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NOTHING in my long career has touched me more deeply than the souvenirs that my friends have pressed upon me. In every quarter of the globe I have received tokens of the kind regard of the many people I have met, and of these none was more curious than the elephant that the King of Benares presented to me in India.

But more embarrassing was the gift offered to me while we were at New Orleans during my first trip South with Colonel Wood before the war. One day a wealthy plantation owner came aboard our floating theater and, noticing that I paid particular attention to a beautiful mulatto girl who was with his company, he offered her to me in the politest manner possible. "You can have her, Miss Warren," he said, "if you will take her home with you." Of course, I couldn't think of becoming a slaveholder; but the poor girl used to visit me at the hotel in the firm conviction that she was my chattel.

On this trip and a later one I met many of the men who became famous afterward in the great struggle with the Confederacy. At Richmond, Jefferson Davis attended one of my receptions with his wife and daughters. He was a most chivalrous and kindly gentleman, and I have always looked back to that meeting with pleasure. General Robert E. Lee was also one of my guests at that time; and later on, at Lexington Kentucky, I met Mrs. Lincoln, the President's wife, and her mother. We both laughed merrily when the people remarked the resemblance between us.

When we were at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1863 we were the pets of the soldiers who were stationed in the town, and every evening the officers constituted themselves a guard to escort us with drawn sabers to the hall in which we gave our entertainments.

The turmoil of the war rendered accommodations at the hotel very uncertain, and when meal time came the officers used to go down into the kitchen to see that we at least should be well cared for. Often Commodore Nutt would go down with them to help choose the food that we preferred. Many times we had a hearty laugh when he came back to our rooms on the shoulder of one of the officers, his arms piled high with fruit and sweetmeats.

At Frankfort, Kentucky, during the same period we were terrified, one evening at dinner by the announcement that Morgan, the famous guerrilla leader, was coming. Great excitement prevailed, and many of the guests at the hotel were so afraid that they did not go to bed at all that night. Morgan, however, did not come, and so I missed having any real war experience.

One Sunday evening after we had returned from church Commodore Nutt, Minnie, the General, and myself were gathered in our room, when some one suggested that we pay a visit to our treasurer, whose apartment was on the same floor but around the corner in the long hall. In those days our dresses were dignified by long trains, which naturally retarded our movements somewhat; but when Minnie stepped out into the hall she challenged me with that spirit of vivacity which always characterized her, calling out, "I'm going to see how quick I can get down the hall."

She ran along, distancing even the Commodore, and soon reached the corner of the corridor which led to Mr. Bleeker's room. No sooner had she disappeared from our view than we were startled to hear her sweet little voice raise itself in fright.

"What is the matter, Minnie?" cried the General, as we redoubled our speed.

You can imagine our terror when on turning the corner we found her white as death, leaning against the wall, unable to utter a single syllable, and saw stalking down the hall a figure draped in white, with outstretched arms and staring eyes. Our cries awakened Mr. Bleeker and several of the other guests, and they opened their doors, rushing into the hall in their night clothes; but the figure had disappeared. Mr. Bleeker called up the manager of the hotel and a search was instituted, without avail.

The General insisted that we would find an explanation in the morning, and he was right, for it turned out the next day that we had met a somnambulist. The poor man was very ill with consumption and had risen from bed that night while his nurse was taking a short nap. The noise of our cries wakened him, and he was as much shocked as we were to find himself in the hall sparsely clad and surrounded by four screeching, diminutive people such as he had never before seen. In our terror I suppose we did not notice him plunge through the door into his own room, and thus we prepared the way for the mystification of the entire hotel.

That was the most uncanny experience I ever had, and although I may have been a trifle superstitious before that time I have since held the opinion of General Tom Thumb, who always declared that he would never believe in ghosts until he could put his hand on something and find nothing there. Still, there are many things of this kind for which we can find no explanation.

Of all the wonder workers I have known, Mr. Barnum was easily chief. With him, as with most of the people I have met intimately, I was a veritable pet. He was continually inventing new names by which to call me, and for a long time addressed me only as "Commodore." The origin of the title was in itself amusing. It occurred while we were on a trip to New York. I had been stopping at his home in Bridgeport, where we boarded the train. At Danbury a lady entered the car and, recognizing Mr. Barnum, at once approached us.

"Why good morning, Mrs. Knight," he said, rising. "Let me introduce you to Miss Warren."

"Oh Mr. Barnum," she replied playfully. "you can't deceive me. I see you have Commodore Nutt dressed up as a little lady."

"But I am not trying to deceive you this time. I assure you, Mrs. Knight," he answered. "Miss Warren is really what she seems. Commodore Nutt is in New York awaiting us."

But no matter what he could say, Mrs. Knight would not be convinced. She left the train at the next station, apparently firm in the belief that I was the Commodore, and Mr. Barnum then remarked to me, "Pretty funny, Commodore, isn't it, how many people actually insist on being humbugged?"

I have often said that I believed I was born for my business, and just as surely Mr. Barnum was born for his. In private or in public he was always an entertainer. He was the life of every gathering he entered, and was always in demand as an after dinner orator. Stories of the jokes he played on other people are without end, and he enjoyed telling them, but I never knew him to tell one at his own expense, although they were numerous enough.

