Very truly yours,

U.S.  GRANT.

P.S.  Direct letters to the care of Drexel, Harjes, & Co., Bankers,
Paris, France.

Paris France,
Nov. 27th, ’77.

MY DEAR MR. CRAMER: 

I am just in receipt of your letter of the 21st inst. enclosing one from the Portuguese Minister to Denmark recounting the cause of his brother-in-law’s removal from the diplomatic service.  I know Baron de S——­, and the Baroness very well and esteem them very highly.  There was never any difficulty with him and the State Department, or with any official at Washington that I have any recollection of.  I am very sure that no cause of complaint could have existed on our part without my knowing it.  It would afford me the greatest pleasure to meet the Baron and his wife during my European tour, but I fear I shall not be able to do so.  My trip through Spain and Portugal has been put off, or at least postponed, for this year.  On Saturday we leave here for the South of France, from there to take a naval vessel to visit all points of interest on the Mediterranean.  We shall probably go up the Nile, and spend the winter in a warm climate, to be ready for our northern tour in the spring.  It is barely possible that when we return from up the Nile we may go on East, through China and Japan to San Francisco.  But this is not probable for another year.  This will probably be the last opportunity I shall ever have of visiting Europe, and there is much to see that I have not seen, and cannot see this winter.

I hear from home occasionally, but not as often, probably, as you do. 
All were well by the last advices received two days ago from Orville.

Please assure your colleague that I have no recollection of other than the most pleasant relations between U.S. officials and the Baron de S.

With kind regards of Mrs. Grant, Jesse and myself, I am,

Very truly,

U.S.  GRANT.

Cairo, Egypt,
Jan’y 13th, ’78.

MY DEAR MR. CORBIN: 

I am in receipt of your letter of December ’77 at this remote, but historically interesting quarter of the globe.  We have been in Cairo since last Tuesday.  This is Sunday.  I have seen the city very thoroughly; visited the pyramids; the Virgin Mary’s tree where she took shelter some twenty centuries ago; the spring which became sweet from being saline, on her quenching her thirst from it, and which remains sweet to this day,—­while I was there water was being pumped from it, by ox power, with a revolving wheel, to irrigate the neighboring ground—­; Heliopolis, the great seat of learning in the days of Moses, and where he was taught, and where the father-in-law of Joseph was a teacher.  The tree and the well are at Heliopolis, about six miles from here.