Excerpt from Travels With Jottings: From Midland to the Pacific Being so near the home of our eminent fellow-citizen, U.S. G., at Galena, while my better-half was consuming time among her friends, what could I do better than run over and see friend Ulysses? So we took a run thither, and, having a pleasant chat with Sister Grant at their pleasant home, perched upon an eminence on the south side of the river, we left the company of this cordial, frank, and I should say accomplished lady, and took after Ulysses, who had gone down into the city to smoke his cigar with his old chums on the street. Mrs. Grant gave me the name of General Rowley, at whose office I would be likely to meet her husband. General Rowley informed me that he himself was the only living member of Grants staff during the war, and that he had come home not long before the close of the war not expecting to live. General Rowley was polite enough to go on to the street and find his illustrious chief and bring him in, and for two hours we three sat and conversed without interruption in General Rowleys office. Much of this conversation ran upon the governments, countries, and peoples, whom the ex-President had visited in his late circuit of the earth. He particularly took up the Turkish Government, and went over with great perspicuity its internal systems of military and civil affairs. He showed himself entirely conversant with its abominable system of taxation, and declared that the Government itself ought not to exist, and that the great Christian Powers, instead of sitting in deliberation of plans for its continuance, should have rather debated measures for its annihilation, subdivision and distribution making Constantinople a free city. That he has been a sharp, close student of the condition and state of the nations that he has visited was manifest from this conversation. I have on two former occasions come into personal conversation with and observation of Gen. Grant, and have each time been impressed with his directness, simplicity and candor, and never more so than on this occasion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.