The first volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_ contained recollections of musicians, poets, crowned heads, and beggars, such as had not entirely vanished from the _camera obscura_ of my memory. The present volume is chiefly devoted to my _Indian Friends_, and to certain events that first led my attention to India. Though I have had but visions of the rivers, the mountains, the valleys, the forests, and the men and women of India, having never been allowed to visit that earthly paradise, I have known for many years the beauties of its literature, the bold flights of its native philosophy, the fervid devotion of its ancient religion, and these together seem to me to give a much truer picture of what India really was, and is still meant to be, in the history of the world, than the Bazaars of Bombay, or the Durbars of Râjahs and Mahârâjahs at Delhi. Of course, I shall be told that my picture of India is purely ideal, but an ideal portrait may sometimes be truer than even a photograph, and, though I trust that my facts on the whole are right, I shall always feel most grateful, if any facts are pointed out to me which either contradict or modify my own judgments. India has never had full justice done to it, and when I say this I think not only of ancient, but of modern India also. And though it can easily be seen that my chief interest lies with ancient India, it should be remembered that in no other country is the past still so visibly present as in that southernmost home of the ancient family of Aryan speech. There may be more historical monuments, reminding us of the past, in Greece and Italy. But life, with its religion, philosophy, and literature, has completely changed there, and we look in vain for a Socrates or Plato on the steps of the Parthenon, or for a Cato or Caesar among the lonely columns of the Forum. In India, on the contrary, the religion of the Veda is by no means entirely extinct. Not long ago even one of the old magnificent Vedic sacrifices, the Agnish_t_oma, was performed at Benares with all its pristine array. The old epic poems are still recited by the Pâ_th_akas of the country, and some of the old philosophies are flourishing in native Colleges, such as Nuddea, so that men of the present day, such as Gauri-_s_a_m_kara, the Prime Minister of Bhavnagar, and the Yogin Râmak_ri_sh_n_a, bring back to us in full reality the Rishis and Yogins of a thousand or two thousand years ago.