One of the great pleasures of travel in the East is the
unbounded hospitality--excessive kindness--everywhere met with. Will
the numerous kind friends to whom we are so deeply indebted--a host
far too great to name--please accept this general acknowledgment as
at least a slight evidence that their goodness to us is not
unappreciated? At every stage of our travels I have been struck with
the cheering thought, that notwithstanding the indisputable fact
that a vast amount of misery seems inseparable from human life,
still the general condition of mankind is a happy one. Even the
Hindoo in India, or the Malay in the Archipelago--and these seem to
exist under the worst conditions--each of these constantly sees
cause to bless his good fortune and render thanks--sincere,
heartfelt thanks--to a kind Providence for casting his life in
pleasant places, and not in damp, foggy England, or amid American
frosts and snows. We have their sincere sympathy, I assure you. Nor
is patriotism a peculiarly western virtue. No matter who or what he
is, the man of the East in his heart exalts his own country and his
own race, and esteems them specially favored of the gods. And indeed
it is with nations as with individuals: as none are entirely good,
so none are entirely bad. The unseen power is at work in all lands,
evolving the higher from the lower and steadily improving all, so
the traveller finds much to commend in every country, and seeing
this he grows tolerant and liberal, and able more heartily to sing
with Burns--
"Then let us pray that come it may--
As come it will, for a' that--
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, for a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
It's coming yet, for a'that,
That man to man, the warld o'er
Shall brothers be, for a' that.
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