Rangoon, Burma,
March 20th, '79.
MY DEAR MR. CRAMER:
We have now been very well through India and are this far on our way to the farther 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.]