Sketches of a Tour Round the World: Second Edition

In considerable flurry and fear, our mild Hindu reformer wends his way to the P. and O. Company’s office in Calcutta, and submits to the ominous process of securing his passage. A cold trepidation seizes him at the bottom of the dingy stair-case, where mysterious packing cases and labels swim before his wandering eyes. He musters courage to approach the half-screened office door, on pushing which he suddenly stands revealed to a solemn heavy-visage official, who looks doubly formidable for having cropped his iron-grey beard, as if for this particular emergency.