I remember an instance which took place at Springfield soon after our return from Europe. We persuaded a young musician of our troupe, Charlie Gill, who was never so happy as when playing a practical joke, to try to catch Mr. Barnum. So one night he raised the skin at the base of his palm with a needle, and inserted a sprig almost twelve inches long from a corn broom, so that only about a quarter of an inch was visible under the skin and the rest was hidden under his coat sleeve. As soon as Mr. Barnum entered the room, Charlie called out to our manager, "Oh Mr. Wells, I've got a sliver in my hand, and I can't get it out have you got a pair of tweezers? It hurts like the mischief!"

Everybody knew that Mr. Barnum always carried a pair of tweezers; so Mr. Wells made only a pretense of searching his pockets.

"No, Charlie," he said, " I haven't. Let me see your hand. Why, that looks pretty bad. You'd better go and see the doctor. You -- "

"What's the matter there, Gill?" interrupted Mr. Barnum. "A splinter in your hand? Pooh! I'll fix that in a minute." He pulled out his tweezers and gently grasped the end of the sprig with them. Then carefully, so as not to hurt Charlie, he began to draw it out. You can imagine the laugh that burst out as the twelve inches of corn sprig emerged from under Charlie Gill's sleeve.

There are probably few persons alive to-day who have had as varied experience as I in the matter of vehicles for travel. I began my career long before the era of electricty, and some little time before steam cars had become a universal medium. Stages were still in use in the country districts in Massachusetts until after I first left home. The trains on which I went West with Colonel Wood were crude and uncomfortable, and the steamboats on which we traveled up and down the Mississippi were certainly picturesque and not lacking in excitement, if they offered nothing else.

Our trip across the continent in the early days of the Union Pacific was one that can never be duplicated. No Pullman cars, none of the conveniences which make traveling a pleasure nowadays, were then in vogue. The passage of time lends a sort of romance to those old fashioned modes of travel, but I can assure you there was nothing romantic in the actual experience. Our itinerary involved on the average one hundred and ten miles of traveling and two entertainments daily. The fact that we completed this tour without physical breakdown should be sufficient answer to the question as to whether we had mature bodies, whatever may be thought of our brains.

In Utah, although we had bargained for comfortable vehicles, we had to travel in springless box wagons drawn by mules. The memory of the extreme discomfort of those conveyances, however, is counteracted by the fact that it was from one of them that I got my first glimpse of Great Salt Lake. The stage coach in California was, I suppose, a great improvement over them, but again my judgment is biased by the fact that during one of my first experiences with the California coach and four horses ran away and we narrowly escaped being pitched headlong into the road.

Stopping to water the horses on the road from Marysville to Colusa, the driver got down from his seat to readjust the harness. All the men in the party also seized the opportunity to "stretch their legs," as they said, leaving Mrs. Bleeker, our manager's wife, Minnie, and myself alone in the carriage. Just as the driver had detached the two leaders, the other horses took fright in some unaccountable way and dashed off down the road with us. We were terrified beyond words; but Mrs. Bleeker, with the calmness of a brave woman, gathered Minnie and myself in her arms to afford us all the protection she could. I could see no hope of escape, as the horses galloped along with ever increasing speed, rocking the carriage from side to side. Minnie was too young to take in the full terrors of the situation, and called our to the frightened horses, "I can ride as fast as you can run!"

After having covered nearly a mile, the animals suddenly swerved to the side of the road and plunged into a fence. Every moment I expected the carriage to topple over, but one of the horses stumbled and fell on the soft ground, and the other could not go on with the additional weight. We all sprang out as the carriage came to a standstill.

Of a far different type were the vehicles used in the countries of the Orient. When our steamer entered the harbor of Yokohama, we were surrounded by a host of watermen in small boats that might be termed aquatic hacks, and like the hack drivers the oarsmen shouted and gesticulated at the passengers as they approached the ship, calling out in high keyed voices, and not hesitating to knock one another overboard in their eagerness to secure patrons. The Captain's gig, a very small affair, had room only for himself and the mail, so that we had to risk our lives in the slender craft of these scantily clad boatmen. But they proved to be very skilful in handling their boats, and beyond getting a little wet from the spattering water we reached the shore without accident.

The jinrikishas of Japan, the sedan chairs of China, and the elephants of India were comfortable enough, although comparatively slow. Our rides on the elephants were without incident and the same may be said of the vehicles of Japan and China. At Fu-chau, China, however, we had an exciting experience while traveling in our diminutive coach behind our own ponies.

The startled natives could not understand the phenomena we presented, and imagined that we would bring them bad luck. They gathered round our carriage, chattering and gesticulating in great excitement. Some who had a smattering of English exclaimed, "Why come? No good! Bringee bad!" Our guide harangued them when they showed a disposition to attack the carriage and declared that God had sent us as good omens. His arguments seemed to be convincing, for when presently he waved his arms at them they ran off and dispersed, as Minnie said, like so many chickens in a barn-yard.

