I had no idea that this letter would cause any sensation, and I was much surprised to see it published shortly after as a separate pamphlet, with an elaborate preface, and distributed wholesale among the Mohammedans of India. "The leading political event of India"--thus commenced the preface--"is a letter, but not an official or even an open letter. We are not referring to the address of the Viceroy in _propria persona_--as distinguished from the powerful state engine entitled the 'Governor-General in Council'--to the Maharaja Pertap Singh of Cashmere, for this letter has now been before the public some weeks. The letter we call attention to does not come from high quarters, is not in any way an official one; it is a private communication from a poor, though eminent European pandit (scholar). It was published yesterday in the morning papers and appears in this week's edition of _Reis and Rayyet_. We refer to Professor Vambéry's letter to Nawab Abdul Latif Bahadur, &c." The Indian press occupied itself for days with this letter; it was much commented upon and regarded both by Englishmen and Mohammedans as of great importance. I was invited to visit India as the guest of the Mohammedan Society. I was to be attended by a specially appointed committee, and to make a tour in the country, give public lectures and addresses, and be generally _fêted_. In a word, they wanted to honour me as the friend of England and of Islam. Nawab Abdul Latif Bahadur said in a letter dated Calcutta, 16 Toltollah (12th August), 1890:-- "Your name has become a household word amongst us, and, greatly as we honour you for your noble, unflinching advocacy of Islam in the West, we shall esteem it a high privilege to see you with our own eyes, and listen to you with our own ears." Remembering the struggles of my early youth, and with a vivid recollection of the insults and humiliations to which I, the Jew boy, had been subjected in those days, there was something very tempting to me in the thought of going to India, the land of the Rajahs, of wealth and opulence, as an admired and honoured guest. But I was no longer young. I was nearly sixty years old, and at that age sober reality is stronger than vanity. The alluring vision of a reception in India, with eulogies and laurel-wreaths swiftly passed before my eyes, but was instantly dismissed. I declined the invitation with many expressions of gratitude, but kept up my relations with the Mohammedans of India, and also with the Brahmans there, as shown in my correspondence with the highly-cultured editor of the periodical _Reis and Rayyet_, Dr. Mookerjee,[3] with Thakore Sahib (Prince) of Gondal, and other eminent Hindustani scholars and statesmen.