Mark Twain travels through the dark streets of Bombay after night fall.  The streets are full of sleeping figures stretched out on the ground, wrapped in blankets with barely enough room for the carriage.  He attends a betrothal celebration featuring Nautch dancers and musicians.  This occurs before the plague hits the city but at the time of his writing this chapter the city is decimated with the plague.  Twain includes a passage from "Eothen" by Alexander William Kinglake, imagining the onset of the plague.  He writes "Kinglake was in Cairo many years ago during an epidemic of the Black D

Twain attends the awarding of Knight Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India to Thakor Sahib Shri Sir Mansinhji Sursinhji.  He is impressed with the pageantry  and color of the event then goes into a long exposition of the superiority of a dark complexion over sallow white complexions.

Mark Twain visits the seat of English governance in Bombay; the palace of and Indian Royal; and the place of Parsee funerals, the Tower of Silence.

India

India

Mark Twain visits Gibraltar. According to McKeithan (1958) Interrogation Point was originally described as "a born ass". This characterization was changed in the book to "a good-natured, enterprising idiot". The full article as printed in the Daily Alta California is included as an image on this page. I cannot find these phrases in the included article so perhaps they are from another in the series of letters.