Without desiring or seeking it I was acknowledged in England as the Asiatic politician and the staunch friend of the realm. Year after year I received invitations to give lectures about the present and the future condition of England in Asia, and when, tired of writing, I longed for a little change and recreation, I travelled to England, where in various towns--London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c.--I gave lectures for a modest honorarium. On these occasions I drew the attention of the public to their commercial and political interests in the Orient, and urged them to exercise their civilising influence over Asia. Foreigners who for years together concern themselves about the weal or woe of a land not their own belong certainly to the rarities, and consequently I was received everywhere in England with open arms and made much of by all classes of society. This was very patent during the critical time in the spring of 1885, and the ovations I received in London and other towns of the United Kingdom I shall never forget. On the 2nd of May I gave a lecture in the great hall of Exeter Hall about the importance of Herat. On my arrival I found the house full to overflowing with a very select audience. Lord Houghton, who presided at this meeting, thanked me in the name of the nation, and the next day almost all the newspapers had leading articles about the services I had rendered, and the resoluteness with which I always met the woeful optimism and blunders of leading politicians led astray by party spirit. A few days later I spoke under the auspices of the Constitutional Union, before an aristocratic Conservative gathering in Willis's Rooms, on the subject, "England and Russia in Afghanistan, or who shall be lord and master in Asia?" The heads of English aristocracy were present, and when on the platform behind me I recognised a duke, many lords, marshals, generals, ex-ministers, and several famous politicians and writers of Great Britain I was really overcome.