulous-looking sore eyes; then home to see some friends whom Lady Frere had invited, to save me the trouble of calling on them.  Saw Mr. Cowan’s daughter.”

“21_st June_, 1864.—...  Had a conversation with the Governor after breakfast about the slaving going on toward the Persian Gulf.  His idea is that they are now only beginning to put a stop to slavery—­they did not know of it previously....  The merchants of Bombay have got the whole of the trade of East Africa thrown on their hands, and would, it is thought, engage in an effort to establish commerce on the coast.  The present Sultan is, for an Arab, likely to do a good deal.  He asked if I would undertake to be consul at a settlement, but I think I have not experience enough for a position of that kind among Europeans.”

On returning to Bombay, he saw the missionary institutions of the Scotch Established and Free Churches, and arranged with Dr. Wilson of the latter mission to take his two boys, Chuma and Wikatani.  He arranged also that the “Lady Nyassa,” which he had not yet sold, should be taken care of, and borrowing L133, 10s. for the passage-money of himself and John Reid, one of his men, embarked for old England.

At Aden considerable rain had fallen lately; he observed that there was much more vegetation than when he was there before, and it occurred to him that at the time of the Exodus the same effects probably followed the storms of rain, lightning, and hail in Egypt.  Egypt was very far from green, so that Dr. Stanley must have visited it at another part of the year.  At Alexandria, when he went on board the “Ripon,” he found the Maharaja Dhuleep Singh and his young Princess—­the girl he had fancied and married from an English Egyptian school.  Paris is reached on the 21st July; a day is spent in resting; and on the evening of the 23d he reaches Charing Cross, and is regaled with what, after nearly eight years’ absence, must have been true music—­the roar of the mighty Babylon.