If my experience with the vehicles of two generations in all quarters of the globe was unusual, no less was my experience with inns. I must have gained a practical knowledge of every variety of public house in the world, from the most elaborate of modern urban hotels to the crudest lodging house of the frontier and the queer hotels of the Orient; unless it be that the Eskimos or the Hottentots have establishments for the accommodation of travelers. Some of my adventures in these hotels were humorous; others were quite the reverse. Such were the fire in the Newhall House in Milwaukee, and the attempted robbery at a hotel in New York.

One night the General, who was always exceedingly careless with money and jewels, made me very nervous by bringing into our room in this hotel a large quantity of money, as well as several cases of paste diamonds which he thought it expedient for me to wear instead of my real ones. I begged him to put them down stairs in the safe, but he insisted that everything was all right and went to bed. Putting the money between the mattresses, I too went to bed, but not to sleep.

About an hour later, as I lay shivering with a nameless terror, I was sure I saw the window move slightly. I elbowed the General and whispered my suspicions. "Oh, nonsense! Don't bother!" he muttered, and turned over to go to sleep again. But a little later, when I saw the window move again and heard footsteps in the hall, I insisted on his waking to share my observations if nothing more. At last the General was convinced that my fears were not wholly groundless, and he began to dress, when suddenly we heard a crash in the corridor, followed by the sounds of a struggle and a hurried tramp of feet.

Investigation proved that thieves had entered the house. The footsteps I had heard were those of the porter, whose suspicions had been aroused. Not finding any intruders on the first floor, he had begun to ascend the stairway to the next floor, when the robbers let fall a heavy table over the baluster in an effort to crush him. He escaped, however, and with the assistance that the crash had called forth succeeded in capturing them, when they confessed that they had come with the intention of robbing the General.

In great contrast with this hotel, which was equipped with every desirable convenience, was the one we were forced to patronize at Corinne, Utah. It was a large canvas building, with the sign "Uinta Hotel," painted in huge letters across the front. The rooms, if rooms they could be called, were all in a row. Two wooden partitions, six feet high and three feet apart, formed a hall extending the full length. At intervals of about six feet in the partition openings were cut, in which were suspended rude doors, partly concealing the interior. The rooms were divided off from one another by old army balnkets, remnants of unbleached sheeting, pieces of old calico, etc. The bedsteads consisted of two narrow strips of wood about four feet apart supported by props of hardly a foot above the ground. On each of these crude affairs was placed a very thin mattress covered with one brown sheet and a dirty army blanket. The toilet room was at the end of the passage way, and was supplied with two old tin pans placed upon a low shelf, one piece of the hard yellow soap, a bucket of water with a tin dipper, and one large jack towel for the common use of more than thirty guests.

Another instance of the character of the service that the traveler had to be content with in the West in those days was our experience at Silveryville, California. In going from Suisun to Silveyville we lost our way, and after wandering around for two hours at length struck the Sacramento River, and at one-thirty reached the hotel, dusty and fatigued. Mr. Bleeker, our manager, sought the landlady and inquired whether we could have dinner.

"You should have come before," said she sharply, "it was ready at twelve o'clock."

"We lost the road," explained Mr. Bleeker, "and wandered ten miles out of our course."

"I can't help that," she replied. "Dinner was ready, and you'd oughter been here to eat it."

"I regret our delay," said Mr. Bleeker; "but may we have dinner?"

"I suppose so," she answered. "Sit down."

Mr. Bleeker called us, and we took seats at a table, which was swarming with flies.

"Well, speak up!" exclaimed the landlady. "Don't be afraid. What'll yer take?"

"I'll take that feather duster to brush away the flies," said the General.

"No, you won't!" she burst in, and then addressing a lad, "Bill, brush 'em out."

We all felt confused, and no one spoke.

"You've got tongues!" she snapped. "Why don't you use 'em?"

"Give your orders," said Mr. Bleeker to us.

"No orders here," she exclaimed. "Say what you want -- beef or mutton."

We all expressed our wishes, and she disappeared, soon returning with the plates, which she whirled across the table.

Mr. Bleeker looked at his and remarked, "Madam, I asked you for beef without gravy, and you give me mutton swimming in gravy."

"You're awful particular!" she snapped, snatching the plate from the table. In a few moments she brought back the correct order, and with the injunction, "Eat your dinner, now you've got it!" retired and left us to finish the meal in silence.

The servants in the hotels in Japan always reminded me of the extraordinary vigor of this landlady, on account of the difference between them. When we went in to inspect Minnie's room in the hotel at Nagasaki we discovered a huge centipede on the wall, and called in a servant to kill it. He came, calmly looked it over, and went out, presently returning with a second man. Both examined it critically, but made no motion to dispose of it. Our anxious demands, "Kill it, kill it!" evoked only a surprised stare, and the two retired, leaving us rather bewildered. Soon, however, they returned again with two more servants, carrying large square piece of cloth. Then all four with as much ceremony but without uttering a word grasped the corners of the cloth, and folding it up against the wall brushed the insect into it. Then they left the room as silently as they had entered it. What the reason for their queer actions was I'm sure I don't know, but I'm equally sure that had the landlady of Silveyville been there she would not have left me in doubt.