254 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
ity with which he was received by British officials, who ordin- 
arily did not open their hearts to American travelers. His 
wide acquaintance with such well-known men as Gladstone, 
John Bright, Dean Stanley, Edward Archibald, Sir Charles 
Bright, Sir James Anderson, Goldwin Smith, etc., enabled 
him to talk with the British wherever he went. Also from his 
association with the American presidents and their cabinets 
he was able to enlighten his hosts on conditions at Wash- 
ington. 
His stay in India was the most extensive, because of his 
familiarity with the British officials. ‘The Governor General 
at that time was his old friend, the Marquis of Ripon, whom 
he had entertained when Her Majesty’s High Commissioners 
came to the United States to negotiate the Alabama claims. 
India interested him more than the countries he had just seen, 
because he felt racially allied both to the people and the gov- 
erning class. The spectacle of teeming masses of the white 
race living under such straitened economic conditions gave 
him much food for thought. 
His thoughts, however, reverted continually to the Western 
World where his deepest interests lay. Instead of spending 
leisurely months in Oriental wanderings as he had at first in- 
tended, he arrived in the south of France in early March, 
having given Asia a rather cursory survey. A few weeks more 
of idling and he was back in New York by the middle of May. 
His round-the-world trip had lasted less than six months. 
The new Secretary of State, the “plumed knight” James G. 
Blaine, who was as influential as Garfield, wrote him an of- 
ficial welcome, as follows: 
Department of State, 
Washington, D. C., 23d May, 1881. 
My dear Mr. Field,—Welcome, thou wanderer! We intend 
now to anchor you for some time in your native waters. 
Your arrival is timely. You can be of great service to the country 
