On May 16, Grant and Julia left for England aboard the SS Indiana.[568] During the tour the Grants made stops in Europe, Africa, India, and points in the Middle East and Far East, meeting with notable dignitaries such as Queen Victoria, Pope Leo XIII, Otto von Bismarck, Li Hongzhang, Emperor Meiji and others. Grant was the first U.S. president to visit Jerusalem and the Holy Land.[569]
In August 1878, Grant visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia. When the Grants arrived in St. Petersburg, Tsar Alexander II sent out an imperial carriage that brought them to meet the Tsar at his Summer Palace.[570] The Tsar was interested in the warfare of Native Americans and asked Grant about the future of the Plains Indians, while Grant attempted to answer him satisfactorily.[571] In St. Petersburg, as was his custom, and as a man with common roots, Grant mingled and conversed with the local people. U.S. Minister to Russia Edwin W. Stoughton escorted the Grants to see the ceremonial Russian man-of-war Peter the Great and Grant was given a seventeen-gun salute.
